A New Revelation: Daniel 10 Introduction and verses 1-5

Welcome to Adult Sunday School at Kootenai Community Church.

We will be in the book of Daniel, page 1156, Daniel

10.

So let's open in prayer.

Father, we thank you for your word which we are able to read and your Holy Spirit is able to

make plain to us.

This morning, as we look at chapter 10 of this book, it is preparation for what you will

tell Daniel in 11 and 12 and every word of scripture is true

and profitable for doctrine, correction, instruction to make the man and woman of God ready for everything that

comes their way.

That's a paraphrase, Lord, but we thank you for your word.

We thank you that it will change us.

We thank you that you use it every day through your Holy Spirit to make us more like Christ.

Might it do that again today and we'll thank you for all you will accomplish.

In Jesus' name.

So we finished the last time I was with you in Daniel, we finished chapter nine.

And so we will take up chapter 10 and I will not steal my own thunder and get ahead of

myself.

We'll actually gonna read the chapter first.

So Daniel chapter 10, for those with the real Bible, it's on page 1156,

Daniel chapter 10.

In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a message was revealed to Daniel who was named Belteshazzar.

And the message was true and one of great conflict, but he understood the message and had an

understanding of the vision.

In those days, I, Daniel, had been mourning for three entire weeks.

I did not eat any tasty food, nor did meat or wine enter my mouth, nor did I use any ointment at all until

the entire three weeks were completed.

And on the 24th day of the first month, while I was by the bank of the great river, that is the Tigris, I lifted my eyes

and looked and behold, there was a certain man dressed in linen whose waist was girded with a belt

of pure gold of uphaz.

His body also was like a barrel.

His face had the appearance of lightning.

His eyes were like flaming torches, his arms and feet like the gleam of polished bronze and the

sound of his words like the sound of a tumult.

Now I, Daniel, alone saw the vision while the men who were with me did not see the vision and nevertheless a great

dread fell on them and they ran away to hide themselves.

So I was left alone and saw this great vision, yet no strength was left in me for my natural color

turned to a deathly pallor and I retained no strength.

But I heard the sound of his words and as soon as I heard the sound of his words, I fell into a deep sleep on my face with

my face to the ground.

Then behold, a hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees.

And he said to me,.

O Daniel, man of high esteem, understand the words that I am about to tell you and stand upright,

for I have now been sent to you.

And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling.

Then he said to me, do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on

humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard and I have come in response to your words.

But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for 21 days.

Then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia.

Now I have come to give you an understanding of what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision pertains to

the days yet future.

And when he had spoken to me according to these words, I turned my face toward the ground and became speechless.

And behold, one who resembled a human being was touching my lips

and then I opened my mouth and spoke and I said to him who was standing before me, oh my Lord, as a result of this

vision, anguish has come upon me and I have retained no strength.

For how can such a servant of my Lord talk with such as my Lord?

As for me, there remains just now no strength in me nor has any breath been left in me.

Then this one with human appearance touched me again and strengthened me and he said, oh man of high esteem, do not be afraid.

Peace be with you, take courage and be courageous.

Now, as soon as he spoke to me, I received strength and said, may my Lord speak for you have strengthened me.

Then he said, do you understand why I came to you?

But I shall now return to fight against the Prince of Persia.

So I'm going forth and behold, the Prince of Greece is about to come.

However, I will tell you what is inscribed in the writing of truth, yet there is no one who stands firmly with me against

these forces except Michael, your Prince.

So chapter 10 brings up the fourth and final of Daniel's visions,

encouragement, encounters in the book of Daniel.

The revelation, this revelation takes three chapters with the introduction beginning in chapter 10 .1

through about 11 .1.

Then chapter 11 describes the vision with the first part being Darius through Antiochus, which

would be 11, chapter 11, verses two through 35.

And then the distant future takes up chapter 11 .36 through chapter 12 .4.

Chapter 12 closes out the revelation with a final message given to Daniel in verses five through 13.

The revelation is given by God in excellent, as we would expect, systematic form.

Each time God revealed the future to Daniel, he gave Daniel a general picture, dealing with

information about humanity in general.

And then he follows up with details about Israel.

Then he gave Daniel time to assimilate, to think about what he had been receiving, what he had received.

Then he followed up with more detail.

God does that in this instance as well.

In this particularly detailed revelation, we will receive information not only about the future, but

about how God operates on planet Earth in some measure.

Now I'm not gonna come, we're not gonna have any science fiction as we get towards the middle of the chapter.

We're going to stick with just what's been revealed.

So God does that in this instance as well.

So we will have some limited information on how angels interact with each other.

Good angels, evil angels, holy angels and evil angels.

Granted, the information is sparse, but it does give us at least a picture of some of the things that are going on in the spiritual realm

all around us at any given time that we are unaware of.

There is not enough here to build elaborate doctrines like some of the science fiction books you may have read,

but there is certainly enough to form a general understanding of God's dealings with us through his emissaries, the

angels, especially as we cross -reference with other sections of scripture, and we will do that.

This message, for that's what it is, it is not called a vision, but rather a message, it's actually called both,

covers the same periods of history as the vision of chapter eight, which is Medo -Persia, Greece, and the Great

Tribulation, and gives us significant detail about Israel's future.

The message has been called many things.

The critics, of course, believe it's nothing short of a scam, although they would not say

that, for if this was not written in the sixth century B .C., as Daniel

claims it was, when he talks about the third year of Cyrus,

then if it wasn't written then, then it is a complete fabrication, and we should give it no attention at all, or,

let me turn this thing off.

That's what happens when your routine gets messed up.

On a Sunday morning.

If it's not written in sixth century B .C., as Daniel claims, then it is a fabrication,.

And we should give it no attention,.

But it was written in sixth century B .C.

It is inspired.

It is an inspired message from Yahweh to his people Israel through their prophet Daniel, and by extension to us

today.

Conservative Bible -believing commentators have said things like this.

They said, open quote, the final three chapters of the book of Daniel record an extensive revelation

of the prophetic future that is without parallel in scripture.

This final vision is a grand prophetic panorama of events from the time of Cyrus to the final establishment

of God's kingdom, unquote.

And another, quote, there is hardly anything in the Bible that is just like these chapters, especially like

chapter 11.

The word, the vision, and minute prediction are combined in a manner that is found nowhere else in the scriptures, unquote.

So this section of scripture, while in my mind, the book we're in is the best book in the Bible.

It's the best scriptures you're going to read this week.

But it says all scripture is profitable for doctrine.

So in reality, I just tend to get really excited about what I'm reading at the time.

And there's no scripture that's better than other scripture, but God will use it in different ways in your life day to day, and that's

important as well.

But this is incredible.

These next three chapters, 10, 11, and 12, I've been reading and reading it over and reading it over and thinking

about it and coming to the conclusion that I'm either dumber than a post or there have been many who have had trouble

with this over the centuries.

We must cross -reference it with other scripture and we must not go beyond what the scripture says,

or we have science fiction.

And biblical Christianity is not science fiction.

It is truth, utterly grounded in God's word.

So the decree of Cyrus that he says here, chapter one, chapter 10, verse one.

In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a message was revealed to Daniel who was named Belteshazzar and the

message was true and one of great conflict, but he understood the message and had an understanding of the vision.

See the words there used juxtaposed with one another.

The decree of Cyrus to rebuild the temple occurred in 538 BC.

Sacrifices were reinstituted in 537 BC and temple work began a year later.

This would have been the setting for the beginning of this chapter.

The Jews have emigrated.

Many of them have emigrated back to Jerusalem, back to Israel.

They're working on the temple.

They're working on the sacrifices.

They're working on rebuilding Jerusalem.

So Daniel starts this section by giving the date because he believed the chronology was

important.

Actually, God believed the chronology, knew that the chronology was important.

So this date corresponds to 536 BC, which was about two years after the end of the

Babylonian captivity of the Jews.

Daniel would have been 80 plus years old.

I've seen numbers as high as 94.

He would have been very old, 80 plus, 90 plus, somewhere in there.

And this is what likely prevented him from returning to Jerusalem, but also he was a man for which

duty was important, very important to him, and he still had responsibilities to the king.

He still had things to do.

He was still important in the kingdom of Cyrus.

So that would have been another reason why he would have stayed in Babylon.

So Daniel makes the statement that the message was true and one of great conflict.

Have you ever received a true message that just stirred up conflict in your heart, stirred up

difficult feelings to manage?

It upsets you?

You knew it was true, but you would rather have not known about it?

I don't know that that's what Daniel's going through here.

I've had that happen to me.

Why did you tell me that, you idiot?

You know, is what I thought at the time.

I could think of one time.

So this gets the reader to focus on the fact that this was a direct revelation from God and was

thus accurate.

Daniel is reminding us or just giving us a second statement that this is true, this is accurate.

It was to be believed.

It dealt with things that were going to be hard to believe, including great conflict.

It will talk about wars that will take place many years in the future and some that will take place millennia

in the future.

Daniel understood this message to a great degree and his flushing out of the information in chapter eight

indicates that it was in that direction that the information was understood.

He understood it in connection with the previous visions.

It wasn't a standalone message.

It was building on previous information he had received earlier in his book.

So as is common with difficult sections of scripture and especially those that deal with the future,

critics have attacked every part of this next section.

There's been a lot of time, water that's gone under the bridge, there's been a lot of time for people to look at it and attack it and come up

with elaborate schemes of attack.

So the first attack concerns the first verse, probably the first word.

Critics take verse 21 of chapter one, verse 21 of chapter one, to mean

that Daniel died in the first year of Cyrus.

The king.

Remember we dealt with this when we went through Daniel one but that was actually more than a year ago.

So Daniel one, let's go back there.

Chapter one, verse 21.

And Daniel continued until the first year of Cyrus the king.

Doesn't say he died.

Did he die the first year of Cyrus the king?

What did he do until the first year of Cyrus the king?

He continued.

Then what happened?

Cyrus became king.

That's what that was focusing on.

He would then not have been alive at this time, the third year of Cyrus.

It has already been noted that the verse does not say Daniel died.

It very simply means that he was around in the first year of Cyrus the king and continued until this important event

ushered in the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians, the kingship of Cyrus.

There has even been objection to the statement Cyrus king of Persia, stating that

Cyrus was not called this because it was not quote, contemporary usage, unquote.

This has been dealt with at length and especially by a scholar named Richard, Robert Dick Wilson.

This is gonna be a little bit long, but it just shows how thoroughly God's word is correct, even in the

face of the seemingly best criticisms.

I'm going to read through the correction of the critics surmising that the Cyrus

king of Persia is a false phrase, if you will, because that was not contemporary usage.

Here's what this scholar found when he did some research.

The title king of Persia is proper as follows.

Nabonidus uses it of Cyrus in a document written at Babylon as early as the latest as

539 BC and referring to Cyrus as having been king of Persia as early as 545 BC.

Herodotus writing before 424 BC, the year of his death, says that Cambyses ambassadors to the

Ethiopians began their messages with the words, Cambyses, the king of Persia.

Darius Hastapsus, in the larger Behistun inscription, that's a big inscription that they found and they've translated,

calls himself in the midst of other titles, among which the title king of Babylon fails to appear,

by the title king of Persia at this time.

Moreover, Persia is the only country over which he says expressly that he was king.

Number four, number five.

Oh, excuse me, let me finish that.

He repeats this title in exactly the same connection in the Babylonian and Persian recensions of the smaller

Behistun inscription, another inscription that was found and translated.

But in the Susian recension, he makes it more prominent by saying, I, Darius, the king,

the son of Hastapses, the Archminion, the king of kings, I am king of Persia.

Sounds like contemporary usage to me.

I'm gonna continue here.

On the Tyrus steel found in Thrace, the steel is another rock monument that

had inscriptions.

Darius is said by Herodotus to have called himself king of the Persians and of the whole continent.

Thucydides, writing about 400 BC, calls Cyrus the first king of the Persians and speaks of

Cyrus and the Persian kingdom.

Xenophon, in his book, calls Cyrus the king of Persia.

Thucydides, again, speaks of Darius, who, after Cambyses, was king of the Persians.

Xerxes is called king of Persia in one Babylonian tablet and in combination in 12 others, that is in

more than a third of the tablets dated from this reign and in more than half of those from his first eight years.

You know, I was gonna read this whole thing.

There's a whole bunch more.

But the point is when someone said king of Persia is not in contemporary usage,

someone who understood scripture went, oh yeah?

Watch this.

Hold your sassafras.

Because he didn't drink.

I've got a whole bunch more.

But the point is it was in common use at the time.

And this is what critics often do.

They expect you not to look through, to think it through, to check it out.

The fact is that Daniel's first statement in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, it's a

perfectly accurate statement coming from Daniel's pen as given to him

by the Holy Spirit.

So I won't read through.

I will finish up by simply saying.

Edward Young in his commentary simply states this designation of Cyrus was contemporary usage.

Next question.

That was my addition.

It's really frustrating to me when people take the point of simply saying something

assuming you won't look into it.

I'm not sure if that's what happened here, but there is so much information showing that it was contemporary that it makes me

wonder why he would have even said it in the first place.

But critics will be critics and Bible unbelievers will be Bible unbelievers.

So this vision would have been two years after Gabriel's appearance to Daniel and in the

previous chapter.

Again, Daniel would have been in his early to mid 80s,.

Possibly 84.

And I also mentioned it's possible he was even up to 10 years older than that, depending on how old he was when

he was captured.

Two years before this, the Jews had returned to Jerusalem, still being one of Cyrus's top three presidents.

This would have been another reason for Daniel, as I said earlier, to stay in the kingdom, to be about the business that the

king had for him.

So now looking at the word translated as conflict, that implies warfare of the kind in which an army engages.

This would have been hard for Daniel and his contemporaries to connect with.

And so the message is portrayed as true to convey that this must be believed.

Daniel had remained puzzled at the earlier visions, but at least at this point, he makes the statement that he

understood this message and his subsequent connection with the previous visions.

So as this vision came to him, it began to tie up some of the loose ends that were in his mind about the previous vision.

God's plan of revealing bit by bit.

The use of Daniel's Babylonian name, Belteshazzar, is likely to convey to the reader that this

is the same Daniel from the earlier portions of the book.

Another excellent verification of the book that comes to us from the 6th century BC.

This is God's word.

It is true.

It is 600 years, 536 years before Christ, thereabouts, when it

was written, when it was given, when it was published.

It is not 2nd century BC, it is 6th century BC.

Any comments or questions about verse one?

The critics are wrong.

Daniel chapter 10, verse two.

In those days, I, Daniel, had been mourning for three entire weeks.

Why do you think he said it that way?

I'm glad you asked.

Different from chapter nine, where Daniel details his preparation in prayer before receiving the vision, here

he starts the details about the vision and then explains the preparation.

This is the fifth time Daniel calls attention to himself using the pronoun I,

followed by his name.

His mourning was actually fasting, and the angel messenger calls attention to that as Daniel's

method of humbling himself and preparing to understand what was coming as noted in verse 12.

So in verse 12 of Daniel chapter 10.

Then he said to me, do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this, that's what he's talking about,

and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words.

So the angel connects with Daniel about that later on in the chapter.

So I believe the mourning Daniel is referring to is related, excuse me, Daniel is also careful to specify

here that this was 21 days, when he uses the Hebrew for three sevens of days.

That's in the actual translation, three sevens of days.

How would you take that?

What's seven days?

You can go ahead and say it out.

A week.

And how many days are in three weeks?

21.

He uses three sevens for that's the exact translation.

This would have been an effective method of reminding the reader that the sevens in the previous chapter referred to weeks of years,

whereas here, Daniel is specifically talking about 21 days, three weeks,

three weeks of days.

I believe the mourning Daniel is referring to is related to the horrifying prospects that lay ahead for Israel as Daniel

meditated on and began to understand more of the previous visions he was given.

He loved his people.

And the future they had was not what he would have wanted for them,.

At least as a man.

As a man of God, he would most certainly have known that Yahweh would only do what is much,

the very best for any given person or nation, always.

But it's still, even though you know when God is working in the lives of one of your loved ones, and you know that the

working is causing misery for them, it hurts, doesn't it?

It's good for them, but I wish it could do it differently.

I wish it could be different.

Sometimes you even want to take the pain on yourself.

You don't like to see what your loved ones are going through.

Daniel doesn't want Israel to have,.

This is horrifying.

We're talking about multiple millions of deaths, maybe bigger than, I don't know what the numbers

would be, and I'm not gonna speculate.

He genuinely loved his people, and the future they had was not what he would have wanted for them.

It would also be likely.

That some of Daniel's concern was for the Jews that had returned to Palestine just recently,

and were meeting opposition, as outlined there in the book of Ezra.

Okay, there we go.

A group of Judah and Benjamin's enemies, including the Samaritans, wrote a letter to

Artaxerxes the king, detailing several lies.

No, tell me it isn't true that the bad guys wouldn't write lies to the king,.

Which Artaxerxes believed.

Yeah, a guy who didn't check things out.

He must not have had fact checkers back then.

And then he stopped the work on the temple, and here it is in Ezra chapter four.

Now, when the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to the Lord God of

Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers' households, and said to them, let us build with you,

for we, like you, seek your God.

And we have been sacrificing to him since the days of Eshardan, king of Assyria, who brought us up here.

But Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of the fathers' household of Israel,.

Said to them,.

You have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God, but we ourselves will

together build to the Lord God of Israel.

What does that say about alliances with other, quote, Christian, unquote, groups in today's

church age?

They knew these people were lying.

They knew they were not servants of Yeshua.

That was a slip of Yahweh, although it's the same thing.

You have nothing in common with us.

We will build the house to the Lord God of Israel as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, has commanded us to.

Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and frightened them from building.

So they came in, these enemies of Israel, and first

offered to help them.

And then when they couldn't get in that way, sneaking in and upset it from inside, then they just began to

terrorize them.

Ezra 4, 11 through 24.

This is the copy of the letter which they sent to him.

And here's the copy.

To King Artaxerxes, your servants, the men in the region beyond the river, and now let it be known to the king

that the Jews who came up from you have come to us at Jerusalem.

They are rebuilding the rebellious and evil city and are finishing the walls and repairing the foundations.

Now let it be known to the king that if the city is rebuilt and the walls are finished, they will not pay tribute,

custom or toll.

And it will damage the revenue of the king, revenue of the kings.

Now, because we are in the service of the palace and it is not fitting for us to see the king's dishonor.

Therefore we have sent and informed the king so that a search may be made in the record books of your fathers

and you will discover in the record books and learn that the city is a rebellious city and damaging to

kings and provinces and that they have incited revolt within it in past days.

Therefore that city was laid waste.

We inform the king that if the city is rebuilt and the walls finished, as a result you will have no possession of the

province beyond the river.

They'll take the province back over.

They'll kick you out.

Then the king sent an answer to Rahim the commander, to Shimshai the scribe and to the rest of their colleagues who

live in Samaria and in the rest of the provinces beyond the river.

Here's what this king said, peace.

And now the document which you sent to us has been translated and read before me.

A decree has been issued by me and a search has been made and it has been discovered that the city has risen up

against the kings in past days and rebellion and revolt have been perpetrated in it.

That mighty kings have ruled over Jerusalem governing all the provinces beyond the river and that tribute custom and toll were paid to them.

So now issue a decree to make these men stop work that this city may not be rebuilt

until a decree is issued by me.

Beware of being negligent in carrying out this manner.

Why should damage increase to the detriment of the kings?

Unquote.

That's the finish of his answer.

Then as soon as the copy of King Artaxerxes document was read before Rahim and Shimshai the scribe and their colleagues, they

went and hasted Jerusalem to the Jews and stopped them by force of arms.

Then work on the house of God in Jerusalem ceased and it was stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius, king of Persia.

So this would have been the history previous to what Daniel is writing here.

False surmisings, false allegations, a king believed them.

He did some research and found out, yeah, Jerusalem has thrown the yoke off before.

Probably didn't look into why, but he used that information to stop the building of the temple

which Cyrus had commanded.

Actually God had commanded through Cyrus.

So the use of lies and innuendo to thwart the lives and activities of the righteous is nothing new.

If there was a Facebook at this time, Shimshai would have posted this to his account.

And he would have said, look at what those Jews were doing.

They were rising up in rebellion.

They were gonna take tolls away from the king.

It was going to be an awful thing, more rebellion.

He would have lost control of the city.

There would have been terrorism.

Those Jews would have come and terrorized the Samaritans.

And you could just, once you get started, you can just make it up out of whole cloth.

And it's a nice story, but it wasn't true.

The deportation of the Jews and the destruction of Jerusalem had a 20 -year interim.

This is explained by Walrod in his commentary.

He says, humanly speaking, there was ground for anxiety, but Daniel did not understand that the 70 years of the captivity

that expired with the return of the exiles in Ezra 1 did not fulfill the 70 years of the desolation of

Jerusalem and the temple.

This required an additional 20 years, difference between 605 BC, the first deportation of the Jews, and

586 BC, the date of the destruction of Jerusalem.

From God's point of view, things were moving exactly on schedule.

They are always moving exactly on schedule.

The world is falling apart.

At precisely the pace God has set for it.

I always get out of my, I shouldn't do that.

Then I lose my place.

Humanly speaking, okay.

This required an additional 20 years.

From God's point of view, things were moving exactly on schedule.

In a sense, the vision that followed was a reply to Daniel's questions concerning God's purposes for the future of

Israel in relation to the Gentiles.

So Daniel's getting some answers to his questions.

That's what's going on.

That's the kind of the backstory we have right here for Cyrus, king of Persia.

In the third year of Cyrus's reign, Daniel gets this vision.

The temple has been, the work at the temple has been stopped.

Daniel would know about this.

It would have been causing him some distress.

God is going to do a number of things, but one of them is going to be reminding Daniel,.

I'm still in control.

One of the main themes of the book of Daniel is God is sovereign over everything.

That is probably not the most important thing to know about God, but it is right up there in the top five, I'm

gonna say, to know about God.

There is nothing that escapes his hand, his eye.

I, you know, it's been my great benefit to have been involved with teachers who have

taught this all my Christian life, than my 45 plus years of studying the Bible.

But there are plenty of believers, Christians, who are worried that God may not know about this.

He might've missed this.

He doesn't miss anything.

Scripture says he's sovereign over everything.

Okay, I don't want to beat that horse.

Till it's really bloody.

Verse three.

Oh, any questions about verse two?

Yes,

to Artaxerxes.

They were appealing to Artaxerxes, another king.

This is a different time.

I was reading from Ezra.

Right, right.

You're wondering why I said.

That they had already stopped the temple building.

If it was only three years later, I was wrong.

Yeah, the temple building hadn't stopped yet.

But the Samaritans and the enemies of Benjamin and Judah were rising up, were rising up

against them.

So let me back up a bit here.

I did conflate a couple of things there.

The letter to Artaxerxes is later.

This is a different Artaxerxes.

It's a different, it's an earlier one, yeah.

So the Artaxerxes, Daniel, even some of the other names are kind of like the names

Samuel, John.

There's lots of them.

There were lots of them.

Even Cyrus, there were quite a few Cyrus's and Darius's.

So my apologies, my apologies.

Okay, so now we're gonna find out that when things go wrong for you in the Old Testament times, you don't get

pizza.

I did not eat any tasty food, nor did meat or wine enter my mouth, nor did I use any

ointment at all until the entire three weeks were completed.

So Daniel chose not to take advantage of all, he was on the king's

diet, I guess, if you will.

He had access to the king's food.

During his three -week preparation, he did not eat any tasty food, which is a translation of the word of the Hebrew for

food of delights, food that delights you.

Do you have food that delights you?

Some you just eat, because you know it's good for you.

Eat your vegetables.

But there are foods that delight you, and some of this would be what Daniel was talking about.

And the plural accents the idea that it was an equivalent of what he was doing.

Now, this is my own interpretation.

What he was doing would be the equivalent of a beans and rice diet.

Now, that's not to say that beans and rice aren't good, but he was not partaking of the vast

array of different foods that were available in the king's palace and the king's diet.

As one of the presidents directly under the king, he would have had access to the best food in the realm.

He would have also had access to standard fare, such as meat and wine.

He ate neither during his preparation time.

The custom of the time would dictate that Daniel would have anointed himself daily, applying oil to his skin

to protect it from the harsh climate where he lived.

He discontinued doing this during his preparation time.

This would have been part of his decision to prepare his heart for the time coming.

These actions in themselves do not court God's favor, but rather prepare an individual's heart

for worship.

How do you prepare for worship?

There are ways that you do that.

And whether you do them or don't doesn't change the fact that you are going to worship God.

But Daniel was doing this.

This was their method at the time.

This is what they did to prepare themselves for what Daniel hoped was coming, a

revelation from God, an understanding of what was going on with his beloved people, the Israelites.

Any questions about verse three?

Verse four, on the 24th day of the first month, while I was by the bank of the great river, that is

Tigris, in his careful manner, Daniel gives us the timeframe for this fast.

He began on the third day of Nisan, the first month of the Israelite calendar.

The 14th of Nisan was Passover, followed by the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, which lasts seven days.

He would have incorporated these two Jewish historical feasts into his fast.

He would have trekked to the banks of the river, the Tigris, or in Hebrew, the Hiddekel.

It is likely he would have gone there with other faithful Jews, which gives us the context for verse seven, which

indicates that the men with him, although unable to see the appearance of the man, knew something

was going on, and they were frightened away.

Returning to the critics.

Another objection is raised in this verse that Daniel did not return to Jerusalem, as the critics asserted.

This objection has been answered earlier, probably a combination of age and responsibility contributed to Daniel staying in Babylon.

Also consider that he could do far more good for his people by remaining in the city of power, where the king was.

His influence was great, and his wisdom was heeded by those he served.

They paid attention to Daniel.

And so this, he would have known this.

He would have been a blessed influence on the king at the time over Israel.

A second criticism is the naming of the river.

Critics allege that only the Euphrates was called the Great River.

This is a simple assumption, and has no historical underpinnings.

What's the Great River around here?

Right here, right here in River City.

Yeah, okay, the Clark Fork.

I think it's actually the Pend Oreille.

But you just proved my point.

There's all kinds of great rivers in the minds of people.

And what determines if a river is great is if the people of the place thought it was a great river.

Then I lost my place.

There would be no reason why the Tigris would not also be called a great river.

Daniel is likely at the river, which is only 30 to 35 miles from Babylon.

So you can see, you see the Tigris and the Euphrates where they come together there.

In Babylon, I've got a little arrow there, and then an arrow down on the scale to show you about how far

Babylon was from the Tigris at that point.

There would have been no reason why Daniel didn't hike to the Tigris for his worship, for his time of

fasting.

Any questions or comments?

Verse five, I lifted my eyes and behold, there was a certain man dressed in linen whose waist

was girded with the pure gold of Uphaz.

Even here on the bank of the river, Daniel was still in an attitude of prayer.

He had to lift his eyes to see what appeared to be a man.

There are many different opinions about this man.

Some believe it was Gabriel, but if so, since Daniel had done it earlier, it seems he would have mentioned him

by name.

Others believe this is a pre -incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ.

By the way, all of these suppositions are good suppositions that I'm talking about right now, and none of them affect

materially the doctrine or the information.

They're just surmisings.

I have my own opinion, and we'll get to that eventually.

But in verse 13, Daniel records that the delay in response from this emissary was a result of combat with

the prince of the kingdom of Persia for 21 days.

It's hardly likely, in my opinion, this is my opinion, that the God of the universe would have needed help from an angel

to defeat a prince of Persia, even if he was a demon and a powerful one at that.

See, my biblical, I believe, biblical understanding of the difference between the power of God and the power of

demons isn't measurable.

There's nothing to make the comparison, so I won't venture one.

It wouldn't have been nothing to Jesus, if this was Jesus, to simply ignore and

bypass this king of Persia.

Now, one scholar who I respect came up with the idea if it was in God's sovereign intention

to be delayed, and it could have been, then this could have been a method he might have used.

I'm okay with that.

I just, I have a different opinion.

I think this wasn't Jesus.

So, this cannot be, I say, because Michael helped his emissary in verse 13 to escape the battle with the prince of Persia.

It was likely another high angel sent by Yahweh to minister to Daniel, and we don't have a name, so I'm not gonna

venture one, but I did do some research on archangels, and I don't know

if I wrote it down.

Well, maybe we'll get to that.

Maybe I'm stealing my own thunder, but a false, I look at it as spurious research because

there's nothing in scripture, but in Apocrypha, in Apocryphal books, there's all these archangels

named, and so people have built up all kinds of elaborate ideas about them.

We know of Gabriel.

We know of Michael.

It was probably, might have been Gabriel, but Daniel didn't name him, so it might most likely was another

high angel.

That's my opinion with who remains unnamed, and one of the reasons he might remain unnamed

is simply to, for God to focus us on the vision, focus us on the message rather than on the

person who brought it.

So being dressed in white linen, for that is likely its appearance, was a symbolization of purity.

It was worn by the priests in Exodus 28, verse 42, by Jeremiah the prophet in Jeremiah 13 .1, and by

angels in Revelation 15 .6.

It would not be a stretch to assume, based on the description of the rest of the accouterments, that this man was wearing this white linen

was likely extremely bright, extremely white, bright white, and beautiful.

It would have been probably difficult to look at bright enough.

The gold mentioned here came from a place identified as Uphaz, and for some reason my,

there we go, comes from a place mentioned, called Uphaz,

which is likely a reference to Ophir, a region in the east that supplied much gold.

This particular word is a translation of a Hebrew word for carved out, likely referring to the requirement

to mine gold.

This is the only place in scripture other than Jeremiah 10 .9, where this particular word appears.

Further, in the Syriac version of scripture, Ophir is substituted for Uphaz.

So it's over by Tarshish, the southern coast of Spain, near where Gibraltar is.

And then verse six.

At any rate, there's some really good representations on the internet of what it could have been Daniel was looking at, and I did have

one of those.

So verse six, and then we'll finish.

His body was like beryl, his face had the appearance of lightning, his eyes were like flaming torches, his arms and feet like the

gleam of polished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a tumult.

Everything God does is magnificent.

Everything he does, even his emissaries, are beyond beautiful and unbelievable, wonderful.

Now Daniel goes to great pains to give us an accurate description of the being he saw.

The word for beryl is Tarshish, implying the area of the world which was rich in gold known as

Tarshish.

It is also in the south of Spain, and the gem is likely a topaz, which has a gold luster.

And what Daniel would see of the being displayed would have been this kind of sheen.

So likely his face, arms, and any exposed portion of his legs would have sheened or glowed like this.

A face like lightning would imply brilliant tone, eyes like flaming torches indicated that his eyes stood out possibly by

glowing in his face.

You can see how people can come to odd conclusions and write all kinds of science fiction.

We're just gonna leave it.

This is what the guy looked like.

He was incredible, and Daniel was struck dumb by it.

It also could refer to the fact that his eyes displayed great intelligence.

His arms and feet gleamed like polished bronze would be a restatement essentially of the fact that his body was like beryl.

When he spoke, Daniel noted that it sounded like a multitude or a roaring, a rumbling crowd.

The description is a being of great majesty, power, and authority.

It is quite easy to see why some have taken this as a pre -incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One commentator went to the extent of explaining how the concerns expressed would be answered.

The delay in coming, the need for help in battle, the fact that any clear -thinking demon would have been afraid to attack the second person

of the Trinity were answered by the fact that Christ in his life on earth allowed angels to help him.

He was severely confronted by Satan and was hindered by the work of Satan on the earth,

and those are all answered by stating that these would have been choices of the sovereign God of the universe

made to further his purpose, and that could be.

I'll leave it at that.

It could be, but whether it was a high angel or Christ himself, the appearance that Daniel

describes was majestic.

The point is God sent an answer, and that answer

was for Daniel in that day, and it is for us today.

Our God will never leave us not understanding, and he will never leave us, if you will, in the dark.

That's a poor metaphor because the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light, but you get my point.

We should, I am grateful every day when I study his word that it is given in love to us to

reveal who he is, why he has come, and what he has done for us.

Before we close, are there any questions or comments about this?

So let's close in prayer.

Father, it's wonderful that you take the time, you take great pains to explain things in great detail, and every one

of those details is profitable for our study, for instruction, correction, rebuke, and for building

into the lives of those who serve you the tools to serve you better, to honor you, to glorify you.

So as we think about this section of Daniel, Father, might it first inspire us to be obedient, to love

you, to revere your majesty, and to worship you, but might it second inspire us to

study more, to understand more about you, for that is where we find you in the pages of scripture, and we thank you for that, in Jesus'

name, amen.