Summary and Introduction to Daniel

Reading through the Book of Daniel leaves one overwhelmed by the nature and volume of prophetic content. It also has many challenges. Daniel is full of tricky near-far prophecy, typology, and historical references that can make it sometimes difficult to determine who the scripture is referring to, the type or the antitype, the near or the far. Fortunately in the case of the Antichrist, Jesus tells us that the book of Daniel, especially chapter 9 refers to the future Endtimes version of the type – the Antichrist.

“the following elements of a type are manifest: In a type there must be a genuine resemblance in form or idea between the Old Testament reference and the New Testament counterpart.” – Ramm, Bernard. 

That is exactly what we find in Daniel. The Antiochus IV (175 BC) character from history, around the time of the Maccabean Revolt (165 BC), and still future to the writing of Daniel, desecrated the Jewish temple in the same way that the future Antichrist will in the Book of Revelation. So the historical King Antiochus IV Epiphanes is portrayed as a type of the Antichrist. We will go into more detail.

Matthew 24:15 – (Jesus) “Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), ¹⁶then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.”

Objective

The objective here is not to try and write a commentary, but to include the prophecies from the Book of Daniel that are most relevant to our study of the Endtimes. 

Foundation

The book of Daniel is one of the key foundational OT book for Endtimes prophecy, containing an amazing prophecy foretelling the future world gentile empires from Daniel’s day to the Second Coming and Millennial Kingdom. One of the points is to demonstrate to Daniel, and us, that God exercises sovereign control over all things. If that’s not clear, he shows more specifically his involvement in the affairs of mankind. He knows the future and he is the architect of the Endtimes. The book of Daniel shows the Purpose and the People of the Endtimes in more detail than any other book of the bible.

Daniel Chapter 9 is also where we get another early glimpse of the previously unknown gap between Jesus first coming and the second – that gap is the Church Age. 

“So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. ²⁶“Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary” – More on this here – Seventy Weeks prophecy.

The Context of the Book

The context is found in the first chapter and verse.

Daniel 1:1 – In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 Chronicles 36

The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god.

Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of his officials, to bring in some of the sons of Israel, including some of the royal family and of the nobles, ⁴youths in whom was no defect, who were good-looking, showing intelligence in every branch of wisdom, endowed with understanding and discerning knowledge, and who had ability for serving in the king’s court; and he ordered him to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans

Daniel, a faithful Jewish youth meeting the requirements of the King is taken into captivity by Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in 605 B.C. The Captivity was the judgment from God against Israel’s southern kingdom of Judah. (The northern kingdom of Israel was previously exiled by the Assyrians.) Nebuchadnezzar also carried away objects from the Jewish Temple (Isaiah 39) that would make their way back to Jerusalem many years later. According to previous prophecy from the prophet Jeremiah, (Jeremiah 25) the captivity would last 70 years. (2 Chronicles 36:20-21)

Seventy Years Captivity

It is important to keep in mind that Daniel knew this prophecy of Jeremiah, that their exile in Babylon would be 70-years, and that would always be in his mind. The period of their exile had an end date as Jeremiah 25:12 shows. See also 2 Chronicles 36

Jeremiah 25:8-11  Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Because you have not obeyed My words, ⁹ behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them and make them a horror and a hissing, and an everlasting desolation.

Jeremiah 25:12 Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,’ declares the Lord, ‘for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it an everlasting desolation.

The Return to Jerusalem

The decree to free the Jews from their exile in Babylon and to rebuild the temple came from Persian King Cyrus, described  in the book of Ezra chapter 1

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying:

²“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. ³‘Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! Let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel

The King’s Dream: The Prophecy of the World Empires

In Daniel chapter 2, Daniel interprets King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. The dream is a prophecy about the future Gentile world kingdoms, starting with Nebuchadnezzar and ending with the final Messianic Kingdom, an amazing prophetic timeline of history written before it happened.

“Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a night vision…. However, there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days. “

Daniel 2:31-35 – “You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome.

“The head of that statue was made of fine gold,

its breast and its arms of silver,

its belly and its thighs of bronze,

its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

“You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them.

³⁵“Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

This is key to the book and it lays out the framework for the rest of the prophecies. God used this opportunity with Daniel to give us a kind of Timeline of history, from Babylon to the final kingdom of God. While we don’t have a manuscript from the 4th century BC, there are fragments from the Dead Sea scrolls that tell us that the book of Daniel was accepted as canonical.

• The Head of Gold was King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire.
• The Breast of Silver would be the Medo-Persian Empire.
• The Belly and Thighs of Bronze would be the Greek Empire
• The Legs and Feet of Iron and Clay would be the Roman Empire.
• The Millennial Kingdom of Messiah (Jesus) – the Stone cut out of the mountain that destroys all previous world kingdoms

The Messianic Kingdom

Daniel 2:44-45 – In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever. ⁴⁵ Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will take place in the future

Before the return of Christ, the final world empire will be related in some way to the Roman Empire, with the Antichrist as its head. When the Antichrist sits in the Temple in Jerusalem, he will do so as the leader of that new Revived Roman Empire. As we will see, he is empowered by Satan.

Conclusion

These are the high-points of the book, or at least a good starting point for further study.We have other pages for the book of Daniel and we have some book recommendations on the Resources page. J Dwight Pentecost’s book called Things to come is an excellent resource to get into great detail.

Key Endtimes teaching from Daniel

• The Purpose of the Endtimes
• The Antichrist
• The timeline of world empires
• The timeline of God’s dealing with Israel (70 weeks)
• The gap in that timeline to allow for the Church (still a mystery at the first coming Ephesians 3:4)
• The timing of the Tribulation periods
• The details of the AntiChrist
• The Son of Man prophecy