Daniel - Lesson 16

Dr. Tremper Longman III
Daniel ot666-16
Daniel 8
Lesson Transcript

So our second apocalyptic vision in the Book of Daniel has a number of similarities with Daniel Chapter seven, but also some pretty clear differences. We're going to see, for instance, that kingdoms are going to be represented by animals, but in this case the animals are a ram and a goat as opposed to terrifying hybrid beasts or or metallic beasts that arise out of a sea. And. And also, probably the biggest difference is that the vision and Daniel eight doesn't extend as far as it does. And Daniel chapter seven, but very clearly does refer to events over the next few centuries after Daniel culminating not with the anti-Christ, but with a blasphemous, arrogant king in the mid second century B.C.. So let me begin by reading the vision itself, which Daniel receives in the first 14 verses. And like in Daniel seven, it's followed by an angelic interpretation. But rather than reading the whole chapter initially, I'll read through Daniel. Eight. Make a few comments, though. Things about the vision will become clearer in Daniel in the second half of the chapter. I should also point out that the reference to the various imagery, particularly in the light of the interpretation, seems to be much more clear in that the angel actually mentions specific nations that are symbolized by these animals. So it begins in the third year of King Belshazzar, his reign. So we're but two years after Daniel chapter seven and you know, the beginning of Belshazzar, his reign since he's a cow regent, it's a little harder to determine. But Gerald Hasel in a in a article computed to be somewhere if you want a number 548 547 B.C., it says I Daniel had a vision after the one that had already appeared to me. In my vision, I saw myself in the citadel of Susa in the province of Belém and the vision I was beside the July canal. This kind of description of the setting reminds us of the Ezekiel, who had a vision that's mentioned in chapter one, where he's near another canal in Persia, the Khyber Canal, and raises the question of whether Daniel is actually physically at this place or whether this is part of his vision. I don't think it makes a big difference in terms of the interpretation of the text. I mean, Daniel being Daniel and his position in the Persian Court could certainly have gone to Sousa and stood next to that July canal in the province of Elam. Susa was the capital of Elam and previous time now Elam as a part of the Persian Empire. And it is the winter where the Winter Palace of the King is. And of course, those of you who know the book faster know that the action in the Book of Esther takes place in Sousa as well. I looked up and there before me was a ram with two horns standing beside the canal. And the horns were long. One of the horns is longer than the other, but grew up later. So the animals aren't fanciful, but the horns are unusual. We're attracted to the horn. We're going to find out a little bit later why the one horn is longer than the other. Just to remind you, just like in Daniel, Chapter seven, Horns represent Power. I watched the RAM as a charge toward the West and the north and the South. No animal could stand against it. None could rescue from its power. It did as it pleased and became great. I were not told yet, but this animal represents. Kingdom. And this idea of going in these directions and expanding its power will be symbolic of the expansion of the power of the nation that it represents. As I was thinking about this, suddenly a goat with a prominent horn between its eyes came from the west, crossing the whole earth without touching the ground. Okay, Speed, I guess, is what's being emphasized here. It came toward the two horned ram I had seen standing beside the canal and charged at it in a great rage. I saw it attack the ram, furiously striking the ram and shattering its two horns. The ram was powerless to stand against it. The goat knocked it to the ground and trampled on it, and none could rescue the ram from its power. The goat became very great, but at the height of its power, the large horn was broken off, and in its place, four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven. So, again, anticipating the identification of these animals with kingdoms. This is obviously, obviously showing that the second animal, the second animal that represents a nation will defeat the first animal. But we still have to think about the significance of the horn and its breaking off and being replaced by four horns. Out of one of them came another horn, which started small but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the beautiful land, which is a way that the Book of Daniel refers to the land of Israel, the promised land, the land of milk and honey. It grew until it reached the hosts of heaven, and it threw some of the starry horse down to the earth and trampled on them. Well, already we should realize that this describes the sort of earthly battle extending into a spiritual battle. Right. And interestingly enough, this little horn has some success against the starry host. It set itself up to be as great as the commander of the Army of the Lord. It took away the daily sacrifice from the Lord, and his sanctuary was thrown down because of a rebellion. The Lord's people and the daily sacrifice were given over to it at Prosper in everything it did, and truth was thrown to the ground. Then I heard a holy one speaking and another Holy one said to him, How long will it take for the vision to be fulfilled? The vision concerning the daily sacrifice, the rebellion that causes desolation, the surrender of the sanctuary and the trampling underfoot of the Lord's people? He said to me, It will take 2300 evenings and mornings. Then the sanctuary will be consecrated. So I've been a little bit spare or reticent in my explanation of this because I've been wanting to wait till we come to the interpretation of the vision. So we may be coming back to reading parts of this vision. Verse 15, While Daniel was watching the vision and trying to understand it, there stood one who looked like a man, and I heard a man's voice from the reply, calling Gabriel, tell this man the meaning of the vision. Okay. Now, Gabriel is the first named Angel in the Bible, and he will play a role later in the Book of Daniel and of course, in the New Testament as well. The Angels seem to have specific tasks. Gabriel Which means God's hero is. Functions mostly as a kind of messenger. He is the one who comes and delivers announcements from the Lord. Tell this man the meaning of the vision. Now the man's. I heard a man's voice from the You lie. It's actually the Hebrews suggests from the middle of the lie. It's a human voice. I take what it is, but it's not a human. I think we're to understand this unnamed voice. Disembodied voice is coming from God, giving his angelic servant a order. As he came near the place where I was standing, I was terrified and fell prostrate. Son, A man, he said to me, Here's our expression, said a man I mentioned. The vehicle yesterday was frequently called Son, a man here. Gabriel's calling Daniel son a man. He's not one like a son, a man. He is a sentiment. He is a human being. He said to me, Understand that the vision concerns the time of the end. Okay, so we might read that initially and think that it's pointing to the end of history and sometimes end like in Daniel seven, I think is used to refer to the culmination of history and God's final intrusion into history. But as the famous 19th century Lutheran commentator Kyle of Kyle and Dallas fame put it, that you have to judge what the end is in terms of the particular horizon of the prophetic vision that you're dealing with. And here I think it's going to be pretty obvious that the prophetic vision is extending not to the end of time, but rather to the end of a to the end of a particularly threatening period of time to the people of God In the mid second century B.C. when I was speaking to me, I was in deep sleep with my face to the ground and he touched me and raised me to my feet. He said, I am going to tell you what will happen later in the time of wrath, because the vision concerns the point at time of the end. The two horned ram that you saw represents the kings of medium Persia. Okay, So voila. You know, we're not left guessing when it comes to the animals. Gabriel says, Hey, you know that two horned Ram, that's media and Persia. And it also speaks in terms of one horned being larger than the other. And what we know about the historical moment is that Persia is the dominant power and that the Medes are kind of like vassals of theirs. Cyrus is the king of Persia. The shaggy goat is the king of Greece, and the large horn between its eye is the first king. Well, again, pretty clear that this is a reference to not only Greece, but to Alexander the Great, The four horns that replaced the one that was broken off represent four kingdoms that will emerge from his nation but will not have the same power. Perhaps you know the story of Alexander the Great, one of the most well known ancient figures. Alexander the Great was a young man as he raced across and remember how the goat was described as not even touching the ground as he raced across from Macedonia, which was his headquarters through Asia minor, taking the Persian Empire in a brief period of time and then even extending as far as through Afghanistan, what today is Afghanistan and India and then returning to Babylon, where he died in 323 B.C., an extremely young age. I'm pretty sure he's in his early thirties and he leaves behind two very, very young sons. Alexander and Heraclius, I believe, are their names and left them in the care of one of his senior generals. Not a good plan for greedy and ambitious generals. And as things work out, Alexander's kingdom is divided between. These four generals who are often referred to as the DEA guy. But what's most relevant to the book on Daniel and what's relevant to just biblical history are the two kings whose capitals are set up in Antioch and in Alexandria, respectively. One general was named Seleucids, and his kingdom is often referred to as the Seleucid Kingdom. And when the other general in Alexandria, Egypt, is Ptolemy, King, Ptolemy. And so his kingdom and the dynasty that comes from him is called the Ptolemaic Kingdom. And this these two powers play a role not only in Daniel Chapter eight, but will be featured in the list of a King of the North that will arise and a king of the South that will arise. And Daniel, Chapter 11 The King of the North being the Seleucid Dynasty and the King of the South being the Ptolemaic dynasty. So in the latter part of their reign, when rebels have become completely wicked, a fierce looking king, a master of intrigue will arise. He will be come very strong, but not by his own power. He will cause astounding devastation and will succeed. And whatever he does, he will destroy those who are mighty, the holy people. He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take a stand against the Prince of Peace. As yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power. Okay, let me pause here. And because the focus, you know, rests on this sort of culminating figure. This master of intrigue, this evil person who is so lucid ruler in the mid second century B.C., this master of intrigue, the culminating figure in this vision is to be identified with Antiochus epiphanies. The fourth. Any epiphanies means. Illuminated or appearing. He was also given the name by his enemies. EPI mayonnaise. Antiochus, the crazy guy. So let's focus in on how this future figure to Daniel. But we look at this prophecy from many centuries after its fulfillment, a little bit about how this description is appropriate to Antiochus and of. Go. First of all, he's called a master of intrigue because he actually wasn't a natural heir to the throne after the death of his father. He had an older brother and the older brother was named Silas, and he manipulated things. He was actually a political prisoner back in Rome and orchestrated most likely the death of his brother so that he could assume the throne. He also, when he did take control and in those periods when he controlled Jerusalem, he undermined religious rituals in the interests of trying to promote the Hellenization of Jerusalem. And that included things like stopping sacrificial ritual. Introducing, though this is not mentioned explicitly here, but it will be alluded to in Daniel Chapter nine introducing a something that was dedicated to the worship of Zeus. That was probably a meteorite that was dedicated and placing it in the holy of holies. It's probably this that's referred to as the abomination of desolation. He removed the high priest from office to put his own contender in there, a man named Aeneas the third. He also, according to First Maccabees. We learned a lot about Antiochus from First Maccabees, which is an inner testament all historical book which talks about this time and also the rebellions against him by the Maccabees. But in in second. Samuel I'm sorry. First Maccabees Chapter one versus 56 to 57, again describing events in the middle of the second century B.C. quoting Maccabees, the books of the law that they found. They tore to pieces and burned with fire. Anyone found possessing the Book of the Covenant or anyone who adhered to the law was condemned to death by the decree of the king. On another occasion, once after being defeated by the King of Egypt, the Ptolemaic King, he retreated to Jerusalem, where he proceeded to have 5000 Jews crucified throughout the city. This was a bad guy. And my point would be that there's an interest in Antiochus, both because he was such a terror and persecutor of God's people, but also because I think he becomes a kind of type of the Antichrist eventually. So let's read this description again, both in the and the vision itself, as well as in the interpretation. And think of Antiochus as I do so. So down back in verse nine and following it says out of one of them, remember the four horns represent the four Dear Tokai. So out of one of them, the one that represents the Seleucids came another horn, which started small but grew in power. So he starts small. He's not even on the throne and he manipulates to get there. But he grows in power to the south, toward the toward the towards Egypt, but also to the east and toward the beautiful land. Jerusalem is smack dab basically in the middle of these two Greek kingdoms, the Ptolemy's and the sluices. So it goes back and forth. Over the centuries, it grew until it reached the hosts of heaven and threw down some of the starry, some of the starry host down the earth and trampled on them. I think this is a reference to the type of desecration that Antiochus performed against the temple and the rituals surrounding the temple. It set itself up to be as great as the commander of the Army of the Lord. So this vision is picturing Antiochus is not just attacking the people of God, but actually attacking God himself. And the sanctuary was thrown down. It was desecrated by this prophet nation. First 12 is a little difficult because of rebellion. The Lord's people and the daily sacrifice are given over to it. The question is what rebellion is this talking about? And there are two possibilities. One is that it's a reference to the rebellion of the people of God, in essence, saying that all this is happening as a matter of judgment, but it's actually much more likely that this reference to rebellion is a reference to Antiochus, his rebellion or attacks on the on the temple. It prospered everything it did, and truth was thrown to the ground. By the way, just to remind us, if we need reminder again that that the primary theme is still operative here, in spite of present difficulties In this case, we have this little horn. We have the Antiochus epiphany, persecuting horribly the people of God. God is in control, and He will have the final victory as will be anticipated by this vision. But there are also other themes that I want to start to mention now that will play themselves out and in all of the visions. So. So one of the things that each of these visions emphasizes and each vision emphasizes each of these to a different degree is it's a it's expressing the horror of human evil, particularly as it's concentrated in the state. That's one of the six main themes that play itself out. And I'll mention some of the others as we go on. So but again, the culmination of this is that there will be an end because God is in control and that end is anticipated in verse 13 when it says, Then I heard a holy one speaking and another Holy one said to him, How long will it take for the vision to be fulfilled? The vision concerning the daily sacrifice, the rebellion that causes desolation, the surrender of the sanctuary and the trampling under feet of the Lord's people. And then we get this expression. It will take 2300 evenings and mornings. Then the sanctuary will be consecrated. And then in verse 26, it says, The visions of the evenings and mornings that has been given to you is true. Okay. So there's this emphasis on a determined set time. That this desecration will be allowed to continue, but it will have a definite end. Now, one of the things, one of the six themes here is that, um, that each of these visions have an announcement of a specific time of deliverance here. It's expressed as 2300 evenings and mornings. Daniel, Chapter seven And I should have emphasized this, or at least mentioned it at this time, talks about a time, times and half a time. Right. And we're going to see a number of different types of time indicators. And what I think I'm going to do is as we get to the final one in Daniel chapter 12, I'm going to say have a more complete statement about how I think these numbers are functioning. But I will say that they are all incredibly ambiguous. They are all incredibly difficult to pin down on a calendar beginning with this one, I would say 2300 evenings and mornings. I mean, then there's a debate over as that being 2300 days, or does that mean, you know, 1650 days? In other words, is it counting the evening and morning sacrifice as separate things? And so and then provided, which is whichever number you have as you dig into the history, there's a question of when does it start and when does it end. And that's going to be a theme that we see with all these numbers, including the idea of a time, times, and half of time, even if you understand the times as two times and therefore the times as years are a time, one year, two years, half a year. Is that communicating really a three and a half year period of time? Or is it more ambiguous than that and is simply communicating the idea that evil gets ramped up? It goes from one time to two times, but then it slows down to half a time and then ends. So those are the types of things that we'll discuss a little bit later. And when I talk about Daniel's relationship with Revelation, we'll see. That revelation also picks up on some of this language and applies that to the vision and the future that it gives us. But what I will say now is even if these numbers are symbolic and therefore ambiguous in terms of how it might be applied to a calendar, it is communicating something that is definitely true and that is that this evil will come to a determined end and God at least knows when that end is. So then we read in verse 27, I, Daniel is worn out. I lay exhausted for several days. Then I go, I got up and went about the king's business. I was appalled by the vision. It was beyond understanding. So maybe we can be excused that there are elements of this vision and the others that we don't completely understand either. But let me just summarize and then see if there are any questions. This is a vision of a more near term future, though it stretches out some centuries from when Daniel lived and saw this vision. It's a vision that begins with the Persian period from which Daniel is speaking. And but then it looks forward to the time that the Greeks will become powerful and will by with the Persians and ultimately defeat them under Alexander. And then it looks forward beyond that to the death of Alexander, the division of his kingdom, into four parts, and eventually the appearance of Antiochus Epiphanies, symbolized by the little horn and all the horrific damage that he does to the people of God and the religious ritual. But it also looks forward to Alexander's demise. And we're actually going to see more about that also in Daniel Chapter 11, because Daniel Chapter 11 is an interesting chapter that talks about the rise. The kings of the South and kings of the North with a with culminating sort of with Antiochus Epiphanies. But Antiochus Epiphanies in that particular context. All of a sudden changes into a figure that we would identify with the Antichrist at the end of time. So if I had to take any questions about that, Bill, I think you got the. Yeah. Is there are there people who argue. 

Audience Member [00:30:43] That if the two animals in eight are kingdoms. 

Dr. Tremper Longman III [00:30:47] That that would argue that the statues in seven are also kingdoms? And do people draw a connection between those two? You mean specific kingdoms? Because I think everybody agrees that metals are kingdoms and animals and seven are kingdoms. But. But yeah, there are people who want to say that since you can identify specific kingdoms, since, you know, specific kingdoms are identified with the symbols in chapter eight, that means we should be able to do that in Daniel two and seven. I obviously find that not completely persuasive, partly because it it. To do so actually creates a lot of problems, in my opinion, and forces people to be a little bit too neat and tidy in their identifications or stretch the meaning of interpretations of, say, the ten horns that emanate from the fourth kingdom. But yeah, but yeah, absolutely. 

Audience Member [00:31:57] This isn't very academic. I just am very curious one more time to hear you talk about verse ten, the idea that earthly kingdoms could have conflict, that then it almost sounds like, as you said, it's like the hosts of heaven are pulled into a human conflict. Right. But then could trample some of them down. And then I think if I heard you correctly, you said that maybe that was referring to some of the abominations done in the in the tabernacle. But say more. 

Dr. Tremper Longman III [00:32:41] Yeah. It is hard to imagine because clearly, God at any moment what we know about God being omnipotent, all powerful, could resist any attack. But I think it's a way that the physician understands that indeed, Antiochus was able to stop sacrifice for a while, was able to profaned the temple, was able to burn Torahs and or to knocks, and that would be seen as assault, not just on on God's people, but on God himself. And but the vision doesn't speculate as to why God would allow that to happen. You know, we have and I've just been also lecturing on Genesis 32, the wrestling god, you know, Jacob wrestling with God. I mean, there are some similar questions there since the man he's wrestling with very clearly is God, the names, the plays. Penny Peniel, the face of God, God could have defeated. Jacob at any time, but for reasons. That God knows he allowed him not to. He doesn't choose to defeat them. So I don't know. 

Audience Member [00:34:13] It's just one more follow up, which was I somewhere I seem to remember in the back of my head that the chief abomination of Antiochus was the sacrifice of all right. And the tabernacle. And then you just now mentioned a meteor of Jupiter. 

Dr. Tremper Longman III [00:34:34] Yeah. Jupiter is the same difference. Yeah. Latin is Greek. Jupiter. Yeah. So, matter of fact, it's at the time of the consecration. I know. Was one occasion when Antiochus sacrificed a pig in honor of it. You could see this. This guy is doing everything he can to just a band do things that are ultimately repulsive to. To the Jewish people. Yeah. So. So you're right. We're going to see that. He dies at the end of Daniel Chapter 11. He does have an end. But um. So, yeah. I mean, and then there's from what I also understand and I think I mentioned the other day that he instituted, he instituted gymnasiums throughout which had practices like nude wrestling, which were very offensive to Jews. I think he also. Either encouraged. I don't think he mandated, but I think some Jews were willing Lee Hellenized and they also tried to reverse their circumcisions. I remember hearing it's a pretty horrific time if you're a Jewish person, you know.