Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.13UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.1UNLIKELY
Fear
0.47UNLIKELY
Joy
0.24UNLIKELY
Sadness
0.53LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.4UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.45UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.89LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.41UNLIKELY
Extraversion
0.13UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.11UNLIKELY
Emotional Range
0.76LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
The Setting of the Vision
It takes place in the 3rd year of Belshazzar, King of Babylon.
He became coregent with his father in 553 BC, so this was about 550 BC This is just the time when Cyrus began his push that resulted in the defeat of Babylon about a dozen years later.
The whole world was starting to wonder what would become of the Persian Empire.
It takes place in the 3rd year of Belshazzar, King of Babylon.
He became coregent with his father in 553 BC, so this was about 550 BC This is just the time when Cyrus began his push that resulted in the defeat of Babylon about a dozen years later.
The whole world was starting to wonder what would become of the Persian Empire.
It takes place in Susa the Citadel.
Daniel was most likely still in Babylon at the time, since he was able to resume the King’s Business after a few days of illness.
Further, Daniel was getting old by this point, being approximately 70 years old.
Daniel was transported to Susa by vision, in the same way that Ezekiel was transported in a vision to Jerusalem even though he was still in Babylon by the Chebar Canal (; ).
Susa is about 220 miles east of Babylon.
Susa is called “The Citadel” in Scripture 12 times, elsewhere only in Nehemiah and Esther (; ; etc.).
The word means “fortress,” “Castle,” or “Palace.”
The word is used for the temple complex (), for a fortified military structure (; ).
It was a very large city by ancient standards, covering some 600 acres, yet archaeological evidence shows it was not heavily populated.
It was primarily a royal residence, a government centre used as a showpiece of Persian wealth and power.
Yet at the time of the vision the Elamites, not the Persians controlled the city.
It wasn’t taken by the Persians until after they conquered Babylon and didn’t become the capital until 521 BC [well after Daniel’s death], so Daniel’s choice of this city as the Persian capital is itself prophetic.
The Ulai Canal runs near the city and is some 900 feet wide.
Today it is dry.
The Record of the Vision
1.
Comparison with the other visions in Daniel.
A. The Ram
2. The two horns of the ram stand for the two nations of Media and Persia.
Media was the first, already being a major power, but Persia was a small nation with less than 50k square miles of territory.
But when Cyrus united Media and Persia he made Persia a dominant force, that became so great that the empire is often just known as the Persian empire.
The Persian empire did indeed become great - at its largest extent it was the largest empire in the world at the time.
B. The Goat
Daniel 8:5-
2. The two horns of the ram stand for the two nations of Media and Persia.
Media was the first, already being a major power, but Persia was a small nation with less than 50k square miles of territory.
But when Cyrus united Media and Persia he made Persia a dominant force, that became so great that the empire is often just known as the Persian empire.
Daniel 8:7
3. The goat stands for the nation of Greece.
We have moved ahead in history 200 years to 336 BC.
The great horn is Alexander the Great.
The great rage in his vision stands for both Alexander’s anger at his father’s defeat by the Persians, and his own enormous ambitions for world domination.
The Goat does not touch the ground signifying the astonishing speed that Alexander conquered the middle East.
In just 11 years between 334 and 323 BC he conquered all the way from Greece to India to Egypt.
His empire covered 1.5 million square miles.
Daniel 8:22
But Alexander never made it home.
He drank himself to death and died at just 33 years of age.
His four generals divided his empire between them, and they became four separate empires.
C. the Little Horn
This little horn was the eighth king of the Seleucid empire - one of the four empires that came out of Alexander’s conquest.
His name was Antiochus Epiphanes IV and he ruled from 175-164 BC.
He is different from the little horn in .
In , the horn arises from the fourth empire, Rome.
In , the little horn arises from the Grecian empire.
In Chapter 7, the little horn refers to the AntiChrist, the coming ruler that will oppose God in the tribulation.
In chapter 8, the little horn is a figure now part of history.
But because the two rulers are so similar, much of the characteristics of Antiochus Epiphanes will also be true of the AntiChrist.
Antiochus began an expansionistic campaign that included the “glorious land” that is, Israel.
Again we get some more details from the Angel’s interpretation.
The mention of the host and stars might make you think of angels, since other places the angels are called a host (1 kgs 22:19) and stars ().
However, the angel interprets the stars to mean the saints, that is, those who truly follow God
Daniel 8:
Indeed for the short time he ruled it was very difficult for Jews who truly followed God.
We get much of our historical information from the apocryphal books of First and Second Maccabees.
These books are not part of Scripture, but they are generally accepted to be fairly reliable history.
His goal was to unify his empire by making everyone Greek - which included worshipping the Greek Gods.
He made Judaism illegal, and murdered more than 80,000 Jews to enforce his decree.
The persecution began with the murder of the high priest, the godly Onias III in 170 BC.
But his attempt to obliterate Jewish culture did not just extend to murdering faithful Jews.
He caused the sacrifices of the temple to cease - he set up an altar to the pagan god Zeus in the Temple, and offered a pig on the Bronze Altar.
Pigs are, of course, unclean to the Jews.
So by offering a pig on the altar he made the Jewish altar unfit for use in worship.
And by setting up an altar to Zeus he intentionally polluted the temple by putting up a rival god in its precincts.
Judas Maccabaeus, which is where the name Maccabees comes from, drove out the Greeks, threw out the pagan altar and purified and rededicated the Temple on December 14, 164BC.
The Jews still celebrate this rededication in the festival of Hanukkah, which means dedication.
Any Jew who wanted to be faithful to God during this time, had to resist Antiochus’ attempt to make them Greeks.
Although for many Jews it was a matter of cultural identity, it was much more than this.
Because their culture included the worship of the one true God, being Jewish also meant worshiping God.
Choosing to worship God was extremely dangerous, so many faithful Old Testament saints payed for their piety with their lives.
We also get a clue about the time Antiochus will arrive.
Antiochus came at the end of Grecian world domination.
His power began to be curtailed in 168 BC, even before the end of his rule.
The Roman General Populius cornered him in Egypt, and drew a circle around him and dared him to go outside the circle.
The military power of the Romans scared him so much he capitulated to Roman demands.
But before he did that, for a brief time he did whatever he wanted (v.12 can be understood as “will act as he pleases and prosper.”)
Daniel 8:9-
Daniel 8:11-
There are two views of the timing of this passage.
One takes the 2,300 evenings and mornings as individual sacrifices, so with two daily sacrifices it refers to half the number of days - 1150.
If so then we can use the information in 1 Maccabees to get a time.
Antiochus sacrificed the pig in December, 167BC, and the temple was rededicated in December 164 BC.
But this is about 45 days too short.
It is possible that the sacrifices ceased before the pig was sacrifices.
The other view pays careful attention to the language - when the Scripture talks about evening and morning, it often means one day ().
If so then the 2,300 means 2,300 days.
And v.13 doesn’t just talk about the sacrifice, but also the sanctuary and the host [saints] being trampled.
So the 2,300 days aren’t just about the temple, but about the persecution of the Jewish People.
The murder of the high priest in 170BC is at the right time, and just about 2,300 days later the temple was rededicated.
Either way, prophecy is right.
It is important to interpret prophecy correctly.
In 1844 William Miller ,the founder of the Seventh Day Adventists, used this verse to try to predict the coming of Jesus Christ.
He predicted that Jesus would come in 1844.
He and his followers sold everything they had, dressed in white robes, and waiting on top of a mountain for Jesus to come.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9