I just finished reading through the book of Daniel and I was reminded that it may be, at least in my opinion, one of the most interesting books in the Bible. It has several of the most memorable stories in all the bible, and is one of the richest prophetic books of all the Hebrew scriptures.
Chapter 1 is the story of how Daniel and his friends were taken back to Babylon after the capture of Jerusalem.
Chapter 2 is the incredible story of how Nebuchadnezzar has a prophetic dream and insists his diviners not only tell him the interpretation, but the dream too. He wouldn’t give them what the dream was about. But the Lord reveals both to Daniel and his prophetic interpretation of the 4 earthly kingdoms being replaced by the kingdom of heaven is outlined.
Chapter 3 is the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s image and how Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego wouldn’t bow to it, and were thrown into the fiery furnace.
Chapter 4 is the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s pride leading to him being stripped of his mind for 7 years until he repented.
Chapter 5 is the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Belshazzar and the writing on the wall.
Chapter 6 is the story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den
The rest of the book is prophecy.
Chapter 7 is Daniel’s dream of the four beasts, again the four kingdoms, being supplanted by the kingdom of heaven.
Chapter 8 is the vision of the Ram and the Goat where the Medo-Persian empire is overrun by Alexander the Great
Chapter 9 chronicles Daniel’s recognition that the 70 years exile was about to end and his prayer for Israel. Then he is given the prophecy of the 70 sevens.
Chapter 10 tells us about Daniel’s vision of a man, and chapter 11 is an elaborately detailed prophecy of politics in the region for the next 400 years.
I remember studying the prophecies of Daniel in Bible School, and was able to track what is recorded regarding the ‘kings of the south and the north’ in Daniel in Wikipedia. The kings of the south and north are essentially the Ptolemies in Egypt and the Seleucids in Turkey. Then in chapter 11 , verse 36, a king is defined that we can’t track. For this reason it’s assumed that it will be the antichrist in the future.
Chapter 12 contains one of the few verses in Hebrew scriptures that speak directly of an afterlife. Through most of the Hebrew scriptures, the dead go down to the grave and that’s all that’s known of them. This is the reason why there was a rift between the Pharisees- who accepted life after death, and the Sadducees- who didn’t.
Chapter 12 also gives a further confirmation of the timing of the ‘seven’ mentioned in chapter 9, which, when corroborated with the book of Revelation, gives us a fuller picture of the final seven years.
Anyway, it’s a really fascinating book. As an aside, since I studied Hebrew and can at least read it a little, I decided when I was taking the class (which only covered the prophetic chapters: 2, 7-12), I’d go ahead and translate the Hebrew for myself. Well, most of the book is written in Aramaic, which uses the same letters, so I foolishly assumed would be ‘basically the same thing’. Then I got in to start translating it and realized right off that while some of the words were similar, there was a whole different syntax and vocab going on. (much like similarities between Italian and Spanish, but they’re still different languages)
I toughed it out though and got through it, which was fairly rewarding for me.