Daniel 7:25

And he shall speak great words against the most High,.... Or, "at the side of the most High" (p); setting himself up as a rival, and upon an equality with him; taking the names and characters of

And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

The numbers of Daniel and John seem to agree. Daniel was certainly prophetical in these things, and his prophecy reacheth to the end of times, even of antichrist’ s reign. I will not deny but Antiochus might be a type and forerunner of antichrist, and did many things against the Jewish church, with craft, cruelty, and blasphemy; but he was no part of the fourth, but of the third beast; whereas Daniel here points mainly at the Roman power and persecution, especially by the little horn, which lasted to his ruin; after which it is clear the Lord Christ will reign in and over his saints much more gloriously; which the Jews will never be beaten from, because there are so many signal places in the prophets speaking of it yet unfulfilled, and in the Apocalypse, to the wise reader, after the beast and whore are destroyed, with all their supporters. But enough of that at present.

Daniel 7:25 And he shall speak [great] words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.Ver. 25. And he shall speak great words.] As Pope Julius III did, when he called for his pork flesh, forbidden him by his physician as naught for his gout, al despito di Dio, in despite of God; and missing a cold peacock which he commanded to be set up for his supper, he raged extremely at his steward; and being desired to be more patient, he replied, If God were so angry with our first parents for an apple, may not I, who am his vicar, be so much more for my peacock? See on Revelation 13:5. And shall think to change times and laws,] i.e., He shall usurp a power over religion and men’ s consciences, set up holidays, canonise saints, appoint fasts, order times, &c. Until a time and times and half a time,] i.e., Until that time which God alone knoweth, and hath in his power. Acts and Mon., 1417.

(25) And he shall speak.—The marks of identification of the little horn are—(1) blasphemy of God; (2) persecution and affliction of the saints; (3) attempts, apparently ineffectual (he will “think to change”), against all institutions, whether of Divine or human authority: in short, a general spirit of lawlessness and unbelief. It appears that the little horn, the Antichrist of the last days, or the beast, will be successful for a time in his blasphemies and persecutions, but in the end he will be destroyed. (See 2 Thessalonians 2:8.) Time and times and the dividing of time.—This is frequently explained to mean three years and a half. Those who adopt this explanation assume that by “times” a dual is implied, which in Chaldee is represented by the plural. They next assume that by “a time” is meant one year, resting their assumption partly on Daniel 4:16, and partly on a comparison of Dan 12:7 with Revelation 13:5; Revelation 11:2-3. This gives a sum of three years and a half, which is interpreted either literally, or explained to mean half a sabbatical period, or half some divinely-appointed period symbolised by the number “seven.” According to the second interpretation, Daniel teaches us that the days of tribulation shall be shortened (Matthew 24:22). But it may be questioned whether “years” are intended in Daniel 4:16. Also the language in Daniel 12:7 is very obscure. A more correct view of the prediction is that the reign of Antichrist will be divided into three periods—the first long, the second longer, the third shortest of all. It also appears that the last is to be the severest time of trial. It may be remarked that in Daniel 9 the seventy weeks are divided into three periods, forming a similar series, 7 + 62 + 1 = 70.

Verse 25. He shall speak great words against the Most High] Sermones quasi Deus loquetur; "He shall speak as if he were God." So St. Jerome quotes from Symmachus. To none can this apply so well or so fully as to the popes of Rome. They have assumed infallibility, which belongs only to God. They profess to forgive sins, which belongs only to God. They profess to open and shut heaven, which belongs only to God. They profess to be higher than all the kings of the earth, which belongs only to God. And they go beyond God in pretending to loose whole nations from their oath of allegiance to their kings, when such kings do not please them! And they go against God when they give indulgences for sin. This is the worst of all blasphemies! And shall wear out the saints] By wars, crusades, massacres, inquisitions, and persecutions of all kinds. What in this way have they not done against all those who have protested against their innovations, and refused to submit to their idolatrous worship? Witness the exterminating crusades published against the Waldenses and Albinenses. Witness John Huss, and Jerome of Prague. Witness the Smithfield fires in England! Witness God and man against this bloody, persecuting, ruthless, and impure Church! And think to charge tines and laws] Appointing fasts and feasts; canonizing persons whom he chooses to call saints; granting pardons and indulgences for sins; instituting new modes of worship utterly unknown to the Christian Church; new articles of faith; new rules of practice; and reversing, with pleasure, the laws both of God and man.-Dodd. Until a time and times and the dividing of time.] In prophetic language a time signifies a year; and a prophetic year has a year for each day. Three years and a half (a day standing for a year, as in Daniel 9:24) will amount to one thousand two hundred and sixty years, if we reckon thirty days to each month, as the Jews do. If we knew precisely when the papal power began to exert itself in the antichristian way, then we could at once fix the time of its destruction. The end is probably not very distant; it has already been grievously shaken by the French. In 1798 the French republican army under General Berthier took possession of the city of Rome, and entirely superseded the whole papal power. This was a deadly wound, though at present it appears to be healed; but it is but skinned over, and a dreadful cicatrice remains. The Jesuits, not JESUS, are now the Church's doctors. If the papal power, as a horn or temporal power, be intended here, which is most likely, (and we know that that power was given in 755 to Pope Stephen II. by Pepin, king of France,) counting one thousand two hundred and sixty years from that, we are brought to A.D. 2015, about one hundred and ninety years from the present [A.D. 1825.] But I neither lay stress upon nor draw conclusions from these dates.

25. Expansion of the ‘great things’ of Daniel 7:8 end. He will blaspheme the Most High (cf. Daniel 11:36 ‘will speak marvellous things against the God of gods’), and seek to ruin His saints. wear away] LXX, κατατρίψει. An expressive figure for continuous persecution and vexation. The idea of the word is to wear or rub away, applied often to clothes (Deuteronomy 8:4; Joshua 9:13; Isaiah 50:9, al.), though in the usual rendering of A.V., R.V., ‘wax old,’ this is unfortunately obliterated. Cf. Job 13:28 ‘and he, like a rotten thing, weareth (or falleth) away’; 1 Chronicles 17:9 ‘neither shall the children of unrighteousness any more wear them away’ (altered from the ‘afflict’ of 2 Samuel 7:10); Isaiah 3:15, Targ. ‘and the faces of the poor ye wear away’ (for Heb. grind). think to change times and law] The phrase is worded generally; and it is true that Antiochus, according to 1Ma 1:41-42, sought to interfere arbitrarily even with heathen cults: but the allusion is more particularly to the attempts made by him to suppress the Jewish religion by prohibiting the observance of religious festivals and other ordinances of the Law (see 1Ma 1:44-49). ‘Think’ means plan or even hope, a sense which the word used has often in the Targums and in Syriac (Luke 24:21, Pesh.). For ‘times’ in the sense of fixed times (here, the times fixed for religious observances, the Hebrew mτ’γdim, Leviticus 23:2; Leviticus 23:4 [R.V. set feasts], Isaiah 1:14 [A.V., R.V., appointed feasts], Isaiah 33:20 [A.V., R.V., solemnities]), see in the Targ. Genesis 1:14; Exodus 13:10; Exodus 23:15; Numbers 28:2; Isaiah 33:20 (for ‘solemnities’); Jeremiah 8:7. By ‘law’ is meant the Mosaic law, as Daniel 6:5. until a time and times and half a time (R.V.)] The saints will be given into the hand of this godless king for three years and a half. ‘Time’ (a different word from that in the preceding clause, and in the note on Daniel 7:12 rendered season) has the same sense of year, which it had in Daniel 4:16 : the same expression (in its Hebrew form) recurs in Daniel 12:7 (also of the duration of Antiochus’ persecution); comp. also Revelation 12:14. For the particulars of Antiochus’ persecution, see the notes on Daniel 11:31. It began with the mission of Apollonius against Jerusalem, probably about June 168, and with the edict of Antiochus which was immediately afterwards put in force (1Ma 1:20-53); and it ended (substantially) with the re-dedication of the Temple, after its three years’ desecration, on the 25th of Chisleu [Dec.], 165 (1Ma 4:52 f.). This, in all probability, is the period of 3½ years which is here intended. The 3½ years might also, however, be reckoned from the erection of the heathen altar in the court of the Temple, on the 15th of Chisleu, b.c.

25. Antiochus Epiphanes is said (xi, 36) to “speak marvelous things against the God of gods,” and Jewish history is full of his brutal impieties and persecutions which wore out the saints (1 Macc. i and ii; 2 Macc.