the watchers
Daniel 4:17
4:17 the watchers. These “watchers” are mentioned in the Bible only in this chapter (Daniel 4:13,17,23). They are evidently synonymous with “the holy ones” who have come “down from heaven.” They seem to represent a certain category of angels, dispatched in this case to bring disciplinary judgment on the presumptuous king Nebuchadnezzar. They are mentioned frequently in the apocryphal books of Enoch and Jubilees, where they appear to refer intermittently both to God’s holy angels and also to certain fallen angels. Although we cannot see them, we need to know they are there, directly concerned at least with “watching” events on earth (I Peter 1:12; Ephesians 3:10; Psalm 34:7, etc.).