7:8 “As I was contemplating the horns, another horn – a small one – came up between them, and three of the former horns were torn out by the roots to make room for it. 1 This horn had eyes resembling human eyes and a mouth speaking arrogant 2 things.
7:11 “Then I kept on watching because of the arrogant words of the horn that was speaking. I was watching 3 until the beast was killed and its body destroyed and thrown into 4 the flaming fire.
7:23 “This is what he told me: 5
‘The fourth beast means that there will be a fourth kingdom on earth
that will differ from all the other kingdoms.
It will devour all the earth
and will trample and crush it.
8:9 From one of them came a small horn. 6 But it grew to be very big, toward the south and the east and toward the beautiful land. 7 8:10 It grew so big it reached the army 8 of heaven, and it brought about the fall of some of the army and some of the stars 9 to the ground, where it trampled them. 8:11 It also acted arrogantly against the Prince of the army, 10 from whom 11 the daily sacrifice was removed and whose sanctuary 12 was thrown down.
1 tn Aram “were uprooted from before it.”
2 tn Aram “great.” So also in vv. 11, 20.
3 tc The LXX and Theodotion lack the words “I was watching” here. It is possible that these words in the MT are a dittography from the first part of the verse.
4 tn Aram “and given over to” (so NRSV).
5 tn Aram “thus he said.”
6 sn This small horn is Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who controlled the Seleucid kingdom from ca. 175-164
7 sn The expression the beautiful land (Heb. הַצֶּבִי [hatsÿvi] = “the beauty”) is a cryptic reference to the land of Israel. Cf. 11:16, 41, where it is preceded by the word אֶרֶץ (’erets, “land”).
8 tn Traditionally, “host.” The term refers to God’s heavenly angelic assembly, which he sometimes leads into battle as an army.
9 sn In prescientific Israelite thinking the stars were associated with the angelic members of God’s heavenly assembly. See Judg 5:20; Job 38:7; Isa 40:26. In west Semitic mythology the stars were members of the high god’s divine assembly (see Isa 14:13).
10 sn The prince of the army may refer to God (cf. “whose sanctuary” later in the verse) or to the angel Michael (cf. 12:1).
11 tn Or perhaps “and by him,” referring to Antiochus rather than to God.
12 sn Here the sanctuary is a reference to the temple of God in Jerusalem.