The Book of Daniel is a biblical apocalypse set in the 6th century BC and considered by mainstream Bible scholars to have been written in the 2nd century BC. It is ostensibly a narrative detailing the experiences and prophetic visions of Daniel, a Jewish exile in Babylon. The text features prophecy rooted in Jewish history as well as a portrayal of the end times that is cosmic in scope and political in its focus. The message of the text intended for the original audience was that just as the God of Israel saves Daniel from his enemies, so too he would save the Israelites in their present oppression.
The Hebrew Bible includes Daniel as one of the Ketuvim ("Writings"), while Christian biblical canons group the work with the major prophets. It divides into two parts: a set of six court tales in chapters 1–6, written mostly in Biblical Aramaic, and four apocalyptic visions in chapters 7–12, written mainly in Late Biblical Hebrew; the Septuagint contains three additional sections in Koine Greek: the Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon. Daniel and other Jewish apocalyptic literature from the period of antiquity (outside of John's Revelation) are all pseudonymous.
The book's themes have resonated throughout the ages, including with the community of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the authors of the canonical gospels and the Book of Revelation. From the 2nd century to the modern era, religious movements, including the Reformation and later millennialist movements, have been deeply influenced by it. The book is considered vaticinium ex eventu.
Structure Divisions The Book of Daniel is divided between the court tales of chapters 1–6 and the apocalyptic visions of 7–12, and between the Hebrew of chapters 1 and 8–12 and the Aramaic of chapters 2–7. The division is reinforced by the chiastic arrangement of the Aramaic chapters (see below), and by a chronological progression in chapters 1–6 from Babylonian to Median rule, and from Babylonian to Persian rule in chapters 7–12. Various suggestions have been made by scholars to explain the fact that the genre division does not coincide with the other two, but it appears that the language division and concentric structure of chapters 2–6 are artificial literary devices designed to bind the two halves of the book together. The following outline is provided by Collins in his commentary on Daniel:
PART I: Tales (chapters 1:1–6:29) 1: Introduction (1:1–21 – set in the Babylonian era, written in Hebrew) 2: Nebuchadnezzar's dream of four kingdoms (2:1–49 – Babylonian era; Aramaic) 3: The fiery furnace (3:1–30/3:1-23, 91-97 – Babylonian era; Aramaic) 4: Nebuchadnezzar's madness (3:31/98–4:34/4:1-37 – Babylonian era; Aramaic) 5: Belshazzar's feast (5:1–6:1 – Babylonian era; Aramaic) 6: Daniel in the lions' den (6:2–29 – Median era with mention of Persia; Aramaic) PART II: Visions (chapters 7:1–12:13) 7: The beasts from the sea (7:1–28 – Babylonian era: Aramaic) 8: The ram and the he-goat (8:1–27 – Babylonian era; Hebrew) 9: Interpretation of the seventy weeks' prophecy (9:1–27 – Median era; Hebrew) 10: The angel's revelation: kings of the north and south (10:1–12:13 – Persian era, mention of Greek era; Hebrew)
Chiastic structure in the Aramaic section
There is a recognised chiasm (a concentric literary structure in which the main point of a passage is placed in the centre and framed by parallel elements on either side in "ABBA" fashion) in the chapter arrangement of the Aramaic section. The following is taken from Paul Redditt's "Introduction to the Prophets":
A1 (2:4b-49) – A dream of four kingdoms replaced by a fifth B1 (3:1–30) – Daniel's three friends in the fiery furnace C1 (4:1–37) – Daniel interprets a dream for Nebuchadnezzar C2 (5:1–31) – Daniel interprets the handwriting on the wall for Belshazzar B2 (6:1–28) – Daniel in the lions' den A2 (7:1–28) – A vision of four world kingdoms replaced by a fifth
Content
Introduction in Babylon (chapter 1)
In the third year of King Jehoiakim, God allows Jerusalem to fall into the power of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon.Jehoiakim: King of Judah 608–598 BC; his third year would be either 606 or 605, depending how years are counted. Young Israelites of noble and royal family, "without physical defect, and handsome," versed in wisdom and competent to serve in the palace of the king, are taken to Babylon to be taught the literature and language of that nation. Among them are Daniel and his three companions, who refuse to touch the royal food and wine. Their overseer fears for his life in case the health of his charges deteriorates, but Daniel suggests a trial and the four emerge healthier than their counterparts from ten days of consuming nothing but vegetables and water. They are allowed to continue to refrain from eating the king's food, and to Daniel, God gives insight into visions and dreams. When their training is done Nebuchadnezzar finds them 'ten times better' than all the wise men in his service and therefore keeps them at his court, where Daniel continues until the first year of King Cyrus.Cyrus: Persian conqueror of Babylon, 539 BC.
Nebuchadnezzar's dream of four kingdoms (chapter 2)
In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream. When he wakes up, he realizes that the dream has some important message, so he consults his wise men. Wary of their potential to fabricate an explanation, the king refuses to tell the wise men what he saw in his dream. Rather, he demands that his wise men tell him what the content of the dream was, and then interpret it. When the wise men protest that this is beyond the power of any man, he sentences all, including Daniel and his friends, to death. Daniel receives an explanatory vision from God: Nebuchadnezzar had seen an enormous statue with a head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of mixed iron and clay, then saw the statue destroyed by a rock that turned into a mountain filling the whole earth. Daniel explains the dream to the king: the statue symbolized four successive kingdoms, starting with Nebuchadnezzar, all of which would be crushed by God's kingdom, which would endure forever. Nebuchadnezzar acknowledges the supremacy of Daniel's god, raises Daniel over all his wise men, and places Daniel and his companions over the province of Babylon.
The fiery furnace (chapter 3)
Daniel's companions Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to bow to King Nebuchadnezzar's golden statue and are thrown into a fiery furnace. Nebuchadnezzar is astonished to see a fourth figure in the furnace with the three, one "with the appearance like a son of the gods." So the king calls the three to come out of the fire, blesses the God of Israel, and decrees that any who blaspheme against him shall be torn limb from limb.
Nebuchadnezzar's madness (chapter 4)
Nebuchadnezzar recounts a dream of a huge tree that is suddenly cut down at the command of a heavenly messenger. Daniel is summoned and interprets the dream. The tree is Nebuchadnezzar himself, who for seven years will lose his mind and live like a wild beast. All of this comes to pass until, at the end of the specified time, Nebuchadnezzar acknowledges that "heaven rules" and his kingdom and sanity are restored.
Belshazzar's feast (chapter 5)
Belshazzar and his nobles blasphemously drink from sacred Jewish temple vessels, offering praise to inanimate gods, until a mysterious hand suddenly appears and writes upon the wall. The horrified king summons Daniel, who upbraids him for his lack of humility before God and interprets the message: Belshazzar's kingdom will be given to the Medes and Persians. Belshazzar rewards Daniel and raises him to be third in the kingdom, and that very night Belshazzar is slain and Darius the Mede takes the kingdom.Darius the Mede: No such person is known to history (see Levine, 2010, p. 1245, footnote 31). "Darius" is in any case a Persian, not a Median, name. The Persian army which captured Babylon was under the command of a certain Gobryas (or Gubaru), a Babylonian and former provincial governor who turned against his royal master, on behalf of Cyrus, the Persian king. The author of Daniel may have introduced the reference to a Mede in order to fulfill Isaiah and Jeremiah, who prophesied that the Medes would overthrow Babylon, and confused the events of 539 with those of 520 BC, when Darius I captured Babylon after an uprising. See Hammer, 1976, pp. 65–66.
Daniel in the lions' den (chapter 6)
Darius elevates Daniel to high office, exciting the jealousy of other officials. Knowing of Daniel's devotion to his God, his enemies trick the king into issuing an edict forbidding worship of any other god or man for a 30-day period. Daniel continues to pray three times a day to God towards Jerusalem; he is accused and King Darius, forced by his own decree, throws Daniel into the lions' den. But God shuts up the mouths of the lions, and the next morning Darius rejoices to find him unharmed. The king casts Daniel's accusers into the lions' pit together with their wives and children to be instantly devoured, while he himself acknowledges Daniel's God as he whose kingdom shall never be destroyed.
Vision of the beasts from the sea (chapter 7)
In the first year of Belshazzar, Daniel has a dream of four monstrous beasts arising from the sea.First year of Belshazzar: Probably 553 BC, when Belshazzar was given royal power by his father, Nabonidus. See Levine, 2010, p. 1248, footnote 7.1–8. The fourth, a beast with ten horns, devours the whole earth, treading it down and crushing it, and a further small horn appears and uproots three of the earlier horns. The Ancient of Days judges and destroys the beast, and "one like a son of man" is given everlasting kingship over the entire world. One of Daniel's attendants explains that the four beasts represent four kings, but that "the holy ones of the Most High" would receive the everlasting kingdom. The fourth beast would be a fourth kingdom with ten kings, and another king who would pull down three kings and make war on the "holy ones" for "a time, two times and a half," after which the heavenly judgment will be made against him and the "holy ones" will receive the everlasting kingdom.
Vision of the ram and goat (chapter 8)
In the third year of Belshazzar Daniel has a vision of a ram and goat. The ram has two mighty horns, one longer than the other, and it charges west, north and south, overpowering all other beasts. A goat with a single horn appears from the west and destroys the ram. The goat becomes very powerful until the horn breaks off and is replaced by four lesser horns. A small horn that grows very large, it stops the daily temple sacrifices and desecrates the sanctuary for two thousand three hundred "evenings and mornings" (which could be either 1,150 or 2,300 days) until the temple is cleansed. The angel Gabriel informs him that the ram represents the Medes and Persians, the goat is Greece, and the "little horn" is a wicked king.
Vision of the Seventy Weeks (chapter 9)
In the first year of Darius the Mede, Daniel meditates on the word of Jeremiah that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years; he confesses the sin of Israel and pleads for God to restore Israel and the "desolated sanctuary" of the Temple. The angel Gabriel explains that the seventy years stand for seventy "weeks" of years (490 years), during which the Temple will first be restored, then later defiled by a "prince who is to come," "until the decreed end is poured out."
Vision of the kings of north and south (chapters 10–12)