Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary

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Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (1712)

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Daniel

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6

Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12

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AN

EXPOSITION,

W I T H   P R A C T I C A L   O B S E R V A T I O N S,

OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET

D A N I E L.

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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,
Ezek. xxxviii. 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,

Ezek. xiv. 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

(ch. vi.),

and mortifying himself as other prophets did, when he ate no

pleasant bread

(ch. x. 3),

and fainting sick when he was under the power of the Spirit of

prophecy,

ch. viii. 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,
Matt. xxiv. 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,

ch. ix. 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.

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Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (1712)

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