Daniel in Babylon

15. Until the End Be

There is something heart‑rendingly tragic in the spectacle of an old man deprived, at the last, of the fruits of that for which he has laboured zealously and perseveringly through a long life. It happens in everyday affairs and Christians are not immune; it happened to stalwart men of God in Old Testament days. Moses led the children of Israel forty years through the wilderness toward the promised Land, but he was destined to behold that fair goal only with his eyes and never himself to set foot in it. Samuel, serving his God and his country from childhood to old age, welded a disorganised rabble of tribesmen into a nation, gave them a rule of justice and organised government, and died in obscurity leaving the fruits of his work to be reaped by King David. The aged priest Simeon, leader of the tiny band that in the days just prior to the first Advent "looked for redemption (deliverance) in Jerusalem" (Luke 2:38) lived just long enough to take the Babe in his old arms; but he was laid aside in death before the glory of the Messiah was revealed to the believing in Israel. So it was with Daniel. Taken from his home in early youth, he lived his whole life in an alien land, passionately looking forward to the day when God would relent and set the captives free, restoring again the glories of the beloved city—but when at last the time did come he must perforce; like Moses, see his fellows go with rejoicing into the promised land, knowing that he could never go with them. Daniel had done more than any man to keep alive the knowledge of God and hope in His promise; he had interceded with God on behalf of his people; in political life he probably did much to make the Return possible, but he himself was left out of its restoration. Two years after the Restoration, we find him still in Babylon, quite definitely now waiting for the end. Daniel was one of those of whom the writer to the Hebrews afterwards spoke when he said, "these all, having obtained (received) a good report through faith, received not the promise." (11:39) Like many another faithful warrior for God, he was laid aside to await his reward in a better day.

Two years after the capture of Babylon by the Medes came the Restoration. The Median dynasty was at an end; in Cyrus, the Persian dynasty began. The change was marked by an unexpected toleration of all the subject peoples’ native religions; the favour shown the Jewish captives in allowing them to revive the Judean state and rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem was only one of several such concessions granted by the Persian king to the varied peoples under his rule. Clay tablets of Cyrus have been discovered in which he speaks of his intention to rebuild various of the idolatrous Temples in much the same language that he used in his famous decree to the Jews as recorded in the chapter of Ezra. (Ezra 1:2‑4; 5:13)

Daniel must have seen the jubilant company set off for Judah with mixed feelings. There would have been quiet joy that at last the promise of God was fulfilled and the Captivity was ended; the Temple was to be rebuilt and the worship of God in his own city restored. But there was something lacking; the throne of the Lord was not to be established in Jerusalem and no king of David’s line would sit in regal power on Mount Zion. Zerubbabel, of the line of David and legal heir to the throne, was leader of the Restoration only by appointment of Cyrus and he was nothing more than the Persian governor of Jerusalem, responsible to Cyrus for the good behaviour of the people. Joshua of the sons of Aaron was the legitimate High Priest and fully authorised to administer the rites of his sacred office, but even with the Temple rebuilt there was still a vital deficiency; the Ark of the Covenant was not there and the Most Holy was empty. This is not the real triumph of Israel; Daniel must have reflected sadly as the joyous shouts died away and the long procession disappeared in the distance. There was still much to transpire before the good promises of God can be fulfilled. So he betook himself again to study and prayer that he might continue as a faithful vehicle of the Holy Spirit in making known to the sons of men the things that God purposed to do.

Life in Babylon went on much as before. The pioneers away in Jerusalem attacked their task with enthusiasm at first and then drifted away to their own interests and the building of the Temple was neglected. Not much news got back to Babylon for communications were slow and difficult, and in any case most of the Jews who remained in Babylon had done so because they were not greatly interested in the rebuilding of Judea. They had mostly been born in Babylon and the land of Judah was a foreign and unknown country to them. Daniel probably had little in common with the Babylonian Jews; they were not his kind: but there were almost certainly a few remaining in the city whose hearts were in Judea but whose circumstances for one reason or another forbad their participating in the Return and with these Daniel would have found a common bond of interest and friendship. So for two years more he studied and pondered until at last another and a final revelation of God’s future purposes was impressed upon his mind.

He was in the country, on the bank of the River Tigris, when he saw the vision. The Tigris flows at its nearest, some twenty or so miles from Babylon and it is evident that for some reason Daniel had either temporarily or permanently left the city. It might be that he possessed a country retreat at that spot and had gone there to meditate quietly during the three weeks of mental stress to which he refers in Chapter 10. Perhaps, on the other hand, he had for the last time retired from the active administration of affairs of state—he was now about ninety years of age—and had secluded himself in some quiet country or river‑side spot calmly to await his end. At any rate it was by the swiftly flowing waters of the river which divided Babylonia from Persia that he perceived the glorious angel descending to meet him and was struck speechless and helpless before the magnificence of that glory.

Ezekiel tells of seeing such a vision; so does Isaiah. Saul of Tarsus had the same experience, on the Damascus road. The fact that such manifestations are not the lot of Christians today is no argument against their reality to those faithful men of old time who did see them, nor the verity of their accounts. Something more than the natural sense of sight is necessary and all men do not possess that something more. The men with Saul of Tarsus saw nothing; it is significant though that a nameless fear seized upon them and they ran and hid themselves. The young man with Elisha could not see what the prophet saw; Heaven’s forces passing and repassing on the mountains around them for their protection, until Elisha prayed that his eyes might be opened. Sights of heavenly things can only be impressed upon the human mind by the Holy Spirit, and only Spirit‑filled men can be receptive to spiritual things. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God...because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor.2:14) We in this modern materialistic Age are ourselves so cumbered with material thoughts and preoccupations of all kinds that we cannot so easily, as could Daniel in his quiet retreat and the intensity of his communion with God, lend ourselves to be vehicles of the Holy Spirit.

It is not uncommon, though, in this our day, for watchers around the bed of a dying Christian to catch a few whispered words or glimpse a sudden look in the failing eyes, as though the departing one had suddenly seen some wonderfully glorious vista of which the watchers had no consciousness. It may well be that as the material things slip rapidly away in the last few moments of earthly life the Holy Spirit finds more abundant entrance into a mind that has always been a sanctuary of that Spirit, and sights such as Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and even Saul perceived, appear plainly revealed to the inner consciousness.

Gabriel’s message covers the whole of Chapter 11 and part of Chapter 12. It is readily recognised as an outline of world events which in Daniel’s day were still future but which must be accomplished before the final deliverance of Israel. Very little of it could have been intelligible to Daniel; there is still much of it which, while intelligible to us today, is nevertheless so obscure that there are a great variety of interpretations. The first four verses of Chapter 11 are obvious enough to us; they briefly describe the passing of the Persian empire and the coming of the Greeks, the "belly and thighs of brass" (Dan.2:32) of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream image and the leopard of Daniel’s earlier vision. That much was probably plain to him. The remainder goes off into a long catalogue of "wars and rumours of wars" in which the most definite factor is the climax, the coming of Christ at his Second Advent, pictured by the standing up of Michael the Archangel for the salvation of Israel. That, at least, must have been quite understandable to Daniel, but the long record of happenings which had to transpire first must have led him to realise as never before that many years were yet to pass before the great deliverance could come. It might well be that in this message Daniel realised the great truth that God will save Israel and all mankind, "whosoever will" not by patching up this very unsatisfactory present world, but by a resurrection from the dead to a new world, a world in which God himself makes all things new. That is the clear implication of Chapter 12.

One wonders how this detailed and extremely lengthy statement of things to come got recorded. Daniel listened to all that Gabriel had to say but the circumstances of the interview, the grandeur and solemnity of the occasion, entirely preclude any idea that he wrote it down at the time. We must here allow for the influence of the Holy Spirit, quickening Daniel’s mind after the angel had left him, so that he remembered accurately every word and compiled a complete transcript of all that had been said.

So the failing hand of the old man traced the record of his last revelation. That it was to be for the benefit of future generations he no longer had any doubt. "I am come" Gabriel had told him "to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the vision is for many days." (Dan.10:14) Therein lies a great principle of Divine revelation. Anxious as we may be to witness in our own time the fulfilment of "all things written" we must realise, as Daniel was led to realise, that God’s timescale is not as ours. We can study the prophetic Scriptures and witness the signs of the times with ardent zeal and heart‑felt longing, but the best and most scrupulous of our conclusions cannot take into account all that is in the mind of God; only that which He has revealed, and He does not reveal all. Countless earnest Christians in past ages have been persuaded that Bible prophecy and contemporary events have joined together to point unerringly to their own time as the day of Divine intervention in human history for the final battle between good and evil; and none have actually witnessed the climax. But it will not be always thus. The time must surely come when the last generation of watchers has had revealed to it the last hidden secrets of God’s design. Then the Clock of Ages will strike twelve.

It behoves us all to be as sure of our faith and as fervent in our expectation as was Daniel, and others like him. To live as though the end will come tomorrow, and yet be prepared to live out the span of natural life to extreme old age, undisturbed in faith and hope whether the outward signs point to the one or the other eventuality; that is the faith of Daniel and the faith God wants in us. "Though it tarry" cried Habakkuk "wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." (Hab.2:3) So many in modern times have made shipwreck of their faith because of the failure of expectations. They could wait ten years, twenty years, thirty years, for the Kingdom, but they could not wait a lifetime. But the Creator had waited through the entire span of human history and has never deviated one iota from that challenging statement of faith both in himself and in man whom He made, uttered more than three thousand years ago, as truly as I live, the whole earth shall be filled with my glory. (Num.14:21) The thoughtful Christian, viewing as dispassionately as he can the insane world in which he must perforce live today, might be pardoned for thinking that the present order cannot possibly survive the next few years. If he is right, and the end of this Age is that much near, all Christians and all right‑thinking people everywhere have cause, knowingly, for rejoicing, for that climax means the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ in manifest power over the nations. It means the end of cruelty and hate and injustice and oppression. It means the fulfilment of the inspired words of Zephaniah "For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve Him with one consent." (Zeph.3:9) It means the time when "The Lord GOD will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him...He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom." (Isa.40:10‑11) It means the realisation of words spoken to John on Patmos "Behold, the tabernacle (dwelling‑place) of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." (Rev.21:3‑4) It means that every faithful Christian will live and reign with Christ for the thousand years, the while the "ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads...and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." (Isa.35:10)

That is what it means if the world does perish by its own hand in our own time. And if not, if the evil vitality of this old order of things prolongs its life for a season and time, the end will still be the same and just as sure, for it is written in the purposes of God and will surely come to pass. Like Daniel, we may have to wait longer than we expect and longer than we wish, but "it will surely come; it will not tarry." (Hab.2:3)

AOH