Daniel 9:23 — The Message and the Picture

The English word “vision” appears again and again in Daniel 8 and 9, but Daniel wrote two different Hebrew words.

Chazon is a message from Yahuah to a prophet. “The vision of Isaiah” (Isaiah 1:1). “The vision is yet for an appointed time” (Habakkuk 2:3). A chazon is something told, and it has a time.

Mareh is what something looks like. Sarai was “fair to look upon” (Genesis 12:11). Moses turned aside to see “this great sight” (Exodus 3:3). A mareh is something seen with the eyes.

Daniel was given both. The message was for “the time of the end” (Daniel 8:17). The picture was right in front of him: a ram, a goat, a horn, and “the evening and the morning” (8:26). He saw every part of it plainly, yet he wrote, “I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it” (8:27). The word there is mareh. He saw the picture and did not know what it meant.

So Gabriel came back with one instruction: “understand the matter, and consider the vision” (9:23), and again the word is mareh. He explained the picture with the seventy weeks, and at their center stands one event: “shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself” (9:26). The explanation of the picture led to the Messiah.

Isaiah uses the same word for Him: “his visage [mareh] was so marred more than any man” (Isaiah 52:14).

Daniel was told the message was for many days (Daniel 8:26). John was told the opposite: “Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand” (Revelation 22:10).