So we pick up where we left Daniel. He is in prayer and is interrupted by Gabriel. Gabriel is one of only a couple of named angels and is therefore assumed to be a pretty important guy. Daniel recognises him from their previous encounter so is clearly not as afraid as he was the first time. God has chosen to deliver this message; not via a vision or a dream but by a physical being (human in appearance). This message is huge!

It’s worth noting too that message brought by the angel is not actually in response to Daniels prayer. The words which Daniel was saying do not appear to be that important as not only was he interrupted in middle of his flow but also the angel was dispatched with the message came as the prayer started. God was clearly more interested that it was Daniel that was talking to him and in his motives for doing so. Rather than the actual words he said.

Even from these few verses where find this interaction between Daniel and Gabriel there is so much that we can learn about prayer but that will have be a subject for another day. I will say though at this point I felt really quite inspired by Daniel. Daniel was a favorite of heaven (verse 23). We know that God loves us all but there do seem to be levels, which I imagine are based upon our level of devotion and the purity of our hearts. We see here that Daniel was “Greatly Loved” and was given this vision. This description is very similar to that of Mary when she too was visited by Gabriel; Mary was “Highly Favored”. And again similar to the description of John which was “The one who Jesus loved” and to whom was given the Revelation. That’s all an aside but what an aspiration to have; to be a favorite of heaven.

So on with the message itself. This is difficult to get your head around (understatement!). Daniel had understood, as we saw previously, the message in Jeremiah which basically said that the Jews seventy years of captivity was about to end. The message he receives now is far greater. Daniel had been praying for the release of the Jews and the resurrection of the Holy City but God answers him with more than he is able to ask or imagine.

The events of which he his told about are to take place in the next 490 years. These are the seventy ‘sevens’. Not the seventy years as in Jeremiah’s prophecy but seventy weeks of years or seventy times seven years (please to have cleared that up *smile*) Apart from anything else, even though the ultimate end of Jerusalem was destruction, this shows how much more God likes to bless than to curse. The Jews had been captive for seventy years but God was now saying that they would be enjoying their land again for seven times that amount of time.

When these years started and stopped is open to debate. I’m not going to go into any great depth here, mainly because I don’t understand it myself, but the three times that are most popularly suggested as the end of the period are; 1. the death of Jesus, 2. the time when Paul first took the Gospel to the Gentiles, 3. the destruction of Jerusalem about 37 years after Christââ?¬â?¢s death. You can do you own research and decide for yourself on that one.

Whatever the quibbles over these exact periods there are two things that this message has set out to achieve which we cannot ignore. Firstly the message is to encourage. The Jews had long been told to expect “the one who is coming” but were never told when they were to be expected. Now, while we can argue about the exact year, at least we had a time frame to expect him in. This is possibly why there were a number of people around at the time of Jesus claiming to be the Messiah. It also explains how the Magi knew what to look for when saw the sign in the sky. Secondly, it was to show beyond doubt that a time would come when it would be clear that if you hadn’t spotted the Messiah, you had missed Him. Those still waiting for one now are about 1500 years beyond even the latest estimates which this message refers to.

So, what does the message actually say? The very thing that Daniel is praying for is only touched upon briefly. Jerusalem will be restored quickly. Opposition will come but the city will be rebuilt. (Daniel 9: 25)

This is where things get really confusing. I’m not sure I totally understand the picture but here is what I have picked up. The Messiah (who we know to be Jesus) is going to put an end to the sacrifice. So there will no longer be a need to sacrifice for sins any more. Jesus has done it once, for all. That bit’s easy (ish). But verse 26, “..the people of the ruler..” (the ruler, or prince in some versions, is Jesus so his people are us, or the gentiles) “..will destroy the city and the sanctuary..”. Jerusalem was indeed destroyed by the Gentiles (specifically the Romans) and to this day has never been restored. The end was indeed a flood of violence and a very bloody war.

The sacrifice and offering were brought to an end because when all of this happened the families of the priests were decimated, and records destroyed. Now nobody (so it is said) can trace their roots back to Aaron.

The point that the Jews of Jesus day missed was that temple and the sacrifice etc were going to be destroyed because they were no longer going to be needed. Steven was martyred for pointing this out to them (Acts 6). Jesus was setting up a spiritual kingdom, not the earthly one that was to sweep away the Romans like the Jews had hoped.

So, I hope that was of some help, and at least made some sense.

Let the head scratching questions begin.

At the start of chapter 9 we find Daniel, now a very important man, still making sure that he has time for God. He was a great politician, a prime minister to one of the most powerful kings on earth and yet he knew what his priorities had to be.

Daniel also knew that he was a great prophet. He brought God’s word, interpreted dreams, and sees angels and yet he still buries himself in scripture; consulting the prophecies of the former prophets of God. And it was from the prophet Jeremiah that he knew that the Jews time in captivity was nearly up.

Daniel�s reaction to this understanding is very interesting indeed. God has already said, through Jeremiah, that the captivity would end after 70 years. This was a promise. But Daniel does not just sit around wanting for this to happen. This is a huge indication that prophecy is not destiny but potential. God�s word, foretelling future events, is intended to drive us to our knees in prayer and to drive us to action. It is not intended to supersede these things.

This is exactly what Daniel did. Driven by the knowledge that the time was coming when the Jews would be free, he pleaded with God to make it so. But also did more than that. He confessed his own sin AND the sins of the nation before God. It seems clear to me that if we are seek God for mercies to be given to our street, our city, our nation then we must first humble ourselves and bring the sins of these place to God. We can, and should, ‘stand in the gap’, and plead for mercy for the areas in which we live.

Here Daniel has set us an astonishing example of firstly how to read the bible (with excitement, anticipation, and readiness to act on it) and also how to pray.

How can we apply these things today?

Over to you.

The dream reminds Daniel of his first but this time he seems to be personally involved as it starts in verse 2 by explaining that he saw himself beside a cannel where he saw before him a ram with two long horns. The horns represent the kingdoms of Medes and the longer horn Persia. The dream shows the ram charging west, north and south and nothing was able to stand in its way. He did as he was pleased and became great.

This knowledge of future events would have given Daniel some boldness when address the king in his year of downfall discussed in chapter 5; it seems that the writing is already written on the wall for these empires.

While Daniel is pondering the ram, a goat appears travelling across the world without touching it and with one horn between his eyes. In a great rage the goat attacks the ram shattering the two horns. The large horn became very powerful but suddenly it broke off and 4 horns took its place. 3 things stand out: 1) the extra-ordinary speed that the goat was travelling at, 2) the ferocity that the goat overwhelms the ram, 3) the dramatic breaking of the large horn and the emergence of the other horns.

The goat represents the Greek empire with the large horn begin fore filled in Alexander the Great (not just a bad film, an actual guy) who became a world conqueror between the ages of 21-26, then dieing at 33. His empire split into 4, represented by the new horns.

From one of the horns came another which started small but grew in power towards the Beautiful Land. It�s thought the beautiful land is near Palestine where it sounds like some serious blasphemy took place, pigs on alters, banning of circumcision and some human sacrifices.

Needless to say the dream is fairly disturbing for Daniel; he was exhausted and lay ill for several days. A lot of talk about different kingdoms here but the thing that stands out is that worldly kingdoms come and go but the Kingdom of Heaven is everlasting and here to stay. God�s Kingdom outlasts all and is available to you, me and everyone around us, pretty exciting.