The Book of Daniel Explained
The Book of Daniel Explained
Oh my Dear Dear Dear Dear God. Who knows what the book of Daniel is truly about except for You. I am humble and breathless at the thought of trying to write down what it all means. I am almost inclined to say, please Lord, I’m not up to this. Please have someone else write. But who am I, or anybody else to talk back to You. We may weep and feel sorry for ourselves because You assign to us this or that, but we have no right to utter anything. So if You want me to write, I will write, but it must all come from You. So be it, amen.
I never know where to begin, so here goes. This is not going to be your average explanation of the book of Daniel. We are going to go “outside the box”, of normal discussion, into topics, principles, areas, and Godly lessons, on various things, as we break down the book of Daniel. Even this kind of long statement that I just made, wasn’t in my first draft. I came back and inserted it, as an afterthought after I seen some of the places this writing took us. You can do that in this digital age much easier than ink horn writers of the past, or even typists of the past could. But as I said, here goes. Daniel is a contemporary of Ezekiel and Jeremiah. That does not mean that they knew each other personally. Like his two contemporaries, the book he is credited with writing, is a mixture of chronology and prophecy. I don’t mean any disrespect by saying “the book he is credited with writing”. I believe he did likely write it, as Jeremiah and Ezekiel likely did their respective writings too. But, I want to emphasize something that is true of all three of their writings. And that is, that it is really God that wrote their respective writings, and these prophets served mostly as stenographers, who wrote down what God dictated to them. Do we get that? Because I have not found that concept to be spoken of anywhere. Everybody just seems to think they, (the human writers), are the originators of their words. Religious circles may concede that God inspired them somewhat, but then their commentaries often leave God out of it, attributing the unfolding of thought and expression to the physical human writers themselves. This is an erroneous basis from which to start, in one’s effort and desire to understand. Consequently, just about no one gets the true meaning of any of the prophetic writings, and by that I mean, God’s true intended meaning. But get this amazing understanding about God: Since God Himself did not intend that we should understand His true intended meaning, it plays right into His hand that people should think they know, having eyes but not seeing, and ears but not hearing; God having reserved the time for true understanding to be well off into the future, from the time it was originally dictated to the prophet, and the time that revelation would occur. In a section of scripture In Daniel 12:8-9, Daniel expresses his frustration with not understanding the things that were dictated to him. And he is told to go his way because the things dictated were closed up and sealed until the time of the end. But I wish to be clear about something, so that I do not imply that all of scripture is a dictation from God. When God is directly speaking, and often dictating, it is usually quite clear that He is. There are other parts of scripture that appear to be the words of men; (writers and chronologies, etc). These may be inspired, but it’s not the same as when God is speaking. Then there are even times, when it appears that satan is speaking, (albeit very few times). We should try to differentiate between the various speakers in the bible in our effort to “understand”. (I have noticed that whenever there seems to be a conflict in scripture, it is never when God is speaking, but when men are speaking). Going back to Daniel 12:8-9, Daniel is told to seal up the book. But people have not accepted this statement. Well for one thing, many think it’s just some of the book of Daniel that is sealed until the time of the end. They think they can find out what these things mean by combining Matthew 24 with the book of Revelations and then find out what was sealed in Daniel. Ask, would God allow us to outsmart Him, and figure out sealed things by coming at it through some other door? And further to that, God is not talking about just the book of Daniel that is sealed until the time of the end. He means the prophetic meaning of things contained in the book, the bible, which contains the whole story, is sealed until the time of the end. I will explain this as we get into it, and especially as we get to chapter 12. I will be summarizing in my own words once again quite a bit, but I encourage you to follow along with your bibles and concordances open.