Ishodad of Merv

In his own words on Daniel

• Daniel 3:22

  The flames killed because the slanderers, being carried away by their joy, approached the furnace to observe the burning of their [victims], but through divine intervention they were consumed by the heat of the furnace. So also, in order that the king and the Babylonians might not think that because of a hallucination or illusion those youths made the fire harmless, God caused many of those who had gathered around the furnace to be consumed while the youths felt just like the king in his bedroom.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 3:22

• Daniel 4:10

  "Its top," that is, of the tree, is his thoughts and the pride of his spirit. "Its foliage" is his army. "Its fruits" are his nobles. "The animals of the fields and the birds" are the nations and kingdoms that he has subdued. "From it all living beings were fed" are because the silver and gold that were for the benefit of people were coined by his mint. "A holy watcher" is one of the spiritual beings. "Its branches" is his dominion. "Its stumps and roots" is said because his sovereignty will last until his return. "With bands of iron and bronze in the grass of the field" are the words because when he is in the desert and feeds on vegetables, his sovereignty will stay with him in this manner, like something bound with iron and bronze.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 4:11-15

• Daniel 5:2-3

  The words "at the taste of the wine, [Belshazzar] said," that is, after he became drunk and unreasonable as a consequence of tasting wine.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 5:2

• Daniel 6:1

  We need to take notice that previously the Babylonians, that is, their princes, had used trickery in their jealousy of Daniel to destroy Daniel and his companions and had persuaded Nebuchadnezzar to build the golden statue and to order that it alone be worshiped by those under his authority. So, too, now the Medes use trickery in the elaboration of the edict and decree in order to destroy Daniel.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 6:4

• Daniel 7:10

  "The books were opened," not because God needs books, but the prophet is speaking in human terms, according to the style of Scriptures, which speak materially with material beings; in addition, he says that in order to show the rigorous examination, on which the judgments of God are based, that [God] judges with equity and forbearance.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 7:10

• 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

• Daniel 9:2

  When the time fixed for the captivity is completed, Daniel begins to pray for the return; indeed, he had not dared to pray [to that purpose] before that moment, in order not to press God needlessly and in order not to hear the word that had been addressed to Jeremiah: "Do not pray for this people, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you." But after seeing that the sentence had been executed, he prays with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. At the same time he thought that the Jews might stay a longer time in captivity because of their sins, according to the fact that God had added thirty years to the Jews in Egypt and had reduced [the time for repentance conceded] to the generation of Noah of twenty years and of fifty in the case of the house of Ephrem. Moreover, it is not at the beginning of their fault that the sinners ask questions of the judge but after the punishment.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 9:2

• Daniel 9:24

  The words "seventy weeks will linger," that is, until the destruction caused by the Romans. In fact, even though, in the meantime, they are sometimes afflicted, they will not be abandoned completely. Seventy weeks make 490 years; they are calculated from the time when they will come back from Babylon and will begin to build the temple to the year when the Romans will make war against them after the ascension of our Lord.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 9:24

• Daniel 9:26

  Theodoret interprets ("the king who will come") as the foreign kingship and the unlawful doctrine. Others say, "With the king who will come," meaning with the Christ who will come. Instead of the words "the anointed one shall be killed," the Jews [say foolishly], "The oil shall be cut off." Therefore, since there is no oil, and the oil of the anointment does not flow anymore, and it stops and does not proceed anymore, there was nobody to anoint with it both the kings and the priests according to the rule observed since Moses and afterwards. It was necessary that the law come to an end, because without priesthood and without the anointment of all that was anointed under the law, the law itself could not survive anymore. In the same manner, with what will your "anointed prince" be anointed, as there is no oil or ointment? "Its end shall come with a flood" and with destruction just like in the deluge of the generations of Noah.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 9:26

• Daniel 10:1

  It is evident that Daniel lived up to the third year [of Cyrus] and beyond, even though at the beginning of the book we read "until the first year of the king Cyrus."

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 10:1

• Daniel 11:2

  After Cyrus, who reigned first, there were numerous kings in Persia until those three. But the angel indicates by "three kings" those who were called with the name Darius, because there were only three kings who had the same name Darius. And by revealing through whom the kingdom of the Persians would have ceased, he says, "The fourth shall be far richer than all of them," that is, Darius, who became more powerful than all his predecessors; "and when he has become strong," this Darius, he means, "in his homeland," in power and riches, "he shall stir up," that is, he will cause Alexander, of the house of the Greeks, to march against him.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 11:2

• Daniel 11:3

  "And [Alexander] shall arise," he says, "and will kill [Darius] and will take action as he pleases," and nobody will rise against him. This Darius, son of Arshak, was the tenth king after Cyrus, and in his sixth year Alexander marches against him and kills him. Alexander, when he came to Jerusalem, enters the temple, worships God and honors the temple with many gifts.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 11:3

• Daniel 11:35

  When the priests, who give scandal, that is, the wise ones with regard to evil … are overturned and fall, they will become a furnace of testing before everybody's eyes, and it will be recognized that because of their evil actions punishment has come over them and more evils are forthcoming. "And may understand until the time of the end," that is, everybody will consider and understand, with regard to the evils that will befall them, that they come according to justice until the time of the end, because evilness has "still an interval" to gain its successes.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 11:35

• Daniel 11:45

  "He shall pitch his palatial tents in a plain, between the sea of Soph and the mountain," where Moses ascended; "he shall pitch his tent there," that is, he will die there.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 11:45

• Daniel 12:2

  "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake," that is, many of those who lie among afflictions and are prostrated by their misfortunes, that is, the Maccabees—"some to everlasting life," that is, their patience and justice will make them rejoice in the life in the two worlds, and, in addition, it will make them illustrious through a precious memory in all the centuries after those, in which they lived—"and some to destruction and the opprobrium of their fellow citizens," that is, the impious and scandalous priests will be given to punishment because of their crimes, and they will leave an evil and accursed name to their fellow citizens forever.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 12:2

• Daniel 12:4

  He orders him to "seal the book," that is, with the seal of obscurity, and to avoid revealing it to anybody, so that its memory may not be lost and the nations may not be overwhelmed with fear and renounce to ascend to the promised land; and, at the same time, in order that the weak ones of the people, by learning about the affliction that will befall them, may not be held back from going up from Babylon to Jerusalem. "Many will look for" God, "and the knowledge will increase" and will abound all over the world.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 12:4

• Daniel 12:12

  Blessed are those who will go through the days mentioned before and will exceed them by 45 days; that is, When the evils are completed, there will be rest for the people and the end of their afflictions. According to others: 1, days, that is, "Jesus Christ, Great Savior"—if you count the letters of these four words, they give the name cited above; that is, [Daniel] has received the revelation that he will encounter and see Jesus, etc. Severus says, "Happy are those who persevere" in order to see the days in which his economy is fulfilled, after his baptism to his ascension, and in which he has been pleased with his aspect and miracles, [days] that will make 1,335. Theodoret asserts that these three years and a half constitute the time when the antichrist will reign at the end, and the 45 days the time beginning from the moment in which "the son of perdition" will be condemned, and Elijah will triumph and will drive all people away from the [antichrist], will admonish the Jews and will pray our Lord until he appears from heaven.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 12:12

• Daniel 12:13

  The words, "You shall rise at the end of the days," through the previous sentence shows him that he will not be forever tested by the afflictions of the people. Through this sentence he says to him that, at the fixed and appointed time, at the end of the world, he will receive the expected resurrection, which Christ will perform at his second coming.

  COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 12:12