John Chrysostom — Commentary on Scripture

Daniel 8:9

And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.

As Josephus told the story, Daniel saw a smaller horn rise up from these, and it grew strong. God, who showed Daniel the vision, was telling him that war would come on his nation, that Jerusalem would be taken by storm, the temple would be pillaged, the sacrifices would be hindered and cut short, and this would last for 1, days.

Daniel 9:3

And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes:

What will you say, Daniel? You are among the good; you enjoy honor before God and people; why do you concern yourself with the others? But Moses also acted the same way. And what does he say? “He asked for the things that were due with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.” Why did he do that, if what he was asking was due the Israelites? He did it so that he might not make them unworthy of this. For there is no compulsion that can be applied to God; he is above all laws. He did this “to seek in prayer and petition.”

Daniel 9:8

O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee.

Daniel was despondent and in pain. It was not merely the present troubles alone that bothered him but also the troubles to come, since he had not yet been allowed to learn those things through his prophetic eyes. When he saw that the Jews had not yet been freed from their earlier servitude, he was compelled to see another captivity falling on them, and he saw the city that had not yet been rebuilt being captured again. He saw the temple defiled by sacrifices and made desolate and the Holy of Holies overturned.

Daniel 10:16

And, behold, one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips: then I opened my mouth, and spake, and said unto him that stood before me, O my lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have retained no strength.

Let those Anomoeans listen who, out of curiosity, are investigating into the essence of the Lord of angels. Daniel, to whom the eyes of the lions showed reverence, Daniel, who had a more than human power in his human body, could not endure the presence of his fellow servant but lay on the ground before the angel and could not breathe. For he said, “My bowels were turned within me at what I saw, and no breath was left in me.” But these Anomoeans, who are so far removed from the virtue of that just man, profess to know with all exactness the highest and first of essences, the very essence of God, who has created myriads of these angels. And yet Daniel did not have the strength to look on a single one of them.

Daniel 11:31

And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.

Daniel then went on to show that Antiochus destroyed the Jewish commonwealth and way of life when he said, And through him the sacrifice was disordered by transgression.

Daniel 11:32

And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.

He means the events in the time of the Maccabees: Judas, Simon and John.

Daniel 11:35

And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.

Daniel gave the reason why God permitted them to be involved in such trials. What is the reason? “To purge them, to choose them and to make them white until the time of the end” … so as to cleanse them and to show who among them was genuine and approved.

Daniel 12:11

And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.

Next, in predicting the length of time these evils would last, Daniel’s angel said, “From the time of the changing of the continuity.” The daily sacrifice was called the continuity, for what is continuous is frequent and unceasing. And among the Jews it was customary to offer sacrifice to God in the evening and about dawn each day; this is why they called that daily sacrifice a continuity. But when Antiochus came, he completely did away with this practice.

Daniel 12:12

Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.

The conflict lasted a month and a half, and in that time the victory became complete, as did also the deliverance of the Jews from the evils that weighed heavy on them. And when he said, “Blessed is the one who stands firm 1, days,” he revealed their deliverance. He did not simply say, “the one who attains,” but “the one who stands firm and attains.” The reason for this is that many of the unholy ones saw the change, but he does not call them happy; he calls blessed only those who gave witness during the time of troubles, who did not desert their religion and who then found abatement of their ills.

Daniel 13:56

Ham receives the sentence so that he might come to his senses, and he is punished through his son, so that you would learn that even if one is old, the punishment will pass to the child. And this makes his life bitter and painful, knowing that even after his death his son will be punished for what he did. And that the son will be miserable from birth and all his descendants detestable and inclined to evil is what the Scripture says instead of pronouncing a curse: “Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.” And elsewhere it says scornfully, “offspring of Canaan and not of Judah.”

Deuteronomy 4:33

Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?

“You have never seen his face.” Yet Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and many others say that they have seen him. What is it, therefore, that Christ meant here? He was introducing them to a philosophical teaching, showing gradually that with regard to God there is neither voice nor outward appearance; he is superior to such forms and sounds. Just as by saying, “You have never heard his voice,” he did not mean that God utters sound but is not heard, so by saying, “You have never seen his face,” he did not mean that God has outward form but cannot be seen. Neither sound nor form exists with regard to God. Indeed, in order that they might not say, “You are making a display of knowledge in vain, since God spoke only to Moses” (they actually did say, “We know that God spoke to Moses; but as for this man, we do not know where he is from”), he spoke in this way to show that with regard to God there is neither voice nor outward appearance.

Deuteronomy 6:4

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:

“What then?” one may say. “Were they wronged who lived before his coming?” By no means, for men might then be saved even though they had not confessed Christ. For this was not required of them, but not to worship idols and to know the true God. “For the Lord your God,” it is said, “is one Lord.” Therefore the Maccabees were admired, because for the observance of the law they suffered what they did suffer; and the three children, and many others too among the Jews, having shown forth a very virtuous life and having maintained the standard of this their knowledge, had nothing more required of them. For then it was sufficient for salvation, as I have said already, to know God only, but now it is so no more. There is need also of the knowledge of Christ.

Deuteronomy 8:10

When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.

Do you see how it is especially appropriate after the enjoyment of food to set a spiritual meal for yourself lest the soul, after satiety of bodily food, should lose its zest and fall into some disaster and make way for the wiles of the devil, who is always looking for an opportunity and anxious to deliver us a blow at a critical moment?

Deuteronomy 32:15 · 3 passages

But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

For we have continuous need for a curb to keep us walking straight on the path, since even the Jews wandered from the path and drew down upon themselves the anger of heaven. When they enjoyed considerable ease and had become free after their harsh bondage in Egypt, they should have given greater thanks and been more eager to offer their praise to the Master. They should have been better disposed toward him who had bestowed such benefits upon them. But they did quite the opposite and were ruined by the ease which was theirs in abundance. On this account the Holy Scripture accuses them and says, “Jacob ate his fill; the darling became fat and frisky.”

One must not so much admire those saints who in the height of sorrow were so pious and lovers of wisdom as those who, even when the turbulence subsided and tranquility ensued, remained in the same goodness and earnestness.

“They ate” and drank “and kicked.” When fed with their manna, they ought not to have asked for luxury, seeing they had known the evils which proceed from it. And they acted precisely as if a free child, when sent to school, should ask to be reckoned with the slaves and to wait on them. So did these people also in seeking Egypt. While receiving all needful sustenance, such as becomes a free person, and already sitting at his father’s table, he still has a longing for the ill-savored and noisy one of the servants.

Ecclesiastes 1:2

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

What is vanity of mind? It is the being busied about vain things. And what are those vain things, but all things in the present life? Of them the Preacher says, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” But a person will say, If they be vain and vanity, for what purpose were they made? If they are God’s works, how are they vain? And great is the dispute concerning these things. But listen, beloved: it is not the works of God that he calls vain; God forbid! The heaven is not vain, the earth is not vain—God forbid!—nor the sun, nor the moon and stars, nor our own body. No, all these are “very good.” But what is vain? Let us hear the Preacher himself, what he says: “I planted vineyards, I got men singers and women singers, I made pools of water, I had great possessions of herds and flocks, I gathered me also silver and gold, and I saw that these are vanity.”

Ecclesiastes 2:4 · 3 passages

I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards:

“Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity.” Hear also what the prophet says, “He heaps up riches and knows not who shall gather them.” Such is “vanity of vanities,” your splendid buildings, your vast and overflowing riches, the herds of slaves that bustle along the public square, your pomp and vainglory, your high thoughts and your ostentation. For all these are vain; they came not from the hand of God but are of our own creating. But why then are they vain? Because they have no useful end. Riches are vain when they are spent upon luxury; but they cease to be vain when they are “dispersed and given to the needy.”

Hear what Solomon says, who knew the present world by actual experience. “I built houses, I planted vineyards, I made gardens, and orchards and pools of water. I gathered also silver and gold. I got myself men singers and women singers, and flocks and herds.” There was no one who lived in greater luxury or higher glory. There was no one so wise or so powerful, no one who saw all things so succeeding to his heart’s desire. What then? He had no enjoyment from all these things. What after all does he say of it himself? “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Vanity not simply but superlatively. Let us believe him, and lay hold on that in which there is no vanity, in which there is truth; and what is based upon a solid rock, where there is no old age or decline but all things bloom and flourish, without decay, or waxing old, or approaching dissolution. Let us, I beseech you, love God with genuine affection, not from fear of hell but from desire of the kingdom. For what is comparable to seeing Christ? Surely nothing! What to the enjoyment of those good things? Surely nothing! Well may there…

Hear what Solomon says, who knew the present world by actual experience. “I built houses, I planted vineyards, I made gardens, and orchards and pools of water. I gathered also silver and gold. I got myself men singers and women singers, and flocks and herds.” There was no one who lived in greater luxury or higher glory. There was no one so wise or so powerful, no one who saw all things so succeeding to his heart’s desire. What then? He had no enjoyment from all these things. What after all does he say of it himself? “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Vanity not simply but superlatively. Let us believe him, and lay hold on that in which there is no vanity, in which there is truth; and what is based upon a solid rock, where there is no old age or decline but all things bloom and flourish, without decay, or waxing old, or approaching dissolution. Let us, I beseech you, love God with genuine affection, not from fear of hell but from desire of the kingdom. For what is comparable to seeing Christ? Surely nothing! What to the enjoyment of those good things? Surely nothing! Well may there be nothing [comparable]; for “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him.”

Serve God with tears, that you may be able to wash away your sins. I know that many mock us, saying, “Shed tears.” Therefore it is a time for tears. I know also that they are disgusted, who say, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” It is not I that say it, but he who had had the experience of all things says thus: “I built for me houses, I planted vineyards, I made me pools of water, [I had] men servants and women servants.” And what then after all these things? “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”Let us mourn therefore, beloved, let us mourn in order that we may laugh indeed, that we may rejoice indeed in the time of unmixed joy. For with this joy [here] grief is altogether mingled, and never is it possible to find it pure. But that is simple and undeceiving joy: it has nothing treacherous, nor any admixture.