By Roy Gane
A Commentary on the Sabbath School Lesson for November 27—December 3, 2004
In Daniel 8, after a vision (chazon, verse 2) of Medo-Persia (compare v. 20) followed by Alexander’s Hellenistic kingdom (cf. v. 21) that divides toward the four "winds" (or directions), a "horn" that starts out little comes from one of these directions (v. 9). This new power arises at the latter end of the rule of the Hellenistic kingdoms (v. 23), supersedes all of them, and is described in even greater terms than Alexander the Great. This can only be Rome, which expanded horizontally in its imperial phase (v. 9) and vaunted itself up against heaven during its subsequent church phase (vv. 10-12).
Hasmonean propaganda in the books of Maccabees aggrandizes the achievement of the Hasmoneans by identifying the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes as the great bad guy in Daniel’s prophecy, conveniently serving the purposes of the Counter-Reformation view that is held as a priori dogma by most scholars today.1 But Antiochus is excluded as the protagonist of the Battle of the Little Big Horn because he arose at the wrong time (second century B.C., in the chronological middle of one Hellenistic branch; compare Matt. 24:15—still future to Jesus) and was a loser in Egypt, Palestine, and in the East.
Daniel 8:13 asks, "How long is the vision [chazon]: The regularity [so-called "daily/continual"] and the desolating rebellion…?" The answer to this question, which concerns the entire vision, starting with Medo-Persia and culminating with the activities of the "little horn," is: "Unto 2,300 evening morning, then the sanctuary [literally "holiness"] shall be justified." Since the vision covers several empires, the "evening morning" unit (compare Lev. 24:3…"from evening until morning…regularly"; compare Dan. 8:26—"the evening[s] and the morning[s]" with Deut. 9:25—"the forty days and the forty nights," that is, forty full days, not half days) cannot refer to literal days. Comparison with the explanation of the first segment of the Daniel 8 vision in Daniel 9:24–27, where "weeks" are clearly weeks of years (like sabbatical year cycles in Lev. 25:1–8), indicates that the "days" of Daniel 8:14 also represent years.
Following and remedying the depredations of the "little horn" power, which is disloyal to God and opposes his loyal people, the justification of God’s sanctuary in Daniel 8:14 is the functional equivalent of the judgment in Daniel 7:9–14, indicating that these are two ways of depicting the same event. At the end of 2,300 years, after the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., the event must have to do with justification/vindication of God’s temple in heaven, to which Christ moved the focus of his ministry after his Ascension (Heb. 7–10).
Restoration of God’s sanctuary through judgment between people who are loyal versus disloyal mirrors the basic dynamic of the Israelite Day of Atonement, when God condemns the disloyal (Lev. 23:29–30), but the loyal receive a "cleansing" based on removal of residual evil from God’s sanctuary (Lev. 16:30). This cleansing is a second stage of atonement after an earlier stage at which people are forgiven (compare Lev. 4).
Other connections between Daniel 8 and the Day of Atonement include (1) a ram and he-goat (Dan. 8:3–8; Lev, 16:5, 15, 24—animals sacrificed for the community), (2) the word qodesh, "holiness/sanctuary" (Dan. 8:14), which in Leviticus 16 refers to the most holy place, and (3) "justifying" the sanctuary (Dan. 8:14), which states the legal/relational reality underlying the ritual purgation of evil from the Israelite sanctuary on the Day of Atonement.2
Why would a second stage of atonement be necessary? Comparison with 2 Samuel 14:9 shows that a judge who forgives a truly guilty person incurs culpability. Similarly, when God as Judge forgives guilty people, he bears culpability (Exod. 34:7). Through Christ’s sacrifice, God is just when he justifies those who believe (Rom. 3:26), but the question in the judgment is: Who believes and keeps on believing (compare Col. 1:23)? The question is not "Who has sinned?" because all have sinned (Rom. 3:23), so no judgment is necessary to determine that.
The question of who has living faith that works through love (compare Gal. 5:6; James 2:26) is answered through a judgment of works (compare Eccl. 12:14), because works are evidence for faith that can be witnessed by God’s created beings. Only God can read thoughts of faith, and the judgment is to demonstrate his character to his creatures, not for his information. In this sense we could call it the Pre-Advent Demonstrative Judgment.3
Just as God told the Israelites the time of the Day of Atonement so that they could participate by practicing self-denial and keeping Sabbath (Lev. 16:29–31; 23:26–32), he tells us the timing of the end-time Judgment (beginning at the end of 2,300 "evening morning"; Dan.8:14) so that we can participate by doing two things: keeping the commandments of God and holding onto the faith of Jesus (Rev. 14:12). Our loyalty does not vindicate God; rather, he vindicates himself by what he does in and through us.
From him comes empowering love (Rom. 5:5), the basis of obedience (Matt. 22:36–40) as a gift. Any good works we do are part of receiving his gift of salvation, not to earn it. If we have made a covenant with God by sacrifice (Ps. 50:3–6) and have Christ, the sacrificed Son (1 John 5:11–13), we have nothing to fear from the Judgment, which sets our assurance in concrete by vindicating the forgiveness that we have already received. As Daniel 7:22 puts it: "judgment is given for the holy ones."
1. See Steven Weitzman, "Plotting Antiochus’s Persecution," Journal of Biblical Literature 123 (2004): 219–34.
2. Roy Gane, Cult and Character: Purification Offerings, Day of Atonement, and Theodicy (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns: 2005).
3. See further in Roy Gane, Altar Call (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Diadem, 1999).
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