Chapter five of the book of Daniel is key for understanding the historical moment of Daniel’s apocalyptic message. In it, the new king Belshazzar has failed to heed the lessons presented to his father, Nebuchadnezzar. Though aware of what happened to his father, Belshazzar brazenly sets himself against the Hebrew god. The most egregious act Belshazzar commits is the defilement of sacred vessels brought as plunder from the sanctuary of the Jerusalem Temple – the holiest place of Judaism and the “house” where God’s name dwells. When Belshazzar has a disturbing vision of words scrawled on the wall and, again, the members of his entourage are unable to interpret them, Daniel is called upon to interpret for the king. Daniel first reviews what befell Nebuchadnezzar and then says:

The reference here is most likely to the defilement of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes in the mid-second century B.C.E.  

In any case, the drama in the book of Daniel is growing – it is a historical drama of one kingdom falling after another, heading unstoppably toward the end of days. Both the fear of destruction and doom and the yearning for the fulfillment of God’s promise animate the remainder of the book. By book seven, it is Daniel, the prophet himself, who starts to receive the dreams and visions of the future, revelations that must be interpreted for him by an angel or emissary of God. The stakes of final redemption gradually increase as the book unfolds. In the first chapters, we see God attempting to intervene and convert a pagan, sinful king. Then God comes to punish the iniquitous, without much regard for who follows. After that, God intervenes to depose an oppression pagan king and to elevate a righteous king – presumably in the Davidic line. By the end of the book, however, redemption moves out of historical time. The situation described in the final chapters is an eschatological one – an end of days during which historical time comes to an end, humankind is judged, then punished or rewarded, and a new, everlasting dominion is established among the righteous while the sinners are condemned to eternal suffering. The key signs of the pending apocalypse are the rising injustice in the world and the increasing suffering of God’s people – a narrative that would resonate with particular strength during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. Only at such a time of great trouble and sorrow, the book of Daniel tells us, will everlasting redemption come. In the final chapter, God’s messenger tells Daniel:

Daniel’s dreams and visions, ending with the final, ultimate apocalypse at which point God replaces the known world of iniquity with world perfectly divided between the righteous and the sinful, blend the emotions of fear and fulfillment, notions in line with the dualistic worldview presented. The dreams and visions are principally concerned with the passage of history, which unfolds as God has divined it until it reaches the eschatological moment, the end-of-days. Knowledge of the historical processes seem random and inexplicable to the average person – even to the human kings involved in moving it forward. Unknown to them, however, God intervenes in human affairs – and already has a plan to restructure human life completely – inverting the present hierarchies with new ones based on righteousness. Dreams and visions, either interpreted by Daniel or occurring directly to him, offer lenses through which knowledge of historical processes (including the future) can be transmitted. In the book of Daniel, dreams are portals for humans to interact with the divine. Such interactions provoke tremendous fear and hold out the promise for ultimate fulfillment.