In our troubles we must always ask whether or why God is chastising us. Godless Babylon, Persia, and Greece didn’t intend to execute God’s judgment and chastisement, but to pillage. Yet what they intended for evil the Son of Man intended for good: to bring justice upon his idolatrous and law-breaking people, to foreshadow his final judgment, and to chastise them and bring them to their senses.

Daniel prophesied to a devastated people.

In 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar dragged Judah’s best to pagan Babylon, leaving Jerusalem in rubble and God’s temple in ashes.

What was the point of this desolation? Why the Pain?

Daniel’s disturbing First Vision in chapter 7 teaches God’s people the source and reason for this suffering. Verses 1 to 14 describe the vision and verses 15 to 28 explain it:

Daniel 7:15–16

I, Daniel, was troubled in spirit, and the visions that passed through my mind disturbed me. ¹⁶I approached one of those standing there and asked him the meaning of all this. So he told me and gave me the interpretation of these things.

God’s vision left Daniel disturbed and exhausted. God’s Word often does that to those who listen.

Daniel 7:17–18

“The four great beasts are four kings that will rise from the earth. ¹⁸But the holy people of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it for ever—yes, for ever and ever.”

The “holy people” (קדישׁ, qaddish) are the “sacred ones” whom God separates and consecrates to himself. Thus Paul always addressed Christians as “saints” (ἁγιοι, hagioi). We are God’s people because God has seized us from out of the world to be his very own, to live distinctly godly lives. Daniel himself exemplified this.

Although four kingdoms will come and go, the eternally enduring Kingdom of the Most High, who wields supreme and sovereign power, will be given to his consecrated people. They will have full citizenship rights and will share in its government.

Daniel 7:19–22

Then I wanted to know the meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others and most terrifying, with its iron teeth and bronze claws—the beast that crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left.

²⁰I also wanted to know about the ten horns on its head and about the other horn that came up, before which three of them fell—the horn that looked more imposing than the others and that had eyes and a mouth that spoke boastfully. ²¹As I watched, this horn was waging war against the holy people and defeating them, ²²until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favour of the holy people of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom.

Yet again the fourth ten-horned beast is said to be “different” from the first three, which corresponded to the successive Babylonian, Persian, and Greek empires. It is different because it is more powerful and vicious than the first three. And rather than denoting a single empire, its superfluity of horns represent all godless powers on earth – whether political, military, economic, cultural, or spiritual – until the end of time, when the Son of Man comes in final judgment.

The global and ’til-the-end-of-time nature of this fourth kingdom is emphasised in the next verse:

Daniel 7:23–24a

He gave me this explanation: “The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it.” The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom.

The vision now focusses in on the single malevolent horn which rules over the other nine, over every earthly and godless power:

Daniel 7:24b–25a

After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. ²⁵He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws.

Read More