Believers can live with confidence knowing that God’s kingdom is eternal. A Bible study lesson for “Future Seen” on Daniel 7:1-14 from the Lifeway “Explore the Bible” series.

 

looking forward to our hope

Good morning, I hope you all had a great week. I was just telling someone yesterday that the past week has seemed like a month. Not that it has been all that eventful, but it was busy. There were a number of things that I was trying to accomplish and didn’t really feel like I was getting them done.

The Future in Daniel 7

But the title of today’s lesson is “Future Seen” and we will be going over Daniel chapter 7:1-14. This is a chapter about one of Daniel’s visions.

We are going to cover two tracks in this lesson: what we can take from Daniel’s vision, and the other what this vision meant for Daniel and his people.

Looking forward direction

But first, let’s recap where we’re at. Daniel is in exile, in the employ of his captors. He’s respected and has a high position, but still, he isn’t at liberty to do whatever he wants and I think we see through the book of Daniel that his heart is with his people. We’ll see in next week’s lesson on Daniel 9 that Daniel was searching the prophecies for his people, read the words of the prophecy of Jeremiah, saw that the decreed time of exile was coming to a close and prayed to God against the delay.

So I think we can say that in spite of his position, Daniel’s circumstances and where he was at was not his first choice. Daniel was in the middle of the Babylonian court. Think about our political system and all the manueverings going on. I’m sure the Babylonian court was just as, if not more, chaotic, ruthless, and manipulative. And that was Daniel’s life.

We read the top notes of his life in the book of Daniel, the God happenings, but Daniel was in exile, living day-to-day for at least the 70 years until the Medes and the Persians conquered Babylon.

Looking for God

When we think of Daniel, we think of the exciting events, but those were only brief snapshots of time in his long life. Miniscule moments. Pastor Fred Dallas used to call those “mountain top experiences.” It’s easy to forget that as eventful as we think Daniel’s life was, the things we are reading about are really just mile markers, or pit stops in Daniel’s very long life journey.

Day after day, Daniel was faithful. Faithful in doing his work and serving the government of his captors and faithful to God. In preparing today’s lesson, this was God’s message to me for this week: don’t let all the “stuff” of life distract you from the fact that God is faithful and he is working out his plan.

Daniel had been used by God to bless the country and ruler that had captured him. God had given a witness to King Neuchadnezzar through Daniel and his friends of the Lord’s power and might. Nebuchadnezzar had been warned against pridefulness … which he didn’t listen to.

But here we have a vision, I think, that God gives to Daniel himself. Daniel’s heart is with his people. Daniel is not only waiting for deliverance of his people, but the Deliverer. The promised Messiah. The Jews were looking to an end when they would no longer be subject to these foreign powers that oppressed them one right after another.

commentary 1

At the giving of the law, Moses had said that God would send them a countryman, just like him. I found an article on the website, Jews for Jesus that explains where this Messianic expectation began.

‘I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him.

‘And it shall be [that] whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require [it] of him.” (Deuteronomy 18:15-19)

How have Jewish commentators interpreted that prophecy? Most contemporary commentators believe that Joshua and other prophets fulfilled the Scripture. However, this was not always the case. The late Rachmiel Frydland, in his book, What the Rabbis Know About the Messiah, pointed out: “Rabbi Levi Ben Gershon (RALBAG), of the fourteenth century, identified the Prophet as Messiah.” He went on to give RALBAG’s commentary:

‘A Prophet from the midst of thee.’ In fact, the Messiah is such a Prophet as it is stated in the Midrash of the verse, ‘Behold my Servant shall prosper’ (Isaiah 52:13).…Moses, by the miracles which he wrought, brought a single nation to the worship of God, but the Messiah will draw all peoples to the worship of God.1

The Midrashic passage that RALBAG cites, referring to Messiah as Prophet, states:

It is written, ‘Behold, my servant shall deal wisely, He shall be exalted, and extolled, and be very high’ (Isaiah 52:13). It means, He shall be more exalted than Abraham of whom it is written, ‘I lift up my hand’ (Genesis 14:22). He shall be more extolled than Moses of whom it is said, ‘As a nursing father beareth the nursing child’ (Numbers 11:12). ‘And shall be very high’—that is, Messiah shall be higher than the ministering angels.2[1]

The Jews were expecting their own Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. One where they would be the top and not the bottom. Instead, they got Jesus of Nazareth. God’s champion looks very different than human expectation.

God knows Daniel’s heart, and so God gives Daniel this dream to refocus his expectations. We will start with verse one in Daniel 7.

Earlier, during the first year of King Belshazzar’s reign in Babylon, Daniel had a dream and saw visions as he lay in his bed. He wrote down the dream, and this is what he saw.

commentary 4

It used to be that the mention of Belshazzar as king in Daniel was seen as evidence that the Bible isn’t reliable because this didn’t match up with what people knew about the timeline of Babylonian kings. However, in 1882, a tablet was found and confirmed Belshazzar’s position as coregent while his father was on a military campaign. There is debate about how exactly Belshazzar is related to Nebuchadnezzar, but we have evidence that Belshazzar is a historical person.[2]

2 In my vision that night, I, Daniel, saw a great storm churning the surface of a great sea, with strong winds blowing from every direction. 3 Then four huge beasts came up out of the water, each different from the others.

4 The first beast was like a lion with eagles’ wings. As I watched, its wings were pulled off, and it was left standing with its two hind feet on the ground, like a human being. And it was given a human mind.

5 Then I saw a second beast, and it looked like a bear. It was rearing up on one side, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. And I heard a voice saying to it, “Get up! Devour the flesh of many people!”

6 Then the third of these strange beasts appeared, and it looked like a leopard. It had four bird’s wings on its back, and it had four heads. Great authority was given to this beast.

7 Then in my vision that night, I saw a fourth beast—terrifying, dreadful, and very strong. It devoured and crushed its victims with huge iron teeth and trampled their remains beneath its feet. It was different from any of the other beasts, and it had ten horns.

the four beasts in the book of Daniel

The teaching guide for this lesson focuses quite a bit on what these beasts and the horns represent and how this vision is a prophecy of the rise and fall of nations that would be coming after Daniel. I’m not going to focus on that today. If you’d like that information, I will email you the study resources that go over it. To put it simply, the beasts represent the world powers: Babylon as the lion with eagles wings, Persia as the lion, Greece as the leopard, and the terrifying beast as the Roman Empire. The horns represent rulers.

What I’d like you to keep in mind as we read this chapter right now is that Daniel wanted something, a resolution and a deliverance, soon. Keep that in mind in next week’s lesson too. What God is telling him in this dream is that what Daniel is looking for … and Daniel gets some very specific prophecies about the Messiah, George mentioned that last week … is not going to be quick. Let’s continue.

8 As I was looking at the horns, suddenly another small horn appeared among them. Three of the first horns were torn out by the roots to make room for it. This little horn had eyes like human eyes and a mouth that was boasting arrogantly.

Antiochius Epiphanes descration of the Temple

Like almost everything in the book of Daniel, there is debate about who this small horn represents. The position I agree with, based on what happens later in Daniel as well as prophecies that Jesus makes that tie into this, is that this arrogant ruler that rooted out three others to take his place is Antiochus Ephiphanes (Antiochus IV) who defiled the Temple in Jerusalem and instigated the Maccabean revolt in 168 B.C[3]. If you received the timeline I sent yesterday, you will see where this fits in the countdown to Jesus’s coming.

So in Daniel’s vision, he sees beasts that are representations of world powers that are to come, one of those rulers is mouthing off boasting of their power and defying God. Then Daniel sees this:

9 I watched as thrones were put in place
and the Ancient One sat down to judge.
His clothing was as white as snow,
his hair like purest wool.
He sat on a fiery throne
with wheels of blazing fire,
10 and a river of fire was pouring out,
flowing from his presence.
Millions of angels ministered to him;
many millions stood to attend him.
Then the court began its session,
and the books were opened.

11 I continued to watch because I could hear the little horn’s boastful speech. I kept watching until the fourth beast was killed and its body was destroyed by fire. 12 The other three beasts had their authority taken from them, but they were allowed to live a while longer.

13 As my vision continued that night, I saw someone like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient One and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world, so that people of every race and nation and language would obey him. His rule is eternal—it will never end. His kingdom will never be destroyed.

Dating of the Book of Daniel

If you read skeptical commentary on the book of Daniel (and the Wikipedia entry on Daniel is written from the skeptical position), they will say that Daniel is not prophecy written 300 years before Antiochus Ephiphanes, but afterwards. Many skeptical scholars don’t even believe that Daniel was a historical person. There are entire books written about this and I’m not going to get into it all. I just want to point out a few things.

Antiquities of the Jews by Joesephus

First, Josephus, a first century Jewish historian, writes that when Alexander the Great conquered Jerusalem, he was welcomed by the priest, read the book of Daniel and recognized himself as a fulfillment of the prophecy.[4]

According to Josephus, the book of Daniel was written and disseminated by 334 BC when Alexander the Great conquered Judea. Josephus was not a Christian. He did not believe in Jesus as the Messiah, and so his work … as well as all the rabbinic commentary on the book of Daniel that discusses the book written by the prophet it’s named for is not following some Christian agenda.

The Jews fully acknowledge the accuracy of Daniel’s prophecy regarding the the rise and fall of nations foretold in his vision … and we know that “many were expected the Messiah” during Jesus’s lifetime … but today the countdown to the Messiah is ignored among the rank and file of followers of Judaism.[5] As I mentioned before, in their annual reading liturgy, different traditions following different half-Torah readings that accompany the weekly reading of the Torah portion. I’ve only found one half-torah reading list that even touches the book of Daniel, and that is only chapter 1.

Second, the book of Daniel was translated along with the other books of the Hebrew Old Testament into the Greek Septuagint. This translation was done between 280-250 B.C. This is attested to by multiple ancient sources.[6]

dead sea scrolls and the book of daniel pt 1

Third, by the time of the Maccabees, which is when skeptics claim Daniel was written, Daniel was already so well and widely regarded that it was one of the most popular books among the Essenes,[7] the separatist group that split off from mainstream Judaism and lived in the wilderness.  It is the remnants of their libraries that we found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This journal article was published in 1990, which is fairly early in the publication of literature on the Dead Sea Scrolls which were discovered in 1947. When the author wrote this, they had identified fragments from 8 different scrolls of the Book of Daniel, the most of any other book in the Bible.  That isn’t true any more. Now they have the most identified from the Book of Psalms. But his point still stands. They have dated one of the scrolls to 125 BC,[8] which is only 40 years after skeptics claim the book was written. Think about the Arthurian legends which actually have evolved over time and been compiled by many different people. We have fragments of those stories along the way, that is not true of the book of Daniel. Anyone claiming that there is evidence for a late date is either severely uniformed or intellectually dishonest, because if they accept the traditional dating and authorship, they they would have to accept the truth of prophecy and its very obvious fulfillment.

Daniel's vision of One who was like the Son of Man

Fourth, and the reason I brought all of this up, this passage that we just read had a dramatic impact on not only Messianic expectations, but also the Jews’ idea of God. Why is that? It is this passage

13 As my vision continued that night, I saw someone like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient One and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world, so that people of every race and nation and language would obey him. His rule is eternal—it will never end. His kingdom will never be destroyed.

We read that and it doesn’t really strike us as anything out of the way does it? We believe in Jesus, God come as man, who was the Son of man, and so we read this as a confirmation of Jesus’s coming don’t we?

Put yourself in Daniel’s shoes. Daniel had some encounters with God before, but this was a vision of God himself, the Ancient One, and another divine being who “looked like a Son of Man.” These two verses caused intense speculation among the Jews, a radical shift. We see the impact of these in the books written during the intertestamental period, the 400 years of silence between when Malachi was written and Jesus came. These include the Book of Jubilees which mentions “the Angel of the Presence,” The Book of Enoch which mentions the “Son of Man” and the “Son of God,” and several writings from the Dead Sea Scrolls that mention the “Son of God.[9]

There is a book written by an Orthodox Jewish scholar named Alan Segal called “The Two Powers in Heaven.” In this book, he illustrates that the belief in “two Yahweh’s” or “two Powers” was a well established belief in certain strands of Judaism … and it all began with Daniel’s vision in chapter 7. If you’ve ever heard someone say, “well the Jews had no idea of a God who was more than one person” or that the Trinity is a pagan idea … this is a book you should read … because that is not at all true. Segal makes that very clear, he doesn’t agree with it, but he acknowledges that large groups of Jews believed that going into the first century. I wrote a review on this book a few years ago where I summarize it. It’s title “Justice and Mercy Meet in Grace: A Review of Two Powers in Heaven”  and it’s on my website, raisedtowalk.org.[10]

In the last half of chapter 7, an angel gives Daniel the interpretation of the dream and explains it. From the explanation, we can see that there are layers to the vision. It is a dual fulfillment type of prophecy. Jesus’s prophecies and John’s visions in Revelation both tie into this vision of Daniel’s, and it’s all interesting, but that’s not our focus today.

The point to remember is that while we know the end, very often the in between doesn’t look like what we expect it to. But that doesn’t mean that God isn’t working or that his exact plan isn’t currently in place.

The Lesson for Us Today in the Daniel 7 Vision

Daniel’s vision was the grace of God, it was a blessing to Daniel personally for both encouragement in the present moment as well as to build up his faith in God.  It was also for the Jewish people to change their trajectory of thought about God to prepare them for Jesus when he came.

And for us, it is not only Daniel’s vision that is a lesson for us, but his life. Remember not just the spectacular encounters he had during his life, but the long years of faithfulness, day in and day out.

We all have those God moments too. Maybe not as dramatic as Daniel’s … or maybe they are. I’ve had some awesome dreams from God, they weren’t about the course of nations, but they were encouragement for me personally about God’s plans for my life. But I am confident that if you’ve been a Christian for any amount of time, you have a testimony of how God has come through for you. I’ve heard several stories like that from people in the class.

Write down those stories, remember them. And remember that God is still as powerful and active in those days when you feel far away from him as he is in those moments that you share testimonies about. Don’t let the distractions in life cloud the reality of who he is.

When life seems stuck. Remember these words of Job in Job 42:2

“I know that you can do all things;

no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Job 42:2 I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted


This Bible lesson was originally taught by Carla Alvarez on February 20, 2022 in the Kingdom Citizen Bible study Class at the Second Baptist North campus in Kingwood, Texas.


[1] Moishe Rosen, “A Prophet Like Unto Moses – Jews for Jesus,” Jews for Jesus, last modified July 1, 1997, accessed February 19, 2022, https://jewsforjesus.org/answers/what-are-some-passages-in-the-hebrew-bible-that-talk-about-the-messiah.

[2] Sebastian Kettley, “Archaeology News: Ancient Artefacts Prove Bible Right about Babylonian King, Claims Expert,” Express.Co.Uk, last modified November 28, 2020, accessed February 19, 2022, https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/1365018/archaeology-news-ancient-artefacts-bible-king-belshazzar-babylon-evg.

[3] Benjamin Scolnic, “Antiochus IV and the Three Horns in Daniel 7,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 14, no. 2 (2014): 1.

[4] Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, vol. Book 11, 8.5, n.d.

[5] Roger T. Beckwith, “DANIEL 9 AND THE DATE OF MESSIAH’S COMING IN ESSENE, HELLENISTIC, PHARISAIC, ZEALOT AND EARLY CHRISTIAN COMPUTATION,” Revue de Qumrân 10, no. 4 (40) (1981): 521.

[6] Kyle Dunham, “When and Where Was the Septuagint Written?,” Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, October 1, 2019, accessed February 19, 2022, https://dbts.edu/2019/10/01/when-and-where-was-the-septuagint-written/.

[7] Gerhard E. Hasel, “The Book of Daniel Confirmed by the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Journal of Adventist Theological Society (1990): 40.

[8] Gerhard E. Hasel, “The Book of Daniel Confirmed by the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Journal of Adventist Theological Society (1990): 41.

[9] C.M. Alvarez, A Picture of the Promise: Messianic Beliefs in the Second Temple Period, Paper (Houston, TX: Houston Baptist University, November 2017).

[10] C.M. Alvarez, “Justice and Mercy Meet in Grace: A Review of the Two Powers in Heaven,” Raised to Walk, last modified April 23, 2018, accessed February 19, 2022, https://raisedtowalk.org/reviews/justice-and-mercy-meet-in-grace-a-review-of-the-two-power-in-heaven/.