Introduction.
THE JEWISH AND PROTESTANT OLD TESTAMENT.
These contain the five books of Moses (PENTATEUCH) nine HISTORICAL Books; six books of POETRY; and sixteen books of THE PROPHETS. The Jews often regard these as the Law, the Prophets, and the WRITINGS. Upon his resurrection The Lord Jesus Christ alluded to them for recommended reading to understand what each said of Christ and foretold of the Son of God.
The serious god-fearing seeker will sooner or later have his eyes opened to understand the promises of God about the coming Son of God to earth at both his first advent and his second coming at the end of the latter days in which we live.
THE PROLOGUE TO DANIEL.
by John David.
The young man Daniel was among those of the first captivity of Jews by Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldean king reigning from the city of Babylon, the jewel of the East. His three companions were: Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego. The four had been princes in the Kingdom of Judah at Jerusalem.
As a prophet, seer, wise man, and later, ruler Daniel had increasing influence in the Chaldean city and its empire. It was of wide expanse after its victorious military campaigns throughout Palestine and the neighbouring regions of the Middle East.
As Syria’s Damascus had fallen prey to the might of Assyrian armies of Nineveh, in turn Syria’s own reign of power was beset by the rapid rise of the Chaldean empire from Mesopotamia on the Euphrates, some 50 miles south of modern day Baghdad.
These three empires, Syria, Assyria and Chaldea figure largely in these sixteen books of Prophecy: books of the three Major Prophets, and the thirteen Minor Prophets of the Bible’s Old Testament.
This is not to discount the significance of other enemy powers raiding Jerusalem in the Kingdom of Judah: i.e. Egypt, Ethiopia, Moab, Edom, etc. However, the predominant themes of the prophets dire warnings concerned Syria, Assyria, Chaldea, and Medo-Persia. The latter three empires successively holding captive Jews as bondmen in and around the city of Babylon.
Daniel’s interaction with reigning monarchs was with the Chaldees until towards the end of the book, wherein the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great appears.
The reader’s problem with many of the prophets is the lack of specific allusion to the empire concerned, and precise description is sometimes indecipherably lost in the vagaries of poetry and geographic place names, familiar only to the Eastern historian of the literati.
Yet, Josephus; historical records of archaeology; and, more importantly, the nine History Books, particularly Joshua, Kings, Chronicles,Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther give the answers to the puzzled reader filling in the missing pieces. Yet it is only the diligent student of the Word, like the more noble Bereans “searching the scriptures daily to see if these things be so,” will become acquainted enough to be enlightened by grace and see what Jesus meant when he said:-
“O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken”…”These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. 45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures.26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? 27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24 KJV)
The student of the Word nevertheless needs to be forewarned of the enigmatic condemnation of wayward Israelites, on the one hand and on the other hand the indictments of the nations hostile to both Israel in Samaria, and Judah in Jerusalem. Here lies the mystery not always understood by even mature readers of the sixteen prophetical books:
1. God’s allowing Israel’s enemies to attack the apostate Jewish nations in his loving mercy;
2. He had tried to stop their worship of sun, moon and stars; and their devotion to gods of Baal;
3. He wanted them to return to their Jehovah God, his ways and his will they had abandoned.
4. Jehovah’s discipline was indeed harsh and became harsher, until in repulsion he abandoned them during the reign of Judah’s King Manasseh, equally wicked with Ahab of Israel and more evil than Judah’s King Ahaz who came before him.
5. Yet even in that abandonment of his people God continued to promise through his faithful prophets that a remnant would be saved. In other words there are continuing hints that God could never break his covenant with David over the eternal legacy of his tribe Judah, nor his promise to Solomon over the city of Jerusalem.
Simply, the perpetuity of both Israel and its Land of Palestine was inexorably guaranteed and would never be abrogated. Thus in the prophets we see glimpses of Elijah (John the Baptist); the virgin birth of Emmanuel (the Branch); the profound effect of his walk on earth; his substitutionary atonement for sinners he made on Calvary’s rugged Cross bearing our sins in his body upon the tree; and finally his second coming to earth to rule and reign from Jerusalem in the midst of invading armies of Armageddon who will be repulsed by the glorious light of his enforcing kingdom.
As a sub-theme in both Daniel and the other fifteen prophets’ books, there occurs repeatedly, but intermittently, the promise of regathering the scattered Diaspora Jews from east, and west; north and south.
These promises have largely been already fulfilled: under Cyrus the Great; Alexander the Great; General Allenby 1917 recovery of Jerusalem from Islamic control; leading inevitably to the independence of the modern State of Israel in May 1948 against all opposing odds. The return of the Diaspora increased during he years 1918 to 1944; and from 1948 to the present time. But the greatest return of those Jews, ashamed to be known as such today and in denial altogether about their Land, will happen when Christ returns with his saints to rule and reign, descending to the Mount of Olives with his saints who in a previous rendezvous met the descending Lord in the clouds in the air together.
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Scriptures quoted from the King James Version (Public Domain) [ex biblegateway.com]
PROLOGUE TO BIBLE BOOK: DANIEL