The Prophets
Daniel
Written from inside the palace of the empire that destroyed Jerusalem — and the one book in the Old Testament that gives a timetable for the coming of the Messiah.
As we come to study this book we are again dealing with the captivity of the Jews in Babylon.
In my visions during the night, I saw among the clouds in heaven someone like the Son of Man. He came to the Ancient One, who has lived for endless years, and was presented to him. He was given power, honor, and a kingdom. People from every province, nation, and language were to serve him. His power is an eternal power that will not be taken away. His kingdom will never be destroyed.
Daniel 7:13–14 · God’s Word
This is the passage Jesus quotes at His trial, when the high priest asks Him directly whether He is the Christ. Everyone in that room knew what He was claiming.
At the end of the seven time periods, I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked up to heaven, and my mind came back to me… Everyone who lives on earth is nothing compared to him. He does whatever he wishes with the army of heaven and with those who live on earth. There is no one who can oppose him or ask him, “What are you doing?”
Daniel 4:34–35 · God’s Word
The most powerful man alive says it himself, in his own words, in a chapter he appears to have written: his mind came back to him at the moment he looked up. Sanity and worship arrive together.
The shape of the book
Movement one · Chapters 1–6 · A captive in the court, and four kings who learn who rules
1:1-21 Daniel placed in the court of Babylon and raised to power. He would have been educated in languages, history, geography, sciences and, also, “the language of the Chaldeans” — a dead language known only to the wise men. Note Daniel’s refusal to eat the food in the court of Babylon. His reasons would be:
- The food would be unclean according to the covenant laws of Leviticus 11.
- The animals would not be killed according to Levitical Law (Lev. 17:10).
- The food had been first offered to idols, and to eat of it would involve the worship of the patron god.
2:1 – 4:9 Nebuchadnezzar’s dream interpreted. Compare this dream with chapter 7:1-14. In these two visions Daniel sees the unfolding purposes of God over the following centuries. The nations will rise and fall, but God’s purpose shall be achieved. Realize the hope these words give. The covenant people (those bound to God by His binding promise) are in captivity. All of God’s promises to them seem to have been forgotten through the disobedience of the people. But Daniel announces that God’s purpose will come to pass in spite of them. In order to make the heathen world aware of His purposes, God gives a dream to a heathen king and has a covenant Hebrew interpret it. The visions of chapter 2 and chapter 7 fit together. Chapter 2 is a panorama of world history as seen from a human point of view — as precious metals. Chapter 7 shows us the same nations from God’s viewpoint — as vicious beasts.
The following comparison should be helpful:
| Chapter 2 — as metals | Chapter 7 — as beasts | Empire |
|---|---|---|
| The head of gold | the winged lion | Babylon |
| The breast of silver | the bear | Medo-Persia |
| Belly and thighs of brass | winged leopard | Greece |
| The legs of iron and feet of clay | the monster | Rome |
Each empire was swallowed up by its successor. Each conqueror absorbed something of the conquered; and so by the time Rome ruled the world, it had within it the elements of all the empires gone before. In the days of the fourth empire there appears a kingdom that is quite apart from all the other kingdoms. It comes from the outside. it is “cut without hands” — i.e. the work of God, untouched by human hands. The kingdom is unconquerable and eternal, set over against the temporal kingdoms of the world that were conquered and absorbed. The Person of the stone is crowned in 7:13,14. These verses can only be understood in the light of Genesis 49:10, and II Samuel 7. This One is the long awaited covenant King. 3:1-30 Three Hebrews delivered from the furnace 4:1-37 Nebuchadnezzar’s dream relating to his insanity 5:1-30 Feast of Belshazzar and overthrow of Babylon 5:31 – 6:28 Daniel thrown to the lions
Movement two · Chapters 7–12 · The visions, and the question “when?”
7:1–28 · The four beasts. The same four empires as the statue of chapter 2, seen now from God’s side. The comparison is in the table above.
8:1–27 · The ram and the goat. These visions describe the history of Persia and Greece that follows — a vital time in preparing the world for the birth of Jesus.
Daniel’s prayer, and the answer that was larger than it
Daniel had been reading Jeremiah, who had said the exile would last seventy years (Jeremiah 25:11–12; 29:10). Daniel could count, and the seventy years were nearly up. So chapter 9 opens with one of the great prayers of Scripture. It is akin to the prayer the high priest made over the sin offering on the Day of Atonement, the yearly day of national cleansing from sin: Daniel is not asking for a calendar to be honoured, he is begging forgiveness now that the appointed time of judgment is over.
The answer is larger than the question. They would return, and Jerusalem would be rebuilt at the end of the seventy years. But beyond that lay a further period, described as seventy units of seven, before the longing behind the prayer would be answered. That is the prophecy of 9:24–27, and it is substantially what Jeremiah had already said in the new covenant passage.
What the seventy units are for
There has been much discussion over the meaning of this cryptic prophecy. The way into it is not the arithmetic but the six things verse 24 says will be finished when the count is over:
- To finish or restrain the transgression. The idea in the Hebrew is that sin so long blatant and open before the eyes of God will be regarded as no longer existing.
- To make an end of sin. The word here indicates a taking away of sin, removing it out of sight.
- To make atonement for iniquity. The phrase can be better rendered “to make reconciliation, or to expiate iniquity, or to pardon iniquity.” Behind it is the thought that the necessary sacrifice has finally been made. It goes without saying that Jesus accomplished this in His death (Hebrews 9:26).
- To bring in everlasting righteousness. God would give His righteousness, causing the sinner to be right with Him. (Tsidkenu)
- To seal up the vision and prophecy. All the prophecies would be fulfilled and so sealed up, no longer waiting fulfilment.
- Anointing the most holy. Christ is the most holy, and the anointing refers to His being made manifest to accomplish all that was written of Him.
All of this was to be accomplished at the end of the seventy units of seven.
The units of seven
It is generally agreed that a unit stands for a year (Ezekiel 4:5), which puts the end of the count four hundred ninety years from where it begins. It divides into three unequal parts:
- Seven units of seven — forty-nine years
- Sixty-two units of seven — four hundred thirty-four years
- One unit of seven — seven years
Forty-nine, four hundred thirty-four and seven come to four hundred ninety.
The count begins with the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem (Daniel 1:21; Ezra 1:1–4), which the prophets had named in advance (Isaiah 44:28; 45:13). Sixty-nine of the units — four hundred eighty-three years — would pass before Messiah is revealed, and in all that time, apart from Jerusalem being rebuilt in troubled days, nothing of the kind happened. We place the revealing of the Messiah at His baptism by John; note Luke 3:1, with its careful detail about who was ruling what. A new era is about to begin.
9:26. After His revealing the Messiah was to be cut off — an expression for violent death, used of the death penalty. As a result of His being cut off the city and the sanctuary would be destroyed, and that came in A.D. 70.
9:27. The cutting off falls in the middle of the last unit of seven. If a unit is a year, that puts it three and a half years from when He was revealed, which is the length of the ministry of Jesus. The expression usually translated “make a firm covenant” is better rendered “confirm a firm covenant”: the covenant that had waited since Abraham, and that Jeremiah had lately described in detail, would finally be confirmed, ratified and fulfilled. His being cut off would cause all sacrifice to cease — in the death of Jesus the Old Testament sacrifices found their fulfilment and had no more usefulness.
We are given no details about the last half of that seven. It may be that some three and a half years after the death and resurrection Stephen was stoned and Saul became a Christian, and the gospel began to go to the nations. That is offered as speculation, not as reading.
The end of verse 27 is difficult. When Christ made sacrifice to cease, what carried on in the temple became an abomination, an act of defiance refusing Him as the only sacrifice; and desolation follows, finalised in the destruction of A.D. 70.
10:1 – 11:1 · The visit of the divine messenger.
11:2 – 12:3 · Various prophecies — the rise and the wars of the kingdoms that came after Alexander.
12:4–13 · The conclusion of the visions.
Daniel, and the wise men from the east
One more thing is worth putting beside this book, and it belongs at the end of it.
Nebuchadnezzar did not merely give Daniel high office. He made him “governor of the whole province of Babylon and head of all Babylon’s wise advisers” (Daniel 2:48). Daniel was put in charge of the scholarly class of Babylon — the astronomers and interpreters, whose successors under Persia were still there centuries later.
And among the writings that class would have held is Daniel 9:24–27, which does something no other Old Testament prophecy does. It gives a timetable for the coming of Messiah, counted in sets of seven from a datable decree.
Centuries later, “wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem” asking where the one born king of the Jews was, saying they had seen his star rising (Matthew 2:1–2). They came from the east, which is where Daniel lived and died. They were wise men, which is what his own office had made him head of. They knew roughly when to look, which is the one thing Daniel 9 supplies. And they went straight to Jerusalem, which is the logical place to look for a new king of the Jews.
Scripture does not join those dots for us, so this is an inference and not a doctrine. But it is a reasonable one, and it makes the wise men something other than a decoration on a Christmas card. It makes them the last recorded readers of Daniel — men who took his book seriously enough to travel.