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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 10:1 - 10:1
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The Theophany - Daniel 10-11:2a
The Introduction to the Following Manifestation of God - Dan 10:1-3
This verse is to be regarded as an inscription or general statement of the substance of it. Therefore Daniel speaks of himself in the third person, as in Dan 7:1, and in the historical portions Daniel 1-6. The definition of the time, “In the first year of Cores (Cyrus) king of Persia,” refers us back to Dan 1:21, but it does not, as has been there already remarked, stand in contradiction to the first year of Cyrus named there. דָּבָר is the following revelation, which was communicated to the prophet not by a vision (חָזֹון), but by a manifestation of God (מַרְאֶה), and was given in the form of simple human discourse. The remark regarding Daniel, “whose name was Belteshazzar,” is designed only to make it obvious that the Daniel of the third year of Cyrus was the same who was carried by Babylon in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar (seventy-two years before). To the question why Daniel did not return to his native land in the first year of Cyrus, which Hitzig has thus formulated for the purpose of framing an argument against the genuineness of this prophecy - ”How could he, who was a pattern of piety (Dan 1:8; Eze 14:14), so disregard the opportunity that was offered and the summons of Isaiah (Isa 48:20; Isa 52:11.) as if he stood on the side of those who forgot the holy mountain?” (Isa 65:11) - the supposition of his advanced old age (Häv.) is no sufficient answer. For, on the contrary, Hitzig has rightly replied that old men also, such as had even seen the former temple, had returned home (Ezr 3:12), and Daniel was not so infirm as to be unable for the journey. The correct answer is rather this, that Daniel, because divine revelations had been communicated to him, had obtained a position at the court of the world-rulers in which he was able to do much for the good of his people, and might not, without a special divine injunction, leave this place; that he thus, not from indifference toward the holy mountain or from neglect of the injunctions to flee from Babylon (Isa 48:20; Isa 52:11.), but from obedience to God, and for the furtherance of the cause of His kingdom, remained at his post till the Lord His God should call him away from it.
In the second hemistich the contents of this new divine revelation are characterized. הַדָּבָר with the article points back to דָּבָר in the first half of the verse. Of this “word” Daniel says that it contains אֱמֶת and גָּדֹול צָבָא. In the statement that “the thing was true,” Hitzig finds an intimation that thereby the author betrays his standpoint, namely, the time when “the thing” was realized, for Daniel could not say this before it happened. But this objection supposes that the author was a lying prophet, who spoke from his own heart (Jer 29:8, Jer 29:15). But if Daniel had actually received a “word” from God, he could before its fulfilment testify its truth. The testimony to the truth of the word here indicates, as it does in Dan 8:26 in the mouth of the angel, that the word of God now communicated to the prophet contained things which it would be difficult for the human heart to believe. The second predicate גָּדֹול צָבָא shows in what respect this is so. For that these words do not, with the lxx and Aquil., refer to what follows is obvious, as is acknowledged by all modern interpreters. צָבָא, warfare, military service, then the difficulty of this service, and figuratively difficulty, afflictions of life, Job 7:1; Job 10:17, and also here. “The word is, i.e., concerns, has as its contents, great afflictions” [E.V. “the time appointed was long”].
In the last clause of this verse בִּין and בִינָה are not the imperative (v. Lengerke), because a summons to give heed, or understand, would not be here in place. בִינָה is a substantive, and the throwing of the accent on the penultima is occasioned by the accented לֹו which follows. בִּין is the 3rd pers. perf., not the infinitive (Häv.). Understanding was to him בַּמַּרְאֶה, by that which was seen, i.e., by the appearance described in Dan 10:5. בַּמַּרְאֶה cannot at all be referred (Klief.) to the earlier prophecies of Dan 8:7, Dan 8:9. The statement in these two passages serves for the confirmation of that which was said regarding the contents of the word from God, and stands in relation to Dan 8:27, where Daniel was troubled because no one understood the vision. He was helped out of this state of non-understanding by the following revelation, cf. Dan 10:14. But the objection that it cannot be here said that Daniel understood the word, because he himself, Dan 12:8, says that he did not understand it, has been disposed of by Kliefoth, who justly remarks that the non-understanding in Dan 12:8 regards a single point, namely, the duration of the affliction, regarding which, however, disclosures are given to the prophet in Dan 12:10. The translation: “he heard the word, and understood the vision” (Kran.), is set aside by this circumstance, that it takes בִּין in a different sense from בִינָה, contrary to the parallelism of the passages.