Ver. 1. Also I,] i.e., I, Gabriel the angel, glad of such an office, for the good of God’s people, whereunto also I was sent by Christ. (Daniel 10:9,10) In the first year of Darius the Mede.] Who now began to think of sending home the captive Jews, but had some hesitations and fluctuations of mind about it. I stood to confirm and to strengthen him.] Angels cannot enlighten the mind, or powerfully incline the will of man, for so the Holy Ghost only doth; but, as instruments of the Holy Ghost, they can stir up phantasms of the Word read or heard. They can also propose truth and right to the mind, advise and persuade to it as counsellors, and inwardly instigate as it were by speaking and doing after a spiritual manner, suggesting good thoughts, as devils do evil; yea, they can strangely wind themselves into men’s imaginations, so as to appear to them in their dreams. (Matthew 1:20)
Ver. 2. And now I will show thee the truth.] The plain, naked truth, in proper and downright terms, dealing with thee more like a historian than a prophet. Truth is, like our first parents, most beautiful when naked. Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia.] Three besides Darius, viz., Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius Hystaspis; for as for Smerdis or the Magus, who took upon him to be the son of Cyrus, and usurped the throne after Cambyses for six months, the holy angel holds him not worth naming. And the fourth shall be far richer than they all.] This was Xerxes, who was called the hoarder of his kingdom, like as his father Darius had been called the huckster, regni caupo, the huckster of the kingdom, for his unmeasurable riches gathered out of all the East, and prepared for the war against Greece. And when he shall be strengthened by his riches.] Which were never true to those that trusted them. He shall stir up all.] He shall bring into the field a million of men, and cover the seas with his ships, thinking to bear down all before him; but was shamefully defeated by the Grecians, and forced in a small fishing boat to get back into Asia, where, falling into inordinate lust and cruelty, he was killed by Artabanus, and left this war hereditary to his successors, until the ruin of the Persian kingdom by great Alexander, of whom in the next verse. Herodot, in Thalia.
Ver. 3. But a mighty king shall stand up.] Alexander the Great, the founder of the Greek monarchy; who, with thirty thousand footmen, and five thousand horsemen, overran and subdued a great part of the habitable world. See Daniel 8. The devil, by his oracles, foretold him of his victories, having stolen his skill out of this prophecy of Daniel.
Ver. 4. And when he shall stand up.] And seemeth to be best underlaid, set to live, as we say, when he standeth on his best bottom, expecting ambassadors at Babylon from all the world, requiring divine honours from his Grecians, and enjoining the Jews that their dates should be taken from his reign, and that all the priests’ sons born that year should be called Alexanders. His kingdom shall be broken.] As brittle ware is apt to be. And shall be divided toward the four winds.] Sic transit gloria mundi. So fleeting is the fame of the world. Fitly compared to the wind, [as Daniel 2:35] to a dream, to a shadow, to a dream of a shadow. Great Alexander’s kingdom was first broken into many pieces by twelve of his princes, until, eleven years after his death, it became quadripartite, &c. Here is foretold being divided among four of his chieftains, Cassander, Antigonus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy, till at length these two last got all into their hands, and yet were ever jarring and warring, as appeareth by what here followeth. And not to his posterity.] For all his kindred were killed by Cassander, with whom it happened accordingly. Nor according to his dominion.] For although they were all sovereign princes, yet they fell far short of Alexander in command and warlike fame. (Daniel 8:22)
Ver. 5. And the king of the south shall be strong.] Ptolemy, king of Egypt, together with his whole family, line, and race, the Lagidae, shall be eminently strong; and a great enemy he was to the poor Jews, as Josephus explains. And one of his princes,] i.e., Of Alexander’s princes, meaning Seleucus Nisanor, king of Syria, together with his house and line, called the Seleucidae. And he shall be strong above him,] i.e., Stronger than Ptolemy, and that the poor Church shall feel; for Judea lay between these two potent princes, and was therefore beaten on both sides. Perinde ac isthmus inter duo maria interiacens, or as bread grain ground between two millstones. This was here foretold, and much more, three hundred years before it happened, that we may know that there is an omnipotent and omniscient majesty, who decreeth and doeth whatsoever himself pleaseth. His dominion shall be a great dominion,] viz., As long as it will hold. Besides Syria and Babylon, Seleucus had more of Asia than ever any had but only Alexander. So our Henry VI, till deposed, had been the most potent monarch for dominions that ever England had; yet afterwards he was not the master of a mole hill, nor owner of his own liberty, as hath been said before. Antiq., lib. xii. cap. 1.