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There is little more fascinating than the plateaux of Daniel, and what is to be found there.

His work is partly the personal perspective, partly the political, the military, the militant, the devotional, the prayerful, the practical issuing in deliverance, that of the recipient, issuing in scripture, the receiver of visions, the interpreter of dreams, the man of action, the wayfarer in solemnity, the prophet of the Messiah, the chronological specialist, writing down the provisions for man from the divine mind.

What the book is not, we have formerly seen (as in Biblical Blessings 1, 2 and 6, chiefly  2, as in Chapter 12 above). What it is, requires for a better appreciation, some more attention. As we move, resting in what the book is, we find for our labours more realisation of what it is saying. It is like being addressed by a Headmaster in some great school. If you mistake him for a boy, his words will not be seen in their due setting. When you realise with whom you are dealing, then many things in his manner, speech and advice will appear in their good and godly meaning, far more readily!

At the outset, in  Ch. 1 we find the EXILED YOUNG MEN IN THEIR GODLY INSISTENCE, so that they at once demonstrate their godly intentions, remonstrate concerning the godly way for them, and achieve recognition with their mentor, whose love grows for them. Captured from Jerusalem they may be; at rest in alien ways, they are not.

In Ch. 2, it appears that the respect now accorded these young men  helps in their escape from summary execution by Nebuchadnezzar, who in his intemperate haste, has a thing or two to learn (which he does, as shown in Daniel Ch. 4). Daniel asks for information from  Arioch of the king's guard, and is treated to a fascinatingly kindly exposition of the situation, instead of instant death; for that was very near, the king having become exasperated with his many Babylonian prodigies of wisdom, men of learning and intellect, magicians and soothsayers, as a witty tribe for their own survival and importance.

The imperious king was not willing to be imposed on further by their verbal devices. He wanted action, to be TOLD what he had dreamed and THEN to have it interpreted. IF the wise men had real access to the supernatural God, then of course... but if not, then equally obviously it was an impossible request. Whatever he wanted, he wanted it now, complete and satisfactory. In his own way, perhaps, inverted as it was, he was seeking for what could come only if one posited God. He did not, but was to do so, in the end, and more than posit; it would be assured to him.

Meanwhile, then, the king decided to put things to the test, and with fraud, this does help, and help immensely! It separates guile from godliness.
 
 

Daniel, caught in the midst, as a young executive trainee in this foreign land, accorded to him in his exile, then asked the king for time, and his purpose was this:  "that they might seek mercies from the God of heaven concerning this secret, so that Daniel and his companions might not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon."

One notices the plateau of propriety, purity and truth. Daniel is not seeking knowledge to show superiority, to gain favour, in order to seek honour or exaltation. He seeks it in order to remain alive in the king's service, in the presence of God. He is explicit. It is from the GOD OF HEAVEN and not some pagan deity or admixture that he is to seek. It is in terms of MERCY, not merit, that he seeks it.

The structure is simple, profound and pure. Given the answer from God, he praises Him, tells the king of the fact that neither his merit nor his power has wrought the answer, but that the true God has shown it, and then relays and only then, relates the dream and its meaning. Startled Nebuchadnezzar is amazed and delighted. He had seen nothing like this before. On the other hand, it left him liable for divine action further, yes from the very source that his young exile had sought and found the answer. To whom much is given, from him much shall be required. Further steps of vast significance eventually were to lead to his own arrest ... by God!

So often people seem to imagine that because sundry things have happened oh so nicely! that their is a sort of special fount of favour for them, though they know no god, let alone God; but it is in fact a prelude. It is the result that awaits. What have you DONE with these things! and in particular, have you sought and found where He is to to be found, the Almighty!
 
 

This brings us to the next plateau. It is the political plateau.

In the process of relaying to the king his own dream and its meaning, as required, Daniel relates the story of the image, gold in the head and with various metals as one descends to the feet. This the young prophet duly shows as a depiction of a series of vast earthly empires to come, starting with the current one, Babylon, as the head. As you move down the statue to the toes, you are moving in history down the chronology of events, to later times.

The outcomes in these empires is treated, and the intriguing thing is the end, where a vulnerability in the last empire, in the feet, of mixed iron and clay, partly strong and partly broken, is hit by a stone which grows to a mountain to fill the earth. This last means that "the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed" - Daniel 2:44. Obviously there is a dramatic entry, a stone which becomes a mountain. Enough to break, it then grows to shake and cover the earth with its vast magnificence.

Anyone who has read Isaiah, which preceded Daniel by over a century, would have no difficulty in recognising the Messiah, as would those familiar with the far earlier Psalm 2 of David, and Psalm 40, with 110 (cf. Joyful Jottings 21, 22, 23, 25), not to mention the various coverages as in Isaiah 11, 32, 61 and so on (see With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Chs. 4 and following).

At once, after due honour for Daniel, now seen as a man of God and practical with it, and following likewise his request, for governmental positions for his three friends, those with whom he had spiritual accord and who had shared in his food requests at the first, with godly objectives, there comes in Ch. 3 a new and vigorous test.

How could this be ? In this world, one is not set for honour, to bask in it, but for work and honesty for Christ, to live with it, and for Him. The world is not His in its spiritual life, but follows the prince of this world (John 14:30, I John 5:18-19); so that test and challenge is sure. Those who will live in godly fashion,  says Paul, will suffer persecution (II Timothy 3:12). This is not in the usual blue toning because it is not a correct rendering. The actual text is this, and the difference makes ALL the difference in reality and in practice: All who will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
One can improve still further from the Greek. "All who are willing to live in godly fashion in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution."

This is most true. The clash is like that of two vortices in mid-ocean. It is inconceivable that the one does not impact on the other... if it is close enough. IF you are willing to live in godly fashion in Christ Jesus then obviously, you will be close, for the field is white and you are seeking souls, which have another prince, loth to leave them.
 
 

Nebuchadnezzar did not sit still. Perhaps excited by these dramatic events, he decided to live in his own worldly and selfish way, and to erect a golden statue (now that Daniel had mentioned it), making not just the head but ALL of gold! Men must now worship this. It is Nebuchadnezzar's image, emblem of power, empire, authority, and perhaps grandeur in more than that! How often in this or that form, power in the corrupted heart of self-elevated man, his head in clouds, his mind in recess, have such things been done! Recall the Japanese shrines of the thirties, to which, in glory of the emperor, missionaries were to bow!

Let us however return to Daniel. Here then is the SECOND PLATEAU. It is a new combination of trial and challenge.

Now this second plateau is similar to the first, but also most clearly a matter of will. It is not the obtaining of understanding per se which is prominent, now, but the application of it! One has now to DO what is right and not simply FIND it. So do our challenges move, and like different waves on a stout timbered ship, the vessel of our lives is tested.

A statue of gold, then, a seemingly perverse application on the king's part, of the dream about the golden head of the image to interpret coming history, and as such a marked comment on the depravity of the human heart without the salvation of God, as seen in contrast to the condition of  Daniel and his friends, who quite simply KNEW GOD (cf. John 17:3): this evil shrine was to be erected. This infamous idol was to be a sort of outward sign of the idolatry of the king as such, since it was to be worshipped at his order! This then will the plateau of godly will. It is a matter of volition, determination, commitment, dedicated pursuit of the will of God, delight in godliness. WILL the friends of Daniel rise to this challenge or fall on it ?

WILL they sacrifice their lives if necessary, for the sake of true worship. Many have done so at the hands of Romanism, Islam, Communism in our own recent past, and that somewhat more distant; would the godly group of exiles from Judah, make their own contribution to willingness to die daily, and if necessary, to die literally! This was the question as the King invented his new abomination.

It was not slow to be answered. The three friends figure in this case, Daniel possibly being on outside duties, or on leave. The hypnotic effect of "all kinds of music" was deftly devised to lull the conscience and exalt the feelings, in order to make more plausible this ludicrous obeisance and submission to a mere statue, as if worthy of worship. Even if, and indeed all the more if, it represented the authority and majesty of this earthly king, the worship of any who was born without consent and would die without decision, a mere man, was in the last degree irrational, cowardly, and indeed it was contemptible.

The friends of course refused to bow at the prescribed time, and when the king heard, he was furious, gave them another opportunity and met from the young cadets a reply that is part of history's wonders.

" 'If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.'

"Then Nebuchadnezzar was full of fury, and the expression on his face changed toward Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego."
 

This reminds one of the time in Old Testament Class, when the author had a not dissimilar change to experience! It is most revealing how the hatred of man can overtake one and how quickly! how direly! when one stands for what is written above all majesty and dominion, pride and power of man, ecclesiastical, political or commercial.

Notice meanwhile the interstices of the reply. GOD IS ABLE to deliver us, one. As to the fire with which you threaten, that is a solid fact, two. As to the KING'S HAND, however, his power to MAKE people what he want, GOD WILL DELIVER THEM, and this is the third element in their reply!

This kind of reply is far more important than fire, as Anglican Archbishop Cranmer realised, as he first burnt the hand that signed the recantation when he was subjected to Romanist duress. In his speech before death, he recanted the recantation, and addressed the topic nobly. Daniel's friends did not decline in their ways, but they did decline the king's ... invitation to shame. Lost in an awesome display of power run amok, like those who ran their airliners into the World Trade Centre, Nebuchadnezzar's own heat of angry heart led to the deaths of those who so much as threw the culprits into the over-heated flames. Within the furnace, God appeared, the next reference to Christ, the expression of God: in the flames, they were not harmed, nor did the very smell adhere to them. What was seen was coincident with what was claimed, for it was all gauged as one: one like the son of God was seen WITH THEM.

So on this plateau, as we see the need for company, with or without inflammation. The word of Christ experienced by thousands as in Matthew 28:19-20, Lo, I am with you always... on the missionary, preaching, teaching tasks of life, whether one be ordained or not!

Likewise in the more contemporary instance, is the case of Corrie ten Boom, when after being incarcerated in a Nazi concentration camp, and losing both her beloved father and sister, she met after the war, a camp officer, at church; for he had now become a Christian. Here was the test: COULD she reach out her hand in answer to his; and could she so receive a man whose regime and perhaps actions had hastened the death of one she greatly admired and loved, and had shown the hatred of the Nazi system not only to Jew, but to those who like herself, would dare even to help them in the face of the Nazi contempt ?

No, in herself, she could not; but in the power of God, SHE DID IT! She shook his hand in the new bond of fellowship in Christ.

Forgiveness is a necessary condition of Christian grace. So the flames did not scorch the soul. THAT, it is even more important than any consideration about their touching the BODY! So is will seen above the clouds of pollution, the dust and the dirt, a will on fire with faith, and a faith inspired by God, whose empathy was such that He appeared as if one of them, amongst them, reminding us of the promise of Christ to His people (Matthew 18:20).

They were bullied, they were harassed, they were harried; but when helped to extermination, they did not burn.

What then is the position of this pagan king at this stage ? Nebuchadnezzar has by now received his SECOND LESSON, that not only does GOD KNOW, but that GOD ACTS as He sees fit, and IF He sees fit to replace burning with escape, then this is as well within His power as is knowledge and wisdom, enlightenment and understanding. Accordingly, Nebuchadnezzar is again tutored by history, shown in the laboratory of life, the answer, written bold and large. What a colossal requirement is not to be made of him, who received so much, so freely!

In fact, the king then made an extravagant decree, being impressed rather than humbled into holiness, that those who should speak amiss, in any country, against this God of heaven, should suffer grossly for it!

Not too surprisingly, though the ways of the Lord are not predictable (except where a promise is invoked by faith, or HE has predicted it!), Nebuchadnezzar, so intensely involved by now in the things of God, was  now to meet his own test. He has yet another dream.

His dream is now a subject for Daniel once more to interpret. With punctilious courtliness but utter boldness, Daniel shows the meaning of the cut down tree (Daniel 4:14ff.): that it refers to Nebuchadnezzar himself, who is to be humbled to the earth, go out like a beast without reason, and after a season be given back his sanity, so that "you may know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses."

It is now to be seen that the POLITICAL PLATEAU is contiguous to the PLATEAU OF PROPRIETY, PURITY AND TRUTH. God is personal, and His dealings with persons are personal, unless of course they as chaff, inveterately wicked, are to be blown away, unseemly in spirit and in result (as in Psalm 1). Here knowledge and action combine. Nebuchadnezzar duly loses sanity, is abased like a beast, is restored, and announces after this brush with insanity, he declared:

"...at the end of the time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me; and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever:

"For His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
And His kingdom is from generation to generation.
All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing;
He does according to His will in the army of heaven
And among the inhabitants of the earth.
No one can restrain His hand
Or say to Him, 'What have You done?'
 

"At the same time my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my honor and splendor returned to me. My counselors and nobles resorted to me, I was restored to my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added to me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all of whose works are truth, and His ways justice. And those who walk in pride He is able to put down."

It is apparent that as in the days of Elijah and Elisha when miracles were deftly interwoven in the fabric of history (as in I Kings 17 to II Kings 13 for example, when likewise the prophets and kings were in rigorous relationships!), so in the exile period, though Judah is abased and humbled, yes humiliated and harassed, yet there is an answer from God. He continues His mission through the disobedient nation, as indeed He did in the days of Jonah to Assyria, and deep as with Joseph in Egypt, is the impact on the foreign power which He has allowed to have temporary rights, as He exposes His people to the light of common day.

By now, this polytheistic nation is being treated to more and more test for its own part, not just in the king, but in the country. The wheel has turned. The predictions of Isaiah 13-14 are about to transpire. The warnings of Isaiah 36-37 are about to be fulfilled. TIme has past, and opportunity lost, Babylon itself is facing an entire ruin, as the next Empire on the form of the image, the Medes and Persians, comes into power, and so Babylon is fallen, fallen...

What then is to happen next ? What befell the last king of Babylon, or regent ?

Next we come to the ...
 
 

In this case, there is the fascinating externalisation of the dream phenomenon.

Here the famous 'writing on the wall' which has with many Biblical phrasings, come into our language, appears. Belshazzar, perhaps a co-regent at the time, is living at the edge. Babylon the powerful and the lofty has come to an end. The Medes and the Persians are at his steps. Perhaps in weak frustration, and lofty headiness, he has a feast in which he not merely USES the fabulously expensive and carefully contrived symbolic gold and silver of the Jewish temple's furnishings, seized when Babylon defeated Israel many years before; he not only uses them for a drunken feast. Not even this is enough. The King goes further. He explicitly praises the gods of "gold and silver ..." and such things, WHILE using these golden and silver objects for Temple worship, prostituting holiness in a sort of acrid contempt!

In the midst of the plenteous profanity, and how like is this to so many other feasts in which the spirit is not far different, perhaps even in some worldly and virtually ex-church bodies today, there appears a vision extraordinary. This time it is not like the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar, but is something capable of being seen BY ALL! Called to interpret, in view of his reputation in times past, in the days of the former king, Daniel does so precisely and with much wit. As enabled by the Lord, the young prophet shows that the days of this Babylonian kingdom have been declared finished by God, that the king himself has been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; that his kingdom is to be divided and given to Medes and Persians. Before the night is out, so is Belshazzar. So it is that Isaiah's prophecy of Isaiah 44:24-45:2 is to be fulfilled, and the indictment of Isaiah 47 reaches its time. As in Isaiah 13:17,  Daniel 8:20, it is Media which figures, yes and Persia.

But what of the handwriting which for centuries now has been "the handwriting on the wall", expressive of doom ? In this, the meticulous use and what appear puns on the use of monetary units in order to have a message for interpretation, is a declaration concerning worth. With Babylon, we have seen the place of power. This now is wilting. What then of worth ?

God EVALUATES. There IS moral measurement given in this handwriting on the wall, before the terrified eyes of the king. His time has come; and as to him, so will it come to all. As Proverbs 11:31 declares,

• "If the righteous will be recompensed on the earth,
• How much more the ungodly and the sinner!"

For a time, the latter, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, Mao may seem invulnerable, but soon their day comes, their systems decline, their wisdom is not near. There is an end, there is a reason, there is a judgment; and if it is not instant at all times, since human freedom has to find its function and what is wrong has to have its opportunity by grace to show its own intrinsic disgrace, that it might be seen that none in the end can rule but God, yet these things are lessons, and their meaning continues as in Nineveh, Egypt, Babylon, in Tyre and the putridities of Romanist torture. As to the last, Revelation 17-18 dwells on it in depth, just as does Isaiah 47 on Babylon, in its own day. For long they seem invulnerable; in a short time, their number is up, they are weighed. Men continue them; they continue to fail. Indeed, shortly now m an is to have his last fling in this philosophic aggrandisement of flesh; but this too fails, and in failing, the devil's messiah, little horn number 2, meets his inglorious end.

These things, they are laboratory experiments for the benefit of all who watch, and their message is clear. God who knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 47:10), now DISPLAYS it for all (cf. Ephesians 3:9-10)^*2. God has set times and seasons for all if by any means any might seek and perhaps find Him! (as Paul declares in Acts 17:26-27). If they do not, then are they found out!

Thus in the case of Daniel with Belshazzar (Daniel 5), the divinely sent hand is seen writing a series of passive participles, all indicating a thing done. However, Keil considers the last a noun form, and makes various other comments, some of which are included in the presentation below.

What is the message, then, that Daniel, taking the screed on the wall, translates into meaning from the subtle but strong symbolic notation ?

MENE, MENE - from mena to number: Numbered, numbered. GOD has numbered YOUR kingdom, and finished it.

TEKEL - from tekal to weigh, but this,  is coincident with the niphal form of the verb to be light, or to be found light, so enabling a joint verdict: YOU are weighed in the balances and found wanting. Deficient in moral worth, numbered, you are without weight.

UPHARSIN - from peres to divide, with 'Persians' from paras, allowing a word play delivering: The kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. The term rendered division is linked to the concept of dissolution, destruction, so that there is a double impact.

 If with Keil it be taken as a noun, then it is broken pieces, fragments. This would give:
Fragments in dissolution, your kingdom is to the Medes and Persians.

The repetition of MENE is not only a matter of emphasis, but of development. Numbered, numbered. It is like a lament or a taunt. 'Your number is up' is our own apt correlative.

We have already seen the double sense in tekel. In upharsin we come to a threefold venue. There is a movement of the whole so that two parties may have some of it; there is a dissolution of the whole, so that its integrity is destroyed, there is a Persian clue, so that this body can be appealed to, and since there Medes and Persians are already available for inspection, this being a prophecy of immediately impending events, we see this result likewise, in the division.

There are further suggestions, but this will here suffice, except for one point which one must here add, that to the extent there is by word play an allusion to monetary units in this divine warning, indeed judgment, this would merely reinforce the rebuke to the worship of the gods of gold and silver, by the foolish ignoring of the spiritual SIGNIFICANCE of these profaned temple utensils from Jerusalem, and merely looking on their material value. Of no material value for Belshazzar would these riches be, since the spiritual significance comes from GOD who now SPIRITUALLY judges him for SPIRITUAL reasons. If then such overtones are present, they add to the impact as shown by Daniel.

In moral measurement terms, Daniel reminds Belshazzar of the divine dealings with his predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar, whose lofty heart found an abased body in which to dwell, as he ate grass in mental oblivion, like beasts, UNTIL HE KNEW that the Most High rules and appoints as rulers whom he will. Human majesty is mere mockery, when it is intoxicated with itself! It comes, it goes, it flows, it is dammed up, it is damaged, it is gone: moral worth ?

What was its measurement!

Lifting himself up, Belshazzar, as if incapable of thought, has glorified the illiterate, the uncomprehending, material means of life, or even adornments, treating the sacred as profane, and ignoring meaning in a bombastic mentality that sees nothing but things, not their reason or purpose, their responsibility or purport. He has ignored the author of comprehension who comprehends us and our ways very well!  It is He, the divine, "in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways" and this God, "you have not glorified", says Daniel with a glorious restraint!

The prophet then proceeded to interpret, in this paralleling of metallic and moral worth, economic serviceability and spiritual power being set together and contrasted. The irony is readily extended into a sort of market place figure, in the stress on NUMBERED and WEIGHED, and perhaps more as above, mocking the mocker, debasing the coinage of his kingdom to its valueless worth, when the OWNERSHIP passes, as that very night, it did!

Is this then a meaning ? To lose control of means! Perhaps now the deluded and debased king will awaken, on his death bed... Is meaning not so unnecessary after all ? Is what you mean a function of what you are, and is a purposeless existence, merely exulting in means of life, ignoring where and why it is going! It ignores the question of intention, debases the consideration of responsibility, trades in the point of answerability, invents clottishness of heart as an anodyne for clottishness of spirit, and collapses in mere ignorance. But God is not ignorant of such wilful ignorance; and in His time, He acts, as He will act to perfection, in the consummation, to which the entire book of Daniel repeatedly points (cf. Psalm 50). These, they are Matterhorns strikingly suggestive; in time, is Everest, looming through the mist, the rock that has stood. To remove the figure, even it will go; but the Maker of rationality and the Lord of life will not go.

Life goes to Him; it renders account. Belshazzar for all times is an illustration of this principle.
 
 

Daniel himself, however, does not sit like a lord. To be sure, Nebuchadnezzar had raised him to lofty heights of authority, and given his three friends high place in the land. These his comrades had had their test, in the flames, and it was a severe one, requiring the preference of spirit to flesh, God to mortal life and fearlessness to faint-heartedness. Now at this juncture, Belshazzar had elevated Daniel to 3rd ruler in the Kingdom, confirming his own position as a second ruler, which fits with the discovery of textual material placing Nabonidus as the father of Belshazzar, away on campaigns and deputing to his son regal powers. Only the 3rd rulership would be available therefore. (See E.J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel pp. 115ff..)

It is in passing of great interest that cuneiform evidence has come to light to provide the above data and indeed much more; and it is so common, that ignorance is not bliss, where the Bible is concerned, and routinely people with a desire to delete it, imagine vain things, as they did in the days of the Messiah (cf. Psalm 2 and Joyful Jottings Ch. 21). They never work.

However, to return to our plateaux, we note that Daniel has now come for his own test (Daniel 6). To be sure, he had been tested in a preliminary way, in a spiritual milieu, when new in Babylon, and still quite young. Now however he is a lord indeed, quite great. Will he have the same candour, ardour and fearless demeanour, be as holy as once he was ?

Would it be thus; OR WOULD he quietly demean his conscience and make vulnerable his spiritual concord with the Lord, by accepting now the modes of Babylon, as presented in his upbringing ? Not at all. With some care and courtesy, with a methodical caution, he had proposed a change, and obtained it, at his junior stage, as we saw.  His ways evidently pleased his mentor, and his treatment as earlier noted, in the time of peril of being put to death in a regal roar against ALL wise men, may well have been associated with the fact that he had impressed people as he studied, with a quality of dedication and wisdom.

Now, he had arrived in the political sense. Everything was to be lost; and it was much.

To test him, there appear characters, associates, subordinates in whom is to be found jealousy of the most determinate character, hand joining hand, in a seditious plot. What were their evil and  criminal thoughts ? Could not the king be contacted beyond Daniel, be induced make a rule to prohibit prayer, Daniel's strength thus being turned into vulnerability, so that he would be destroyed ? If they could only lead the king by vanity to embarrass Daniel in the land where the king's command could not be changed, force him to disobey a law, they he would HAVE to be deleted, just as it had seemed this would be the result earlier, with his friends! They would try it. They did so. How often do people protect their power, ambition, seat, position and do evil to others, following evil as if it were mother's milk, only to survive, unprincipled, morally puny, as if worthless conveyors of evil.

People love to ignore the ways of God in the world, and to make a sort of mental take-over where they do not actually make a martial one, as of course will be attempted at the end of our Age, and is currently very near (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5, SMR Ch. 8). Hence one can understand the failure of these jealous associates of Daniel, to remember the Lord's deliverance of Daniel's friends. As Christ put it, though one should rise from the dead, they still would not believe (Luke 16:31). What an exposure of the rationalising and self-justifying heart of the chronically disobedient and faithless lies there! How common the error, how incisive the rebuke from the lips of the Lord!

The glorious irony of that statement of Christ, recorded in Luke 16, of course lay in this, that HE as He had stated, was going to do JUST that! rise from the dead. THEY were going to do just what he had shown concerning the rich man in the parable of Lazarus: disbelieve. Just as there was no point in sending him back to earth to warn his brothers, for they still would not believe, so would the political and religious Establishment of Israel fail to believe. In fact, Christ was going to take that extra step, not for them only, but for all, and Himself come back and tell them of His resurrection and let them see Him. Yet still they would not believe; but MANY WOULD, even among the Gentiles (predicted in Isaiah 49:6). Nevertheless, as the scripture HAD long since predicted (Isaiah 49:7), the nation of Israel, in His day on earth, they WOULD not believe...

Their time is to come, but not then, and not for a long while afterwards (cf. The Biblical Workman Ch. 1, *3, and Ch. 3 *1, SMR Ch. 9).

The subordinates of Daniel also did not believe. In vain had so much wonder of wisdom and power been shown. Nothing persuades the impersuasible. It is their joy to labour in vain, become irrational, arbitrary; but not believe (cf. SMR Ch. 3, Repent or Perish Ch. 7). So needlessly benighted, like many today, they proceeded. They kept to their evil course through disbelief, and were in the end to be emptied into the pit.

Meanwhile, the plot proceeded. The vain king, flattered, accedes to the infamous request that ONLY TO HIM, the king on earth, should prayer be made, to the obvious exclusion of the One who put him there. Daniel is 'trapped', the skill of the intriguers appears dominant, the net is drawn, the penalty is invoked, the incorrigible character of the regal law is emphasised, so that Daniel despite the royal liking for him, is consigned to the lions, with however this expression of the extent of the king's internal accolade to Daniel's sincerity and his God's power. What was this ? "Your God, whom you serve continually, He will deliver you!" - Daniel 6:16. When the morning came on the heels of the disconsolate evening, the King asked Daniel - "O Daniel, servant of the living God, is your God, whom you serve continually, able to deliver you from the lions ?"

This is the way the winds of the human mind often work in the ungrounded, the unfounded. They hope and they fear; they fear and they hope. First came the hope, now the fear, or wonder... HAS HE DONE IT!

It is so like the resurrection that it reeks of it; and the position has much in common. Daniel is attacked by those jealous, vying or resentful (Matthew 27:18 cf. Daniel 6:3-5); they resent and desire his evacuation from his place in terms of their possessive desire to retain their own at all costs. The martial power of the kingdom is invoked against him. He is caught on a point which is dependent on a misuse of justice (Pilate with Christ having taken the futile step of washing his own hands, while committing what left blood on them, notwithstanding). Despite the king's desire to deliver Daniel, however, the law of the Medes and the Persians demands that he be killed (and, in the parallel, one notes that  Christ was vicariously offered as a substitutionary sacrifice for all who would receive Him, so the law did make such a demand, but not in the way of the farce and facade of justice and judgment in the mockery of a court, of Pilate).

Then there is the seemingly final win of the wicked, so that Daniel is swept like rubbish to the den, going downward into the unthinkable depths; just as Christ was irrevocably FINISHED, as it would seem to the superficial, as the blood slowly drained out on the afternoon's slow hours, ignominy and mockery making the consignment sure. To the immutable heights, He committed His Spirit. As the body is but a clothing, it was returned with interest, with new powers^*3.

A stone is over the aperture, and it is sealed, in each case.

The ones concerned are troubled in the interim, the king of Babylon, on the one hand, Christ's disciples on the other. The early morning sees action in each case. The carnally unthinkable happens in each case, and the message is given in each case. GOD IS ABLE TO DELIVER. He will do so according to plan and purpose, fulfilling WHATSOEVER He declares He will do, and whatever else is in His counsel.

But what of the world ? Crucifixion was not deliverance as this world thinks; but resurrection was.

Being cast in ignominy to lions like an animal, was not deliverance as this world thinks, for a KING (another parallel, in that Daniel was a type of high ruler - remember the Belshazzar offer!); yet what was ? This: being removed by the divine care in making the lions uninterested in making meat of this particular protoplasmic cover for spirit, by name Daniel, this was deliverance.

Daniel is humble in deliverance as was Christ. SO for the Lord was it written (cf. Joyful Jottings Chs.  21, 22, 25). Daniel was willing for whatever should come; but since the Lord was interested in vindicating his servant's innocence, He had done so. He also similarly showed His own (cf. Isaiah 50:4-8)^*4. ALWAYS the emphasis is on the Lord's CAPACITY, HIS POWER, to deliver; and as Daniel's friends made eminently clear in their famous retort (see above) to the persecuting King, THAT was what mattered. If they died, they died. BUT they would not bow. THAT was the issue, and THIS was their response. HOW God would respond was HIS business; and not the outcome of forces at all.

Daniel, then, has this prayer plateau to depict in this case. HE CONTINUED to pray when things seemed ILLEGAL so to act; he continued to do it openly. He accepted the consignment, the test, not grumbling but going, and did it with a trusting heart. That God puts down and raises up kings is a (comparatively) slight thing. What is not in the least slight is this, that HE is KING and that under no circumstances, life or death, torture or mischievous falsification and slander, is one to alter the obeisance and prayer to the SPIRITUAL KING, whose material world is just a book He has published. It is the author, not the tattered volume, who matters.

Daniel, therefore kept on praying despite the royal interdict; did it openly; and changed his ways towards his God, not at all. It is reminiscent of Peter and John before the authorities
in Acts 4 and 5:
 

'Work it out for yourself whether it is right
in the sight of God
to obey you rather than God!'

This was the testimony of the two apostles. One apostle, James, was slaughtered. Peter and John continued at that time. So did Daniel.

As for God, as the King Darius then declared, on Daniel's deliverance (so like Peter's as recorded in Acts 5:17-29, 12:4-19):

• "He delivers and rescues, and He works signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who has delivered Daniel ...."

THIS is precisely as one would expect in the order of things, when the author is concerned for some of the characters of his book, who, calling on him, related to His intentions and inventions. This book, the history of the world, is alight with such things and its current works, our contemporary history, as we have reviewed more than once, is flaming with the submission in meekness of events to His prophetic word. Hence our work on one segment of news was entitled, Scoop of the Universe. The way of things in substantial detail is outlined millenia in advance. That is verification; the fact that God attests that it is HIS INTENTION and INVENTION to give such incomparable attestation in advance, this is a mutual and second verification (Isaiah 49).

Just as the moral is in splendour set above the mundane, with Belshazzar, so here in Daniel 6, the communication company with the Lord, prayer, is set in value above the lords of this earth, in their puny authority subject to death at any moment, as from the King of Eternity. His children, however,  relish His royalty and love His eternity. When a King is so filled with goodness, eternity is a fine time to spend with Him! THIS is not the least delight in eternal life (John 3:16, I John 1:1-4). As for Abraham, God is our shield and our exceedingly great reward: HE is exceedingly great; and the reward par excellence, it is Himself!
 
 

Now in Daniel 7-9, we come to the precise predictive feats of God through Daniel. We have already noted in Ch. 12  above, the personal side of the interaction, the response and the realisation on the part of Daniel. People are personal, and there is always the personal side, which so far from being a defect, is an advantage; for how would a non-person 'understand' a person! It is in tutorial mode of instruction from the Lord, that we see Daniel, not a little, in these places.

In Biblical Blessings Chs. 2,  6 and SMR pp. 886, Ancient Words, Modern Deeds - AWME - Ch. 10, The Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet Ch. 4, for example, we see the precision of prophecy relative to the death date of the Messiah, the procedure of the kingdoms, the world empires in their correct order, with details set in brilliant profusion, mixing implicit interpretation and comment with a coverage open to the most rigorous demands, and meeting them with ease.

History from Daniel's own time right down to the death of Christ is presented with this majestic ease on the one hand, and with that personal combination of anguish at such wonder and love at such a provision, on the part of almost overwhelmed Daniel, who worships the King who rules, in this as in other things. Indeed, so great is this ease, so complete this consummate hold on history, that the Lord not only can, but does simultaneously expose evil, giving to it its little day of shame like an X-ray plate for storage, and test and even purify His saints, preparing in them the free-flowing hearts that are unclogged from mixed motives and blessed with new beauties (as in Daniel 11:32-35, 12:10).

In Ch. 7 we see as in Daniel 2, the 4 Kingdoms, the last, Rome, having continued to the 5th. century with Rome itself, and to the 15th in its Eastern arm, at Constantinople, while the Holy Roman Empire (cf. SMR pp. 886ff.), continued its Roman and imperial impact with the horror of the Roman inquisition and system, in its debased form of religion (cf. SMR pp. 1032ff.), its fierce intolerance and royal self-adornment with virtually divine attributes, right to our modern era. In some ways, it is almost a parody of some of the claims of Roman Emperors, who required worship or death from time to time, just as the Pope has demanded submission or death, torture and financial ruin. Now the European Union now arises on the ashes of what went before, the futile endeavours to unite of Napoleon and Hitler, to continue the European unity, and to move into the final mode of its domain,  encompassing  in its ways, a new version of the old power (cf. SMR pp. 902-931, 683ff., Biblical Blessings Ch. 2).

The fourth empire, the final one,  is as Daniel made so clear, a matter of a kingdom partly strong and partly broken. The Roman version of European 'unity'  has shown enormous evidence of both of these qualities! (cf. Daniel 2:42).

In Ch. 8 of Daniel we see as we have seen (cf. AWME 10), there is an intense specialisation on the second kingdom, and the attention to the third is included. It is in Ch. 9 that Daniel provides that amazingly clear and clearly amazing coverage which gives the date of the Messianic death, further information on its reason and result, and a long-range prophecy of such arithmetical simplicity^*5 and brilliance as to attest the perfection in the mind of the Author of history, who knows how to abase the most splendid pretenders, and to exalt the most ruinously treated butts (cf. Matthew 22). For this latter point, see Highway of Holiness, Path of Peace, Way of Truth Ch. 1.
 

Chapter 10 of Daniel brings us to the height of the personal side of the prophet's involvement, and this we have also already considered in Ch.12  above. How clearly this contrast of the prophet's awe and the King of heaven's wisdom illustrates the sublimity of the living God in history, as in prayer, so in wisdom, as in understanding, so over all things, as yet contending with things and subordinating them despite the intensity of wickedness, to the plans He has. Wholly good, He knows precisely how to handle wickedness, even though in the process, as we see in Daniel 11 and 12, "some of those of understanding shall fall, to test them, to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end, because it is yet for a time appointed" (11:35), and "Many shall be purified, and made white, and tested, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand" (12:10).
 

Thus does the Lord interweave into the pattern of history, many things:

• the scope for wickedness on the part of those who abuse the spiritual personality provided,
• that source for love, hate, goodness and wickedness;
• the dealings with these things,
• the outcomes,
• the inputs of divine action such as the Messiah,
• that Master of meaning, the very living word of God;

 
• the precision of the matters  before Him, as He deploys what He will,
• utilising even enemies in His profundity (cf. Psalm 76:10, Ezekiel 29:18-21);
• the trends of the dynamics,
• the additional merits of the composition where even the wise may be purified,
• the enabling of the force of evil to manifest itself before it is wrapped up, like a residue of chips in an oily newspaper after fish and chips, and cast to its place with the rubbish.

Within all the action, there is the highly personal knowledge of individuals such as Daniel (cf. Psalm 1), and the certainties of outcomes which Communism seems to have sought to ape, with apish results (cf. SMR pp. 925ff., 645ff.,  684ff., 965, 971 at *13, and end-note) for its brutalities. It has IGNORED people, in theory at least, as individuals, whereas God both made them each one, as he/she is, and tests, purifies and further, as shown in the MORAL MEASUREMENT PLATEAU, judges! In humanistic systems, man judges man, corporately, incompetently, without possibility of truth (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 6   -7, SMR Ch. 3), without understanding, with results so co-ordinate with failure, that it is like considering rubbish. That, it is what man makes of man when he unmans him by making himself god, though man, and assessing all things with the inability to know even the truth!

If however Daniel 1-10 by contrast of divine composure and competence, and historic oversight,  has exposed the emptiness of such things as these of man the god-maker, or the self as god maker, we have much more to come. It is soon  reinforced by areas in Daniel 11-12, where in what amazing detail does Daniel proceed! This time, it is not as before, with dates and dealings of empires and in centre-piece, the Messiah to whom man in his merciless contusion of spirit grants NOTHING (9:24), though He is the only remedy to the whole gamut of operations, and heralded as to time, for over half a millenium.

All things as in Daniel 9:24-27,  are to be wrapped up, and this time, in the last chapters of Daniel,  we proceed to an outcome of floribund wonder in the things pertaining to the rescued the saints of God. Much suffering comes first as we shall see, and it is long.

To be sure, something of these earlier things does appear; but the new specialty is other. It is now the intensely complicated character of history, the intermesh of strategies and wickedness of men not merely in large kingdoms, but in endless schemes and seditions, plots and counter-plots, so that while on the one hand we sense the majesty of the King who commands the ends and measures the worth of things, we perceive in the most vivid and indeed virulent contrast, the moral minuteness, the selfish squalor of what is evil. As Israel is more closely affected, so the more intimately are the wars and wanderings, the greeds and travesties followed in the world about it.

For all that, the precision of the presentation of coming history, right up to the Messiah is so intense that it makes clear this message: EVERYTHING MATTERS, from the highest to the least. Little things can enlarge to calamity, or to wonder; and all things have an end in the One who, as in Daniel 12, at the resurrection has for each one ... the result.  This is when it is being published!

To Daniel, there is a lot, a place, a spiritual address and being prepared for eternity, just as for all Christians, shown in parallel in John 14. The ultimate division, then, is not merely of the kingdom of such as Belshazzar, dissolving into alien pieces, but of the redeemed as in Daniel 9, Isaiah 53, and the relentless, whose self-worth forbids their submission, whose sins rule and whose pardon is despised by ... themselves.
 
 

In Ch. 11, we find in an intimate sort of way, the flow and sequence, as the angel divulges the detail to Daniel, the spread of the relevant parts, concerning Israel in particular, of Empire 3, that of Alexander the Great (as outlined from the first in Daniel 2, and then in Daniel 8 in some detail).

• Now this 3rd Empire is under the higher power microscope and we see how the ripples of history, at times proceeding, relate to waves, the waves to movement, the movement to result, the result to ... the next Empire, the 4th., the last.

 
• This is as Daniel 7 makes clear, and Daniel 9 specifies in terms of actual date, is the one in which the Messiah is murdered.
• To say that this 'concerns' the Jew is of course an understatement! IThe fourth and final empire is one laden with iniquity, with teeth and nails metallic (Daniel 7:7,19). For the moment however, in Daniel 11, our concern is with the geological terrain, if you will, in our outlook from this plateau of survey.

 
• Indeed, Daniel 11 conveys us from Persia to the final fluxes of Rome, with vast concentration on Empire 3 in the midst. Its peculiar and relevant emphasis is the development of evil, its overcoming as its spreads, weed-like in ever new formulations, its impact on Israel and its grab at the world.

How does the movement go from Empire 3 to this end type Empire 4 ?

In fact, we rove from 527 to 165 B.C. in the mere verses of Daniel 11: 2-35. First there are those kings following Cyrus (as in 10:1), namely Cambyses II (527-522), Smerdis the Pretender (522), Darius I, Hystaspis (522-485 B.C.), the one we apparently meet in Ezra 5:6. These are the "three kings" who "stand up" in Persia. The latter part of 11:2 appears to refer to the Graeco-Persian war of Xerxes (480-479), his reign 486-465.

Moving rapidly on with Greece, which overcame the might of  Xerxes in amazing manner, largely perhaps through the famous naval defeat and its strategic consequences, of Salamis, and Xerxes' own flight back to Persia, leaving another in command, we come to its own prominent world class ruler. This 3rd Empire, Grecian, has none less than Alexander the Great as in 11:4 (parallel with 7:6 and 8:22). He is given the verbal clue in the four kingdoms into which, most prominently (rather like the famous identification of the 7 hills of Rome), his suddenly gained empire was divided at his death in his early thirties! (cf. Daniel 8:5-6).

Now commences a special focus on the Syrian phase of Alexander's residual empire, that sector, and its actions include much of conflict with Egypt, a nation also rife with strife against Israel. Alas how foolishly they played the fool as a nation with their own Lord who had delivered them from Egypt (cf. Isaiah 31:1-3). We shall seek to follow these predictions, interweaving the fulfilments with some note on their nature, as we proceed.

In Daniel 11:5, the historical fit is with Ptolemy 1 Soter, 323-285 B.C., himself a Macedonian, while the strong one is Seleucid I Nicator, who, inivited as a military leader, grew great in Egypt (11:5b).

11:6 relays the marriage of the houses of Syria and Egypt. However, Antiochus' divorced wife, murdered the newly imported Bernice, the donation for the nuptials, for whose sake she was reportedly cast aside; and continued in her work by murdering likewise the son of the new international union, and then Antiochus the king likewise, perhaps to make sure that not again should she suffer either from the former rival, or any other import or replacement!

As the scripture succinctly puts it, "neither shall she retain the power of the arm, nor shall he stand, nor his arm" (11:7). Father, the imported wife and their son all die. The support cast, parent, offspring all pass: she is  not maintained and indeed her own father, involved perhaps with complicity in the event, passed away. The moral force of the entire proceeding is vast!  The devastations are abundantly exhibited in the scripture following the arrangements with the Egyptian King's daughter, clearly intended as marriage, since it is a question of "joining forces", the daughter then going to the King of the North. It is left ot history to confirm the abundant reasons for the desolatory result.

Perhaps then jealousy and fear of competition, national pride all played a part in this reaction to the action of Antiochus.

As Proverbs declares (27:4),

• "Wrath is cruel and anger a torrent,
• But who is able to stand before jealousy ?"

Indeed, Egypt for its varied reasons, is not done yet! Let us see how the matter unfolds.
The "branch of her roots" is Bernice's brother Ptolemy III (246-212 B.C.) of Egypt, the kingdom of the "south",  who did as stated, defeating Seleucus II. This takes us to 11:9. So do we trace the movement from Alexander himself, to this relevant quadrant in Syria, the sector concerned with Israel, through the contests to the eventual impact on Israel. At the same time, we see this third empire stretching itself out until it is overcome, as multiply predicted, by the fourth, which is the Roman Empire.

In Daniel 11:10, from the ensuing words in 11:11, we come to revert to the Northern kingdom, thus humiliated by Ptolemy III, and find the sons of the king, namely Seleucus III (226-223) and Antiochus III (223-187) assembling forces, the latter attacking Egypt, as Payne in his notable Encyclopedia of Prophecy, p. 390, points out, this action being "probably against Gaza on the Egyptian border", thus impinging on the Egyptian realm and sovereignty. Daniel 11:11 shows the  reaction of Egypt, as the initial action of Syria now leads on to the defeat of  Antiochus III, the Great, in 217 B.C. despite his massively manned army, his mustered multitude.  In 11:12, we see reflection of the fact that despite his victory over Antiochus, Ptolemy IV did not effectually capitalise on the result.

Indeed, as Keil points out, the literal sense is this "as the multitude rises up, so his heart is lifted up": there being no copula between the record of the two actions, the clauses stand in correlation.

Thus his heart is more lifted up than his arm: he thrust about, but the result is limited.

In fact, pride or pomp intervenes, and so we find the moral element focussed. Thus, despite the ravaging rage of Ptolemy (11:12), he does not attain to the triumphant control he wishes to secure ("does not prevail"). Keil also points out that there would be no need to refer to "the multitude" which Antiochus raised up being "given into his hand" if it simply meant that he in fact governed them. That would follow naturally, and its re-statement in such a brief coverage would be redundant; and further, the phrase is not used in scripture in the sense of taking, command but of being given up, overcome.

Hence the rendering showing

• 1) that the North raises the large army,
• 2) that is given into the hand of the Egyptian king,

and the result is

• 1) that it is indeed the Egyptian king whose heart, now at last is satisfied with the immediate action, is lifted up at the victory over the host raised up,
• 2) though he does not gain a total triumph.

More however is to follow.

In 11:13 we see Antiochus again raising an army to assail his adversary, a greater one, and having some success (202 B.C.).

In Daniel 11:14 we come to the days of the boy king in Egypt, Ptolemy V, who however had a General Scopas, who retook Palestine in 200 B.C. and wasted Jerusalem - hence the specialised interest (cf. Amos 3:7). Jews who sought to take to war (Daniel 11:14) were indeed to suffer; and  as Payne suggests, this relates to Zech. 11:6, where it assuredly fits in moral tenor and predicted rebuke. It is this continual combination and resonance which truth displays, constantly found in things small and great in the word of the Lord.

In the complex morass,  Egypt having done so much harm to Israel, was itself still duly defeated, Scopas surrendering in 198, Antiochus for his part taking a major city,  probably that of Sidon, as fits with history  (11:15). There was "no strength to withstand" him. However he was not to last long.

At this time Philip V of Macedon also was adverse to Egypt (fulfilling 11:14), but the result was still disastrous for Jerusalem, whose only stable and reliable ally was the Lord, against whom she so sinned (cf. Isaiah 30-31, and in particular in seeking aid from the unstable waters of human waves!)^*6.

Complexities within complexities now arise, martial, marital and diplomatic matters entwining like burs in a spaniel's curly ears. Antiochus reels with realisation of his ostensible 'greatness' (11:16), already becoming a sort of mini-trailer of the first of the little horns, Antiochus Epiphanes, to come (cf. Biblical Blessings Chs. 1 - 2).

The screed seems so often to have these elements:

intoxication with power,
prestige and authority,
victory and pleasure;
wild folly disdaining the Lord Himself,
either directly or merely indirectly,
ignoring Him;
ruin prodigious and sustained, in due course.

The history that follows the word now proceeds, as we follow the works of this king, in action prior to his death (i.e. Daniel 11:16 before 11:17): Antiochus gives his daughter to the king of Egypt, Ptolemy V, intending that she help ruin his Southern adversary. However,  instead of being a thorn in his flesh of his opponent, this lady becomes adverse to her own father, preferring to favour her husband (Daniel 11:17). In this project, accordingly, "she shall not stand", rather falling in with her husband, while we follow the imperious path of this little Napoleon, Antiochus who sent her on such a mission, one which folded. No, she is "not for him. After this he shall turn his face to the coastlands."

Thus following this null result for his craft, when his daughterly ambassador fails to stand in her unnatural mission, the second improper alliance in our series thus failing in its 'mission', Antiochus turns militantly to Asia Minor, but in his ravaging times, he meets his match in the Roman, Scipio (Lucius Scipio Asiaticus), who defeated him in B.C. 190 at Magnesia. Indeed, there is a sense of humiliation and abasement already in this, for as Berkeley renders it,

"He will then turn his attention to the coastlands and occupy many, but a general shall stop his insolence and throw his insults back on himself. Subsequently he shall busy himself with the strongholds of his own lands; but he shall stumble, fall and disappear."

Indeed, the writhing with false glory, profane contempt, contemptibly, that whole panorama of evil louting is luxuriant way with disasters and devices, moving up the ladder of heady aspiration, afflicting the people of the Lord, only to fall into ignominy and merited shame in puny overthrow: this is the more complex pattern already becoming clear.

As we study Daniel's prophecy, we find this pattern  appearing in Antiochus the Great and his exalted death march. It is seen after that, in Antiochus' son who largely repeats it, as we shall see; and just such a pattern, magnified man with inordinate vanity against the true God, exulting before being minimised and dismissed,  is going to be no small pattern for the antichrist, when the fourth and final Empire receives its come-uppance, which duly becomes its donwfall! Then will it also be dashed with the dynamic that being divine, is irresistible, exposed with the truth which, being manifest, condemns. So does Daniel exhibit not only the pattern, but occupants of its scene! We are sensitised and instructed, alike. The account impacts in the spiritual realm, being instructive for wisdom (cf. The Other News   5).

Let us however revert to the detailed affairs of Antiochus 'the Great'  in his own day.

As to Syria: Rome, then, in this instance, has proved a stumbling block to Antiochus, and his own headiness another. As to Rome itself, more will follow. This is after all the indicated Empire to follow in Daniel's prediction not only in  chapter 7, but in parallel, in that of chapter 2. The 3rd Empire being present in the days of the heady King; the 4th was therefore impending at that time. Rome was to arise, to occupy its fatal and fateful place  (as it has done as we have traced, and continued partly strong, partly broken for millenia); and then it too is to fall in the final catastrophe of the Gentile nations.

We revert, then, to Antiochus' defeat by the Roman Scipio.

Thus, victorious, Scipio is not entrammelled but victorious (11:18); and indeed, programs frustrated, Antiochus on a following expedition meets his death, concerned with what he CAN 'rule', with Palestine, and yet is humiliated also even in this (Young Prophecy of Daniel p. 240), so taking us to the end of Daniel 11:19.

In all this, Israel has in two major ways been implicated, yes in three. Thus firstly, her false reliance on Egypt, seen so clearly in Isaiah, is shown to bring a retribution for her unfaithfulness to the Lord in such misplaced trust in the very Empire from the sins of which, and the slavery, God had delivered her. Secondly, the devastation wrought on her, is attested, as an instalment on what was to come. Thirdly, her domain is seen, in that part, that quadrant of the Empire of Alexander the Great which was Syria's, to be a highly troubled one. It has for occupant as we see,  a king of fervent folly and wild paranoia, who however does not endure. It is his son who now comes into focus.

In Daniel 11:20, we come thus to the Syrian, Seleucus IV (187-175). This 'exactor' in fact tried to rob the Jewish temple, but was assassinated. Money his lure, murder his coffin... His destruction was thus "neither in anger nor in battle" - that is, it was not in clash of arm or arms, but by another thing, a murderous thrust.

In Daniel 11:21 we find the great precursor of the antichrist, the first 'little horn', Antiochus Epiphanes, who was in historical terms, Antiochus IV. The books of the Maccabees show much of what is here noted, in great detail. In this succinct prophetic coverage of Daniel, this overview,  from the Plateau of Survey, we see here that the person himself is vile, contemptible (11:21).

Young cites an estimate of Antiochus Epiphanes from Moses Stuart, in the latter's Commentary on Daniel. It is quite fascinating, revealing for Antiochus IV, a low creature of subtlety, intrigue, passion, strategy, vast ambition, spiritual folly who in the midst of hope and plans, grandeur of heart and soaring self-estimate (god manifest) dies in a way very like that of his father, brought to nothing in an adroit divine commentary. (See Young p. 241). Verbal wit turned his self-acclaimed epiphanes, to the tag, epimanes, madman! So do the Hitlers rest restlessly, and their vainglorious boasting does not endure.

The reference concerning him,  "to whom shall not be given the honour of the kingdom" in 11:21, with added notation of his intrigues without war, to gain the pre-eminence, relates precisely to the fact that his was not the kingdom by due lineage, for this belonged in that way to Demetrius Soter, son of  Seleucus Philopator. Winning over surrounding kings to his desire and design, however, Antiochus Epiphanes took the kingdom.

Young renders v. 22a: "and forces shall be completely overflooded before him". This covers the efforts of Egypt to overthrow him, whereas they were themselves overthrown. Young does not know what the reference is intended to cover,  in the next clause, "yes, also the prince of the covenant", making it general in some way or relative to some prince or other.  It may have an ironic ring, however, and refer to the fact that NOT ONLY does Antiochus overcome the mighty power of Egypt, in his initial Hitleresque parade of power, but is to proceed in due course, to invade the Jewish temple and place within it a foul image, that of Zeus, as if nothing could be withheld from him.

• In HIS OWN view,
• he might then think he had overthrown the prince of covenant -

 
• (cf. Daniel 9:24, with the same Hebrew term, though this is not decisive, and Isaiah 8:8 of a previous occurrence, one indeed of judgment - "the stretching out of his wings will fill Your land, O Immanuel"),

 
• the LORD Himself,
• as if He were like the gods of the nations,
• this being the precise error of Sennacherib, for all his contorted diplomacy (cf. Isaiah 36:18).

The irony of the passage (Daniel 11:22), of course, would be then intense, a disparagement through offering no comment! That comes in its own place, on his quiet departure as a withered branch, from the prophetic scene. On the other hand, the term 'prince' or leader, captain,  might refer more simply merely to the high priest, whose region of work the tyrant invaded with such contemptuous arrogance. Thus the faithful Onias was deposed: he was in the way, and money could be obtained by selling off the high priesthood, for the benefit of the royal tyrant.

If so, however, if this be the intention and referent of the phrase noted, why is it not "the prince of THE covenant", and merely the prince of covenant, or a covenant ? In answer, let us consider the following. In v. 32, we find that Antiochus is corrupting with flattery some of Israel, even such "as do wickedly against the covenant", whilst the "people who know their God shall be strong and do exploits." We have already in Daniel 11:31 seen his thrusting of the abominable idol into the temple precincts, taking away the daily sacrifice in this parody and portent for all time, removing one thing, the meaning, introducing another, the substitute, and keeping the shell intact, so preserving appearance with disappearance, and bringing an apostate unity into the befouled yard.

In this context, then, the phrase, 'prince of covenant' (Daniel 11:22), is taken by Keil in a generic sense, citing such parallels as Genesis 14:13 for the omission of the definite article. However just as Young notes it is not written, the prince of the covenant, but prince of a covenant, or as Keil insists, prince of covenant in a generic sense, so neither is it written, A prince of covenant, but THE prince of covenant!

Who then is so specific as this, so sure and clear ? Could it then refer to the high priest whom Antiochus deposed ? The lack of the second definite article in the phrase would then refer to the generic covenant, in contrast to the LACK of regard to such a generic, to the complete disregard of all honour and agreement, the pathological seeming incapacity of Antiochus to recognise the very meaning of such a thing as COVENANT.

Thus in contrast would be the generic, covenant; but as to the phrase, "the prince" it seems in context sure to refer to an obvious party, and there is none so obvious in such a condensed account as the high priest, with perhaps an intended irony as if in so treating the high priest, appointed by divine instruction, Antiochus was seeking to grind under foot ANY covenant and ANY prince who would adhere to such a thing, celestial or other! COVENANT and all that went with it, he Antiochus would grind! This indeed was an attitude SOON to evidence itself, and here it appears as a sort of preface to what followed later, in the introduction of the Zeus idol into the very heart of the Temple.

Such language lends itself perfectly to the irony of Antiochus Epiphanes dying in ignominy very like that of his father; and as to that, it WAS ignominy, a quiet removal after unspeakable bombast, interested in NO other power of man;  and in the case of the son, interested in the specific overthrow of, contempt for and devastation upon the very emblems of covenant, exhibited by God Himself!

Daniel 11:23-29 deals with his other preliminary steps, allowing us to paint a portrait of folly before the lordly king applies his newly consummated spiritual mania to the issue at hand, and that ? It was to be his persecution of the holy people, those appointed by God, for all their faults, to show His praise and His truth (Isaiah 43:21). Thus his thrusting aside of the high priest, his idolatrous adventure, the rise of the Maccabees in their famous insurgency, leading to a very considerable kingdom in the whole area for these fired zealots, all this follows. We note this here, so that the detail will not obscure the process. We see the man, see his nature, we get an overview.

What was the style of the thing, the sequence ? Step one done, with the high priest summarily dismissed, and the new high priest, installed for money, swelling the royal treasury with disloyal betrayal of office, we come to step two.

Now we trace the base royal actions leading to the power and position to corrupt many, flatter some, mould, manipulate and desecrate the very temple; and to do so with such thoroughness that only a pagan deity will suffice, for insertion into heart of the still erect sacred structure. The action rather reminds one of thrusting the nails into Christ's hands, an action however which was not as this, symbolical, but grotesquely physical. The grotesquerie however has much the same illimitably profane spirit, justly termed an abomination, indeed marked for all time as the "abomination of desolation". Such things do not rest till their outcome arrives! It is, as the reader may recall from Matthew 24:15 (cf. Daniel 12:11, noted later).

It is this infamy against the infinite which is the very criterion of the man. Hence it is a focus of the antichrist, by virtue of his being ONE of the TWO little horns (as noted earlier  and in Biblical Blessings Chs. 1-2). This duo of peaking evil,  one 'little horn' for Empire 3 and one for Empire 4 (Daniel 8:9, 7:8,11, 20-21), like two black mountain tops surveyed in a mountainous panorama, are in clear parallel, the former instructing us concerning the latter in spirit and tenor. So are we prepared.

In step three, we see, then, the outcome in the abominations. In step 4, found in v. 36, we move as we shall see, from the empire 3 specialist in sacrilege, to the final outcome in history of this style of thing (at "the time of the end, because it is yet for a time appointed"). Via little horns, we come to the next peak, this time in the final empire, leading to the final end of the whole matter.

In this way, we have not merely Antiochus himself to study for his features, focus and functions, but the 11:36-45 gentleman leading to the resurrect ion as depicted in 12:1. With this, we have merely to add II Thessalonians, for what by then is the well-known an carefully drawn portrait of what is then called the "man of sin" and we are replete. To this we shall return very shortly.

Meanwhile, because these tableaux are for our instruction, let us cover briefly the developments before the abomination outcome is dealt with in detail, in 11:21-29.

In Daniel 11:23-24, we see his amiable leagues as noted above, and his dealings with "a small people". These - Israel -  because of their past, their prominence and their power in times of yore, their temple symbolising so much, as also their sacrificial approach to deity (he overthrew that regime categorically for the 2300 days stated in Daniel 8, as noted previously^*1 ), stirred the king. Indeed, they seemed to render him intoxicated with crusade and craft, in their midst. Moving to attract Hellenists, those wanting a "broader interpretation" of things, actually of course a guileful repudiation of the most clear law of God, Antiochus deceived. Deceiving, he divided.

His modes are so like those of later Communism in affected interest to cause division, gain a local standing ground, and then take over, that it is a testimony to the evil craft of human nature. If Hellenism was nearer to his mind than Judaism, yet rule was the royal desire, and idolatry his mode. The idolatries of man, in principle or in practice, the notions of self-aggrandisement of nature, of the psyche, of the State, whatever it may be, are as rich in variety but as similar in substance, as golden sand on the beaches. This however, like sand, is not really gold, but only so in appearance. Put where it does not belong, it is merely grit!

What then was happening ? People might think all was well, but the crafty ruler knew the subtleties of overthrow without arms, not less than those from direct impact of arms. In liberality a prince, the subtle rewarder of conformism to his plots, Antiochus is historically known to have scattered gifts (as in Daniel 11:24). In his mind, meanwhile, he is thinking of overthrow, devising it.

His purr and his paws come together, but not at the first.

In 11:25, we find reference to his campaign against Egypt, when Ptolemy could not stand against him because of internal treachery. Some of Ptolemy's army in fact deserted.

Daniel 11:26 covers the fact that Antiochus and the Egyptian Philometor professed friendship to one another, as Young notes, but in fact Antiochus plotted against the power of Egypt. It is fascinating to see the moral realities brought to the fore, the deception focussed, the personal aspects in such high relief, as one would expect when it is the personal God who surveys, assesses, whose eyes behold, whose eyelids try the children of men (as in Psalm 11).

While, ostensibly, Philometor was to be helped to get Egypt by Antiochus, and the former affected to believe it, in fact this double deception did not issue in much; for GOD HAD NOT APPOINTED this end of the matter.  Such is the outcome of Daniel 11:27b.

Antiochus then returned from Egypt with great riches, planning more evil for the holy people, for those who knew their God (11:29).

Then (11:29) he makes his next Egyptian incursion, perhaps 168 B.C., but this expedition is not to be enabled to prevail as did the former one ("not be as the former"). The nature of divine providence is still ringing in our ears (Daniel 11:27), and the divine and ultimate rule over the rulers is becoming apparent in the double exposure:

• 1) of the evil schemes and
• 2) of the divine methods of exhibiting what is in man, to his own picture book, known as history.

Triremes of Rome now afflict the excited, self-exalting, exultant man of emptiness (Young op. cit. p.  244 noting the translation relative to Daniel 11:30).  A navy under Roman, Popilius Laenas sailed to Egypt, to divert Antiochus from taking country, and it appears that the famous historian providing this in formation, Livy, that the the king was  that the man was stupefied, Polybius, attested by Young (op.cit), describing him as "weighed down and groaning in spirit".

One can perhaps understand well enough. Breached and broken... he! The new empire is already beginning, if indirectly, to assert its coming pre-eminence to fulfil Daniel 2 and 7, upon the earth, as if a hungry dog, lusting for meat soon to arrive. Antiochus perhaps realising this to the very heart, finds an incompatible force ruining his artful plans.

Fancy all those schemes, deceits, hypnotisms, arrangements, thwarted by another player, as when Hitler was in trouble at Stalingrad, and the Mediterranean also came to a be a campaign in tatters, with invasions and thoughts of them on all sides.

In fact, this is the second Roman rebuff we have noted in the sequence, in the series of events before us; and before long, as the history unfolds, we see Syria swallowed up by Rome, so fulfilling the predicted decline of the 3rd Empire, and the arrival of the tough and tenacious 4th Empire. The process is not pleasant, but the result is sure. On the way, the people of the Lord are severely tested, but just as Christ gave help in prediction to His people of the New Covenant (Matthew 24:24-26, Mark 13:22-23, John 14:29 cf. II Peter 1:19 cf. Ch. 9 above), so has the Lord done for those of old. He does as He said in Amos 3:7 for them, as He shows, for us, always faithful, reasonable, reliable, though His testing is sure also; but then, His love does not fail, nor His power, nor His word. As Paul puts it, "Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it" (I Thessalonians 5:24).

Thwarted, desolated, Antiochus was yet not so readily to be aborted. In his most extensive plans, frustrated, he went back to make the most of his little fiefdom; the world not for sale, it has yet perhaps a place, and this he will seize! Such in exasperated fury, it would seem, he turns in spirit to seek to turn the heights of Israel's past into his play-pen, or such, it appears was his thought (Daniel 11:31-35 cf. Biblical Blessings Chs. 2, 6, in Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Ch. 10 and in Ch.12 above.).

In militancy and madness, then,  he went to ANY length in the holy land, as we have seen, delving into the depths of the temple, to insert the idolatrous heights of folly, as if to dispossess before its time (when it became irrelevant because of Christ's own sacrifice cf. SMR pp. 822ff., Hebrews 8-10, Jeremiah 3:16, Isaiah 53, 66:2), that express Covenant between man and divinity, the Old Testamental provision through Moses, of any meaning. In this sense, Antiochus in the wild extremities of his spiritually lusting behaviour, appeared not only antagonised by "the prince of covenant" or "the covenantal prince": he wanted this deleted, subjected, and of course, made to pay ... him. The high priest removed, what more ? the sacrificial system stopped, the idol in the heart of the Temple, placed, the whole princely place of the Messianic symbolism raped ... The irony seems intense as his aspirations deliver nothing but the removal of leaves from the path. Soon the Temple - in but a very few years - is cleansed, and he is dead!

In fact, it was the retention, or effort to retain, the temple and all for which it stood, when that had been fulfilled by Christ as planned and written for so long, which brought real ruin on Israel. However, this was not so at that time, though there is no little irony in the tyrannical removal of temple worship as prescribed by God, in that day, being followed, some two centuries later, by the tyrannical JEWISH insistence on retaining it, when they had themselves removed the real Temple, their own Messiah (cf. Isaiah 4:6, 32:1-5, Hebrews 7-10, Barbs, Arrows and Balms 13 and 20).

The  former assault on the land was associated with victorious triumph, cleansing of the Temple in 165 B.C. , with a remarkable if temporary kingdom from the uprising of the Maccabees; the latter found its place with downfall of the nation, and with the final desolation of the Temple by Rome.

Indeed, the former was persecution of Israel;  the latter regicide by it. Small however is the impact by comparison, though vast its scope and endurance, of the result for the nation and the Temple, with that "there is nothing for Him" assault on the Messiah Himself of Daniel 9:24, for those who do not come to Him. Theirs, though well symbolised by the architectural destruction of the Temple, far surpasses it in gravity. Admittedly, then,  the temple destruction and scattering of the nation of Israel  for millenia,  symbolises the "everlasting destruction" (II Thessalonians 1:9) of those who reject the mercy of God and kill the King in spirit, in their own hearts. For that exile,  there is eventual return (predicted as in Appendix B, SMR,  and done in1948, 1967); for the spiritual realities so symbolised, however, there is no return, no not of a part, nor any at all; and the pathos is not merely for time, but for eternity.
 

That is in the consummation. However we are still in Daniel 11, and must for the moment await Daniel 12.

In Daniel 11:32-34, then, we see the efforts of Antiochus, coming from outside the people, even though with a phalanx or part of Judah in spiritual abandon joining him; and before the Lord these trials and challenges continued to search the people, many paying with their lives for their resistance to his malignant onsets, and some perhaps for self-preservation, joining with the resistance. Antiochus, however, though used of God for the refinement of many, the exposure of others, some reaching understanding through instruction under these gaunt conditions, some corrupted by the flatteries of the insidious tyrant, did not prevail in the end, as we  have already observed this in Daniel 8:13-14,25.

Indeed, as in Daniel 11:32b, these disruptive challenges to the whole sacrificial system, exploitations of the Temple and cheap barbarisms led to amazing "exploits" from the Maccabees, and that predictive term was abundantly fulfilled in that swelling tide of resistance and conquest, though long the endeavours and substantial the price.

The pollution then was followed by the purification, both in the people and in the Temple, in the very short term. This was an atrocity, but one laid to rest in a little time. This symbolic antithesis of goodness, Antiochus, set a stage and prepared a path. What however of the terminus, beyond his little day, for such a path ?

No, it was only when the NATION as a nation, betrayed the Lord categorically, and crucified Him just as Isaiah 52-53, 49:7, Psalm 22, Zechariah 11, 13, Daniel 9, directly or indirectly indicated, that their 1900 year exile was to come! This was to say no more, considerably more extensive! In that, millions were to perish! In the time of Daniel 11, it is not even a decade, let alone nearly two millenia such as was the penalty to come. In the yet earlier time, they were permitted to rebuild after the events preceding downfall of 586 B.C.. In 165, there was an early terminus to the desolation of the purity of the Temple, itself not destroyed. When the action was played out with the Messiah, what then ? In this case,  not 70 years but an epoch in the expanse of millenia was  to transpire before the "time determined" would come. Only then could they return.

The emphasis in Daniel is constantly, yes continually on the things "determined". We see it in the reflection on the 70 year exile as predicted by Jeremiah, as the time drew to its conclusion (Daniel 9:2), in the implication of 11:24 (meaningful in terms of the 2300 prediction of Daniel 8) - "but only for a time." It is spoken again in Daniel 11:35, "until the time of the end, because it is still for the appointed time." It is found once more in Daniel 11:40 - "at the time of the end."

It is measured arithmetically in Daniel 8:14, expanded in spans from 9:2 to 9:24, units becoming heptads, comes with the equivalent of the last half seven^*7 of 9:24-27, in 12:7 ("time, times and half a time"), and expanded judiciously in 12:11 and 12:12, to 1290 and 1335. Things CANNOT happen because their appointed time is not yet scheduled (Daniel 11:27). Here the double deception of Philometor and Antiochus, each speaking lies, has political intention, a charged situation at the devious tables of mutual betrayal; but it does not have its expected outcome. Their planning is quite irrelevant in this, that God has another plan which is scheduled, and this purely human endeavour to chain history to its command, is utterly futile. Things will come, but each must wait its due apportionment (cf. Acts 17:26).

Indeed Paul expounds from the Lord in Acts most categorically: He "has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, if accordingly they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us..."

• In parallel exposition, Christ Himself depicts the power of Pilate as having no place at all unless accorded to that administrator (John 19:11), by Christ's own Father; and the sword of violence having no place at all in His own defence (Matthew 26:52-54), since His sacrificial cleansing, not of the Temple at Jerusalem, but of the human heart by His own Person could not otherwise be accomplished. Violence as UPON Him, not from Him, a lesson never learned by Rome, and wholly desecrated by Islam, in company not so illustrious, with Communism, Nazism and endless rogue states of the inert art of the flushing rush of the blood of man.


Indeed, Christ expostulated with Peter, "How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen thus ?" Christ's end as envisaged by the tyrannical combined forces of State, Roman and that of Judah, with the the potent stimulus of ecclesiastical corruption behind it, was of course merely a beginning, a necessary part:
 

• for how would sin be silenced if its merits were unmet (Matthews 20:28),
• and how would resurrection be accomplished if death did not precede (Acts 2:23-24 cf. Psalm 2 and Joyful Jottings  22 with  21,  25),
• and how would man be delivered, if Christ were not first delivered UP! (cf. Romans 8:32, I Peter 2:22ff., 3:18, II Cor. 5:17-21).

That however was not the attested place of the Syrian King!

Antiochus, then, came to his end. His little perturbation in history ended, like waves about a sinking ship. We pass on, like tourists over the Rockies, noticing first this and then that highest tip, to the final 'little horn', the 4th Empire occupant, because, this, it is the last, whereas Antiochus was, as we recall, merely the exponent in the 3rd in the Empire succession highlighted in Daniel.

Daniel 11:31-35 gives detail on this sacrilegious rage of the primary "little horn"; but then, without fanfare, we pass to the terminal 'little horn', the mature expression of it, like gorgonzola. We are moved in thought to "the time of the end" because this is "the appointed time". Indeed, all throughout verse 33-35 we have been tracing results and atmosphere, like the case of an oceanic  vortex in full flow and force, leaving the perpetrator behind for the time.

It is then,  in 11:36ff, a thrust  to the end^*8, so that after being advised of what is "to the time of the end"), we turn to the eventual outcome of such a spirit, in the final flourish of evil, to what lies there, to what is then to occur. In this, this terminal face of evil, either the devil's 'messiah' or his regional correlate, proceeds "till the wrath has been accomplished, for what has been determined shall be done." Here as in the epoch described in Daniel Chs. 2, in 7 and in 9, we become terminal in treatment.

What is to be found now ? It is a time of immense devastation, but it is insidious and serpentine, and its subtle and scheming flower of evil, has the scent of the earlier "little horn", complete with all false floral arrangements intact, though they be but the flowers of fungus.
 
 

Who is this king of Daniel 11:36ff., who at the end, to which his career comes, even to the resurrection in 12:1ff., is an epic of eviction, a romance of ruin and a bathos of word and wit, in puny seeming dismissal in punishment at  his termination date ?

Keil in his Daniel volume, in  the Commentaries on the Old Testament, a set co-authored with Delitzsch,  makes the point elegantly that not only is there an ANNOUNCEMENT that we move to the end, but there is no way of fitting Antiochus with the data which follows Daniel 11:36 and on from there.

Thus, it is not meant to be prophetically pre-announced history of continuity, at this point; rather it announces itself in an area that  is future even  to Antiochus, namely the end, whereas he is back, stuck in the 3rd Empire of the oft-repeated series presented in Daniel. As we proceed, then, to 11:36ff., and hence to the 4th. Empire, having had the distinction made with care in Daniel often enough, what do we find ? The surge is from the prototype to the archtype, the outcome, the consummation of the preliminary, the proud vessel that sails into the sunset, only to find that it is his own sun that has set, the orb remaining aloft.

What then, in verification, does not fit with the 3rd Empire petty tyrant who went so far, but no further, in 11:36ff. ? The point is that Antiochus Epiphanes is noted for his Zeus statue in  the temple, for his emphasis on that alleged deity, and that was his weapon of offence. He did not put himself above all gods (as the king for the end does Daniel 11:37), nor of him is it known that he did "not regard any god", far less this for the reason that "he shall magnify himself above all". Paranoid and pretentious he seems to be; but this is not the same as becoming God in intention or intensity or both!

Farcical indeed the desire to be thus; but not far-fetched the evidence of it!

However, in the eventual antichrist aura there depicted as Ch. 11 ends, we do indeed find one set to ignore ALL gods, the antichrist figure at this end of the Age epoch, willing himself to be above EACH of the gods men might have, and to be himself, the ULTIMATE display, not just in this world, but in the next. By contrast, returning to Antiochus, Keil cites Kliefoth to this effect:  "Antiochus was not an aqeos; he even wished to render the worship of Zeus universal," referring to 2 Macc. ix.12.

Again, the final figure is to exalt himself, but as to the added datum that he shall  "not regard the gods of his fathers", evidence lacks of any such wholesale anti-religious thrust from Antiochus, the case being rather a specifically anti-covenant approach to the Jewish religion. In frustration at the denial of broader world dominion, because of Scipio (11:18) earlier, and in the later time, of with the Roman navy, he appears to have set himself to achieve persecutory pre-eminence with the Jews, as if they were a mere fiefdom, furnished for his malice and malignity.

It is not Antiochus, then, but it is assuredly the second of the two phase series of little horns. The shape is similar; the time is not. The evil is notable; but the final essence it is not in Empire 3, nor COULD it be, since it is not the end, and ... this is! Who more precisely then is the figure of 11:36ff.,