The Book of Daniel

Thus, in Daniel the term “horn” is used for quite a variety of kings and kingdoms, from Alexander the Great (8:21) to the future Antichrist (7:21) to Antiochus Ephiphanes (8:9) to three future kings (7:20), since horns represent strength and authority in Scripture. The simple use of the word “horn” by no means identifies the two figures of Daniel 7 and 8. (See Daniel 7:8, 11, 20–21; 8:5, 8–9, 21.) It is true that “little horn” (qeren sΩsΩ§{ˆîraœh) is employed of Antiochus in chapter 8:9 and that the same English phrase appears in 7:8 (translating qeren z§{e®raœh) of the Antichrist. However, this usage is easily accounted for in that both Antiochus and the future Antichrist are predicted to start with a little power and then to grow strong. As well, Antiochus is a type of the Antichrist. Besides, the words for “little” in the original language are not even the same in the two passages (sΩsΩ§{ˆîraœh vs. z§{e®raœh; cf. LXX mikron vs. ischyron). Furthermore, the two horns are from different empires—in chapter 7 the horn arises from the fourth empire, in chapter 8 from the third.

147^ Robert A. Anderson, Signs and Wonders: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, International Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984), 23.

148^ Gleason L. Archer, Jr., Daniel (Expositor’s Bible Commentary 7; ed. Frank E. Gaebelein and J. D. Douglas; Accordance electronic ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985), n. p.

149^ Roger T. Beckwith, “Daniel 9 and the Date of Messiah’s Coming in Essene, Hellenistic, Pharisaic, Zealot and Early Christian Computation,” Revue de Qumran 40 [1981] 525.

150^ Flavius Josephus, et al., Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary: Judean Antiquities Books 8-10, vol. 5 (Boston; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 314–315.

151^ Josephus Antiquities 10:11:7.

152^ See Antiquities 10:10:4 & Flavius Josephus, et al., Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary: Judean Antiquities Books 8-10, Vol. 5 (Boston; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 283–284.

153^ Robert A. Anderson, Signs and Wonders: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, International Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984), 21–22.

154^ John H. Walton, “The Four Kingdoms of Daniel.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 29 (1986): 27.

155^ S. R. Driver, The Book of Daniel with Introduction and Notes, The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900), 98–99.

156^ E. B. Pusey, Daniel the Prophet: Nine Lectures, Delivered in the Divinity School of the University of Oxford, with Copious Notes (London: John Henry and James Parker; Rivingtons, 1864), 157–161.

157^ Note the technical analysis of Daniel 9:24-27 in Hebrew below for evidence.

158^ George Athas, “In Search of the Seventy ‘Weeks’ of Daniel 9,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 9:2 (2009): 4–6. After totally ignoring the Christian interpretation of the passage and evaluating only other anti-supernaturalist options, Athas gives his own opinion, but writes that his interpretation “may leave us feeling that the author of Daniel has performed some mathematical and historical gymnastics . . . [t]he theory I have proposed here is not what one would call intuitive” (ibid, 17-19).

159^ For sources, see George Athas, “In Search of the Seventy ‘Weeks’ of Daniel 9,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 9: 2 (2009) 6.

160^ J. Paul Tanner, “Is Daniel’s Seventy-Weeks Prophecy Messianic?” Part 2, Bibliotheca Sacra 166 (July-September 2009) 332.

161^ See Roger T. Beckwith, “Daniel 9 and the Date of Messiah’s Coming in Essene, Hellenistic, Pharisaic, Zealot and Early Christian Computation,” Revue de Qumran 40 [1981] 521-542.

162^ In examining the early interpretations of Daniel’s seventy-weeks prophecy, one discovers that those living in the first century do not provide evidence that they possessed the historical data needed to properly date the decree through which the clock began ticking on the chapter 9 prophecy. Nevertheless, Christ presented Himself as the Messiah to Israel on the very day that the sixty-ninth week of Daniel came to its conclusion and predicted the coming destruction of the Temple by the Romans (Luke 19:41-44) as also prophecied in Daniel 9. The idea that these events were simply contrived by those who had many ancient records with which to discover the exact timing of the decree to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem is simply not credible. There is no evidence that records allowing the precise dating of the decree were extant at that time. The Lord Jesus presented Himself on the correct day because, as the all-knowing God, He knew what it was, and modern archaeological investigations allow people today to verify the date of the decree issued in 444 B. C. and the date of Christ’s triumphal entry in A. D. 33.

163^ Jacob Neusner, The Babylonian Talmud: A Translation and Commentary, Vol. 5a (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2011), 32; also Vol. 16, 526. Of course, it is reasonable to believe that “world” signifies the known world of the writer, not necessarily the entire globe, although, as Christ came the first time during the time of Roman domination, so both Daniel and Revelation affirm that Christ’s second coming will occur when a one-world empire centered in Rome and ruled by the Antichrist literally controls the entire world.

164^ Jacob Neusner, The Babylonian Talmud: A Translation and Commentary, Vol. 7b (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2011), 8; cf. E. B. Pusey, Daniel the Prophet: Nine Lectures, Delivered in the Divinity School of the University of Oxford, with Copious Notes (Oxford: John Henry and James Parker, 1864), 596.

165^ Roger T. Beckwith, “Daniel 9 and the Date of Messiah’s Coming in Essene, Hellenistic, Pharisaic, Zealot and Early Christian Computation,” Revue de Qumran 40 [1981] 538-542.

166^ Roger T. Beckwith, “Daniel 9 and the Date of Messiah’s Coming in Essene, Hellenistic, Pharisaic, Zealot and Early Christian Computation,” Revue de Qumran 40 [1981] 521.

167^ Josephus, War 6:2:1.

168^ The verb in the verb tense used for “destroy” (sûaœhΩat◊ in the Hiphil), in connection with the word “city” ({ˆîr) found in Daniel 9:26, is used elsewhere in Scripture only for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18:18 and 19:26. Only the actual destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple in A. D. 70 constitutes a fulfillment of Daniel 9:26. To affirm that at some point in the Maccabean era some people in Jerusalem were killed, and to assert that this fact is a fulfillment of Daniel 9:26, is to turn the text into gobbledygook in order to maintain the anti-supernaturalist dating system.

169^ There are hundreds of predictive prophecies in the Bible. It has been calculated that the likelihood of just 48 of the predictions concerning the Lord Jesus being fulfilled by chance is impossibly small: “Mathematicians . . . have calculated the probability of sixteen predictions being fulfilled in one man (e.g., Jesus) at 1 in 10⁴⁵. That forty-eight predictions might meet in one person, the probability is 1 in 10¹⁵⁷. It is almost impossible to conceive of a number that large” (Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 613). See the resources at faithsaves.net for more information on predictive prophecies outside the book of Daniel (e. g., “Truth from the Torah, Nevi’im, and Kethuvim [the Law, Prophets, and Writings],” http://faithsaves.net/Messiah-truth/.

170^ William Wickes, Two Treatises on the Accentuation of the Old Testament. (Brooklyn, NY: KTAV Publishing, 1881 [orig. ed.]) 40-41.

171^ Wilhelm Gesenius, Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, ed. E. Kautzch, trans. Cowley, 2nd. ed, (Oxford: 1910), 58.

172^ Christo van der Merwe, J. Naude, & J. Kroeze, A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar. (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 187-188.

173^ “Life and Work of Robert Dick Wilson,” Brian Nicks. The Master’s Seminary Journal 19/1 (Spring 2008) 94.

174^ “Life and Work of Robert Dick Wilson,” Brian Nicks. The Master’s Seminary Journal 19/1 (Spring 2008)102.

175^ See David Otis Fuller, ed., Which Bible? (Grand Rapids, MI: Institute for Biblical Textual Studies, 1997) 39-48.

176^ S. R. Driver, The Book of Daniel with Introduction and Notes, The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900), ciii–civ.

177^ Joseh P. Free, Archaeology and Bible History, rev. & exp. Howard F. Vos. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992) ix-x.

178^ K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006), 499-500.