Daniel 7:9,10 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I beheld till the thrones were cast down Till all these earthly kingdoms were brought to an end, and all enemies and opposite powers were destroyed. But the word רמיו, here used, maybe rendered, were pitched, or placed, namely, for the reception of God, and his assessors in judgment, the saints and angels. Thus the LXX., εως οτου οι θρονοι ετεθησαν, till the thrones were placed, or set, or fixed; and so the Vulgate. And the verb in the text is used in the same sense in the Chaldee paraphrase on Jeremiah 1:15; where our translation reads, They shall set every one his throne, &c. The following words justify this translation; And the Ancient of days did sit That is, the eternal Judge of the world, who has been from everlasting, who is at present, and who shall always be: and whom the prophet thus describes, to adapt himself to human apprehensions, and to make the following part of his description more intelligible; but no similitude is pointed out, nor ought we from hence to attempt to represent the invisible God by any figure. The metaphors here used, says Bishop Newton, “are borrowed from the solemnities of earthly judicatories, and particularly of the great sanhedrim of the Jews, where the father of the consistory sat, with his assessors seated on each side of him, in the form of a semicircle, with the people standing before him: and from this description again was borrowed the description of the day of judgment in the New Testament.” Whose garment was white as snow Signifying the unspotted righteousness of his proceedings. He is elsewhere described as covering himself with light as with a garment, Psalms 104:2: see also 1 John 1:5. Kings and princes used anciently to wear white garments, as an emblem of perfect justice. And the hair of his head like the pure wool To denote the eternity and maturity of his counsels, and that his decisions are all perfectly right and true, without the least mixture of any partial affections. His throne was like the fiery flame Denoting his awful majesty, and the severity of his judgments on the ungodly; and his wheels of burning fire Emblematical of the revolutions and dispensations of his providence, Ezekiel 1:15, being dreadfully severe and destructive to the wicked. The reader will observe, God's throne is here described in the nature of a triumphal chariot, supported by angels as so many fiery wheels. Grotius remarks, that the ancient thrones and sellæ curules had wheels. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him Signifying his justice and wrath in giving forth and executing sentence against the ungodly. Thousand thousands ministered unto him His retinue was an innumerable company of angels; and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him To receive their sentence from his lips. The judgment was set That is, the court, namely, God the supreme judge, and the saints as his assessors, made their public appearance. And the books were opened That is, “those evidences which contained the laws and will of God, whether natural or revealed; those in which the actions of men, with all their circumstances of aggravation or extenuation were recorded; those from which the clearest and completest conviction might be adduced, in order to render the judgment such as that all should be obliged to acknowledge it to be the result of the most perfect truth and consummate justice: see Revelation 20:12.” Wintle.