Daniel 8
Ishodad of Merv
Daniel 8:2
That is, before the vestibule and the gate where the river Ulai passed, that is, the gate that opens on the river Ulai. — COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 8:2
Daniel 8:7
The words "breaking its two horns," that is, the two powers, which Darius possessed, as the kingdom was subjected to two races, since the Medes and Persians were indicated together. In the same manner Cyrus, who was the first to rule, was a Mede on his mother's side and a Persian on his father's side. As their first king was called a Persian and a Mede, so the peoples, who were under his dominion, were indicated with the same names, because these two territories made a single kingdom. — COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 8:7
Daniel 8:10
"The host of heaven" and "the stars and princes of the host": he recalls in this way Onias and Eleazar and those of the house of the Maccabees. He calls them "stars" because of the brightness and beauty of the fear of God, by alluding to the words "I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven." — COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 8:10-11
Daniel 8:11
"The host was given over," so that "the regular burnt offering" that is, the sacrifices and offerings, were abolished and removed from their place. They were called so, because they had been established since the days of Moses and had continued constantly, or because the Jews offered sacrifices in the morning and the evening; and they came to an end as a consequence of the intervention of that criminal. "The place of his sanctuary," that is, he destroyed, scattered and overturned the vessels and adornments of the house of the Lord. — COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 8:11
Daniel 8:12
"The sanctuary was cast to the ground." Indeed, when Antiochus gets into Jerusalem and kills forty thousand [inhabitants] and rapes the women, he then enters the temple, destroys the candlestick, breaks the table of the breads of the presence and all the vessels of the sanctuary, builds an altar to Zeus inside the temple, which he calls "temple of Zeus," and offers a pig to him. He gets into the treasury, where he steals eighteen hundred golden talents and the vessels of the cult. When he departs from [the city], he leaves behind some immoral men in order to overturn the prescriptions and laws of the righteous. — COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 8:12
Daniel 8:13
Plūmni: interior. This name is given to the angel on the basis of his actions and the place that he occupies; it indicates the one who is in the inside and close to the Judge and who knows the secrets and the events that are about to happen. It is a Hebrew term. — COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 8:13