Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Daniel 7:15
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
The interpretation of the vision. - Dan 7:14 concludes the account of the contents of the vision, but not the vision itself. That continues to the end of the chapter. Dan 7:15. The things which Daniel saw made a deep impression on his mind. His spirit was troubled within him; the sight filled him with terror. It was not the mystery of the images, nor the fact that all was not clear before his sight, that troubled and disquieted him; for Dan 7:28 shows that the disquietude did not subside when an angel explained the images he had seen. It was the things themselves as they passed in vision before him - the momentous events, the calamities which the people of God would have to endure till the time of the completion of the everlasting kingdom of God - which filled him with anxiety and terror. רוּחי stands for the Hebr. נפשׁי, and דּניּאל אנה is in apposition to the suffix in רוּחי, for the suffix is repeated with emphasis by the pronoun, Dan 8:1, Dan 8:15; Ezr 7:21, and more frequently also in the Hebr.; cf. Winer, Chald. Gram. 40, 4; Ges. Hebr. Gram. 121, 3. The emphatic bringing forward of the person of the prophet corresponds to the significance of the vision, which made so deep an impression on him; cf. also Dan 10:1, Dan 10:7; Dan 12:1-13 :15\. In this there is no trace of anxiety on the part of the speaker to make known that he is Daniel, as Hitzig supposes. The figure here used, "in the sheath" (E. V. "in the midst of my body"), by which the body is likened to a sheath for the soul, which as a sword in its sheath is concealed by it, is found also in Job 27:8, and in the writings of the rabbis (cf. Buxt. Lex. talm. s.v.). It is used also by Pliny, vii. 52. On "visions of my head," cf. Dan 7:1. Dan 7:16 Daniel turned himself towards an angel who stood by, with a request for an explanation of these things. One of them that stood by refers to those mentioned in Dan 7:10, who stood around the throne of God; whence it is obvious that the vision is still continued. אבעא is not the preterite, I asked him, but the subjunctive, that (ו) I might ask. So also יהודענּני is to be taken with the וgoing before: he spake to me, that he informed me, namely by his speaking. Dan 7:17-19 In Dan 7:17-27 the angel gives the wished-for explanation. In Dan 7:17 and Dan 7:18 he gives first a general interpretation of the vision. The words, these great beasts, of which there were four, form an absolute nominal clause: "as for the beasts;" as concerning their meaning, it is this: "they represent four kings." The kings are named as founders and representatives of world-kingdoms. Four kingdoms are meant, as Dan 7:23 shows, where the fourth beast is explained as מלכוּ, "dominion," "kingdom." Compare also Dan 8:20 and Dan 8:21, where in like manner kings are named and kingdoms are meant. From the future יקוּמוּן (shall arise) Hitzig concludes that the first kingdom was yet future, and therefore, that since Daniel had the vision under Belshazzar, the first king could only be Belshazzar, but could not represent the Chaldean monarchy. But if from the words shall arise it follows that the vision is only of kings who arise in the future, then, since Daniel saw the vision in the first year of Belshazzar, it cannot of course be Belshazzar who is represented by the first beast; and if Belshazzar was, as Hitzig thinks, the last king of Chaldea, than the entire Chaldean monarchy is excluded from the number of the four great beasts. Kranichfeld therefore understands this w…
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