Page:06.CBOT.KD.PropheticalBooks.B.vol.6.LesserProphets.djvu/255

as it would unfold itself in four successive phases; whereupon the angel so summarily interprets the vision to the prophet, that, dating from the time of their origin, he points out the first world-kingdom as arising along with the rest, notwithstanding that it had already come into existence, and only its last stages were then future. The thought of this summary interpretation is manifestly nothing else than this: “Four kingdoms shall arise on the earth, and shall again disappear; but the saints of God shall receive the kingdom which shall have an everlasting duration.” יקבּלוּן, receive; not found and establish by their own might, but receive through the Son of man, to whom God (Dan 7:14) has given it. עליונין (cf. Dan 7:22, Dan 7:25, Dan 7:27) is the name of God, the Most High, analogous to the plur. forms אלהים, קדשׁים. “The saints of the Most High,” or briefly “the saints” (Dan 7:21, Dan 7:22), are neither the Jews, who are accustomed to call themselves “saints,” in contrast with the heathen (v. Leng., Maur., Hitzig, etc.), nor the converted Israel of the millennium (Hofmann and other chiliasts), but, as we argue from Exo 19:6; Deu 7:6, the true members of the covenant nation, the New Testament Israel of God, i.e., the congregation of the New Covenant, consisting of Israel and the faithful of all nations; for the kingdom which God gives to the Son of man will, according to Dan 7:14, comprehend those that are redeemed from among all the nations of the earth. The idea of the everlasting duration of their kingdom is, by the words עלמיּא עלם (for ever and ever), raised to the superlative degree.
The angel does not here give further explanations regarding the first three kingdoms. Since the second chapter treats of them, and the eighth also gives further description of the second and third, it is enough here to state that the first three beasts represent those kingdoms that are mentioned in Daniel 2. The form of the fourth beast, however, comprehends much more regarding the fourth world-kingdom that the dream-image of Nebuchadnezzar did. Therefore Daniel asks the angel further for certain information (certainty) regarding the dreadful form of this beast, and consequently the principal outlines of the representation before given of it are repeated by him in Dan 7:19-21, and are completed by certain circumstances there omitted. Thus Dan 7:19 presents the addition, that the beast had, along with iron teeth, also claws of brass, with which it stamped to pieces what it could not devour; and Dan 7:20, that the little horn became greater than its fellows, made war against the people of God and overcame them, till the