Matthew Henry Complete Commentary
on the Whole Bible
Current Chapter:
Introduction
OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
D A N I E L.
THE book of Ezekiel left the affairs of Jerusalem
under a doleful aspect, all in ruins, but with a joyful prospect of all
in glory again. This of Daniel fitly follows. Ezekiel told us what was
seen, and what was foreseen, by him in the former years of the
captivity: Daniel tells us what was seen, and foreseen, in the latter
years of the captivity. When God employs different hands, yet it is
about the same work. And it was a comfort to the poor captives that
they had first one prophet among them and then another, to show them
how long, and a sign that God had not quite cast them off. Let
us enquire,
I. Concerning this prophet His Hebrew name was Daniel, which
signifies the judgment of God; his Chaldean name was
Belteshazzar. He was of the tribe of Judah, and, as it should
seem, of the royal family. He was betimes eminent for wisdom and piety.
Ezekiel, his contemporary, but much his senior, speaks of him as an
oracle when thus he upbraids the king of Tyre with his conceitedness of
himself: Thou art wiser then Daniel,
Ezekiel 38:3.
He is likewise there celebrated for success in prayer, when Noah,
Daniel, and Job are reckoned as three men that had the greatest
interest in heaven of any,
Ezekiel 14:14.
He began betimes to be famous, and continued long so. Some of the
Jewish rabbin are loth to acknowledge him to be a prophet of the higher
form, and therefore rank his book among the Hagiographa, not
among the prophecies, and would not have their disciples pay much
regard to it. One reason they pretend is because he did not live such a
mean mortified life as Jeremiah and some other of the prophets did, but
lived like a prince, and was a prime-minister of state; whereas we find
him persecuted as other prophets were
(Daniel 6:1-28),
and mortifying himself as other prophets did, when he ate no
pleasant bread
(Daniel 10:3),
and fainting sick when he was under the power of the Spirit of
prophecy,
Daniel 8:27.
Another reason they pretend is because he wrote his book in a heathen
country, and there had his visions, and not in the land of
Israel; but, for the same reason, Ezekiel also must be expunged out of
the roll of prophets. But the true reason is that he speaks so plainly
of the time of the Messiah's coming that the Jews cannot avoid the
conviction of it and therefore do not care to hear of it. But Josephus
calls him one of the greatest of the prophets, nay, the
angel Gabriel calls him a man greatly beloved. He lived long an
active life in the courts and councils of some of the greatest monarchs
the world ever had, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius; for we mistake of we
confine the privilege of an intercourse with heaven to speculative men,
or those that spend their time in contemplation; no, who was more
intimately acquainted with the mind of God than Daniel, a courtier, a
statesman, and a man of business? The Spirit, as the wind, blows where
it lists. And, if those that have much to do in the world plead that
as an excuse for the infrequency and slightness of their converse with
God, Daniel will condemn them. Some have thought that he returned to
Jerusalem, and was one of the masters of the Greek synagogue; but
nothing of that appears in scripture; it is therefore generally
concluded that he died in Persia at Susan, where he lived to be very
old.
II. Concerning this book. The first six chapters of it are historical,
and are plain and easy; the last six are prophetical, and in them are
many things dark, and hard to be understood, which yet would be more
intelligible if we had a more complete history of the nations, and
especially the Jewish nation, from Daniel's time to the coming of the
Messiah. Our Saviour intimates the difficulty of apprehending the sense
of Daniel's prophecies when, speaking of them, he says, Let him that
readeth understand,
Matthew 24:15.
The first chapter, and the first three verses of the second chapter,
are in Hebrew; thence to the eighth chapter is in the Chaldee dialect;
and thence to the end is in Hebrew. Mr. Broughton observes that, as
the Chaldeans were kind to Daniel, and gave cups of cold water to him
when he requested it, rather than the king's wine, God would not have
them lose their reward, but made that language which they taught him to
have honour in his writings through all the world, unto this day.
Daniel, according to his computation, continues the holy story from the
first surprising of Jerusalem by the Chaldean Babel, when he himself
was carried away captive, until the last destruction of it by Rome, the
mystical Babel, for so far forward his predictions look,
Daniel 9:27.
The fables of Susannah, and of Bel and the Dragon, in both which Daniel
is made a party, are apocryphal stories, which we think we have no
reason to give any credit to, they being never found in the Hebrew or
Chaldee, but only in the Greek, nor ever admitted by the Jewish church.
There are some both of the histories and of the prophecies of this book
that bear date in the latter end of the Chaldean monarchy, and others
of both that are dated in the beginning of the Persian monarchy. But
both Nebuchadnezzar's dream, which Daniel interpreted, and his own
visions, point at the Grecian and Roman monarchies, and very
particularly at the Jews' troubles under Antiochus, which it would be
of great use to them to prepare for; as his fixing the very time for
the coming of the Messiah was of use to all those that waited for the
consolation of Israel, and is to us, for the confirming of our belief,
That this is he who should come, and we are to look for no other.