Episode 59 – Daniel and the Coming World Empires Part 1

Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script: (Bible quote from the God’s Word Translation)

Your Majesty, you had a vision. You saw a large statue. This statue was very bright. It stood in front of you, and it looked terrifying. The head of this statue was made of fine gold. Its chest and arms were made of silver. Its stomach and hips were made of bronze. Its legs were made of iron. Its feet were made partly of iron and partly of clay. This is the dream. Now we'll tell you its meaning. "Your Majesty, you are the greatest king. The God of heaven has given you a kingdom. He has given you power, strength, and honor. He has given you control over people, wild animals, and birds, wherever they live. He has made you ruler of them all. You are the head of gold. Another kingdom, inferior to yours, will rise to power after you. Then there will be a third kingdom, a kingdom of bronze that will rule the whole world. There will also be a fourth kingdom. It will be as strong as iron. ... As iron crushes things, this fourth kingdom will smash and crush all the other kingdoms.

Daniel, Chapter 2, verses 31 through 34 and 36 through 43 God’s Word Translation

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VK: Hi! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m here today with RD Fierro, author, founder of Crystal Sea Books, and part-time etymologist. He’s the one who looks up the meanings of various words that we come across when we’re preparing our shows. And as anyone who’s heard many of the Anchored by Truth episodes knows, we do come across some very odd names and words. I’m still getting over “Ixt-lil-sho-“

RD: Ixtlilxochitl. He was an Aztec historian who wrote that the world lasted 1716 years before it was destroyed by a flood. We mentioned him in one of our discussions on Noah because the figure he came up with for the date of the world destroying flood is only about 50 years off from the date that is derived by studying the genealogies presented in Genesis chapter 5.

VK: Yeah. That guy. Anyway, today on Anchored by Truth we are focusing on Daniel not Noah. And today you want to talk about the actual content of the one of Daniel’s major prophecies – his prophecy concerning the succession of coming world empires. Is that right?

RD: Yes. In our last episode we took a look at the times and places in which Daniel lived. We saw that Daniel had been born in Israel but as a young boy he was taken as part of a group of captives to Babylon and he spent the rest of his very long life outside of Israel living in one of the cities that belonged to either the Babylonian or the Persian empires. We also saw that through God’s providence Daniel became a senior official – more a less a high level bureaucrat – in both the Babylonian and the Persian courts.

VK: Daniel became a senior official in both the Babylonian and Persian courts because he lived long enough to see the Babylonian empire fall to a confederation of the Medes and Persians. But before we get too far along in our discussion of how Daniel lived long enough to see some of his own prophecies fulfilled let’s listen to another Life Lesson with a Laugh about one of the most famous and colorful scenes from the Bible – and the source for the saying “handwriting on the wall.”

---- Life Lessons – Daniel 3 – The Hand of Justice

VK: Ok. Obviously, that’s a lesson that’s full of very descriptive visuals. But even those visuals must pale in comparison to what it must have been like to have really been in the room when the hand appeared.

RD: True dat. That’s one of the things about scripture that we often forget. The handwriting-on-the-wall story is so famous that it’s become a common expression today for something obvious. But for the Babylonian nobles who were actually in the room it must have been so terrifying that it would have roused them pretty quickly from their drunken stupor. Sometimes we forget that even the most famous Bible stories happened to real people in real places - people who were just like us. They gathered together in real rooms and ate real food - sometimes too much – just like us. They had regular lives and even though where and when they lived can seem either exotic or antiquated, they were real people who could be inspired or terrified by the events that would become part of the record of scripture that has been passed down to us.

VK: And – interestingly enough - the handwriting-on-the-wall incident we just heard about happened on the cusp of the fulfillment of one of Daniel’s first recorded prophecies – the prophecy that we heard about in our opening scripture. Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar and that the Babylonian empire would be replaced by another empire which wouldn’t have the splendor of the Babylonians. And - just as Daniel had prophesied - the Babylonian empire was conquered by the combined force of the Medes and the Persians. The handwriting-on-wall incident occurred just before their armies entered the city in 539 B.C.

RD: But, of course, the prophecy we heard in our opening scripture didn’t stop with the prophecy that the Babylonian empire would be replaced. The prophecy included the fact that there would be a succession of four empires that would control what we now call the Mideast and much of the surrounding territory. Each empire would be a little less splendid than its immediate predecessor, although in many ways would exceed it in scope and power. We now know that these four empires were, in order, the Babylonian empire, the Medo-Persian, the Greek empire, and the Romans. And our opening scripture which comes from chapter 2 in Daniel wasn’t the only place that he prophesied about this succession of four empires. He amplified on this general prophecy in chapters 7 and 8 of his book.

VK: And subsequent chapters Daniel added even more details regarding the coming empires, didn’t he? For instance, in chapter 8 Daniel sees the 2nd empire as being represented by a ram with two horns, one of which is larger than the other. And he sees the 3rd empire as being represented by a male goat with a single large horn between its eyes. The goat is moving so fast that it seems like it is crossing the earth without touching it. In other words it’s bounding so quickly that it is barely touching ground in its movements. The male goat conquers the ram but in the end the male goat had its single horn broken off and the single horn was replaced by four smaller horns. You say this prophecy – which sounds strange to modern ears - was fulfilled exactly as Daniel foresaw. Can you explain that?

RD: I’d be glad to because this is the kind of prophetic detail that is abundant in the Bible and is completely unique within the world’s literature. No other book contains prophecies with this degree of specificity that we can test to determine whether it corresponds with what we know of world history. Daniel gave this prophecy around 550 B. C. We know this because Daniel himself dates this prophecy in the 3rd year of Belshazzar who was the last ruler of Babylon before it was conquered. Historians generally agree that Belshazzar was co-regent with his father Nabonidus for a time. Belshazzar controlled the city of Babylon while Nabonidus spent extensive amounts of his time in Tema of Arabia. Nabonidus became king in 556 B.C. While historians aren’t sure if Belshazzar immediately became the co-regent most think that he had that role within a few years after his father’s assumption of the throne.

VK: So this means Daniel gave the prophecy of the 1st empire, Babylon, falling to the 2nd empire, Medo-Persia, a minimum of 10 or so years before it actually happened. But what about the part about the 2nd empire being represented by a ram with two horns, one of which was larger than the other?

RD: Well, the Babylonians didn’t fall to just the Persians or the Medes. They fell to a confederation of the two while being led by Cyrus who was the son of Cambyses the Persian, and of Mandane, daughter of Astyages, king of the Medes. It’s generally agreed that the Persian side of the alliance was generally the stronger of the two sides and eventually became dominant, thus the reference to one horn being larger than the other. Horns are frequently used in the Bible as symbols of power. The Bible also says that the ram, the Medo-Persians, charged west, north, and south. It doesn’t say anything about the ram charging east. This description is consistent with how the Persians expanded their empire. Remember that ultimately the Persians pushed so far to the west that they even tried to conquer Greece. There have been a lot of movies made about the encounters between the Greeks and Persians and the names of some of the places they fought have become legendary like Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis.

VK: So that makes perfect sense with other parts of the prophecy in chapter 8 doesn’t it? The scripture there says that the goat – the nation of Greece - was extremely angry with the ram. That’s consistent with what we know from history because after the Persians repeated attempts to invade Greece the Greeks finally pushed back under Alexander the Great. So what does history tell us about Alexander the Great’s career that is consistent with Daniel’s prophecy?

RD: History actually provides some striking confirmation that Daniel’s prophecies in Chapter 8 were fulfilled in minute detail.

VK: Such as?

RD: Well let’s start by remembering that Daniel is giving this prophecy in the vicinity of 550 B. C. Alexander wasn’t even born until 356 B.C. or almost 200 years later. So this prophecy is being given 2 centuries before Alexander’s birth. Next, Alexander was one of the most successful military leaders in history. He’s one of the very few commanders who never lost a battle. He conquered essentially all of the territory between Greece and modern day India in a space of just about a decade including Egypt and other significant parts of northern Africa.

VK: In fact, the largest city on the Mediterranean and 2nd largest city in Egypt today, Alexandria, still bears his name.

RD: Exactly. Alexander was so successful as a military commander that at the age of 32 the entire Mideast and significant parts of Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa were under his control. Legend has it that at one time Alexander sat down and cried complaining there were no more places for him to conquer. You might have thought that a military commander that successful would have founded an empire that would last for decades if not hundreds of years. But Alexander’s empire essentially ended at his death at the age of 32. Even though Alexander had 2 sons but both were so young they were unable to play any meaningful part in succeeding him. In the ensuing power struggle it’s generally agreed that both of Alexander’s sons, one of whom had been born after Alexander died, were murdered. Ultimately, after a lengthy period of fighting, four of Alexander’s commanders – Seleucus, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Cassander divided up the empire. So just as Daniel prophesied the single large horn that had been Alexander was replaced by 4 smaller ones.

VK: That’s pretty amazing but all that does raise a couple of other questions. First, how can be sure that the events of history do represent the fulfillment of this prophecy? And second, why does the Bible so often give its prophecies in terms that are frankly hard to understand? I think some people might find all this talk about visions of statues, rams, and goats a little confusing.

RD: Well, the first question is actually pretty easy to answer because later in chapter 8 God actually sends an angel – in this case Gabriel – to explain to Daniel exactly what the vision of the ram and goat means. Starting in verse 20 of chapter 8 Gabriel tells Daniel that "The two-horned ram that you saw represents the kingdoms of Media and Persia. The hairy male goat is the kingdom of Greece, and the large horn between its eyes is its first king. The horn broke off, and four horns replaced it. Four kingdoms will come out of that nation, but they won't be as strong as the first king was. So, in this case we don’t have to have any doubts about the meaning of the symbols because God gave us a very clear explanation.

VK: And to Daniel’s ears that explanation would have been remarkable wouldn’t it? Again, Daniel is hearing this from Gabriel in 550 B.C. Greece didn’t even become a more-or-less unified nation until 338 under Alexander’s father, Phillip of Macedon. At the time Gabriel is talking to Daniel, Greece is just a collection of warring city states. The notion that that collection of fractured, minor powers could ever have become a nation that would dominate Babylon and Persia would have been ridiculous – if Daniel hadn’t known that it was God speaking through Gabriel.

RD: Precisely. The second question is harder, in fact impossible, to answer. No human being can ever comprehensively understand WHY God does anything unless He condescends to explain it – which He does rarely. But I think we can make some, as one theologian used to put it, some sanctified speculation about why God so often uses symbols in communicating with people especially when it comes to prophecies. Some people might say that God should just use words if he wants to be understood. But let’s face it. There are plenty of debates about the words that are used even in modern language. Plus, even if God had chosen to only communicate in what some might call plain language we humans would still have to contend with the languages of different countries across millennia of changes so even “words” wouldn’t be just “words” by the time the words arrived at our ears. In addition, though, symbols – especially visually stimulating ones like charging rams, goats with one horn, heads of gold – tend to be more easily remembered by most people. Rather like the old proverb that “a single picture is worth a thousand words.” Symbols also tend to have more of an impact on our thinking that just plain verbal descriptions. This impact can be harnessed for good or evil as a lot of the images that are conveyed in movies, TV, or on the internet attest. Also, the symbols can communicate effectively with people of all ages or varying levels of education of literary sophistication. So, I would speculate that God often used symbols when he was communicating with his prophets because God know that those symbols would be the most effective way to get his message across to those who were serious about wanting to know what He was saying.

VK: And I think that’s a pretty important point. The starting point for everyone who treats the Bible seriously is obviously reading it on a consistent basis no matter what approach you use. Some people like to use one of the various programs that lead you through the Bible in a year. Others may just like to set aside some time during the day and study whatever was discussed in church or Bible study that week. All of those programs can be effective, but it’s also important to take some time to investigate resources that help develop an understanding about the Biblical times, places, and people. It helps to study a little history about Israel and the various other nations that had such an impact upon them because without doing that we can miss some details that are not only important but fascinating. And in the internet age it’s pretty easy to do a search on “when did Cyrus conquer Babylon” or when did “Alexander invade Persia” and get a mountain of helpful information.

RD: A very good point but I think it should come with a caution. There’s a lot of good information out there but there’s also a lot of misleading information. So, you need to know your sources. Some websites will be critical of the Bible and that’s ok insofar as people understand that are still many legitimate discussions about Biblical issue that merit further investigation. But it’s very important to ensure that where there are issues that aren’t settled that you look at both sides of a question. That’s one reason it’s important for people to have mature Christians that they can turn to help guide them and, of course, it’s super important for Christian parents to very involved in helping their children learn how to study and correctly apply the Bible.

VK: Sounds like a perfect time to close with prayer. Since godly fathers and mothers are so important to families and our communities, how about if today we close with a prayer for mothers and next week – in recognition of Father’s Day we’ll close with a prayer for fathers?

---- PRAYER FOR MOTHERS

VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quotes from the God’s Word Translation)

Daniel, Chapter 2, verses 31 through 4, God’s Word Translation

https://www.adefenceofthebible.com/2018/10/14/alexander-the-great-conquered-the-known-world-but-he-spared-jerusalem-why/

https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/1293/the-arrival-of-the-king