Daniel 8:16
And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision.
By the Ulai a man's voice came from between its banks commanding Gabriel to make Daniel understand the vision, thereby appointing Gabriel as the messenger to convey instruction to the prophet. That explanation at the time was only partial and did not complete the charge. Daniel remained astonished and without full understanding, overwhelmed by what was shown concerning persecution until he became ill, and it was said that no one understood the vision. Even Daniel himself did not fully understand these things.
The part left unexplained was the time element, the period of the 2,300 days and especially its starting point. The commission was not abandoned but continued, and Gabriel later returned to give Daniel skill and understanding and to explain that omitted point of time. That further explanation was given in chapter 9. The prophetic periods of chapters 8 and 9 are reckoned from 457 B.C. as the proper starting point for their calculation.
The little horn of the vision is Rome, not Antiochus Epiphanes, its symbols and specifications meeting their fulfillment in Rome's historical record. The vision belongs with the prophecies of chapters 7 to 12 revealing the mysteries of ages to come. Its light was especially for the last days, ordered to be shut up and sealed even to the time of the end, and its foretold events are now being fulfilled and will soon come to pass. Daniel was directed to go his way till the end, with the assurance that he would rest and stand again in his lot and place at the end of the days in the closing period of this world's history.