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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 12:8 - 12:8
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Daniel heard his answer, but he understood it not. To שָׁמַעְתִּי, as to אַבִין לֹא, the object is wanting, because it can easily be supplied from the connection, namely, the meaning of the answer of the man clothed in linen. Grotius has incorrectly supplied quid futurum esset from the following question, in which he has also incorrectly rendered אֵלֶּה אַחֲרִית by post illiu triennii et temporis semestris spatium. Hävernick has also defined the object too narrowly, for he has referred the non-understanding merely to the mysterious number (a time, two times, etc.). It was, besides, not merely the double designation of time in Dan 12:7 which first at the hour of his receiving it, but while it was yet unintelligible to the hearer, compelled Daniel, as Hitzig thinks, to put the further question. The whole answer in Dan 12:7 is obscure. It gives no measure for the “times,” and thus no intelligible disclosure for the prophet regarding the duration of the end, and in the definition, that at the time of the deepest humiliaton of the people the end shall come, leaves wholly undefined when this shall actually take place.
(Note: As to this latter circumstance L'Empereur remarks: Licet Daniel ex antecedentibus certo tempus finiendarum gravissimarum calamitatum cognoverit, tamen illum latuit, quo temporis articulo calamitas inceptura esset: quod ignorantiam quandam in tota prophetia peperit, cum a priori termino posterioris exacta scientia dependeret. Initium quidem variis circumstantiis definitum fuerat: sed quando circumstantiae futurae essent, antequam evenirent, ignorabatur.)
Hence his desire for a more particular disclosure.
The question, “what the end of these?” is very differently interpreted. Following the example of Grotius, Kliefoth takes אַחֲרִית in the sense of that which follows something which is either clearly seen from the connection or is expressly stated, and explains אֵלֶּה אַחֲרִית of that which follows or comes after this. But אֵלֶּה is not, with most interpreters, to be taken as identical with כָּל־אֵלֶּה of Dan 12:7; for since “this latter phrase includes all the things prophesied of down to the consummation, then would this question refer to what must come after the absolute consummation of all things, which would be meaningless.” Besides, the answer, Dan 12:11, Dan 12:12, which relates to the things of Antiochus, would not harmonize with such a question. Much more are we, with Auberlen (p. 75f.), to understand אֵלֶּה of the present things and circumstances, things then in progress at the time of Daniel and the going forth of the prophecy. In support of this interpretation Auberlen adds, “The angel with heavenly eye sees into the far distant end of all; the prophet, with human sympathies, regards the more immediate future of his people.” But however correct the remark, that אֵלֶּה is not identical with כָּל־אֵלֶּה, this not identical with all this, there is no warrant for the conclusion drawn from it, that אֵלֶּה designates the present things and circumstances existing under Antiochus at the time of Daniel. אֵלֶּה must, by virtue of the connection in Dan 12:7, Dan 12:8, be understood of the same things and circumstances, and a distinction between the two is established only by כֹּל. If we consider this distinction, then the question, What is the last of these things? contains not the meaningless thought, that yet something must follow after the absolute consummation, but the altogether reasonable thought, Which shall be the last of the פְּלָאֹות prophesied of? Thus Daniel could ask in the hope of receiving an answer from which he might learn the end of all these פְּלָאֹות more distinctly than from the answer given by the angel in Dan 12:7. But as this reference of אֵלֶּה to the present things and circumstances is excluded by the connection, so also is the signification attributed to אַחֲרִית, of that which follows something, verbally inadmissible; see under Dan 8:19.
Most other interpreters have taken אַחֲרִית as synonymous with קֵץ, which Hävernick seeks to establish by a reference to Dan 8:19, Dan 8:23, and Deu 11:12. But none of these passage establishes this identity. קֵץ is always thus distinguished from אַחֲרִית, that it denotes a matter after its conclusion, while אַחֲרִית denotes the last or the uttermost of the matter. A distinction which, it is true, may in many cases become irrelevant. For if this distinction is not noticed here, we would be under the necessity, in order to maintain that the two questions in Dan 12:6, Dan 12:8 are not altogether identical, of giving to מָה the meaning qualis (Maurer), of what nature (Hofmann, v. Lengerke, and others); a meaning which it has not, and which does not accord with the literal idea of אַחֲרִית. “Not how? but what? is the question; מָה is not the predicate, but the subject, the thing inquired about.” Thus Hitzig, who is altogether correct in thus stating the question: “What, i.e., which even its the uttermost, the last of the פְּלָאֹות, which stands before the end?”