First Edition
Essential Background
Studies for Christians:
Identifying and Understanding the Role of
the Four Kingdoms of Bible Prophecy
Introductory Remarks
Outline of Order of Events
Chapter 2 – The Four Monarchies Image, 605 B.C.
Chapter 3 – Golden Statue/Fiery Furnace, 587 B.C. under Nebuchadnezzar
Chapter 4 – Nebuchadnezzar’s Judgment, 571 – 562 B.C.
Chapter 7 – Four Beasts, Little Horn, Ancient of Days, 553 B.C.
Chapter 8 – Ram and the Goat, 551 B.C.
Chapter 5 – Writing on the Wall, 539 B.C.
Chapter 9 – Seventy Weeks, under Darius 539 B.C.
Chapter 6 – Lion’s Den, under Darius 538~534 B.C.
Chapter 10 – 11 – Conflicts between the Seleucids, Ptolemies, and the Romans, and the Abomination of Desolation, the Maccabean Revolt, and the foundation of the Hasmonean Monarchy. Rise of Herod the Great, and Insurrections.
Chapter 12 – The Great Tribulation, the resurrection of the dead, and the Eschaton (Scattering the Power of the Holy People), ~534 B.C.
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THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY
586 B.C. ~ |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| ||||||||||~ 516 B.C.*
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539 B.C Conquest of the Babylonian Empire by Darius the Mede and Cyrus
At the time of the fall of Babylon on 19 October 539 B.C. the Babylonian Captivity was only forty-seven years and still had twenty-three more years to go before the Second Temple was completed, ending the Jew’s seventy-year Babylonian Exile.
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*Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the First Temple begins the Captivity and Ezra's completion of the Second Temple seventy years later ends the Exilic Period (i.e., the restoration of God’s worship and the Levitical animal sacrificial system was completed and made operational 23 years after Babylon fell to the Medes and the Persians).
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PART I
Please read the 2nd year of Nebuchadnezzar. The second year of Nebuchadnezzar II was 603 B.C. (his rule began in 605 B.C. The Forgotten Dream:-
They know not what the dream was, much less what the dream means; there is only one outcome: Nebuchadnezzars decree, edict, and mandate that all practitioners of the arts of magic and interpretation must be executed and their houses turned into dung-hills.
Daniel went to the king and Shadrach, Mesech, and Abednego huddled to beseech God so as not to perish with the wise men, magicians, and astrologers of Babylon.
"13 So the decree went forth, and they began to slay the wise men; and they sought Daniel and his fellows to slay .
They sought God and he revealed the truth (John 17:17). God made known to Daniel what the King's dream was and also its interpretation. Daniel went to Arioch the king's minister. 24 He said, take me to the king.
“18 And they sought mercies from the God of heaven concerning this mystery; that Daniel and his friends might not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
19 Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night; and Daniel blessed the God of heaven, and said,
20 May the name of God be blessed from everlasting and to everlasting: for wisdom and understanding are his.
21 And he changes times and seasons: he appoints kings, and removes , giving wisdom to the wise, and prudence to them that have understanding:
22 he reveals deep and secret ; knowing what is in darkness, and the light is with him.
23 I give thanks to thee, and praise , O God of my fathers, for thou has given me wisdom and power, and has made known to me the things which we asked of thee; and thou has made known to me the king's vision.
24 And Daniel came to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon, and said to him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon, but bring me in before the king, and I will declare the interpretation to the king.
25 Then Arioch in haste brought in Daniel before the king, and said to him, I have found a man of the children of the captivity of Judea, who will declare the interpretation to the king.
26 And the king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Baltasar, Canst thou declare to me the dream which I saw, and the interpretation thereof?
27 And Daniel answered before the king, and said, The mystery which the king asks is not of the wise men, magicians, enchanters, soothsayers to declare to the king.
28 But there is a God in heaven revealing mysteries, and he has made known to king Nabuchodonosor what things must come to pass in the last days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are as follows,
29 O king: thy thoughts upon thy bed arose what must come to pass hereafter: and he that reveals mysteries has made known to thee what must come to pass.
30 Moreover, this mystery has not been revealed to me by reason of wisdom which is in me beyond all living, but for the sake of making known the interpretation to the king, that thou mightest know the thoughts of thine heart.
31 Thou, O king, sawest, and behold an image: that image was great, and the appearance of it excellent, standing before thy face; and the form of it was terrible.
32 an image, the head of which was of fine gold, its hands and breast and
arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass,
33 its legs of iron, its feet, part of iron and part of earthenware.
34 Thou sawest until a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands, and it smote the image upon its feet of iron and earthenware, and utterly reduced them to powder.
35 Then once for all the earthenware, the iron, the brass, the silver, the gold, were ground to powder, and became as chaff from the summer threshingfloor; and the violence of the wind carried them away, and no place was found for them: and the stone which had smitten the image became a great mountain, and filled all the earth.
36 This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.
37 Thou, O king, art a king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given a powerful and strong and honorable kingdom,
38 in every place where the children of men dwell: and he has given into thine hand the wild beasts of the field, and the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea, and he has made thee lord of all.
39 Thou art the head of gold.
Thou art the head of gold. Daniel identified Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar as the head of gold in this amazing dream. Now, this head of gold as first of the four means that the Bible is NEVER concerns itself with any history of the Israelites or the Jews before the sixth century B.C.. In other words, the list starts with the Neo-Babylonian period and moves forwards only by three more kingdoms in the Bible history timeline.
Furthermore, the Babylonian conquest of Judah may run into difficulties because of a desire to number the seventy years of captivity based on the first invasion of Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem and the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. and the liberation of the Jews to leave Babylon to return in 539 B.C. These dates, no matter how they are reckoned, do not add up to seventy years. Different proposals have been offered for example, a whole year being counted even for a partial year, the ascent of Nebuchadnezzar in a regnal year, etc.1 (the 605 B.C. situation, "Nebuchadnezzar deported Jehoiachin and other members of the royal family and some of the elites of Jerusalem—warriors, priests, artisans, and officials—into exile in Babylon (2 Kings 24:14–16), and placed Zedekiah (Jehoiachin’s uncle) on the throne instead (which indicates that not all of the elite was exiled," Source: http://jerusalem.nottingham.ac.uk/items/show/45).
The one explanation for the seventy year captivity that carries the most weight is the one that dates the captivity from the Destruction of the First Temple to the completion of the Second Temple. Solomon’s Temple was destroyed in 586 B.C. and Zerubbabel’s was completed exactly seventy years later in 516 B.C. This means that the Babylonian Captivity in 539 B.C. was only 47 years old and had another 23 years to go. And this means that, even though the Jews were freed from the rule of Babylon, so long as they had no Temple the captivity was STILL in force. Now the strength of this interpretation of things comes from Daniel 9:1-23 where in the first year of Darius Daniel pleads with God about the seventy years and the captivity EVEN THOUGH BABYLON HAD ALREADY FALLEN. Then, in Daniel 9:24ff the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks is given and in it the building of Zerubbabel's Temple is NOT an accomplished fact but a future prospect. These are the reasons why the seventy years of captivity transcended the Babylonian era by 23 more years.
And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, a third kingdom which is the brass, which shall have dominion over all the earth;
40 and a fourth kingdom, which shall be strong as iron: as iron beats to powder and subdues all things, so shall it beat to powder and subdue.
41 And whereas thou sawest the feet and the toes, part of earthenware and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet there shall be in it of the strength of iron, as thou sawest the iron mixed with earthenware.
42 And the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of earthenware, part of the kingdom shall be strong, and of it shall be broken.
43 Whereas thou sawest the iron mixed with earthenware, they shall be mingled with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave together, as the iron does not mix itself with earthenware.
44 And in the days of those kings the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed: and his kingdom shall not be left to another people, it shall beat to pieces and grind to powder all kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
45 Whereas thou sawest that a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands, and it beat to pieces the earthenware, the iron, the brass, the silver, the gold; the great God has made known to the king what must happen hereafter: and the dream is true, and the interpretation thereof sure.
46 Then king Nabuchodonosor fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and gave orders to offer to him gifts and incense.
47 And the king answered and said to Daniel, Of a truth your God is a God of gods, and Lord of kings, who reveals mysteries; for thou has been able to reveal this mystery.
48 And the king promoted Daniel, and gave him great and abundant gifts, and set him over the whole province of Babylon, and chief satrap over all the wise men of Babylon.
49 And Daniel asked of the king, and he appointed Sedrach, Misach, and Abdenago, over the affairs of the province of Babylon: but Daniel was in the king's palace.
B26 And the king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Baltasar, Canst thou declare to me the dream which I saw, and the interpretation thereof?
27 And Daniel answered before the king, and said, The mystery which the king asks is not of the wise men, magicians, enchanters, soothsayers to declare to the king.
28 But there is a God in heaven revealing mysteries, and he has made known to king Nebuchadnazzar'swhat things must come to pass in the last days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are as follows,
29 through verse 32 head of gold was Nebuchadnazzar's own kingdom of Babylon, silver, brass, iron, iron and clay. The end in 46..
Daniel 2:46-49 Babylon, second kingdom of chest, and arms, and hands of silver, belly and thighs of brass, and shins of irons, shins of feet leads to feet of iron and clay which do not hold together, to toes of iron and clay which herald the danger of being crushed by a stone cut out of a mountain without hands . . .
29 O king: thy thoughts upon thy bed arose what must come to pass hereafter: and he that reveals mysteries has made known to thee what must come to pass.
30 Moreover, this mystery has not been revealed to me by reason of wisdom which is in me beyond all living, but for the sake of making known the interpretation to the king, that thou mightest know the thoughts of thine heart.
31 Thou, O king, sawest, and behold an image: that image was great, and the appearance of it excellent, standing before thy face; and the form of it was terrible.
32 an image, the head of which was of fine gold, its hands and breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass,
33 its legs of iron, its feet, part of iron and part of earthenware.
34 Thou sawest until a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands, and it smote the image upon its feet of iron and earthenware, and utterly reduced them to powder.
35 Then once for all the earthenware, the iron, the brass, the silver, the gold, were ground to powder, and became as chaff from the summer threshingfloor; and the violence of the wind carried them away, and no place was found for them: and the stone which had smitten the image became a great mountain, and filled all the earth.
36 This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.
37 Thou, O king, art a king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given a powerful and strong and honourable kingdom,
38 in every place where the children of men dwell: and he has given into thine hand the wild beasts of the field, and the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea, and he has made thee lord of all.
39 Thou art the head of gold. And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, an a third kingdom which is the brass, which shall have dominion over all the earth;
40 and a fourth kingdom, which shall be strong as iron: as iron beats to powder and subdues all things, so shall it beat to powder and subdue.
41 And whereas thou sawest the feet and the toes, part of earthenware and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet there shall be in it of the strength of iron, as thou sawest the iron mixed with earthenware.
42 And the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of earthenware, part of the kingdom shall be strong, and of it shall be broken.
43 Whereas thou sawest the iron mixed with earthenware, they shall be mingled with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave together, as the iron does not mix itself with earthenware.
44 And in the days of those kings the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed: and his kingdom shall not be left to another people, it shall beat to pieces and grind to powder all kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
45 Whereas thou sawest that a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands, and it beat to pieces the earthenware, the iron, the brass, the silver, the gold; the great God has made known to the king what must happen hereafter: and the dream is true, and the interpretation thereof sure.
46 Then king Nabuchodonosor fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and gave orders to offer to him gifts and incense.
47 And the king answered and said to Daniel, Of a truth your God is a God of gods, and Lord of kings, who reveals mysteries; for thou has been able to reveal this mystery.
48 And the king promoted Daniel, and gave him great and abundant gifts, and set him over the whole province of Babylon, and chief satrap over all the wise men of Babylon.."
The Bible Establishes Who The Second Kingdom Was
But Daniel 5:24-30 which is at the end of the strange story of Belshazzar's banquet.
"1 Baltasar the king made a great supper for his thousand nobles, and wine before the thousand.
2 And Baltasar drinking gave orders as he tasted the wine that they should bring the gold and silver vessels, which Nabuchodonosor his father had brought forth from the temple in Jerusalem; that the king, and his nobles, and his mistresses, and his concubines, should drink out of them.
3 So the gold and silver vessels were brought which had taken out of the temple of God in Jerusalem; and the king, and his nobles, and his mistresses, and his concubines, drank out of them.
4 They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of iron, and of wood, and of stone.
5 In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote in front of the lamp on the plaster of the wall of the king's house: and the king saw the knuckles of the hand that wrote.
6 Then the king's countenance changed, and his thoughts troubled him, and the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one another.
7 And the king cried aloud to bring in the magicians, Chaldeans, soothsayers; and he said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and make known to me the interpretation, shall be clothed with scarlet, and a golden chain upon his neck, and he shall be the third ruler in my kingdom.
8 Then came in all the king's wise men: but they could not read the writing, nor make known the interpretation to the king.
9 And king Baltasar was troubled, and his countenance changed upon him, and his nobles were troubled with him.
10 Then the queen came into the banquet house, and said, O king, live for ever: let not thy thoughts trouble thee, and let not thy countenance be changed.
11 There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the Spirit of God; and in the days of thy father watchfulness and understanding were found in him; and king Nabuchodonosor thy father made him chief of the enchanters, magicians, Chaldeans, soothsayers.
12 For an excellent spirit in him, and sense and understanding in him, interpreting dreams , and answering hard , and solving difficulties: Daniel, and the king gave him the name of Baltasar: now then let him be called, and he shall tell thee the interpretation of the writing.
13 Then Daniel was brought in before the king: and the king said to Daniel, Art thou Daniel, of the children of the captivity of Judea, which the king my father brought?
14 I have heard concerning thee, that the Spirit of God is in thee, and watchfulness and understanding and excellent wisdom have been found in thee.
15 And now, the wise men, magicians, soothsayers, have come in before me, to read the writing, and make known to me the interpretation: but they could not tell it me.
16 And I have heard concerning thee, that thou art able to make interpretations: now then if thou shalt be able to read the writing, and to make known to me the interpretation of it, thou shalt be clothed with purple, and there shall be a golden chain upon thy neck, and thou shalt be third ruler in my kingdom.
17 And Daniel said, before the king, Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give the present of thine house to another; but I will read the writing, and will make known to thee the interpretation of it.
18 O king, the most high God gave to thy father Nabuchodonosor a kingdom, and majesty, and honour, and glory:
19 and by reason of the majesty which he gave to him, all nations, tribes, languages trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew; and whom he would he smote; and whom he would he exalted; and whom he would he abased.
20 But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was emboldened to act proudly, he was deposed from his royal throne, and honour was taken from him.
21 And he was driven forth from men; and his heart was given him after the nature of wild beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses; and they fed him with grass as an ox, and his body was bathed with the dew of heaven; until he knew that the most high God is Lord of the kingdom of men, and will give it to whomsoever he shall please.
22 And thou accordingly, his son, O Baltasar, has not humbled thine heart before God: knowest thou not all this?
23 And thou has been exalted against the Lord God of heaven; and they have brought before thee the vessels of his house, and thou, and thy nobles, and thy mistresses, and thy concubines, have drunk wine out of them; and thou has praised the gods of gold, and silver, and brass, and iron, and wood, and stone, which see not, and which hear not, and know not: and the God in whose hand are thy breath, and all thy ways has thou not glorified.
24 Therefore from his presence has been sent forth the knuckle of a hand; and he has ordered the writing.
25 And this is the ordered writing, Mane, Thekel, Phares.
26 This is the interpretation of the sentence: Mane; God has measured thy kingdom, and finished it.
27 Thekel; it has been weighed in the balance, and found wanting.
28 Phares; thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.
29 Then Baltasar commanded, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and put the golden chain about his neck, and proclaimed concerning him that he was the third ruler in the kingdom.
30 In the same night was Baltasar the Chaldean king slain.
31 And Darius the Mede succeeded to the kingdom, being sixty-two years ."
That night, on October 539 B.C., twenty-three years before the end of the Babylonian Captivity, the kingdom of Babylon was taken over by the Medes and the Persians. The Archemenid family created the Persian Monarchy which, in turn, allowed the Jews to return and to be subjected to their rule in a province they named Yehud Medinata from 539 - 311 B.C.
Note that the Babylonian Captivity's beginning did not reckon from 605 B.C., but has its beginning with Nebuchadnezzar's third invasion which resulted in the Destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C., and its ending in 516 B.C. when, under Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zerubbabel the Second Temple was completed.
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PART II
Daniel chapter 7 was a revelation Daniel himself received from God about the four monarchies mentioned previously in Daniel 2, but here instead of being depicted as five elements (gold, silver, brass, iron, and clay) they are envisioned as four beasts (a lioness, a bear, a leopard, and an indescribable monstrosity).
1 In the first year of Baltasar,2 king of the Chaldeans Daniel had a dream, and visions of his head upon his bed: and he wrote his dream. 2 I Daniel beheld, and, lo, the four winds of heaven blew violently upon the great sea.
3 And there came up four great beasts out of the sea, differing from one
another.
4 The first as a lioness, and her wings as an eagle's; I beheld until her wings were plucked, and she was lifted off from the earth, and she stood on human feet, and a man's heart was given to her.
5 And, behold, a second beast like a bear, and it supported itself on one side, and there were three ribs in its mouth, between its teeth: and thus they said to it, Arise, devour much flesh.
6 After this one I looked, and behold another wild beast as a leopard, and it had four wings of a bird upon it: and the wild beast had four heads, and power was given to it.
7 After this one I looked, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and exceedingly strong, and its teeth were of iron; devouring and crushing to atoms, and it trampled the remainder with its feet: and it was altogether different from the beasts that were before it; and it ten horns.
8 I noticed his horns, and behold, another little horn came up in the midst of them, and before it three of the former horns were rooted out: and, behold, eyes as the eyes of a man in this horn, and a mouth speaking great things.
9 I beheld until the thrones were set, and the Ancient of days sat; and his raiment was white as snow, and the hair of his head, as pure wool: his throne was a flame of fire, his wheels burning fire.
10 A stream of fire rushed forth before him: thousand thousands ministered to him, and ten thousands of myriads, attended upon him: the judgment sat, and the books were opened.
11 I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which that horn spoke, until the wild beast was slain and destroyed, and his body given to be burnt with fire.
12 And the dominion of the rest of the wild beasts was taken away; but a prolonging of life was given them for certain times.
13 I beheld in the night vision, and, lo, coming with the clouds of heaven as the Son of man, and he came on to the Ancient of days, and was brought near to him.
14 And to him was given the dominion, and the honor, and the kingdom; and all nations, tribes, and languages, shall serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed" (Daniel 7:1-14).
Daniel's night vision, like Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, is not about all world kingdoms and not about most of them: It is only about a four-kingdom timetable leading from the Babylonian Captivity to the establishment of the everlasting kingdom of God. This means that an error is committed as soon as the message of Daniel is seen as a general sketch of worldhistory and not a specific revelation about Jewish salvation history (and the two histories could not be more different!).
The remainder of the chapter is focused primarily on the ambitions, actions, and words coming from the mysterious and diabolical fourth monarchy--and who it encounters--the Ancient of Days and the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven to judge and terminate its existence.
“15 As for me Daniel, my spirit in my body trembled, and the visions of my head troubled me.
16 And I drew near to one of them that stood by, and I sought to learn of him the truth of all these things: and he told me the truth, and made known to me the interpretation of the things.
17 These four beasts are four kingdoms shall rise up on the earth: 18 which shall be taken away; and the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess it for ever and ever.
19 Then I enquired carefully concerning the fourth beast; for it differed from every beast, exceeding dreadful: its teeth were of iron, and its claws of brass, devouring, and utterly breaking to pieces, and it trampled the remainder with its feet:
20 and concerning it ten horns that were in its head, and the other that came up, and rooted up of the former, which had eyes, and a mouth speaking great things, and his look was bolder than the rest.
21 I beheld, and that horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; 22 until the Ancient of days came, and he gave judgment to the saints of the Most High; and the time came on, and the saints possessed the kingdom.
23 And he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom on the earth, which shall excel all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and trample and destroy it.
24 And his ten horns are ten kings shall arise: and after them shall arise another, who shall exceed all the former ones in wickedness and he shall subdue three kings.
25 And he shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change times and law: and shall be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time. (i.e., three and a half years).
26 And the judgment has sat, and they shall remove dominion to abolish it, and to destroy it utterly.
27 And the kingdom and the power and the greatness of the kings that are under the whole heaven were given to the saints of the Most High; and his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all powers shall serve and obey him.
28 Hitherto is the end of the matter. As for me Daniel, my thoughts greatly troubled me, and my countenance was changed: but I kept the matter in my heart.”
Daniel chapter seven is important and intriguing because it specifies exactly what the fourth monarchy would do to reach out to seize (by force) what did not belong to it. Not only was the promised kingdom of God an inheritance to be given to the people of the saints of the Most High God, but the fourth kingdom was in a state of spiritual degeneracy so decrepit, vile, and wicked that its leader spoke loud and blasphemous words against God. To say it in a word, It was directly fighting against God. And later on, I mean the oppression of the fourth monarchy against the saints of God would begin in A.D.34, a year after our Lord’s crucifixion. So an entire 590 years would pass before this aggression and hostility would witness St. Stephen being stoned to death for his message the milieu of the fourth monarchy was going to be changed (Acts 6:14).
The flow of issues converges about the matter of kingdom possession and the vision makes it clear that the fourth beast wants the kingdom of God while at the very same time, it both hates God and the people of God! It speaks blasphemous words against the Most High God and wears out the saints of God!
We believe a survey of the natural flow of Babylon, Medeo-Persia, and Greece will bring us face to face to the one and only monarchy, kingdom, power. and authority--and indeed a whole civilization that would, without realizing it, commit such acts of dishonor against God and such policies of repression and genocide against the people God through Christ raised up to serve him.
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PART III
Daniel chapter 8 takes us to a memoir of yet another vision where in the third year of Belshazzar Daniel saw political developments that would come to pass after the era of the Persians. Again, we will notice that these passages is not about unspecific matters but detailed specifics, about key milestones about which there can be no doubt.
Who conquers the Persians? See Daniel 8*
"In the third year of the reign of king Baltasar a vision appeared to me, to me Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first.
2 And I was in Susa the palace, which is in the land of Aelam, and I was on
the Ubal.
3 And I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, a ram standing in front of the Ubal; and he had high horns; and one was higher than the other, and the high one came up last.
4 And I saw the ram butting westward, and northward, and southward; and no beast could stand before him, and there was none that could deliver out of his hand; and he did according to his will, and became great.
5 And I was considering, and, behold, a he-goat came from the south-west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the earth: and the goat a horn between his eyes.
6 And he came to the ram that had the horns, which I had seen standing in front of the Ubal, and he ran at him with the violence of his strength.
7 And I saw him coming up close to the ram, and he was furiously enraged against him, and he smote the ram, and broke both his horns: and there was no strength in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him on the ground, and trampled on him; and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand.
Daniel’s vision, in pictures, sees Alexander the Great literally trouncing the Persians, and what is so surprising about all this is that the era of the Persians was stable and prosperous and it ended at a time when it humanly seemed to be least likely.
The next milestone is not a whole long history of what the Greek would do and say, but no! The next thing is the downfall of Alexander the Great and what would immediately grow out of that: Four horns representing the four Diodochi kings—chiefs who would divide up Alexander’s territories in years of horrific wars that plagued the Hatti-lands.
“8 And the he-goat grew exceedingly great: and when he was strong, his great horn was broken; and four other rose up in its place toward the four winds of heaven.
9 And out of one of them came forth one strong horn, and it grew very great toward the south, and toward the host:
10 and it magnified itself to the host of heaven; and there fell to the earth of the host of heaven and of the stars, and they trampled on them.
11 And until the chief captain shall have delivered the captivity: and by reason of him the sacrifice was disturbed, and he prospered; and the holy place shall be made desolate" (Daniel 8:8-11).
The passage is a snapshot—a snapshot pregnant with significance. First Maccabees gives one an idea that the A.N.E.. was torn up in upheaval as a result of these Diodochi wars, a lot of harm was done in the pursuit of territorial ambitions but we would be missing the point of the text if we lost sight of what happens next,
“12 And a sin-offering was given for the sacrifice, and righteousness was
cast down to the ground; and it practised, and prospered.”
The next thing along the way is a direct reference to interference with Second Temple worship, not Greek political expansion but the corruption that Hellenism brought directly to the doorstep of the Jews, which tells us that we are in the year 167 B.C., about 160 years before the incarnation of our Lord.
The significance of such a crisis may not be apparent at first. The idea that Second Temple worship and all Judaism may have been obliterated in the second century B.C. has devastating implications!
13 And I heard one saint speaking, and a saint said to a certain one speaking, How long shall the vision continue, the removal of the sacrifice, and the bringing in of the sin of desolation; and shall the
sanctuary and host be trampled?
14 And he said to him, Evening and morning two thousand and four hundred days; and the sanctuary shall be cleansed.N(In short, we have to stay anchored to the context of the passage, both in terms of its time frame and its subject. The time frame in question is the aftermath of Antiochus' desolating the Temple, while the subject is the regular “continual” sacrifice. Since we know that the “continual” involved sacrifices in the evening and the morning (the Jews reckoned their days as beginning in the evening), we ask, “Might the 2,300 evening-mornings refer to 1,150 days of twice-daily sacrifices?” Source: https://biblearchaeology.org/research/the-daniel-9-24-27-project/4362-understanding-the-2-300-evenings-and-mornings-of-daniel-8-14) The original text of Daniel 8:14 does NOT say "days" but "evenings and mornings."
15 And it came to pass, as I, I Daniel, saw the vision, and sought to understand it, that, behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man.
16 And I heard the voice of a man between the Ubal; and he called, and said, Gabriel, cause that man to understand the vision.
17 And he came and stood near where I stood: and when he came, I was struck with awe, and fell upon my face: but he said to me, Understand, son of man: for yet the vision is for an appointed time.
18 And while he spoke with me, I fell upon my face to the earth: and he touched me, and set me on my feet.
19 And he said, Behold, I make thee know the things that shall come to pass at the end of the wrath: for the vision yet for an appointed time.
20 The ram which thou sawest that had the horns is the king of the Medes 
and Persians.
21 The he-goat is the King of the Greeks: and the great horn which was between his eyes, he is the first king." (Daniel 8:21).
Daniel 8:21 King of Greece? This is Alexander the Great and we are dealing with history and factors and not with theories and conjectures.
22 And the one that was broken, in whose place there stood up four horns, four kings shall arise out of his nation, but not in their strength.
23 And at the latter time of their kingdom, when their sins are coming to the full, there shall arise a king bold in countenance, and understanding riddles.
24 And his power great, and he shall destroy wonderfully, and prosper, and practice, and shall destroy mighty men, and the holy people.
25 And the yoke of his chain shall prosper: craft in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by craft shall destroy many, and he shall stand up for the destruction of many, and shall crush them as eggs in his hand.
26 And the vision of the evening and morning that was mentioned is true: and do thou seal the vision; for many days.
Daniel's vision about the stormy history and vicissitudes of the Second Temple was to happen far beyond his lifetime. And the events he was shown could hardly have been imagined as possible that a national shrine dedicated to the God of Israel would suffer such a fate, however, the silver lining in the prophecy is that this breach would last momentarily until rightful worship was restored.
27 And I Daniel fell asleep, and was sick: then I arose, and did the king's business; and I wondered at the vision, and there was none that understood."
Once can see that the effects of this vision troubled Daniel to the point he was both sleepy and sick, just like his reaction to his vision of the fourth monstrous kingdom in Daniel 7. Daniel 8:22 Four kingdoms come out of Alexander’s efforts upon his death (which dutifully came true).
They were called the Diadochi kingdoms—the rule of the Successors, Seleucus, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Cassander, there was a fifth, Antigonus Cyclops, but he and the regions under his command, and his holdings were gobbled up by Seleucus I Nicator.
Below, Daniel 9 recaps the Persian-Greek affairs and the histories of the Seleucids and Ptolemies before it again engages the political crosswinds that led to atrocities that happen because of Jewish involvement in the religion, culture, philosophy, and politics of the time.
PART IV
Daniel 9
Daniel chapter 9 opens in 539 B.C. and the setting is set at a time when the Jews were no longer under the power and chains of the Babylonians. Nevertheless, as we shall see, the captivity is very much in force since the restoration of Jerusalem and its Temple is still twenty-three years off into the future. Let's read this passage and get a sense of what is going on . . .
1 In the first year of Darius the son of Assuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who reigned over the kingdom of the Chaldeans,
2 I Daniel understood by books the number of the years which was the word of the Lord to the prophet Jeremias, seventy years for the accomplishment of the desolation of Jerusalem.
3 And I set my face toward the Lord God, to seek diligently by prayer and supplications, with fastings and sackcloth.
4 And I prayed to the Lord my God, and confessed, and said, O Lord, the great and wonderful God, keeping thy covenant and thy mercy to them that love thee, and to them that keep thy commandments; we have sinned,
5 we have done iniquity, we have transgressed, and we have departed and turned aside from thy commandments and from thy judgments:
6 and we have not hearkened to thy servants the prophets, who spoke in thy name to our kings, and our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land" (Daniel 9:1-6).
Daniel’s prayers have reference to Ezekiel, Jeremiah and others who warned Judah that they would fall and be punished if they persisted in their sins of idolatry, murder, infanticide, injustice, and adultery. Two hundred years had passed since God had the northern Kingdom of Israel carried away captive by the Assyrians and Yehud was none the wiser. What had happened, according to the prophecies of the prophets was totally preventable as it was contingent upon the people of the South Kingdom to turn from their ways in repentance.
7 To thee, O Lord, righteousness, and to us confusion of face, as at this day; to the men of Juda, and to the dwellers in Jerusalem, and to all Israel, to them that are near, and to them that are far off in all the earth, wherever thou has scattered them, for the sin which they committed.
8 In thee, O Lord, is our righteousness, and to us confusion of face, and to our kings, and to our princes, and to our fathers, forasmuch as we have sinned.
9 To thee, the Lord our God, compassions and forgivenesses, whereas we have departed ;10 neither have we hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by the hands of his servants the prophets.
11 Moreover all Israel have transgressed thy law, and have refused to hearken to thy voice; so the curse has come upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him.
12 And he has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges who judged us, bringing upon us great evils, such as have not happened under the whole heaven, according to what has happened in Jerusalem.
13 As it is written in the law of Moses, all these evils have come upon us: yet we have not besought the Lord our God, that we might turn away from our iniquities, and have understanding in all thy truth.
14 The Lord also has watched, and brought the evils upon us: for the Lord our God is righteous in all his work which he has executed, but we have not hearkened to his voice.
15 And now, O Lord our God, who broughtest thy people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and madest to thyself a name, as this day; we have sinned, we have transgressed.
16 O Lord, thy mercy is over all: let, I pray thee, thy wrath turn away, and thine anger from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain: for we have sinned, and because of our iniquities, and those of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach among all that are round about us.
17 And now, O lord our God, hearken to the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine on thy desolate sanctuary, for thine sake, O Lord" (Daniel 9:7-17).
Even though Babylon has fallen, the destruction of the First Temple and the ruins of it are all the Jews have to face and this prayer is for God to restore the fortunes of his people by restoring his ordained worship at Jerusalem.
18 Incline thine ear, O my God, and hear; open thine eyes and behold our desolation, and that of thy city on which thy name is called: for we do not bring our pitiful case before thee on our righteousness, but on thy manifold compassions, O Lord. 19 Hearken, O Lord; be propitious, O Lord; attend, O Lord; delay not, O my God, for thine own sake: for thy name is called upon thy city and upon thy people.
As you can see, the prayer concerns God, his city upon which his name is called, and God's people, the Jews.
20 And while I was yet speaking, and praying, and confessing my sins and the sins of my people Israel, and bringing my pitiful case before the Lord my God concerning the holy mountain;
21 yea, while I was yet speaking in prayer, behold the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, flying, and he touched me about the hour of the evening sacrifice. 22 And he instructed me, and spoke with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to impart to thee understanding. 23 At the beginning of thy supplication the word came forth, and I am come to tell thee; for thou art a man much beloved: therefore consider the matter, understand the vision.
24 Seventy weeks have been determined upon thy people, and upon the holy city, for sin to be ended, and to seal up transgressions, and to blot out the iniquities, and to make atonement for iniquities, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal the vision and the prophet, and to anoint the Most Holy" (Daniel 9:20-24).
The angel Gabriel is sent by God to answer Daniel's petitions about Jerusalem and the Temple and this is what he principally said, I came to give you understanding; you are much beloved by God; seventy weeks are appointed from the command to restore a build Jerusalem there shall be these seven things accomplished:
(1) End to sin
(2) Seal up transgressions
(3) Blot out iniquities
(4) Atonement for iniquities.
(5) Bring in everlasting righteousness.
(6) Seal vision and prophet.
(7) Anoint the Most Holy.
The natural question to ask about this timetable at this point is: How long a period is seventy weeks? The next logical question would be, Is this literal or figurative or symbolic in some way? If it is literal it would be one year, four months and two weeks.
We know from history that the Jewish people did not complete or obtain a Second Temple in about a year and five months form the ascent to power of Darius, nor did anything exist to be destroyed by an abomination of desolation within that same timeframe.
Since this is so, we need to look for a different explanation. The final question would be when did these seventy week begin, historically? And when would they end? The final passages below give us a clue to what we need to be looking for . . .
25 And thou shalt know and understand, that from the going forth of the command for the answer and for the building of Jerusalem until Christ the prince seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks; and then shall return, and the street shall be built, and the wall, and the times shall be exhausted.
What we see in verse 25 gives us a solid road map with which to anchor our bearings. Here it says that the beginning of the cycle is the command to build Jerusalem. Of course, we know that the Babylonians completely destroyed in 586 B.C., but also the Persian conquest did not automatically mean there was a new city like, Presto! Ezra 4:1-4 records the edict the Jews received from the Persian ruler to begin the reconstruction. Note in the text the Samaritans (the enemies to the Jews) wished to help in the project...
4 Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel;
2 Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither.
3 But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us.
4 Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building,
And by consulting history, we can determine what year the Second Temple was decreed to be built but the next thing we notice is that the death of Christ is in this picture!
26 And after the sixty-two weeks, the anointed one shall be destroyed, and
there is no judgment in him: and he shall destroy the city and the sanctuary with the prince that is coming: they shall be cut off with a flood, and to the end of the war which is rapidly completed he shall appoint to desolations.
27 And one week shall establish the covenant with many: and in the midst of the week my sacrifice and drink-offering shall be taken away: and on the temple the abomination of desolations; and at the end of time an end shall be put to the desolation.N 17 Saturday 17 Tammuz A.D.70 Jewish sacrifices in the Second Temple ceased forever (Wars of the Jews xxxxxx). Twenty-one days later on the 9 of Ab the edifice was set alight and burned and explode violently till it was even with the ground.N
The major claim and opposition we may face from all sides is that some kind of moratorium exists that prevents the actual Seventieth Week prophecy from being an exhaustively accomplished reality from the standpoint of the Second Temple is that it is believed that Daniel 9 is not about the Second Temple anyway, but about a future Third Temple.
There is an attempt, however, to make Daniel 9 work in two different ways: One to create a deadline in which the coming of Christ is limited by the destruction of the Second Temple in A.D.70. Two, to argue that the abomination of desolation in the SAME chapter never happened but remains open to fulfillment even as we speak. But which is it? It is a limitation or an open-ended prophecy that awaits fulfillment?N Matt. 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 also have a relationship with this very prophecy and suffer similar abuse under the same reasonings.
But we think the evidence in the New Testament is abundant and more than capable of addressing every doubt and qualm in this direction and bringing all parties back to the basics and back to realities that help us anchor ourselves to Bible facts rather than endless speculation and conjecture.
PART VI
Daniel 10 recaps the Persian-Greek affairs and the histories of the Seleucids and Ptolemies before it again engages the political crosswinds that led to atrocities that happen because of Jewish involvement in the religion, culture, philosophy, and politics of the time.
Daniel chapters 10 and 11. 10 backtracks to the Persian decline and Daniel 11 runs forward to predict what would happen when the days of Greek rule over the Jews were numbered
Book chapter and verses here . . .
Daniel 11:20-21 deals once again with the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The Jews are entangled with Antiochus' ambitions to annex Ptolemaic Egypt. He already had wrested control of Judea away from Egypt 4 or 5 times; now he wanted more and would not take no for an answer. His first invasion was a stunning success, however, Daniel predicted the second expedition would not be a repeat of this. Instead, the Romans would be waiting for him and turn him back (Daniel 11:30). On his way back through Judea he was on a rampage and passed through Jerusalem and killed tens of thousands.
1 In the third year of Cyrus king of the Persians a thing was revealed to Daniel, whose name was called Baltasar; and the thing was true, and great power and understanding in the vision was given to him.
2 In those days I Daniel was mourning three full weeks.
3 I ate no pleasant bread, and no flesh or wine entered into my mouth, neither did I anoint myself with oil, until three whole weeks were accomplished.
4 On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, I was near the great river, which is Tigris Eddekel.
5 And I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a man clothed in linen, and his loins were girt with gold of Ophaz:
6 and his body was as Tharsis, and his face was a the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his legs as the appearance of shining brass, and the voice of his words as the voice of a multitude.
7 And I Daniel only saw the vision: and the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great amazement fell upon them, and they fled in fear.
8 So I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there was no strength left in me, and my glory was turned into corruption, and I retained no strength.
9 Yet I heard the voice of his words: and when I heard him I was pricked , and my face to the earth.
10 And, behold, a hand touched me, and it raised me on my knees.
11 And he said to me, O Daniel, man greatly beloved, understand the words which I speak to thee, and stand upright: for I am now sent to thee. And when he had spoken to me this word, I stood trembling.
12 And he said to me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to afflict thyself before the Lord thy God, they words were heard, and I am come because of thy words.
13 But the prince of the kingdom of the Persians withstood me twenty-one days: and behold, Michael, one of the princes, came to help me; and I left him there with the chief of the kingdom of the Persians:
14 and I have come to inform thee of all that shall befall thy people in the last days: for the vision is yet for days.
15 And when he had spoken with me according to these words, I turned my face to the ground, and was pricked . 16 And, behold, as it were the likeness of a son of man touched my lips; and I opened my mouth, and spoke, and said to him that stood before me, O lord, at the sight of thee my bowels were turned within me, and I had no strength.
17 And how shall thy servant be able, O lord, to speak with this my lord? and as for me, from henceforth strength will not remain in me, and there is no breath left in me.
18 And there touched me again as it were the appearance of a man, and he strengthened me,
19 and said to me, Fear not, man greatly beloved: peace be to thee, quit thyself like a man, and be strong. And when he had spoken with me, I received strength, and said, Let my lord speak; for thou hast strengthened me.
20 And he said, Knowest thou, wherefore I am come to thee? and now I will return to fight with the prince of the Persians: and I was going in, and the prince of the Greeks came.
21 But I will tell thee that which is ordained in the scripture of truth: and there is no one that holds with me in these matters but Michael your prince.
Behind the scenes, power struggles are shown to be at work behind the Persian rule over the Jewish people. They do not wish for the change of ages to the Greek era for reasons we will consider in due time. The transfer of Kingdom power to the Greeks would mean history was that much closer to the salvation to come through God's Christ, something the infernal power very much wanted to hinder.
Chapter 11
Introductory remarks;
1 And I in the first year of Cyrus stood to strengthen and confirm .
2 And now I will tell thee the truth. Behold, there shall yet rise up three kings in Persia: and the fourth shall be very far richer than all: and after that he is master of his wealth, he shall rise up against all the kingdoms of the Greeks.
3 An there shall rise up a mighty king, and he shall be lord of a great empire, and shall do according to his will.
4 And when his kingdom shall stand up, it shall be broken, and shall be divided to the four winds of heaven; but not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled over: for his kingdom shall be plucked up, and to others beside these.
5 And the king of the south shall be strong; and one of their princes shall prevail against him, and shall obtain a great dominion.
6 And after his years they shall associate; and the daughter of the king of the south shall come to the king of the north, to make agreements with him: but she shall not retain power of arm; neither shall his seed stand: and she shall be delivered up, and they that brought her, and the maiden, and he that strengthened her in these times.
7 out of the flower of her root there shall arise his place, and shall come against the host, and shall enter into the strongholds of the king of the north, and shall fight against them, and prevail.
8 Yea, he shall carry with a body of captives into Egypt their gods with their molten all their precious vessels of silver and gold; and he shall last longer than the king of the north.
9 And he shall enter into the kingdom of the king of the south, and shall return to his own land.
10 And his sons shall gather a multitude among many: and one shall certainly come, and overflow, and pass through, and he shall rest, and collect his strength.
11 And the king of the south shall be greatly enraged, and shall come forth, and shall war with the king of the north: and he shall raise a great multitude; but the multitude shall be delivered into his hand.
12 And he shall take the multitude, and his heart shall be exalted; and he shall cast down many thousands; but he shall not prevail.
13 For the king of the north shall return, and bring a multitude greater than the former, and at the end of the times of years an invading army shall come with a great force, and with much substance.
14 And in those times many shall rise up against the king of the south; and the children of the spoilers of thy people shall exalt themselves to establish the vision; and they shall fail.
15 And the king of the north shall come in, and cast up a mound, and take strong cities: and the arms of the king of the south shall withstand, and his chosen ones shall rise up, but there shall be no strength to stand.
16 And he that comes in against him shall do according to his will, and there is no one to stand before him: and he shall stand in the land of beauty, and it shall be consumed by his hand.
17 And he shall set his face to come in with the force of his whole kingdom, and shall cause everything to prosper with him: and he shall give him the daughter of women to corrupt her: but she shall not continue, neither be on his side.
18 And he shall turn his face to the islands, and shall take many, and cause princes to cease from their reproach: nevertheless his own reproach shall return to him.
19 Then he shall turn back his face to the strength of his own land: but he shall become weak, and fall, and not be found.
20 And there shall arise out of his root one that shall cause a plant of the kingdom to pass over his place, earning kingly glory: and yet in those days shall he be broken, yet not openly, nor in war.
21 shall stand on his place, has been set a nought, and they have not put upon him the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in prosperously, and obtain the kingdom by deceitful ways.
22 And the arms of him that overflows shall be washed away as with a flood from before him, and shall be broken, and the head of the covenant.
23 And because of the leagues made with him he shall work deceit: and he shall come up, and overpower them with a small nation.
24 And he shall enter with prosperity, and into fertile districts; and he shall do what his fathers and his fathers' fathers have not done; he shall scatter among them plunder, and spoils, and wealth; and he shall devise plans against Egypt, even for a time.
25 And his strength and his heart shall be stirred up against the king of the south with a great force; and the king of the south shall engage in war with a great and very strong force; but shall not stand, for they shall devise plans against him:
26 and they shall eat his provisions, and shall crush him, and he shall carry away armies as with a flood, and many shall fall down slain.
27 And both the kings, their hearts upon mischief, and they shall speak lies at one table; but it shall not prosper; for yet the end is for a time.
28 And he shall return to his land with much substance; and his heart against the holy covenant; and he shall perform , and return to his own land.
29 At the time he shall return, and shall come into the south, but the last shall be as the first.
30 For the Citians issuing forth shall come against him, and he shall be brought low, and shall return, and shall be incensed against the holy covenant: and he shall do , and shall return, and have intelligence with them that have forsaken the holy covenant.
31 And seeds shall spring up out of him, and they shall profane the sanctuary of strength, and they shall remove the perpetual , and make the abomination desolate.
32 And the transgressors shall bring about a covenant by deceitful ways: but a people knowing their God shall prevail
, and do .
33 And the intelligent of the people shall understand much: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, and by captivity, and by spoil of days.
34 And when they are weak they shall be helped with a little help: but many shall attach themselves to them with treachery.
35 And of them that understand shall fall, to try them as with fire, and to test , and that they may be manifested at the time of the end, for the matter yet for a time.
On Herod the Great
36 And he shall do according to his will, and the king shall exalt and magnify himself against every god, and shall speak great swelling words, and shall prosper until the indignation shall be accomplished: for it is coming to an end.
37 And he shall not regard any gods of his fathers, nor the desire of women, neither shall he regard any deity: for he shall magnify himself above all.
38 And he shall honour the god of forces on his place: and a god whom his fathers knew not he shall honour with gold, and silver, and precious stones, and desirable things.
39 And he shall do in the strong places of refuge with a strange god, and shall increase his glory: and he shall subject many to them, and shall distribute the land in gifts.
40 And at the end of the time he shall conflict with the king of the south: and the king of the north shall come against him with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and they shall enter into the land: and he shall break in pieces, and pass on:
41 and he shall enter into the land of beauty, and many shall fail: but these shall escape out of his hand, Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.
42 And he shall stretch forth hand over the land; and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 And he shall have the mastery over the secret of gold and silver, and over all the desirable of Egypt, and of the Libyans and Ethiopians in their strongholds.
44 But rumors and anxieties out of the east and from the north shall trouble him; and he shall come with great wrath to destroy many. SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS
45 And he shall pitch the tabernacle of his palace between the seas in the holy mountain of beauty: he shall come to his portion, and there is none to deliver him.(Herod death at Jericho). We are only less than 80 years away from the Indignation at the death of this Idumean King.
This year: Hanakkah is from December 7—15 2003, 2, 187 years after Judas the Maccabee cleansed the Second Temple, Daniel 11 and 12, however, goes on to even more extraordinary prophecies (and these we will quickly find to be relevant and meaningful for our understanding of the end as described in the Gospel biographies and the Book of Revelation. The chaotic and confusing events from the founding of the Hasmonean Monarchy to the usurpation of the same by Herod in the remainder of Daniel chapter 11 leads directly, not to the end of time, but to the greatest tribulation ever and the resurrection of those who ‘sleep in the dust of the earth.’ This resurrection of the dead, which was directly hinted at in Daniel 7:7-27, is here posited as adjacent to the initially successful and then woefully failed foundation of Hasmonean imperial power. HEROD. . . .
1 And I in the first year of Cyrus stood to strengthen and confirm .
2 And now I will tell thee the truth. Behold, there shall yet rise up three kings in Persia: and the fourth shall be very far richer than all: and after that he is master of his wealth, he shall rise up against all the kingdoms of the Greeks.
3 An there shall rise up a mighty king, and he shall be lord of a great empire, and shall do according to his will.
4 And when his kingdom shall stand up, it shall be broken, and shall be divided to the four winds of heaven; but not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled over: for his kingdom shall be plucked up, and to others beside these.
5 And the king of the south shall be strong; and one of their princes shall prevail against him, and shall obtain a great dominion.
6 And after his years they shall associate; and the daughter of the king of the south shall come to the king of the north, to make agreements with him: but she shall not retain power of arm; neither shall his seed stand: and she shall be delivered up, and they that brought her, and the maiden, and he that strengthened her in these times.
7 out of the flower of her root there shall arise his place, and shall come against the host, and shall enter into the strongholds of the king of the north, and shall fight against them, and prevail.
8 Yea, he shall carry with a body of captives into Egypt their gods with their molten all their precious vessels of silver and gold; and he shall last longer than the king of the north.
9 And he shall enter into the kingdom of the king of the south, and shall return to his own land.
10 And his sons shall gather a multitude among many: and one shall certainly come, and overflow, and pass through, and he shall rest, and collect his strength.
11 And the king of the south shall be greatly enraged, and shall come forth, and shall war with the king of the north: and he shall raise a great multitude; but the multitude shall be delivered into his hand.
12 And he shall take the multitude, and his heart shall be exalted; and he shall cast down many thousands; but he shall not prevail.
13 For the king of the north shall return, and bring a multitude greater than the former, and at the end of the times of years an invading army shall come with a great force, and with much substance.
14 And in those times many shall rise up against the king of the south; and the children of the spoilers of thy people shall exalt themselves to establish the vision; and they shall fail.
15 And the king of the north shall come in, and cast up a mound, and take strong cities: and the arms of the king of the south shall withstand, and his chosen ones shall rise up, but there shall be no strength to stand.
16 And he that comes in against him shall do according to his will, and there is no one to stand before him: and he shall stand in the land of beauty, and it shall be consumed by his hand.
17 And he shall set his face to come in with the force of his whole kingdom, and shall cause everything to prosper with him: and he shall give him the daughter of women to corrupt her: but she shall not continue, neither be on his side.
18 And he shall turn his face to the islands, and shall take many, and cause princes to cease from their reproach: nevertheless his own reproach shall return to him.
19 Then he shall turn back his face to the strength of his own land: but he shall become weak, and fall, and not be found.
20 And there shall arise out of his root one that shall cause a plant of the kingdom to pass over his place, earning kingly glory: and yet in those days shall he be broken, yet not openly, nor in war.
21 shall stand on his place, has been set a nought, and they have not put upon him the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in prosperously, and obtain the kingdom by deceitful ways.
22 And the arms of him that overflows shall be washed away as with a flood from before him, and shall be broken, and the head of the covenant.
23 And because of the leagues made with him he shall work deceit: and he shall come up, and overpower them with a small nation.
24 And he shall enter with prosperity, and into fertile districts; and he shall do what his fathers and his fathers' fathers have not done; he shall scatter among them plunder, and spoils, and wealth; and he shall devise plans against Egypt, even for a time.
25 And his strength and his heart shall be stirred up against the king of the south with a great force; and the king of the south shall engage in war with a great and very strong force; but shall not stand, for they shall devise plans against him:
26 and they shall eat his provisions, and shall crush him, and he shall carry away armies as with a flood, and many shall fall down slain.
27 And both the kings, their hearts upon mischief, and they shall speak lies at one table; but it shall not prosper; for yet the end is for a time.
28 And he shall return to his land with much substance; and his heart against the holy covenant; and he shall perform , and return to his own land.
29 At the time he shall return, and shall come into the south, but the last shall be as the first.
30 For the Citians issuing forth shall come against him, and he shall be brought low, and shall return, and shall be incensed against the holy covenant: and he shall do , and shall return, and have intelligence with them that have forsaken the holy covenant.
31 And seeds shall spring up out of him, and they shall profane the sanctuary of strength, and they shall remove the perpetual , and make the abomination desolate.
32 And the transgressors shall bring about a covenant by deceitful ways: but a people knowing their God shall prevail, and do .
33 And the intelligent of the people shall understand much: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, and by captivity, and by spoil of days.
34 And when they are weak they shall be helped with a little help: but many shall attach themselves to them with treachery.
35 And of them that understand shall fall, to try them as with fire, and to test , and that they may be manifested at the time of the end, for the matter yet for a time.
36 And he shall do according to his will, and the king shall exalt and magnify himself against every god, and shall speak great swelling words, and shall prosper until the indignation shall be accomplished: for it is coming to an end.
37 And he shall not regard any gods of his fathers, nor the desire of women, neither shall he regard any deity: for he shall magnify himself above all.
38 And he shall honour the god of forces on his place: and a god whom his fathers knew not he shall honour with gold, and silver, and precious stones, and desirable things.
39 And he shall do in the strong places of refuge with a strange god, and shall increase his glory: and he shall subject many to them, and shall distribute the land in gifts.
40 And at the end of the time he shall conflict with the king of the south: and the king of the north shall come against him with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and they shall enter into the land: and he shall break in pieces, and pass on:
41 and he shall enter into the land of beauty, and many shall fail: but these shall escape out of his hand, Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.
42 And he shall stretch forth hand over the land; and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 And he shall have the mastery over the secret of gold and silver, and over all the desirable of Egypt, and of the Libyans and Ethiopians in their strongholds.
44 But rumors and anxieties out of the east and from the north shall trouble him; and he shall come with great wrath to destroy many.
45 And he shall pitch the tabernacle of his palace between the seas in the holy mountain of beauty: he shall come to his portion, and there is none to deliver him.
Daniel 11:41 ends with the death of King Herod the Great.N Brief flash of Jewish independence was captured in a mere 3 verses, the reign of terror of Herod, a much short but more consequential period, was covered in ten verses. Between Chapter 11 above and Chapter 12 below we will observe a detect a "break" in the flow of ideas inasmuch as the death of Herod through near to the Destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Second Temple State, is not historically (directly) abutting those events. As we will see, a very strong argument can be proposed that the Olivet Discourse reflects this break and supplies the continuity that is, by design, missing in the revelations given to Daniel.
PART VII
Daniel 12: The Eschaton
Daniel chapter 12 is extraordinary in many many ways. What it describes, initially, is enigmatic and causes the greatest care in our efforts to interpret what is before us. Efforts to distance the resurrection of the dead and the eschaton from the rise of the Hasmoneans in Daniel 11 inveigh to invalidate, erode and retard Bible prophecy just as much as arbitrarily naming the fourth monarchy the Roman Empire distorts the Bible prophecy timeline. In either case this brings it into a dispute as anything with enough predictive value to be conclusive at all.
Michael the Archangel and the Worst Tribulation Ever
Those who sleep in the dust of the earth.
1 And at that time Michael the great prince shall stand up, that stands over the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of tribulation, such tribulation as has not been from the time that there was a nation on the earth until that time: at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that is written in the book.
2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to reproach and everlasting shame.
3 And the wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and of the many righteous as the stars for ever and ever.
4 And thou, Daniel, close the words, and seal the book to the time of the end; until many are taught, and knowledge is increased.
5 And I Daniel saw, and, behold, two others stood, on one side of the bank of the river, and the other on the other side of the bank of the river.
6 And said to the man clothed in linen, who was over the water of the river, When the end of the wonders which thou has mentioned?
7 And I heard the man clothed in linen, who was over the water of the river, and he lifted up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and sware by him that lives for ever, that for a time of times and half a time: when the dispersion is ended they shall know all these things.
8 And I heard, but I understood not: and I said, O Lord, what the end of these things?
9 And he said, Go, Daniel: for the words are closed and sealed up to the time of the end.
10 Many must be tested, and thoroughly whitened, and tried with fire, and sanctified; but the transgressors shall transgress: and none of the transgressors shall understand; but the wise shall understand.
11 And from the time of the removal of the perpetual sacrifice, when the abomination of desolation shall be set up, a thousand two hundred and ninety days.
12 Blessed is he that waits, and comes to the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days.
13 But go thou, and rest; for yet days and seasons to the fulfillment of the end; and thou shalt stand in thy lot at the end of the days.
The resurrection of the dead. We saw hints of this in the events of the final hours of the fourth monarchy in Daniel 7. Who are these 'holy people'? Refer back to Daniel 9. By context they have to be the Jewish people, Daniel's own people, the people of the Old Testament. Note what it says: See 'thy holy people,' 'thy law' and thy 'holy city.' The holy people of Daniel would be the Jewish people, thy law would be the Law of Moses, and thy holy city, would be Jerusalem.
"Power of the holy people to be scattered."
What happens to the Second Temple in 8 (it was restored) does not happen to the Second Temple in Daniel 9 (it ends in wars and desolations). But what does this mean? It means there are TWO abominations of desolations Daniel predictions. one to happen sooner and the other to happen later.
Daniel 8 happens closer to the time of Alexander the Great, but the Abomination of Desolation of Daniel 9 happens AFTER the Messiah is cut off. Jesus was cut off in the first century, exactly two hundred years after the crimes of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the apostate Jewish Hellenists. But this also means that the prophecy brings us all the way to A.D.33, 37 years before the Destruction of Jerusalem, and the end of Daniel 9 brings us to A.D.66-70
Here, many of the events of Daniel 7's fourth monarchy can be inferred into the half week of Daniel 9. The fourth kingdom heralds extraordinarily terrifying events which are posited by the New Testament Gospels as belonging to our Lord's Second Coming (in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), but more importantly, the Book of Revelation circumscribes them to something slated to happen in the Apostle John’s lifetime and the lifetime of the first Christians (Revelation 1:1,3, 7!).
NOT Near in the Lifetime of the Prophet Daniel
Seal the sayings of this book till the time of the end. The end of the Jewish world to be near the close of the Herodian Era. Daniel 12 gives us a lot to think about and a lot to go on. We find that the resurrection of the dead, the scattering of Jewish power and the end of the Jewish State are the outcomes of prophecies given to the Prophet Daniel 6 centuries in advance. We discovered that four monarchies would arise and the last of them was the power of Judaea itself. We learned that the SecondTemple was ransacked and this was partly due to insidous forces of apostasy working in concert with Greek machinations in the Seleucid Empire. Murder, intrigue, Simony, idolatry, blasphemy, heroism, sacrifices, and bloodshed all pave the way forward toward the convergence of Jewish salvation history toward the time of our Lord.
By the end of the book the outlook for salvation is assured, but the circumstances painted on the canvas of reality look dark and bleak: Many social conventions will come into play against the Messiah and the new people of God and these will be animated by misguided assumptions that spring from the deep well of the past and past experiences. It will not be understood by many what is going on or what is at stake. And even today, after 20 centuries of Christianity, rare is the commentary that will even touch or attempt to understand why and how Daniel 12 finds any relevance to the string of events that reach back to Ptolemaic/Seleucid intrigues. The assumption that Daniel's predictions have a view to GLOBAL history is the first fly in the ointment. So too is the notion that the book has events at the end of time or the end of the physical universe as its terminus.
In the final analysis, Daniel 12 brings forward the stark reality that a momentous upheaval was destined to happen in the aftermath of the death of Israel's true Messiah and this, history ATTEST, MAKES THE BEST SENSE OF WHAT WE See in Reports of what fell out from A.D.63 to 136. End.
Endnotes
1 Daniel 7 Note. First year of Bēl-šar-uṣur, meaning "Bel, protect the king"; Hebrew: בֵּלְשַׁאצַּר Bēlšaʾṣṣar) was the son and crown prince of Nabonidus ( r. 556–539 BC), the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Wikipedia/
2 Matthew 3, 7, 8, 11-12, 16-19, 21-23, 24-25, and 26:64 represent the tip of the iceberg that belongs directly on top of what Daniel saw as his own civilization's dreadful reaction to the coming of the Son of God into their world. It is an absolutely fascinating but shocking glimpse into the past, preserved for us in the Word of God itself!
3 The book of Acts also shows the beginning of how the Second Jewish Commonwealth found itself reacting to the News about Jesus and the coming judgment.
4 The epistles of the Apostle Paul, Hebrews, and the General epistles also address this. But the Book of Revelation absolutely caps how this electrifying period ended with what seemed like the Jewish concept of winning against the Romans was absolutely airtight when the forces of heaven itself were arrayed against it in every way possible.
The motive and goal of this study was to rethink, reframe, and reaffirm the validity of the New Testament inside the context of its nascent civilization of not the Roman Empire, but the Second Jewish Commonwealth.