DANIEL'S PROPHESIES

Chapter 2:

Nebuchadnezzar dreams and demands that his seers give him details of the dream and its interpretation. The best guess at what is happening here is that the king had a vivid and troubling dream, but on waking could not recall what it was (an experience common to all of us). Naturally his seers fail. Then Daniel has a vision (or invents a suitable dream) and proceds to detail it in 2:31-35 and interpret it in 2:39-45.

The head of gold: King of Babylon - Nebuchadnezzar.

The chest and arms of silver: a lesser kingdom to follow Babylon. Seen as Persia. Was the Persian empire less than Babylon? - in fact it was much greater.

Belly and thighs of bronze: a third kingdom which would rule over all the earth. Seen as the empire of Alexander the Great. Did it rule over all the earth?

Legs of iron with feet of iron and clay: A fourth kingdom partly strong, partly fragile. Seen as Rome.

A stone: a Kingdom established by God, which would destroy the empires of iron and clay, bronze, silver and gold, and never be destroyed. Seen by many commentaries as the final millenial Kingdom of God. But surely the Roman Empire was broken around 480 AD, with many more empires following? - Chinese, Saracen, Tartar, Turkish, Spanish, Napoleonic, British, to name a few.

The prophesy does not seem to be worthy of serious consideration. It would nicely fit the views of an optimist living around 160 BC.

The second of Nebuchadnezzor's dreams is interpreted as forecasting that he would imagine himself to be an animal and withdraw from affairs of state to live as such for a while, until he accepted Daniel's God. History says that only Nebuchadnezzar's later successor Nabonides withdrew from affairs of state (to pursue unorthodox religious ideas) for a while, and that Belshazzar acted as Regent during this time. Nabonides attempted to force Babylon to worship sun and moon Gods, and resentment at this, combined with his peculiar behaviour, caused the city to welcome Cyrus as a saviour rather than a conquerer. Neither Nebuchadnezzor nor Nabonides ever accepted the God of Daniel. Nor, for that matter, was Belshazzar in charge at the time of Babylon's fall, Nabonides having returned.

The prophesy looks like a grossly inaccurate reading of history.

Chapter 7:

In Chapter 7 Daniel records a vision of four great beasts; the first part, vs 3-7, parallels the four kingdoms of Nebuchadnezzar's first dream, but the second part, the interpretation, was seen by the author of Revelation as a model for the heavenly enthronement of the risen Christ, judgement, and the reign of Christ over a heavenly kingdom on earth. These and subsequent chapters are clearly late and must have been written after the Jews had accepted the idea of a resurrection and a life after death.

Chapter 8:

11 He even exalted himself as high as the Prince of the host; and by him the daily sacrifices were taken away, and the place of His sanctuary was cast down.
12 Because of transgression, an army was given over to the horn to oppose the daily sacrifices; and he cast truth down to the ground. He did all this and prospered.
13 Then I heard a holy one speaking; and another holy one said to that certain one who was speaking, "How long will the vision be, concerning the daily sacrifices and the transgression of desolation, the giving of both the sanctuary and the host to be trampled under foot?"
14 And he said to me, "For two thousand three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed."

This has to refer to the desecration of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes around 170 BC, who can reasonably be thought of as the fierce and sinister king of 8:23. The figure of 2300 days equals six years and around three months. Josephus accepted this identification although he says that the temple was cleansed after three years (which agrees with 1 Esdras).

Chapter 9:

In Chapter 9 Daniel appears to be praying for the restoration of Jerusalem immediately after Babylon has fallen to Cyrus and the exile is over - it could be seen as trying to give Daniel credit for the edict allowing the return from exile. The writer refers to Jeremiah's (inaccurate) 70 year prophesy, perhaps to justify the period of seventy weeks for the next prophesy.

24 "Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophesy, And to anoint the Most Holy.
25 "Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times.
26 "And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined.
27 Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation, which is determined, Is poured out on the desolate."

It is not possible to offer a definitive interpretation of this sequence and many alternatives have been proposed; nearly all have in common the identification with Antiochus Epiphanes. The following may be close to the intention of the writer:

The separate declaration of the initial period of seven weeks has to be significant. This can be seen as seven normal seven-day weeks - 49 days - or if the idea that it means seven seven-year perods - 49 years. Nehemiah claims to have rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, some ninety years after the supposed date of the prophesy, in 53 days, which rounds down to seven weeks. In the absence of any detectable significant event within a 49-year period this seems the most probable match to the seven weeks, and would suggest that the whole period must be seen as being measured in normal weeks.

There was a substantial gap of over ninety years before this start of the seven weeks; it is clear from the prophesy that there is also a substantial gap between the 62 weeks and the final apocalypse. It would be reasonable to assume another gap between the seven weeks and the 62 weeks. The quoted periods of weeks being the times of action and not including the gaps. This would suggest the 62-week period as the time that the Messiah would have to act.

It is apparent that the writer is mimicking the actual chronology. Soon after the desecration by Antiochus Epiphanes we have the figure of Judas Maccabeus, who was thought of as a Messiah in his time. He recaptured Jerasalem, restored the damage and desecration of Antiochus and set out to restore Judah's fortunes, however less than two years later Antiochus' son took Jerusalem back - the exact period cannot be determined but could have been of the order of a year and a half or less. Judas made an honourable peace and was allowed to continue to rule Judah (. . was cut off, but not for himself?), but his image as a Messiah would have been severely damaged. What happens after this at the hands of the "prince who is to come" then occurs after another long gap. It would be possible to relate this to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem but for the supposed flood and end of "desolation" at the conclusion of the war.

It is clear from the first two stages of the prophesy that Daniel's attention is fixed firmly around the time of the Maccabean revolt. The remainder of the seventy week period appears to be in the tradition of Apocalyptic fantasy. There is nothing in the immediate history of Jerusalem to match it, and it is inevitable that Jerusalem's destruction by Rome in 70 AD should be assumed to be in fulfillment. Heroic efforts have been made by the writers of some commentaries on Daniel to relate the prophecies in Daniel 9:24-27 to Christ, such as declaring each day of the seventy week period to be a year long, playing games with the length of the Jewish year, and assuming an indeterminate gap between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks. The final consummation is said to corresspond to Christ's second coming after Armageddon - which extends this final week, (or perhaps) seven years, to something over at least 2000 years. This has to be an example of a commentator trying to force the Bible to fit into the mould formed by his own dogma, rather than moulding his beliefs around a rational interpretation of the bible. One commentator's response to Daniel 10:5-6 is: "Almost certainly the greatly beloved statesman-prophet is here granted a Christophany, an appearance of the preincarnate Christ" - an example of the sort of wishful thinking that must be examined most closely to see whether any justification for the conclusion is to be found in the actual text.

After recording the partial eclipse of Judas the writer attempts a summary of the wars between the North (Seleucids based in Syria), and the South (Egypt of the Ptolemy's), in the course of which Judah is frequently trampled. It is likely that this section refers back to the earlier confused time before Antiochus Epiphanes, with 11.6 referring to the marriage of Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy II, and Antiochus Theos of the North, around 250BC. The 'great king' is then clearly Alexander the Great, the four Kings of Persia being Cambyses, Smerdis, Darius1, and Xerxes - who did indeed stir up all against the realm of Greece.

Chapter 12:

12:11 "And from the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there shall be one thousand two hundred and ninety days.
12 "Blessed is he who waits, and comes to the one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days.

It is probable that the author of Daniel is again referring to the Antiochus desecration, with the 1290 days referring to the whole period before restoration, which according to Josephus (following 1 Maccabees) was around three years, while the 62 week period of Chapter 9 only covers Judas Maccabeus. Chapters 11 and 12 appear misplaced chronologically in the text and should come before Ch 8.

The whole of the later section, from Chapter 8 on, must have been written soon after the beginning of the Hasmodean dynasty (the Maccabees and their successors), since this is the point at which identification of its content fails. This would yield a date of around 165 BC.

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