A HIGH LEVEL SUMMARY OF DANIEL WITH EMPHASIS ON CORRELATING ITS END TIME PROPHECIES WITH REVELATION

The prophet Daniel was born sometime around the year 620 BC. In 606 BC the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem and Judah. They carried Daniel and certain others back to Babylon with them. God chose Daniel to be a prophet through whom he would give a revelation of all of the future empires of the world which would control the Promised Land which he had given to the Jewish people. These prophecies carried all the way through the end times and gave several descriptions of the future antichrist. He did this 3 separate times in 3 different manners as we will see below. The third is quite different from the first two and God presented it to Daniel at two separate times. The last two also give extra prophetic inter-testament details of Antiochus Epiphanes, 171-164 BC (2300 days?, Dan 8:14), who was a type of the antichrist.
For completeness sake we will end this summary with the inclusion of chapters 1-6.

The 1st of the 3 prophecies is in Dan 2:31-46. Here Nebuchadnezzar has a dream of a huge statue with a head of pure gold (Babylon), a chest & arms of silver (Persia), a belly & thighs of bronze (Greece) and legs of iron with feet having toes partly of iron & partly of clay (Rome). A rock which became a huge mountain struck the statue and completely destroyed it. The mountain filled the whole earth with a fifth kingdom that will last forever, Dan 2:44-45. Jesus is the Rock. His kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, will fill the whole earth in the millennium.

The 2nd prophecy is in Dan 7:1-28 Here Daniel has a dream or vision. In Daniel’s vision all of the four future empires come up out of the sea, meaning the mass of humanity on earth, Dan 7:3. See Isa 60:5 where sea is used for nations & peoples of earth and Isa 57:20 where the tossing sea is called wicked. The four empires were:
1. Babylon, a lion
2. Medo-Persia,a bear
3. Greece, a leopard with four heads
4. Rome, a beast with iron teeth & bronze claws, Dan 7:19, with 10 horns or kings, 3 of which were overcome by another king, the little horn. This left 7 kings plus an 8th king, the future end time antichrist.
Again, as in the 1st prophecy there is a fifth empire, the kingdom of God which will last forever, Dan 7:13—14, 21-22, 27. This dream was interpreted for Daniel by someone standing nearby in his vision. It may have been Jesus himself. Otherwise we see Jesus special angel, Gabriel, interpreting Daniel’s visions for him. Gabriel later appeared to Daniel, Dan 9:21, and gave him additional insight and understanding of the end times as recorded in Dan 9:24-27, the famous life changing 70 7’s end time prophecy.

The 3rd prophecy is in Dan 8:1-27, 11:1-45 Here Daniel receives his chapter 8 prophecy through a vision while he is asleep. Again the angel Gabriel comes to Daniel to interpret the dream and give him new details. In chapter 11 Gabriel appears to Daniel several years later and gives him a long discourse which seems to be a much more detailed picture of Daniel’s vision in chapter 8. This vision and long discourse are different from Daniels first two prophecies in that they only portray two of the four future kingdoms, the latter years of the Persian Empire and the Greek Empire, which emerges as four separate empires. The two of interest in the Bible are the Southern Kingdom, which is really Egypt, and the Northern Kingdom, which is composed of Assyria (Syria, etc.), Babylon(Iraq) and Media (Iran). Both do, however, go into detail about the end times, especially the antichrist. In both chapters it is very apparent that the king of the north, Antiochus Epiphanes, is a model or type of the end time tribulation period antichrist. The Northern Kingdom is sometimes called the Seleucid Empire. The people are then referred to as the Seleucids.

We will present some additional details next.
1. Dan 8 presents the two kingdoms symbolically as a two horned ram, literally Media and Persia, and as a one large horned goat which morphed into four horns, literally Greece which starts as a single kingdom but broke into four at the death of Alexander the Great.
2. Chapter 11 presents history in advance for the battles between the northern and southern arms of the Greek kingdom, their actual kings and other prominent players, details of the battles and other events so precisely that many historians want to insist that Daniel could not have written it 200-300 years before it happened. However we have seen God doing this so many times that we know that Daniel really did prophesy these things in a perfect way. Jesus gave Daniel credit for this in Matt 24:15. It certainly seems again that much of chapter 11 presents a type of the antichrist, especially verses 29-45.
3. Isa 13-14 were written 75-125 years before Babylon became the major empire of the Middle East. Isa 13 predicts the future fall of Judah to the Babylonians. Isa 14 presents a model or type of the first fall of Satan in heaven. God also says in verse 22 that he will wipe out Babylon’s name and its survivors, and in verse 26 he says that he will crush the Assyrian in his land. This reference to the Assyrian may be a reference to the antichrist. The fact that both Dan 8 and 11 present the king of the northern kingdom composed of Syria, Babylon and Media as a type for the antichrist might be telling us that the antichrist will come from one of those areas. Most prophecy scholars that I am aware of teach that the antichrist will come from the Roman Empire, using Dan 9:24-27. However, Syria was a part of the Roman Empire so the northern kingdom is not ruled out by Dan 9:24-27 from being the country of the antichrist.
4. Dan 12 contains discussion of the rapture, Second Coming, tribulation, millennium and the eternal kingdom.
5. The beast out of the sea in Rev 13, the antichrist, was apparently representative of all kingdoms of earth of all times. Let me explain. He apparently was a reappearance of the fourth beast of Daniel since he had the same description as in Dan 7:7-27; he had 10 horns or kings, with another horn overcoming 3 of the horns, leaving seven horns plus an 8th horn, the little horn. This corresponds to the description in Rev 17:3, 7, 9-11. From Rev 13:2 he also had the characteristics of the other 3 empires that will exist on earth before the end times, as described in Dan 7:7-27, the lion, the bear and the leopard or the Babylonian, Persian and Greek empires. Since he is the revival of the fourth empire, in essence he represents all empires of all times of importance to the Jewish people, from the time of Daniel until the end times. This may be telling us that in the end times there will be an alliance of the areas and religions represented by the Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman empires. Various descriptions of the antichrist, the beast, are given in Dan 7:7-8, 11-12, 19-27, 8:23-26, 9:24-27 and 11:21-45.

SHORT SUMMARY OF DANIEL CHAPTERS 1-6

The kings of Babylon and the approximate dates of their reigns during Daniel’s time there, taken in part from Belshazzar in Wikipedia, seem to be as follows:
605-562 Nebuchadnezzar
562-556 Various
562- Evil Marduk
560-Neriglissar (Nergal-Sharezar)
556- Labashi-Marduk
556-539 Nabonidus 556 -539
553-540 Belshazzar, son of Nabonidus and co-regent of Babylon while Nabonidus was elsewhere (Dan 5:2 says that Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar)
539-537 Darius the Mede
537-530 Cyrus the Persian, the Great
532 Daniel’s last vision (chapters 10-12)

CHAPTER 1: Takes place in 3rd year of Jehoakim, 605 BC. Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem and took the best young men of royal families back to Babylon, where they were trained 3 years after which they became part of the king’s court. Daniel was included. Daniel remained in service to Babylonian & Persian kings thru Cyrus. Daniel was given the name Belteshazzar, after the Babylonian god Bel.

CHAPTER 2: Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a giant statue and Daniel’s interpretation. It represents all of the future empires of the world (from the perspective of Israel).

CHAPTER 3: Nebuchadnezzar creates a giant 90 ft golden statue and demands that it be worshipped. Shadrack, Mechack and Abednigo refuse and are thrown into a fiery furnace. God keeps them from being harmed. Nebuchadnezzar then praises their God and installs them in higher positions in Babylon.

CHAPTER 4: Presents Nebuchadnezzar’s letter to everyone in Babylon revealing a vision that he had seen of a giant tree that reached up to the heavens. The tree was cut down but would grow up again after 7 years. Daniel reveals the meaning of the vision. Nebuchadnezzar is the tree and he would lose his kingdom for 7 years and then be reinstated. He would spend 7 years in a wilderness living and thinking like an animal. He would then be reinstated as king. After this was fulfilled he exalted the God of heaven.

CHAPTER 5: Daniel’s narrative jumps several years to the time when Belshazzar was king or co-regent of Babylon. Belshazzar saw a hand writing something strange on a wall in the palace. Only Daniel can reveal the meaning of the handwriting. It reveals that Belshazzar will be killed. It happens that very evening and Darius the Mede takes over the kingdom.

CHAPTER 6: Darius holds Daniel in high regard and places him over 1/3 of the kingdom. However an evil plot ends up with Daniel being thrown into a lion’s den. God supernaturally protects him and as a result Darius releases an edict to the whole kingdom to revere the God of Daniel. Daniel then prospers through the reigns of Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Persian.