The Final Vision

Read Daniel 10:1-3

This is the last of Daniel’s prophetic visions

Starts in Daniel 10 and continues through Daniel 12

The events of the vision stretches from Daniel’s day until the great tribulation and the return of Christ

Takes place in the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia (539 BC)

Daniel was mourning

At the beginning of chapter 9, Daniel was praying for the relief of his people.

God answered his prayer in the form of Cyrus, who issued a decree in the first year of his reign

The decree was for all the Israelites to return to Jerusalem to re-build the Temple

But…

Read Ezra 1; 2:1, 64-70; 3:1-4:6

Just over 42,000 Israelites returned (just under 50,000 people, including slaves) while there are likely millions in Babylon

There was a period of preparation for building the temple foundation for the work did not begin till the second month of the second year after their arrival (May–June 536, exactly 70 years after the first deportation in 605).

Why this delay of seven months after the altar was built?

They had to get organized and secure the building materials.

The wood came from Lebanon, which had to be shipped along the coast from Lebanon to Joppa (~95 miles on the Mediterranean Sea) and then carried overland from Joppa to Jerusalem (~40 miles).

30 years earlier, Solomon also got the wood for the building of the Temple from Lebanon. He also began his project in the second month (May–June; 1 Kings 6:1), the same month this rebuilding began under Zerubbabel.

There was disappointment among the older folks at the new Temple (maybe Daniel received the negative report?)

There was opposition to the work and the people were discouraged from working

Read Daniel 10:1-9

twenty-fourth day of the first month

24 Nisan

He’s been mourning since 3 Nisan

Passover always fell on the fourteenth of Nisan.

He is mourning all through the Passover time and the seven days of Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Supposed to be a season of celebration, a season of some activity.

All through that most important season of the Jewish calendar, Daniel is wrapped in mourning, praying, fasting to the end of the Feast of Unleavened Bread on Nisan 21 and three days after that

Daniel’s praying; and in his selflessness, he longs for his people and their place. So we see his mourning toward heaven.

standing on the bank of the Tigris

We don’t know whether he was officially there or unofficially.

He may have been there trying to stir up some of the Jews to go back to the land.

https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/27-27/the-vision-of-glory