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DANIEL
Week 30, chapters 10 and 11
In some ways, everything we’ve studied in Daniel chapters 1 through 9 was a preparation for what we’re studying in chapters 10 through 12. The beginning of the book tells of Judah’s exile to Babylon at God’s hand, due to their rebelliousness and idolatry, which when taken together God classifies as adultery. And adultery means unfaithfulness on the part of one of two parties who have been joined together by a covenant (the most typical human covenantal joining being marriage). So the issue was that Judah (as a nation) violated the covenant relationship they had agree to with the Lord; and in whatever construct this violation of covenant takes place, Yehoveh says that this is unfaithfulness: adultery.
Thus, as a punishment, the Lord ushered His unfaithful partner out of the land He had set aside for her according to the Abrahamic Covenant. The question now was: how to get the unfaithful partner to see and acknowledge their wrong, to repent and change, and then how to get them back home and back into a proper relationship with Him. Thus we must always view Daniel in this one overriding context: it is ALL about restoring Israel. Christians are in no way involved other than by extension due to the benefits we ultimately receive as a result.
Part of God’s plan to rehabilitate and restore His chosen people both in the short term and the long term involved establishing a gentile dominion over the entire planet. The most immediate goal of restoration was aimed at that portion of the Israelites called Judah (those in exile to Babylon), but the goal would also have a longer range effect on the other portion of Israelites called Ephraim (which Christianity more knows as the 10 Lost Tribes, exiled to the Assyrian Empire about 2 centuries earlier). Although indefinite and lengthy in duration, this gentile global dominion was not the end but rather the means for achieving reconciliation between God’s people Israel and Himself and for establishing an eventual world wide Kingdom of God to replace the world wide dominion of gentile government. Thus we saw, beginning in Chapter 2, a revealing of God’s plan to bring about a series of 4 gentile world empires, each succeeding the previous one.
The first empire was Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, to be followed by Media-Persia and then later by Greece and finally Rome. Where we’ll continue our study today, Daniel chapter 10, is at the time when part of that prophecy has come to pass; Babylon has been conquered and succeeded by Media-Persia. The first king of the Media-Persian Empire was a Mede named Darius, and now he is succeeded by a Persian, Cyrus the Great. We are not to take it that there had never been a world wide gentile empire before Babylon (Assyria was before Babylon and nearly as large), nor was the Roman Empire to be the end of a world wide succession of gentile dominion-ship. Rather they were the 4 that would exist in historical reality from Daniel’s time right on through the time of the first latter days, at Christ’s advent. Whatever gentile
dominion would come afterward would be a type or pattern of those 4 as described in Daniel.
As Daniel 10 opens, Daniel is an old man, and no longer employed by the Persians. King Koresh (Cyrus) was in his 3 rd year of reigning. Two years earlier this same king had graciously determined it was time to right the wrongs that the Babylonians had done to Judah by subjugating them, exiling them, and destroying their Temple. So he emancipated the Jews, instructed those who still wanted to go home to depart and rebuild the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem, and he even helped to provide funds and material to do it. Daniel and the majority of formerly exiled Jews decided of their own free will to stay behind. Daniel lived out the remainder of his days and was buried in the same general area that at one time he was held captive.
In the introduction to Daniel’s final revelation from God, which is chapter 10, we find that Daniel was not given this revelation in a dream or in a literal vision (a chazon ). Rather this was a real, tangible, awake experience. He received a visitor from the spiritual world, and then a little later (as we’ll find in chapter 12) two more spirit beings showed up to conclude this vision. What is the identity or name of this spirit being who brought God’s revelation to Daniel? We’re not told. Most of Christianity says it is Christ; I see no evidence for that conclusion and every proof that it could not have been a pre-incarnate Messiah. For one thing, this being seems to have been inferior to the Archangel Mikha’el , as he was engaged in a confrontation of some sort with the spirit being that was assigned to Persia, and needed Mikha’el’s assistance in order to leave after 21 days of a stalemate.
It is questionable where this spirit being who spoke to Daniel (an angel for lack of a better title) was Israel’s assigned advocate, or whether he was some sort of assistant to Mikha’el, with Mikha’el actually being Israel’s assigned spiritual advocate. Judaism claims that Mikha’el is Israel’s national advocate before God ( Mikha’el means who is like God?), and some Rabbis from ancient times have taken it so far as to see Mikha’el as an intermediary between Israel and God, even referring to him as Israel’s heavenly High Priest. But this concept of Mikha’el as Israel’s national advocate is so accepted in the Middle East that even the Islamic Koran Sura 2 verse 92 acknowledges him. In fact, Islam has adopted the angel Gabriel as their guardian angel, leaving Mikha’el to Israel.
This is about where we left off in our last lesson, so let’s re-read Daniel chapter 10 beginning in verse 14.
RE-READ DANIEL 10:14 – end
Please listen once more to verse 14 as this is the key to understanding the context for Daniel’s vision of the latter days and the End Times. CJB Daniel 10:14 So I have come to make you understand what will happen to your people in the acharit-hayamim; for there is still another vision which will relate to those days.”
Whose people is this vision about? Who is this angel talking to? Daniel. The angel says YOUR people (Daniel’s people). Who are Daniel’s people? The Jews. Ah, but that is NOT what most of Christianity claims or has claimed for nearly 1800 years. Rather the claim (even by one of the commentators I most admire, Dr. Kiel), is that we should re-define Daniel’s people to mean the Church. And typically the claim is that obviously God’s people includes gentile Christians, or in the case of denominations who adhere to Replacement Theology, God’s people are ONLY gentile Christians. But here’s the problem: this verse does NOT say that “I have come to make you understand what will happen to God’s people…..”, it says that “I have come to make you understand what will happen to YOUR people (Daniel)….” It is ludicrous in say that Daniel’s people are gentiles of any persuasion, since the entire scenario of the Book of Daniel concerns gentile world governments standing over and against God’s world government (the Kingdom of God). And the Kingdom of God is to be governed by a descendant of Jewish King David, in Jewish Jerusalem.
Here is the point that I’ve made before, but am compelled to repeat time and again because of a supreme error built in to the doctrines of so many Christian denominations, and that underlies most Christian novels and commentaries about End Times prophecy. The End Times happenings that bring the Book of Daniel to a close; the End Times prophecies we’ve all heard about in modern times in Hal Lindsey’s and Tim LaHaye’s books, are NOT about the Church as they claim; rather they are about Israel and the Jewish people. Indeed, as a result of Yeshua’s work on the cross the gentile Church will benefit and will be affected. But the focus and intent is aimed squarely at Israel and the verses themselves say so without any ambiguity. Thus as we get into studying the last days prophecies of chapters 11 and 12, erase your thoughts of Church steeples, stained glass windows, and silver crucifixes. Rather picture synagogues, Torah scrolls and Stars of David. Until we can do this, nothing I can teach you about the final chapters of Daniel will have any meaningful effect and the truth will simply fall to the ground unheeded. As the days and years pass you will be waiting for a religious fantasy to appear instead of what the Bible tells us will occur.
Now another thing about verse 14; the passage says that what will follow (in chapters 11 and 12) is about a time period labeled as the acharit-hayamim , which translates into English as the latter days. I know of no Christian commentator (admitting that there might be a couple that I’m unaware of) who would disagree with the premise that the biblical term “the latter days” is referring to a Messianic Age or at least a Messianic appearance. Put simply: the acharit- hayamim , the latter days, is a biblical term uniquely coined to describe a time in history leading up to, during, and immediately following the advent of God’s Messiah. However the latter days is NOT same thing as the End Times. The End Times is NOT a phrase found in the Bible; it is taken from the phrase the end of days. And while I have no problem at all modifying the end of days to mean the End Times, we must understand that this is a different event than the latter days. The End Times means the end of the world as we know it. Not from just a spiritual, ideal or poetic sense, but tangibly and actually. At the close of the End Times the world is no longer the same, and history in the sense we’ve always thought of it is terminated. Thus, since “the latter days” is the biblical label for a time when Messiah appears, and we know that there has already been one appearance of Messiah (2000 years ago), and another appearance is imminent (Messiah’s 2 nd appearance, His return), then obviously there are 2 latter days. Yet, there is only 1 End Times. How do I know this? Because history did not end,
the world did not physically change, and gentile world governments continued to dominate our planet when Christ first appeared and was crucified (at the first latter days). However when He comes again (at the second latter days), the End Times is upon us; the rule of gentile governments ends, the world physically changes, human history as we’ve known it concludes, and the Kingdom of God will dominate the entire globe. This is precisely what the Book of Daniel tells us, and the Book of Revelation expands upon and affirms.
If we can have that picture firmly in mind, then Daniel chapters 11 and 12 will make much more sense and we’re not left to inventing things that aren’t there to explain the otherwise unexplainable.
Verse 15 tells us that Daniel fell to ground in fear at the feet of the angel, dreading even to look up. And when the angel touched Daniel on the mouth, it seemed to indicate to Daniel that it was OK to speak. And Daniel told him that it was because of what he was seeing that caused him to go dumb. In his response Daniel calls the angel “my lord”. And this is yet another reason that most of Christianity says that this is Christ, not an angel. The Hebrew term is adonai , and adonai is a generic term meaning lord or master. It is a common term of respect; it is NOT a formal title. The reason that Believers get confused on this is because the term Lord (capital L Lord) has become for us an alternative name for Jesus. It is fine among Christians to speak to one another regarding Yeshua and using the term Lord, because we know what we mean. But that is not what the Bible indicates or means. In fact, most of the time we see the word Lord (again capital L Lord) in our Bibles (or in Jewish Bibles, the term Adonai), the word isn’t actually there. Instead, in the original languages, God’s formal name YHWH is there, but due to a taboo in Judaism of uttering God’s name, the Bible editors instead substitute with the word Lord or as in our CJBs adonai , which is merely Hebrew for lord. So what we see in Daniel where he addresses the angel as ‘lord” is only little L lord, and it more has the meaning of saying “sir”; it does not identify the being as divine.
This spiritual being once again touched Daniel and whereas before his touch revived Daniel’s speech, this time it brings on Daniel’s recovery from the shock of it all. The angel responds with the standard Hebrew biblical greeting: peace be to thee. This is translating the single Hebrew word shalom , which means far more than “peace be to thee”, but we’ll not get into that for the time being.
In verse 20 it is a rhetorical question that is asked by the angel: “Don’t you know why I came to you?” That is, back up in verses 11 and 12 the angel has already told Daniel what has brought him here. So this can only be the kind of question that is trying to determine if Daniel has regained his wits after nearly fainting from this angel’s sudden appearance. It’s like reviving someone who has collapsed and asking them if they know who you are as a means to diagnose if they have returned to reality. And then this angel explains that essentially this is a short visit, with a short message, and once delivered the angel will return to his confrontation with the spiritual Prince of Persia, after which he will then have to contend with yet another national guardian spirit, the Prince of Greece. While he doesn’t say so directly, it would seem as though we can take this as good evidence that whatever happens on earth FIRST happens in the spiritual realm. In other words, while temporally speaking it was going to be almost 200 years before Greece under Alexander the Great thoroughly conquered Persia, already the
battles among the national spiritual advocates for Judah, Persia and Greece were underway in the heavenlies. And the outcome would happen before the earthly battles were ever taken up.
This chapter ends with the angel telling Daniel that he is going to hear the truth about what will happen to Judah and the Jews. And that Daniel’s people are going to have to experience the upheaval of the transition from the 2 nd to the 3 rd gentile world empire. Persia gives way to Greece; the silver chest and arms give way to the bronze trunk and thighs; the ram with two horns gives way to the shaggy male goat with one big horn. And then we get the evidence that it is the Archangel Mikha’el who is the chief guardian angel over Israel, and this being who is delivering God’s oracle to Daniel is some type of associate because in verse 21 Mikha’el is directly called “your prince”.
Let’s not waste any time, and we’ll move right on to the rather lengthy chapter 11.
READ DANIEL CHAPTER 11 all (NOTE: begin with 10:21, since it really belongs as the first verse of chapter 11 or 11:1 belongs as the last verse of chapter 10).
What a confusing chapter this seems to be! And I’ll tell you why this causes so much trouble to decipher; it is because there are two separate latter days that are here being described, but they are intertwined. It is exactly the same problem that the Jewish sages, rabbis and religious authorities had with the OT prophecies concerning Messiah. How could Messiah be “cut off” and “cursed” and yet at the same time be victorious and king? How can he be a lamb and a lion at the same time? How can he be human and yet rule “forever”? And so, as with the Christian arguments about how to understand the Book of Daniel, there has been unending debate in Judaism about how to understand Messiah’s nature and essence. This led to the understanding among some sects of Judaism that there indeed would be two separate human Messiahs: Messiah Ben Yoseph, and Messiah Ben David. Messiah Ben Yoseph refers to Jacob’s son Joseph who was gentle, caring and sacrificed himself for the good of his family. And Messiah Ben David refers to a ferocious King David and his glorious holy wars to create and maintain an earthly Kingdom of God. If Judaism could only admit that Messiah Ben Yoseph has already come, and Messiah Ben David is coming later, and that they are the same Messiah, then they’d finally have a basis for understanding the Prophets and accepting their own Messiah.
It is the same for Christians. If only we can accept that 2 visitations of Messiah (the one in the past and the one that is still ahead of us), naturally means from a biblical perspective that there are two latter days periods, then we wouldn’t have this labyrinth of illogical and fanciful End Times doctrines that Believers are faced with. We wouldn’t have the endless debates between Amillennialists, Pre-Millennialists, and Post-Millennialists over supremacy of doctrine. All of whom have some things right and some things wrong because they are blind to this fundamental reality of two latter days that align with the two advents of Christ. And this blindness is caused by a fierce determination to hang on to tired old manmade Church doctrines that their particular denominational sponsors hold on to, but that have led the flock astray, in the same way that Judaism has held on to tired old manmade rabbinical doctrines that have led the Jews astray.
So I’ll preface this chapter with this thought: what we are witnessing in chapter 11 is the opposition that first began in the spiritual sphere, and has now transferred to the temporal, earthly sphere of gentile world governments, and it is of course a violent hostility against the establishment of the Kingdom of God that is getting nearer and nearer and is inevitable. This self-destructive resistance of the physical world to God’s plan manifests itself not only with upheavals among human societies, religious institutions, but even nature itself. Messiah Yeshua put it this way:
Matthew 24:4-14 CJB
4 Yeshua replied: “Watch out! Don’t let anyone fool you!
5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah!’ and they will lead many astray. 6 You will hear the noise of wars nearby and the news of wars far off; see to it that you don’t become frightened. Such things must happen, but the end is yet to come. 7 For peoples will fight each other, nations will fight each other, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various parts of the world; 8 all this is but the beginning of the ‘birth-pains.’
9 At that time you will be arrested and handed over to be punished and put to death, and all peoples will hate you because of me. 10 At that time many will be trapped into betraying and hating each other,
11 many false prophets will appear and fool many people;
12 and many people’s love will grow cold because of increased distance from Torah.
13 But whoever holds out till the end will be delivered.
14 And this Good News about the Kingdom will be announced throughout the whole world as a witness to all the Goyim. It is then that the end will come. Back in Daniel 11, notice how this angel (apparently along with his boss, the Archangel Mikha’el ) had already been at working upholding King Darius the Mede, the first King of Media- Persia. That is, the first king to rule after Babylon was conquered was Darius, and naturally because God was behind this and supported Persia dismantling Babylon to punish them, and because He had ordained that it would be Persia who would (at first) befriend the Jewish people and release them from captivity, then this angel of God worked to help bring this change of power about by assisting Darius.
With the declaration that what he was about to say is true, the angel tells Daniel the following: there will be 3 kings who arise in Persia, followed by a 4 th one. This 4 th one will be far richer and by means of his wealth will gather strength. This strength means an army, and he’ll use this army to war against Greece who Persia has not had much success in subjugating. There is some disagreement among Bible scholars whether the wording means that the 4 kings mentioned here begin with Cyrus as the first one; or if it means these 4 Persian kings come after Cyrus. However history proves the prophetic accuracy if we decide that the 4 kings includes Cyrus, which the plain wording appears to say. And since the precedence was already established that the visions in Daniel of the 4 gentile world empires BEGINS with the current empire in power, then it only continues the pattern that the vision of the 3 Persian kings plus a 4 th one begins with the current Persian king, who is Cyrus.
But there is yet another controversy: The King List of Persia beginning with Cyrus looks like this: Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius Hystaspis, and Xerxes. However some claim the list is: Cyrus, Smerdis (aka Bardiya), Cambyses and Darius Hystaspis. Here’s what the issue revolves around. Until very recently, the addition of this fellow called Smerdis or Bardiya to the Persian King List was not considered because very reliable historical documents all agreed that this fellow was a fake.
The famous Behistun Inscription, the historian Herodotus, Justin, and generally every ancient writer and record on the subject agree: there was a strange happening when right after Cyrus died a person impersonating Cyrus’s son was able to seize power in part of the kingdom for a brief period of time. Essentially the stories tell us that when King Cyrus was dying, he appointed his true son Bardiya as a satrap to control some far eastern provinces in the Empire. His other son Cambyses was to be king of Persia. But upon Cyrus’s death, Bardiya was assassinated (there are some differences in how or even why this happened), and his death was kept secret from the public by his brother Cambyses who planned the assassination (no doubt this had something to do with a family rivalry). Cambyses used a person who resembled Bardiya to put into office as his own personal puppet to keep his brother’s demise quiet and the public from having any suspicion. The pretender was a Magian priest from Media. When some influential men found out he was an imposter (he was not Cyrus’s son) they killed him.
So as you can imagine, Bardiya is not listed in the official and ancient Persian records as a king of Persia because he never was. However as always seems to happen, some modern day liberal scholars with an agenda have recently disputed this and say there was no imposter, he was really the kings’ son, and therefore must be considered a King of Persia. Why do they think this? Is there some new evidence? A new archeological discovery? No. It’s because they just don’t think the story is a good one. It doesn’t matter that the story is consistent from any number of ancient sources and is of course completely plausible; their own academic intellect has decided that the story isn’t believable for them. But there’s one other reason for this newfound skepticism that they won’t say out loud; if they can establish that Bardiya is actually a real King of Persia who should be on the Persian King List, then the 4 th King of Persia in Daniel’s prophecy becomes Darius Hystaspis instead of Xerxes and Daniel’s prophecy doesn’t work out historically. But with Xerxes as the 4 th king (which history validates and has validated for over 2 millennia), then the prophesy works perfectly.
I only tell you this because you need to know about the concerted effort among liberal Bible scholars to establish a new truth, derived from nothing more than a personal belief that Daniel cannot be true because predictive prophecy is impossible. So they have to contrive a revised history that exists only in their minds and thoughts, of which there is no evidence, and then teach it as fact. Once enough impressionable seminary students have heard it from these “experts”, and have had to regurgitate it in their exams and theses, and it is written into journals and commentaries, in time it becomes accepted fact and no one dares question it. As Christ said in the passages from Matthew 24 that we just examined: “many false prophets will appear and fool many people”.
Xerxes indeed is the 4 th Persian king of Daniel’s prophecy, a very wealthy king, wealthier than any of his predecessors. Persian historical records explain that he spent his fortune building and arming a great military and he used it constantly to try and expand Persian influence, including trying to conquer Greece (or better Macedonia, or even better Javan….I’ll explain that at another time).
However after King Xerxes, says verse 3, a very powerful king will arise and rule over a vast kingdom. Yet once this vast kingdom is established the kingdom will quickly be divided up to the four winds. The children and family of this kingdom’s king won’t inherit the kingdom; and the various parts of the kingdom won’t add up to the powerful unified kingdom this king had built. This is speaking of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian Greek king who finally successfully fought back against Persian aggression, won, and then continued to conquer other nations. After all, he had a huge, well-equipped, trained and experienced army. Why waste it?
He died at the young age of 32 years. History does not record any children of his in existence, except that his wife Roxanne was pregnant when her husband unexpectedly and suddenly died. Soon after his death she gave birth to a male child and named him Alexander IV. But obviously this baby and his mother were in no position to oppose a number of Greek military generals who each wanted a piece of the kingdom for themselves. Through negotiation the Greek Empire was divided up originally into about 12 districts; but immediately afterwards there were a series of small wars and assassinations and conspiracies and in the end 4 generals ruled over the Empire, each with their own district. The prophecy of Daniel remarkably came true as the Greek Empire would become divided as “the 4 winds of heaven”, indicating the 4 compass directions, or of course the 4 geographical districts (north, south, east and west) that the Greek Empire was sectioned into.
We’ll stop here and let you digest this until next week, when we’ll begin with verse 5. I think you know we’ll be in Daniel chapter 11 for awhile.