By Margit Süring
A Commentary on the Sabbath School Lesson for November 6–12, 2004, on Daniel 7
Chapter 7 is in many ways the center of the book of Daniel, and the link between the stories of chapters 1–6 and the succeeding visions. James Barr has said: "It shares the language of 2–6, but the atmosphere of 8–12."1
The same "terrain" of chapter 2 is repeated in chapter 7 but with many added details. This makes us aware of the fact that the same empires—Babylon Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome—depicted in chapter 2 are repeated in chapter 7, but described with different emblems. (Compare chapters 2 and 7 with help of the Bible.) According to chapter 7, we notice that Daniel saw four great beasts coming up from the sea, different from one another.
The first like a lion, and had eagle’s wings.…[Babylon]. And behold another beast, a second, like a bear,…[Medo-Persia]. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a foul; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.…[Greece]. After this I saw in the night vision, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly: and it had great iron teeth:…and it had ten horns…[Rome, but not mentioned by name].
The story above is in harmony with chapter 2, though the symbols for the various kingdoms are different. The new thing Daniel saw is not hinted at in chapter 2. Daniel saw another horn, a little one, coming up among the other horns. In this horn were eyes like the eyes of man and a mouth speaking great things (Dan. 7:2–14). Secondly, Daniel saw Bar nas , the counterpart of the "Little Horn." Bar nas (Aramaic) is the divine response to the "abomination of desolation" and has been translated the "Son of Man."
The word king is synonymous with kingdom (compare verses 17 and 23). The four kingdoms have already been referred to (see above). The ten horns represent the divisions of the old Roman Empire. Several of them remain as modern European countries.
But what about the murderous little horn also springing up from Rome after its division had taken place, a power that "made war with the saints" and sought to "change the times and the law" (v. 25, RSV)?
This horn is springing from Rome after its division and appears in the midst of the other horns. It seems obvious that the "little horn" represents a religious power, for it deals with religious issues and opposes those with a religion different from its own. But this power, though it practices worship to some degree, has lost the light of love and law. The Bible testifies that declension inevitably sets in when initial ardor for Christ begins to cool. Within less than a generation after Christ, the disciples were writing to warn the churches that many ungodly men had crept in unawares, and there was danger that the churches would fall away from righteousness to perdition. So the history of the Church tells us that the shadows gather and deepen on the external horizon (or history).
As for the period of time (Dan. 7:25), we must remember that all the apocalyptic numbers are symbolic. The prophecies have recurring applications, but the spiritual truths remain the same, for the nature of God and the nature of Satan do not change. The broken "seven" represents unrest, imperfection, trouble.
Bar ’nas’ is the counterpart of the "Little Horn." Bar ’nas’ (Aramaic) is the divine response to the "abomination of desolation" and has been translated the "Son of Man." He is Jesus Christ, our Lord, who represents the reversal of Antichrist’s work (v. 25). The saints, who have been made as refuse, now become kings. To them is given dominion reminiscent of Adam’s in the beginning. This giving of the kingdom to the saints at the Judgment (7:18, 22) is equivalent to the vindication of the sanctuary (8:14) and the making of an end of sins and the ushering in of everlasting righteousness (9:24). The teaching of the Old Testament underscores the meaning of judgment. The king, then, was both ruler and judge. We read that King Solomon prayed for wisdom both to rule and to judge (1 Kings 3:3, 5–9; Ps.75:8, 10,11; Ps. 72:1, 2, 3, 11–14, and so forth). Judgment and vindication are important. To the Jewish mind, judgment showed not so much who was righteous but who was "in the right." To the Hebrew, righteousness is not so much a moral quality as a legal status.2
Morna Hooker also stresses this concept. After pointing out the repeated linking of the ideas of Yahweh’s kingship and his judgment, she says:
The sequence of thought is logical, since God´s decisive action must be at once the re-establishment of his kingship and the manifestation of his righteousness, which punishes the wicked and rewards the humble. Daniel´s vision is a pictorial representation of an idea which pervades the Psalm, whether it is expressed there in historical, cultic or eschatological terms.3
The parable of Luke 18 represents the elect as an oppressed widow who pleads for vindication against the adversary. Christ finishes the story by saying:
Hear what the unrighteous judge says: "And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" (Luke 18:6–8)
In Daniel 7 (and also 8) we can observe the unity between the two chapters. With the parallel presentations of "the kingdom being given to the Son of Man" and "the Sanctuary being vindicated" we find a unity reflected in both testaments. The theme of vindication in the book of Daniel unifies the various sections of the book, the visions and the narratives. Its emblem is "bar ’nas’" but its actual statement is found in 8:14. With this verse we have a distinct literary dividing point, for the verse terminates the usage of visionary symbols requiring interpretation. Hereafter, all is explanation.
It is no exaggeration to say that no other concept in the Old Testament, not even the Servant of the Lord, has elicited a more prolific literature. Of all figures used in the Old Testament to designate the coming deliverer; king, priest, branch, servant, seed—none is more profound than Son of man. Here there is a vision of man as he was intended to be, perfectly embodying all his potential in obedience to his Creator. "Son of man" is also a term of glory, both in Daniel 7 and in Jesus’ use of the term, but the epiphany of the glory of the Son of man will be to those who have been proved by sufferings.4
1. Matthew Black and H. H. Rowley, eds., Peake´s Commentary on the Bible (London: Thomas Nelson, 1962), 596, 598.
2. Compare David Hill, Greek Words and Hebrew Meanings: Studies in the Semantics of Soteriological Terms (London: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1957), 89n.
3. Morna Dorothy Hooker, The Son of Man in Mark: A Study of the Background of the Term "Son of Man" and Its Use in St. Mark’s Gospel (London: SPCK, 1967), quoted in Desmond Ford, The Abomination of Desolation in Biblical Eschatology (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 2002), 119.
4. Joyce G. Baldwin, Daniel: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity, 1978), 154.
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