Daniel 8:13 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

By the first saint is meant a holy angel, by the other is meant Jesus Christ, Palmoni, a numberer or revealer of secrets, a wonderful revealer, Isaiah 9:6. Of him the angel asks this secret concerning the calamity of the church, how long it would last, for Daniel's sake and his people. For the Lord Christ is the Teacher of his people, the Wisdom of God, and hath all this in his power by office, and as he stands in relation to his church, and for them. The Lord knows his suffering people are much concerned about the time of their sufferings, because there is an appointed time for it, and the Lord doth sometimes reveal it, as we see here, unto his considering ones, Daniel 8:5, and praying saints, Da 9; they cry out in their agonies, How long, O Lord? and it is an addition to their sorrow that no man knoweth how long, Psalms 74:9. How long shall Antiochus continue his tyrannical vexations against the people of God, and the worship of God? This is the treading down of the sanctuary and the host.