Original Meaning

Horror by the Sea (7:1–8)

THE COURT NARRATIVES ended in the Persian period during the time of Darius the Mede. Chapter 7 scrolls back to the time of Belshazzar, certainly before the event of chapter 5 (which records the last day of Belshazzar’s reign and life). The chronological notice in 7:1 indicates that the vision came to Daniel during Belshazzar’s first year. Miller suggests that this king’s coregency began in 553 b.c.,3 while Goldingay argues for 550/549 b.c.4 While nothing crucial is at stake here, Goldingay points out the provocative significance of 550/549 b.c., for that was the year that Cyrus the Persian defeated Astyages, his Median overlord. In other words, the process that ultimately led to the demise of Babylonia as the center of human power had begun, and as we will see, one of the main lessons of this chapter is that, although oppressive human power seems unconquerable particularly to the vanquished, human power is in reality temporal. One evil power succeeds another in a cycle of oppression, which will be broken by only divine intervention.

Daniel’s vision comes about by means of a dream, and with this note we get an indication of another difference between the closely related genres of prophecy and apocalyptic. Indeed, prophecy and apocalyptic are cousins of one another; they share many similarities, most notably that both at times concern the future. Besides some of the characteristics (content and nature of the message) noted in the section “The Nature of Apocalyptic Literature,” apocalyptic is slightly different in terms of the mode of revelation. Whereas the classic prophetic mode of communication is direct from God to the seer, apocalyptic literature reports a more indirect mode of communication.

When God spoke to a prophet like Jeremiah, he spoke directly to him and then told him to speak his message to the people of Judah. When the people responded, the prophet then went back to God for further instructions (Jer. 12). The prophet is God’s spokesperson; he brings God’s word to the people. A different dynamic is at work in apocalyptic. God speaks to Daniel through a dream (as in Dan. 7) or through a mediator—usually an angel (e.g., Dan. 12:5–13). He is not commissioned to speak to the people but rather to write it down. Significantly, in Daniel 12 the prophet is not commanded to publish his literary revelation broadly, but rather to “close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end” (12:4). The implications of this will be spelled out later in the commentary.

Daniel’s report of the vision begins with the setting. He is on the coast of the sea, where the winds are whipping the waves into a frenzy. That Daniel is not giving a scientific description is immediately apparent since he attributes the wildness of the sea to the “four winds of heaven” (v. 2). They are all blowing at once. We are not to simply imagine huge waves crashing into the shore, but rather turbulent, chaotic waters moving in all directions.

On a simple psychological level, this forebodes danger. But reading this description with a broader literary background reveals that even more is at stake here. By the time of Daniel, the sea was already a potent symbol of chaos, indeed of destructive evil.5 Here and elsewhere in the second half of Daniel the imagery of the visions may be associated with the mythology of the broader Near East. We may illustrate this with reference to the great creation myths of the Babylonians and the Canaanites.

Let me preface my remarks by pointing out that Daniel’s (ultimately God’s) use of these images does not mean that the Bible buys into the creation myths themselves. The best understanding of this imagery is that the biblical author evokes well-known mythological motifs to evoke a mood and communicate a message. In the end, as we will observe after we paint the full picture, we will see that, far from mindlessly borrowing this language, the Bible undermines the false religion of its idolatrous neighbors through the use of their imagery.

The most well-known creation story6 of the Babylonians is the Enuma Elish. This tale begins with an account of the creation of the gods. At the beginning stands primordial Tiamat with her consort Apsu. Both of these deities represent different aspects of the waters. Indeed, Tiamat’s name, when translated from the Akkadian, means “the Sea.” She is the mother of the next generation of deities, including Enlil and Ea. The generation after Enlil and Ea includes Marduk. The story told in Enuma Elish is about how Marduk becomes the head of the pantheon.

The plot gets underway when Apsu, the father, grows angry with his noisy divine children and purposes to get rid of them. Tiamat, the mother, protests, but does not thwart Apsu’s intention. However, Ea, the god of wisdom, catches wind of his intentions and succeeds in doing away with Apsu. Far from solving the problem, however, Tiamat is now enraged and turns her more potent forces against her children. Ea and the other gods stand powerless before her. Marduk comes to the rescue and agrees to fight Tiamat, the Sea, with the proviso that if he succeeds, he will be recognized as chief among the gods.

This is not the place to justify what to us in the twentieth century seems a silly theology. The point is that the myth in all seriousness now relates the creation of the world in the light of the struggle between the Creator and the Sea. The fight is between Marduk, the one who brings order in the world, and Tiamat, the one who by her very nature as water desires to abolish order and boundaries.

The story is dramatically told,7 but I will relate just its conclusion. Marduk destroys Tiamat, the Sea, and from her body creates the universe as we know it (including humankind). Nonetheless, somehow the sea continues to threaten to abolish the creation, so that Marduk must set up boundaries and guards to keep the world from reverting to its former formless state. In other words, the sea is a force ranged against God and creation in Mesopotamian theology.

The Canaanites have a similar story to tell,8 but in place of Marduk and Tiamat stand their gods Baal and Yam (whose name also means “the Sea”).9Yam attempts to take over the leadership of the gods and wants to put Baal in custody. Baal will have nothing to do with it and resists Yam. To make a long story short, he defeats Sea and becomes the head of the pantheon.10

Again, we should not get lost in the details of these stories. The point is that deep in the psyche of the people of the ancient Near East the sea was more than a dangerous place. It was a threatening force that was ranged against the beneficial forces of creation.

Daniel was not the first one to use sea imagery in this way. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, Yahweh’s struggle and victory over evil is recounted as a fight against the sea and its monsters. God blasts the sea with his rebuke (Ps. 18:15); he sets a guard over the sea (Job 7:12; Jer. 5:22); he causes the sea to dry up (Nah. 1:4); he treads on the sea (Hab. 3:15); and he fights the sea monsters (Isa. 27:1).11

The bottom line of this lengthy but important discussion is that the description of the sea at the beginning of Daniel’s vision evokes horror and an anticipation of evil. The following verses do not disappoint this expectation.

The scene is thus set. It already evokes horror, but the story is just beginning. Out of the chaotic sea arises four great beasts, one after the other. Before commenting on the beasts individually, I need to make several general observations. (1) The beasts (with the exception of the second) are like none to be found in God’s creation. That is the point—they are symbols of forces ranged against God and his creation order. These beasts are bizarre; they are mutants, perversions of what God intended by his creation. As such, they evoke not only horror in the original reader, but also revulsion.

Two lines of evidence indicate to us the Israelite reader’s strong reaction to the mixed character of these beasts. (a) The first is the creation story. Here God made the various components of his creation “according to their … kinds” (l^emino: Gen. 1:11–12, 21, 24, 25); the different parts of creation were created to be unique and separate. (b) The Israelite concern with separation of species was embedded in their laws, which indicated that the original creation order was to be preserved through history. A series of laws in Deuteronomy 22:9–11 is a case in point. “Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled. Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together. Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.” Thus, the four beasts that arise from the chaotic sea are images of grotesque horror to the original Israelite readers.

(2) We cannot be certain where the specific imagery of the beasts originates. There have been many suggestions. For instance, attention has been drawn to the hybrid beasts of Mesopotamian art.12 P. A. Porter has read the description of the beasts of Daniel 7 in the light of the description of anomalous births in Babylonian divination texts13 and argued that the symbolism derives from those texts.14 Perhaps the imagery does derive from one or more of these sources; we cannot be sure. In any case, even without the knowledge of the origin of the imagery, the horrific impact of the beasts does not escape us.

(3) An obvious similarity exists between the four-kingdom scheme in the present chapter and the four-kingdom scheme of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision in chapter 2. In that chapter we described the conflict between those (mostly conservative) commentators who identified the four successive kingdoms as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome,15 and those who argued for the pattern Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece.16 The same debate rages in the interpretation of Daniel 7 as well.

In my opinion there are strengths and weaknesses with both approaches.17Perhaps the greatest problem is that chapter 7 goes on to describe the climax of the vision as the complete destruction of human evil power at the hands of the “one like a son of man” (v. 13) and “the saints of the Most High” (v. 18). Even today, more than two and a half millennia after Daniel, we still look to the future for this to happen (see Contemporary Significance section). Ancient Greece is no more; ancient Rome is no more. And contrary to some special pleading on the part of contemporary sensationalist interpretation, there are no modern descendants of the Roman empire today.18 We will argue that, though the vision begins with the Babylonian empire, its multivalent imagery intends to prohibit definite historical identifications with the remaining three beasts. Rather, the fourfold pattern simply informs us that evil kingdoms will succeed one another (at least seemingly) until the end of time. The people of God must recognize that this is God’s plan and prepare for persecution.

(4) These beasts represent “four kingdoms that will rise from the earth” (v. 17), and this from no less an authority than the interpreting angel of the second half of this chapter. We import this divinely imparted insight into our present discussion for economy of discussion, for here we will comment on the meaning and significance of the first three beasts. We will reserve our comments about the fourth beast primarily for the last section of this chapter, since that is where the interpreting angel focuses our attention in verses 15–28.

The beasts come out of the chaotic sea one after the other. The first is described as “like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a man, and the heart of a man was given to it” (v. 4). As with the statue in chapter 2, we begin in the present. There the head of gold was explicitly identified as Nebuchadnezzar (i.e., the Babylonian empire). Here, in the waning years of that same empire, the most natural interpretation of the symbolism is that it stands for Babylonia. Perhaps the clearest key to this identification is the fact that the hybrid animal becomes human-like, reminiscent of Nebuchadnezzar’s own experience as recorded in chapter 4.

The lion and the eagle are both proud animals; they are both animals of prey. They strike fear in the hearts of the other animals, who are their food. Because of these characteristics, many great empires choose one or both animals as their national symbol. There is nothing in particular that relates them to Babylonia.

The same may be said for the second beast that rises out of the sea, the bear. For whatever reason this beast is not a hybrid but it still is a ferocious animal of prey. Indeed, the picture drawn of this particular bear has it gnawing three ribs while it is raised up on one of its sides. Its voracious appetite is encouraged by a voice that cries out, “Get up and eat your fill of flesh!”

It is with this second beast that the classic debate begins. Is the bear MedoPersia or Media? Historically, we know Persia became a great empire by first acquiring the formerly dominant Medes into its empire. True, it was Cyrus the Persian whose forces defeated the Babylonians in 539 B.C., but it was through the agency (according to the book of Daniel) of Darius the Mede.

The imagery can be pressed to argue either position. The Medo-Persian identification argues that Media never existed as an independent world empire and that the three ribs can be identified with the three great victories of the Medo-Persian alliance: Lydia, Babylon, and Egypt. Gurney, an evangelical who argues for an identification with Media alone, cites Jeremiah 51:27–29, which lists Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz as Media’s three allies as they go against Babylon.19 Walton clarifies this passage by stating that the three “represent respectively Urartu, which was subdued by the Medes in 605 B.C.; Mannaea, an ally of Assyria in its final days, which fell to the Medes shortly after the collapse of Assyria; and the Scythians, who were repulsed by the Medes, probably in the reign of Cyaxares II.”20 Thus, we already find ourselves on slippery ground when it comes to specific and concrete historical identifications of the imagery of the four beasts. It is my argument that this is an intentional effect of the imagery of the vision. The purpose is not so much writing history in advance as making a theological statement about the conflict between human evil and God.

The intentional ambiguity continues with the third beast. The beast looks like a leopard, but it has four wings and four heads. As we look for the point of the imagery, we are drawn immediately to the characteristic of speed. Leopards are fast cats, and with the addition of wings, we are to imagine blazing speed. Is the significance of this imagery the blazing speed of the Persian army and are the four heads to be associated with four kings of Persia,21 or does it point to Alexander’s Blitzkrieg through the Orient and the four generals who divided his vast empire after his early death?

The fourth kingdom is the most enigmatic of all. “It was different from all the former beasts” (v. 7). It appears to be only vaguely animal-like. Later, its description will be expanded to having “iron teeth and bronze claws” (v. 19). Someone like myself who enjoys science fiction is tempted to label this fourth “Robo-beast.” But of course, it is not a robot. The metallic composition of its weapons (teeth and claws) simply highlights its destructive power and ruthlessness. There is little concrete description here by which we may argue for a specific identification, so the classic approaches to this text have recourse to simple historical sequence. If one has already identified the first three as Babylon, Media, and Persia, then the fourth must be Greek. If, on the other hand, one has combined Media and Persia and identified the third as Greece, then the fourth kingdom must be Roman. We will return to this question and the function of the horns in the last section of this chapter.

Bridging Contexts

We HAVE MOVED from historical narration, stories rooted in real events, to apocalyptic visions. In the first half of the book, we have dealt with stories about the past and their relevance for our present at the end of the twentieth century. In the second half of the book, beginning with the present chapter, the question concerns the relevance of Daniel’s visions of the future for us many centuries later.

Apocalyptic frenzy is rearing its head once again, according to “Dark Prophecies,” a recent US News and World Report article.31 In the magazine’s poll of Americans, 66 percent, including a third of those who say they never attend church, admit that they believe Jesus Christ will return to earth some day. Unfortunately, interest in apocalyptic literature does not necessarily add up to competence in interpretation.

I have already stated that Daniel, living in the sixth century B.C., saw things beyond even his immediate future. Indeed, most would agree that Daniel’s vision here and in the following chapter culminates at the climax of history, when God will come and rid the world of its evil oppressors and set up his own eternal kingdom. When stated in this way, we begin to see the continuing relevance of the apocalyptic chapters of the book of Daniel. We still live in, as Paul puts it, a “present evil age” (Gal. 1:4), from which we look to God for deliverance. In the next section, we will describe this age a little more closely as well as God’s further revelation concerning our deliverance, but for now we need to pause and explore the principles for applying the lessons of ancient apocalyptic to our modern age and also bring to the fore the dominant themes of this particular chapter.

Principles for applying ancient apocalyptic. (1) The first principle for applying ancient apocalyptic is this: “Be reserved.” That is, we must exercise caution in our interpretation of these highly metaphoric visions. This caution is particularly relevant on the eve of the end of the second millennium A.D. At different times and in different places, the church has found its attention riveted on the apocalyptic texts of the Bible. Don’t misunderstand, the pictures of the end that apocalyptic gives us are always relevant to the church, but occasionally God’s people become obsessed with them.

Typically, these times are times of persecution or great distress for the church or society. It is not surprising that perhaps one of the best-selling books of all time, Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth,32 a sensationalist book dealing with biblical apocalyptic, was published during the socially turbulent 1960s or that the recent Gulf War saw the publication and excessive sales of other books, cashing in on supposed connections between modern events and biblical apocalyptic.33 While the interpretations of these books cannot be defended, they do demonstrate the original intention of apocalyptic: to provide comfort to God’s people during times of trouble.

But what makes apocalyptic particularly relevant for today? In some countries around the world, Christians find themselves in deep distress, experiencing persecution. For them, the message of apocalyptic is relevant in the same way that we just described. In the West, however, even though this is a time of relative peace and economic security, apocalyptic has captured the attention of many because of the turn of the millennium. The same phenomenon could be seen a thousand years ago in Europe, the last time the millennium changed. Medieval Europe was a culture saturated in Christian theology, so the impact of apocalyptic speculation was more widespread; but even today, everyone knows the significance of Waco and many of the unsettling apocalyptic pronouncements of Harold Camping.34 Others have seen the tract “Eighty-Eight Reasons for 1988” by Mr. Edgar Whisenant, and other claims that we live in the time of the end.

In chapter 8 we will deal more specifically with the (mis)use of apocalyptic materials to try to determine whether we are living on the eve of the end of time, but for now let this serve as a signal that as we deal with these materials, we do so with reserve and caution.

(2) We do this first by remembering that we are dealing with a type of literature that uses images with high frequency. Images communicate truth, to be sure, but not with precision. An image brings together two things that are essentially not alike in order to cast light on some aspect of the object of teaching. God is an “Ancient of Days,” sitting as a judge on a throne. Literally, of course, God is not an old man, nor does he sit on a physical throne. Evil human kingdoms are hybrid beasts. Yes, but not literally. To approach this material as if it demands or even invites a literal interpretation is wrong-headed. Thus, a crucial principle to reading apocalyptic literature according to its original intention is to expect images. It is wrong to say that we interpret apocalyptic literally except when it is absurd to do so.

Now, the key to the interpretation of images is to find the point of connection and not push the peripheral elements of the comparison. This means we will be left with a gray area in our interpretation. Some of the points of comparison will be obvious, but others will not be. At such points we need to hold back and not insist on our interpretation.

(3) A further important point that will prevent us from typical misunderstanding is that numbers are especially used in a symbolic manner in apocalyptic. Whether it is the “time, times, and half a time" of Daniel 7 or the “seventy weeks” of Daniel 9 or the one thousand years of Revelation 20, we must expect that we are dealing with symbolic numbers because that is the nature of apocalyptic as a genre.35

(4) One important way we can guard ourselves against misinterpreting these powerful images is by imagining ourselves as among those who heard these things at the time of Daniel. In the earlier discussion, I noted the ancient Near Eastern background of many of the images of Daniel 7—the sea and cloud-riding in particular. It is an important principle to read all Scripture in its original setting, especially apocalyptic. This principle, of course, calls for some work as we interpret, but the fact that you are reading this commentary indicates that you are willing to engage in the necessary task of research for proper biblical interpretation.

I want to qualify this last point by saying that the basic message of apocalyptic is communicated even to modern readers without extensive research. One cannot help but understand that the vision teaches God’s people that, although it looks as if the world is under the power of human evil running rampant and is not under God’s control, in this case looks are deceiving. God is in control, and there is no question concerning who is going to win this struggle. Stay faithful. Yet to prevent the outlandish and speculative interpretation of this material that is only too common, we must remember that the images and language come from antiquity.

Dominant themes of Daniel 7. To conclude by way of summary, Daniel 7 is a vision of two parts. The first part reveals that the world at present is under the sway of evil and cruel human power. The second part shows us that God is in control and will ultimately judge the rebels and establish his kingdom among us. At present there is conflict—indeed, a cosmic war, about which we will learn more particularly in chapter 10—between the evil forces of this world and God and his faithful creatures. These, then, are the important apocalyptic themes to explore in the Contemporary Significance section: the nature of human evil, the warring activity of God, and the certainty of ultimate victory.

Contemporary Significance

THE NATURE OF human evil. Daniel 7 paints a horrifying picture of human evil. The hybrid beasts represent powerful, destructive forces that intend to harm others. The metal teeth and the iron claws of the fourth beast intend to rip into its prey, and the godly know that they are the beast’s intended meal.

Many Christians around the world today immediately understand this image. Christians in many countries know and experience the harsh rule of regimes that hate Christianity and will expend great efforts to squash its practice. In the present day, Christians in China, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, to name just a few, live in daily fear of losing their freedom, if not their lives. In other countries—one thinks of Israeli citizens who choose to follow Christ—the threat is not physical torture, but extreme prejudice against their religious practice (not to speak of the far more numerous Palestinian Christians who live under foreign oppression). These brothers and sisters have no trouble recognizing the beast-like nature of the world in which they live.

Most Christians in the West, however, enjoy a freedom from religious harassment that may not be total, but is certainly nearly unprecedented in human history. We often forget this as we bitterly rail against the loss of “blue laws,” threats against our churches’ tax-free status, or our government’s support of the right to abortion. Where is the beast gnawing on the bones of the people of God in the United States? After all, we see pleasant neighborhoods with our nice neighbors and flourishing churches. We wonder: “What is all this talk about superhuman power of destructive human evil?”

Of course, this experience and attitude are not shared by all Christians in America. Some of our neighborhoods, particularly in our large urban centers, are the scene of daily violence and fear. The harm is not directed especially toward the church, but Christian people find themselves in near war zones because of the actions of the renegades of our society, whether those renegades are the criminal element or crooked police. These brothers and sisters in Christ also resonate immediately with the picture of life as a battleground with life-and-death consequences—a battleground from which they desire deliverance.

However, deep down, if not on the surface, those Christians who are fortunate enough not to live in a literal battle zone understand that life is a struggle, sometimes just annoying but at least occasionally a battle of nearly epic proportions. We know that whatever “peace” we experience now in our life is just a lull in the midst of a storm.

The Bible, after all, teaches that all human beings are sinners. The picture of the beasts in Daniel 7 is consistent with this lesson we learn throughout the Bible—every man and woman at heart is a self-seeking rebel against God, and we would crawl over the bodies of our fellow human beings in order to seek some small advantage for ourselves.

In a classic statement on the scope and depth of sin in the human heart, Paul collects a series of quotations from the Old Testament and strings them together in a universal condemnation of humanity (Rom. 3:10–18):

There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.

All have turned away, they have together become worthless;

there is no one who does good, not even one.

Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.

The poison of vipers is on their lips.

Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways,

and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

No one escapes this judgment—not the ruthless dictator, the benevolent president, the hard-working mayor, our law-abiding neighbor, our children and spouse, and especially not ourselves. Everyone is a sinner, “swift to shed blood.” The beast is in the heart of each one of us.

Cornelius Plantinga has written an insightful analysis of the biblical view of sin, in which he defines sin as a breaking of “shalom,” the Hebrew word for “wholeness, health, peace.” In his words, “shalom is God’s design for creation and redemption; sin is blamable human vandalism of these great realities and therefore an affront to their architect and builder.”36

We should be quick to point out that God did not create us as “vandals.” He created us in his image. The Garden of Eden was a picture of shalom until the appearance of the serpent. The serpent’s identity in the Garden is obscure, though later biblical reflection makes it clear that this is Satan (cf. Rev. 12:9), the supernatural rebel. This creature introduced disharmony into the peace of the Garden, but human sin was not his responsibility. As I was driving the other day, I saw a bumper sticker that simply said, “Eve was framed.” That is not the biblical story. Eve was neither framed nor coerced, nor was Adam. The disobedience of Adam and Eve broke the shalom of the Garden when they took the side of the serpent against God.

We know this first sin as the Fall (Gen. 3). Adam and Eve were ejected from the Garden into a harsh land of their own making. We are the heirs of our primordial parents. We are born sinners, but not in the sense that we are tagged with the guilt of our ancestors. No, we weren’t framed either. The point is that we would have acted in the same way as Adam and Eve if we were in their place. And indeed we act in the same way from birth. We are born rebels, vandals, breakers of shalom.

But the beasts are more than individual sinners. The beasts represent corporate rebellion as well.37 Yet it is important to realize that corporate rebellion is a product that flows from individual sin, not vice versa. Otherwise, individuals may flee responsibility for corporate harm.

The beasts represent “kingdoms,” not just one sinner but an organized plurality of sinners. I remember the wise words of my former teacher, Jay Adams, when he warned his young students about an overly romantic view of marriage. He alerted us that marriage would not be the answer to all our loneliness or problems. He said that our current problems flowed from the fact that we, like all human beings, are sinners. He then reminded us that marriage was a union of two sinners and challenged us by saying, “What do you think happens when two sinners are brought together?” His warning was wise because it prevented us from being shocked when, after marriage, we had our first disagreement or argument.

Adams was talking about a marriage of two Christians. Imagine the union of thousands, millions, and today even billions of sinners? Imagine further that a handful of these sinners are given the power of decision, even the power of incredible destructive forces. Can we really be surprised at the callousness of an oriental despot, a Caesar, a medieval king, a Führer, an Ayatollah, or a president?

Individual sinners are harmful, sometimes deeply. But sinners bound together behind a group cause can cause great devastation. Nationalism, racism, sexism, denominationalism, factionalism—great evil can arise when sinners come together with a common purpose against someone outside of the group, the “other.” We can depersonalize the other; they aren’t quite human, and so to harm the other is not quite the same as hurting one of our own. George Steiner reminds modern sophisticated culture that such attitudes reside in the breasts of all people:

It would be fantastically arrogant to suppose that we know that we have evolved into a kind of creature that likes living with those that smell different, look different, sound different. Sit in a railway carriage or bus in a land where you don’t speak a single word of the language. Have you ever noticed the panic that starts growing in your civilized soul, the sense that something is hideously wrong, that your very identity may soon be torn apart? It could be that autonomy is the natural form of the social unit, and that those who would thrust others together may be doing so in the name of a transcendent vision of justice, hope, human fairness, but that they may also be hurrying something very complicated. We don’t know. Human beings do tend to be with their own. Not all. Not the exceptional. But most human beings.38

Of course, not every nation or its ruler is a repository of evil. We must also account for common grace as well as the work of the Holy Spirit. But the phrase “power corrupts” rings true for a reason. The point is that the power of the beast image is as true today as it was at the time of Daniel, when God’s people were oppressed by Babylon, in the middle of the second century B.C., when they were oppressed by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, or at the time of Jesus, when the Romans held sway in Palestine.

The warring activity of God. Ultimately, the battle is “not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12). This ultimate spiritual battle behind our earthly struggles was anticipated in the Old Testament (see esp. the comments in ch. 10), but the New Testament rips away the curtain so that we see the heart of the battle.

This battle will continue until the final day. When we turn to Revelation 13, what do we encounter? A beast, indeed, a beast emerging from the sea. Revelation’s imagery derives most immediately from the book of Daniel.39This insight reminds us of our continuity with the fears and struggles of Daniel’s generation. We too find ourselves in a struggle that threatens to overwhelm us.

But Daniel did not just paint a picture of horrifying and seemingly invulnerable evil. We will reserve discussion for the chapters to follow, but we cannot leave Daniel 7 without attention to the picture of hope in the midst of the chaos. A “son of man” rides a cloud to the rescue of those who are oppressed by the beastly human kingdoms. We have already commented that the cloud signals the divine status of this human-like figure. Only God rides the ethereal war chariot.

But the more precise identity of this figure awaits the fuller revelation of the New Testament. In Revelation 1:7 and in the so-called “little apocalypses” of the Gospels (cf. Mark 13:26), Jesus himself is the One who rides the cloud chariot into the final battle. Jesus is the divine warrior, who will defeat the beast, the forces of evil at the end of time.

The certainty of ultimate victory. How can we be sure of victory? What makes us think that Jesus will conquer rather than the serpent? The cross is our guarantee. Jesus defeated Satan on the cross. This is the testimony of Paul, who wrote concerning the removal of our sin: “He took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Col. 2:14–15).

Paul’s use of military language is not accidental, but is part and parcel of the canon-wide theme of divine warfare. From the beginning of the canon (Ex. 15:3) to its end in Revelation, God’s people are told that their Lord fights for them against the evil that oppresses them—both external enemies and the sin that remains in their own hearts.40 This is the comfort that the Bible presents to God’s people today, whether a Christian in an Iranian jail or one in America feeling the ridicule of a “toxic culture”41 in the West. God has won the victory on the cross, and history’s victorious denouement is certain.

Daniel 7 gives us a glimpse of the warfare that explains conflict in the world today, and chapters 10–12 will take us even further into these divine mysteries.

1. We should note, however, that certain characteristics link the two sections (see Introduction). For instance, chapter 7 is in the Aramaic language as are chapters 2–6. Hebrew begins again with chapter 8. Also, the four-kingdom scheme of Daniel’s vision in the present chapter reminds us of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the statue in chapter 2.

2. For more on apocalyptic literature in the Bible, see T. Longman III, Reading the Bible with Heart and Mind (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1997), 213–26; Fictional Akkadian Autobiography (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1991), 166–90.

3. Miller, Daniel, 195.

4. Goldingay, Daniel, 139, supported by G. Hasel, “The First and Third Years of Belshazzar (Dan. 7:1; 8:1),” AUSS 15 (1976): 153–68.

5. See J. Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1975); C. Kloos, Yhwh’s Combat with the Sea: A Canaanite Tradition in the Religion of Ancient Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1986); M. K. Wakeman, God’s Battle with the Monster: A Study in Biblical Imagery (Leiden: Brill, 1973).

6. W. G. Lambert, “A New Look at the Babylonian Background of Genesis,” JTS 16 (1968): 287–300, warns that Mesopotamian conceptions of creation probably changed over the period of more than a millennium, in which Akkadian was the lingua franca of the Near East; but the Enuma Elish certainly reflects the majority opinion of Marduk priesthood, which was dominant during those times when the city of Babylon was the central power of the region.

7. The text may be found most conveniently in ANET, 60–72. For more recent translations, consult B. R. Foster, Before the Muses (Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press, 1993), 354–402; W. W. Hallo, ed., The Context of Scripture (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 390–402.

8. It may be found in ANET, 129–42; also M. D. Coogan, Stories from Ancient Canaan (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 75–115.

9. T. Jacobsen, “The Battle Between Marduk and Tiamat,” JAOS 88 (1968): 104–8, has persuasively argued that the myth originated among Northwest Semites like the Canaanites and then was adopted by the Mesopotamians.

10. The text is broken after the defeat of Yam, but most scholars believe that the lost portion may have recounted creation.

11. See T. Longman III and D. Reid, God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 64–69.

12. M. Roaf, Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East (New York: Facts on File, 1990), provides a picture of a Mesopotamian winged bull with a human head (163) and a winged lion with eagles’ feet and horns (196–97).

13. We saw in ch. 1 how Daniel would have been aware of these texts.

14. P. A. Porter, Metaphors and Monsters: A Literary-Critical Study of Daniel 7 and 8 (ConBOT 20; Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1983).

15. Such as E. J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949), 275–94.

16. For the classic exposition of a “critical” approach to this imagery, see H. H. Rowley, Darius the Mede and the Four World Empires in the Book of Daniel (San Diego, Calif.: Cardiff, 1935). But two evangelicals have also made a persuasive case for this approach as well: R. J. M. Gurney, God in Control: An Exposition of the Prophecies of Daniel (Worthing: Walter, 1980); J. H. Walton, “The Four Kingdoms of Daniel,” JETS 29 (1986): 25–36.

17. See pp. 81–83 for arguments for and against both of these approaches.

18. Cf. the convoluted arguments of someone like Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970), who sees in the European Common Market (now the European Union) as the fulfillment of the ten horns of Daniel 7.

19. R. J. M. Gurney, “The Four Kingdoms of Daniel 2 and 7,” Themelios 2 (1977): 43.

20. Walton, “The Four Kingdoms of Daniel,” 30

21. So Gurney, “Kingdoms,” 43–44.

22. Goldingay, Daniel, 164–65; Collins, Daniel, 303.

23. See ANET, 134.

24. For an excellent concise discussion of the issue, see Collins, Daniel, 313–17.

25. Cf. V. S. Poythress, “The Holy Ones of the Most High in Daniel vii,” VT 26 (1976): 208–13.

26. Of course, most advocates of this approach argue that this is failed prophecy, which leads to later reinterpretation. See R. P. Carroll, When Prophecy Failed: Cognitive Dissonance in the Prophetic Traditions of the Old Testament (New York: Seabury, 1979). Such a view is unacceptable to those who believe that Daniel is a divinely inspired prophet.

27. Note the highly symbolic nature of the numbers in this section, “four” and “ten”; cf. The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1998).

28. Miller, Daniel, p. 215, for instance, comments “the Hebrew equivalent of this phrase occurs in 12:7 and is taken to approximate the 1,290 days of 12:11 and the 1,335 days of 12:12, both of which are just over three and a half years.” But the point is that they are “over” not the same.

29. So Lacocque, The Book of Daniel, 153–54.

30. See C. F. Keil, Ezekiel, Daniel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975 [reprint]), 242–45.

31. December 15, 1997 (pp. 62–71).

32. Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970).

33. J. Walvoord, Armageddon, Oil, and the Mid-East Crisis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974 [revised 1991]); C. Dyer, The Rise of Babylon (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1991).

34. H. Camping, 1994? (New York: Vantage, 1992).

35. For a fuller description of my approach to apocalyptic, see “What I Mean by Historical-Grammatical Exegesis—Why I Am Not a Literalist,” GTJ 11 (1990): 37–55.

36. C. Plantinga Jr, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 16.

37. See the works by W. Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992); Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984); Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces That Determine Human Existence (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986); When the Powers Fall: Reconciliation in the Healing of Nations (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1998); R. Mouw, Politics and the Biblical Drama (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976).

38. G. Steiner, No Passion Spent (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1996), 235. For a Christian assessment, see the powerful work by M. Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996).

39. G. K. Beale, The Use of Daniel in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature and in the Revelation of St. John (Washington, D.C.: Univ. Press of America, 1984).

40. M. Kreft, “The Influence of the ‘Holy War’ Motif on Pauline Theology” (Th.M. thesis: Westminster Theological Seminary, 1985); D. Allender and T. Longman III, Bold Love (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1991).

41. See comments on Daniel 1.

Original Meaning

Heavenly Power (7:9–14)

VERSE 9 is an abrupt transition from the scene by the sea to a courtroom. From its description, we know this is no ordinary courtroom, but again, the vision speaks in images. Note first of all that we no longer have descriptions of animal-like creatures. The two main characters are described in human-like terms: “the Ancient of Days" and the “one like a son of man.”

In essence, we have gone up the chain of being. Evil human kingdoms were described as horrifying hybrid animals; the divine realm is imaged as human beings. The association is perfectly appropriate in a broader biblical view because, after all, Genesis 1:27 tells us that God created men and women in his own image.

While it is not clear from the description whether the scene takes place in heaven or on earth,22 the imagery makes it clear that the two main participants are divine and that the attendants are celestial and not human creatures. Much of the imagery is not uncommonly associated with God’s appearance (theophany) and signals his wisdom (his white hair), his righteousness (his white clothing), and his power in judgment (fire).

The first figure is called the “Ancient of Days.” He is God, specifically in his role as judge. As such, he is imaged as an old and presumably wise human judge sitting in his courtroom. The second figure, “one like a son of man,” is more startling in his Old Testament context. He is riding the cloud chariot, which is the prerogative of God alone.

Like the image of the sea, the image of the cloud rider is an ancient one by the time we come to Daniel 7:13. Cloud imagery associated with the Lord’s appearance is as old as the Exodus and the pillar of cloud by day and the fire by night (Ex. 13:21). During the climactic theophany on Sinai, the mountain was covered by a cloud (19:16). In the tabernacle, God appeared in the cloud that was present in the Most Holy Place (Lev. 16:2).

We learn of the vehicular cloud, however, in the Psalms and Prophets. God is the cloud rider in Psalm 68:4:

Sing to God, sing praise to his name, extol him who rides on the clouds—

his name is the LORD— and rejoice before him.

In Psalm 104:3–4 we read:

He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind.

He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants.

The Old Testament prophets also use the cloud-riding image in clear judgment/war contexts. Note Isaiah 19:1 and Nahum 1:3:

See, the LORD rides on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt.

The idols of Egypt tremble before him, and the hearts of the Egyptians melt within them.

The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished.

His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet.

Like the sea image, the motif of God riding clouds also has an ancient Near Eastern background. This connection may be most closely observed in the literature from Ugarit. Baal, the chief deity and primary divine warrior of that culture, is often called the “Rider on the Clouds.” Indeed it is one of his most common epithets:

“Hearken, O Puissant Baal:

Give heed, O Rider on the Clouds.”²³

This example could be multiplied many times. Baal was the god of the thunderstorm in the Ugaritic pantheon. His cloud-riding was appropriate to his function.

Thus, Daniel 7:1–14 presents the reader with two image clusters. On the one hand, we have four beasts and horns, which represent depraved human kingdoms; on the other hand, we see two human figures, the Ancient of Days and one like a son of man, who image the divine realm. The identity of the “one like a son of man” has been a difficult one through the history of interpretation. We will reserve discussion of this critical issue for the section on Contemporary Significance.

The vision is more than descriptive of these two realms: human evil and divine judgment. It also narrates a conflict between the two, with a certain and clear conclusion. “The beast,” presumably the boastful horn, was destroyed, while the one like the son of man was exalted and given an eternal kingdom. In a word, though human evil thrives in the present, God is in control and will have the final victory. The implicit message to God’s people is: “Remain faithful in spite of appearances.” The interpretation of the vision that follows bears this message out.