365 Reflections

Is it possible that 70 years of exile were decreed for Israel because God knew the nation would take that long to truly repent? If so, it would reveal something incredible about our relationship to God as He promises to discipline those He loves (Hebrews 12). He even plans what that discipline should be and for how long. I get this idea from the intercessory prayer Daniel makes in chapter 9.  Daniel 9:13–14 (ESV) As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the LORD our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. 14 Therefore the LORD has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the LORD our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. Sometimes it takes a while before we learn to return to God. Israel was a prime example. Daniel stipulates that the lack of seeking God's favor had prolonged the exile, yet God had known beforehand and an...

Daniel 9:1–2 (ESV)  In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. In Daniel 9, we find the prophetic backstory of the fall of Babylon and Daniel's insight into the rise and fall of empires, as Israel lay in exile. He, unlike many in Israel, listened to God's true prophet, Jeremiah, who foretold 70 years of exile, rather than the 2 that Hananiah and other false prophets were declaring.  Daniel knows that just because the Babylonian empire had fallen, it did not mean that Israel was now to be sent back prematurely to their land. God would accomplish His purpose through multiple regimes to prove His Word, and not the declarations of emperors or wise men would prove true.  ...

Daniel 8 begins the Hebrew portion of this book. The reason it shifts from Aramaic (the language of chapters 2-7) to Hebrew is that God has a special message for His people, the Jews. They truly should have understood the times to usher in the arrival of our Lord.  Daniel 8:1 (ESV) In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first. Daniel 8 begins with the prophet being transported to Susa, which will become the capital of the kingdom about to conquer Babylon. Daniel 8:3–4 (ESV) I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram standing on the bank of the canal. It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. 4 I saw the ram charging westward and northward and southward. No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great. After Daniel sees the ram with two horns, he sees a ...

The object of our faith amid global disturbance must be a clear vision of the Father through the Son, who holds all things together through the Word of His power. The troubling imagery of Daniel 7, in which the empires of this world are portrayed as beasts bent on rule, conquest, and bloodshed for the sake of power, surrounds one of the most explicit pictures of God in all of scripture.  Daniel 7:9–10 (ESV) “As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. 10 A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. Right after the verse detailing a little horn making great boasts as he wipes out competing factions of nations, Daniel sees where true authority lies. It is not found in the boast...

Daniel 7:1 (ESV) In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed. Then he wrote down the dream and summarized the matter. The first verse of the second half of Daniel shows us this book is not chronological from chapter 1 to the end. These visions Daniel receives here are before the events of chapter 5 in the kingdom of Babylon. The vision Daniel receives is a different perspective on the image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream from Daniel 2. Where Nebuchadnezzar saw succeeding empires as part of a massive statue, Daniel is given a vision of beasts rising from the sea.  Daniel 7:3–7 (ESV) And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. 4 The first was like a lion and had eagles’ wings. Then as I looked its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and the mind of a man was given to it. 5 And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear....

Daniel 6:1–3 (ESV)  It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps, to be throughout the whole kingdom; 2 and over them three high officials, of whom Daniel was one, to whom these satraps should give account, so that the king might suffer no loss. 3 Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him. And the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. Daniel is at the top of his game no matter who is in charge. Here we have a clue as to why. The text repeats a line from Belshazzar's time: "an excellent spirit was in him".  Notice the effect of that excellent spirit: Daniel 6:3 (ESV) this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him. It doesn't say "Daniel distinguished himself. It says he became distinguished. We live in a "distinguish yourself" culture. We are inundated with messages suggesting tha...

No empire is too big to fall. The Babylonians found that out harder than most. Daniel 5:1 (ESV) King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. Think the setting in this brief description. Wherein Nebuchadnezzar was into self-adulation, his son Belshazzar was more into the creature comforts of world domination. His goal is simple: good times with fine wine. And the tipping point for the empire's collapse was when he decided to desecrate the sacred objects of Israel's temple for the glorification of his empire in front of his special friends.  Daniel 5:2 (ESV)  Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. It wasn't enough to desecrate these sacred objects with the unholy wine of Babylon that Daniel refused, the gave...