Reading: Daniel 7-9, Psalm 57

Well, I said there would be weird stuff after the familiar stories about Daniel, and here we are. The next six chapters of Daniel are pretty wild, and have generated a huge amount of speculation as to what they mean among Christians, especially those who think a little too much about the end of the world. Rather than dig into line by line connections between Daniel’s visions, I think it more helpful to look at the larger point that the book is making, and how these visions fit into and support it.

So far in the book, the stories have centered around who is really in charge. The great kings Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Darius all had delusions of grandeur. They conquered, reigned, and enjoyed the benefits of their position, but it was when they chose to raise themselves above the creator God, the God of Israel, that they fell. In each case the fall was significant, though of differing intensity. Nebuchadnezzar, having been warned twice, became like a wild beast for seven years. Belshazzar, who was warned in extraordinary fashion, lost his kingdom. Darius, who repented of his error and tried to undo his mistake, lost only his pride. The dreams, visions, and events that Daniel has recounted so far make the argument that the kings and kingdoms of the earth are not really driving events, but are serving the purpose of a greater King. When those earthly kingdoms become rebellious against the greater King, they suffer the consequences. Looking back to the very beginning of the story, in the garden, we see the same play out. Adam and Eve were in charge of all creation. It was when they chose to declare independence from God that they suffered terribly.

What does all this have to do with Daniel’s crazy visions? I think these visions are telling us the same thing. Daniel is not changing topics, just tactics. The visions of beasts coming out of the sea, each increasingly huge, powerful, and wild, are just another way of talking about the increasingly powerful human kings. The vision itself tells us that these are the kingdoms of Babylon, Persia, and Greece. They become very great, but in the end turn and insult the creator God and his chosen people.

Okay, it’s strange to us to use such heavy metaphor and symbols to talk about events, but we can get it. But then Daniel starts on another kind of vision, one that looks beyond the earth to the heavens. There is another king of contest going on there. There are thrones set up in the heavens. Note that there is more than one, but only one is occupied. One throne is taken by the Ancient of Day, pretty clearly representing the God of Israel, but the other remains empty. Interesting. The figure on the throne trashes the beasts with all their pride.

Then another character shows up. The Son of Man- a human figure, hanging out in the heavens. He rides right up to the thrones and gets to reign with the creator God. It that isn’t a wild twist in the story, I don’t know what is. A human in the presence of God, as in Isaiah and Ezekiel, have typically been followed by them falling on their face and crying out their unworthiness. This human sits on a throne with God. Thinking back once again to the beginning of the Story, we can sort of work out what is going on here. Adam and Eve ruled all creation as the Image of God. Then they fell, and the rulership passed from them. There was a promise, buried in a curse, that a human would come who would restore the creation order by crushing the serpent’s head. The Story from that point on has been a search for That Guy. I pretty sure Daniel just saw a vision of him, but from far away and in the heavens, not on earth. Daniel is understandable curious about what all this means, but the explanation he gets is about the four beasts out of the sea and how they represent historical kingdoms, which become continually greater but eventually fall to the Kingdom of the Son of Man. Then Daniel abruptly ends the vision.

Only to repeat them. At least after a fashion. The second vision set is very similar to the first in that there are beasts running around representing various human kingdoms. They follow the pattern: first they grow powerful, but they are disobedient to the creator God, in this case desecrating the Temple, and they are destroyed. Daniel is also told that there will be a last king who rebels, and his collapse will come not from human hands. Recall the message of the minor prophets- that God will use nations to punish nations until finally God himself takes the throne… but how will that happen if the whole problem in the garden was that humans could not be in God’s presence and live? Maybe this Son of Man character has something to do with it. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves.

Daniel is totally overwhelmed and gets sick. Then he starts praying. Daniel chapter 9 is one of the most amazing prayers in the Bible. It is a declaration of dependence par excellence in the Hebrew Scriptures. Daniel, like Isaiah, Moses, and a few others before him, gets it. God is wholly sovereign. Daniel submits his fate and that of his people wholly to the will of God. It is Genesis 3 worked backwards. Daniel throws himself on the mercy of the God of Israel. And he gets an answer.

And what a wild answer! Daniel gets his answer directly from a divine messenger, Gabriel. How he knew the name we aren’t told, but this guy swoops down to Daniel that evening and basically tells him, hold on tight, it will be a wild ride. All the talk of weeks and times might be worth extrapolating out to particular timelines if you are into that sort of thing, but I’m pretty sure the gist of the message is that Daniel is going to need to hang tight, stay committed, and have faith that God is working out his long term plan. It is going to get messy. There will be desolation and desecration, but God is still working.

Daniel’s visions aren’t over. If anything, they get weirder from here. But the message so far tallies with the stories from the first half of the book: human rulers get out of hand, declare that they are greater than their creator, and things go horribly wrong. At the same time, on some higher level, the creator God is still in control, and is working to bring creation back into proper order. It will be a wild ride with a lot of apparent chaos and kingdoms rising and falling, but in the end God will still make all things new.