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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 7:11 - 7:11
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The construction of this verse is disputed. The second הֲוֵית חָזֵה (I was seeing) repeats the first for the purpose of carrying on the line of thought broken by the interposed sentence. בֵּאדַיִן (then) is separated by the accents from the first הֲוֵית חָזֵה and joined to the clause following: “then on account of the voice of the great words.” By this interposed sentence the occasion of the judgment which Daniel sees passed upon the beast is once more brought to view. קָל מִן, “on account of the voice of the words,” i.e., on account of the loud words, not “from the time of the words, or from the time when the voice of the great words made itself heard” (Klief.). The following expression, דִּי עַד (till that), does not by any means require the temporal conception מִן. To specify the terminus a quo of the vision was as little necessary here as in the דִּי עַד הֲוֵית חָזֵה, Dan 7:9. The temporal conception of מִן alters not only the parallelism of the passage Dan 7:9 and Dan 7:11, but also the course of thought in the representation, according to which Daniel remains overwhelmed during the vision till all the separate parts of it have passed before his view, i.e., till he has seen the close of the judgment. The first part of this scene consists of the constituting of the judgment (Dan 7:9, Dan 7:10), the second of the death and extinction of the horn speaking great things (Dan 7:11), with which is connected (Dan 7:12) the mention of the destruction of the dominion of the other beasts. If one considers that the words “I beheld till that” correspond with the like expression in Dan 7:9, he will not seek, with Kran., in the דִּי עַד a reference to a lasting process of judicial execution ending with destruction. The thought is simply this: Daniel remained contemplating the vision till the beast was slain, etc. חֵיוְתָא (the beast) is, by virtue of the explanatory sentence interposed in the first hemistich, the horn speaking great things. The ungodly power of the fourth beast reaches its climax in the blaspheming horn; in this horn, therefore, the beast is slain and destroyed, while its body is given to the burning. אֶשָּׁא לִיקֵדַת (to the burning fire) corresponds with the Hebr. אֵשׁ לִשְׂרֵפַת, Isa 64:10. The burning in the fire is not the mere figure of destruction, specially justified by the thunder-storm which gathered as a veil around the scene of judgment (Kran.), for there is no mention of a storm either in Dan 7:9 or anywhere else in this entire vision. The supposition that the burning is only the figure of destruction, as e.g., in Isa 9:4, is decidedly opposed by the parallel passages, Isa 66:14, which Daniel had in view, and Rev 19:20 and Rev 20:10, where this prophecy is again taken up, and the judgment is expressed by a being cast into a like of fire with everlasting torment; so that v. Lengerke is right when he remarks that this passage speaks of the fiery torments of the wicked after death, and thus that a state of retribution after death is indicated.