Daniel - Introduction
An introduction to the book of Daniel with a brief overview of how the book of Revelation applies passages from it.
The book
of Daniel is a well-structured literary work, not a collection of folk
stories or random and unrelated visions. At the very beginning, the key themes of
the book are presented in brief, then worked out in detail in its subsequent
chapters, and each new vision builds on the preceding ones.
The historical stories in the first
six chapters lay the foundation for the visions and their interpretations in the
last six chapters. Even the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar about the “great
image” with a “head of gold” anticipates the detailed vision of the
“four beasts ascending from the sea” in chapter 7.
Moreover, each vision includes one or more
common subjects. For example, the cessation of the daily sacrifice is mentioned
in the visions of the Ram and the Goat, the Seventy Weeks, and the
Kings of the North and South, as well as in the conclusion to the book -
(Daniel
8:10-13, 9:26-27, 11:31, 12:11).
YOUNG DANIEL
The name ‘Daniel’ means “God is my judge.”
He first appears as a young Jewish exile just arrived in Babylon from
Jerusalem. No information is provided on his family history, though he
was from the nobility - “Of the seed royal and the nobles.”
At the time of his deportation, Daniel was likely
still a teenager. He received his final vision in the third year after the
overthrow of Babylon by the “Medes and Persians,” in
approximately 536 B.C.
This means his prophetic “career” was spent
in the city of Babylon over a period of about seventy years. There is no
record that he ever returned to Judah, and presumably, he died in Babylon
at an advanced age.
Daniel was given the Babylonian name
‘Belteshazzar,’ which means “Bel protects [the king].” ‘Bel’ is the Akkadian
form of ‘Baal’ (“lord, master”) that was applied often to the patron
deity of Babylon, Marduk.
Daniel is classified as a prophet in Jewish
and Christian tradition, although in the book, he is presented as a “wise
man” with great “discernment.” In the royal court, he was noted
as a great interpreter of dreams - (Daniel 1:17, 2:13, 5:11-12).
He was a devout Jew living in a pagan
culture. At times, certain members of the inner court were hostile to him.
Despite pressure, he remained loyal to the God of Israel. His ability to
interpret dreams won him high praise and an important position in the imperial civil
service. Later, he served faithfully in the court of “Darius the Mede”
after the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire - (Daniel 5:31-6:1).
DANIEL AND POLITICAL POWER
The book presents the role of the prophet in
affecting events in the affairs of the Babylonian and Persian
empires. His visions concern the changing World Empire and the control
of the God of Israel over the course of history.
Daniel epitomizes the faithful Jew who
lives by divine grace within a pagan society. He perseveres despite the
downfall of the Jewish nation and his vulnerability to powerful forces. Yahweh
provides him with wisdom to confound his opponents. Though powerless, God uses his
pronouncements before kings to change the course of history.
Daniel serves in important positions within
the governments of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and “Darius the Mede.” In
the book, Nebuchadnezzar makes him the “chief of the wise men” and
governor of the province of Babylon, and later, Belshazzar
appoints him the third ruler in his kingdom. After Babylon’s fall, “Darius the
Mede” places him over the provincial governors of his domain - (Daniel
2:48, 5:29, 6:1-3).
All the events in the book occur during the
seventy-year captivity of the Jewish nation in Babylon, a judgment
imposed by Yahweh to punish Judah for her sins.
The
northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed by Assyria a century
earlier, and later, the last remnants of the Assyrian empire were destroyed by the
Babylonian army led by the crown prince, Nebuchadnezzar, at the Battle of
Carchemish in 605 B.C. - (2 Kings 17:7-18, 2 Chronicles 35:20, Jeremiah
46:2).
THE CAPTIVITY
After his defeat of Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar
subjugated the nations of northern Palestine, including Judah, and imposed
tribute on each new vassal. This was a region known as the “Hatti-land” by the
Babylonians (“All the kings of the Hatti-land came before Nebuchadnezzar and he
received their heavy tribute” – from the Chaldean Chronicle, quoted from
Exile and Return by Charles Pfeiffer, Baker Books, 1962, p. 12).
In the case of Judah, the “heavy
tribute” included the deportation of a select group of Jews to serve in the Babylonian
civil service. Thus, in the assessment of the book of Daniel, the captivity
of Judah began with the subjugation of Jerusalem in 605
B.C. - (Daniel 1:1-4).
The rise of Nabopolassar to the Babylonian throne in 626 B.C.
marks the start of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. It endured until 539 B.C. when
it was overthrown by the “kingdom of the Medes and the Persians,” the Achaemenid
Empire under the rule of Cyrus the Great.
The book of Daniel includes chronological references that coordinate key events with
the reigns of the kings of Judah, Babylon, Persia, and Greece - (Daniel 1:1-2, 1:21, 6:28-31, 11:1-4).
The book applies a theologically loaded term to the period it covers, what it calls the “indignation,” the divinely ordained period of correction. When Daniel speaks of the “time of the end,” he means the end of the “indignation,” not the end of History. The “indignation” also provides another chronological marker that connects several of his visions - (Daniel 8:17-19, 11:36).
In the Hebrew Bible, “indignation”
refers to the indignation of God with Israel for her sins, and to the
resultant punishment. In Daniel, it begins with the overthrow and
captivity of the kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar.
The book also refers to this as the
“desolations of Jerusalem,”
the period when the “little horn” wages war against the “saints”
for “time, times, and part of a time” - (Daniel 7:24-28, 9:1-3, 9:18-27,
12:1-7).
Based on the internal evidence, the book was
composed after the start of the Captivity and completed by the early years of
the Persian Empire. The range provided is from the “third year of the reign
of King Jehoiakim” (606 B.C.) to the “third year of Cyrus king of Persia”
in 536 B.C. - (Daniel 1:1-2, 1:21, 5:31-6:1, 10:1).
The Babylonian Captivity developed over
several stages, beginning in 605 B.C. with the subjugation of Jerusalem. It
culminated in the destruction of the city and Temple in 587-586 B.C., and there
were at least three deportations of Jewish exiles to Babylon - (606, 598, 587 B.C.).
The historical sections describe events in
the lives of Daniel and three of his companions. The dream visions in the
second half were received between the first year of Belshazzar’s reign and the
third year of Cyrus the Great.
FOURFOLD PATTERN
The visions are built on a framework of four successive kingdoms that precede
the inauguration of the kingdom of God. Three of the four kingdoms are identified
by name - Babylon, the “Medes and Persians”, and Greece.
Though not named, the fourth kingdom is one
of the four divisions of the Greek empire that resulted after the death of its
first king, Alexander the Great - (Daniel 2:24-45, 8:20-25, 11:1-4).
The theme of the book is that God rules over the kingdoms of this world and gives
rulership to whomever He pleases, “even to the lowest of men.”
Despite appearances and human machinations, His purposes are not thwarted by
even the mightiest of empires.
Chapters 1 and 8 through 12 are written in the
Hebrew language. The section in chapters 2 through 7 is written in the Aramaic
dialect of the Persian Empire.
The switch to Aramaic occurs at Daniel
2:4 when the “Chaldeans spoke to the king in the Syrian language,”
meaning Aramaic, and the change back to Hebrew occurs at Daniel 8:1. The change
is too specific to be accidental or the product of later copyists.
The Hebrew and Aramaic sections point to a
date of composition during the Babylonian Captivity. The man who wrote the book
was familiar with both languages and uses grammatical and idiomatic
features peculiar to the Mesopotamian region.
The several stories in the Aramaic section demonstrate
that God gave Daniel “knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom,”
and enabled him to use the language and learning of the Chaldeans to
demonstrate that Yahweh rules over the kingdoms of the world.
The use of the Aramaic language fits the
historical setting. By the time of Nebuchadnezzar, it was the de facto language
of diplomacy and commerce among the nations of the Near East, and it became
the common tongue of many Jews by the end of the seventy years captivity - (2
Kings 18:17-37, Ezra 4:11-22, 5:7-17, 6:6-12, 7:11-26, Nehemiah 8:8).
The contents of the Aramaic section concern
events that occur during the Babylonian empire, and in the first few years of
the “kingdom of the Medes and the Persians.” In contrast, the visions in
the Hebrew section are about events that transpire after the fall of the Neo-Babylonian
Empire.
IN REVELATION
Verbal allusions from Daniel are
used repeatedly in the book of Revelation, and that original source
material often sheds light on the symbolism of Revelation.
For example, the “little horn” that
“made war with the saints and prevailed against them” is echoed in the visions
concerning the “beast from the sea” that wages war “against the
saints.” And John’s single “beast from the sea” combines the
characteristics of all four of Daniel’s “beasts from the sea” - (Daniel
7:1-8, Revelation 11:7, 13:1-2).
But Revelation does not simply quote
verses from Daniel. It reinterprets them in consideration of the death
and resurrection of Jesus. Events predicted in Daniel for “latter
days” become “what things much come to pass soon” in Revelation.
Daniel is told to “seal” the book “until
the time of the end,” whereas, John is commanded in no uncertain terms NOT
“to seal the book, for the season is at hand” - (Daniel 2:27-28, 12:4,
Revelation 1:1-3, 22:10).
Thus, the events seen by Daniel that are to
occur in a distant future, John witnesses unfolding in his day in the later
first century, descriptions often accompanied by more explicit and detailed
explanations than those provided by the book of Daniel.
