In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon
Daniel having finished the historical part of his book, and
committed to writing what was necessary concerning himself and
his three companions, and concerning Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar,
and Darius the Mede, proceeds to the prophetic part, and goes
back to the first year of Belshazzar's reign, seventeen years
before his death, and the fall of the Babylonish monarchy last
mentioned; for so long Belshazzar reigned, according to Josephus
F21; and with which agrees the canon of
Ptolemy, who ascribes so many years to the reign of Nabonadius,
the same, with Belshazzar: he began to reign, according to Bishop
Usher F23, Dean Prideaux F24, and
Mr, Whiston F25, in the year of the world 3449
A.M., and 555 B.C.; and in the first year of his reign Daniel had
the dream of the four monarchies, as follows: Daniel had a
dream:
as Nebuchadnezzar before had, concerning the same things, the
four monarchies of the world, and the kingdom of Christ, only
represented in a different manner: or, "saw a dream" F26; in
his dream he had a vision, and objects were presented to his
fancy as if he really saw them, as follows: and visions of
his head came upon his bed;
as he lay upon his bed, and deep sleep was fallen on him, things
in a visionary way were exhibited to him very wonderful and
surprising, and which made strong impressions upon him:
then he wrote the dream:
awaking out of his sleep, and perfectly remembering the dream he
had dreamed, and recollecting the several things he had seen in
it; that they might not be lost, but transmitted to posterity for
their use and benefit, he immediately committed them to writing:
and told the sum of the matters;
the whole of what he had dreamt and seen; or however the sum and
substance of it, the more principal parts of it, the most
interesting things in it, and of the greatest importance: when it
was daylight, and he rose from his bed, and went out of his
chamber, he called his friends together, and told them by word of
mouth what he had seen in his dream the night past; or read what
he had written of it, which was as follows: