‘Now as he was speaking with me, I fell into a deep sleep (swooned) with my face towards the ground, but he touched me and set me upright, and he said, “Behold I will make you know what shall be in the latter time of the indignation, for it belongs to the appointed time of the end.” '
The effect of the contact with Gabriel caused him to go into a deep swoon as he lay on his face on the ground (Daniel 8:17). This is elsewhere the result of contact with the supernatural where something unique is happening, compare Daniel 10:9; Genesis 2:21; Genesis 15:12. But Gabriel touched him and aroused him, giving him strength for this ordeal of receiving revelation from such a powerful angel. For ‘set me upright' compare Daniel 7:4. He was made ready to receive God's revelation.
By considering the vision we are made to recognise that God's indignation against his people had not ceased with the return from exile, simply because they failed to repent and be transformed. So it continued through the rise of Medo-Persia to the appointed time for Antiochus, the latter period being in the latter part of the whole period of indignation, leading up to ‘the appointed time of the end' of the indignation. All was within God's appointment. And the result of Antiochus' persecution was the beginning of a new period for the true purified Israel, free from indignation, which was the beginning of the last days, preparing for the arrival of the Messiah, and was also the beginning of the rise of the fourth kingdom, the kingdom of the last days, which began with Rome and continued in different forms ever since. The days of Antiochus were seen as pivotal.