THE BOOK OF DANIEL
Lesson 6
Chapters 9:1-10:19
The Revelation of the Seventy Years
The Revelation of the Man Dressed in Linen
Holy and Eternal Lord,
Help us to be more like your prophet Daniel in accepting Your will for
our lives and in glorifying Your name in good times and in times of trial. You
granted Daniel the grace to submit to Your will for his life and to never lose
hope in Your covenant promises to his people. His book has become a book of
hope for all Your faithful who struggle against what seem to be insurmountable
odds. Send Your Holy Spirit to guide us in our lesson as God's holy angel
reveals future events to Daniel. We pray in the name of God the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
+ + +
Yahweh warned the
Israelites concerning the covenant judgments for disobedience at the covenant
ratification at Mt. Sinai: "But if you will not listen to me and do not put
all these commandments into practice, if you reject my laws and detest my
customs, and you break my covenant by not putting all my commandments into
practice, this is how I shall treat you ... I shall turn against you and
you will be defeated by your enemies. Your foes will have the mastery over you...
And if, in spite of this, you will not listen to me, I shall punish you seven times
over for your sins... And I shall scatter you among the nations. I shall
unsheathe the sword against you, reducing your country to desert and your towns
to ruins. Then the country will indeed observe its Sabbath, all the while it
lies deserted, while you are in the country of your enemies. Then indeed the
country will rest and observe its Sabbaths."
Leviticus 26:14-16a, 17-18, 33-34
So, this is what Yahweh Sabaoth says,
"Since you have not listened to my words, I shall now send for all the families
of the north, Yahweh declares, that is for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, my
servant, and bring them down on this country and its inhabitants and on all
these surrounding nations. I shall curse them with utter destruction and make
them an object of horror, of scorn, and ruin them forever. From them I shall
banish the shouts of rejoicing and mirth, the voices of bridegroom and bride,
the sound of the handmill and the light of the lamp; and this whole country
will be reduced to ruin and desolation, and these nations will be enslaved to
the king of Babylon for seventy years. But when the seventy years are over, I
shall punish the king of Babylon and that nation, Yahweh declares, for the
wrong they have done, that is, the country of the Chaldaeans, and make it
desolate forever, and against that country I shall perform all the words with
which I have threatened it, that is, everything written in this book."
Jeremiah 25:8-12
For Yahweh says this: "When the
seventy years granted to Babylon are over, I shall intervene on your behalf and
fulfill my favorable promise to you by bringing you back to this place. Yes, I
know what plans I have in mind for you, Yahweh declares, plans for peace, not
for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. When you call to me and come
and pray to me, I shall listen to you. When you search for me, you will find
me; when you search wholeheartedly for me, I shall let you find me, Yahweh
declares. I shall restore your fortunes and gather you in from all the nations
and wherever I have driven you. Yahweh declares. I shall bring you back to
the place from which I exiled you."
Jeremiah 29:10-14
And those who had escaped the sword he
deported to Babylon, where they were enslaved by him and his descendants until
the rise of the kingdom of Persia; to fulfill Yahweh's prophecy through
Jeremiah: "Until the country has paid off its Sabbaths, it will lie fallow for
all the days of its desolation, until the seventy years are complete."
2 Chronicles 36:20-21
The angelic being in Chapter 7 had the role of an interpreter, but in the last two visions, in Chapters 9-10, the angelic being is a spiritual revelator. The purpose of Chapter 9 is to assure the covenant faithful that the intense religious persecution they will suffer in the future will come to an end by the will of their loving God, the Master of history, who has set the duration of the persecution. Historically, there have been many periods of persecution, but three horrific but relatively short periods of persecution for the faithful of the Old and New Covenants stand out in the historical record:
*The murder of Jews began in 1941, but the intense "final solution" of total extermination was announced in March 1942 and began shortly afterward.
The Book of Daniel became a source of hope for the Jews throughout their history and especially during and after the Holocaust. After WWII, they responded to the promise God made to Jeremiah of restoration to their land after a horrific exile by returning from all the nations across Europe to the Holy Land God gave them since all the Gentile nations refused them a home. In the United Nations' vote in 1947 to create the modern states of Israel and Jordan, God fulfilled His promise to Isaiah that a nation would "be created in a day and brought forth all at once" (Is 66:6).
The Reigns of the Kings of Persia from Cyrus the Great to Alexander the Great:
559-530 BC: Cyrus the Great (son of Cambyses
I, King of Anshan and the grandson of Astyages King of the Medes)
530-522 BC: Cambyses (son of Cyrus the Great)
522 BC: Bardiya (?)
522-486 BC: Darius I, the Great (son of Hystaspes, a Persian satrap of Bactria)
486-465 BC: Xerxes I (son of Darius I)
465-424 BC: Artaxerxes/Xerxes II (son of Xerxes I)
424-423 BC: Soqdianus (son of Artaxerxes/Xerxes I)
423-404 BC: Darius II (son of Artaxerxes/Xerxes II)
404-358 BC: Artaxerxes II (son of Darius II)
358-338 BC: Artaxerxes III (son Artaxerxes II)
338-336 BC: Artaxerxes IV (son of Artaxerxes III)
336-330 BC: Darius III (great-grandson of Darius II)
330 BC: the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great of Macedonia
In 546 BC, Cyrus the Great began a campaign against the Babylonian Empire that ended with the surrender of Babylon in 539 BC. Two centuries earlier, Isaiah prophesied his rise to power and called him the shepherd of Yahweh and His anointed one who will accomplish Yahweh's will (Is 44:28; 45:1). It is Yahweh, God of Israel, who grants Cyrus his conquests, so the chosen Gentile Messiah can restore Yahweh's people Israel to their homeland (Isaiah prophecy in 45:1ff). This prophecy was fulfilled in 539/8 BC when Cyrus issued an edict permitted the Jews living in Babylon to return of Judah and rebuild both the city and its Temple (see 2 Chronicles 36:22ff; Ezra 1:1-4 and 6:3-5).
In Chapter 9, recalling Jeremiah's prophecy of the seventy years of exile (see Jer 25:11, 12; 29:10), Daniel calculates the time and events and realizes the exile should be coming to an end. He prays to God to bring about the promised return of His people to their land. This time he will receive a revelation not by a vision but by reading the prophecies of Jeremiah and having the meaning of the prophecies interpreted for him by an angel. Chapter 9 is in three parts:
Daniel 9:1-3 ~ The Prophecy of the Seventy Years
1 It was the
first year of Darius son of Artaxerxes, a Mede by race who assumed the throne
of Chaldaea. 2 In the first year of
his reign I, Daniel, was studying the scriptures, counting over the number of
years, as revealed by Yahweh to the prophet Jeremiah, that were to pass before
the desolation of Jerusalem would come to an end, namely seventy years. 3 I turned my face to the Lord God
begging for time to pray and to plead, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.
[The underlining is for emphasis to aid in counting the
number of times Daniel invokes the Divine Name].
1 It
was the first year of Darius son of Artaxerxes,
a Mede by race who assumed the throne of Chaldaea.
This verse cannot refer to Darius II of Persia, the son of Artaxerxes who
reigned over the Persian Empire from his ascension year in 423 to 404 BC.(1)
Verse 1 is undoubtedly a scribal error in which the scribe substituted Darius (grand)son
of Astyages for Darius, son of Artaxerxes, and the error continued. The
reference cannot be to Darius II son of Artaxerxes for two reasons:
The reference to the Mede who assumed the throne of Chaldaea-Babylon should be Darius the Mede of Daniel 6:1 who probably took the throne-name Cyrus and whose grandfather was Astyages King of the Medes. Daniel would have been 78 years old the first year Darius/Cyrus conquered Babylon.
2 In the first year
of his reign I, Daniel, was studying the scriptures, counting over the number
of years, as revealed by Yahweh to the prophet Jeremiah, that were to pass
before the desolation of Jerusalem would come to an end, namely seventy years.
Verse 2 is the first time God's Divine Name appears in the Book of
Daniel.
Question: Who was the first person in the Bible to use God's
Divine Name, and what did Yahweh tell Moses concerning the use of His Divine
Name? See Gen 4:1 and Ex 3:15?
Answer: The first person to use the Divine Name was Eve. Yahweh
told Moses, "This is my name for all time, and thus I am to be invoked for
all generations to come."
God's encouragement to use His Divine Name, rendered as all ancient Hebrew words without consonants, is YHWH and which most Biblical scholars assume, with vowels, should be pronounced Yahweh. The word LORD is a substitute for the Divine name in many translations. Yahweh's instructions to Moses demonstrates that to refuse to use the Divine Name in invoking God is a false piety. YHWH is the most frequently used reference to God in the Bible.(2)
In the first year of his conquest of Babylon, Cyrus issued an edict allowing the return of all peoples, including the Jews, that the Babylonians exiled from their homelands. The edict appears in the Book of Ezra: In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfill the word of Yahweh spoken through Jeremiah, Yahweh roused the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to issue a proclamation and to have it publicly displayed through his kingdom: "Cyrus king of Persia says this, Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a Temple in Jerusalem, in Judah. Whoever among you belongs to the full tally of his people, may his God be with him! Let him go up to Jerusalem, in Judah, and build the Temple of Yahweh, God of Israel, who is the God in Jerusalem. And let each survivor, wherever he lives, be helped by the people of his locality with silver, gold, equipment, and riding beasts, as well as voluntary offerings for the Temple of God which is in Jerusalem'" (Ezra 1:1-4; also see 2 Chr 36:22-23).
But, Cyrus had not yet issued the edict when Daniel was reading the
passages in the Book of Jeremiah concerning the God-ordained length of the
exile judgment.
Question: See the quotations from the Book of
Jeremiah at the beginning of the lesson. At the time Daniel was reading from
the Book of Jeremiah, what two conditions of God's prophecy concerning the
return of the people to their homeland were fulfilled from Jeremiah's
prophecies in 25:8-12 and 29:10-14, and what was the reason God gave Jeremiah for
the length of the exile judgment in 2 Chronicles 36:14-21? Also see Lev 26:27-45.
Answer: God ordained a seventy-year exile for the
citizens of Judah in judgment for the failure to keep His commandments
including observing His Sabbaths according to the Law. Daniel determined that
the condition of the seventy years of exile in Babylon had probably passed (Jer 25:11; 29:10) and that Darius/Cyrus's conquest of Babylon fulfilled the second
condition that Babylonians receive a just punishment (Jer 25:12).
Daniel probably realized that the seventy years were a symbolic number representing the fullness and completion of God's ordained period of judgment, but how was the count of years completed? According to 2 Chronicles 36, the missed Sabbaths referred not to the weekly Sabbath obligation but the observance of the laws concerning the Sabbath year. Every seventh year the people were to let the land rest for a year by planting no crops. They were also to forgive all debts, free all Hebrew slaves and converts, and return all ancestral lands to the original tribal owners since the land assigned at the conquest could never be sold (Lev 25:1-17, 23-24). Seventy years would equate to ten missed Sabbath years. But Daniel didn't know how to calculate the judgment years or if the "seventy years" was only a symbolic number:
3 I turned my
face to the Lord God begging for time to pray and to plead, with fasting,
sackcloth and ashes.
When Daniel realized the conditions to fulfill the third
part of Jeremiah's prophecies concerning the return of the covenant people to
their homeland were at hand, he turned to God in prayer, petitioning Him to
keep the third part of His promise and to help him understand the meaning of
the seventy years prophecy.
Question: How did he approach God in prayer and
why?
Answer: Daniel demonstrated his humility by
approaching God after fasting from food and by wearing sackcloth and ashes as
visible signs of repentance.
Daniel 9:4-19 ~ Daniel's Prayer
4 I pleaded with Yahweh my God and made
this confession: "O my Lord, God great and to be feared, you keep the covenant
and show faithful love [hesed] towards those who love you and who observe your
commandments: 5 we have sinned, we
have done wrong, we have acted wickedly, we have betrayed your commandments and
rulings and turned away from them. 6 We
have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our
kings, our chief men [rulers/princes], our ancestors [fathers] and all people
of the country. 7 Saving justice, Lord,
is yours; we have only the look of shame we wear today, we, the people of
Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the whole of Israel, near and far away, in
every country to which you have dispersed us because of the treachery we have
committed against you. 8 To us, our
kings, our chief men and our ancestors, belongs the look of shame, O Yahweh,
since we have sinned against you. 9 And
it is for the Lord our God to have mercy and to pardon, since we have betrayed
him, 10 and have not listened to
the voice of Yahweh our God nor followed the laws he has given us
through his servants the prophets. 11 The
whole of Israel has flouted your Law and turned away, unwilling to listen to
your voice; and the curse and imprecation written in the Law of Moses, the
servant of God, have come pouring down on us, because we have sinned against
him. 12 He has carried
out the threats which he made against us and the chief men who governed us, that
he would bring so great a disaster down on us that the fate of Jerusalem would
find no parallel under all heaven. 13
And now, as written in the Law of Moses, this whole calamity has befallen
us; even so, we have not appeased Yahweh our God by renouncing our
crimes and learning your truth. 14 Yahweh
has watched for the right moment to bring disaster on us, since Yahweh our
God is just in all his dealings with us, and we have not listened to his voice.
15 And now, Lord our God, who by
your mighty hand brought us out of Egypt, the renown you won then endures to
this day-we have sinned, we have done wrong. 16 Lord, by all your acts of saving justice, turn away your anger
and your fury from Jerusalem, your city, your holy mountain, for as a result of
our sins and the crimes of our ancestors, Jerusalem and your people are objects
of scorn to all who surround us. 17 And
now, our God, listen to the prayer and pleading of your servant. For your own
sake, Lord, let your face smile again on your desolate sanctuary. 18 Listen, my God, listen to us; open your eyes
and look at our plight and at the city that bears your name. Relying not on our
upright deeds but on your great mercy, we pour out our plea to you. 19 Listen, Lord! Forgive, Lord! Hear, Lord, and
act! For your own sake, my God, do not delay-since your city and your people
alike bear your name." [...] literal Hebrew translations IBHE, vol. III,
pages 2063-64 and The Book of Daniel, Hartman and Di Lella, Anchor Bible
Commentary; pages 238-39. Underlining is for emphasis.
Daniel's petition includes:
Daniel begins his prayer by asking Yahweh to remember His covenant with
the descendants of Jacob-Israel and His covenant promises. Yahweh promised He
would never forget His covenant with Israel (see Dt 7:7-12). Notice in this
chapter that Daniel uses God's Divine Name repeatedly for the first and only time
in the Book of Daniel.
Question: How many times does Daniel use the Divine Name between
verses 2 and 20 in the Hebrew text and is there any significance to that number
in Scripture? See the document "The Significance of Numbers in Scripture"
Answer: Daniel invokes the Divine Name
eight times in the Hebrew text in verses 2, 4, 8, 10, 13, 14 twice, and 20.
Eight is the number signifying salvation, resurrection, and rebirth.
Question: In verse 6, Daniel names those responsible to God for
leading the covenant people in what descending order of authority? "Ancestors"
is literally "fathers" and rather than referring to forefathers probably refers
to the clan leaders or "elders."
Answer:
Question: How did Daniel go about offering this petition to
God? Is there a message for us in Daniel's prayer?
Answer: Daniel confessed his sins and the sins of his people,
and he prayed in complete surrender that God would reveal His will to His
servant. Daniel's humility and openness with God is a good example for us all.
Daniel 9:20-27 ~ The Angel Gabriel Explains the Prophecy
20 I was still
speaking, still at prayer, confessing my own sins and the sins of my people
Israel, and placing my plea before Yahweh my God for the holy mountain
of my God, 21 still speaking, still at prayer, when
Gabriel, the being I had originally seen in vision, swooped on me in full
flight at the hour of the evening* sacrifice. 22 He
came, he spoke, he said to me, "Now, Daniel; I have come down to teach you how
to understand. 23 When your pleading began, a word was
uttered, and I have come to tell you. You are a man specially chosen. Grasp the
meaning of the word, understand the vision: 24 Seventy
weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city, for putting an end to
transgression, for placing the seal on sin, for expiating crime, for
introducing everlasting uprightness for setting the seal on vision and on
prophecy, for anointing the holy of holies. 25 Know this,
then, and understand: From the time there went out this message: "Return and
rebuild Jerusalem" to the coming of an Anointed Prince, seven weeks and
sixty-two weeks, with squares and ramparts restored and rebuilt, but in a time
of trouble. 26 And after the sixty-two weeks an Anointed
One put to death without his ... city and sanctuary ruined by a prince who is to
come. The end of that prince will be catastrophe and, until the end, there will
be war and all the devastation decreed. 27 He will strike
a firm alliance with many people for the space of a week, and for the space of
one half-week he will put a stop to sacrifice and oblation, and on the wing of
the Temple will be the appalling abomination until the end, until the doom
assigned to the devastator." * Since the Jewish day began at sundown,
their "evening" is our afternoon.
In 9:20, Daniel was still making his petition concerning the return of the covenant people to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of Yahweh's Temple on the "holy mountain" of Mt. Moriah when the angel Gabriel appeared to Daniel for the second time (see 8:16-26). It is significant that Gabriel comes to Daniel at the hour of the second Tamid sacrifice, at the ninth hour, or in our time, three in the afternoon. It will be the same hour as the crucifixion of Jesus nearly 500 years later (Mt 27:45-50; Mk 15:33-41; Lk 23:44-49). Gabriel is the same heavenly messenger sent to explain the earlier vision (8:15-27). Now, he is sent to give Daniel understanding about the return of the exiles and other events associated with their return. We learn from verse 21 that Gabriel has wings like the Cherubim (Ex 25:18-20; 1 Kng 6:23-27) and the Seraphim (Is 6:2).
Question: On what two missions did God send Gabriel in the
Gospels? See Lk 1:1-24 and 26-38.
Answer: God sent the same angel to announce the birth of John
the Baptist (Lk 1:19) and to announce Jesus' birth to Mary (Lk 1:26).
Gabriel is only one of three angels mentioned in the Bible, along with Raphael (Book of Tobit) and Michael. Like St. Michael, he is assumed to be an Archangel (1 Thess 4:16; Jude 9; Rev 12:7), one of the seven angels who stand in the Divine Presence (Lk 1:19; Rev 8:2, 6; 15:6; 16:1).
In Daniel 8:17, Gabriel explained to Daniel that his vision shows the time of the End (also see 2:28). Daniel's vision referred to the whole period from the end of the exile until the end of the Old Covenant, and the coming of the "Anointed one" (in Hebrew Mashiach, meaning the Messiah). The Messiah will usher in the Messianic Era, and the New Covenant prophesied by Jeremiah in 31:31-34. The angel Gabriel sets a time frame for the coming of the Messiah in Daniel 9:25-27 by offering another interpretation of the seventy years prophecy.
The seventy years are probably a symbolic number reflecting God's perfect plan, but for those looking for a literal fulfillment of the seventy-year period, there are two ways to calculate the time:
Most Biblical scholars prefer the second calculation because the Temple in Jerusalem was the heart of the nation of Israel. Without the Temple, the covenant people did not consider themselves a reestablished nation.
24Seventy weeks are decreed for
your people and your holy city, for putting an end to transgression, for
placing the seal on sin, for expiating crime, for introducing everlasting
uprightness for setting the seal on vision and on prophecy, for anointing the
holy of holies.
Some scholars interpret each of the seventy weeks, or seventy sevens, as
representing the ordained time. Round numbers are often used in the Bible to
make a point and not to give an exact count. For example, Jesus told Peter he
must forgive seventy-seven times (also translated as seventy times seven),
meaning not that he should literally forgive seventy-seven times, but that
forgiveness should be abundant. Some scholars see the figure of seventy weeks
as symbolic, while others see it as a literal seventy weeks of years or four
hundred ninety years, and sixty-two weeks of years as four hundred thirty-four
years (verses 25-26). There is a difference of fifty-six years. Also take
into consideration that in the curse judgments for disobedience to the
covenant, Yahweh warned He would punish the covenant people seven times for their
sins if they remained unrepentant, which could account for the seven times the
seventy years (Lev 26:18).
If it is a literal seventy weeks, it could refer to the little over a year it will take for the Jewish refugees and their priests to return to Judah after Cyrus' decree (Ezra 2:2, 36; Neh 7:7, 39). The sixty-two weeks could refer to the time it will take the people to collect the materials to begin rebuilding the Temple and later the walls and moat despite the intense opposition of the Samaritans after their return (see verse 25b).
The anointed leader could refer to the High Priest Joshua son of Jehozadak who returned to Judah with Zerubbabel, governor of Judah and a descendant of Davidic kings ( Hag 1:1, 12-14; 2:21-23; Zech 3:1-8; 4:6-10; Sir 49:11). Some have also suggested the "anointed leader could refer to Cyrus who allowed the return and called Yahweh's anointed in Isaiah 45:1. After their return to Jerusalem, the people immediately consecrated an altar and reestablished the daily liturgy of the Tamid sacrifices for the atonement and sanctification of the covenant people. However, they didn't finish rebuilding the Temple until c. 517 BC, 22 years after their return, at which time they anointed Holy of Holies as the dwelling place of Yahweh among His people. The other date to consider is when Nehemiah returned to build the walls of Jerusalem in 445/4 BC (Neh 2:1-8).
The Church Fathers had various views concerning the mystery of the seventy weeks and sixty-two weeks. Many Christian scholars (both ancient and modern) have observed that prophecies in this passage could refer to the 1st century AD in the year Jesus began His public ministry when He was 30 years old. The beginning of Jesus' ministry in the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberias (Lk 3:1, 23) was the year AD 28, placing His birth in 3/2 BC, His death on the cross in AD 30, and the destruction of the Temple in AD 70.
St. Theodoret wrote: "God decided that a period of 490 years should be allotted to Jerusalem to enjoy divine gifts as usual until it committed that sacrilegious and fearsome crime; I mean, the crucifixion of the Savior, who is known as Holy of Holies for his being the fount of holiness" (Commentary on Daniel, 9.24). St. Bede notes that after sixty-two weeks nine weeks remain, the number symbolizing judgment, to make seventy weeks (as the ancients counted). Perhaps the turmoil of the sixty-two weeks refers to the last period of Jesus' ministry when opposition to His ministry was progressing toward His death, and the last week represents God's divine will in the atoning mission of the Christ fulfilled on the altar of the Cross, accepting the judgment for humanity's sins. St. Bede sees the killing of Christ fulfilled at the end of the seventy weeks followed by the Romans, led by General Titus, destroying the Temple and fulfilling the prophecy of the appalling abomination in the Temple forty years after Jesus' Ascension (The Reckoning of Time, 9). St. Jerome wrote that the times given to Daniel were a mystery that he could not unravel.
Each of the empires that dominated the Jews from the Babylonians to the Romans who conquered Judah in 63 BC and Emperor Constantine II's conversion to Christianity:
| Daniel's vision | The Angel's Interpretation | The Five Empires | Centuries the Gentile kingdoms dominated the people of God until the 5th Kingdom |
| 1. The Lion | 1st king | Babylonian | Late 7th-6th century BC |
| 2. The Bear | 2nd king | Medo-Persian | 6th-4th century BC |
| 3. The Leopard | 3rd king | Greek | 4th -2nd century BC |
| 4. Fourth Beast | 4th king | Roman | 1st century BC-4thcentury AD |
| 5. Son of Man | 5th king | Kingdom of God | 1st century AD forward to the end of time |
Question: In 9:26, Gabriel speaks of the Anointed One, the
meaning of the Hebrew word "Messiah." What does Gabriel prophesy about a
future Messiah?
Answer: The Messiah, "the Anointed One," will be rejected and
killed by His people outside the walls of his city. Another ruler's people
will come who will destroy the city and the Temple. This ruler will set up an
abomination in the sanctuary.
During the Feast of Unleavened Bread in AD 30, Jesus the Messiah's countrymen rejected and orchestrated His death on a cross outside the gates of Jerusalem. He died expiating the sins of His people and humanity. He arose from death three days later (as the ancients counted) and taught His disciples for forty days before His ascension to the Father in Daniel's vision in 7:13-14. On the fiftieth day from His Resurrection, God the Holy Spirit baptized the New Covenant Church with His fiery spirit on the Jewish feast of Pentecost, AD 30. In AD 66, the Jews revolted against Rome. The Romans send four legions to put down the revolt and, forty years after Jesus' Ascension in AD 70, Titus, the Roman General and son of Emperor Vespasian, made war against the Jews for a short period (AD 68-70), then he destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, ending the Tamid sacrifice and Temple liturgical worship forever (verses 26-27a). Titus took possession of the burnt-out Temple, setting up the Roman legion's standards depicting false Roman gods, in what had been the Temple's Holy of Holies (27b). It was an abomination and desecration similar to that of the Greek-Syrian ruler Antiochus IV in 167 BC (1 Mac 1:54/57, 59/62).
Chapter 10
The Great Vision of the Man Dressed in Linen
St. John's vision
of the glorified Christ: I turned to see who was speaking to me, and when I
turned I saw seven golden lamp-stands and in the middle of them, one like a Son
of man, dressed in a long robe tied at the waist with a belt of gold. His head
and his hair were white with the whiteness of wool, like snow, his eyes like a
burning flame, his feet like burnished bronze when it has been refined in a
furnace, and his voice like the sound of the ocean [many waters].
Revelation 1:12-15
Daniel 10:1-8 ~ The Man Dressed in Linen
1 In the third
year of Cyrus king of Persia, a revelation was made to Daniel known as
Belteshazzar, a true revelation of a great conflict. He grasped the meaning of
the revelation; what it meant was disclosed to him in a vision. 2 At that time, I, Daniel, was doing a
three-week penance; 3 I ate no
agreeable food, touched no meat or wine, and did not anoint myself, until these
three weeks were over. 4 On the
twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I stood on the bank of that great
river, the Tigris, 5 I raised my
eyes to look about me, and this is what I saw: A man dressed in linen, with a
belt of pure gold round his waist: 6 his
body was like beryl, his face looked like lightning, his eyes were like fiery
torches, his arms and his face had the gleam of burnished bronze, the sound of
his voice was like the roar of a multitude. 7
I, Daniel, alone saw the apparition; the men who were with me did not
see the vision, but so great a trembling overtook them that they fled to hide. 8 I was left alone, gazing on this great vision;
I was powerless, my appearance was changed and contorted; my strength deserted
me.
In Chapters 10-12, Daniel witnesses the last of his visions. It is the year 537 BC (Dan 10:1). In his final visions, he receives further insight into the great spiritual battle between God's people and the "seed of the serpent" (all those who reject God become the "seed of the serpent" in Gen 3:15). By this time, many Jews had made the journey back to their homeland, but Daniel chose to remain in Babylonia. At the time of the vision, Daniel was fasting during a three-week penance. It is uncertain if the twenty-fourth day of the first month refers to the civil or liturgical calendar. If it is the liturgical calendar, it is in the spring, several days after the Feast of Unleavened Bread that lasted from the 15th to the 21st. If it is the civil calendar, the first month of the new year is in the fall, and the 24th day is several days after the final assembly of the Feast of Tabernacles. Like the prophet Ezekiel, Daniel receives this vision on a specific date and on the banks of a river (Ez 1:1).
5 I raised my eyes
to look about me, and this is what I saw: A man dressed in linen, with a belt
of pure gold round his waist: 6 his
body was like beryl, his face looked like lightning, his eyes were like fiery
torches, his arms and his face had the gleam of burnished bronze, the sound of
his voice was like the roar of a multitude.
Question: Compare the description of Daniel's man
dressed in linen with a belt of gold around his waist and St. John's vision in
Revelation 1:13-15 of the glorified Jesus Christ.
Answer:
| Daniel's Vision in Daniel 10:5-6 | John's Vision in Revelation 1:13-15 |
| A man dressed in linen, with a belt of pure gold round his waist | one like a Son of man, dressed in a long robe tied at the waist with a belt of gold. |
| his body was like beryl, his face looked like lightning, his eyes were like fiery torches, his arms and his face had the gleam of burnished bronze | his body was like beryl, his face looked like lightning, his eyes were like fiery torches, his arms and his face had the gleam of burnished bronze |
| the sound of his voice was like the roar of a multitude. | and his voice like the sound of the ocean [many waters] |
The visions of Daniel and St. John are remarkably the same; therefore, many of the Church Fathers believed Daniel had a vision of the pre-Incarnate Christ, but others suggest it is an angel. He cannot be Gabriel, who Daniel knew from a previous encounter, and he cannot be Michael, the archangel, because the person in the vision will refer to Michael in verse 13. When St. John sees Christ in Heaven in the Book of Revelation, He is wearing the garment of the High Priest of the heavenly Sanctuary. The priestly vestments of the high priest and the chief priests are described in Exodus 28:1-43. The high priest and chief priests wore seamless tunics of finely woven linen. The high priest also wore elaborate woven outer garments (see the chart Liturgical Vestments of the Priests and Levites. However, on the Feast of Atonement, the High Priest only wore the seamless linen tunic and a waistband (Lev 16:3-4). The priests only wore their priestly vestments in the liturgy of worship in service to God in the Temple (Ez 42:14).
Question: What garment did Jesus wear to the Last
Supper and His Crucifixion? Why was this garment significant to the event of
the Last Supper and the Crucifixion? See Jn 19:23-24.
Answer: He wore a priestly seamless garment which
made the Last Supper and His Crucifixion liturgical events.
7 I, Daniel,
alone saw the apparition; the men who were with me did not see the vision, but
so great a trembling overtook them that they fled to hide. 8 I was left alone, gazing on this great vision;
I was powerless, my appearance was changed and contorted; my strength deserted
me.
The men with Daniel did not witness the vision, but
physically felt the power of the divine presence, and so did Daniel.
Daniel 10:9-19 ~ The Message of the Apparition
9 I heard a voice
speaking, and at the sound of the voice I fell fainting, face downwards on the
ground. 10 I felt a hand touching
me, setting my knees and my hands trembling. 11 He said, "Daniel, you are a man specially chosen; understand
the words that I am about to say; stand up; I have been sent to you now." He
said this, and I stood up trembling. 12 He
then said, "Daniel, do not be afraid: from that first day when, the better to
understand, you resolved to mortify yourself before God, your words have been
heard; and your words are the reason why I have come. 13 The Prince of the kingdom of Persia has been
resisting me for twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the Chief Princes, came
to my assistance. I have left him confronting the kings of Persia 14 and have come to tell you what will happen to
your people in the final days. For here is a new vision about those days."
15 When he had
said these things to me, I prostrated myself on the ground, without saying a
word; 16 then someone looking
like a man touched my lips. I opened my
mouth to speak, and I said to the person standing in front of me, "My lord,
anguish overcomes me at this vision, and my strength deserts me. 17 How can your servant speak to my lord now
that I have no strength left and my breath fails me?" 18 Once again, the person like a man touched me;
he gave me strength. 19 "Do not be afraid," he said, "you are a man specially chosen;
peace be with you; play the man, be strong!" And as he spoke to me I felt
strong again and said, "Let my lord speak, you have given me strength."
Question: The person dressed in a white
linen tunic takes what three actions concerning Daniel?
Answer:
Concerning angels, the Catechism tells us: "As purely spiritual creatures angels have intelligence and will; they are personal and immortal creatures, surpassing in perfection all visible creatures, as the splendor of their glory bears witness" (CCC 330). The word "angel" means "messenger" (angelos in Greek and malak in Hebrew). St Augustine wrote: " Angel' is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is spirit'' if you seek the name of their office, it is angel': from what they are, spirit,' from what they do, angel'" (Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 103.1.15). CCC 329: "With their whole beings the angels are servants and messengers of God. Because they always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven' they are the mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word'" (quoting Mt 18:10; Ps 103:20).
13 The Prince of the kingdom of
Persia has been resisting me for twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the Chief
Princes, came to my assistance. I have left him confronting the kings of Persia
14 and have come to tell you what
will happen to your people in the final days. For here is a new vision about
those days.
The "prince of the kingdom of Persia" may refer to a demon angel who
exerts a bad influence over the kingdom of Persia that is contrary to God's
divine plan. Good angels also influence nations, like Michael "the
Chief/Prince of angels and protector of Israel. Michael struggled against this
bad influence for twenty-one days, three weeks or three sevens (as we count).
For the second time, Daniel learns that what he will learn concerns the "final
days" (2:28; 10:14). It was the Archangel Michael who led other angels in
battling the rebellious Satan and his demon angels and cast them out of Heaven
(Rev 12:7-9).
15 When he had said these
things to me, I prostrated myself on the ground, without saying a word; 16 then someone looking like a man touched my
lips.
The purifying touch of the divine being who looks like a man prepares
Daniel to receive the vision. It is similar to the way the angel purified
Isaiah for service in his vision in Isaiah 6:6-7.
I opened my mouth to speak, and I said to the person standing in
front of me, "My lord, anguish overcomes me at this vision, and my strength
deserts me. 17 How can your servant
speak to my lord now that I have no strength left and my breath fails me?" 18 Once again, the person like a man touched
me; he gave me strength.
In Isaiah's vision, he protested that he was a sinful man incapable of
dealing with a vision of the divine until the Seraph purified him (Is 6:5).
Daniel is feeling the same inadequacy until the divine being touches him and
gives him the spiritual and physical strength he needs.
19 "Do not be afraid," he said,
you are a man specially chosen; peace be with you; play the man, be strong!"
And as he spoke to me I felt strong again and said, "Let my lord speak, you
have given me strength."
After his purifying touch, the spiritual being who looks like a man offers
words of encouragement. Daniel responds by saying he is ready to "play the
man" and receive the vision!
Question for reflection or group discussion:
What are your thoughts on the identity of the divine being
dressed in linen and wearing a golden belt? Is he an angel, or do you think he
is the pre-Incarnate Christ? If he is the pre-Incarnate Christ, what does
Daniel's vision tell us about Christ's role in salvation history?
Endnotes:
1 Darius II, who was not a Mede, was the fourth king of
the Persian Achaemenid Empire. He ruled when the empire was at its peak and
controlled much of West Asia, the Caucasus, parts of the Balkans that included
Thrace-Macedonia and Paeonia, most of the coastal regions of the Black Sea,
parts of the North Caucasus, Central Asia, the Indus Valley in the far east,
and portions of north and northeast Africa including Egypt, eastern Libya, and
coastal Sudan.
2 Hebrew was originally written only in consonants. The four Hebrew consonants YHWH, reflecting God's holy Covenant name, are the form of His name that most frequently appears in the Bible (about 6,800 times). It is the name God told Moses by which every generation should call upon Him (Ex 3:15). These four Hebrew characters, YHWH = yad, hay, vav (v in Hebrew can also be rendered w in English), and hay have been called the "Tetragrammaton" or "tetragram" meaning "the four-letter word." Biblical scholars do not know how YHWH was originally pronounced because its original pronunciation, which was part of the Sacred Oral Tradition of the Jews, lost in the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70. Living under the domination of the pagan Romans, the Temple was the only place permitted to speak the divine Name aloud. Most Biblical scholars believe it should be pronounced "Yahweh."
Michal Hunt, Copyright © 2018 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.
Catechism references (* indicates Scripture is
either quoted or paraphrased in the citation):
Daniel 10:9-12 (CCC 328, 329*, 330*, 331*, 332, 333*,
334, 335*, 336*)