Original Meaning

The Salvation of God’s People (12:1–4)

THE CHAPTER DIVISION obscures the fact that 12:1–4 is integrally connected with what preceded at the end of chapter 11. The king who resisted the gods and exalted himself (11:36–45) has come to a pitiful end. We have argued above that this previous section telescopes earthly and cosmic realities as well as near-future and far-future events. The king is Antiochus, but he is also something more (i.e., worse) than Antiochus. The end is in the second century, but the end is also in the still-distant future. Just as the ideal king of the Psalms was grounded in the Davidic reality but anticipated the Messianic glory, so the wicked king of the end of Daniel is grounded in the Antiochene reality but anticipated the horror of the Antichrist.

Thus, when chapter 12 begins “at that time,” we find ourselves again in that flux between earthly and heavenly reality. We deal with the definitive end of Antiochus’s persecution of God’s people as well as their final struggle. We are, in a phrase, at “the theological climax of the book.”25

We have been introduced to Michael already (see 10:13, 21) as God’s warring angel, the “patron angel of Israel.”26 Verse 1 has military and judicial overtones. Michael judges and fights in order to protect God’s people. This comes at a time of unprecedented “distress,” but the distress is no sooner announced than the fact of deliverance is introduced.

This deliverance is spelled out in more detail in verse 2, a truly amazing verse about which Towner declares, “There it is, the first and only unambiguous reference to the double resurrection of the dead in the entire Old Testament!”27 There may be others (cf. Isa. 26:19), but we agree that this is the clearest. Even so, we are left with many questions if we restrict ourselves to Daniel 12 without recourse to later New Testament teaching about the topic of the afterlife. Of course, we must not develop a whole doctrine of the afterlife from this one verse. But we can confidently affirm that it celebrates the vindication that will come both in the reward for which the righteous are destined and in the punishment for which the wicked—by which we are to understand those who have worked against the purposes and people of God—are reserved.

The righteous are described as “those who are wise” (v. 3) and may indeed have as their reference those belonging to Daniel’s group or the teachers among them. They will shine “like the brightness of the heavens,” presumably “like the stars,” which in other contexts stand for celestial beings (Judg. 5:20; Job 38:7; 1 Enoch 104; T. Moses 10:9; 2 Apoc. Bar. 51). This hope is expressed as a metaphor, however, and we should not press the language literally.

This great hope is to be preserved through the ages, not hidden. Miller understands the force of verse 4 correctly when he states an earlier biblical analogy:

In the ancient Near East the custom was to “seal” an important document by impressing upon it the identifying marks of the parties involved and the recording scribe. A sealed text was not to be tampered with or changed. The original document was duplicated and placed (“closed up”) in a safe place where it could be preserved.28

Miller cites Jeremiah 32:9–12, where there are clearly two documents, one public and one preserved for posterity.

Therefore, the picture is not that of a document that becomes clearer to understand the closer we get to the end times, which will then constitute the unsealing of Daniel’s prophecy. Indeed, the best understanding of the “many will go here and there to increase knowledge" is a negative one. Collins points out the allusion to Amos 8:12: “Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it,” and comments that since the prophecy is sealed, this knowledge is unattainable.29 That is, people will scurry about desperately trying to find knowledge in their own power, but will fail in their attempt.

Bridging Contexts

DANIEL 11–12 PRESENTS the visionary message of the supernatural creatures who fought their way to Daniel in chapter 10. The concluding unit (12:5–13) finds Daniel and his celestial companions in the same place as in chapter 10 and brings this final unit to completion. As we have observed above, the visionary message looks with remarkable clarity into the near and far future. Names are not used, but from our position of historical retrospect, we can provide them along with a description of many of the events of the fourth to second century B.C. We recognize the events alluded to in chapter 11 through other sources like Polybius, Josephus, and 1 and 2 Maccabees.

This narrative is presented from the vantage point of the sixth century B.C. Even if Goldingay and other scholars are correct that the prophecy was actually composed in the second century B.C.,32 the book intends us to understand it to come from the sixth century. In either case, the book of Daniel makes a strong statement about the sovereignty of God over the historical process. If we have been reading straight through the book of Daniel, this will hardly surprise us. Every passage that we have studied has contributed to the overarching theme of the book: In spite of present circumstances, God is in control and will win the day.

Perhaps in no chapter is God’s control displayed in such detail as in chapter 11. Indeed, for those of us living at a later time, it raises the issue of the meaning of history. If God is in such control, how can our decisions hold any meaning? Can I be held responsible for my actions if I am a mere puppet on a string held by an all-powerful being? Towner believes that the answer to the last question is no. In his often insightful commentary, he states that Daniel’s theology of history means that it is “essentially meaningless…. History’s only point then becomes simply to demonstrate that God’s eternal decree is certain to come to pass.”33

Before exploring this issue of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, it is important to remind ourselves of the six major themes of the second half of the book, because most of them play an important role in this climactic prophetic vision. The six are:

the horror of human evil, particularly as it is concentrated in the state
the announcement of a specific time of deliverance
repentance that leads to deliverance
the revelation that a cosmic war stands behind human conflict
judgment as certain for those who resist God and oppress his people
the equally certain truth that God’s people, downtrodden in the present, will experience new life in the fullest sense.

With the exception of the theme of repentance, we will have occasion to see all these themes displayed prominently in these two chapters. However, to complete our plan of focusing on a theme per chapter (see comments in “The Nature of Apocalyptic Literature” in the Original Meaning section of chapter 7), we will here explore carefully the last two elements: Judgment is certain for the wicked; reward is certain for the righteous.

Divine sovereignty and human responsibility. It is in the term certain that we get the connection with the issue of divine sovereignty. How can Daniel say that judgment and reward are certain for the wicked and the righteous? Because God is sovereign; he is in control.

This is why the issue of divine sovereignty over history was not a problem for Daniel or his readers. He was not approaching it as a philosophical problem, but rather proclaiming good news to a captive people. In the present, the wicked are in control and prospering, whereas the godly are suffering. But that is not the end of the story. Far from rendering history meaningless, it imbues it with ultimate significance. What would be meaningless is if all the suffering faithfulness of God’s people resulted only in a nameless grave. What would lead to despair is if, after treading over the godly, the wicked would be celebrated in death.

Is not this the problem that the Teacher in Ecclesiastes expressed? To him, God was not in control, or at least he didn’t seem to be. “God is in heaven and you are on earth” (Eccl. 5:2). For the godly, life is one pain after another, and then they die. For the wicked—well, let’s listen to the words of the Teacher: “I saw the wicked buried—those who used to come and go from the holy place and receive praise in the city where they did this. This too is meaningless” (8:10).34

For Daniel’s audience, God’s control of history was positive because it meant things would turn out right in the end. This knowledge led to joy in the present (cf. Ps. 7335).

However, we cannot avoid the philosophical questions in this way completely. Does divine sovereignty eradicate human responsibility? Does God’s control mean that human beings have none? Are we simply acting out a script already written? Certainly that is what Daniel 11 appears to be—a script for the history of the ancient Near East in the centuries between the beginning of Persian rule and down to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Divine sovereignty and human responsibility—this is an old, old debate among theologians. And, I would be quick to add, its endurance as a point of contention warns us that the ultimate answer may be beyond our grasp. Another way to put it is, the Bible does not tell us enough to allow us to answer how these two work together in harmony.

What does the Bible teach us? It shows us, as we have seen clearly in Daniel, that God is in control. But it also informs us that human beings make decisions for which they are responsible. In the words of Philippians 2:12: “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”

God works out our salvation. We work out our salvation. God controls history; he brought Antiochus Epiphanes down and allowed the temple to be cleansed. Human beings act in history; the Hasmonean rebellion liberated the temple.

Now some people see Daniel as a quietist, as someone who would say, “God will take care of it” or “Let God….” They reason that Daniel would be

against the Hasmonean rebellion or any overt actions that would try to wrest control out of the hands of God and into their own. I beg to differ. It is difficult to know what Daniel would have thought of Judas Maccabeus, but in principle he would not have been against him. That is, he would not reject out of hand human efforts. Daniel understood that divine sovereignty and human responsibility formed a mystery, but he also understood that they both were operative. He emphasizes the former because God’s people were relatively powerless. Thus, the news of God’s sovereignty was good news.

And indeed throughout the Bible, we see that God’s control over history, while not eradicating human responsibility, was something that brought joy and confidence to his people. Let’s begin with the story of Joseph.

The Joseph narrative has surprisingly little God-talk in it. As it narrates Joseph’s movements from Palestine to Egypt, and from the house of Potiphar to jail and finally to Pharaoh’s court, the narrator does not reflect on God’s agency in his life. Joseph does the best that he can and then, or so it appears, the blind forces of chance push him around. However, that is not the way Joseph understands it, and from the climactic position of Joseph’s final speech, it is not the way the narrator wants us to take it. In what must be understood as a thematic statement, Joseph speaks to his brothers, who are afraid that since Jacob has died, their brother will now work his revenge: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children. And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them” (Gen. 50:20–21). They meant evil against Joseph and were responsible, and were it not for their repentance, they would be punished; but God meant it for good. He used the sinful, selfish actions of the brothers to bring about the greater purpose of helping his people survive a crushing famine.

Samson is another case in point. A close study of the Samson narrative indicates that he did nothing unless it was for his own good. He was a self-absorbed man, if ever there was one. But God overruled his sinful tendencies to use him to harass the enemy, the Philistines, and ultimately to bring a huge disaster on their leadership. He married a Philistine woman, which brought him into conflict with the enemy, and he responded by burning their fields or killing a large number of them with the jawbone of an ass. Once he actually destroyed the gate of the Philistine city of Gath—a wonderful display of power over this arrogant enemy. But why did he tear it down with his superhuman strength? Because he was caught visiting a prostitute and he was holding the gate over his head to keep from getting killed!

Even the dramatic end of Samson’s story is clouded, at best, with mixed motives. After Delilah’s betrayal, he found himself in Philistine custody, bereft of his strength, blinded, and made a fool. As he stood bound to a pillar, he made one final request of God: “O Sovereign LORD, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes” (Judg. 16:28). He then brought down the house—literally—on the heads of the Philistines, as well as his own. Again, a great victory over the enemy, but for what reason? His own eyes, not the glory of God. God controls history. He can even overrule the evil or mixed motives of others to bring about his purposes.

We get another important window on the issue of divine sovereignty and human responsibility from the theology of holy war in the Old Testament.36Again, we bow before a mystery. God’s victory is certain; there is no doubt about the outcome of a war when Yahweh enters the battle. The Israelites can just stand back and watch as God overwhelms the enemy. But they do not. They always enter the fray in some way. At Jericho, God commands them to march around the city each day for six days and then on the seventh to march around the city seven times and then blow their trumpets (Josh. 6). This they do. They participate, though there is no doubt as to the outcome or to whom the praise belongs.

God fights for Israel also during the days of Gideon (Judg. 7). He could have defeated the Midianites alone, but he does not do so. Indeed, he commands Gideon to pare down his troops from 32,000 to 300, but the 300 troops still have a job to do.

Goliath was a giant of a soldier, but no match for God. The Lord could have said to Israel, “Stand back so you don’t get singed,” just before he threw a lightning bolt down from the heavens to reduce the giant to a pile of ash. But that is not the way he did it (1 Sam. 17). Rather, he sends in unarmored and poorly weaponed young David, an inexperienced boy, against a hardened mercenary; but since God is on the side of David, there is again no doubt about the outcome. The head of Goliath is cut off.

Similarly, Daniel 11–12 concerns the various kingdoms that oppress Israel in the fourth and third centuries. Though we do not hear of God’s direct involvement in the manner of holy war until the final conflict, we do see his guiding hand in the rise and fall of successive kingdoms (Persia succeeded by Alexander’s Greece, succeeded by the Ptolemies and Seleucids). Indeed, the implicit message of this narrative is that, though they all have imperial pretensions, none of them can achieve any lasting or significant empire (in the grand scheme of things) because they keep each other in check. We particularly see this in the seesaw conflict between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids as they wrestle for control of Israel, the “Beautiful Land.”

Thus, while we struggle with the harmony between the two themes of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, the Bible clearly teaches that God is sovereign and humans are responsible. We cannot provide a philosophical answer to the conundrum, but they work together. How? We cannot tell. This perspective will leave some dissatisfied. God does not ask for comprehension, but rather for humility before the mystery—the amazing mystery that God can take even sinful human actions and work things out for good.

The wicked and the godly each get their ultimate due. What is the intended effect of the foregoing on the original audience? Towner this time has it right: “The fact that the predicted course has been followed in exquisite detail leads that reader to turn about and face forward with confidence, certain that the future, too, though not yet come to pass, will be as securely in God’s hand as world history has been since the seer’s time.”37

Why confidence? Because, though prospering in the present, the wicked will get their due, and, though suffering in the present, the godly will get their reward. God will see to it.

We have seen these themes from the beginning of the book. Daniel and the three friends, though put through extremely difficult times, were raised higher and higher in glory, while their enemies often were humiliated or even died. We have seen in each of the previous visions of Daniel (chs. 7, 8, 9) that the triumphant wicked end up being destroyed themselves. In chapters 10–12, “events unfold as a pointless sequence of invasions, battles, schemes, and frustrations.”38 Persia falls to Greece (11:3); the great kingdom of Alexander “will be broken up and parceled out toward the four winds of heaven” (11:4). Their successors will fall as well, including Antiochus and the greater evil force that he represents: “Yet he will come to his end, and no one will help him” (11:45).

But that is not enough. Our chapters go further—indeed, further than anywhere else in the Old Testament—in order to address the issue of justice and retribution. The rewards and punishments for faithfulness and rebellion go beyond death itself: “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever” (12:2–3).

The wicked will certainly be eternally shamed; “for the wicked to die the same death as the righteous is not enough.”³⁹ Many places in the Old Testament struggle with the issue of divine retribution. After all, the book of Deuteronomy with its covenantal form implies, when isolated from the rest of the canon, that obedience to God will lead to blessings (Deut. 28:1–14), while disobedience will lead to suffering (28:15–68). The book of Proverbs, at least its major theme,40 celebrates the way of the righteous over the way of the wicked:

The house of the wicked will be destroyed, but the tent of the upright will flourish. (Prov. 14:11)

The path of life leads upward for the wise to keep him from going down to the grave. (15:24)

Understanding is a fountain of life to those who have it, but folly brings punishment to fools. (16:22)

But experience did not seem to bear this out, at least with the precision of an absolute principle. The Teacher was deeply troubled by real life when he expressed what he observed and gave advice to his listeners based on his experience (Eccl. 7:15–18):

In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these:

a righteous man perishing in his righteousness, and a wicked many living long in his wickedness.

Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise—why destroy yourself?

Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time?

It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.

But the Teacher was looking only “under the sun.”41 Daniel, thanks to the revelation provided by the celestial beings, gets a view above the sun. If there is going to be any ultimate retribution, it must be “above the sun.” Dying is not enough; there must also be eternal shame for people like Antiochus, who persecute God’s people. They must be raised from the dead to experience that shame.

Similarly, on the other side, the life of the godly during the period in Daniel’s purview is hardly just reward for faithfulness in the midst of persecution. The celestial revelation gives Daniel and his followers the good news: They have something wonderful to look forward to, even after death. As mentioned before, this is the clearest teaching of the afterlife in the Old Testament, but there are certainly indications that lead up to this point.

Genesis 2 describes the first man and woman in the Garden of Eden. The Garden has in its midst two trees, one being the tree of life. The implication seems to be that as long as Adam and Eve are in the Garden they will enjoy life. However, they rebelled against God and were ejected from the Garden, no longer having access to the tree of life. As such, they eventually died. It was with their rebellion against God that death entered the world.

Nonetheless, they did not die immediately, and it was possible for Adam and Eve and their descendants to enjoy a relationship with God. Still, there is little explicit talk about life after death in most of the Old Testament. At best, existence was understood to continue in a shadowy locale called Sheol, which may simply be a reference to the grave. Sheol is not presented in a positive light, nor was fellowship with God thought to continue, as we see in the plea of Psalm 6:5: “No one remembers you [God] when he is dead. Who praises you from the grave?”

Other psalms, however, hint at some kind of continuing existence beyond the grave. Perhaps Psalm 16:9–11 is just talking about healing from a near fatal sickness, but the language is certainly suggestive:

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure,

because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

In a similar vein are Psalm 49:15 and 73:23–26:

But God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself.

Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Other provocative passages may speak of national resurrection, but they use language that provokes thoughts of individual resurrection:

Come, let us return to the LORD.

He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us;

he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.

After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. (Hos. 6:1–2)

Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’” (Ezek. 37:11–14)

Isaiah 26:19 is as close as we get to the teaching of Daniel 12:2–3 elsewhere in the Old Testament, and like the Hosea and Ezekiel passages just quoted, it too is probably primarily focused on national restoration:42

But your dead will live; their bodies will rise.

You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy.

Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.

Just how new the idea of the resurrection of the dead was to Daniel’s original audience is difficult for us to gauge. But we reject the idea that it is a completely foreign idea brought into the Bible via Persian or Hellenistic religious ideas. This is not to deny that perhaps interaction with these and other, earlier foreign ideas about the afterlife affected the formulation and expression of the idea in the Bible, but it is an idea that is also implicit from the very beginning of biblical religion. As we read the Bible as a whole, we see that the idea of an afterlife, like that of other important biblical ideas, has a seed form early, but is more fully developed as God continues to reveal himself to his people.

With that, we turn to a consideration of contemporary significance, where we will see that these ideas are developed even further and take on even greater clarity. Indeed, in many cases we will note that the New Testament authors actually appropriate the language of the book of Daniel in order to show the certainty of the fate of both the wicked and the godly.

Contemporary Significance

WE ARE NOW at the end of the book of Daniel, and we have heard the central theme of the book over and over again: In spite of the present evil situation, God is in control. In a word, God is sovereign. In order to avoid repetitiveness in the commentary, we have not fully developed the theme in each chapter, though the contents of each chapter would justify such a treatment. Rather, we raised the issue in the introduction and provided reminders throughout the commentary. However, now that we have reached the climax of the book and certainly the strongest expression of God’s sovereignty not only within the world but even over death, we are justified to spend some time again reflecting on the significance of that theme for our life today. For, you see, God is still sovereign today at the turn to the third millennium A.D., just as he was in the first millennium B.C.

God’s sovereignty. That God is sovereign is true in spite of the fact that when we open the morning’s newspaper or listen to the news on TV or the radio, we may have a different idea. My wife and I use a radio alarm, and we wake up every morning to a news station in our hometown of Philadelphia. Besides sports scores and weather, we hear the accounts of the latest scandals, wars, and local murders and other crimes. It is easy to be melodramatic and say that the streets of our cities are a war zone, but without resorting to hyperbole it is still obvious that social and moral chaos is evident all over the world. It is tempting to believe that when we step out into that world every morning, we are prey to incredible risk. Who knows whether, when we step out of our homes (or even before) in the morning, “our time is up” and we will find ourselves the victim of crime, disease, or accident?

The potential for harm is huge when we look at the statistics. Just last week two incidents illustrated this to me on a personal level. As I was driving my son back from school on a nice sunny day, we came to an intersection where our progress was blocked by police activity. As we sat there, a police officer pulled his gun as he walked in front of our car and set off in hot pursuit of a criminal. I did not stay around long enough to see if shots were fired, but the potential was there. In a second incident, a young university student downtown was not as fortunate. As he sat in his classroom painting a picture, a drive-by shooting occurred. Besides killing the intended victim, a stray shot went through the window of the classroom, seriously wounding the young student.

How easy it is to wander into the middle of a situation and end up dead or wounded. On one level, there is really nothing we can do to protect ourselves from these risks. We can work out, be incredibly well informed, be cautious, and still be struck down in some form. This was the conclusion of the Teacher (Eccl. 9:11–12):

The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong,

nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned;

but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come:

As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare,

so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.

This was the Teacher’s “under the sun” perspective. We are like fish caught in a net, prey to time and chance.43

In Daniel 11 we get an “above the sun” perspective on life. There we see God’s hand guiding the events of history. In the words of Daniel’s earlier prayer, “he sets up kings and deposes them” (2:21). The Persians fall to Alexander, and Alexander gives way to the Seleucids and the Ptolemies. God finally brings all this human pretension to an end, but even before this climactic moment we see his sovereignty at work in the affairs of human beings.

The good news is that God is no less in control today than he was in antiquity. To hear some modern Christian leaders talk, we might not believe this is the case. With a note of panic in their voice, they tell us that things have gotten out of control in the seat of our government. If we do not act immediately (often by sending in a check), our whole society will be turned over to the devil!

I am not prepared to defend the moral quality of our government, nor (as will become obvious below) do I want to argue to “let go and let God.” God does expect us to work for righteousness’ sake. What I object to is the shrill note, the panicky mood, the sense of loss of control. God is in control.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. (Rom. 8:28–30)

We see in the New Testament what we saw in the Old in the case of Joseph, Samson, Daniel, and the holy war tradition. While it looks as if life is going to hell, God is working behind the scenes to bring about good, often more than good—he accomplishes his people’s rescue, their salvation.

Think of the death of Jesus Christ in the light of Peter’s sermon recorded in Acts 2:22–24:

Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.

God was in control even as the soldiers were nailing his hands and feet to the cross. The soldiers were nonetheless responsible—they were “wicked"—even though their actions fit into the overarching plan of God.

How does this have contemporary significance for us? In many ways. First of all, it is this act that provides our salvation. It is the death of Jesus that substitutes for our death, and his resurrection that anticipates our own (see below).

But it is also relevant because it provides the theological background to the Romans 8:28–30 passage cited above. God works out everything, including acts of harm against us, for our good. As we continue reading that passage, we see the effect this truth should have on us today (8:31–39):

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God is in control in spite of present circumstances. In sixth-century Babylon it looked to the godly as if Babylon and then Persia were in control. But they weren’t. In second-century Palestine it looked as if Antiochus Epiphanes was in control, but he wasn’t. In the first century of Jesus and Paul, it looked as if Rome was in control, but it wasn’t. To Christians living two thousand years after Jesus, it may look as if Satan is in control, but he isn’t. God is in control, and because of that we can have boundless joy and optimism in the midst of our struggles.

And we do have struggles. Those struggles may be political or cultural. They may be emotional or psychological. They may be relational. But whatever the struggle, whatever the oppression, God is in control, and in spite of present appearances he will bring victory over evil and honor to those who remain faithful to him. The book of Daniel is a call to all God’s people to remain steadfast in their love and obedience to him in spite of present turmoil.

Objections to God’s sovereignty. What a wonderful message! Why do so many today recoil from it? One reason may be that deep inside of ourselves we would prefer to think of ourselves as free, even if our freedom meant despair. To many control implies servitude and dependency, and the spirit of our age desires autonomy, even at a cost.

Two worldviews are prevalent in secular culture today, modernism and postmodernism,44 the latter presently in the process of displacing the former. Both have at their heart an impulse toward autonomy and a desire to avoid ultimate dependency on a higher power.

The spirit of modernism was captured by the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement originating from the Renaissance and perhaps best exemplified by its starting point, the philosopher Descartes (1596–1650), who proclaimed as the foundation to his theory of knowledge cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”). Existence has its foundation not in God, but in the autonomous self. Indeed, the Enlightenment may be understood as a reaction against the dogmatism of the medieval church. Modern men and women do not accept anything because of tradition or because of authority, especially church authority, but because reason proves it. Science may perhaps be possible only because of a Christian worldview, but the scientific method is often wielded in a spirit of autonomous reason. Modernism and science are an extremely optimistic approach to life, in their faith in the human mind to improve the world and to discover their world.

But that optimism has been seriously eroded since the late nineteenth century by a spirit of suspicion that detects beneath an indefatigable confidence in reason as the avenue to truth, a manipulative will-to-power and self-interest. Postmodernism casts doubt on human ability to come into direct contact with reality as well as on our pretensions to determine meaning. The modern chapter of such skepticism begins with nineteenth-century philosophers Feuerbach and Nietzsche. Their primary struggle was still against the dogmatism of Christian theology, but they also undermined any hope that one can approach reality in an unprejudiced manner and achieve truth. In perhaps one of his most famous sayings, Nietzsche wrote in his Notebooks (1873): “What is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymns and anthropomorphisms.”45 As A. C. Thiselton goes on to comment and further quote Nietzsche:

Especially in religion, Nietzsche urges, people use “errors” for their own advantage, self-interest or power. Some promote erroneous “lies” merely from sheer personal need. In this sense, Nietzsche exclaims: “Truth is that kind of error without which a certain species of living cannot exist. The value of Life is ultimately decisive.” Nietzsche goes further. He includes even “facts” here. He writes: "All that exists consists of interpretations.” “Truths are illusions we have forgotten are illusions.”46

While Nietzsche’s comments here are directed specifically toward the global truth statements of theology and philosophy, they are equally relevant toward the modern spirit of science. Increasingly, scientists recognize that what they provide are not absolutely true statements about reality, but models and metaphors that explain phenomena.

It is Nietzsche’s skepticism that dominates philosophy departments today in the form of postmodernism or deconstruction. A leading motif of this thought is, in the language of Nietzsche, the death of God, and in the language of Jacques Derrida, his most famous modern disciple, the denial of the Absolute Signifier. In its place stand autonomous men and women. Nietzsche hated what he called the “slave morality” of Christianity: Christians believe in an all-controlling God before whom human beings should submit even in the light of their suffering; he felt that this picture, a picture of life that we get in Daniel 11, was despicable and diminished humanity. It kept human beings in their place. Just like the caste system in India, which has served to keep the upper classes as the oppressors and the untouchables and other lower classes as the menial servants, so Christianity and biblical religion have kept humans docile in their suffering and pain.

These perspectives of postmodernism have been exacerbated by the hope for the afterlife. What better way to keep servile people down in this life than to tell them that there is a better life coming as long as they are obedient in the present? Of course, this fueled much of the criticism of Karl Marx, an older contemporary of Nietzsche, who felt that biblical religion was an “opiate” of the people. In a more popular vein, this jaundiced attitude is expressed by the commonly heard sarcastic remark directed toward Christianity, which they see as promoting a “pie in the sky by-and-by,” and the jibe that Christians are so “heavenly-minded that they are no earthly good.”

Descartes, Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Marx, and Derrida are just notable representatives of the thinkers who represent the currents of the worldviews known as modernism and postmodernism. How convenient it would be to say that they are just an elite with which we need have little to do. However, whether they merely express the spirit of an age or influence an age—or a combination of the two—the important point is that they articulate what drives many men and women living today. It is really unimportant how the dynamic works. It could be that these thinkers influence modern university teachers and other leaders, who then influence journalists, screen writers, musicians, ministers, and others, who in turn mediate these ideas to the mass populace. Or perhaps the thinkers are expressing their own experiences and wisdom based on their experiences along with everyone else.

Indeed, one guess why postmodernism with its denial of even the possibility of absolute truth has so captured the modern imagination is because we no longer live in an isolated society. A century ago it was much easier for a nonmobile population with unsophisticated means of communication to live in the blissful illusion that their way of life was the best one. Now we have air travel, radios, television, movies, the Internet. In America and many other places in the world we have a mixing of ethnic groups with their different beliefs and worldviews on an unprecedented scale. And in a secular democracy like ours it is wrong simply to privilege one of those worldviews above the others. Post-modernism’s lack of confidence in the truth, stemming from a denial of deity, may represent a hesitation in the light of a global community.

At its heart, however, is a revulsion of the kind of claim that Daniel 11–12 makes about a sovereign God. In the interests of an autonomous self, God must be rejected. In the summer of 1998 one of the most popular movies was called The Truman Show, starring Jim Carey. On one level, this movie was an ironic critique of our media-saturated culture, but it actually went much deeper and illustrated the fact that the philosopher’s message is in accord with the thinking of the wider population. The main character in the movie was Truman. Without his knowledge, he was born and lived his entire life in a huge television studio. For over thirty years, he did not know that everyone he came into contact with—his father, mother, wife, friends, and even the people walking their dogs down his street—were paid actors, nor did he know that he was the subject of a television show that played twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There were five thousand cameras in the studio, in the buttons of the actors, in street lights, in his desk at work. The weather and even the rising sun were controlled by computers. He was the center of a huge soap opera, and what caught the attention of the audience was the fact that he did not know it.

Finally, through a series of miscues, he began to realize the “truth,” that he was living an illusion. His life was controlled not by his decisions, but by a director, Christophe. Once he discovered that his life was scripted, he wanted nothing more than to escape. Even though his life was good and there were uncertainties and dangers on the outside, he wanted to gain his independence and throw off the shackles of the director. His fight to achieve that independence and escape the “set” brought the dramatic tension to the story.

At the very end, when Truman had won all our affection and we all desired his escape from this benevolent control, the deeper theological intentions of the movie came out. The director, speaking from his control tower, which was in the manufactured sky (heavens) of the set, spoke with a microphone to the exhausted Truman, who had just battled his way to the edge of the set, appealing to him to stay under his control. But in an assertion of modern/postmodern autonomy and to the approval of all of us in the audience, he rejected this control and left the set.

Even though we all can applaud Truman’s rejection of a human authority that was ultimately self-interested and manipulative, the movie intended for us also to desire complete autonomy even from God. The implicit message of the movie and the explicit urgings of philosophers like Nietzsche is that God’s control diminishes, not enhances, our humanity.

Here is where the critique is wrong. It is wrong because the sovereignty of God does not make us puppets on a string (see Bridging Contexts section). It does not render our actions meaningless, as they did Truman’s. They are a word of comfort and hope in the midst of despair and pain. Daniel 11–12 reminds us that it is not divine sovereignty that leads to oppression, but rather human autonomy. It is the king who “will do as he pleases,” who “will exalt and magnify himself above every god and say unheard-of things against the God of gods” (11:36), whom we have to fear and not God.

Even so, we as Christians must be sensitive and careful. Why was there such a strong reaction against Christianity? Why did the Enlightenment throw off the shackles of church dogma? Why did Nietzsche feel that Christianity diminished humanity, when the Bible tells us the opposite? Why do people today recoil at evangelicals in the public square? Oh, how easy it is to ascribe this only to the perversity of autonomous people. But we must be honest and acknowledge that the truth has been used to manipulate, condemn, repress, restrict, and oppress others in illegitimate ways. And we do not have to go back to theological arguments of the past that led to Jewish pogroms, to people who tried to resist civil rights, or to the support of apartheid in the name of the faith. Christianity is being used in the present to promote nonbiblical models of the family, the relationship of the sexes, destructive attitudes toward people of “alternative lifestyles,” and so forth.

We are so worried that our country or society will end up in social or moral chaos that the church sometimes speaks with a panicky voice and tries to impose a coercive lifestyle on those with whom we differ. We need to remind ourselves that God is in control. We can certainly voice our differences and disapproval, but we must do so with love in our voice and with open arms to embrace the other person. We can do this, even though it involves tremendous risk, because God is in control. The risk is that our society might, in one sense, go to hell and be a dangerous place to live, but in another sense, there is no risk because God is in control and there is more to life than the present.

Again, God’s sovereignty and ultimate control is good, not evil like the director in the movie The Truman Show. Postmodern society shows the effects of postmodern philosophy. The tenor of the former is captured by Proverbs 29:18: “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is happy” (NLT). We should rejoice in God’s sovereignty, for not only is it still true that God is in control, but it is clearer to us than to Daniel’s contemporaries that there is something beyond this life. It is to that subject that we will turn in closing.

The ultimate resolution. We do not need to argue a lot to convince people that life is essentially unfair. True, the wicked sometimes end up having their schemes blow up in their faces. Certainly there are some good, godly people who get the praise they deserve. But for the most part that is not the case. The wicked sometimes flourish and the godly often suffer. If this life were everything, it would be true to say that it is unfair, and, if one believes in God, it would be fair to say that God is unfair. The problem of retribution is a huge one in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. We need only think of the books of Job and Ecclesiastes to remember how the Old Testament saints struggled with this issue.

Daniel 12, however, makes it clear that the wicked will ultimately get what they deserve—destruction and shame—while the godly will get what they deserve—honor and life. These themes are much more fully developed in the New Testament and are the basis of Christian hope in the midst of a difficult present.

In the Gospels we see Jesus Christ, God himself, subjecting himself to the suffering of the world, even enduring death. But Christ did not just die; he rose again. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul develops the idea that Christ’s death and resurrection formed a pattern we will follow. Christ suffered so that we might have hope for the future.

Death has been swallowed up in victory.

“Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Cor. 15:55)

Death is not the end of the story, according to the New Testament.

The themes of Daniel are developed nowhere more fully than in the book of Revelation. It has long been noted that Daniel informs much of the thinking and imagery of that book. It is therefore not surprising that it is here that we learn most fully about the end of history and the ultimate destiny of humanity and of each and every individual.

One link may be seen in the description of the glorified Christ that stands toward the beginning of the book. Note how it reminds us of the figure dressed in linen in Daniel’s final vision (Rev. 1:12–16):

I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone “like the son of man,” dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze flowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

Other descriptions of Christ in the book of Revelation also reflect not only Daniel 10–12, but also Daniel 7 and the figure of the “one like a son of man.”

In Revelation we learn more about the final war with Michael at the head of the angelic warriors (Rev. 12:7). After all, the seals are being opened (5:1–4). Even some of the time sequences seem closely related to the time indicators of the book of Daniel (13:5).

Revelation gives us the picture of the end, when God’s victory in Christ is secure. The victory was won on the cross, but we await the Second Coming for its ultimate resolution. When that occurs, the final judgment will take place. Everyone will rise from the dead—some to eternal shame (Rev. 20:11–15) and some to the glories of the New Jerusalem (chs. 21–22).

This is the hope with which the book of Daniel ends and which, developed further, the Bible as a whole concludes; it is a future, an eschatological hope. How is this not “pie in the sky by-and-by"? Well, in one sense it is. We have allowed the ridicule of the world to diminish our eschatological hope, and we should not because the Bible does give us hope based on future realities. But this hope is not tenuous, based on wish fulfillment; it is based on faith: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Heb. 11:1). In other words, it is based on past realities as we have already seen in 1 Corinthians 15, the death and resurrection of Christ.

Our faith in the past event of the cross gives us a certain hope for our future, which in turn gives us confidence in the midst of a troubled present. Though we suffer now, we also can live life to its fullest. In spite of difficulty, we know that something better is coming in the future and so we can enjoy the present. The message of the books of Daniel and Revelation is not to just wait for the future; rather, in the angelic words to Daniel, it is to “go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance” (Dan. 12:13).

1. Cf. A. K. Grayson, Babylonian Historical-Literary Texts (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1975). For the fullest discussion of this text (and other similar Akkadian texts) and its connections to Daniel, see T. Longman III, Fictional Akkadian Autobiography (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1991), 131–95.

2. See Goldingay, Daniel, 282–86, who uses the term quasi-prophecy to describe this literary phenomenon.

3. Ibid., 310–12.

4. Goldingay strengthens his argument with an appeal to the work of S. Niditch, “The Visionary,” in Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism, ed. by J. J. Collins and G. W. Nickelsburg (Chicago: Scholars, 1980), 153–79, who asserts, on the basis of comparative anthropological evidence, that the author of the book of Daniel actually had an experience through which he identified with that historical character.

5. Especially vol. 7, part 1, The Hellenistic World, ed. F. W. Walbank; A. E. Astin, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1984).

6. There were thirteen rulers (a few of which, like Smerdis [522], Xerxes III [424], Sogianos [424–423], ruled only a very short time) of Persia in all; cf. E. M. Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990) for a helpful survey of the period.

7. Miller, Daniel, 291

8. See S. Mandell and J. Hayes, A History of the Jews From the Hellenistic Through the Early Roman Eras (333 BCE–135 CE) (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox, 1998), 30.

9. See S. R. Driver, The Book of Daniel (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1900), 170, and J. S. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Daniel (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1927), 437, plus discussion in Collins, Daniel, 379.

10. H. Heinen, “The Syrian-Egyptian Wars and the New Kingdoms of Asia Minor,” The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 7, part 1, 436–39.

11. Collins, Daniel, 380.

12. Ibid., 382.

13. Miller, Daniel, 298–99, following Calvin.

14. So Goldingay, Daniel, 299–300.

15. See Mandell and Hayes, A History of the Jews, 51–54.

16. Ibid., 58.

17. Ibid., 65, though Mandell and Hayes think this may be an “ideological fiction,” since it was not mentioned in 2 Maccabees.

18. R. J. Clifford, “History and Myth in Daniel 10–12,” BASOR 220 (1975): 23–26.

19. Most notably, Goldingay, Daniel; D. G. Meade, Pseudonymity and Canon (Tübingen: J. C. Mohr, 1986).

20. See here T. Longman III, Fictional Akkadian Autobiography.

21. Baldwin, Daniel, 198–201.

22. A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979).

23. This word is used for the first time in the letters of John (see 1 John 2:18).

24. See also Ezek. 28:1–19. This arrogance is anticipated in the horn that speaks arrogant words against God (Dan. 7:8, 11, 25; 8:9–12).

25. J. Lindenberger, “Daniel 12:1–4,” Interp 39 (1985): 182.

26. G. W. E. Nickelsburg Jr., Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1972), 11.

27. Towner, Daniel, 166. This view is widely held, though Goldingay (Daniel, 308) doubts it, asserting that it has a “this-worldly connotation.”

28. Miller, Daniel, 320.

29. Collins, Daniel, 399.

30. Baldwin, Daniel, 208, adds the intriguing observation that it would be historically incorrect to say that Antiochus broke the power of the people of God (v. 7). This suggests to her that something more than the second century B.C. is hinted at here.

31. Other scholars, who adopt a second-century B.C. date for this section of Daniel, suggest that the reference is exclusively to the period of Antiochus and that we are dealing with failed prophetic expectation. They point out that since the Maccabees actually cleansed the temple within three years, even the shorter three-and-a-half-year date, meant that the “Danielic” party had something else in mind for fulfillment, perhaps the resurrection of the martyrs. When that did not happen after three and a half years, they suggested 1290 days. Then when that failed to be the period for fulfillment, they tacked on a few more days to get the 1335 days. This is ingenious given their presupposition and the fact that this is often how modern apocalyptic speculation works; but how likely is it that a written text would be updated in such a short time? Mention should also be made of the fact that there were a number of different calendars in use during the second century B.C.—a solar calendar, a lunar calendar and a luni-solar calendar (for details, see Goldingay, Daniel, 309–10). Such an observation does not clarify things as much as complicates them, that is, makes the references even more enigmatic to us and most likely to the original audience.

32. Goldingay, Daniel, 314–16.

33. Towner, Daniel, 175.

34. For Ecclesiastes, see T. Longman III, The Book of Ecclesiastes (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).

35. See the treatment of this psalm on pp. 124–26.

36. Cf. T. Longman III and D. Reid, God Is a Warrior; see discussion above on pp. 254–56.

37. Towner, Daniel, 148.

38. Goldingay, Daniel, 316.

39. Ibid., 319.

40. See R. van Leeuwen, “Wealth and Poverty: System and Contradiction in Proverbs,” Hebrew Studies 33 (1992): 25–36, who isolates a small number of proverbs in the book that recognize the complicated nature of retribution.

41. For how this passage and the overall teaching of the Teacher fits into the book of Ecclesiastes and the theology of the canon, please see the introduction in Longman, Ecclesiastes.

42. As Collins argues in his helpful excursus “On Resurrection,” Daniel, 394–98.

43. For an interpretation of this passage and for an explanation how such a bleak view fits into the message of the Bible as a whole, see Longman, Ecclesiastes, in loc.

44. J. Wilson, Gospel Virtues (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1998) provides an excellent description of these two worldviews.

45. F. Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lie in the Extra-Moral Sense,” in Walter Kaufmann, ed., The Portable Nietzsche (New York: Viking, 1968), 46.

46. A. C. Thiselton, Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 5.

Original Meaning

Persia and Greece (11:2–4)

IT MAY SEEM odd that the angel begins by asserting that what he says is true. Would Daniel have expected anything else? Of course not, but the statement reminds us that we are to imagine Daniel in the sixth century hearing detailed events that cover the next few centuries. As we look back with our Cambridge Ancient History5 or its equivalent, we do not need much convincing. In our commentary we will supply names and specific events for the prophecies as they move from the time of Daniel to the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The specific events are so well documented that we will not footnote the connections we make between the prophecies and the actual events. Such may be found in any reputable history of the period.

The angel begins with the assertion that three more kings will appear in Persia, and then a fourth. Now, unless we are willing to admit that Daniel knew the history of the Seleucid period perfectly but the Persian period inadequately, we must not understand this statement to mean that only four Persian kings ruled after the first, namely, Cyrus.6 Conceivably, the four kings include Cyrus and refer to the only four Persian kings mentioned in the Bible (Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes, cf. Ezra 4:5–7), but this is doubtful. After all, the reference suggests four kings besides Cyrus.

We are not certain either who the fourth king is, the one who “will be far richer than all the others” (v. 2). He is also characterized as the one who will “stir up everyone against the kingdom of Greece.” Our first thought, and perhaps the best guess, is Xerxes I (486–465 B.C.). This Persian was a great and powerful king, and it is arguable that he set off the chain of events that over a century later led to the downfall of Persia at the hands of the Greeks, for he chose to invade areas controlled by Greeks. He failed at this attempt, being defeated at Salamis in 480 B.C., but his actions led to a Greek-Persian conflict that ended with Alexander.

The other candidate for the fourth Persian king is the last Persian emperor, Darius III (336–330 B.C.), who was the one who fell to Alexander. He was not the richest, but he was the one to fall. Miller puts forward an attractive hypothesis, though again not provable because it does not take us even close to the fall of Persia, that the three kings are those that follow Cyrus in succession (Cambyses, Smerdis, and Darius I Hystaspes) and that the fourth is Xerxes I.7 To be frank, however, we cannot be sure how to construe the mind of the author at this stage.

This verse is one of the few ambiguities in the chapter. We know with certainty the identity of the “mighty king” of verse 3—none other than Alexander, whom we call “the Great.” But as soon as he came on the scene, he disappeared from it. Alexander was king of Macedon, succeeding his father Philip, in 336 B.C., and by 330 he had conquered Persia. He continued his conquests and reached the Indus, but died in 323, leaving his mentally challenged half brother Philip III and his son Alexander IV in charge. These two were under the guidance of Perdiccas. All three were eventually murdered: Perdiccas in 321, Philip III in 317, and Alexander IV in 311. Power passed into the hands of Alexander’s four leading generals—thus the reference in verse 4 to the “four winds of heaven.”

Since Daniel is concerned with the people of God, focus immediately shifts to two of the Diadochoi (or “Successors,” as the four were known), those who had their power base in Syria (the kings of the north) and those who had their power base in Egypt (the kings of the south). In the north, the rulers eventually became known as the Seleucid dynasty, and in the south ruled the Ptolemies. Judah was right in the middle, and the story of the third and second centuries B.C. is an account of how Judah passed back and forth between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids.

Bridging Contexts

DANIEL 11–12 PRESENTS the visionary message of the supernatural creatures who fought their way to Daniel in chapter 10. The concluding unit (12:5–13) finds Daniel and his celestial companions in the same place as in chapter 10 and brings this final unit to completion. As we have observed above, the visionary message looks with remarkable clarity into the near and far future. Names are not used, but from our position of historical retrospect, we can provide them along with a description of many of the events of the fourth to second century B.C. We recognize the events alluded to in chapter 11 through other sources like Polybius, Josephus, and 1 and 2 Maccabees.

This narrative is presented from the vantage point of the sixth century B.C. Even if Goldingay and other scholars are correct that the prophecy was actually composed in the second century B.C.,32 the book intends us to understand it to come from the sixth century. In either case, the book of Daniel makes a strong statement about the sovereignty of God over the historical process. If we have been reading straight through the book of Daniel, this will hardly surprise us. Every passage that we have studied has contributed to the overarching theme of the book: In spite of present circumstances, God is in control and will win the day.

Perhaps in no chapter is God’s control displayed in such detail as in chapter 11. Indeed, for those of us living at a later time, it raises the issue of the meaning of history. If God is in such control, how can our decisions hold any meaning? Can I be held responsible for my actions if I am a mere puppet on a string held by an all-powerful being? Towner believes that the answer to the last question is no. In his often insightful commentary, he states that Daniel’s theology of history means that it is “essentially meaningless…. History’s only point then becomes simply to demonstrate that God’s eternal decree is certain to come to pass.”33

Before exploring this issue of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, it is important to remind ourselves of the six major themes of the second half of the book, because most of them play an important role in this climactic prophetic vision. The six are:

the horror of human evil, particularly as it is concentrated in the state
the announcement of a specific time of deliverance
repentance that leads to deliverance
the revelation that a cosmic war stands behind human conflict
judgment as certain for those who resist God and oppress his people
the equally certain truth that God’s people, downtrodden in the present, will experience new life in the fullest sense.