THE LAST MESSAGE of DANIEL
OPENING COMMENTS
Many have discovered and written of the following matters. I have even delved into Daniel a couple of times myself, and recorded those delvings. Often I have felt a bit of the awe and even the frustration which Daniel experienced . What does this mean? I have cried out. Per- haps you have too. More importantly, What does this mean for me and my people in these lat- ter days? The answers have come, measured, but real. The book grows in its wonder.
And as I meditated on these things once more in the winter of 2002, a fire was lit again. I was compelled to go deeper, to see further. It is my growing conviction that the days Daniel saw are upon us, and that the words that were once “closed up” and “sealed” (12:9) are daily being unlocked.
I use as my core of thought the final three chapters of Daniel’s work. Though three di- visions (chapters 10, 11, 12), the unit is one. There is a lengthy introduction and preparation, (chapter 10) followed by startlingly accurate predictions of the world’s history. No less than an angel of God gives the bulk of this narrative and closes it with personal words for Daniel. And a Man looking very much like the Son of God Who appeared to John the Revelator, makes an astounding appearance.
As I strive to expose the meanings of the predictions, it will be necessary to bring in other portions of Daniel from time to time, since the book is clearly a unity . And the same Spirit who spoke this end-time message to Daniel spoke similar realities to Paul and John . Their words, and those of Christ Himself also will be drawn into the telling of this mystery.
I. DANIEL: OVERVIEW
A. The Man
Daniel was one of many Israelites taken into captivity in the first wave of prisoners that went to Babylon, 605 BC, the result of God’s utter frustration with His disobedient people. He became an official in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar through the process described at the beginning of the book of Daniel, and he continued to serve later rulers until the first years of Cyrus of Persia. He is not called a prophet in the book, but Jesus called him one and that should settle it. One who prophesies is at that moment a prophet. Joseph, David, and even Job wear the mantle during their lives. Daniel is certainly in this group.
B. The Book
What is its theme? Perhaps the best summary is found in chapter 4, spoken through the pagan king Nebuchadnezzar in verse 17 “…..the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, gives it to whomever He will, and sets over it the lowest of men.” This sentiment is repeated in 25,26, 32 and 34. Daniel echoes it, or actually sets the tone himself, in 2:28, “But there is a God in Heaven Who reveals secrets…” The God who rules in this book, rules Daniel, his friends, the several monarchs who come and go, and yes, the one who is still to come. May we remember this precious truth as times worsen. God rules and overrules.
The book can be divided simply into two parts. Chapters 1-6, history, and 7-12 prophecy. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. There is prophecy all the way through. Let’s look at the book in chronological order, and assign dates to each chapter:
Chapter one occurs in 606 BC, 20 years before the final fall of Jerusalem at Nebuchadnezzar’s hands. Daniel is 16, just one of many captives. He and his godly friends are raised to prominence by Providence.
Chapter two records the real breakthrough in Daniel’s career as a man of God. The year is 603 BC, Daniel is 19, perhaps. Here is the famous statue prophecy, where Daniel sees the coming consecutive kingdoms to follow Babylon and lead to the very end of history. We are living today near the very end of that “statue”, in the Roman era.
Chapter three tells the exciting story of Nebuchadnezzar vs. the three friends of Daniel, and the fiery furnace. Now it is 586 BC, and while the fire that burns in Jerusalem de- stroys those who refuse to come to Babylon, the fire burning in Babylon’s “fiery furnace” de- stroys only Babylonians. Daniel is now 36.
Chapter four is the last concerning Nebuchadnezzar. It tells of another dream of his, about himself. Daniel interprets and it comes to pass. For the third time, Nebuchadnezzar is brought to his knees before the living God.
Chapter seven is actually next in order, happening in the early days of Belshazzar’s co- regency with his father Nabonidus. This is the vision of the four animals, corresponding to the statue prophecy of chapter two, but in an image to give it more flexibility in interpretation. Again we see that we are living in the last days generally, with the last of those last days close upon us, or so it seems. Daniel is an older man now, upper 70’s or early 80’s.
Chapter eight is 2 years after chapter 7. Daniel is in his 80’s. The vision of the ram and the male goat graphically portray the story of the Medo-Persian Empire followed by the whir l- wind devastation of Alexander the Great. Or at least that is what catches the attention at first. But the story ends , again, in our day and beyond, with an even more graphic picture of the Man of Sin.
Chapter five then describes the end of Belshazzar’s reign and the beginning of Persia’s rule with one “Darius the Mede.” It is 538 BC, and Daniel is 84. Here is the handwriting on the wall.
Chapter six continues the story of Darius and his, and Daniel’s, encounter with some fasting lions.
Chapter nine is still in 538 BC and is a record of a certain prayer session Daniel has, followed by a response from Heaven, the famed “70-weeks” prophecy that tells of the exact date of the coming of Messiah the first time, plus gives a description of the final 7 years of earth history as we know it.
Last in the book, and last in time, 531 BC, the very last message to be received by a now
91 year old Daniel, still under the Persian kings, Cyrus the Great by name here, chapters 10,
11, and 12.
Note again from the outset that these three last chapters are one story. Note that the story is introduced in the same way as the prophecies of Ezekiel and John, with visions of heavenly realities that leave only the skeptics in doubt as to where this message is from. As Ezekiel and John see heavenly beings, so does Daniel. Ezekiel and John react with wonder and much emotion and so does Daniel. Ezekiel and John seem to have no clue about what is being said at times and so does Daniel.
And so do we have no clue. Until we read it again, and then again. And yet again. Slowly, slowly, the glory of God dawns on us and we realize that we are being blessed as prom- ised to John in Revelation 1:3, “Blessed is he who reads…” For that which was given to John is the same message as was given to Daniel, to all the prophets, and to the apostle Paul: God is in charge of the affairs of men, and, Jesus will come one day to set things straight.
C. A Defense
My original motivation was an eagerness to re-discover the prophecies and their mean- ings. So, I jumped right into chapter 11. Then came 12, and then back to 10. Then it seemed important to add the following observations, which I knew had to precede the “meat” of the work. For if there is any doubt in the reader’s mind that the words given the church are truly a prophecy from God, I fear the power of the words will be lost. Never has God given so many facts so clearly in one place, about anything. It is no accident that the 12 chapters of Daniel have seen the critic’s blows more than any other passage of Scripture. Let us examine together the criticisms first, answer them, then enjoy the marvelous word Daniel received.
I hasten to affirm that it is the Holy Spirit who gives faith. We believe Daniel because we believe Daniel. The same Spirit who lived in Him lives in us. And Daniel, the man and the book, need not be defended in any way that has not been allowed for in the Word itself. Faith comes by hearing that Word. So please allow the following to be only reminders of what the Word already says, and rejoice that God has
Evidence for Daniel takes many shapes. For example, Daniel 4:30 gives true details of Nebuchadnezzar’s building activities that only a person of that time would have known. There are particulars of dress and customs and religion that only Daniel could have known, living in that era. Nebuchadnezzar’s referring to himself in 4:17 as the “basest” of men matches perfectly later inscriptions attributed to his family, a group of shepherds. By 450 BC, Belshazzar was un- known in history, not to be re-discovered until our day. But Daniel knew him.
Then there are the other prophecies, which this book will not be able to cover. The 70- weeks prophecy of chapter 9 states that from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem in 444BC unt il the cutting off (crucifixion) of Messiah will be 483 years. Using only 360-day years, as the Bible does, we are brought to 33 AD, the year of Jesus’ death! He likewise prophecies that a power even greater than Medo-Persia and Greece will trample the world. All but the severely preju- diced agree that he is referring to Rome. The critics’ date of 165 BC for this book just won’t fit. Rome was a force to be reckoned with, but who could have predicted, in the natural, that it would crush all other powers?
I rejoice in what the critics have done for us! Those who deny the prophetic nature of Daniel 11 on the basis of its too-perfect history have let us know up front that what appears to be history and that which we know is prophecy, is indeed perfect! Flawless. As only the Spirit of God co uld know. It makes the tracing of the events all the easier, when we know that the things being described will be found in one history book or another! Thanks, critics!
They have yielded up another point, those who believe that the history falters in the middle of the life of Antiochus Epiphanes (end of chapter 11): For indeed, from verses 36 and forward, it is most trying to establish a connection between Daniel’s words and any man known to historians. Thanks again, for it was the Spirit’s desire to tell us that this man has not yet lived, and you critics saw it!
It was early in church history, in the 300’s , that the book of Daniel came under fire, by a man named Porphyry. He said that the book was a forgery, and that it was written in 165 BC instead of in the 500’s BC. The truth is that Daniel was a real man and his book was written by him 400 years before the date claimed by Porphyry . Not to believe that is to make the author a liar.
Let’s look at some of the “reasons” Daniel and his book are rejected by Porphyry and some of his disciples to this day:
1. Daniel could not have known such details of the lives of persons and nations in advance.
The book must have been written after the events took place. Response: Eliminating the mi- raculous eliminates God from the process. Daniel becomes fiction, and actually falsehood, since it claims to be from Daniel and from God. All books that contain miraculous elements thus become suspect, and the entire doctrine of Inspiration falls.
2. There is no credible evidence that Daniel’s book was around before the 2nd century BC.
Response: The Book Of I Maccabees, though not accepted as inspired writing, is neverthe- less honored by most scholars as valid history. The writer says in 2:60 that Daniel should be listed among the faithful because of his deliverance from the mouths of the lions.. This proves that in the 2nd century BC the stories of this man had been circulating for some time.
Josephus wrote a history of the Jews that went up to AD 70. He tells the story of Antio- chus Epiphanes and says that these things came to pass according to the prophecy of Daniel, given 408 years before. Josephus places Daniel’s book at 573 BC. Josephus also tells the story of a visit by Alexander the Great to Jerusalem in 332 BC. The High Priest shows the Conqueror a reference to Alexander’s conquests in the book of Daniel, and Alexander is so pleased with what he sees that he decides he will not destroy the city!
Daniel is mentioned by Ezekiel 3 times in his book (Ezekiel 14:14, 20; 28:3) . Ezekiel and Daniel are both captives in Babylon at the same time. Daniel had been there in fact, 9 years when Ezekiel arrived in 597 BC. Thus Ezekiel’s comments about Daniel carry the weight of a reputation gained over 20-30 years, by the time Ezekiel actually said what he did, and the words are of praise of Daniel’s character. And as stated before, Jesus himself, in Matthew 24:15, actually quotes from Daniel’s prophecy and attributes it to the man Daniel. There is no higher authority than this. Consider also that it is Daniel who has a vi- sion of the Son of Man (7:9-14, 22) a title often applied to Jesus Christ. Thus Jesus by His words and His very Person, attest to the truth of this prophecy.
3. Since the book (supposedly) only records history up to Antiochus Epiphanes, maybe around
164, the book, written to encourage Jewish patriots, must have been written then. Response: To maintain this position, one must believe that Daniel’s “4 kingdoms” are Babylonia, Me- dia, Persia, and Greece. Media and Persia would not be permitted to be seen as one. But in fact they are always one in the book, as in 5:28. And to make the 4th beast or the two legs fit Greece is even more preposterous. And if this is not a prophet, but a historian, he cannot be referring to Rome as a crusher of the world. Even Palestine was not taken for another
100 years from this supposed writing. Surely Daniel 11:40-45 does not correspond to how Antiochus met his death! It becomes even more difficult to deny Daniel than to believe him after awhile. Of course, believing him is out of the question for a critic. Thus the defense of the indefensible.
4. In the Hebrew Text of the Old Testament, Daniel is not listed with the prophets but rather the last general group of “writings”. Response: Groupings are not inspired, only texts. Groupings have nothing to do with date. Job is in the “writings” also, and was a very old book. David was a prophet in the highest sense, but is likewise not listed among the proph- ets. Jesus called Daniel a prophet. That should suffice.
5. Certain Greek words in Daniel imply that the book had to be written in a Greek era. Re- sponse: There are exactly three Greek words in Daniel! All are musical instruments. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 1, p. 247 states: “There is little doubt that the names of the instruments in Daniel were old Persian in character, and were assimilated by the Greeks into their own culture with some ...modifications…this argument is no longer important….” The crucial argument is that there are no Greek “government” words, or other Greek works at all. How strange, if this was written in the Greek period. In fact the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus gives us a fair sample of the type of Hebrew of the period. It is dif-
ferent altogether from Daniel, proving that Daniel was not written in that era.
6. Chapters 2:4 to 7:28 are written in Aramaic, with a few Greek words mixed in. All of the rest of the book is Hebrew. Surely one author would write in one language. Response: It is a curious but not unheard of situation for a book to be written in two languages. Ezra has Ara- maic portions also. Aramaic after all was the predominant language spoken by the masses of Babylon. And certainly there is no mystery as to why Daniel began his Aramaic : He is relating a conversation that took place in that language, and just records it as it took place. We can speculate here that as the Spirit carries him along, it becomes obvious that the mat- ters being covered are of special interest to the nations, thus the language of the nations con- veys it. But the beginning and ending of the book of Daniel are about specifically Jewish things, and consequently demand a Hebrew conveyance of ideas.
The internet author comments: “ I am tempted to think that God deliberately structured Daniel to make it difficult to subdivide. The two- fold division of chapters 1-6 and 7-12 has some appeal, but this arrangement hardly explains the use of both Hebrew and Aramaic, which spans both divisions. The tendency of liberal scholars has been to claim multiple au- thorship of some of those books which are prophetic. Isaiah, for example, is claimed to have had two, three, or even more authors. Did God see to it that Daniel’s structure resisted divi- sion, so that we would be more inclined to admit that Daniel wrote the whole book– history, prophecy and all?”
7. In the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, in existence by 180 BC, at 44:1 ff there is a list of famous Israelites, and Daniel is not listed. Response: Neither are Job, characters from Judges, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Mordecai, or Ezra. The writer of this book, further, studied the “law, the prophets, and the ‘other books’” These are the very three divisions of the Hebrew Bible, showing that such divisions were in existence in 200 BC, when this book came along. If that is true, and Daniel was included in the canon by that time, the entire argument of a Maccabean –age writing falls down. Using Ecclesiasticus as an argument is not a good move for a critic.
Much of the case suggested above comes from what is known as “Higher Criticism” , a misnomer if ever there was one. Higher Criticism seems to emanate from the lower parts of the earth, and as Sir Robert Anderson says, “starts with the assumption that everything in Scripture needs to be confirmed by external evidence.” It reeks, he says, of its evil origin in German infidelity. It aims at establishing pre-judged results. Let no Christian fear it, but only the truth, and the God of that truth.
“Was the canon complete before the Maccabean epoch?”, seems to be the pivotal ques- tion. The early Sanhedrin, the Jewish legal/spiritual group that put the Canon together, held that inspiration ceased with the prophets, and that no prophet had arisen in Israel after the Nehe- miah era. That would have made Malachi the last voice , as Christian tradition has always averred. Men who were famed for their piety and learning, their strict view of inspiration, would not, certainly, have taken in a book that was of obvious late composition, and had not had time to prove itself among the people of God. The Sanhedrin saw their job as verifying what was already known in Israel: that God had spoken through the prophets, but as far as they were concerned, since the days of Nehemiah He had not spoken at all.
There are many other rabbit trails to follow, but a fox is found at the end of each one, the clever enemy of our soul who stirs our carnal mind against believing what God has said. When we rise up and take a hard look at the entire argument, it is that, in the middle of one of the harshest persecutions of God’s people ever , by a man depraved and deranged, there arose an unknown Jew who got it in his mind that he would comfort his fellow Jews by writing a se- ries of stories and alleged prophecies that would prove to all his comrades that God is good and that God will certainly rise up and defeat the enemy. To this concoction of tales and previews of world history he attached the name Daniel, “God is my judge”, and circulated it far and wide.
Some comfort. Lies from beginning to end. And worse at the end. Because this un- known Jew lived before Antiochus died, he had to guess the end of Antiochus’ life. And he guessed poorly. Why would anyone want to believe his ideas of the resurrection and the final judgment if he had guessed so wrongly about the mere mortals?
But what if, just what if, there was a man called Daniel, as Ezekiel and Jesus said, who was there in those days? What if there was a special message he was to preserve for us who live in the end of all things? What if it was to be written down but essentially hidden from God’s people until the time was ripe for its fulfillment?
Yes, Daniel has been an undisturbed book for so many years of our history . But ask around. Today there is a great interest, and a great understanding. The days are upon us. It is time to understand what he said.
