Magnified itself: see verse 4 above. The image here is one of defiance of a superior authority. The goat showed utter contempt and lack of respect for the Almighty by open rebellion against him. New Jerusalem Bible translates “it even challenged the power of the Prince,” and New English Bible/Revised English Bible has “it aspired to be as great as the Prince.”
The Prince of the host: this is sometimes understood as referring to the high priest Onias III, the leader of God’s people, who was murdered during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes in 171 B.C. But it is much more likely that it refers to the ultimate leader of the heavenly army, who is none other than God himself. However, if possible, translators should try to maintain the imagery in the text. In some cases this will mean saying something like “God, the chief of the heavenly army” or “God, the leader of the forces in heaven.”
The text then gives two ways in which contempt was shown for the heavenly authority. First, the regular sacrifices that were to be offered to God were stopped. And secondly, the Temple, the house of God, was defiled.
The continual burnt offering was taken away from him: this is the usual reading of the text, but a different tradition is indicated in the margin of some manuscripts. The essential meaning of the two readings is the same; however, it will not be possible in some languages to reproduce the passive construction of Revised Standard Version. It is probably best to make the goat the subject of all three of the verbs in this verse, to render accurately its meaning: (1) it opposed the leader of the heavenly army; (2) it put a stop to the daily sacrifices to God; and (3) it brought disgrace on the Temple itself.
The place of his sanctuary was overthrown: this is a veiled reference to the profaning of the Temple in 167 B.C., when Antiochus Epiphanes set up the “Awful Horror” in the sanctuary at Jerusalem (11.31 Good News Translation). This was a statue or some sort of representation of the Olympian god Zeus. And an attempt was made to get everyone to worship this deity. The translation should be clear enough to allow the reader to understand the scandalous intervention of the “new horn” but without going into historical details. Since, however, the temple was not destroyed but only profaned, the meaning is something like “defiled the temple,” “opened the temple to the public,” “made the temple unholy,” or “put an end to true worship.” Good News Translation “ruined” may be intentionally ambiguous.
Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René & Ellington, John. A Handbook on Daniel. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .