Introduction to the prophet Daniel

The 27th book of the Bible, consisting of 12 chapters
A key to biblical prophecy

Daniel, whose name means “God is my judge” or “God judges,” was of royal descent and was taken into exile by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II, along with King Jehoiakim of Judah and other carefully selected young men.
This took place in 605 B.C. and was the first of four waves of deportations to Babylon—which at that time could be described as the leading world empire.

Daniel was thus a contemporary of the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who followed him into exile nine years later, and is counted among these two—along with Isaiah, who appeared 100 years earlier—as one of the last of the great prophets.
But the prophet Habakkuk was also still active in Judah when Daniel was called.
At the end of his long prophetic ministry, he witnessed the decree permitting the Jews to return to Jerusalem.
This decision was made by Cyrus II, the Persian king who had since come to power and founded what was then the greatest empire in the world—and the prophets Haggai and Zechariah began their service to God.

Jesus himself confirms Daniel as a prophet (Matthew 24:15)—and in doing so gives further instructions to the believing Jews in Israel regarding Daniel’s prophecy about the beginning of the Great Tribulation at the end of the “times of the Gentiles.”

The Book of Daniel is by far the most apocalyptic book in the entire Old Testament—the “Revelation” of the sacred Jewish scriptures, the Tanakh.
For us, 2,600 years later, it is a key to the prophecies of the entire Bible!

Through Daniel, God has given us hundreds of prophecies about the coming millennia. Many of these deal with power dynamics—from global and geopolitical events to come, extending far beyond our own time.
Of these hundreds of Daniel’s predictions, hundreds have already been fulfilled—and many of these fulfilled prophecies form the foundation of history lessons in our schools. 🙂

It is a bitter irony, yet a fact, that many religious Jewish communities avoid the Book of Daniel during Scripture readings from the Tanakh in synagogues—after all, a discerning listener, if he or she begins to calculate using Daniel’s “weeks,” might conclude that the Messiah should actually have come two thousand years ago…

But Daniel also promises repentance and salvation for the faithful remnant of Israel.
With the return of Jesus as the Conqueror, as the Lion of Judah, to Jerusalem and HIS constant presence there, Israel will rise to become the leading—or, perhaps better put, the most important—nation in the entire world.

Yet Daniel’s life—and that of his friends—is itself a symbol of this faithful remnant of Israel and their deliverance from distress.

Most of us have probably heard the story of Daniel’s friends in the fiery furnace from chapter 3. They all belonged to the Jewish “elite,” were taken captive to Babylon along with Daniel, and shared his fate.
They were all intended for government service in the Babylonian administrative apparatus and were to receive a three-year training program for this purpose. First, they were given Babylonian names, referring to their gods—also to erase their Jewish identity—the one true God.

Daniel became Belteshazzar, Hananiah became Shadrach, Mishael was called Meshach, and Azariah was renamed Abed-Nego.
Yet none of these four men was willing to deny the God of Israel.

Daniel proved his faith and loyalty in a lions’ den, and his three friends were tested in a fiery furnace—during which even King Nebuchadnezzar recognized a fourth man who protected them—his description suggests that he saw Jesus. 🙂

Even more famous than the men in the fiery furnace in the Book of Daniel, however, is:
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream …

The most famous prophecy from the Book of Daniel is found in King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream about a massive statue—a figure that symbolized the coming world empires and, at the same time, characterized their nature.
Further details can be found in the Book of Daniel in another vision that took place after Nebuchadnezzar’s reign—but we also encounter this beast, which is described there, again in the Revelation of John the Apostle…

What I find particularly remarkable about the image Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream is that we must learn from it to pay attention to the small details in every prophecy in order to interpret it correctly.
When God wants to show us something, EVERYTHING we need to know is truly contained within it; we just have to learn to “read” it. Here is a brief excerpt from the dream as an example:

The head, which symbolizes the Neo-Babylonian Empire, is not only made of gold and thus as brilliant as it appeared under Nebuchadnezzar’s rule—like the head, Babylon is also the smallest and shortest-lived of these world empires; its downfall occurred after less than 100 years, around 539 B.C., at the hands of the aforementioned Persian Cyrus.

Below the head begin the arms, shoulders, and chest made of silver, representing the Medo-Persian Empire.
They are not much taller or longer than the head, but they extend much further out,
though they are no longer as magnificent as the shining Babylon.

At the same time, there is a left arm and a right arm—just as this empire was a dual empire comprising the Medes and the Persians.
Their rule lasted for at least about 200 years, until 330 B.C.

Next come the copper abdomen and hips, which symbolize the Greek Empire beginning with its expansion under Alexander the Great—the Hellenistic period.
The abdomen and lower body are slightly “longer” than the chest, and so this third empire, lasting 300 years, also had a slightly longer duration than the Medo-Persian Empire.
It began with Alexander’s conquests in the East in 336 BC, until it was swallowed up around 30 BC by the Fourth World Empire under Octavian, along with Egypt—and Cleopatra.

These legs, which follow the hips, are made of iron and symbolize Rome—Rome at the beginning of its imperial era, the Caesars—from this point on, control by the Senate, and thus the people, existed only in name.
The first Roman emperor was the aforementioned Octavian; he is better known to us by his honorific title, Augustus, which translates to “Venerable” or “Sublime.”

Once Augustus had finally consolidated his empire and “cleansed” it of all enemies, he ordered a census throughout his entire empire.
He probably wanted to find out how many people he actually ruled over, the population density in the many different provinces of the Roman Empire, and to be able to estimate what tax revenue he could expect.
It was because of this order, by the way, that a man named Joseph had to set out on the long journey from Galilee to Bethlehem with his pregnant wife Mary, in order to…
But we don’t just find this prophecy in Daniel and the other prophets; we read about it as early as the first book of Moses 🙂

In my opinion, the iron from which the legs are made reflects the harshness, brutality, and unyielding nature of this fourth world empire.
We also have two legs—just as the Roman Empire split into a Western and an Eastern part some 400 years later in 395—and now for the first time since the birth of Christ 🙂.
But the entire duration of this empire—the legs are, after all, our longest body part—was by far the longest.
The Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, fell to the Turks—and thus to Islam—in 1453, over 1,000 years after this division. It became the center of the Ottoman Empire, and Constantinople, the former Byzantium, became Istanbul.
In the West, the “Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation,” a confederation of several European peoples, existed as the successor to the Roman Empire well into the modern era.

At the end of this empire, at its feet, it will consist only of a mixture of iron and clay—strength and weakness, or fragility, blended together.
We find the successor or the end of this fourth world empire in our European Union—or perhaps better yet, in our entire “Western culture,” with all the remnants of its colonialism on other continents—🙁

So, the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream is no longer a problem for us in hindsight!
The only question that remains is this: when will this rock—which symbolizes Jesus, the returning Christ—smash this existing world and power system to pieces?

In a certain sense, we can view this dream as a kind of “hourglass,” as an indicator of how far our time has already progressed, for it gives us an overview of the “times of the nations.”
This “time of the nations”—the time in which Israel is no longer the sovereign ruler of its own land—began with the destruction of Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar and will also end with a great “bang”—to transition into the 1,000-year Kingdom of Peace with Jesus as “King” in Israel.

But the Book of Daniel actually begins with this dream of a Babylonian king…

Outline of the Book of Daniel:

Here I refer to the table of contents of the book and will leave it at these two parts 🙂

A. Chapters 1–6 – The story of Daniel and his friends in the Babylonian exile

B. Chapters 7–12 – The prophetic section concerning future events and the spiritual world

Daniel Chapter 1
I. Narrative Section: The Story of Daniel and His Companions in Babylon (Chapters 1–6)
Daniel and His Friends at the Royal Court in Babylon

Daniel Chapter 2
Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream
The friends pray to God, and Daniel receives the interpretation of the dream
Daniel interprets the dream of the statue representing the coming world empires

Daniel Chapter 3
Nebuchadnezzar’s giant golden statue to be worshiped
Daniel’s three friends refuse and are thrown into the fiery furnace
The rescue of the three friends by a fourth “man”
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a great tree

Daniel Chapter 4
Daniel interprets the dream; the tree symbolizes Nebuchadnezzar himself …
The dream comes true—Nebuchadnezzar is humbled but also restored

Daniel Chapter 5
Belshazzar’s disregard for the temple treasure of the God of Israel—and his judgment

Daniel Chapter 6
Intrigues by the Persian officials lead to Daniel being thrown into a lions’ pit — but he too is saved and blessed

Daniel Chapter 7
II. Prophetic Section: Daniel’s visions of the four world empires and the messianic end times (Chapters 7–12)
Daniel’s dream of the four beasts and the Son of Man
Daniel receives the interpretation of the vision of the four beasts

Daniel Chapter 8
Daniel’s Vision of a Ram and a Goat
The Interpretation of the Ram and the Goat

Daniel Chapter 9
Daniel Humbles Himself Before God and Pleads for His People
God’s Answer – The Mystery of the 70 Weeks and the Coming of the Messiah

Daniel Chapter 10
Daniel Mourns and Fasts – and Receives a Heavenly “Visitor”
Comfort and Encouragement from the Angel – Battle of the Spiritual Powers
Daniel Is Strengthened – Preview of the Angel’s Battles Against the Spiritual Powers of Persia and Greece

Daniel Chapter 11
The Angel Reveals Future Historical Events to Daniel
Mention of the Persian Kings Who Followed Cyrus, as Well as Alexander the Great and His Successors
Overview of the struggles of the Egyptian and Syrian kings after Alexander’s death up to Antiochus Epiphanes
Desecration of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, the “King of the North” at that time
Persecution of the Jews in Jerusalem
Acts of violence and sacrilege by a king of the end times

Daniel Chapter 12
The Great Tribulation in the End Times, at the end of which lies Israel’s salvation

Content of the prophet Daniel:

Daniel chapter 1
Daniel chapter 2
Daniel chapter 3
Daniel chapter 4
Daniel chapter 5
Daniel chapter 6
Daniel chapter 7
Daniel chapter 8
Daniel chapter 9
Daniel chapter 10
Daniel chapter 11
Daniel chapter 12