Connections between Daniel Eight and Daniel Nine

1. The command to Gabriel to make Daniel understand – Daniel 8:16; Daniel 9:22
2. The use of mareh in reference to the time portion of the vision – Daniel 8:26; 9:23
3. Gabriel’s command to “consider the vision.” – Daniel 9:23
4. The end of Gabriel’s talk matches, in subject, its resumption – Daniel 8:26; 9:23
5. The organization of the book, not chronologically, places the chapters next to each other.
Daniel did this for a reason.
6. The purpose of the revelation in Daniel 9 was to “seal up the vision.” What vision?
Gabriel assumes that Daniel will know.
7. Gabriel is the agent of communication in both chapters. These chapters are the only
chapters where he mentioned by name in the Old Testament. The announcement of the
birth of Jesus is the third and final place we find Gabriel in the Bible (in Luke 1).
8. The Aramaic word Kha-thak, ‘determined’ in Daniel 9:24, --literally means “cut off.” It
is a time period. From what is it “cut off”? From another time period. Where is there
another time period for it to be cut off from? Only Daniel 7:25 and 8:14. But the former
has no apparent relation
9. The period of 2300 days in Daniel 8:14 has no beginning point; nothing to mark its
origin. Now the 70 weeks provide the needed beginning date necessary for explaining the
vision. Who gives the beginning date? Gabriel. Who was commanded to explain the
vision? Gabriel.
10. The subject matter of the Daniel’s prayer in chapter 9 shows that he was thinking about
Daniel 8, praying about Daniel 8, and that he didn’t understand Daniel 8. Gabriel came
in answer to his prayer, so presumably would be explaining Daniel 8. In Daniel 9 the
prophet is (A) Thinking about the sanctuary (v. 17), (B) Thinking of the sanctuary as
being desolate as a result of God’s curse (v. 15-17), (C) Thinking about time prophecies
in relation to the restoring of Jerusalem (v. 2), (D) Was concerned about a possible delay
in the fulfillment of that prophecy (v. 20, “defer not”). Daniel 9 happened about 538 BC,
in the first year of Darius. The Seventy years were about due to be over (they had
started about 606 BC)! Yet Daniel had seen a vision that seemed to put off the restoring
the temple for a number of years beyond the ascension of Persia (compare 8:1,14,20,21).

Yet men say that there is no connection between these prophecies, that our effort to connect them is
vain. Do they mean that the 70 weeks are cut off from nothing? Or that the 2300 days have no event
to mark their beginning? Of that the order of Daniel’s chapters is random? Or that Gabriel is
mentioned in these chapters alone for no reason? Or that the vision to be considered in Daniel 9 was
Daniel 9 itself? That the subject of time ending the prophecy in chapter eight and introducing that in
nine, is coincidental? That the purpose of the 70 weeks was to seal “itself”? Or that Gabriel never
finished the job he was given to do in chapter eight? And that he that ignores all these connections is
a more carefully exegete of the passage than he that notices them? If yes, the reader must answer for
himself in the judgment for his conclusions.