Daniel 7:1

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon,.... Daniel having finished the historical part of his book, and committed to writing what was necessary concerning himself and his three companions,

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters. This chapter treats of the same subject as the second chapter.

DANIEL CHAPTER 7 Daniel’ s vision of the four beasts, , and of God’ s kingdom, . The interpretation thereof, . This prophecy is written in Chaldee, to be a monument and document to him of the reverence his father and grandfather showed towards God, who had done such mighty works for them, and against them, to humble their pride, and make them know that the high God ruled, and they reigned at his mercy. Howbeit Belshazzar made no use of it, but lifted himself up in profaneness and pride till the wrath of God plucked him down. In the first year of Belshazzar: now Daniel begins to declare the visions God showed him at sundry times, therefore he goes back to the first year of Belshazzar. It is observed by the curious, that the word Belshazzar is here changed by the prophet, one letter transposed, which alters the signification greatly; for his name is ruvaln , which signifies treasures searched out and possessed; but the word in the text is this, ruavln which means, Bel is consumed with the fire of an enemy, as was prophesied by Jeremiah, . See ,58. The Jews used to change the names of idols and idolaters, and it turned to a reproach to them, as Grotius proves well out of Moses de Kotzi. He wrote the dream: these visions of Daniel were sent, and recorded by him in writing, for the benefit of the church, to rectify their mistake; for they thought all things would succeed prosperously after they returned out of their captivity: yet they should find a world of troubles in many generations following, seeing that of the four great monarchies, which he calls beasts, there was but one passed, and they should find three more yet to come. This Daniel dreamed, saw, wrote, and told the sum of it.

Daniel 7:1 In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, [and] told the sum of the matters.Ver. 1. In the first year of Belshazzar.] Here beginneth, to speak properly, the prophecy of Daniel, or rather the second part of Daniel’ s works, which is concerning visions exhibited of God by divine revelations, not to others, but to himself. This vision is the subject and groundwork of the rest that follow to the end of the prophecy. One not unfitly compareth it to a general map of the whole world; the rest to particular tables of various countries. Daniel had a dream and visions of his head.] God renewed unto him the same thing by vision which he had exhibited before by dream, in recompense of his religious care to know the matter and to record it for the Church’ s comfort. Then he wrote the dream.] It was God’ s will the visions of the prophets should be written and published to the Church. Jun.

VII. (1) The date of this and of the following chapter comes in chronological order after the fourth chapter. As St. Jerome has observed, “In superioribus ordo sequitur historiœ quid sub Nebuchadonosor et Balthasar, et Dario sive Cyro mirabilium signorum acciderit. In kis vero narrantur somnia quœ singulis sint visa ternporibus: quorum solus propheta conscius est, et nullam habent apud barbaras nationes signi vel revelationis magnitudinem, sed tantum scribuntur, ut apud posteros eorum quœ visa sunt memoria perseveret.”Visions.—From this, and from the phrase “sum of the matters,” it appears that Daniel had other visions at this time. By “sum” is meant the principal parts of the vision.

CHAPTER VII The prophet having, in the preceding chapters of this book, related some remarkable events concerning himself and his brethren in the captivity, and given proof of his being enabled, by Divine assistance, to interpret the dreams of others, enters now into a detail of his own visions, returning to a period prior to the transactions recorded in the last chapter. The first in order of the prophet's visions is that of the four beasts, which arose out of a very tempestuous ocean, 1-9; and of one like the Son of man who annihilated the dominion of the fourth beast, because of the proud and blasphemous words of one of its horns, 9-14. An angel deciphers the hieroglyphics contained in this chapter, declaring that the FOUR beasts, diverse one from another, represent the FOUR PARAMOUNT empires of the habitable globe, which should succeed each other; and are evidently the same which were shadowed forth to Nebuchadnezzar by another set of hieroglyphics, (see the second chapter,) 15-26. But for the consolation of the people of God, it is added that, at the time appointed in the counsel of Jehovah, "the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the saints of the Most High;" and that this kingdom shall never be destroyed or transferred to another people, as all the preceding dominations have been, but shall itself stand for ever, 27, 28. It will be proper to remark that the period of a time, times, and a half, mentioned in the twenty-fifth verse as the duration of the dominion of the little horn that made war with the saints, (generally supposed to be a symbolical representation of the papal power,) had most probably its commencement in A.D. 755 or 756, when Pepin, king of France, invested the pope with temporal power. This hypothesis will bring the conclusion of the period to about the year of Christ 2000, a time fixed by Jews and Christians for some remarkable revolution; when the world, as they suppose, will be renewed, the wicked cease from troubling the Church, and the saints of the Most High have dominion over the whole habitable globe. But this is all hypothesis. NOTES ON CHAP. VII Verse 1. In the first year of Belshazzar] This is the same Belshazzar who was slain at the taking of Babylon, as we have seen at the conclusion of Da 5:30-31. That chapter should have followed both this and the succeeding. The reason why the fifth chapter was put in an improper place was, that all the historic parts might be together, and the prophetic be by themselves; and, accordingly, the former end with the preceding chapter, and the latter with this. The division therefore is not chronological but merely artificial. Told the sum of the matters.] That he might not forget this extraordinary dream, he wrote down the leading particulars when he arose.

1. In the first year of Belshazzar] The visions (c. 7–12) are not a continuation of the narratives (c. 1–6), but form a series by themselves: the author accordingly no longer adheres to the chronological order which he has hitherto followed, but goes back to a date anterior to that of ch. 5 (see Daniel 5:30). In view of what was said at the beginning of ch. 5 it is, of course, impossible to estimate the ‘first year’ of Belshazzar in years b.c. had] lit. saw. visions of his head upon his bed] The same phrase in Daniel 2:28. then he wrote the dream] With reference to the sequel (Daniel 7:2 ff.), in which Daniel speaks in the first person, and which in these words is represented as having been committed to writing by Daniel himself. The first person (with the exception of Dan 10:1) continues from Daniel 7:2 to the end of the book. the sum of words (or things)] contained in the revelation, i.e. its essential import.

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon - On the character and reign of Belshazzar, see Introduction to Dan. 5 Section II.

1. In the first year of Belshazzar — For Belshazzar see Introduction, III, 3, (4). If these portions of the Daniel apocalypse represent actual events, then Daniel 7, 8 must chronologically precede chap. 5.