Daniel 8:27
And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days; afterward I rose up, and did the king’s business; and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it. And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days; afterward I rose up, and did the king’s business; and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it.
Daniel 8:27 closes a further vision of future events received directly from God in the third year of Belshazzar, about 553 B.C. In that vision the ram represents Medo-Persia, the goat represents Greece, and the little horn represents Rome, not Antiochus Epiphanes. Rome would arise after the four divisions of Alexander's empire, grow powerful toward the east and south, persecute God's people, oppose Jesus, and finally be broken without human intervention.
Gabriel had given only a partial interpretation, explaining the other parts but leaving the 2,300-day prophetic time period unexplained. He said the vision concerned many days in the distant future, and Daniel could bear only what had then been revealed. The unfinished charge to explain it was taken up later in Daniel 9.
The revelation, especially of coming persecution, overwhelmed Daniel so that he fainted and was sick for several days. Afterward he rose up and did the king's business, while remaining astonished at the vision with none understanding it. Daniel was filled with perplexity and earnest seeking because he could not understand how Jeremiah's seventy years of captivity related to the twenty-three hundred years to elapse before the cleansing of God's sanctuary. He mistakenly thought the 2,300 days ended with the seventy years.
That misunderstanding led him to pray for God to restore favor to Jerusalem and its desolate sanctuary. Daniel himself did not fully understand the prophecies given through him in Daniel 7-12, for it was not given him to understand all that God had revealed. They were to be shut up and sealed even to the time of the end and belong to the closing period of this world's history, though he was given assurance that after resting he would stand in his lot and place at the end of the days.
The vision was given especially for the last days, its foretold events are in process of fulfillment and will soon come to pass. As a warning about the far future it was reflected in the judgments witnessed at San Francisco and directed to the people of Oakland.