Desired in Daniel

One thing which hit the cutting room floor on Sunday's sermon on Daniel 10.1-12.4 was the root chamad (חמד) which is used several times in these chapters.
The first three are the most interesting, and may bear on the later uses:

10.3 - desirable food
10.11,19 - esteemed man (cf. 9.23 for the only other use in Daniel)

In repentance Daniel refrains from eating choice food, meat and wine, as an outward expression of his repentance.
In answer to his acts of penance, God sends his messengers, for Daniel is a man of high esteem.
Putting this together, it is because of his self-denial of that God has recognised him. Or perhaps, to use synonyms, out of Daniel's desire to please God, he has withheld desired food, and now God has desired him.

In contrast, the further four uses of chamad are with regard to things opposed to God:

11.8 - precious vessels
11.38, 43 - costly things
11.37 - a false god worshipped by women

The first three in the list are quite similar - they are things desired by people. Things which are bestowed worth by the desire accorded them.

The fourth (11.37) is referring to an idol that women get right into. Perhaps it is women's Baal, to men's Ashteroth. 

Whatever the case, all of these things are desired by people who have no self control, whereas food - a good thing created by God to be enjoyed - Daniel refrains from, that he might better focus his affections on God. And because he does this, he is acknowledged by God.

There are surely a bunch of implications that flow from this (I'm thinking 1 Corinthians and food and freedom). But no time on Sunday. Oh well. Enjoy.

The Kingdoms of Daniel 2, 7, 8 and 9

A short while ago I put up a preterist reading of Daniel 2. Well, here it is extended to encompass Daniel 7-9 also.

All of these chapters are extrapolated by many into our time (try finding a picture on google which doesn't point to Rome or Obama!), such that the fulfilment is to be found in the very near future. While that is not wrong (Christian eschatology in a sense places the end tomorrow - Cf. Jesus' parable in Luke 12.13-21), it is not the plain reading of the text, and it is incorrect to interpret symbols as signs. What this diagram, and any preterist reading, sets out to do, is show the primary referent of the symbols before they are extrapolated to all powers and authorities which arrogantly set themselves up in opposition to God and their (his) people.

A quick note of explanation on Daniel 9 - Daniel is reappropriating Jeremiah's prophesied 70 years of exile as 70 weeks (literally 70 sevens), which this diagram shows as 70 non-consecutive 'weeks of years'.  This then encompasses not just the exile (which are completed in just 7 sevens), but from Nebuchadnezzar's ascension to  the rededication of the temple and the death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the brutal reign of whom is the period especially focussed on throughout the second half of Daniel. Further information on this reading of the 70 sevens can be found in George Athas' article: http://www.jhsonline.org/Articles/article_104.pdf

Update: I can't count. Well, I can, so I fixed the picture.

Babylonian and Persian Kings Diagram

I've tried to work out the relationships between the different kings of the 6th to 4th Centuries. Here's my effort (thanks to the highly reliable information source of wikipedia).

The main reason is (going by the post two below) trying to understand what's happening in Daniel. The kings he mentions are Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar his son, Darius the Mede son of Xerxes (Ahasuerus), and Cyrus the Persian  (in that order).

To explain the diagram as it relates to Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar is the king who was at the head of the Babylonian Empire as the Assyrians were finally finished off. Three kings later, Nabonidus usurps the throne, and while hanging out in some desert oasis, gets his son Belshazzar to look after Babylon while he's gone. Calling Belshazzar Nebuchadnezzar's son is then a literary device, to make us compare father with son, to see if he would learn from his father's mistakes and humble himself before the one true God (he doesn't).

The gap into which the Danielic Darius should slot into is the one between Nabonidus/Belshazzar and Cyrus. The fact that there is no gap, that the Medes never ruled Babylon (although Cyrus was half-Median), and that the Dariuses we know of came much later means this is a literary riddle, rather than an historical one. That is, why 1) invent a kingdom and a king, and 2) why give him the name Darius and the father Xerxes (Ahasuerus)? I'll proffer my suggestions below:

1. According to commentators, a four kingdom model was quite the thing back in the day. Being in the time of the kingdoms of Alexanders successors (the Diadochi), yet using stories from the Babylonian era, leaves only three kingdoms - Babylon, Persia, Greece. Media was a kingdom north and east of Babylon, and were pretty big, so from a literary perspective, Media seems a pretty good idea.

2. Darius is a pretty well known name, there being three kings with that name, and the names Xerxes and Artaxerxes  (i.e. Xerxes with an 'Arta' tacked on) similarly so. So it's a pretty common name, but there has to be more. Well, Darius III, as you can see from the diagram, is an epoch finishing guy. He was the last of the line, and after him a new mob took over. Less importantly, his familial connection with the dynasty is a bit tricky/murky. Therefore, being relatively unattached, yet still important, his name would seem to be the most appropriate for a literary second kingdom.


Let me know what you think.

If I'm in a particularly masochistic mood I'll have a crack at the successors, that is, the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, to complete the table all the way to the 'abomination of desolation', that is, the misdeeds of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the 2nd Century.

Daniel 2 - The Preterist Reading

For some reason it's impossible to find a picture of the statue in Daniel 2 labelled normally. So here's mine. It's not complicated, and it is what Daniel pretty much is about.

 

 Daniel is set in the 6th Century BC, but is written to a 2nd Century BC audience.

In his schema within the book, Daniel has three kingdoms - Babylon, Media and Persia. Historically we know that Babylon passed directly to Persia, when Cyrus took it (was given it) after Nabonidus was on the nose (Belshazzar was his son and ruler in his absence). So where Media came from is unclear - they did exist, but didn't ever hold Babylon (although Cyrus was half-Persian perhaps) - but that doesn't matter. In Daniel, the order is Babylon, Media, Persia. So, the statue starts off Gold-Babylon, Silver-Media, Bronze-Persia.

Now for the tricky bit. Well, not really.
In the second century, Alexander's kingdom took over from Persia, and more, and when he died, when asked about his successor, he (apocryphally) said 'the strongest'. So, next after Alexander was an AVP-style all-in, with the Diadochi (the successors) fighting it out amongst themselves.

Unfortunately for Jerusalem, they were smack bang in the middle. Lots of horrific things happened in and around Jerusalem, as the Seleucids battled the Ptolemies for centuries. This includes the 'abomination of desolation' - the slaughtering of a pig on the altar in the temple.

So for the writer/editor/compiler of Daniel in the 2nd Century, this was the end of the world. It was the last evil age, when all the evil powers were assembled against God and his people. So, the message of encouragement to them was - the rock - God's intervention - is coming any day now. The horror will end, because God will not leave us in the hands of these mad men forever.

That's the message of Daniel, that's the apocalyptic perspective, and that's really all the statue can mean, both literarily and historically. Enjoy the picture.

what do you get when you give football fans AK47s?

according to Peter Hitchens: the Arab Spring.

i wish it weren't true, but the enthusiasm for 'regime change' seems to forget this truism:

Just because existing regimes are bad, it does not follow that their replacements will be any better.

i sincerely hope and pray that this will not be so - that what replaces the regimes of Mubarak, Gadafi et al will be ones who govern for the good of their people and not for themselves.

my friend steve has written a great post on politics, reflecting on Daniel, which i would love to see him apply to the current goings-on. Daniel is written to believers, who will by all accounts remain on the outer with the regime changes, if not further so. the good news for them is the apocalyptic vision of the ancient of days, who remains in control despite appearances - for their power is limited and contingent.

sermon downloads a plenty

if you don't find my voice whiney, nasal, dull, or patronising, you may be tempted to listen to some of my sermons which are available to download.


09 Mar 2008 Grace that Works Philippians 2:12-30
    i particularly liked the way Daniel 12 helped us think through what this meant.

15 Jun 2008 Between A Rock & A Hard Place Exodus 16-17
    i tried something quite different here - i tried to start with the OT, jump to the NT and explain how that increased our understanding of what is going on in the OT. i wanted to get away from the 'here's the OT, but don't worry about that so much: here's where it points to in the NT' - as if there were no value in it of itself, as if the OT were only of value for showing us the NT. tell me if you think it worked!

20 Jul 2008 The King with Authority Luke 4.1-13
    how to do a sermon on Isaiah 61 without really going there properly

11 Jan 2009 The Blessing of Forgiveness Psalm 32
    interestingly, i did a sermon in October on Matthew 18 also on forgiveness (the guest speaker in the evening is the one who made the web page, mine obviously didn't make the cut), so i really enjoyed having a second dip into this really tough topic.

19 Apr 2009 The value of wisdom Proverbs 1-3
    an introductory sermon on the prologue to Proverbs, focussing on ch3

i'm also on tonight, talking about prayer as mission, but the boss is speaking (as i write this!) on the same topic: i'm assuming i won't make the cut, but thinking about how our prayers promote the gospel has been quite rebuking for me as i think through it. perhaps i'll post some thoughts on it sometime.

UPDATE:

24 May 2009 Promoting Jesus :: Our prayers Matthew 9:35-10:5
    trying to think through where prayer fits in in promoting the gospel. i wonder where you might have gone, what you would have emphasised, whether you would have done a bit more of a systematic theology of prayer.

the problem of evil

are things as good as they can be?
no.
why aren't they?
God uses bad stuff for 3 reasons:

1. as judgement because of sin (c/f isa45:7 dan9, 1cor11:30)
   
2. to discipline us as his children (c/f heb12:10)
   
3. to test/make sure of our faith (c/f 1pet1)

therefore we should be satisfied that God is in control over all, knowing he works all things for good (Rom8:28)

right?
wrong.

reading this article by Matheson Russell, it was good to see his righteous indignation at this "ideology", this apathetic, laissez-faire view of the evil.

Theodicy [This idea of God using evil for good] misrepresents evil by saying that evil is necessary for the good; God is weaving a tapestry and he needs the light and the dark thread to make the picture beautiful. But the analogy won’t wash: while the weaver may need the light and dark threads, the creator of heaven and earth made a world that was good, very good without a drop of blood being spilt. And theodicy puts us in the wrong relationship to evil since it asks us to put our pain, outrage and opposition to one side and to see the bigger picture, the harmonious and rational whole of the universe in which evil has its place. But this does not do justice to victims of pain, loss and injustice. And even more importantly, it doesn’t do justice to the good news of the gospel [...]

and what is the good news of the gospel?
that God is seeking to right the wrongs.
that he will not be content with a world that is self-destructive, consuming itself in hatred.
that no price is too great a price to pay, that this world might be redeemed for that which he purposed it.