DBG - September 17 - Daniel 7-9

In this chapter is Daniel’s vision of four beasts.

vs. 1-6 – The year if 533 B.C. (between Daniel Chapters 4 and 5).  Daniel has a vision of four great beasts.  The first is like a winged lion, the second was like a bear, and the third like a winged leopard.

vs. 7-8 – The fourth beast I think is best described as a monster.  It has ten horns, which an eleventh “little horn” removes three.

vs. 9-12 – God is seen judging mankind and overcoming the various beasts.

vs. 13-14 – The Son of Man is given a kingdom over all the earth.

vs. 15-16 – Daniel asks for help in interpreting the vision and an angel reveals its meaning to him.  We will see that this vision parallels that of Daniel 2.

vs. 17-18 – The beasts are revealed to represent four mighty kingdoms, which are Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome.

vs. 19-27 – The fourth beast is, pardon the pun, a different animal from the rest.  It is the Roman Empire.  We see its ruthlessness in the past, but we also see that its remnants still have power in the End Times.  That is the area this interpretation focuses on.  There are ten rules (horns) leading the divisions of the empire.  An eleventh comes, which is the Anitchrist (see II Thessalonians 2:3-4 and Revelation 13:3-6).  He conquers three of the ten kings and attacks Israel.  In vs. 25 he is given a period of 3½ years to exercise his evil intents.  He will be defeated by God and the Millennial Kingdom established.

vs. 28 – Daniel’s reaction to the message.

In this chapter is Daniel’s vision of the ram and he-goat.

vs. 1-14 – The year is 550 B.C.  Daniel receives a vision.  He sees a ram with two great horns that none could oppose.  A he-goat appears from the west with one great horn.  The he-goat defeats the ram.  Eventually its great horn breaks, and four more take its place.  One of these produces a “little horn” that raised itself in pride and made the sacrifices in the Temple to stop.  The length of this evil is given as 2,300, just short of six and half years.

vs. 15-27 – The meaning is revealed by the angel Gabriel (“champion of God”).  The ram was the Persian Empire, and its horns represented its alliance of the Medes and Persians. The he-goat is the Greek Empire, and it’s one horn is Alexander the Great.  The horn splits into four, representing the division of his empire between his four generals: Cassander in Greece, Lysimacus in Asia Minor, Seleucus in Syria, and Ptolemy in Egypt.  The “little horn” is Antiochus Epiphanes from the Seleucid Empire, who ruled from 175-164 B.C.  He made himself out to be a god and persecuted the Jews.  The struggle against him is recorded in the Apocryphal book I Maccabees.  The almost seven-year period where the Temple is desecrated matches the time between the death of the High Priest Onias III and the death of Antiohcus.  There is a parallel between Antiochus Epiphanes and the Antichrist to come, and the prophecies here can be seen as pointing to both.

In this chapter is the vision of the 70 weeks.

vs. 1-2 – The year is 538 B.C.  Daniel is aware of Jeremiah 25:8-12 and knows that the length Captivity would be 70 years.  He had been a captive in Babylon since 606 B.C, making his own experience just shy of that number.  This stirred his heart as he looked for that wonderful day when the Jews could return home.

vs. 3-19 – Daniel’s great prayer.  Sadly, it is not as closely studied as the rest of the chapter is.  Daniel intercedes for his people and prayers for forgiveness and restoration.

vs. 20-27 – The angel Gabriel arrives with an answer to God’s prayers.  As usual, God goes beyond what we ask for.  He gives Daniel the most important prophetic timeline in Scripture.  70 “weeks” is the total length of this timeline that ends with the coming of the Millennial Kingdom.  By “week” are not meant groups of seven days, but rather seven years (the word used means only “group of seven”).  The starting point is “the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem”.  This is the proclamation by Artaxerxes in Nehemiah 2:1-8, issued in 454 B.C.  The next even is 69 weeks (483 years) later, when the Messiah would be “cut off”, or killed.  That year would be 30 A.D.  Now, please remember to take these ancient dates with some skepticism.  I think at best we can prove this prophecy is plausible, not exact.  Before you throw stones at me, understand that the further back into history we get the more difficult it is to nail down a precise date.  Even when we do, we have to account for many versions and changes in calendars that are far different than our own.  The Jews of Jesus’ time could probably have proven it exactly, but we do not have the information they had.  There is a gap between the 69th and 70th weeks.  That is where we are at now.  The 70th week begins with “the prince” (Antichrist) making a treaty with Israel.  Halfway or 3½ years into this, he breaks the treaty by proclaiming himself god in the rebuilt Temple and desecrating it. The 70th week ends with Armageddon and the establishment of the Millennial Kingdom.

So many of Daniel’s prophecies we have seen today can be seen as fulfilled in history from our vantage point.  These are so accurate that critics simply cannot accept that they were written before the events they predicted.  But God knew what would happen.  He had promised that the Messiah would come and for the first time set up a timeline for His arrival.  The Jews at the time were aware of this and were looking for Him.  Still they refused to reject Christ.   But they had no excuse for not knowing the time was right for His arrival.  Disbelief ignore facts while faith trusts in the unseen.

Our hymn today is “’Tis finished! The Messiah Dies” by Charles Wesley.  This shows the importance of the Messiah being “cut off” in Daniel 9.

’Tis finished! The Messiah dies,
Cut off for sins, but not His own:
Accomplished is the sacrifice,
The great redeeming work is done.

’Tis finished! all the debt is paid;
Justice divine is satisfied;
The grand and full atonement made;
God for a guilty world hath died.

The veil is rent in Christ alone;
The living way to Heaven is seen;
The middle wall is broken down,
And all mankind may enter in.

The types and figures are fulfilled;
Exacted is the legal pain;
The precious promises are sealed;
The spotless Lamb of God is slain.

The reign of sin and death is o’er,
And all may live from sin set free;
Satan hath lost his mortal power;
’Tis swallowed up in victory.

Saved from the legal curse I am,
My Savior hangs on yonder tree:
See there the meek, expiring Lamb!
’Tis finished! He expires for me.

Accepted in the Well-beloved,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
I see the bar to heaven removed;
And all Thy merits, Lord, are mine.

Death, hell, and sin are now subdued;
All grace is now to sinners given;
And lo, I plead the atoning blood,
And in Thy right I claim Thy Heaven!