Chapter 21 DANIEL
You will remember Daniel was deported with the first batch of captives and never saw his land again. Daniel lived seventy-years of life, but the book covers four-hundred-and-forty-years of future history. Daniel chapter-eleven happened two-hundred years after his death but it is accurate to the smallest detail. Daniel served as second in command to four kings, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius and Cyrus, which suggest he was a remarkable administrator as incoming kings rarely recognised previous officials. Daniel didn’t go back to Jerusalem, he could have done so in any of the three returning parties.
His writings are in two halves, the first half contains all the well known Sunday school stories. Chapters-one-to-six are written in the traditional Hebrew third person. Chapters-two-to-seven in Aramaic. In the second half, (chapters-eight-to-twelve), he writes in the first person of Aramaic, (I Daniel), then he reverts to Hebrew to finish the book. Historically you will remember ten tribes of Israel were taken to Assyria. When the Babylonians conquered Assyria they found themselves under much less strict travel rules and migrated to Babylon where the best trade could be done. Judah and Benjamin from the South were taken in three batches straight to Babylon. This allowed Israel and Judah to be reunited in accordance with the prophecy. Under this regime, Judah and Israel were further conquered by the Persians under Cyrus. Cyrus was a benevolent king and allowed the Israelis to return and rebuild Jerusalem. They went in three groups and came back in three groups. But not all came back. Many were content with their way of life under Cyrus and stayed. The three wise men of nativity fame were not Gentiles but part of those that remained and set up synagogues in that country. They were the ones checking scripture daily and saw the prophecy of the unusual star. You may remember in two-thousand-and-thirteen-AD, when persecution started again, Israel chartered secret flights from Sudan to rescue Jews and take them to Israel? These were the descendants of those who stayed.
The Book itself begins with Daniel’s life. As a prince in the royal household in Judah, he was deported around the age of seventeen. It is noticeable that he accepted his new name. There is little doubt as to what Belshazzar237 means it means ‘Baal protect the king’. Daniels new name Belteshazzar is far less clear and may mean ‘Baal protects the king’s treasurer’. But it is noticeable that even as a teenager he was a man of principle. He accepted the new name but refused the new diet. None-the-less his principles held true when later he was told to stop praying to his God and accept the king as a god. What the Babylonians were trying to do was immerse these captives in their own culture, so they become moulded in Babylonian ways. What Daniel understood is there had to be lines drawn to stop that happening.
In chapter-two, Daniel h
Figure 72: Daniel’s Vision
as a vision of a statue. We are give the interpretation: The head of Gold is Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylon empire which reigned from six-o-six-BC to five-thirty-nine-BC.
When Nebuchadnezzar heard the interpretation it went to his head, he built a sixty-foot high statue of himself overlayed in gold. Chapter-three tells how his advisers, out of jealousy of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, persuaded the king to see who was loyal to him by a decree demanding everyone worship the statue. The three refused and were cast into the furnace. Contrary to what I was taught in Sunday school, Daniel was not mentioned among them. Three were counted in and three counted out but a fourth appeared in the flames.
History tells us Nebuchadnezzar was a benevolent man and when some of the princess became homesick for the mountains, animals and trees of home, (Babylon was the flat and plain land on which Babel was built years before), he built a pyramid mountain, covered it in trees and established a zoo on top. This became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. His pride became insufferable until in chapter-four he has a dream, no doubt prompted by his achievement, in which he saw a tree laden with fruit and as tall as heaven chopped down to the stump. The interpretation was that the king would contract what we call “Lycanthropy syndrome” what the Greeks called “Lycos or wolf disease” and the Romans called “Versiphilis”. He would only be restored when he humbled himself and looked to the God of heaven. This he did and lived for a few more years proclaiming the God of heaven was the only God to be worshipped.
By chapter-five There is a gap and the Babylonian empire was about to be replaced by the Medo-Persians. Nebuchadnezzar had died and been succeeded by his son Nitocrus, But as he was out of the country for ten-years, so his son Belshazzar was acting for him. Belshazzar, thought it a great idea to draw all the captured temple treasures out of stock and use them in a great banquet. This set the scene for the writing on the wall story which was God’s declaration that his kingdom was over and the Persians would conquer them that very night.
In chapter-six we see another king, but Daniel is kept on as adviser, and anti-Semitism raises its head once again. King Darius divided the empire into one-hundred-and-twenty states under three governors of which Daniel was one. There was an uprising in the land and the other two governors blamed the Jews, so they used that as an excuse to go to the king and advised him to test loyalty of the people by having them pray to him only for thirty-days. The text makes it clear the target was Daniel, who carried on openly praying to his God and was placed in the lion’s den. But this backfired as not only was Daniel’s God made
Exclusive God, but Daniel was promoted over the other two Governors.
Chapter-eight gives more prophetic detail of the coming invasion of the bronze empire. The ram with two horns represents the Meads & Persians, who were one Country with two States. The goat was the Greeks whose emblem was a goat. Alexander the great known was known as “the goat”, he died aged forty-one having extended the empire as far as India. On his death, he divided the empire into four parts giving one to each of his generals. Cassandria was given Macedonia and Greece, Lysimachus had Turkey, Seleuceus had by far the largest section including Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan. Ptolemy was given Egypt. Seleuceus & Ptolemy were constantly fighting each other for land and power but Israel was in between the two, which sets the scene for the book of Nehemiah where they rebuilt the wall with one hand, while holding a sword in the other. Daniel saw it all before it happened in his vision. The Persian empire is now Iran and in nineteen-seventy-one, the Shah celebrated two-thousand-five-hundred years of Persian empire, rebuilding a reproduction of the grand gates and city. He invited leaders from all over the world to celebrate. During the festival he announced for himself a new title of “King of Kings”. He died in nineteen-seventy-four.
In chapters-nine-to-ten, Daniel, while reading the writings of Jeremiah, discovered they were to be in exile of their land for seventy-years. Daniel as the nation’s second in command and as head of the people of God, humbles himself and confesses the sins on behalf of the Israelites. God responded by sending a messenger to reassure him that at the end of that time they will go back and rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. Which they did under Nehemiah, but that is another book.
Chapter-ten, gives us an insight into the earthly conflicts for power and dominance. Earthly conflicts are matched by heavenly conflicts. God’s answer to Daniel was delayed by a spiritual war. Michael the angel was side tracked on his way to Daniel with his answer. Persia and Greece are clearly stated as a struggle of Principalities and Powers behind earthly kings over territory. Knowing that God heard Daniel’s prayer and sent reinforcements in the form of angels, should reinvigorate our prayer life even though they were delayed.
Here we need to see the word translated ‘weeks’ in our bible. It is the Hebrew word meaning ‘sevens’. It is used in other places such as ‘a time, two-times, and half-a-time’ which we take to mean three-and-a-half-years, not weeks. From the decree issued to let the exiles go back in Daniel chapter-nine238, Daniel gives a period of sixty-two-sevens from the time the people were permitted to go back and rebuild the temple to when Messiah should be cut off from the land of the living. Although the precise date of the decree is unclear, that time was up circa-thirty-AD. There can be no doubt that Daniel identified Jesus as the Messiah who was to be cut off.
After the 62 weeks, the chosen one will be killed. He will be gone. Then the people of the future leader will destroy the city and the holy place. That end will come like a flood. War will continue until the end. God has ordered that place to be completely destroyed.239
Chapters seven, eleven and twelve, are about the last days. Chapter-eleven shows the remarkable similarity to events leading up to both the first and second coming of Messiah. It is a very remarkable chapter in the role of prophesy. I rely on commentaries to tell me there are seven-hundred-and-thirty-five prophesies in Scripture. One-hundred-and-thirty-five of them are in these chapters.240 Chapter-seven, is solely concerned with events leading up to the second coming and therefore subject to a lot of speculation.
We must also stop off here a moment to check the promised seed line. Zechariah was the last king to sit on a throne of Judah and Messiah had not yet come. So is this the end of the line? No! We must back up a bit here to king Josiah. He was the king who came to the throne at the age of eight and was guided by the hand of the High Priest who had protected him from the assassination of Jezebel’s daughter. A few years later he gave the temple a spring-clean and found scriptures locked in a cupboard in the basement. Worship had still gone on through this time but it had become just music focused under the choirmaster, (or worship leader as we would say today). The priests simply carried out the ritual sacrifices. Jehoiakim died and the Babylonians left Zedekiah as the last puppet king to sit on the throne of Judah. But Zerubbabel was the line’s continuation.241 He was happily feasting at the kings table in accordance with the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah.
Figure 73: The promised seed in Exile
’On that day, says the Lord of Hosts, I will take you Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, my servant, and wear you like a signet ring; for it is you whom I have chosen. This is the word of the Lord of Hosts”"242
Thus says the Lord of hosts: Here is a man whose name is Branch for he shall branch out in this place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord … he shall bear royal honour, and shall be a priest and king with a peaceful understanding between the two " 243
Figure 75: Outline Joel
Figure 74: Ezekiel -where are we?
Figure 76: Daniel and the Exile
237 the king of Babylon
238 Daniel 9: 35-6
239 Daniel 9: 26.
240 For your own further study see http://www.ukapologetics.net/2danieltrue.html :
Also, https://revelationrevolution.org/daniel-chapter-11-35-45-commentary-every-prophecy-miraculously-fulfilled/
241 See page .
242 Haggai 2: 23.
243 Zechariah 6: 12–13