Notes on Daniel 7

Setting the Stage

• Lion’s den = humans threatened by beasts;
• People of God reject pagan worship;
• People of God are released from the furnace and den = vindication;
• The pagan king repents = widescreen Gospel, nations will be subjugated;

Influence

• BC times Books of Enoch; Psalms of Solomon 17

“Lord, and raise up for them their king, the son of David, to rule over Israel, your servant, in the time which you chose, o God.

He will have gentile nations serving him under his yoke and he will glorify the Lord in [a place] visible [from] the whole earth.

He will be a righteous king over them, taught by God. There will be no unrighteousness among them in his days, for all [will be] holy, and their king [will be] the Lord Messiah.”

• Esdras (AD, 4th beast Roman eagle);
• Jewish-Roman Wars.

According to Josephus what led to the First Jewish-Roman war (66-73AD) “was an ambiguous oracle, likewise found in their sacred scriptures, to the effect that at that time one from their country would become ruler of the world. This they understood to mean someone of their own race, and many of their wise men went astray in their interpretation of it.” (War, Book 6)

For the NT

• the most quoted/alluded to verse, Dan 7.13 Son of man coming with the clouds…”
• closely followed by Dan 7:14 “to him was given the KOG and nations will serve him”
• Son of man Jesus’ favorite self-designation, 80+ throughout the Gospels.

Little horn: Dan 7:8, 25; cp. 8:9-12, 23.

• Dan 7:11; cp. “a lot of noise, arrogant words” from the Beast, Rev 13:5.
• The tyrant is to arise “in the latter time” of the Syrian kingdom which arose out of the divisions of the Greek kingdom of Alexander the Great.
• Dan 8:23 “‘latter time of their kingdom when the transgressors are come to the full” not Antiochus!
• The beasts in Daniel 7 were not identified by Daniel, but in chapter 8 we find the geographical origin of the little horn. He comes from the territory of the Greek empire and in particular the Syrian or Mesopotamian division centered in Babylonia after the death of Alexander. Dan 8:9 “Then from one of the prominent horns came a small horn whose power grew very great. It extended toward the south and the east and toward the glorious land of Israel.”
• Dan 8:17, 19: “The vision pertains to the time of the end…the final period of indignation…the appointed time of the end.”
• The little horn of chapter 7 reigns for 3.5 years and chapter 8 adds 2300 days, during which the Temple will lie desolate and the sacrifices cease. If we understand these as literal days then a period of just under 7 years is in view. Explain the difference between these two chapters?

Takeaways

N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God.

The main task of the Messiah, over and over again, is the liberation of Israel, and her reinstatement as the true people of the creator god. This will often involve military action, which can be seen in terms of judgment as in a lawcourt. It will also involve action in relation to the Jerusalem Temple, which must be cleansed and/or restored and/or rebuilt.

It is clear that whenever the Messiah appears, and whoever he turns out to be, he will be the agent of Israel’s god.

Certainly there is no reason to hypothesize any widespread belief that the coming Messiah would be anything other than an ordinary human being called by Israel’s god to an extraordinary task.

So how did a Jewish “expectation, the longing for a national restoration, fit in, if it did, with the hope for a non-spatio-temporal life after death? How did personal hope fit in with national hope? How did “spiritual” aspiration cohere with “political”? And, in the middle of all this, what about the idea of resurrection?

It is clear that some first-century Jews at least had already adopted what may be seen as a Hellenized future expectation, that is, a hope for a none physical (or “spiritual”) world to which the righteous and blessed would be summoned after death, and a non-physical place of damnation where the wicked would be tormented. Nevertheless, I believe it would be a great mistake to regard a Hellenized expectation as basic, and to place the sociopolitical hope in a secondary position.”