In the absence of a good commentary on Daniel, the average Christian has either tried to understand the book by means of some ill-founded scheme of prophetic interpretation or, too often, simply abandoned any attempt to grasp its message. Yet Daniel is altogether too important to be so treated. Without the revelation which its pages contain, we lack some of the most magnificent demonstrations of God’s rule in history as well as several far-reaching disclosures of the kingdom which is to conquer all. Edward J. Young attained to his high reputation as Professor of Old Testament at Westminster Seminary as the result of the many gifts with which he was endowed. These are soon apparent in this present work. The finer points of Hebrew and Aramaic, the literature of earlier commentators on Daniel, and the history of the ancient world – all these are departments of knowledge which he is well able to employ. But Dr. Young’s overruling purpose is simply to give – for the use of ministers and for every serious reader of the Word of God – the accurate sense of the text. The Scriptures themselves must speak. In his estimation, therefore, faith in Scripture is the prerequisite for the true commentator. Over against a commonly held view, he makes it plain that in the interpretation of Daniel the issue is not between unintelligent obscurantism and scientific scholarship; it is rather between a believing scholarship and a skeptical rationalism. ‘The people that do know their God shall be strong’, wrote Daniel. It was not as a learned exegete but as a humble pupil in the school of God that E. J. Young taught the Scriptures until his death in 1968. His commentary on Daniel is a valuable part of his legacy to the church.
