The book of Daniel proves two things: God provides and God saves. He not only takes care of his people in their present affliction, but is bringing an everlasting kingdom of peace, which was only prophesied in Daniel’s day, but finds its fulfillment in Jesus the Messiah.

Jerusalem is under attack. Israel, its sister kingdom to the north has already been exiled (722 BC), and now Judah faces the same fate. In 605, the third year of King Jehoiakim (ca. 609-597 BC), the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem and started the first of many deportations to Babylon (Daniel 1:1). Daniel and his three friends were among those first brought into exile, facing many fears and doubts. How were they to make sense of exile and the destruction of the temple, the center of their religion? Was the God of their ancestors still their personal God, and they his people? Through stories of God’s providence and visions of future salvation, Daniel wrote to inspire hope among his people and stir up faithfulness to God. Likewise (though written in a different time and context) God’s people today can be strengthened in their faith by reading these ancient words, knowing that God has made himself known and has provided salvation for his people through the person and work of Jesus Christ, as evidenced by his fulfillment of Daniel’s prophesied Messiah. In order to understand all the ways in which Jesus fulfills this prophetic material, a brief overview of the book will be beneficial.

The twelve chapters of Daniel can be divided into roughly equal sections. Daniel 1-6 contain six inspiring stories about Daniel and his friends, and Daniel 7-12 contain four visions and their interpretations. Daniel 1 sets the historical stage for the story and introduces the recurring theme that God provides for his faithful servants, clearly seen in how God blesses Daniel and his friends for maintaining the religious dietary laws in the face of potential persecution. How the rest of the book unfolds is quite remarkable. When comparing content and structure, one finds that Daniel 2 and 7 correspond to one another, as do Daniel 3 and 6, and Daniel 4 and 5. Daniel 2 contains the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the composite four-metal statue, which connects to the vision of the four beasts in Daniel 7. Picking up from Daniel 1, Daniel 3 shows how God provides for his faithful servants in the fiery furnace. Likewise, Daniel 6 demonstrates God’s providence for faithful Daniel, protecting him in the lion’s den. Daniel 4 and 5 both tell the same story, that earthly kings are ultimately under God’s reign, and God will humble and remove them as he pleases. These stories all serve a similar purpose: to give concrete examples of how God provides and protects his people (1, 3, 6), and to demonstrate God’s sovereignty over earthly kingdoms, whom he will humble and dispose as he desires (2, 4, 5).

The vision in Daniel 7 serves as the hinge of the entire book. It is the culmination of the back-and-forth pattern of the story section in Daniel 1-6, and is the first and most important of the visions that Daniel receives. Daniel 8-12, then, function as both exploration and explanation of this first vision.  To sum up—the book of Daniel proves two things: God provides and God saves.  He not only takes care of his people in their present affliction, but is bringing an everlasting kingdom of peace, which was only prophesied in Daniel’s day, but finds its fulfillment in Jesus the Messiah.

The Two Prophecies

Understanding biblical prophecy, especially Daniel’s apocalyptic symbolism, can quickly become an overwhelming task. Throughout Daniel’s apocalyptic material, there are far too many different prophecies, tidbits, and details in Daniel’s apocalyptic material to examine all of them here (let the reader understand!)  Further, there are some details that, even after much examination, won’t bear much comprehension (for example—exactly how long is a time, times, and half a time? Do 2,300 mornings and evenings equate to 1,150 24-hour periods, and when were we supposed to start counting? Can the abomination of desolation be assigned to a particular human figure or event?)  Nonetheless, two prophetic visions, Daniel’s four kingdom framework (2, 7, 8, and 10-12), and the seventy weeks prophecy (9:24-27), prove fruitful and edifying through examining their fulfillment in Christ.

The Four Kingdoms

A large portion of Daniel is given to the historical prophecy of the four earthly kingdoms followed by God’s eternal kingdom. This framework is first seen in the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2, given more substance in Daniel’s vision in 7:1-8, and expounded upon in Daniel 8 and 10-12.  In Daniel 2, King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream of a statue composed of four sections, a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, middle and thighs of bronze, and legs of iron with some clay mixed in at its feet (2:31-34). Still dreaming, he sees a stone, not cut out by human hands, strike the image, shatter it completely, and become a great mountain that fills the whole earth (2:35). Daniel interprets the first kingdom (the head of gold) to be Babylon, which will be succeeded by a second kingdom and then a third. A fourth kingdom will follow, stronger than the others as iron is strong (2:40), but will ultimately be divided and brittle, as iron is when mixed with clay (2:42-43). Then, the stone representing God’s kingdom (2:35) will come “in the days of those kings,” that is, the fourth kingdom (2:44), and be established over the whole earth. At least two things are clear initially: first, since Babylon is the first kingdom, by consequence the other three kingdoms must also be real, earthly kingdoms; second, God’s everlasting kingdom will be established during the fourth kingdom, whichever earthly kingdom that might be.

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