And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaved, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.
The versions do not present much of note in, Daniel 7:25, save that the Greek versions imply that dominion over all is given to the oppressors. Throughout the Septuagint has traces of explanatory expansion.
He shall speak words against the Most High. The word "against," letzad, is really "to the side of." This clause may refer to blasphemy against God, but more naturally refers to self-exaltation to a place alongside of God.
Shall wear out the saints of the Most High. Persecute them, or maintain war against them; the natural meaning of the word is "afflict." And shall think to change times and laws. It ought not to be "laws," in the plural, but "law."
It may refer to the marked changes introduced into the calendar by Julius Caesar. Certainly the law or constitution of the Roman state was changed by him. And they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
Who shall be given into his hands? It is usually assumed that it is the saints; hut the LXX. asserts that it is universal dominion that is given into the hands of the oppressors. We have no right to assume that ‛iddan, "a time," means "a year;" it is really any defined time.
Certainly it does approximate to the time during which the temple was polluted with heathen offerings; but it also coincides with equal accuracy to the campaigns of Vespasian and Titus against the Jews.
Vespasian landed in Galilee in the beginning of a.d. 67, and Jerusalem fell on September 5, a.d. 70. There was thus, approximately, three years and a half occupied by this war. But "centuries" might also be meant.
From the birth of our Lord, on whom the oppression was first exercised, till the accession of Constantine, was three centuries and a portion of a century. The judgment shall sit. Not necessarily the last judgment, but the evil that is being done comes before God for judgment.
The taking away of the kingdom and dominion is immediately at the end of the period indicated by "a time and times and a dividing of time." The dominion was not taken away from Epiphanes then, nor from Vespasian; it did, however, pass from the heathenish empire when Constantine ascended the throne.
At the same time, any such purely limited explanation is against the whole symbolic character of this vision. It is a period of time measured by "seven" halves. The times may receive their definition, not from the calendar, but from their spiritual import or dynamic content.
The three years of our Lord's ministry is of more moment for the history of the race than all the millennia that preceded it.