Daniel’s vision of four beasts extends the prophet’s picture of the four empires, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome, that would precede the coming of Christ, with emphasis on the ‘little horn’, antichrist, that would devour the earth and attack the church until Christ’s return.
The book of the prophet Daniel makes a gentle start, beginning so beautifully and so perfectly structured from a literary point of view. It then proceeds into depths of theology, prophecy and narrative concerning the proving of the Lord and his provision for his people.
There are magnificent things in the book of Daniel, including fresh Old Testament revelation, touching on themes unseen in any earlier books. You can’t really – for example – study the theology of angels without the book of Daniel. You can’t think very deeply about the doctrine of the resurrection of the body without the book of Daniel. So to Daniel was given tremendous privileges of revelation, quite apart from this book demonstrating God’s sovereign power to bless the survival of his people and their integrity through the ages.
The historical Daniel is undoubtedly the author of the book. On a number of occasions he uses the phrase ‘I, Daniel’ (although he only begins to write in the first person, in an autobiographical manner, from chapter seven on). It’s almost as though, dare we say, Daniel could not bring himself to write in an autobiographical manner at the beginning of the book, because he’s obliged to record what might appear to be his own accomplishments. He ascribes them all to the Lord, but he avoids the first person until that’s all over and done, and only then does he speak in terms of his own experience.
It’s often said that there is nothing bad recorded about Daniel either in this book or anywhere else in the scripture. He’s one of very few Bible characters of whom that can be said. The Lord, in His inspired word, didn’t wish anything bad to be said about Daniel. He was a fallible person, as we are, but so great was his faithfulness that his reputation is preserved in every respect.
Related Resources
Sermons on Daniel
Daniel’s Mysterious Seventy Weeks
Here is Daniel’s prayer for the restoration of Jerusalem, and the vision of seventy ‘sevens’ and how, by the traditional evangelical view, the prophet’s eyes are lifted to Calvary and Christ’s six accomplishments there.
Daniel, Prophet of the Exile
Everything in Daniel’s exceptional life and ministry arose from his first test on arrival in Babylon. This, with later tests, and his revelations, maintained him for 70 years at the top of an empire, for the preservation of Zion, and for imparting unique prophecies on historic eras and the last times. Here is biblical faithfulness at its noblest.