Daniel overview

Purpose & Theme

Daniel is the great book of God’s sovereignty over the kingdoms of men. Written for God’s people living under the power of pagan empires, it proclaims with unshakable confidence that “the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will” (4:17). Through the true stories of Daniel and his friends, and through sweeping visions of the future, the book assures a discouraged, exiled people that no king, empire, or persecutor is outside God’s control, and that God will preserve His people and, in the end, establish an everlasting kingdom that shall never be destroyed.

The book has two matching halves. The first (chapters 1-6) tells stirring narratives of faith and courage under pressure — refusing the king’s food, the fiery furnace, the writing on the wall, the lions’ den — in which faithful believers honor God in a hostile culture and God vindicates them. The second (chapters 7-12) records apocalyptic visions of successive world empires, a coming persecutor, and, above all, “one like a son of man” who comes with the clouds of heaven to receive an everlasting kingdom (7:13-14), and a resurrection of the dead to everlasting life (12:2). From beginning to end, Daniel calls God’s people to faithful endurance in the confidence that history is in God’s hands and His kingdom will triumph.

Historical Context

Daniel was among the first exiles carried from Jerusalem to Babylon in 605 BC, a young man of noble birth taken to be trained for royal service. He rose to prominence in the courts of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, served through the fall of Babylon to Persia in 539 BC, and continued into the reign of Cyrus, spanning some seventy years and the whole period of the exile. He was a contemporary of Jeremiah (in Jerusalem) and Ezekiel (among the exiles).

The book is unusual in being written partly in Hebrew and partly in Aramaic (the international language of the day), and it belongs to the genre of apocalyptic literature, using vivid symbolic visions to reveal God’s rule over history. Traditionally dated to around 535 BC, near the end of Daniel’s long life, it stands as a testimony that God foretells and governs the rise and fall of nations.

Structure & Outline

Daniel falls into two clear halves:

• Faithfulness in Exile (Chapters 1-6) — narratives of Daniel and his friends honoring God under pagan kings, and God’s deliverance and vindication.
• Apocalyptic Visions (Chapters 7-12) — Daniel’s visions of world empires, the Son of Man, the seventy weeks, and the time of the end.

How This Book Points to Jesus

Daniel’s clearest window on Christ is the vision of chapter 7, where Daniel sees “one like a son of man” coming with the clouds of heaven, presented before the Ancient of Days, and given “dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him” — an everlasting dominion. This is the passage Jesus drew on more than any other for His favorite self-title, “the Son of Man,” and He quoted it directly at His trial before the high priest, claiming to be the divine King who would come on the clouds (Mark 14:62). Daniel thus reveals the Messiah as a heavenly, everlasting King who receives from God a kingdom over all nations.

The book is full of further pointers to Christ. The stone “cut from a mountain by no human hand” that shatters the empires and grows to fill the whole earth (2:34-35, 44-45) is Christ’s kingdom, which crushes every rival and endures forever. The mysterious “fourth” figure in the fiery furnace, “like a son of the gods,” foreshadows the presence of God with His suffering people. The prophecy of the seventy weeks (9:24-27) foretells the coming of “an anointed one” (Messiah) who would be “cut off” to “finish the transgression... and to atone for iniquity,” pointing to Christ’s atoning death. And Daniel’s promise of resurrection — “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life” (12:2) — is fulfilled in the risen Christ, “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”