The value and importance of the prophecy of Daniel.

Reaching the conclusion of our reflections upon the Book of Daniel, we may safely venture the assertion that there is no portion of the entire canon of inspiration, especially of the Old Testament Scriptures that can be considered of greater importance than the prophecy of Daniel; presenting as it does the strongest proofs of inspiration and of its supernatural origin, and revealing details of information concerning the consummation of the Divine Plan which are needed to strengthen the faith of God’s children in this age of doubt and infidelity.

The careful and devout reader, as he peruses the writings of Daniel, cannot fail to catch the import and ultimate design of the Lord in preserving unto His faithful people to this day, this very valuable portion of the divinely inspired revelation. Surely it was that His faithful children might have strong consolation and the rich benefits of its holy and sanctifying influence. The very life and example of the Prophet cannot fail to yield the most blessed fruitage to those who give them holy contemplation. Inspiring lessons are to be found all through his life.

“[Even as a] mere work of very ancient literature it is an intensely interesting one, while as an important part of the Word of God it well repays study. Its lifelike sketches of the state of things in which the writer lived, and of the characters of those with whom he came in contact; its graphic accounts of the tragic and wonderful incidents of his career; its pictures of saintly devotion, heroic self-sacrifice, calm faith, holy courage, and prevailing prayer, of fidelity under most ensnaring temptation, and of patriotism that nothing could shake; above all, its glorious witness to the delivering power and grace of God, and its lessons of lofty morality, to say nothing of its wonderful anticipations of the world’s history — all conspire to make it a document of surpassing attraction. The greatest and wisest philosopher may ponder its pages, as the incomparable Sir Isaac Newton loved to do; while the simplest child finds no stories more interesting than those of the den of lions, the Hebrew children, and the handwriting on the wall; and evangelists like Moody find no theme more moving than the experiences of the holy Prophet.”

When he was yet but a lad, Daniel found himself captive in a foreign land, ruled over by a proud, cruel, conquering, worldly monarch; and we may say that with the entrance of Daniel into this royal court, went also the providence of God. It was the magnificent Babylon in the midst of whose glory, iniquity, and idolatry, Daniel grew up wiser than his teachers …

“… prayerful and pious, pure and holy, steadfast to the God of his fathers, faithful unto death. Blessed illustration of the truth, that without taking His people out of the world, God can keep them from the evil! The character of Daniel is lofty, beautiful, and gracious — a model character in many respects, and one befitting a prophet of peculiar privilege.”

We can scarcely imagine a more powerful demonstration of true and genuine faith and loyalty to God and duty, than that exhibited in the life of Daniel. Remarks Mr. Guinness:

“[His] career of prosperity in a strange land never weaned his affections from his fatherland, or lessened his longing for the restoration of his people and the temple at Jerusalem. Three times a day he prayed ‘towards Jerusalem,’ as we learn incidentally in his old age. He led a life of earnest, longing prayerfulness for Jewish interests, while all those seventy years doing faithfully the king’s business. So perfect was his fidelity that his enemies could find no fault in him in his official capacity, and the length of his career makes the statement remarkable.”

Expositors in general have very properly regarded Daniel’s prophecies as standing “pre-eminent among all others in their evidential value.” This brief book not only foretells twenty-five centuries of Jewish and Gentile history, including both the Advents of our Redeemer, but it establishes the chronology of various episodes future from that time, with a simple certainty that would be audacious if it were not Divine. Asks Mr. Guinness:

“Would any mere man dare to foretell not only a long succession of events lying far in the remote future, but the time at which some of them would occur and the periods they would occupy? This Daniel did, and the predictions have come to pass.

“This unquestionable fact can be explained away only on one of three grounds. One: The accord between prediction and fulfilment must be purely accidental and fortuitous; or — Two: The events must have been manipulated, so as to fit the prophecy; or — Three: The prophecy must have been written to fit the events, i.e. after them; it must, in other words, be a forgery of a later date.

“None of these three explanations can account for the agreement between Daniel’s predictions and history, as reflection will show. For —

“(1) Such an agreement cannot be merely fortuitous. It is too far-reaching and detailed, too exact and varied. Chance might produce a few coincidences of fulfilment out of a hundred predictions, not a hundred or more without a single exception. Common sense perceives this at a glance. As far as time has elapsed every single point predicted in Daniel has come true, and there remain but a few terminal points yet to be fulfilled.

“(2) The events were certainly not made to fit the prophecy by human arrangement. The rise and fall and succession of monarchies and of empires, and the conduct and character of nations, for over two thousand years, are matters altogether too vast to be manipulated by men. Such a notion is clearly absurd. What! did Babylonian and Persian monarchs, Grecian and Roman conquerors, Gothic and Vandal invaders, medieval kings and popes, conspire for long ages to accomplish obscure Jewish predictions, of which the majority of them never even heard?

“(3) The third and last solution is consequently the only possible alternative to a frank admission of the Divine inspiration of the book, and of the Divine government of the world amid all its ceaseless political changes. Can the prophecy have been written to fit the events? In others words, can it be a forgery of a later date? This is the theory adopted by all the unbelieving critics, who start with the assumption that prophecy in any true sense is impossible. They endeavor to assign to the book a date later than the true one, a date towards the close of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, who died in the second century before Christ. Then they endeavor to compress all the four empires into the four centuries previous to that date, excluding therefore from the prophecy any allusion to the Roman Empire and the First Advent of Christ. Multitudinous have been the attacks made on these lines on the fortress of this Book of Daniel; for skepticism has realized that while it stands impregnable, a relic of the sixth century before Christ, all rationalistic theories must fall to the ground, like Dagon before the ark.

History Working Out Divine Purposes

“But the fortress stands firm as ever, its massive foundations revealed only the more clearly by the varied assaults it has repelled. The assailants, German as well as English, have been beaten off time after time by one champion after another, earnestly contending for the faith. The superficial and shallow nature of the linguistic, historic, and critical objections has been demonstrated, and one line of assault after another has had to be abandoned. But even if this were not the case, and the later date could be substantiated, it would not in the least establish the skeptical denial of the existence of prophecy in Daniel. The predictions of the First Advent and of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem would be in no wise affected by the later date, nor those of the tenfold division of the Roman Empire, and of the great Papal and Mohammedan Apostasies.

“Candor is shut up to the conclusion that real, true, and marvelous foreknowledge is, beyond all question, indicated by the predictions of the book, since twenty-five centuries of history can be proved to correspond with it accurately, in their chronological as well as in all their other features. If this be so, the question of inspiration is settled for honest minds. Nor that alone. For the rule of God over the kings of the earth — the fact that history is working out his Divine purposes, and that all the changing kingdoms of the Gentiles are merely introductory to the eternal Kingdom of the Son of Man and of the saints — is also established beyond controversy. …

“If eight or nine centuries of fulfilled prophecy drove Porphyry, in the third century, to feel that we must either admit Divine inspiration or prove the Book of Daniel spurious, ought not the twenty-five centuries of it, to which we in our days can point, be even more efficacious in convincing candid inquirers and confounding prejudiced opponents?”

Mr. Thomas Newton, who wrote earlier than Mr. Guinness, and whose careful research, as we have seen throughout the study of this volume, has reflected much light on Daniel’s prophecy, concludes his very able work with the following impressive language:

“Upon the whole, what an amazing prophecy is this, comprehending so many various events, and extending through so many successive ages, from the first establishment of the Persian Empire, above 530 years before Christ, to the general resurrection? And the farther it extends, and the more it comprehends, the more amazing surely, and the more Divine it must appear, if not to an infidel like Porphyry, yet to all who like Grotius have any belief of revelation. How much nobler and more exalted the sense, more important and more worthy to be known by men, and to be revealed by God, when taken in this extended view, and applied to this long and yet regular series of affairs, by the most easy and natural construction.   What stronger and more convincing proofs can be given or required of a Divine providence, and a Divine revelation, that there is a God who directs and orders the transactions of the world, and that Daniel was a prophet inspired by Him, ‘a man greatly beloved,’ as he is often addressed by the angel! Our blessed Savior (Matthew 24:15), hath bestowed upon him the appellation of ‘Daniel the prophet’; and that is authority sufficient for any Christian: but in this work have been produced such instances and attestations of his being a prophet, as an infidel cannot deny, or if he denies cannot disprove. The character that is given of him by Josephus is nothing more than strictly his due. It expresseth the sense of the Jewish church: and the same must be the sentiments of every man, who will consider and compare the prophecies and events together. This historian is commending the superior excellence of Daniel’s predictions; ‘for he was wont, says he, not only to foretell future things, as other Prophets also did; but he likewise determined the time, wherein they should happen.’ …

“In short, we see how well Daniel deserves the character which his contemporary Ezekiel hath given him (Ezekiel 14:14, 28:3), for his piety and wisdom.”

We have seen during our reflections upon this prophecy that it is divided into four main divisions, the last of which is still unfulfilled:

First, the prediction twice repeated that there would be a succession of four great empires, finally succeeded by a government from heaven.

Second, a complete chronological prophecy of Messiah’s Advent and the fall of Jerusalem.

Third, a lengthy outline of events associated with the second and third of the four great monarchies, including especially the wars of the Ptolemies and Seleucidae, the Maccabean persecutions and martyrdoms, and the career of Antiochus Epiphanes; also of the two great outstanding Apostasies which came into existence in the sixth and seventh centuries AD: the one, the Papal Apostasy of the West, and the other the Mohammedan of the East.

Fourth, prophecies relating to events beyond — Christ’s Second Advent, the resurrection and glorification of the Church, the establishment of the Kingdom of God, the restoration of Israel, the general resurrection of the dead, and the restitution of all things.

Concerning the first division, two distinct revelations of the succession of the four great empires is given — that represented in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the great fourfold metallic image, and that of Daniel’s vision of the four great beasts that came up from the sea, diverse one from the other. More than this, we have specially observed that while these two particular prophecies are conveyed thus by means of symbols, we are left in no doubt or obscurity on this account; for the divinely selected symbols are divinely interpreted: “This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings.   Thou art this head of gold,” etc. To Daniel the angel said, interpreting his vision, “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.”

The detailed statements in the case of both of these prophecies enables the careful student to readily locate their place in the governments of the world since that time. The great fourfold image and the vision of the four beasts both picture the Roman power as continuing in existence up to the Redeemer’s Second Advent, and as being destroyed and supplanted only by the new heavenly government. More than this, they represent the fourth or Roman Empire as rising at the time the Grecian fell and as occupying the entire interval between that date and the conclusion of the Gentile times. There is no cessation or gap in the image, and the fourth beast, it is plainly stated, continues till the Kingdom of the Son of Man and the saints is inaugurated.

Concerning the second division of the prophecy relating to Messiah’s First Advent and the destruction of Jerusalem, the records of both sacred and profane history leave no room for doubt as to the fulfilment, which took place about five hundred and fifty years after the prophecy was uttered. In the midst of the last of the seventy symbolic weeks Messiah was cut off, but not for himself, not on account of his own sin, but to make reconciliation for the iniquity of the people. Three and one- half years later, marked the full end of the seventy weeks; Divine favor turned definitely to the Gentiles to make up the Divine selection of a people for his name to compose the Bride of Christ — joint-heirs with him in his coming Kingdom. Then AD 70, or thereabout, as history has informed us, the terrible ravages overtook Jerusalem, its complete fall occurred, and the scattering of the people amongst all the nations, whither they have remained unto this day.

The fulfilment of the third main division of the prophecy, represented principally in the seventh, eighth, and eleventh chapters, relating to the second, third, and fourth great monarchies, may be found upon the pages of history. These predictions are observed to be political in character, for in presenting the march of events and the proceedings of human governments down to the time of God’s Kingdom, the prophecies of necessity must relate to “kings and kingdoms, victories and defeats, treaties and royal marriages, and the fortunes of different nations; and in this fact we have a fresh proof of the suitability of the instruments divinely selected for the work they are destined to do.”

As we have made comparison with the historian, we have observed that the outline has been so clear and comprehensive and so completely fulfilled up to date that there can be no possible uncertainty or doubtfulness as to the correspondence of prophecy and its fulfilment. When a long series of consecutive events comprehending the political fortunes of all the prominent governments of the world for twenty-five centuries, including the characters and epochs of the greatest heroes of history, are forecast as literally and plainly as if the prophecy were a historical account, it must be either actually fulfilled or not so. Thus we have in this prophecy the very greatest evidence and strength in support of the Divine foreknowledge, and of the control of the course of history by Divine power.

Events Still Future — Near at Hand

The fourth main division of the prophecy, dealing with matters and events still future from the present, is probably in some respects at least of greater concern to God’s people than any of the other three divisions, because herein all the blessed hopes and promises of the entire revelation center. This portion of the prophecy, which clearly predicts the coming of the Lord with his saints in power and glory, the establishing of his Kingdom, and the resurrection of the dead, is thus seen to deal with matters that are clearly set forth by other Prophets, as well as by our Lord and the Apostles. In fact, the very kernel of the Gospel proclaimed by Jesus and the Apostles is represented in these predictions of Daniel. Our examination of the prophecies as a whole, and finding ourselves in the midst of those stirring scenes and events that have been marked for the last days — the increase of knowledge on all subjects and its wide dissemination, the general assembling of the nations by international intercourse, treaties, agreements, etc. (Zephaniah 3:8,9), the general perplexity, strife and distress of the nations of earth, the evidences of the last or Laodicean apostate state of the Church, and the remarkable signs of Divine favor returning to natural Israel, the progress of Zionism, etc. — all of these matters, events, and developments associated in prophecy with the Second Advent of Christ and the inauguration of his Kingdom, lead us to believe that the earnest and devout followers of the Lord today have every reason for confidence and for lifting up the head with encouragement, knowing that their deliverance draweth nigh, and knowing that the glorious times of restitution for all the world follow closely upon the deliverance of the Church (Acts 3:19- 21). In view of all these facts and circumstances, says another,

“How solemn and intense are the feelings of those who have faith in the sure word of prophecy. The momentous and perplexing questions which will culminate in the great trouble, of which Daniel forewarns us, are now agitating the public mind, and are fast approaching the terrible crisis.   But let us rejoice in the fact that beyond the trouble, and even beyond the helpful discipline of the reign of Christ, we see the glorious land of rest, the blessed and eternal inheritance of a redeemed and restored race. Wonderful times indeed are these, yet few heed the sure word of prophecy; and consequently the future is viewed by most men only from the standpoint of present indications. Men see the rapidly gathering clouds, but can know nothing of their silver lining except from the Word of God.”

A Place Amongst the Highest and Holiest Men

The simple words concerning Daniel are, “Daniel continued even unto the first year of King Cyrus.” “But what a volume of tried faithfulness is unrolled by them!” says still another eminent writer, and he goes on to say,

“Amid all the intrigues, indigenous, at all times, in dynasties of oriental despotism, where intrigue too rolls round so surely and so suddenly on its author’s head; amid all the envy towards a foreign captive in high office as a king’s councilor; amid all the trouble incidental to the insanity of the king, or to the murder of two of his successors — in that whole critical period for his people Daniel continued …

“The force of the words is not drawn out; but, as perseverance is the one final touchstone of man, so these scattered notices combine in a grand outline of one, an alien, a captive, of that misused class who are proverbially the intriguers, favorites, pests of oriental courts, who revenge on man their ill-treatment at the hand of man; yet, himself, in uniform integrity, outliving envy, jealousy, dynasties; surviving in untarnished uncorrupting greatness the seventy years of the captivity; honored during the forty-three years of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign; doing the king’s business under the insolent and sensual boy Belshazzar; owned by the conquering Medo-Persians; the stay doubtless and human protector of his people during those long years of exile; probably commissioned to write the decree of Cyrus which gave leave for that long longed for restoration of his people, whose re-entrance into their land, like Moses of old, he was not to share. Deeds are more eloquent than words. Such undeviating integrity, beyond the ordinary life of man, in a worshiper of the one God, in the most dissolute and degraded of the merchant cities of old, first minister in the first of the world monarchies, [gives him a place among the highest and holiest men the world has ever seen].”¹

Who indeed can fail to realize an impelling inspiration toward the higher things in dwelling upon such a character!

“He is under a good influence, and he is likely to have his own piety quickened and his own purposes of unflinching integrity and faithfulness, and of humble devotion to God strengthened, who studies the writings and the character of the Prophet Daniel.”

Surely the earnest and devout contemplation of the ways and life of this godly man, as well as his illustrious prophecies cannot but have the effect of establishing the souls of the saints in the pursuit of that same piety, wisdom, and confidence in God, and lead their minds to contemplate with a more steady and enlightened faith those future closing scenes which are to occur when Christ and the saints shall reign and when shall come from every land and every clime the chastened and obedient of God’s creatures and join in that grand choral strain: “Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.”