Daniel Simplified

TITLE & AUTHOR

The Book Was Named After its Author and Main Character, Daniel

He Was a Young Man (Probably Teenager) From a Royal/Noble Bloodline

He Was Exiled to Babylon From Judah During the Time of King Jehoiakim (609-597 B.C.)

He (and His 3 Friends) Were Good-Looking, Wise, Smart, and Very Capable of Learning

So They Were Assigned By Babylon’s King, Nebuchadnezzar, to Be Placed in a Program That Would Essentially Turn Them into High-Ranking Babylonian Officials

They Would Be Taught the Language and Literature of Babylon

They Would Receive New Babylonian Names

They Would Eat Babylonian Food

They Would Dress Like Babylonians

This Program Would Last 3 Years

Daniel Would Outlast the Babylonian Regime and Then Also Serve Under the Medo-Persian Empire as Well

PURPOSE

The Book is Split into 2 Halves

The Purpose of the 1st Half is to Show Us Examples of How God’s People Should Live Faithfully as Exiles in a World That is Not Their Home

We See Example After Example of Daniel and His Friends Serving Their Pagan Masters Loyally…

Yet Without Compromising Their Greater Loyalty to God

The Purpose of the 2nd Half is to Show God’s People, Through Apocalyptic Visions, That Despite Their Present Persecution and Suffering, God is Still in Control and Will Ultimately Be Victorious

KEY WORDS

Kingdom

This Word in Hebrew and Aramaic Can Be Found Over 60 Times in the Book of Daniel

I Believe That is More Than Any Other Book of the Bible

We See Over and Over in the Book of Daniel That God is Soveriegn Over Kings and Their Kingdoms

Daniel 2:21 (NASB)

“It is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men And knowledge to men of understanding.”

Nebuchadnezzar Had to Learn This Lesson the Hard Way

He Was Warned in a Dream of His Impending Humiliation and Downfall

And These Words Were Spoken in His Dream

Daniel 4:17 (NASB)

“This sentence is by the decree of the angelic watchers And the decision is a command of the holy ones, In order that the living may know That the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, And bestows it on whom He wishes And sets over it the lowliest of men.”

Another Important Feature of “Kingdom” that We Find in Daniel is that God is Going to Set Up His Own Kingdom That Will Last Forever

Daniel 2:44 (NASB)

“In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever.”

This Kingdom Would Have a Human On the Throne and He Will Reign Forever

Daniel 7:13–14 (NASB)

“I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him.

And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.”

“Kingdom” Plays a Very Large Part in the Overall Purpose and Theme of the Book of Daniel

KEY THEMES

The Central Theme of the Book is God’s Sovereignty Over History and Kingdoms

All Kingdoms and Empires of the World Will Eventually Come to an End and Will Be Replaced By God’s Kingdom

God’s Kingdom Has Already Been Established By King Jesus, But it Hasn’t Yet Come to It’s Complete Fulfillment

So as His Kingdom Citizens, We Wait and Look Forward to the Day of His Return When We Will Be Raised to Glory, Honor, and Everlasting Life

Daniel 12:1–3 (NASB)

“Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued.

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.

Those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”

Some Other Themes Include:

It’s Possible to Remain Faithful to God, Even When Exiled and Surrounded By Immoral, Unrighteous Influences and Propaganda

God is Able to Raise Up His Faithful Children From Places of Humiliation and Shame to Places of Honor and Glory

God Humbles and Proud and Exalts the Humble

There are Spiritual Battles Happening All Around Us That Affect Us

We Have Been Given the Power and Resources to Fight Back

DETAILED OUTLINE

Ch. 1 - Daniel & His Friends Remain Undefiled

Daniel and His 3 Friends are Taken into Babylonian Exile

They are Expected to Eat the Food From the King’s Table (To Think of Him as Their Provider)

They Refuse to Do So and God Blesses Them By Causing Them to Be Promoted

Ch. 2 - Nebuchadnezzar’s Statue Dream

Nebuchadnezzar Had a Dream of a Great Statue Made Up of 4 Metals

None of His Wisemen Could Tell Him the Dream or Interpret it For Him

Until Daniel and His Freinds Prayed For God to Reveal to Them the Information of the King’s Dream

Daniel Interprets the Prophetic Dream Concerning 4 Nations God Will Cause to Be in Power and God’s Own Kingdom That Will Outlast Them All

Nebuchadnezzar Promotes Daniel

Ch. 3 - Nebuchadnezzar’s Statue

Nebuchadnezzar Has a Great Golden Statue Made to Honor Himself and His Great Kingdom of Babylon

All of His Officials Were Commanded to Bow Down and Worship the Statue (Kingdom Worship)

Daniel’s 3 Friends Refuse to Do So and They Survive the Furnace of Fire Because God Was With Them

The King Promoted Them

Ch. 4 - Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream of the Great Tree

The King Had a Dream About a Great and Mighty Tree That Get’s Chopped Down By an Angel of God

Daniel Interprets the Dream to Mean that God is Going to Humiliate Nebuchadnezzar Until He Realizes that God is the Most Glorious and Soveriegn One, Not Him

Nebuchadnezzar Goes Crazy and is Humiliated and Loses His Throne

But Once He Recognizes God For Who He is, God Returned His Sanity and His Throne

Ch. 5 - Belshazzar’s Feast

A New (Sort Of) King is On the Throne in Babylon

He Throws a Big and Blasphemous Drunken Party to Evoke Babylon’s Gods to Protect Babylon

Then a Hand Began Writing On the Wall

Daniel Was Called to Interpret it’s Meaning

Its Message Was That Babylon Was Going to Fall That Very Night

During the Drunken Party, the Persians Snuck into Babylon and Took Over

Ch. 6 - Daniel & the Lion’s Den

Due to God’s Providence King Darius (Probably King Cyrus) Decides to Promote Daniel Over the Whole Realm

Daniel’s Peers are Jealous, So They Plot of a Way to Get Daniel Killed

They Knew He Prayed Every Day to His God, So They Tricked the King into Establishing a Law that Prohibited Anyone From Praying to Their Gods for a Month

Daniel Disobeyed Because His Relationship With His God Was More Important to Him

He Was Thrown into a Lion’s Den

God Caused Him to Survive and Then His Conspirators Were Cast in and Killed

Ch. 7 - Daniel’s Vision of the 4 Great Beasts

Daniel Has a Vision About 4 Terrifying Beasts That Represent the 4 Kingdoms That Were Represented in Nebuchadnezzar’s Statue Dream

Then God Enters His Dream With His Human King On the Throne

And All the Beasts Were Defeated By This King and He Reigned Forever

Ch. 8 - Daniel’s Vision of the Ram, Goat, and Little Horn

Daniel Has a Vision of a Ram Which Represented the Medo-Persian Kingdom

Then a Goat Entered Which Represented Greece

The Goat Trampled the Ram and Destroyed it

Then a King Will Come From Greece That Will Persecute the People of God

But God Would One Day Bring an End to the Suffering

Ch. 9 - Daniel’s Prayer

Daniel Prays to God For Mercy For His People After Reading From Jeremiah That the Exile Would Only Last 70 Years

Then the Angel Gabriel Came Bringing an Answer to Daniel’s Prayer

God’s Mercy Wouldn’t Be Poured Out on God’s People After the 70 Years of Exile But After 70 7’s

That’s When the Everlasting King Would Be Enthroned, and Transgressions Would Be Done Away With

Ch. 10 - Daniel’s Final Vision of Spiritual Conflict

Daniel Has a Vision of (Who I Believe to Be) Jesus

Jesus Tells Daniel What is to Come Concerning the People of Israel

Ch. 11 - Detailed Vision of Future Earthly Conflicts

Over 100 Very Specific Predictions are Made Concerning the Next 400 Years of Future Events From Daniel’s Perspective

It Primarily Had to Do With 2 Kingdoms That Came From a 4-Way Division in the Grecian Empire

There Would Eventually Come a King From One of the These Warring Kingdoms That Would Horribly Persecute God’s People

Then the Roman Empire (the Next Great Empire to Arise) is Mentioned in the Latter Verses

Ch. 12 - Promise of Resurrection

A Great Tribulation is Coming For the People of Israel (70 A.D. Destruction of Jerusalem By the Romans)

But God Promises That Those Written the Book Will Be Rescued

And Then There is the Promise of Resurrection at the End

Daniel Wants to Know More About the Events in His Vision, But Jesus Tells Him to Live His Life and Not Worry About Any More Revelations

Daniel 12:13 (NASB)

“But as for you, go your way to the end; then you will enter into rest and rise again for your allotted portion at the end of the age.”

Daniel is Told to Live His Life

He Will One Day Enter into Rest in Death

And Then He Will Be Resurrected to His Allotted Portion in the End

JESUS IN DANIEL

The Book of Daniel Gives Us an Amazing Image of God’s Kingdom Coming into the World

We First See it in Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream

It was a Rock, Not Cut Out or Created By Human Hands, and it Would Smash and Destroy All Other Kingdoms of the World

It Would Start Off as a Small Rock, But Would Eventually Grow into a Large Mountain That Would Fill the Entire World

And We are Told that the Kingdom Will Never Be Destroyed

And the King of God’s Kingdom (God) Will Never Leave the Throne

Later in Chapter 7, Daniel Sees the Vision of the Ancient of Days

Daniel 7:9–10 (NASB)

“I kept looking Until thrones were set up, And the Ancient of Days took His seat; His vesture was like white snow And the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames, Its wheels were a burning fire.

A river of fire was flowing And coming out from before Him; Thousands upon thousands were attending Him, And myriads upon myriads were standing before Him; The court sat, And the books were opened.”

Daniel 7:13–14 (NASB)

“I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him.

And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.”

When God Sets Up His Kingdom, He Will Have a Human to Rule Over it

But This Human is One Who is Able to Be in God’s Presence

Which Means He Must Be Holy and Free From Sin

He Also Will Rule Over His Kingdom Forever

Which Means He Will Never Die

He Will Rule Over People of All Races, Nations, and Languages

Which Means He Will Not Just Be a King Over Israel, But Everyone

All People Will Be a Part of One Nation

His Kingdom Will Never Be Destroyed

It Will Last Forever and So Will It’s People

Jesus is Presented Vividly as the King of the World

And Daniel is Told at the Very End of the Book That He Will One Day Arise From Death and Have His Inheritance

His Inheritance is the Same Inheritance We Look Forward To

Living Forever in Paradise With God and His People