← All books · Major Prophets
Book 27 of 39 · Major Prophets

Daniel

The Complete Story29:35

Overview

Daniel tells of a young Judean noble carried into exile in Babylon and of the visions given to him there. It opens in the third year of Jehoiakim (about 605 BC), when Nebuchadnezzar first took captives from Jerusalem, and ends in the third year of Cyrus of Persia (about 536 BC). Across nearly seventy years Daniel serves Babylonian and then Persian kings without giving up his loyalty to the God of Israel.

The book has two halves. Chapters 1–6 are court stories, told in the third person, in which Daniel and his three friends stay faithful under foreign kings. Chapters 7–12 are apocalyptic visions, told in the first person, of beasts, kingdoms and the final kingdom of God. The book is also written in two languages: 2:4b–7:28 is in Aramaic and the rest is in Hebrew. Jewish tradition places Daniel among the Writings, while Christian Bibles place him among the Prophets.

Scholars disagree about when the book was written. Many date its final form to the 2nd century BC, in the crisis under Antiochus IV. Others hold to a 6th-century origin with Daniel as the author. The captions simply follow the story as the book tells it.

Part 1 — Faithful in a Foreign Court (chapters 1–6)

Taken to Babylon (1). Nebuchadnezzar besieges Jerusalem and carries off temple vessels and young nobles. Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah are renamed Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and are trained in Chaldean learning. Daniel "purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself" with the king's food. After a ten-day test on vegetables and water, the four are healthier than the rest and ten times wiser than the king's magicians.

The statue dream (2). Nebuchadnezzar demands that his wise men tell him both his dream and what it means. When they cannot, he orders them all killed. Daniel and his friends pray, and the secret is revealed. The dream was a great statue with a head of gold, chest of silver, belly of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron mixed with clay. A stone "cut out without hands" smashes it and becomes a mountain that fills the earth. The metals are successive kingdoms, beginning with Babylon, and the stone is a kingdom God will set up "which shall never be destroyed" (2:44). Daniel is made ruler over the province of Babylon.

The fiery furnace (3). The king sets up a golden image sixty cubits high on the plain of Dura and commands everyone to worship it. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refuse: "our God… is able to deliver us… But if not… we will not serve thy gods" (3:17–18). The furnace is heated seven times hotter, yet the king sees four men walking in the fire, "the fourth… like the Son of God" (KJV) or "a son of the gods". The three come out with not even the smell of smoke on them, and Nebuchadnezzar blesses their God.

The king humbled (4). This chapter is written as Nebuchadnezzar's own proclamation. He dreams of a great tree that is cut down to its stump at the command of a holy watcher. Daniel explains that the king will be driven from human society "till thou know that the most High ruleth" (4:25). A year later the king boasts, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built?" and is struck down at once. He lives like an animal, eating grass like oxen, until his reason returns and he praises the King of heaven.

The writing on the wall (5). King Belshazzar holds a feast and drinks from the temple vessels while praising idols of gold and silver. A hand writes on the wall: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. The aged Daniel reads it: "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." That night Belshazzar is slain, and Darius the Mede receives the kingdom.

The lions' den (6). Jealous officials persuade Darius to sign a decree, which under the law of the Medes and Persians cannot be changed, banning prayer to anyone but the king for thirty days. Daniel keeps praying three times a day with his windows open toward Jerusalem. He is thrown into the den, and the king spends the night without sleep. At dawn Daniel answers him: "My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths." His accusers are thrown to the lions, and Darius honours "the living God".

Part 2 — Visions of the Kingdoms (chapters 7–12)

Four beasts and the Son of Man (7). This vision is dated to Belshazzar's first year. Four beasts rise from the churning sea: a lion with eagle's wings, a bear, a four-headed leopard, and a terrible fourth beast with iron teeth and ten horns, from which a boastful little horn grows. The Ancient of Days takes his seat in judgement, and the books are opened. "One like the Son of man" comes with the clouds of heaven and receives an everlasting dominion, which is shared with "the saints of the most High".

The ram and the goat (8). By the Ulai canal at Susa, Daniel sees a two-horned ram trampled by a goat with one great horn. That horn breaks into four, and a small horn grows great and defiles the sanctuary for "two thousand and three hundred days". Gabriel names the ram as Media and Persia and the goat as Greece.

Daniel's prayer and the seventy weeks (9). Daniel reads in Jeremiah that the desolation of Jerusalem will last seventy years, and he prays a long confession for the nation: "O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive" (9:19). Gabriel comes with the answer that "seventy weeks" (seventy sevens) are decreed to finish transgression and bring in everlasting righteousness. Jerusalem will be rebuilt, and an anointed one will be "cut off". Jewish and Christian interpreters have read this passage in different ways.

The final vision (10–12). In the third year of Cyrus, beside the Tigris, a man clothed in linen appears to Daniel. His face is like lightning and his eyes like torches. He explains that he was delayed by "the prince of Persia" until Michael came to help him (ch 10). Chapter 11 sets out in detail the Persian kings, a mighty Greek king, and the long wars between the kings of the north and the south. It ends with a "vile person" who profanes the sanctuary and sets up "the abomination that maketh desolate", yet comes to his end with none to help him. In chapter 12 Michael stands up in a time of unprecedented trouble, and Daniel's people are delivered. "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake," and the wise "shall shine as the brightness of the firmament" (12:2–3).

Key themes, and the bridge to Hosea

  • God rules over the kings of the earth. The book repeats that "the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men" (4:17). Empires rise and fall on his timetable.
  • Faithfulness in exile. Daniel and his friends serve foreign kings well but will not compromise on food, worship or prayer, whatever the cost.
  • Deliverance and its "but if not". God rescues his servants from the furnace and the lions, but their loyalty does not depend on being rescued.
  • The coming kingdom. The stone that becomes a mountain and the Son of Man who receives everlasting dominion point to a kingdom that outlasts every empire.
  • Resurrection hope. Daniel 12:2 is the Old Testament's clearest statement of a bodily resurrection to judgement and everlasting life.

Daniel ends unanswered on a riverbank. When he asks, "How long?", he is told to "go thy way… for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end", with a personal promise: "thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days." The book is followed by the Twelve Minor Prophets, which go back in time to the 8th century BC. The first is Hosea, who preached to the northern kingdom of Israel in its last decades before Assyria destroyed it.