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and the south, springing out of the latter of these powers, for the supreme authority and the dominion over the Holy Land; the oppression that would fall on the saints of the Most High at the time of the end; the destruction of the last enemy under the stroke of divine judgment; and the completion of the kingdom of God, by the rising again from the dead of some to everlasting life, and of some to shame and everlasting contempt.
The book has commonly been divided into two parts, consisting of six chapters each (e.g., by Ros., Maur., Hävern., Hitz., Zündel, etc.). The first six are regarded as historical, and the remaining six as prophetical; or the first part is called the “book of history,” the second, the “book of visions.” But this division corresponds neither with the contents nor with the formal design of the book. If we consider the first chapter and its relation to the whole already stated, we cannot discern a substantial reason for regarding Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the image representing the monarchies (Daniel 2), which with its interpretation was revealed to Daniel in a night vision (Dan 2:19), as an historical narration, and Daniel's dream-vision of the four world-powers symbolized by ravenous beasts, which an angel interpreted to him, as a prophetic vision, since the contents of both chapters are essentially alike. The circumstance that in Daniel 2 it is particularly related how the Chaldean wise men, who were summoned by Nebuchadnezzar, could neither relate nor interpret the dream, and on that account were threatened with death, and were partly visited with punishment, does not entitle us to refuse to the dream and its contents, which were revealed to Daniel in a night vision, the character of a prophecy. In addition to this, Daniel 7, inasmuch as it is written in the Chaldee language and that Daniel speaks in it in the third person (Dan 7:1-2), naturally connects itself with the chapters preceding (Daniel 2-6), and separates itself from those which follow, in which Daniel speaks in the first person and uses the Hebrew language. On these grounds, we must, with Aub., Klief., and Kran., regard Daniel 2, which is written in Chaldee, as belonging to the first part of the book, viz., Daniel 2-7, and Daniel 8-12, which are written in Hebrew, as constituting the second part; and the propriety of this division we must seek to vindicate by an examination of the contents of both of the parts.
Kranichfeld (das Buch Daniel erklärt) thus explains the distinction between the two parts: - The first presents the successive development of the whole heathen world power, and its