And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.
And he said unto me - the answer is to Daniel, not to the inquirer, for the latter had asked in Daniel's name, as vice versa the saint or angel (so "saint" is used for angel, Job 15:15; Psalms 89:6-7) speaks of the vision granted to Daniel as if it had been granted to himself. For holy men are in Scripture represented as having attendant angels, with whom they are in a way identified in interests. If the conversation had been limited to the angels it could have been of no use to us. But God conveys it to prophetic men, for our good, through the ministry of angels.
Unto two thousand and three hundred days - literally, mornings and evenings, specified in connection with the morning and evenlug sacrifice. Compare Genesis 1:5. Six years and 110 days. This includes not only the three and a half years during which the daily sacrifice was forbidden by Antiochus (Josephus, 'Bellum Judaicum,' 1: 1, sec. 1), but the whole series of events whereby it was practically interrupted: beginning with the "little horn waxing great toward the plesant land," and "casting some of the host" (Daniel 8:9-10); namely, when in 171 BC, or the month Sivan in the year 142 of the era of the Seleucidae, the sacrifices began to be neglected, owing to the high priest Jason introducing at Jerusalem Grecian customs and amusements-the palaestra and gymnasium; ending with the death of Antiochus, 165 BC, or the month Shebath in the year 148 of the Seleucid era. Compare 1Ma 1:11-15 ; 2Ma 4:7-14 , 'After the death of Seleucus, when Antiochus called Epiphanes took the kingdom, Jason, the brother of Onias, laboured underhand to be high priest, promising unto the king, by intercession, three hundred and threescore talents of silver, etc., if he might have license to set him up a place for exercise, and, for the training up of youth in the fashions of the pagan, and to write them of Jerusalem by the name of Antiochians: which, when the king had granted, and he had gotten into his hand the rule, he forthwith brought his own nation to the Greekish fashion-he brought up new customs against the law-and made them wear a hat.
Now, such was the height of Greek fashions and increase of paganish manners, through the exceeding profaneness of Jason-that ungodly wretch and no high priest-that the priests had no courage anymore to serve at the altar, but despising the temple and neglecting the sacrifices, hastened to be partakers of the unlawful allowance in the place of exercise, after the game of Discus called them forth, not setting by the honours of their fathers, but liking the glory of the Grecians best of all. By reason whereof sore calamity came upon them: for they had them to be their enemies and avengers whose custom they followed so earnestly, and, unto whom they desired to be like in all things.'
The reason for the greater minuteness of historical facts and dates given in Daniel's prophecies than in those of the New Testament is, that Israel, not having yet the clear views which Christians have of immortality and the heavenly inheritance, could only be directed to the earthly future; because it was on earth the looked-for Messiah was to appear, and the sum and subject of Old Testament prophesy was the kingdom of God upon earth. The minuteness of the revelation of Israel's earthly destiny was to compensate for the absence, in the Old Testament, of views of heavenly glory.
Thus, in Daniel 9:1-27, the times of Messiah are foretold to the very year; in Daniel 8:1-27, the times of Antiochus, even to the day; and in Daniel 11:1-45, the Syro-Egyptian struggles in most minute detail. Tregelles thinks the 2,300 days answer to the week of years (Daniel 9:27) during which the destroying prince (Daniel 9:26) makes a covenant, which he breaks in the midst of the week (namely, at the end of three and a half years). The seven years exceed the 2,300 days by considerably more than a half year. This period of the seven years' excess above the 2,300 days may be allotted to the preparations needed for setting up the temple worship, with Antichrist's permission to the restored Jews, according to his "covenant" with them; and the 2,300 days may date from the actual setting up of the worship.
But, says Auberlen, the more accurate to a day the dates as to Antiochus are given the less should we say the 1,290, or 1,335 days (Daniel 12:11-12) correspond to the half week (roughly), and the 2,300 to the whole. The event, however, may, in the case of Antichrist, show a correspondence between the days here given and Daniel 9:27, such as is not yet discernible. The term of 2,300 days cannot refer to 2,300 years of the treading down of Christianity by Mohammedanism, as this would leave the greater portion of the time yet future; whereas Mohammedanism is fast waning. If the 2,300 days mean years, dating from Alexander's conquests, 334 to 323
B.C., we should arrive at about the close of the 6,000th year of the world, just as the 1,260 years (Daniel 7:25) from Justinian's decree arrive at the same terminus. The Jews' tradition represents the seventh thousand as the millennium. Cumming remarks, 480 BC is the date of the waning of the Persian empire before Greece; deducting 480 from 2,300, we have 1,820, and in 1821 Turkey, the successor of the Greek empire, began to wane, and Greece became a separate kingdom (see note, Daniel 12:11).
Then shall the sanctuary be cleansed - literally justified, vindicated from profanation. Judas Maccabeus celebrated the feast of dedication, after the cleansing and kindling of the holy fire for sacrifice by lighting, on the twenty-fifth of the ninth month, Casleu or Kisleu (1Ma 4:51-58 ; 2Ma 10:1-7 ; this is "the feast of the dedication" in the winter, apparently kept by the Lord Jesus as recorded in John 10:22). As to the antitypical dedication of the new temple, see Ezekiel 43:13-27, etc.; also Amos 9:11-12.