NOTES for Dan 8:1-14
The language of prophecy is as strange as, probably, the visions themselves that the prophet Daniel saw. When something incomprehensible and mysterious is described in concrete and intelligible words, its symbols, signs, times, and seasons form a picture that can be applied to almost anything. The pagan world regarded the interpretation of visions as a special gift. Magicians and priests were given special power over people if they provided, on demand, a detailed account of the future. But the prophet of the One God is not like that. Having seen something, he does not understand what it means, and in order to understand he turns to God, who gives him the ability both to comprehend and to express what he has seen.