Daniel 8:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

In the third year of King Belshazzar Daniel's former vision of the four great beasts, representing the four great empires of the world, took place in the first year of Belshazzar; now, in the third year of that king's reign, he had another vision, which chiefly respected two of those empires. Thus God showed the same things to Daniel at different times, and under different symbols; doubtless in order that they might be more deeply impressed on his mind, and that he might more distinctly understand them in all their circumstances. We find God acting in the same manner with some of the other prophets, particularly Ezekiel, to whom he showed the destruction of Jerusalem by a great many different types, or symbols. This vision was communicated to Daniel about the year before Christ 553, according to Usher, Prideaux, and other chronologers.