Daniel 8:2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I saw in a vision When I was awake, and had my bodily senses: see Daniel 8:3, and compare Daniel 10:4-5. This was accounted a more perfect degree of revelation than the having a representation of things imprinted on the imagination during sleep. When I saw, I was at Shushan in the palace This circumstance shows that Daniel continued in some post of honour, at least during the former part of the reign of Belshazzar. Which is in the province of Elam The province of Elam, or Persia, properly so called, was taken from Astyages, king of Media, by Nebuchadnezzar, according to the prophecy of Jeremiah against Elam, Jeremiah 49:34. And it was subject to the king of Babylon when Daniel saw this vision; though afterward the viceroy of that country revolted to Cyrus, and joined with him in taking Babylon. And I was by the river Ulai Or, Eluæus, as it was called by the Greeks and Romans. This river divided Susiana from the province of Elam, properly so called: see Plin., lib. 6. cap. 27. Elam, however, is often taken in a larger sense, so as to comprehend Susiana under it. It was usual for the prophets to see visions by river sides, of which Daniel gives us another instance, chap. Daniel 10:4; and Ezekiel likewise saw visions by the river Chebar, Ezekiel 1:3; as if the Holy Spirit delighted to manifest himself in such retired scenes. And the gifts and graces of the Spirit are often, in Scripture language, described by the metaphors of springs and streams of water, than which nothing is more agreeable and refreshing in hot and dry countries.