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Chapter 3 tells the story of Daniel's three companions who refuse to worship a giant gold
statue and they get themselves thrown into a fiery furnace. When they emerge unscathed
the king is greatly impressed and so he acknowledges the God of Israel. In chapter 4 there's a
second dream. It's interpreted by Daniel as a sign that Nebuchadnezzar will be struck
down seven times. He's going to lose his reason, he's going to lose his throne, until he realizes
that God is the source of all divine and human power. When this in fact comes to pass--Nebuchadnezzar
seems to suffer a fit of insanity that drives him from society--the king then praises the
God most high as the universal king. In chapter 5, Daniel's enemies at court trick the Median
king (now Darius, so we're moving to different kings). They trick him into issuing an edict
against those who pray to anyone but the king. This is a problem for Daniel. Daniel violates
the edict, of course, and he's arrested and he's thrown into a den of lions. But he emerges
unharmed, and the result is, again, that the foreign king, in this case Darius now, recognizes
the supremacy of Yahweh and orders all in his kingdom to revere the Jewish God. There
is, of course, no historical merit to these stories of Babylonian and Persian kings acknowledging
or adopting the God of the Jews who lived in exile among them. These stories seem to
give voice to the hope or the fantasy that a cruel and impious monarch might be taught
humility by Yahweh. They also provide a model for life in the Diaspora. Jews can live in
the Gentile world but they must never forget God and his laws. Then we move into the second
half of the Book of Daniel, chapters 7 to 12. As we move into this part of Daniel we
switch from the third person into the first person, so Daniel 7 to 12 is written in the
first person and it's fully apocalyptic. Here Daniel has a series of visions and dreams
that are interpreted for him by an angel, and again, that's a classic feature of the
apocalyptic genre. And these visions, again, survey Ancient Near Eastern history from the
sixth to the second centuries. Chapter 7 again represents the succession of kingdoms, the
Babylonian, the Median, the Persian, the Macedonian Empires, but this time as beasts. So you have
a lion, a bear, a winged leopard and an ogre. The ogre has horns and the horns of this ogre
then represent these two lesser Hellenistic kingdoms, the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids
of Syria. The boastful little horn is the Syrian king, Antiochus Epiphanies, himself.
In a second vision, the "ancient of days,"--this is the term that's used, it seems to be God
in a white robe and a beard seated on a fiery chariot throne, but--"the ancient of days"
confers glory and kingship on one like a Son of Man. Now in Daniel, this phrase, the Son
of Man--which generally means mortal as opposed to divine in the Bible, but--in Daniel the
phrase seems to refer to a figure that's in human form, but more than a human. Probably
an angel like Michael or Gabriel. (Both of them are represented as leaders against the
forces of Persia and Greece.) And this figure establishes an everlasting kingdom to replace
the *** kingdoms that have preceded it. So the Son of Man overwhelms the little horn
Antiochus, who is said to be making war on saints (that's a code for loyal Jews), who
is said to have been trying to change their law and abolish their religion--and we know
that these were parts of the persecution in 167 to 164 by Antiochus. He tried to stop
worship in the sanctuary and so on.