No 6

(The book of Daniel; an overview)

Daniel is to the Old Testament as Revelation is to the New Testament. Actually, Revelation is the fulfilment of the prophesies outlined in Daniel. The book of Daniel begins with the taking of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jews to Babylon. Daniel was one of the princes who was exiled to this foreign country where, as we will see, was used of God in many miraculous ways. In chapter 2, Daniel interprets a dream that King Nebuchadnezzar had about a large statue that turned out to be a monumental description of how the world will be governed for the next 2700 years or so; as a matter of fact, part of that dream is still future to us in the year 2001. Chapter 3 sees Daniel’s friends resist the king’s request to bow down to an image he had made and find themselves in a fiery furnace. In Chapter 4 Nebuchadnezzar is humbled by the Most High God and in chapter 5 the Medo-Persian empire defeats Babylon and realises the prophesy of the breast and arms of silver of the image in chapter 2. Daniel, in chapter 6, is thrown into a den of lions because of his commitment to prayer and in chapter 7, he has a vision of four beasts that match the image in chapter 2.

The comparison is as follows : the head of gold (chapt 2) & the winged lion (chapt 7); the breast of silver & the bear; the thighs of brass & the winged leopard & the legs of iron & the diverse beast. The actual empires that are described are, in order - Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. In chapter 8, Daniel has another vision of Medo Persia and Greece and in the beginning of chapter 9 from vs 1-23, we have what is probably the best intercessory prayer in the Bible. In the same chapter, from vs 24 – 27 we have the most precise and the most far-reaching prophesy in all of the Bible.

We will look as this prophecy in great detail further on in our studies. Chapters 10, 11, and 12 describe the overthrow of the Persian empire and the ensuing Greek and Roman empires. The prophesies in the book of Daniel are so precise that some even questioned if Daniel really lived and that maybe someone wrote the book after the events had happened. In the early part of the 1900’s several archeological findings proved the validity of the prophesies and therefore proved what many already knew, that God’s Word is true and every detail in it will come to pass or has already come to pass. Our God is the Most High God and His dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom is from generation to generation; these words were spoken by Nebuchadnezar in Daniel 4 :34.