The Scene Changes

The second half of the Book of Daniel is much different from the first half. The first six chapters of Daniel recount the career of the Hebrew prophet including a number of events associated with Daniel and his three Hebrew comrades (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego), two Babylonian kings (Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar) and one Persian king (Darius the Mede–also known as Cyrus). The second half of the Book of Daniel (chapters 7 through 12) opens with a dramatic vision given by YHWH to Daniel which maps out the next six centuries of ancient near-eastern history.

Yet in the following chapters, Daniel continues to recount some of the most fantastic and difficult visions in all the Bible. The literary hinge between the two halves of Daniel is chapter 7. As one writer puts it, the nature of Daniel’s dramatic vision makes this “the single most important chapter of the Book of Daniel.”[1] Chapter 7 includes what yet another writer describes as “the key to history.”[2] These are grandiose comments, but after we have spent some time in this chapter, I think you will see why these opinions are appropriate. The vision given Daniel in chapter 7 points us to a mysterious figure–“One like a Son of Man”–who is indeed the key to understanding all of human history.

Daniel’s vision of four strange beasts as recorded in chapter 7, covers the same time frame in human history (the 5th century BC-the 1st century AD) as the vision which YHWH gave previously to Nebuchadnezzar, recounted in Daniel 2. But this vision is YHWH’s revelation of the all-conquering king (Jesus) around whom all of human history ultimately centers. The subsequent visions given Daniel in chapters 8-12 speak of the great empires which arise after Babylon falls (the Persian, Greek, and Roman empires), while also foretelling of the rebuilding of Jerusalem (after the Jewish exiles return home from Babylon), the rise of an antichrist figure (described as a blaspheming “little horn” who is the arch-enemy of God’s people), before the visions take us forward to the end of the age and the general resurrection when all the dead (believing and unbelieving) are raised bodily on the day of final judgment.

Daniel Given Another Vision

This vision was given Daniel by YHWH while Belshazzar was in the first year of his reign as king of Babylon–specifically, the year 550 BC, which also happened to be the very same year that a relatively unknown Persian king (Darius) rose to become leader of the Medo-Persian empire (taking the royal name Cyrus), which will conquer Babylon in 539 BC (as we saw in chapters 5-6 of Daniel). We will explore this vision in chapter 7 in this essay and the next.

To read the rest, follow the link below

Read More