In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first.
With this chapter the Hebrew part of the book begins, and continues to be the language of the remainder; the visions relating wholly to the Jews and Jerusalem. The scene here narrows from world-wide prophecies to those affecting the one covenant-people in the five centuries between the exile and the advent. Antichrist, like Christ, has a more immediate future as well as one more remote. The vision, Daniel 8:1-27, begins, and that, Daniel 12:1-13, concludes the account of the Antichrist of the third kingdom. Between the two visions Daniel 9:1-27 is inserted, as to Messiah and the covenant-people at the end of the half-millennium (70 weeks of years).
In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision - a higher kind of revelation than a dream.
After that which appeared unto me at the first - that in Daniel 7:1, which Daniel saw "in the first year of Belshazzar."