“O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies.”Read the surrounding chapter
Time, place, and setting
- Time
- The narrated events begin in Jehoiakim’s third year and name Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius the Mede and Cyrus. Vision headings return to earlier reigns rather than continuing one simple chronological sequence. Daniel 1:1; 5:30 to 6:1; 7:1; 8:1; 9:1; 10:1. 1
- Place
- Judah’s captives and temple vessels are brought to Babylon in the land of Shinar. The narratives take place in royal settings; later visions name Shushan beside the Ulai and the great river Hiddekel. Jerusalem and its sanctuary remain central to prayer and hope. Daniel 1:1 to 7; 8:1 to 2; 9:1 to 19; 10:4. 1
- Setting
- Court narratives describe Jewish faithfulness, royal power, dreams and deliverance. Visions portray oppressive kingdoms, heavenly judgment, sanctuary crisis and resurrection hope. The interpretations and the seer’s responses accompany the images throughout the book. Daniel 1 to 12. 1
Like a son of man, or like a human being. The lexicon identifies enash as man or mankind and cites this phrase in Daniel 7:13. 2
The humanlike figure comes to the Ancient of Days and receives dominion. The accompanying interpretation speaks of the holy people receiving the kingdom. Identity and later Christian reception require those surrounding scenes as well as the words themselves. Daniel 7:9 to 27. 1
The narratives name kings and displaced Judeans
The opening places Jerusalem’s siege in Jehoiakim’s third year and describes captives and temple vessels taken to Shinar. Selected Judean youths enter the king’s training programme and receive new names. Identity is negotiated within the imperial court. 8 The narrated circumstances should be retained before asking when the account was written. Second Kings gives a wider history of Babylonian domination, deportation and Jerusalem’s destruction, while Jeremiah’s letter addresses the practical life of displaced people in Babylon. Daniel 1; 2 Kings 24 to 25; Jeremiah 29:1 to 14. 1
The regnal references have prompted contested chronological reconciliations. Darius’s historical identification remains a theory under investigation. 20 The book names Darius the Mede after Belshazzar’s death and later dates a revelation to Cyrus’s third year. Those textual labels should not be silently replaced by one proposed identification. They establish the story’s narrated horizon, while historical reconstruction asks different questions about names, rulers and the relationship between Babylonian, Median and Persian references. Daniel 5:30 to 6:1; 6:28; 9:1; 10:1. 1
Court tales and visions raise questions about the finished book
Daniel 1 through 6 largely narrates court episodes, while chapters 7 through 12 give Daniel’s revelations and responses. The division is useful but incomplete: chapter 2 contains an interpreted royal dream, and chapter 7 connects with the preceding Aramaic material. Linguistic and literary divisions do not coincide completely. 21 The later vision headings also return to reigns already passed in the narrative sequence. The reader therefore encounters an organised book rather than a diary following one unbroken chronology. Daniel 1 to 12. 1
Composition proposals contrast earlier traditions with a later Antiochene arrangement. 13 A satirical reading also proposes resistance through the court stories’ irony. 7 These approaches ask how a community might have received the text, but they should be described as interpretations. The narrated captives’ faithfulness, the ruler’s demand and God’s revelation remain the actual content through which the book speaks. Daniel 1 to 2; 7 to 12. 1
The court setting joins public service and divine revelation
Daniel’s trained abilities and his dependence on God both matter. Revelation is distinguished from ordinary court expertise in chapter 2. 5 He negotiates time, prays with companions, gives thanks and asks that the wise men be spared. The court stories also invite specific comparison with Joseph. Shared themes include foreign service, gifted interpretation and royal recognition. 18 Genesis 41 supplies a related narrative while retaining its different setting, crisis and practical outcome. The comparison clarifies a scriptural pattern without making the two accounts interchangeable. Genesis 41; Daniel 1 to 2. 1
The dream’s statue and chapter 7’s beasts portray successive powers in different forms. Proposed Greek and Persian origins of the scheme remain uncertain. 15 The book itself gives interpretations of kings and kingdoms, then contrasts their rule with divine dominion. Chapters 8 and 11 explicitly name Media, Persia and Greece within their own explanations. This distinction between textual identifications and comparative proposals is especially useful in a historical reference: resemblance can prompt investigation, but it does not settle the origin or intended identity of every symbol. Daniel 2:31 to 45; 7:17 to 27; 8:20 to 25; 11:2 to 4. 1
Royal conduct and worship shape the historical world portrayed
The furnace narrative confronts a demand for worship, while the den narrative concerns a restriction on prayer. The fourth furnace figure is described through royal speech. 4 Verse 28 then refers to God sending his angel. The book’s animal motifs also connect royal and visionary power. 9 Daniel’s innocence and rescue remain distinct from the king’s subsequent punishment of the accusers’ families. These differences between narrator, character and action deserve attention when discussing the court’s authority and the captives’ loyalty. Daniel 3; 6. 1
Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar provide contrasting responses to divine authority. The latter story explicitly recalls the earlier king’s humiliation. 14 The temple vessels taken in chapter 1 return at the feast, where they are used while praising other gods. Daniel names the God who holds the ruler’s breath and ways, then interprets the writing. The comparison gives the change of rule a moral and theological explanation within the narrative, rather than presenting political succession as detached information. Daniel 1:2; 4 to 5. 1
Jerusalem’s desolation anchors the prayer and numbered revelation
Chapter 9 names Jeremiah’s seventy years and responds with fasting and confession. Prayer and revelation belong together in the apocalyptic context. 6 The Law of Moses is explicitly named in the confession. 10 Psalm 106 offers a related memory of sin, judgment, mercy and gathering. Liturgical allusion connects the prayer with communal memory. 11 The concern is the city, sanctuary and people called by God’s name. Those subjects remain central when Gabriel announces the seventy weeks and their purposes. Daniel 9; Jeremiah 25:1 to 14; 29:1 to 14; Psalm 106. 1
Chronological readings distinguish exact, approximate and symbolic fulfilment. 19 Proposals differ over the rebuilding word, anointed figures, divisions of the weeks and final desolation. Ancient Jewish reception also applied Daniel to subsequent crises. 12 A reference account can explain that diversity without treating every interpretation as equally demonstrated. The text’s stated goals, including reconciliation, righteousness and the sanctuary, provide a firmer orientation than an isolated modern calendar calculation. Ezra’s Cyrus proclamation supplies one relevant restoration context among the proposals discussed. Daniel 9:24 to 27; Ezra 1. 1
Visionary interpretation and Christian reception retain distinct horizons
The human figure approaches the Ancient of Days and receives dominion. The vision’s explanation connects that kingdom with the holy people. 3 The seer’s fear, weakness and strengthening form part of the revelation accounts. Greek readings highlight this vulnerable human response. 16 Chapter 11’s terminal events have competing historical and future interpretations. 17 Discussing those debates should preserve the actual text’s sanctuary crisis, suffering teachers, heavenly assistance and promised awakening rather than replacing them with a list of contemporary powers. Daniel 7 to 12. 1
Jesus explicitly invokes Daniel’s desolation language and receives the clouds imagery within his own teaching and trial. Revelation likewise brings beast imagery and opened judgment books into a Christian vision. Pentecostal communities can receive these connections through prayer for courageous witness and healing in Acts, and through Paul’s account of gifts serving the whole body. The narrated exile, debated formation and Christian reception are related horizons whose particular audiences and purposes should each remain visible. Mark 13; 14:53 to 65; Revelation 1:9 to 20; 13; 20; Acts 4:23 to 31; 1 Corinthians 12. 1
Sources
Numbered references support the material above. Scripture quotations use the KJV.
- The Holy Bible, King James VersionKJV translators · 1611
Daniel 1 to 12; 2 Kings 24 to 25; Jeremiah 25:1 to 14 and 29:1 to 14; Genesis 41; Deuteronomy 30:1 to 10; Ezra 1; Psalm 106; Mark 13 and 14:53 to 65; Matthew 21:33 to 46 and 24; John 5:19 to 29; Hebrews 11:32 to 40; Revelation 1:9 to 20,13 and 20; Acts 2:22 to 36 and 4:23 to 31; 1 Corinthians 12; James 5:13 to 18; Aramaic Daniel 7:1 to 28
View the source - A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old TestamentFrancis Brown, S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs · 1906
Historical Aramaic enash entry, including Daniel 7:13
View the source - The Book of Daniel With Introduction and Notes, Cambridge Bible for Schools and CollegesS. R. Driver · 1900
Daniel 7:7 to 9 and 7:13 with the additional note
View the source - Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: DanielC. F. Keil
Daniel 3:22 to 28 commentary
View the source - The Court Stories of Joseph and Daniel in Canonical Context: A Theological Paradigm for God’s Work Among the NationsWendy L. Widder · 2014
Old Testament Essays 27.3, pages 1118 to 1122
View the source - Daniel 9 as Part of an Apocalyptic Book?Marius Nel · 2013
Verbum et Ecclesia 34.1, pages 2 to 3 and 7 to 8
View the source - Daniel 2 as SatireMarius Nel · 2012
HTS Theological Studies 68.1, pages 3 to 4
View the source - Rereading Daniel 1 Through the Lens of TraumaInchol Yang · 2025
HTS Theological Studies 81.1, pages 2 to 3 and 5 to 6
View the source - Yahweh, the Animal Tamer: Jungles, Wild Animals and Yahweh’s Sovereignty in the Apocalyptic Space of Daniel 7:1 to 28Matthew Michael · 2020
Political Wild Space and Yahweh’s Sovereignty sections
View the source - Moses in the Book of DanielHans van Deventer · 2017
Scriptura 116, literary penitential comparison and historical context sections
View the source - Suffering, Psalms and Allusion in Daniel 9H. J. M. van Deventer · 2012
Old Testament Essays 25.1, pages 219 to 221
View the source - How Early Judaism Read Daniel 9:24 to 27Dean R. Ulrich · 2014
Old Testament Essays 27.3, sections 1 e to 1 f and 2
View the source - Early Traces of the Book of DanielRoger Beckwith · 2002
Tyndale Bulletin 53.1, pages 75 and 78 to 79
View the source - The Literary Structure of the Book of Daniel and Its ImplicationsDavid W. Gooding · 1981
Tyndale Bulletin 32, pages 54 to 56
View the source - The Origin of Daniel’s Four Empires Scheme ReexaminedErnest C. Lucas · 1989
Tyndale Bulletin 40.2, pages 195 to 197
View the source - Son of Man, Pitiable Man, Rejected Man: Equivalent Expressions in the Old Greek of DanielEugene E. Lemcio · 2005
Tyndale Bulletin 56.1, pages 48 to 50
View the source - Desolation of the Temple and Messianic Enthronement in Daniel 11:36 to 12:3Jason Thomas Parry · 2011
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 54.3, pages 485 to 486 and 491 to 492
View the source - Was Joseph a Type of Daniel? Typological Correspondence in Genesis 37 to 50 and Daniel 1 to 6Joshua M. Philpot · 2018
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 61.4, pages 685 to 686
View the source - Approximate Fulfillment as the Key to Reconsidering the Decree of Cyrus as the Beginning Point of Daniel’s 70 WeeksDavid Larson · 2022
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 65.3, pages 500 to 501
View the source - Notes on Some Problems in the Book of DanielD. J. Wiseman, T. C. Mitchell, R. Joyce, W. J. Martin and K. A. Kitchen · 1965
Wiseman contribution, Some Historical Problems in the Book of Daniel, pages 15 to 17
View the source - Structure and Messages in the Book of DanielH. J. M. van Deventer · 2003
HTS Theological Studies 59.1, pages 207 to 211
View the source