Hebrew Bible: Book of Daniel
The book of Daniel is the latest book in the Hebrew Bible – the final chapters of which (chapters 7-12) date from the period between 167 – 164 B.C.E. during the reign of the Seleucid King Antioches Epiphanes. Antioches, the Seleucid or Syrian king, is famous for two principle historical things: his war with Egypt (the Ptolemiac Kingdom) and his forceful persecution of the Jews, especially his attempts to defile the Temple in Jerusalem. Such acts provoked political and literary responses among the Jews. Politically, Antioches’ oppressive regime led to the revolt of the Maccabbees, who eventually defeated the Syrians and founded the last independent Jewish kingdom in the Near East until the birth of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Literary responses accompanied the Maccabbean revolt, but were not considered canonical material. The book of Daniel, also written at this time, was included in the canon. It reflects the turmoil and oppression under the Syrian king by envisioning various scenarios depicting the fall of historically powerful leaders. It also presents an apocalyptic view of history for the first time in the Hebrew bible – a vision that comes to Daniel in the form of visions, mostly dream-visions. The organizing dynamic of the apocalyptic visions, including Daniel’s, is the interplay of fear and fulfillment. The fear is principally of two kinds: fear of present hardships and fear of the coming end-of-days, eschatological moment. Fulfillment, in the apocalyptic vision, occurs once the end has come, judgment has been made, and the elect have been saved. Daniel occupies the important position of being the first truly apocalyptic book in the Jewish (and Judeo-Christian-Islamic) tradition. As such, it presents a powerful model for apocalyptic thinking. Dreams will be central to this emerging apocalyptic genre.
We meet Daniel in the first chapter of the book. The author of the book has placed him in a context quite familiar to scholars of the Hebrew prophetic books (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Nehemiah, Ezra, etc.), the exilic period of Jewish history following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. Daniel and his companions from Judah have been brought to the Babylonian court as royal servants, though they immediately distinguish themselves from the others by refusing to eat the king’s normal food – as this would be an act of personal defilement. Suffused with such godliness, Daniel and his friends excel beyond all others. Daniel, in particular, is marked as possessing “an understanding of visions and dreams of all kinds.”
Daniel is immediately tested in the second chapter of the book. When the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar has a frightening dream, he calls on the court magicians to interpret it. They can’t – but in the night Daniel receives a vision from God with the answer. “But there is a God in heaven,” Daniel tells the king, “who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what is to be at the end of days.” After describing many transfers of power from one kingdom to another, Daniel provides a glimpse of the end of history: “And in the time of those kings, the God of Heaven will establish a kingdom that shall not be transferred to another people. It will crush and wipe out all these kingdoms, but shall itself last forever.”
In Daniel chapter four, the king has another frightening dream. Again, after failing to find an able interpreter among his retinue of magicians and sorcerers, the king summons Daniel to interpret it. Nebuchadnezzar relates the dream to Daniel:
I saw a tree of great height in the midst of the earth; the tree grew and became mighty; its top reached heaven, and it was visible to the ends of the earth. Its foliage was beautiful and its fruit abundant; there was food for all in it. Beneath it the beasts of the field found shade, and the birds of the sky dwelt on its branches; all creatures fed on it. In the vision of my mind in bed, I looked and saw a holy Watcher coming down from heaven. He called loudly and said: “Hew down the tree, lop off its branches, strip off its foliage, scatter its fruit. Let the beasts of the field flee from beneath it and the birds from its branches, but leave the stump with its roots in the ground. In fetters of iron and bronze in the grass of the field, let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, and share earth’s verdure with the beasts. Let his mind be altered from that of a man, and let him be given the mind of a beast, and let seven seasons pass over him. This sentence is decreed by the Watchers; this verdict is commanded by the Holy Ones so that all creatures may know that the Most High is sovereign over the realm of man, and He gives it to whom He wishes and He may set over it even the lowest of men.”
Daniel contemplates this dream and concludes that the “tree” is a symbol for the king – that he will be debased by God and set among the animals (in other words, depriving him of rational capability) in order to teach him about the Lord’s power and to provoke in him faith. The dream comes to fruition and Daniel’s reputation as one who can divine the future from dreams continues to grow.
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