Encyclopedia entry · the book of Daniel
Daniel is the Old Testament's most apocalyptic book — half narrative and half vision, set during the Babylonian exile and looking forward to kingdoms that won't exist for centuries. The book divides cleanly in half. Chapters 1–6 are court stories: Daniel and his friends in the courts of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Darius, refusing to compromise their worship. Chapters 7–12 are visions of beasts, of the Son of Man coming on the clouds, of the Ancient of Days, of seventy weeks until the anointed one.
Jesus quotes Daniel directly and identifies himself as the Son of Man the book describes. Revelation reads as Daniel's New Testament counterpart. For exiles in any age, Daniel is the book that says: empires rise and fall, but the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men.
Movements
4 arcs through the bookMovement 01
1–3
chapters
In the Court of Babylon
The book opens with four young Hebrew exiles selected for service in Nebuchadnezzar's court. They refuse the king's food to keep ritually clean and thrive anyway. Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a great statue with a head of gold, breasts of silver, thighs of brass, feet of iron and clay — and a stone cut out without hands that smashes it to dust. Daniel interprets: a succession of kingdoms, all eventually broken by the kingdom of God. Chapter three closes with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refusing to bow to a golden image and walking unburned in a furnace heated seven times over.
Movement 02
4–6
chapters
The Most High Reigns
The middle three court stories. Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a great tree cut down, becomes a beast among beasts for seven years, and is restored when he lifts his eyes to heaven and acknowledges the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men. Belshazzar throws a feast with the temple vessels and sees a hand write on the wall — mene mene tekel upharsin. Babylon falls that night. Daniel, now in his eighties under Darius the Mede, refuses to stop praying to his God, is thrown to lions, and is found alive at dawn. The king who threw him in becomes a confessor.
Movement 03
7–9
chapters
The Son of Man
Halfway through, the book turns. Daniel's own visions begin. Four beasts arise from the sea — kingdoms of the earth — and then, in the air, one like the Son of Man comes with the clouds before the Ancient of Days and is given a kingdom that shall not pass away. Chapter eight: a ram and a goat. Chapter nine: while Daniel prays, the angel Gabriel arrives and gives him the prophecy of the seventy weeks — sixty-nine until the Messiah, to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.
Movement 04
10–12
chapters
The Last Vision
The last three chapters are a single sustained apocalyptic vision. Daniel sees a man clothed in linen by the great river Hiddekel — a vision that no power left in me. The angel walks Daniel through the centuries that follow: the kings of the south and north, the time of trouble such as never was, the resurrection (many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake), the end. The book closes with one of scripture's most enduring promises: they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.
