Commentary on Daniel

Contents

Chapter numbers follow Bonwetsch (GCS 1, 1897). Where the Greek is lost, the English is translated from Bonwetsch's German version of the Old Slavonic (marked on each passage). Missing from the text used: the opening quotations of books 2, 3 and 4, and chapter 4.50.

Reading pages: 1.1–1.23 · 1.25–2.15 · 2.16–2.31 · 2.32–3.6 · 3.7–3.20 · 3.21–3.31 · 4.2–4.15 · 4.15.2–4.30 · 4.31–4.45 · 4.45.2–4.60

1. 1.1Hippolytus introduces his commentary: Daniel, carried to Babylon as a boy, prophet and martyr, who exposed the elders who sought to destroy Susanna.
2. 1.2Hippolytus lists the sons of Josiah and traces the kings of Judah from Joahaz to Jehoiakim's captivity in Babylon.
3. 1.3Hippolytus recounts the last kings of Judah, the fall of Jerusalem, and the fulfilment of Jeremiah's oracle against Jeconiah.
4. 1.4Fragments on Daniel 1 and on Susanna: the order of the book, Hezekiah's sign, the youths' fidelity, Susanna's family, and Susanna and the elders as types of the church and its persecutors.
5. 1.17Paradise as a figure of the church, its trees, river and two trees interpreted, and Susanna's garden, closed doors and hidden elders as figures of entry into the church and the devil's renewed assault.
6. 1.20Fragments on Susanna 22–44: her dilemma and cry as a pattern for Christians tried for Christ's name, and the angel sent in answer to prayer.
7. 1.22Susanna as a teacher of the church: men are urged to imitate Joseph and women Susanna, resisting seducers and heretics and choosing a brief death rather than sin.
8. 1.23On Susanna 24–25: Susanna's cry to God, the elders' outcry as that of persecutors, and the broad and narrow doors.
9. 1.25On Susanna 28–35: the trial as a figure of Christians brought to judgment, Susanna's true beauty, the elders' shameless unveiling of her, and her tearful prayer.
10. 1.27On Susanna 45–46: why God rescued Susanna only as she was led to death, and Daniel's cry 'I am innocent of her blood' set beside Pilate's.
11. 1.29On Susanna 52–59: Daniel speaks to the first elder as to one who knew the law, and to the second as to a Gentile, 'seed of Canaan'.
12. 1.31On the elders' two different trees: convicted by the Spirit, they contradicted each other and were caught by their own words.
13. 1.32On Susanna 60–64: the elders are put to death, the proverb of the pit is fulfilled, and Daniel becomes great before the people.
14. 1.33Close of Book 1, urging readers to imitate Susanna and await the bridegroom, followed by the opening of Book 2 on Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Dan 2:1–6).
15. 2.2Nebuchadnezzar's dream was heavenly and hidden from worldly sages, as Pharaoh's was, so that God's prophet might reveal it.
16. 2.3On Daniel 2:7–23: the Chaldeans' failure, the decree against the wise men, Arioch as 'chief cook', and Daniel's prayer and thanksgiving when the mystery is revealed.
17. 2.6On Daniel 2:24–43: Daniel is brought before the king, gives God the glory for revealing the mystery, and recounts the dream of the great image and its interpretation.
18. 2.8On Daniel 2:46–48: the king worships Daniel, as Moses was made 'a god to Pharaoh', and exalts him as Pharaoh exalted Joseph.
19. 2.10On Daniel 2:49: Daniel remembers his three companions, who had prayed with him, and they receive honour from the king.
20. 2.11Hippolytus urges careful reading of the prophecy and goes through the parts of the image and the kingdoms they signify, from the golden head to the stone.
21. 2.12The four parts of the image are Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome, and the ten toes are the divided rule still to come.
22. 2.13The stone cut without hands is Christ, who will come from heaven to end the kingdoms of the world and set up the everlasting kingdom of the saints.
23. 2.14The lemma of Daniel 3:1–6: Nebuchadnezzar's golden image and the command to worship it.
24. 2.15Puffed up by being called the golden head, Nebuchadnezzar set up a golden image of himself to be worshipped, and all the peoples obeyed.
25. 2.16The lemma of Daniel 3:8–15: the Chaldeans accuse the three youths, and the king threatens them with the furnace.
26. 2.17The tyrant's threat set against Christ's word about whom to fear, and the youths' answer (Dan 3:16–18).
27. 2.18The three youths as an example to all believers, encouraged by Daniel's silent presence, faithful martyrs who put the king and his idols to shame.
28. 2.19The youths encourage one another from Israel's history to endure; the Maccabean martyrs are adduced; only those who share the Spirit can despise death and follow Christ.
29. 2.20The Maccabean martyrs under Antiochus as an earlier example of the same faithfulness.
30. 2.21Only those who share the Spirit can despise death; the youths, disciples of the Word, give their threefold answer and Daniel crowns them as athletes of faith.
31. 2.23The youths' three answers set against the king's three demands, spoken as with one mouth.
32. 2.24The youths answered each of the king's three demands so firmly that no one could later claim they had recanted in the flames.
33. 2.25On Daniel 3:19–20: the king's sevenfold furnace showed him already defeated, and Daniel kept silent so that the rescue would be seen as God's power, not a human favour.
34. 2.26Why Daniel was not in the furnace: each of God's servants was kept for his own trial and time, so that both Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus might come to know the true God.
35. 2.27The king acted under the devil, who imitates God's works: the image's eighteen years, sixty cubits and six cubits are read as parodies of Christ, the patriarchs and the six days, and the many idols of the present age as the devil's devices.
36. 2.28The youths' garments, unharmed in the fire, prove against the heretics that the flesh, sanctified by a holy soul, will rise incorruptible.
37. 2.29The three youths' prayer and hymn in the furnace: confession of sin, then a summons to all creation, in order, to bless the Lord, ending with themselves.
38. 2.30The fourth in the furnace was the Word who spoke through the youths; their hymn shows all creation to be God's servant, against heretics who invent aeons and emanations.
39. 2.31The fire spared the youths but burned the Chaldeans outside, while the angel made the furnace like a dewy wind.
40. 2.32The fourth in the furnace was the Word, the judge who drowned the Egyptians and burned Sodom, the 'Angel of great counsel', whom the fire fled and whom Nebuchadnezzar confessed as Son of God.
41. 2.33Nebuchadnezzar sees four men in the fire and confesses the fourth as Son of God, a sign that the nations would recognize the incarnate Word whom Israel rejected.
42. 2.34On Daniel 3:26–27: the king calls the three by name but cannot name the fourth, for Jesus was not yet born of the virgin.
43. 2.35Why God rescued some martyrs and not others: he rescues or takes his servants as he wills, so that some may be examples of endurance, as with the Maccabean martyrs, Peter, Paul, Stephen, and Christ himself.
44. 2.37Better to die a martyr than to be rescued and sin; the youths' faith wins glory from God and king and spreads the knowledge of God; Book 2 closes, and Book 3 opens with Nebuchadnezzar's proclamation (Dan 4:1–3).
45. 3.2Nebuchadnezzar proclaims God's deeds and tells of his second dream, which only Daniel, taught by the Spirit, could interpret; the king calls him a man of God, as the Egyptians named Moses.
46. 3.3The lemma of Daniel 4:9–18: Nebuchadnezzar tells Daniel his dream of the great tree cut down at the watcher's command.
47. 3.4Nebuchadnezzar's dream rebuked his pride; like Antiochus Epiphanes and Sennacherib, proud kings are punished, so that all may know the authority of heaven.
48. 3.5Twelve months after setting up the image Nebuchadnezzar lost his kingdom; the lemma of Daniel 4:19–35 gives Daniel's interpretation and its fulfilment.
49. 3.6Do not trust in kings or seek their favour, for their gifts are passing and their friendship dangerous; hope in the living God.
50. 3.7Nebuchadnezzar's boasting did not save him; Daniel, like a good physician, counselled him with tears, his face changing between fear and angelic glory, and gave him hope that his kingdom would be restored.
51. 3.8The tree in Nebuchadnezzar's dream interpreted part by part: the king, his officials as branches, his decrees as leaves, tribute and gifts as fruit, his armies as beasts, the subject nations as birds.
52. 3.9The felling of the tree is Nebuchadnezzar's overthrow by his own forces; the 'holy one' is the Word announcing the Father's decree to the angels who rule the nations.
53. 3.10The seven times are reckoned by some as seven years, by others as seven seasons; the stump left in the earth was for the king's instruction in humility.
54. 3.11Nebuchadnezzar reigned twenty-five years: eighteen before his pride, then his fall, then seven more after his repentance, as the lemma of Daniel 4:34–37 records.
55. 3.12Nebuchadnezzar's two dreams and Daniel's vision of the four beasts agree, and as past prophecies have come true, so will those still to be fulfilled.
56. 3.13The lemma of Daniel 5:1–9: Belshazzar's feast, the profaned temple vessels, and the writing on the wall that none of the wise men could read.
57. 3.14Belshazzar's sacrilege, and the writing hand as a sign of the Word who wrote the law with the finger of God and would one day take flesh.
58. 3.15On Daniel 5:7–12: the wise men fail; the queen recommends Daniel, whom the nobles had passed over out of envy, as the gifted are still envied today.
59. 3.17On Daniel 5:13–28: Daniel refuses the king's gifts, recalls Nebuchadnezzar's humbling, rebukes Belshazzar's sacrilege, and reads and interprets the writing.
60. 3.18On Daniel 5:29–31: Daniel is honoured, Belshazzar is killed that night, and Darius the Mede receives the kingdom, as God sets up and removes kings.
61. 3.19On Daniel 6:1–4: Darius sets Daniel over the kingdom, and the satraps, envious of his wisdom and integrity, seek a pretext against him in vain.
62. 3.20On Daniel 6:4–9: the satraps, failing to corrupt Daniel, persuade Darius to forbid prayer to any but himself for thirty days, as Haman once plotted against the Jews.
63. 3.21On Daniel 6:10: Daniel prays openly despite the decree rather than hide his faith; Christians obey the authorities by doing no evil, but must die rather than deny God, as the apostles obeyed God rather than men.
64. 3.24Daniel would not set God's glory below men's; Christians threatened with death for worshipping God must choose to die; the devil persecutes the saints to stop their prayer, which defeats him as Moses' raised hands defeated Amalek.
65. 3.25On Daniel 6:11–15: the devil works through the satraps, who accuse Daniel; Darius strives to save him, but they hold him to his irrevocable decree, so that Daniel's rescue would be God's work.
66. 3.26Why only Daniel was accused: as the furnace was reserved for the three youths, so the lions' den was Daniel's own call to witness; God calls each in his time.
67. 3.27On Daniel 6:16–17: Daniel is cast to the lions with the king's word of hope, and the sealing of the den by the satraps' malice foreshadows the sealing of Christ's tomb.
68. 3.28On Daniel 6:18–20: the king spends the night fasting and anxious while the satraps rejoice, and at dawn calls to Daniel, hoping God has saved him as he saved the three youths.
69. 3.29On Daniel 6:21–23: the lions, tamed by the angel, fawn on Daniel as on a new Adam, a sight Darius shows to all; trust in God rather than in men.
70. 3.30On Daniel 6:24: the accusers perish in the den, as the Chaldeans perished by the furnace and Haman on his own gallows.
71. 3.31On Daniel 6:25–27: Darius's decree; the den read as Hades and the lions as punishing angels, with an exhortation to imitate Daniel; Book 3 closes and Book 4 opens with Daniel 7:1.
72. 4.2On Daniel 7:2–4: the beasts are the world's kingdoms; the winged lioness is Babylon, and its plucked wings and human heart are Nebuchadnezzar's fall and restoration.
73. 4.3On Daniel 7:5–6: the bear is Persia, its three ribs the Medes, Assyrians and Babylonians; the four-headed leopard is Alexander's Greek kingdom, divided among four successors.
74. 4.4The lemma of Daniel 7:7–12: the fourth beast with ten horns, the little horn, and the judgment before the Ancient of Days.
75. 4.5The fourth beast is Rome, from which ten horns and then the Antichrist will arise; believers should neither try to fix the time nor doubt that it will come.
76. 4.6As fire fell on Sodom when its sins were complete, so the end will come when lawlessness has multiplied and the iron empire has split into ten horns.
77. 4.7Recalling his treatise On the Antichrist, Hippolytus matches the metals of the image to the four beasts: Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and the ten toes to the ten divided kingdoms.
78. 4.8Daniel named the beasts of Babylon, Persia and Greece because each was one nation, but left the fourth unnamed because Rome gathers its armies from every nation.
79. 4.9Rome imitates the church: as Christ gathered one people from all nations under the name Christian, Rome gathers men of all nations under the name Roman, a rivalry marked by the census at Christ's birth.
80. 4.10On Daniel 7:17–18: when the fourth kingdom is removed, earthly rule ends and Christ, God incarnate, will come from heaven as judge and give the kingdom to the saints.
81. 4.11On Daniel 7:13–14: the Son of Man receives an everlasting kingdom from the Ancient of Days, the Father; he is firstborn from God, before the angels, from the virgin, and from the dead.
82. 4.12On Daniel 7:19–28: the little horn is the Antichrist, who will rise from the divided Roman kingdom, kill three kings and war against the saints, until the kingdom is given to the saints of the Most High.
83. 4.14The angel's explanation to Daniel covers the division of the fourth kingdom, the Antichrist's three and a half years of war on the saints, the judgment, and the eternal kingdom given to the saints.
84. 4.15Readers should not seek to fix the time of the end; Ecclesiastes' picture of old age and death figures the apostasy before the end, and Christ hid the day to keep his people watchful.
85. 4.15.2Christ gave signs instead of a date: as Jerusalem's fall was foretold, so the abomination of desolation must appear first; wars and famines are only the beginning, and the gospel must first be preached to all nations.
86. 4.18A church leader in Syria, misreading the Lord's warnings, led his flock into the desert to meet Christ and nearly brought persecution on all; Christ's second coming will be open and from heaven.
87. 4.19A church leader in Pontus, trusting his own dreams over Scripture, predicted the judgment within a year; when it did not come, his people were scandalized and impoverished.
88. 4.20Such errors come from preferring dreams, fables and human traditions to Scripture; some even impose fasts on the Sabbath and the Lord's day, which Christ did not appoint.
89. 4.21Paul agrees with the Lord: the apostasy and the man of sin must come first; what restrains him is the fourth beast, Rome; to long for the day of the Lord is to court danger.
90. 4.22Instead of calculating the end, be patient like the martyrs under the altar; Hippolytus nonetheless reckons Christ's birth in the year 5500 from Adam, so that the six thousand years before the sabbath rest of the saints are not yet complete.
91. 4.24Hippolytus proves Christ's birth in the year 5500 from the ark's dimensions (5½ cubits) and John's 'sixth hour', and reckons that the Roman kingdom will last five hundred years before the Antichrist and Christ's return.
92. 4.25The lemma of Daniel 8:1–14: the vision of the ram and the he-goat, the little horn that desolates the sanctuary, and the 1,300 days.
93. 4.26The ram is Darius, the he-goat Alexander, the four horns his successors, and the little horn Antiochus Epiphanes, who profaned the temple for 1,300 days until Judas Maccabaeus restored it.
94. 4.27Gabriel's interpretation of the vision (Dan 8:15–27) confirms the reading of the beasts; Hippolytus then turns to the seventy weeks, beginning with Daniel's prayer of confession (Dan 9:1–7).
95. 4.29On Daniel 9:20–23: Daniel confesses the sins of the people, and Gabriel is sent to give him understanding.
96. 4.30On Daniel 9:23–25: angels are swift as birds; the first seven of the seventy weeks (49 years) end with the return from exile under Joshua son of Jozadak, the 'anointed prince', a type of Christ the true King and Priest.
97. 4.31The sixty-two weeks (434 years) run from the return to Christ's birth; Christ is the Holy of holies who wipes out sins for believers and seals them for unbelievers, and the Lamb who opens the sealed book of the prophets.
98. 4.35On Daniel 9:25–27 and 10:1–19: the last week, with Elijah and Enoch and the Antichrist; the vision by the great river of the Word in the form of a man, his robe, girdle and body interpreted, and his strengthening of Daniel.
99. 4.40On Daniel 10:19–21: the Word who strengthens Daniel fights the prince of Persia, who opposed the people's return, with Michael, the angel set over Israel, who also met Moses at the lodging place.
100. 4.41On Daniel 11:2–34: the Persian kings, Alexander and his successors, and Antiochus Epiphanes, whose persecution and the revolt of Mattathias and Judas Maccabaeus are told from 1 Maccabees.
101. 4.45On Daniel 11:6–8 and 44: the conflicts of the Ptolemies and Antiochus, Antiochus's campaigns against Judas Maccabaeus through Nicanor and Lysias, his death, and the peace forced on Lysias by Philip's seizure of Antioch.
102. 4.45.2On Daniel 11:17–27: Alexander Balas, his marriage to Cleopatra daughter of Ptolemy, Ptolemy's treachery in giving her to Demetrius, the deaths of Alexander and Ptolemy, read as fulfilment of Daniel's 'lies at one table'.
103. 4.49The Antichrist foretold by all Scripture will conquer Tyre, Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia, rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, gather the Jews and be worshipped as the Christ by the disobedient.
104. 4.51The great tribulation under the Antichrist, Christ's warnings and his coming in glory; Antiochus's abomination and the Antichrist's; Edom, Moab and Ammon as his first followers; the 1,290 and 1,335 days; and the resurrection of the righteous to life and of the Antichrist's followers to shame.
105. 4.57On Daniel 12:5–7: the two men by the river are the law and the prophets, the man above the water is Christ; his outstretched hands show the Passion, the 'time, times and half a time' the Antichrist's three and a half years, and the 'scattering' the dispersion of the Jews before the end.
106. 4.59On Daniel 12:8–13: the things after the resurrection are sealed until the end; the chosen, the whitened and the tried by fire are those found worthy, cleansed by baptism and the Spirit, and proved through trials.
107. 4.60The conclusion: what was sealed is now proclaimed, the book of life spread on the cross, so that believers may be found worthy and watchful for Christ's appearing; doxology.