Daniel 7 (the seventh chapter of the Book of Daniel) tells of Daniel's vision of four world-kingdoms replaced by the kingdom of the saints or "holy ones" of the Most High, which will endure for ever. Four beasts come out of the sea, the Ancient of Days sits in judgment over them, and "one like a son of man" is given eternal kingship. An angelic guide interprets the beasts as kingdoms and kings, the last of whom will make war on the "holy ones" of God, but they will be destroyed and the "holy ones" will be given eternal dominion and power.
Although set during the reign or regency of King Belshazzar (who probably died in 539 BCE), the prophetic chapters of the Book of Daniel date to 167–164 BCE, with Daniel 7 dated somewhat earlier than the rest.[1] It is an apocalypse, a literary genre in which a heavenly reality is revealed to a human recipient;[2] it is also an eschatology, a divine revelation concerning the moment in which God will intervene in history to usher in the final kingdom.[3] Its context is oppression of the Jews by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who outlawed Jewish customs and built an altar to Zeus in the Temple (the "abomination of desolation"), sparking a popular uprising which led to the retaking of Jerusalem and the Temple by Judas Maccabeus.[4][5] Chapter 7 reintroduces the theme of the "four kingdoms" of chapter 2, which is that Israel would come under four successive world-empires, each worse than the last, until finally God would end oppression and introduce the eternal kingdom.[6]
- ^ Collins 1984, p. 36.
- ^ Crawford 2000, p. 73.
- ^ Carroll 2000, p. 420-421.
- ^ Bandstra 2008, p. 449.
- ^ Aune 2010, p. 15-19.
- ^ Cohn 2006, p. 188-189.