Wesley Corpus

Set me upright - By one touch only. The power of spirits is incomparably greater than that of the strongest of men. The indignation - God will raise up Antiochus to execute his wrath against the Jews for their sins, yet there shall be an end of that indignation. In the latter time - When they were come to the height, and beginning to decline. When the transgressors - When the Jews were grown to an excess of wickedness, then God suffered Antiochus to persecute them. Dark sentences - Full of subtilty: such all histories declare Antiochus to be. Not by his own power - Not by any heroick deeds, but by making use of the Jewish factions, through the divine commission to punish a backsliding nation; and by means of Eumenes and Attalus, by whose help he got up to this height. Shall destroy - He shall by force, craft, and cruelty, destroy many of God's people. By peace - Under colour of kindness. Against the prince of princes - He fought against God, affronting God's laws, profaning God's worship, and temple, and setting up the image and worship of Jupiter there. Without hand - By a disease whereof he died, 1Macc 6:8. Shut thou up - Lay it up in thy heart. For many days - Three hundred years after this; long after Daniel's days. Was sick - Being overwhelmed by a sense of the calamity that should befall the people of God. Did the king's business - Having recovered strength, he minded his place, duty and trust, and concealed the whole, that they might not see it by his countenance.