Week 36: Hosea 4-Amos 2

Well, I’m a number of days behind in my reading, so I’m going to take my own advice and skip to where we are today and start fresh again.  But having said that, I want to comment on some things in the latter part of the book of Daniel.

The second half of Daniel is the prophetic part of the book, and since we are many years removed from those days, we now have the advantage of hindsight and history to interpret the symbolism presented there.

We can identify with some certainty that the two-horned ram in chapter 8 is the Medo-Persian empire, that the goat in verse 5 is Alexander the Great.  We can name the four horns in verse 8 and identify the little horn as a ruler named Antiochus Epiphanes, who later desecrated the altar in the temple by sacrificing a pig there.  All that is fascinating stuff, and leaves us in awe as to the magnitude and accuracy of Daniel’s visions.

But here is what captivates me: Daniel prays a prayer that is recorded in chapter 9 and immediately following the prayer we read this…

“while I was still in prayer, Gabriel…came to me…and said to me, ‘Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding.  As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given…for you are highly esteemed.‘ “  (9:21-23)

Here, and two more times in chapter 10, God tells Daniel that he is “highly esteemed”.  What makes one “highly esteemed” in the sight of God?  I think the book of Daniel teaches us the answer to this question.  If we study Daniel’s life and the experiences of those around him, we find repeatedly that Daniel was a man a humility.  Our western idea of humility is so contrary to God’s definition of humility.  Daniel was bold and confident.  He was strong in the face of adversity.  But he never lost sight of how much he needed God, evidenced by how many times we find him on his knees.  And as a result, “as soon as [he] began to pray, an answer was given”.

Isaiah 66:2 says this:

Has not my hand made all these things,
and so they came into being?”  declares the LORD.
“This is the one I esteem: 
he who is humble and contrite in spirit, 
and trembles at my word.

How I want to be one whom God esteems!  Teach me Lord, to have Daniel-like humility, and to tremble before you on my knees.

Observation:

*What a contrast these words are from Isaiah on trembling at God’s word, in comparison to those in Hosea 8, “I wrote for them the many things of my law, but they regarded them as something alien”. (vs. 12)

The Gift of Fire

A couple of years back, I read a testimony of a woman struggling with cancer.  She talked about the story in Daniel chapter 3 of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace, and pointed out something in this account that I had never seen before.

Three times in the text it says that they were tied up:

“[He] commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace.”  (3:20)

“…and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace.”  (3:23)

“Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?” (3:24)

But when the king looks into the furnace, he sees four men, “walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed”  and when they came out, “the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them”.

And then she asks, What did the fire do to the three men?  It did not harm them.  It did not singe them.  It did not scorch them.  It did not even leave the smell of smoke on them.

The only thing the fire did was to burn away the ties that bound them.  It set them free.

She suggests that that is the purpose of our fiery trials.

Chew on that a while.  It’s liberating.

Dream Number 1

Observations:

*Chapter 1 of Daniel says that he was carried into exile in the 3rd year of Johoiakim’s reign (605 B. C.), and that he remained there until the first year of King Cyrus (539 B. C.) .  Chapter 10 tells us he was still there in Cyrus’ 3rd year.  Assuming he was 15 or 20 when he was exiled, he basically lived his whole adult life in captivity.

*God makes it very clear, and Daniel does as well, that He is the source of Daniel’s giftedness.  God causes “the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel” (1:9).  God “gave knowledge and understanding …and Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds” (17).

* Daniel recognized the power of prayer.  After asking the king for more time to interpret the dream (and even to know what the dream was!), he asked his friends to “plead for mercy from the God of heaven” (2:18).

*Daniel takes no praise for the interpretation, but deflects all honor to God.  “No wise man…can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.”  (2:27)

*There’s a great chart in my study Bible that I wish I could show you.  I’ve found some online, but none are as clear as this one.  God is giving a prophecy to Nebuchadnezzar, through Daniel, of the future.  Neb’s dream of the statue in chapter 2 outlines the succession of kingdoms after Babylon falls:

The head of gold:                                 Babylon
The chest and arms of silver:             Medes and Persians
The belly and thighs of bronze:         Greece
The legs of iron:                                    Rome

This note follows:  “The diminishing value of the metals from gold to silver to bronze to iron represents the decreasing power and grandeur of the rulers of the successive empires, from the absolute despotism of Nebuchadnezzar to the democratic system of checks and balances that characterized the Roman senates and assemblies.  The metals also symbolize a growing degree of toughness and endurance, with each successive empire lasting longer than the preceding one.”

Daniel will live to see Babylon fall to the Medo-Persian empire.  It is Rome that will be ruling when Jesus is born in Bethlehem.