Spoken Gospel podcast with a photo of David and Seth

Daniel Introduction

About This Episode

Daniel is a Jewish exile in Babylon. Stolen from his home and in the belly of a monstrous empire, Daniel has been a role for many in the church. But Daniel is more than someone to look up to. Seth and David talk about how Daniel is a picture of Jesus resurrected and ascended to a throne above all earthly powers; and how Jews in exile give us a picture of the hope of the world.

Listen Now Read Show Notes

Listen On

Apple Podcasts Youtube Spotify

The Book of Daniel: Living in Babylon While Trusting in God's Sovereignty

Show Notes

David Bowden and Seth Stewart open the Spoken Gospel podcast's new series on the Book of Daniel by reflecting on their own journeys with this complex biblical text. For many, Daniel conjures childhood memories of VeggieTales, lion's dens, and fiery furnaces—stories of exemplary faith reduced to morality tales. Later, Daniel often becomes a battleground for heated debates about end-times prophecy and the meaning of apocalyptic visions. But as they've returned to this book with fresh eyes, they've discovered something far richer than either extreme suggests.

The Book of Daniel is often misunderstood as either a collection of inspirational stories about being brave for God or a cryptic code to unlock future events. Both approaches miss the deeper theological drama at work. Daniel is a book about exile, about what happens when God's people find themselves far from home, far from the temple, and wondering if God is still on the throne. The book was written to a beleaguered, scattered people who had no political power and no hope of changing their circumstances through their own efforts. Understanding this context transforms how we read every chapter.

Babylon Begins at Babel

To understand the Book of Daniel, we must first travel back to Genesis 10 and 11. The word translated "Babel" in the Tower of Babel story is the same Hebrew word translated "Babylon" everywhere else in Scripture. This is no coincidence. Babylon first appears in the Table of Nations, where Nimrod—one of the unchosen descendants of Noah—builds this rival kingdom in the plain of Shinar. From its very beginning, Babylon represents a counter-Eden, a rival empire built on human autonomy and self-worship.

In Genesis 11, humanity gathers together with one language and one purpose: to build a tower reaching to the heavens, to make a name for themselves, and to avoid being scattered across the earth. This represents the exact opposite of God's command to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. The tower was essentially a false temple—an attempt to reach God on human terms or, worse, to become gods themselves. Mountains were where ancient peoples believed the gods dwelt, and by building their own mountain, humanity was declaring independence from the true God.

God's response was to come down and confuse their languages, scattering the people across the earth against their will. The tower was left in ruins, and the name "Babel" became associated with confusion. Yet Babylon as a concept never disappeared. It resurfaces throughout Scripture as a symbol of human pride, empire, and self-rule, appearing all the way through to the Book of Revelation. Babylon is not merely a city; it is a spiritual force representing everything opposed to the Kingdom of God.

The Resurgence of Babel in Nebuchadnezzar's Empire

When Daniel opens, something troubling has happened. Despite God's curse on the original Babel experiment, Babylon has risen again—bigger, stronger, and more powerful than ever. Nebuchadnezzar has built the greatest empire the ancient world had ever seen, conquering vast territories spanning from Egypt to Iran. He constructed the Hanging Gardens, one of the ancient wonders of the world, which many scholars believe was a deliberate echo of the original Tower of Babel—a massive garden reaching toward the sky, a false Eden built for his own glory rather than God's.

The Book of Daniel opens with devastating news: Jerusalem has fallen, the temple has been destroyed, and God's people have been carried into exile. The sacred vessels from God's house have been plundered and placed in the treasury of Babylon's false gods. Everything seems lost. The smoke of incense and burnt offerings has stopped rising from Jerusalem. The place where heaven and earth met has been reduced to rubble.

This sets up the central question of the entire book: Is God still in control? The Babel experiment appears to be succeeding despite the original curse. Nebuchadnezzar demands worship of himself through giant statues and royal decrees. His successors do the same. If Babylon can overcome God's first judgment, what can't it accomplish? Has God been knocked off his throne? The Book of Daniel answers this question again and again, so powerfully that even pagan kings end up confessing that God's dominion is from everlasting to everlasting, that he alone sets up kings and tears them down, and that he is sovereign over all.

Where Is the Gospel in the Story of Babel and Babylon?

The good news of the Book of Daniel is surprisingly simple: Jesus is in control. At the center of the book, in Daniel 7, a vision appears of one called the Ancient of Days—a picture of God himself—giving authority over all nations to a mysterious figure called the Son of Man. This figure will receive an everlasting Kingdom that will never be destroyed. Jesus repeatedly identified himself using this exact title, and when he stood before the religious leaders at his trial, he declared that they would see the Son of Man riding on the clouds and taking his seat of power—a direct reference to Daniel's vision.

For Daniel and the exiled Jews, this vision was everything. They were trapped inside an all-encompassing empire of self-rule, brutality, and forced worship of false gods. They had no political leverage, no military might, no cultural influence. Yet God spoke into that darkness and promised that a day was coming when he would give a Son of Man authority over every nation, tribe, and tongue. We now live after the fulfillment of that promise. Jesus has taken his throne, and he determines who rules and who falls. Death itself cannot hold power over those who belong to his Kingdom.

The connection to Acts 2 illuminates this further. At Pentecost, people from every nation gathered in one place, were filled with the Holy Spirit, and then scattered back out into all the world proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom. This reverses the curse of Babel. The scattered nations, once a sign of judgment, become the vehicle for bringing God's blessing to the ends of the earth. And just as Daniel received dreams and visions to understand what God was doing behind the scenes of history, Peter declares that the Spirit now gives dreams and visions to all God's people. The mysteries once sealed up and hidden are now revealed in Jesus.

The Sealed Scroll and the Book of Revelation

One of the most striking features of the Book of Daniel is how it ends. After receiving vision after vision of future kingdoms rising and falling, Daniel desperately wants to understand. He asks repeatedly: When will the exile end? When will the temple be restored? When can God's people go home and worship again? But in chapter 12, the angel refuses to answer. Instead, he tells Daniel to go his way, because the message is sealed up until the time of the end. Daniel never got the answer he longed for.

This sealed scroll reappears in Revelation 5, where the apostle John weeps because no one in heaven or on earth can open the scroll and reveal how the story ends. Like Daniel before him, John is desperate to know: What happens next? How does God win? Then an angel announces that there is one who can break the seals—the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Lamb who was slain, Jesus himself. As each seal is broken, the story unfolds through plagues and judgments on the kingdoms of the earth.

When the final seal is broken and the scroll is fully opened, the answer to Daniel's question is finally revealed. What Daniel longed to see was not merely a rebuilt physical temple or a return to animal sacrifices. The vision shows Jesus on his throne, surrounded by the worship of all peoples, with the prayers of the saints rising like incense before him. Jesus himself is the temple. He is where heaven and earth meet. The worship Daniel longed for has been restored, but in a way far greater than he could have imagined. The Kingdom has come, and at its center stands not a building made with hands but the risen and reigning Son of Man.

Reading Daniel as an Exile

Understanding the structure of Daniel helps us read it well. The book is arranged as a chiasm, a literary structure where each section mirrors another. Chapter 1, which introduces the exile, parallels chapters 8 through 12, which envision the exile's end. Chapter 2, with Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a statue representing four kingdoms, parallels chapter 7, where Daniel dreams of four beasts representing those same kingdoms. Chapter 3, the fiery furnace, parallels chapter 6, the lion's den—both tests of faithfulness when earthly kings demand worship. At the center stand chapters 4 and 5, contrasting Nebuchadnezzar's humbling and restoration with Belshazzar's pride and destruction. The heart of the book is about pride and humility, and which kingdom we will live in.

Perhaps the most important shift in reading Daniel is recognizing who we are in the story. The temptation is to see ourselves as Daniel—the hero with special access to God, the one who interprets dreams and survives impossible situations. But the book was not written to create more Daniels. It was written to the powerless, scattered, conquered people of God who had no hope of changing their circumstances. Daniel is a Jesus figure, a representative who stands before earthly thrones and wins peace for God's people. The rest of us are the exiles, living in Babylon, waiting for the Kingdom to come in fullness.

This is still our situation. Every nation is a version of Babylon, pursuing self-rule and self-worship. No earthly kingdom exists solely for the glory of God. We are all exiles, which is exactly how the apostle Peter describes believers in his letters, even writing from "Babylon" (his code name for Rome). The good news of Daniel is that despite what it looks like, God is on the throne. He moves behind the curtain of history, working all things for the good of his people. The Son of Man reigns, and the kingdoms of this world that oppress God's people will crumble. Until that day, we are called to build homes in exile, to bless where we are planted, and to trust that Jesus holds all authority in heaven and on earth.

Transcript

David: [upbeat music] And that's the question. Like, is God still in control? The temple's destroyed, the Babel experiment is succeeding despite the curse. Is God even on the throne anymore? And that, again and again and again, is proven throughout the Book of Daniel, so much so that even on the lips of kings, you have kings confessing, "Yes, God is, is in control. His dominion is from everlasting to everlasting. He is the one who sets up kings and takes them down. He is sovereign over all."

Intro: Welcome to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel is a ministry that's dedicated to speaking the gospel out of every corner of scripture. In Luke 24, Jesus told his disciples that every part of the Bible was about him. So each week, hosts David and Seth work through a passage of scripture to see how it's all about Jesus and his good news. Let's jump in. [upbeat music]

David: Well, welcome, everyone, to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. We are excited to be in the Book of Daniel with you. Seth, how are you feeling today?

Seth: I'm excited for the Book of Daniel.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Most of my interactions with Daniel as a kid were Lion's Den-

David: [laughs] Yes

Seth: ... and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

David: Oh, yeah.

Seth: Primarily through VeggieTales.

David: Ooh, so good.

Seth: And-

David: The bunny

Seth: ... the bunny.

David: Yeah.

Seth: The bunny song that got banned for a while in my home. [laughs]

David: [laughs] 'Cause y- you didn't eat your, your soup or your bread.

Seth: "I don't want no health food when it's time to feed. A big bag o' bunnies is all [laughs] that I need."

David: [laughs]

Seth: "I won't go to church, and I won't go to school." And it continues.

David: Oh, man. Shut it down.

Seth: Shut it down.

David: So that's the Book of Daniel-

Seth: That's the Book of Daniel [laughs]

David: ... to your childhood.

Seth: Through my childhood. [laughs]

David: [laughs]

Seth: And then as I got older, the Book of Daniel was crazy visions about the end of time.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And I kind of, like, had all that in my mind, and then I was like, "You know, I wonder how much of that's true anymore." And then I put it out of my mind for a long time.

David: Mm.

Seth: And then I started studying it again for the first time. So this is, like, a, a revisiting of something that I have a lot of, like, baggage on-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... and a lot of memories about, but not a lot of serious study in.

David: That's true. I feel like I resonate with that. It was like, yeah, growing up, Daniel was, like, a bunch of quick stories about the Daniel Diet, and Daniel in the lion's den-

Seth: Yep

David: ... and, yeah, the fiery furnace, and that's all it was. It was a story of an ex- some exemplary faith.

Seth: Yes, that's right.

David: And, and then, yeah, then I went to seminary, and it was the battleground for debate about what visions meant.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And then, uh, yeah, then I was like, "I should put this down for a second because..." [laughs]

Seth: [laughs]

David: And yeah, revisiting it now, it's been really sweet and still extremely confusing. Um, but we're gonna learn that's maybe the point. [laughs]

Seth: Maybe, maybe that's the point. Okay, that's all the baggage we're bringing to the Book of Daniel.

David: [laughs]

Seth: Where should we start when we think about the Book of Daniel?

David: Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a loaded question because we could start where Daniel starts, which is with exile and the, uh, plundering of the temple and, you know, Daniel and his friends going into Babylon. We could also start, uh, with the place of Babylon, which is where all this takes, you know, all this happens.

Seth: In the land of Shinar.

David: Yes.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And it's like that should set off al- alarm bells for us to go back to the Book of Genesis.

Seth: Yeah.

David: So maybe that's the, that's the best place to start, perhaps, is, like, okay, all this is gonna take p- place in Babylon. We're gonna hear a lot of themes that end up reminding us of where Babylon began.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And so that-

Seth: It-

David: ... that all started when?

Seth: It started back in Genesis 11.

David: Yes.

Seth: What's crazy, I didn't know this until fairly recently, that the Tower of Babel-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... that word translated Babel is translated Babylon everywhere else in scripture.

David: It's the same word.

Seth: It's the same word.

David: Right.

Seth: The only time it's ever not Babylon is in the Tower of Babel, for some strange reason.

David: Right.

Seth: But the very first time Babylon is mentioned in scripture, it is in Genesis 11.

David: Or is it-

Seth: Oh, it's actually right before that

David: ... it's right before that in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, Nimrod, right? One of the un-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... the unchosen-

Seth: One of the unchosen, uh

David: ... unchosen child of Noah.

Seth: And-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... he builds Babylon.

David: Right.

Seth: And then-

David: And so it's like, uh-oh, the unchosen line, uh, of Noah's descendants has gone and built a rival Eden, a rival kingdom, a rival empire, uh, in this Table of Nations. And then, so we get this Table of Nations. We hear about Babylon being built. We hear about the 70 descendants of Noah, and then we punch into that story and see what happens-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... in the plains of Shinar in the place called Babylon.

Seth: Yeah. And in Babylon, they had built this giant tower.

David: Yeah.

Seth: It says this in Genesis chapter 11, "Now the whole earth had one language and the same words, and everyone came from the east and found a plain called Shinar and settled there."

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: "And they said, 'Let's make bricks. Let's make this technological advancement for our society and build this giant tower that reaches to the heavens, and let's make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the whole earth.'"

David: Mm.

Seth: So already what we're hearing in this first story about Babylon is a desire to stay in one place-

David: Right

Seth: ... rather than be scattered.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: We have a, a proud desire for autonomy and self-worship.

David: Right.

Seth: Like, self-idolatry, build a tower that reaches up to the skies or-

David: That's right. We can... Like, gods lived on the top of mountains in the clouds.

Seth: But we're gonna-

David: What if we built a tower and we could either access God ourselves or-

Seth: What if we could be the mountain?

David: What if we could be the mountain and live on top of the mountain, and we could be our own god?

Seth: Yeah.

David: Yeah.

Seth: So Babylon is a place of self-worship-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... autonomy-

David: Yep

Seth: ... pride, and-

David: And it's, yeah, and it's important-

Seth: And-

David: ... to know that, like, it's the opposite of the Edenic mandate to be fruitful and multiply.

Seth: Yep.

David: To spread over the earth. Like, no, no, no, let's all come together and be in one place and go up instead of out.

Seth: Yes.

David: Yeah.

Seth: So all that's on the line.

David: Right.

Seth: And then God comes down and says, "We're gonna confuse their languages and spread them across the earth."

David: God comes down-And says, "We are going to-

Seth: We, yes. In the same way he does it in the Book of Ge- Genesis 1-

David: Yes

Seth: ... let us make man in our own image. He said-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... let us go down and confuse their languages. We'll talk about that probably more-

David: Okay

Seth: ... in an upcoming episode.

David: Some of the, some of the, put asterisks by it.

Seth: Yeah. Like, the, the, the tantalizing hint-

David: Mm

Seth: ... is that let us could be a reference to angels.

David: Yes.

Seth: And if it's a reference to angels, does that make sense of all the angels that show up-

David: In the Book of Daniel

Seth: ... in the Book of Daniel?

David: Dun-dun-dun.

Seth: So just-

David: Okay

Seth: ... stay tuned for that. Anyway, God comes down, confuses their languages, and because the languages are confused, spreads them, people spread themselves out-

David: Right

Seth: ... upon the earth.

David: God-

Seth: Doing what God wanted them-

David: Yeah. [laughs]

Seth: ... to do in the first place, so. [laughs]

David: Yeah, God spread people out even against their own will. [laughs]

Seth: Yes.

David: Okay.

Seth: And then the tower is left in ruins. Bab- the Tower of Babylon-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... is left in ruins.

David: But Babylon is not gone or forgotten.

Seth: No, that's happened in Genesis 11. Babylon shows up in the Book of Revelation. Like, Babylon becomes-

David: Yeah, Babylon's around forever

Seth: ... it's not just a city, it's a symbol of all human pride and self-worship.

David: That's right.

Seth: An empire of self-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... against the kingdom of God, against humility, against going out into the world.

David: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Seth: And wanting to isolate themselves and build themselves up.

David: Okay. So how does that inform and set the stage for our reading of the Book of Daniel-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... now that Babylon is the world empire?

Seth: Right. So what's really interesting is, okay, you had one language which allowed them to be an empire. Now there's dozens of languages, and that's mentioned throughout the Book of Daniel.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: But there's still one global empire.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: You have Babylon, the biggest, brightest, most powerful nation there's ever been.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Like, Nebuchadnezzar's famous, not just in the Bible, but, like, in all of ancient history for, like, the Babylonian Renaissance. Like, he conquered, uh, Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. Uh, he builds his capital city of Babylon. He has a museum of antiquity.

David: [laughs] In 600 BC.

Seth: In 600 BC.

David: [laughs]

Seth: He builds one of the ancient wonders of the ancient world, the Hanging Gardens.

David: Right.

Seth: Uh, which is, a lot of people think is a riff on the Tower of Babel.

David: Mm.

Seth: Like, a giant garden reaching up to the sky.

David: Right.

Seth: A, a temple, a garden temple.

David: Like Eden.

Seth: Like Eden.

David: Mm.

Seth: To what? The glory of his majesty.

David: Instead of God's.

Seth: Instead of God's.

David: Mm.

Seth: It's, it's the same place. Anyway.

David: Yeah.

Seth: So you have, like-

David: The Babylonic- the Babel, the Tower of Babel experiment is continuing.

Seth: Is continuing.

David: And it seems to be gaining a lot of ground.

Seth: And it doesn't need one language to work now.

David: Ah. It's become so powerful that-

Seth: It could-

David: ... Babel can be built again despite God's curse of it.

Seth: Right.

David: So what's going on? Is God out of control now?

Seth: Yeah.

David: Is the Tower of Babel experiment now going to succeed despite God's best effort to stop it? After all, the temple's destroyed at the beginning-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... of Daniel. It seems like maybe all bets are off and God got knocked off the throne.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: And now Babylon is gonna raise up and r- and redo what they failed to do in, in Genesis 11.

Seth: Yeah. Everything's on the line again.

David: Mm.

Seth: It's kind of, it's, it's an, it's a, it's an intensification of everything that's happened in fact.

David: Right. It's the same thing that's on the line in, in Genesis 11, because-

Seth: Mm

David: ... the, the story of Genesis is all about the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent and two rival kingdoms. You have the kingdom of God and the empires of the earth, and which one's going to win out?

Seth: Yeah.

David: Well, in Genesis 11, with all people coming together to build this evil tower and need, and, like, a- achieve autonomy away from God, it seems like the empires of the earth are going to win.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And so-

Seth: If they can overcome God's first curse of Babylon-

David: Right

Seth: ... what can't they do?

David: What can't they do? Which is the point that God makes-

Seth: Right

David: ... in Genesis 11.

Seth: We're also told that, uh, in the Babel, the Babel story, the first Babylon story-

David: Uh-huh

Seth: ... there's an issue with languages and confusion of languages. Throughout the Book of Daniel, you have confusion alongside language and riddles and mysteries and the need for interpretation.

David: Right. The word Babel is even a riff on the Hebrew word for confuse.

Seth: Right. So-

David: So it makes sense that, that the Book of Daniel is-

Seth: Is full of con-

David: ... full confusion

Seth: ... full of confusion and the need for interpretation. Even the text of Daniel-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... is written in multiple languages. It's, part of it's written in Hebrew-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... and part of it's written in Aramaic.

David: So even the language of the Book of Daniel is confused.

Seth: Yes.

David: [laughs]

Seth: It proves the point that they are still under the curse of Babylon.

David: So good.

Seth: Um, we also have in, as we already talked about this, that Nebuchadnezzar has built the empire of autonomy. He's built the empire of self-worship.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: He does that by building a statue to himself.

David: Yeah.

Seth: He does that in all sorts of ways, and he's, he's making a bigger and badder and better Babylon.

David: Mm.

Seth: One that can, seems like it might be able to undo God's curse-

David: Right

Seth: ... under his rule. You also have the themes of scattering and gathering in the Book of, um, Daniel. The people of God have been scattered-

David: Right

Seth: ... because of the exile.

David: Right.

Seth: The people of God have been conquered by Babylon and scattered inside Babylon. So maybe that's actually a hint of hope.

David: Right.

Seth: Can the scattered people of God inside Babylon bring blessing?

David: Right. That was the hope.

Seth: That was the hope.

David: That God would spread them out like the morning dew across the nations.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And what's another interesting little fact about the Babel story is right after the Tower of Babel falls, we're told that God brings Abraham out of the land of the Chaldeans.

David: Mm-hmm, which is Babylon.

Seth: Out, which is Babylon. And in Daniel chapter one, Babylon's called Chaldea again.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: So God pulls out somebody from Babylon to create his people, and now in Babylon, we have the scattered people of God once again.

David: Mm.

Seth: We're wondering, can the scattered people of God do the sa- create a new kingdom like Abraham did?

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Can the new seeds of the kingdom be born in exile? Is that possible?

David: Right.

Seth: Uh-

David: It sure looks like it-

Seth: It-

David: ... because God does it again. He-

Seth: He-

David: ... brings Daniel up.

Seth: Yes.

David: Right. Okay.

Seth: And then in the Babel story, you have this giant edifice, this giant tower-

David: That gets-

Seth: ... torn down

David: ... torn down.

Seth: And throughout the Book of Daniel, you have giant things being torn down. You have Nebuchadnezzar's statue-Being raised up and then torn down. You have him actually building the statue, and then him say, "Never mind, worship Daniel's god." You have a vision of a giant tree-

David: That gets cut down to the stump

Seth: ... that gets cut down to the trunk. Kings rise and fall almost at will.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And the big-

David: One, one, one of the, uh, Nebuchadnezzar's son is even pictured as a new statue-

Seth: Yes

David: ... that crumbles from head to toe.

Seth: Yes.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Yes.

David: In, in Daniel 5.

Seth: So-

David: Okay, yeah. To tie a bow on that, the destruction of edifices in, uh, Daniel mirrors the destruction of the Tower of Babel edifice in Genesis 11.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Okay.

Seth: We're retelling the, Daniel is retelling the Babel story-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... but in a deeper and darker Babylon.

David: Yes.

Seth: And the question is, is can God still, is God still in control-

David: That's right

Seth: ... when the curse is even worse, when the empires are even more powerful, and the people of God aren't even, can't even be called out of Babylon because they've been absorbed into it?

David: Right. And that's kinda what we leaned into. That's the question we leaned into in the introduction video that we did with Spoken Gospel, is th- is like i- despite what it looks like, God is in control-

Seth: That's right

David: ... is, was the through line we put. And that's the question, like, is God still in control? The temple's destroyed, the Babel experiment is succeeding despite the curse. Is God even on the throne anymore? And that again and again and again is proven throughout the Book of Daniel, so much so that even on the lips of kings, you have kings confessing, "Yes, God is in, is in control. His dominion is from everlasting to everlasting. He is the one who sets up kings and takes them down. He is sovereign over all."

Seth: Yeah.

David: And you even have Nebuchadnezzar himself, the King of Babylon, the builder of the tower, making that admission. And so that's the point that Daniel's trying to get us to see.

Seth: That's right.

David: Yeah.

Seth: I'd, I wrote this down a while ago. I need to double-check if it's true, but I think if it, you read Daniel this week, you'll notice every time that God makes a pronouncement, like through a vision or a dream, it's to pronounce the fall of a king-

David: Mm

Seth: ... and then it ha- then it happening-

David: Right

Seth: ... or being promised to happen. And every time a king speaks, like Nebuchadnezzar or Darius, it's to pronounce that God's kingdom never fails.

David: Yeah.

Seth: There's this very intentional movement within Daniel to show you that God is in control, even inside Babylon.

David: Mm.

Seth: He's going to tear Babel down once again, and over and over and over again. [gentle music]

David: So how do we see Jesus in the story of the Tower of Babel and its analog in Babylon as a, as a concept? Not even necessarily in the details, but like we have the Tower of Babel experiment to be autonomous apart from God, to deny the call to be spread out and be fruitful and multiply and bless the world that's now almost achieved in the actual geopolitical region of Babylon. Um, how, how do we see the gospel in these themes that we've set up here?

Seth: Well, I mean, I guess it's pretty simple, like Jesus is in control.

David: Mm.

Seth: Jesus is the king above all kings. It, right in the middle of the Book of Daniel is Daniel chapter 7-

David: Right

Seth: ... and there's this vision of this being called the Ancient of Days. It's a picture of God and Him giving the kingdoms of the world to this rising one called a Son of Man. I mean, we'll get there eventually, but it's, it's Jesus.

David: Right. Jesus constantly identifies himself as the Son of Man.

Seth: As the Son of Man, and he says whenever he's being tried by the Pharisees that he is the Son of Man about to ride the clouds-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... and take his seat-

David: Mm

Seth: ... in power above all people. So I mean, if Daniel's in this em- entirely encompassing empire of self-rule and self-worship and dominion and power and brutality and evil, God speaks to him in that moment and gives him a vision that says, "No, don't worry. There's a day coming when I will give a Son of Man control over all the nations of the earth." And we live after that fact. We live after the moment where a final Son of Man rules over all the empires of the world.

David: Mm.

Seth: He determines who rules and who falls. He determines whether or not I'm safe.

David: Mm.

Seth: And the answer is I'm always safe.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Death cannot rule over people who live in the kingdom of the Son of God. Like, I wanna be more specific than that, but I feel like I'll, gonna start robbing, like, all of the other things-

David: Yeah, yeah, yeah

Seth: ... we have planned for the Book of Daniel. But, I mean, the basic good news is that Jesus is on the throne.

David: Right. Yeah, 'cause it's like the bad news of Daniel, uh, i- and the bad news of Babylon is what happens when we're put in charge.

Seth: Mm.

David: Like, when we're put in charge, we would oppress each other, uh, like-

Seth: We're confused.

David: Yeah, we're confused. We're Babylon. Babylon-

Seth: We're scattered and confused

David: ... we're scattered and confused. [laughs]

Seth: Yeah. [laughs]

David: And Jesus is the, the one who brings clarity and unity, you know?

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Like, there's also that going on.

Seth: Yeah. Well, it makes me think a little bit about Acts 2.

David: Yes, the Day of Pentecost.

Seth: The Day of Pentecost. And, um, throughout the Book of Daniel, there's all these crazy visions and dreams-

David: Mm

Seth: ... and Daniel doesn't always know what's happening in them.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And but God gives him interpretation sometimes, and sometimes he doesn't.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Um, but it's interesting that on the Day of Pentecost, you have all these people from all over the world gather-

David: Different languages

Seth: ... in one place-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... again. They're filled with the Holy Spirit, and they go back out into all the world preaching the gospel of the kingdom.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: And that's what the whole book of Acts is about. Like-

David: Right

Seth: ... the kingdom has come, and they go out and preaching the ki- a new kingdom. The empi-

David: Right

Seth: ... old empire's over. A new kingdom has come.

David: Right, they reverse the Tower of Babel.

Seth: They reverse the Tower of Babel.

David: Right. They turn the scattered nations from a curse into a blessing.

Seth: Yes.

David: Yes.

Seth: They're, yeah.

David: Because they're using the scattered nations as the vehicle to bring God's blessing of the good news of the kingdom to the ends of the earth.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Right.Uh, but yeah, what's interesting is, about that is like, yeah, they're, they're sent out with dreams and visions-

Seth: Right

David: ... just like Daniel was.

Seth: Yeah, in Acts 2, uh, Peter says that day when they start speaking in tongues and languages are being interpreted-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... that that's the fulfillment of a prophecy from Joel where your young men will dream dreams, and your young women will dream visions-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... and your s- everyone will have access to the mysteries of the Kingdom of God.

David: Yeah, that which only Daniel really had access to in, in the Book of Daniel, and then sometimes couldn't even understand-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... what was going on, is democratized and given to all people, so we know what's going on.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Yeah. In God's... Yeah, when Jesus is on the throne, we know what's going on in the world.

Seth: Right, and maybe that's a different way to talk about the good news of the Book of Daniel.

David: Mm.

Seth: It's like without the visions Daniel had-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... he would've been totally lost as to what was happening to God's people.

David: That's right. It's like, "Oh, we've been squashed, our temple's destroyed."

Seth: There's no hope for us.

David: There's no access to God. Maybe I should hop on Babylon's tower-

Seth: Right

David: ... because I can't think of another way to get to God. [laughs]

Seth: Right. That's exactly right.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Like, without the visions Daniel had, how would he have known God was still on the move?

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: How would've he had known that Babel would fall?

David: Right.

Seth: How would he have known that Nebuchadnezzar was being formed by God and changing his h- like, how would he have known any of that without the visions? He wouldn't have.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: And so when Jesus comes and He sits on His throne, and He gives new dreams and visions to the people of God, we are never without an answer to the geopolitical maneuverings of the world-

David: Mm

Seth: ... or the spiritual maneuverings of the world. The world can be a mess of, like, loneliness or isolation or empire or brutality.

David: Mm.

Seth: Like, right now, this morning, Russia-

David: This morning, yeah

Seth: ... invaded Ukraine.

David: Yeah.

Seth: What's happening in the world?

David: Right.

Seth: Who's in charge? How do I know I'll be okay? How do a- Ukrainian believers know they'll be okay?

David: Right.

Seth: Who's really in charge? Well, the mystery's been revealed in Jesus. Jesus is in charge.

David: Mm.

Seth: And He's w- moving the wheels of history and geopolitics and spirituality for the benefit of His people and to restore them to Himself.

David: Yeah. That's good news.

Seth: That's the good news of the Book of Daniel.

David: Yeah. [gentle music]

Seth: Okay. Uh, what's, what we were doing by going back to Genesis and reading Genesis into Daniel, it's undoing a lot of my assumptions about what the Book of Daniel is doing.

David: Mm.

Seth: I thought the Book of Daniel, uh, was a morality tale about how to be good people.

David: Okay.

Seth: Or proof text about my interpretation about what the end of the world will look like.

David: Sure.

Seth: That's what the Book of Daniel was to-

David: Yes

Seth: ... old Seth. The Book of Genesis changes that for me a little bit, but I also think the Book of Revelation should change that for us as well.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Because there's really strong links between the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation, so much so, like, there's a seal that's closed. [laughs]

David: At the end of Daniel.

Seth: And then it's only opened again by an angel until the Book of Revelation, right?

David: Right, yes.

Seth: Right, so-

David: Yeah, the story of Daniel stops at the end, and it doesn't start again until Revelation 5.

Seth: So, and that kinda broke my paradigms-

David: Yes

Seth: ... for what the Book of Daniel was about. I was like, is it, wait, these are proof texts for me to be a better person and me to know what, and the history's happening. But what we kinda realized in our study was, like, there's a broader story that Daniel fits in the middle of, and Genesis points towards it-

David: Mm

Seth: ... and Revelation looks back on it.

David: Right.

Seth: So can you pull on Revelation for us and tell us, like, how Revelation understands the Book of Daniel?

David: Yeah, so it's really interesting. So, you know, when, when Jesus and his disciples think back about the Book of Daniel, they obviously realize that everything Daniel was looking forward to has been, or is soon to be, fulfilled by Jesus himself. A, so much so that the seal, and we'll talk about this more in, in detail when we get there, but the seal that's closed at the end of Daniel is opened and can only be opened by Jesus himself. Because Daniel gets to the end of all these visions that he's seen, and he's just confused.

Seth: Mm.

David: The end of Daniel, he's just confused.

Seth: Right.

David: And he's like, "What does it mean? Tell me, like, how long-"

Seth: Who's the beast with 10 horns? When is this gonna happen?

David: Right, he's all these questions.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And they just, like, they just, the angel just looks at him and instead of interpreting it, he just says, "Go your way, Daniel. Walk away from this. This is sealed up now for, until the end of time."

Seth: Mm.

David: "You, you can't know it." And so we get, we pick up the story again-

Seth: So let's pause right there for a second.

David: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Seth: The book, I... That blew my mind when I first kinda, like, actually let h- hold of that.

David: Totally.

Seth: Because for so much of my youth and early adulthood-

David: The point has to be to understand it, to know the answer

Seth: ... to know the answer, to know what happens next.

David: Right.

Seth: But the Book of Daniel ends in chapter 12, say, "Daniel, this isn't for you to understand until the end of time."

David: Right.

Seth: And I'm like, "Oh."

David: Daniel never got the answer. [laughs]

Seth: Daniel didn't got the answer, and I shouldn't expect to figure out an answer either.

David: Yeah.

Seth: So.

David: Yeah, it's amazing. And so, and then we don't get the answer until Jesus.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And then Jesus comes along, and he picks up the end of the story of the Book of Daniel in Revelation 5, and you have all these, all these people and all these angelic beings wailing and mourning, and the author of Revelation himself is throwing himself down on the ground going, "Oh, man, I just wanna know how the story's gonna end." Like, he's joining Daniel at the end, going like, "Oh," and he's crying.

Seth: Yeah.

David: He's saying like-

Seth: This is Revelation 5, right?

David: This is Revelation 5.

Seth: Yeah.

David: "How can I know the end of the story? What's gonna happen?" And then-

Seth: Who's worthy to open the scroll-

David: Yeah, right

Seth: ... and the seal? Yeah.

David: Exactly. Who can open the scroll and tell me the end of the story? And the angel comes to him, again, just like he came to Daniel, and instead of saying, "Go your way, you know, don't worry about it," he says, "Behold, there's one who can open the scroll now. There's one who can break the seal, and it's the lion and the lamb."

Seth: Mm.

David: "It's Jesus himself." And so he opens, there's, now there's seven seals repeating the sevens of Daniel.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Opens the f- all s- one through six, and there are all these plagues that come out on the earth and everything like that. We don't have to talk about those. And then in chapter 8-

Seth: When the seal isFinally, when the last seal-

David: The last seal

Seth: ... opens, the scroll can finally open.

David: Yes. So the fin- final seal is open and the story is read.

Seth: A seal on a scroll-

David: Yes

Seth: ... would've been like a wax thing-

David: That's right

Seth: ... that would've prevented it from opening until you broke off all the wax seals.

David: All the seals.

Seth: So, like, if you wanna read a scroll, you have to break off all the seals.

David: That's right.

Seth: The, so the reason why this is a big deal is, like, why it's sealed, Daniels and Ma- Daniel's getting this vision of, like, a scroll that wa- he wants to open, but there's a giant wax thing on it that can't be opened yet.

David: That's right.

Seth: In Revelation, they're all popped off.

David: Yes.

Seth: And when the final one's popped off and they open it-

David: We get to hear the end of the story

Seth: ... we get to hear the end of the story.

David: And the end of the story is this, and it's gonna sound a little confusing, but I'm gonna go back and explain it. So the end of the story is this: um, Jesus is the king, hallelujah, and everyone stands around him and offers up praise and worship-

Seth: Mm

David: ... and prayers to him in such a way that the author of Revelation says it looks like incense burning and, and like-

Seth: Mm

David: ... the smoke of sacrifices going up to Jesus. And that's the seventh... That's the end of the story, is that-

Seth: Mm

David: ... Jesus is on the throne and the worship of God is going to him alone from the praises of the people, burning like incense and burnt offerings. Strange.

Seth: Strange, because you expect th- the 70 weeks or the 70 times 7 or the 1,260 days to be, like, some intense geopolitical maneuvering. Maybe it's the Seleucid army, maybe it's the Ptolemies-

David: [laughs]

Seth: ... maybe it's Alexander the Great. But the, the, the, the vision is Jesus ruling on a throne and all of the peoples of the world worshiping him.

David: That's right. And, like, yes, there are kingdoms judged and empires toppled.

Seth: That's part of the point-

David: Right, uh, that's-

Seth: ... other plagues-

David: That's right

Seth: ... on all those seals

David: ... but the, the point, the final end of the story that Daniel so longed to look into, what was the answer to this question, and I think this is how we can, we can try to make sense of that seventh seal. It, it, and it's pretty simple. We've talked about it already. It's that Israel's temple and the place where they worship God has been destroyed. They, they can no longer-

Seth: Whoa

David: ... they can no longer worship God. The incense, the smoke from the offerings, has stopped going up.

Seth: Where? In-

David: In the temple. In Daniel's time-

Seth: In Daniel's time-

David: That's right. The, the, the-

Seth: The, the temple's destroyed

David: ... the temple's destroyed. That's how-

Seth: They're in exile

David: ... verse two.

Seth: Yep.

David: Yep.

Seth: They're in exile.

David: Right.

Seth: There's no more smoke. God's not smelling the offering of his people anymore.

David: That's right.

Seth: And Daniel has been wondering, "When can I go home?"

David: Right.

Seth: "And when can my relationship be restored with God back at the temple?"

David: That's right. Everyone's wondering that.

Seth: Everyone.

David: All the people of Israel are wondering that. And, uh, that's the question he keeps asking. He keeps asking the question, "When will the burnt offerings return?" And the angel keeps telling him, "Oh, this empire's gonna come, and the burnt offerings won't come back yet. And this em- empire will come, and the burnt offerings and the incense won't come back yet." And then he gets to it-

Seth: Mm

David: ... again, uh, in chapter 12, and he's like, "Then when can we go back to the temple and be home?" And that's when he tells him to walk away because the answer's sealed up.

Seth: Mm. So you're, what you're saying is when the scroll's finally open, we see a new temple.

David: A new temple.

Seth: But it's not a building-

David: Nope

Seth: ... made with hands.

David: That's right.

Seth: It's Jesus himself, and the temple is restored, but in Jesus.

David: That's right.

Seth: Interesting.

David: And so what Daniel so longs to look into, uh, is that, um, the home Israel wants to go to, the worship that she wants restored, the, the place of her offerings and incense-

Seth: Mm

David: ... is not going to be another physical building, and it's not going to be animals sacrificed and, uh, frankincense lit, right?

Seth: Yeah.

David: It's going to be the person of Jesus worshiped and embo- and, and dwelling in his people, offering praise and prayers to him.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Um, and so the prayers of the saints are often tied to this idea of incense. Like, prayers are often called incense.

Seth: What this does for me is it helps, gives me another layer to think about the Book of Daniel. So Revelation look, like, Genesis looks forward to Daniel, Revelation looks back to Daniel.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: And what you're saying Revelation is all about is the restored worship.

David: That's right.

Seth: The re- the restored authority of God above all things and the restored, like, worship of God.

David: That's right. The inbreaking of the kingdom, and when the kingdom comes in, the temple's gotta be in the center of the, of the kingdom. And when we see that happen in Revelation, the temple's gone. The kingdom comes, and the temple's gone.

Seth: 'Cause it's Jesus.

David: And, it's 'cause it's Jesus. Jesus is the temple.

Seth: So, so Daniel sits in the middle of those two realities.

David: Yes.

Seth: The broken power of Babylon that still seems to exist and is growing in power, but also a promised power and worship, system of worship that's even greater and it will supersede, and Daniel's waiting in the middle of them.

David: That's right.

Seth: You have the ascendancy of the empire of self-rule in Babel-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... in Babylon.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: And then you have the promise of the ultimate empire and the ultimate system of worship in Jesus on the other end, and Daniel sits in the middle saying, "When will, when, how, how do I live in the middle?"

David: "How do I live in the middle?"

Seth: "How do I live in the middle?"

David: Yeah. And this, I mean, this, uh, all of our talk about Babel and the tower and Babylon and confusion and self-autonomy and all this stuff makes me see all the more clearly how obsessed with this when are we gonna go back to the temple-

Seth: Mm

David: ... when are the burnt offerings going to restore-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... when's the incense gonna come back? Because what was the Tower of Babel if not a different temple?

Seth: Yeah.

David: It was just a different temple.

Seth: Right.

David: It was one built on self-righteousness and self-autonomy that could do it without God.

Seth: Right.

David: And what was the kingdom of Babylon if not a kingdom without God?

Seth: Yeah, and what does Nebuchadnezzar want? Worship of himself.

David: Right.

Seth: What does Darius want? Worship of himself. You have two kings who embody-

David: Yes

Seth: ... in their own political practice what ne- Babylon as a spiritual force-

David: That's right

Seth: ... has been doing since the beginning.

David: Yes. And so, like, Daniel's, is asking that question of, "When will the kingdoms of this world who only wanna worship themselves, when will those be brought to an end, and when can I get back to worshiping God alone?"

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: And the seal is finally popped off, the story is finally read, and the answer is not until Jesus.

Seth: Mm.

David: And Jesus comes, and he topples the kingdoms of the world, rises above them, sits in authority, and says, "Now my praise comes from my people, and I'm with them."

Seth: What that makes me appreciate a little bit more here is I think I want to be Daniel in this book.

David: Yeah.

Seth: I'm supposed to see myself as Daniel, right?

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Like, but what I'm realizing as I hear this more and more, it's like, no, I'm the person in exile.

David: Mm. Yes, that's right.

Seth: And the Book of Daniel isn't written to make more Daniels. The Book of Daniel is written to the beleaguered, oppressed, conquered people of God-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... saying, "Here's what you can expect in the future. Here's how the kingdom crumbles."

David: Yes.

Seth: "Not by your efforts, but by my hand choosing a representative for you. I have thrones in Babylon. I have thrones among all the nations of the earth, and I will conquer and topple them on your behalf."

David: Yes.

Seth: "Trust."

David: Yes.

Seth: And I think we talked about this as, before we c- got, got on air, the primary audience for all these prophecies and all these stories are the masses of scattered Jews throughout the Babylonian Empire who have no hope of gaining any political traction for their efforts.

David: That's right.

Seth: They have no hope of exercising political or military or imperialistic-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... or cultural power, and so what do they do? They need to hope that, that God has a throne somewhere and can overthrow Babylon.

David: Yes.

Seth: And in Daniel, you have a picture of what that could look like. Daniel is, is kind of like Jesus-

David: Mm

Seth: ... seated at the right hand of God, but also Nebuchadnezzar, who claims to be God.

David: Right.

Seth: And through Daniel's action, he makes peace-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... for the people of God, so much so that if you go and read Jeremiah and Ezekiel, those prophets tell the people of God to build homes in exile.

David: Yeah, go ahead and plant a garden while you're in Babylon.

Seth: Because Daniel's able to influence Nebuchadnezzar to such a degree to give peace to the people of God-

David: Yes

Seth: ... in exile.

David: Yeah. How do you live in the middle when you're in Babylon? You bless where you are.

Seth: Yeah.

David: You make it an inhabitable garden. You build the kingdom inside of the empire.

Seth: Right.

David: Yeah.

Seth: So I think all I was trying to... I hope I, I hope I nailed that in-

David: Mm

Seth: ... the sense, like, man, like, I want to be Daniel, but I, I think Daniel's inviting me to be more like the powerless Jew-

David: Right

Seth: ... in the middle.

David: And to, to hope that despite what it looks like, God is in control.

Seth: And this, and that He will elevate someone-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... to take control of the thrones-

David: Right

Seth: ... and operate on my behalf, and to make it okay for me to live where I am, even if I never see an inch of movement on, in my behalf-

David: Right

Seth: ... or my favor, right?

David: Oh, totally, 'cause-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... you know, for hundreds of years, that was the state of much of the Jewish nation scattered among the nations.

Seth: Even the Apostle Peter, when he writes his letters to his churches in 1 and 2 Peter, still imagines after Jesus comes back that the people of God is exiles. He even says he's writing from Babylon-

David: Yes

Seth: ... referring to Rome.

David: Yes.

Seth: Why? Because none of these believers have any hope of changing-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... the nation they're in. They could only be oppressed over, but what's the hope there? That God is on the throne-

David: That's right

Seth: ... and He's moving beyo- behind the curtains of history in a power to do good to His people and bring them into His kingdom forever.

David: Yeah, and what's funny is we've talked about the links between Daniel and Revelation. The... You're, you're saying the point of the Book of Revelation, the, the core audience for the book of... Sorry, for the Book of Daniel-

Seth: Yeah, yeah

David: ... is the beleaguered, exiled Jew.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Right? That's the exact same audience for the Book of Revelation.

Seth: That's right. That's right.

David: Is the exiled Christians-

Seth: Mm

David: ... scattered around the world who get the first seven letters of Revelation-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... right?

Seth: Right.

David: And it's like, "Hey, I know that you're being persecuted and you're wondering if Jesus is really in control 'cause it sure doesn't look like it with your-

Seth: Right

David: ... situation. Here, let me paint you an apocalyptic picture of what's actually going on behind the scenes."

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: And it's exactly what Daniel does.

Seth: Yeah, and the Book of Revelation borrows all of its images-

David: Yes

Seth: ... from Daniel anyway. It's doing the same thing.

David: So, yeah, so I think, like, that's a really good way to set up the, the Book of Daniel here is, like, who, like, who should you see yourself, [laughs] you know, as as we go through the Book of Daniel the next several weeks? I think it would be, like, as someone who is living in Babylon, 'cause wherever you are, whatever nation you're in, you're in a fur- a version of Babylon.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And-

Seth: There's no nation that-

David: [laughs]

Seth: ... says, like, "We exist for the glory of God alone."

David: Yeah. [laughs]

Seth: "And we're not trying to rule ourselves or worship ourselves or-"

David: We don't have, we don't have any earthly rulers. God alone is our ruler.

Seth: No one's doing that.

David: No, no one's doing that. Everyone's living in Babylon, um, and, uh, and it's like this, this is, like, m- good hope to you.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: I- you know, it's like Revelation part one.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And it's like here's what is going to happen with the cycles of the world and the end of time. Um, let me just encourage you that don't worry, the Son of Man is going to reign.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: And the kingdoms of this world that oppress you are going to topple.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: And that's really good news.

Seth: Yeah. So before we jump off air, we wanted to kinda preview... We would love for you to read the Book of Daniel this week.

David: Yeah, go read the Book of Daniel.

Seth: It's fairly short.

David: Yeah.

Seth: 40 minutes or so.

David: Yep.

Seth: Um, and what, uh, we want you to know is that the b- whole Book of Daniel is structured like a chiasm.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Which is basically bookends.

David: Right.

Seth: Every chapter has a parallel chapter within the Book of Daniel.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Which was another big mind-blowing moment for me. It's like, oh, Daniel talks to itself the entire time. It's, it... I don't need to go to the Book of Revelation to understand Daniel-

David: Right

Seth: ... because chapter 2 and chapter 7 both have visions of four kingdoms. Oh, that's interesting.

David: Yes.

Seth: So anyway.

David: Yes.

Seth: I wanna give you the structure of the Book of Daniel.

David: Okay.

Seth: So if you read it this week, you'll kinda understand where you're at-

David: The layout, yeah

Seth: ... and how it works.

David: Okay.

Seth: So chapter 1 is the beginning of exile.

David: Okay, yeah.

Seth: It's the beginning of Daniel in exile.

David: The people of God are taken away from the, the, the, the kingdom of Jerusalem-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... and they're taken into Babylon away from the temple.That's the beginning of exile, so exile's the theme of chapter one.

Seth: Yeah. And that parallels the last five chapters, where Daniel has visions of that exile finally coming to an end.

David: Yes.

Seth: Eight through 12 are all about that exile coming to an end.

David: Right.

Seth: And as you read chapter one and chapter eight through 12, look out for those themes of temple and exile, 'cause they're everywhere within those.

David: Yeah, so chapter- you're saying like chapter one is like, "We've left the temple. How will we get back?"

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Chapter eight to 12 is kind of the answer-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... in part-

Seth: Yes

David: ... because the seal.

Seth: The seal.

David: Okay.

Seth: Uh, and I think in chapter one, it's kinda hidden. We talked about, we'll talk about it next episode, about how there's these blemishless-

David: Oh, can't wait to talk about this

Seth: ... people of God-

David: Yes

Seth: ... who can work on behalf of God's people and are better... Anyway, we'll get there. Uh, and then in chapter two, you have Nebuchadnezzar's vision of this giant statue divided into four parts. Daniel gives the interpretation of the dream, and it's, it's a whole thing.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: That's paralleled with Daniel chapter seven.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Where you have Nebuchadnezzar having a dream of four-

David: Or Daniel having a dream in chapter seven.

Seth: Daniel, sorry, Daniel having a dream of four kingdoms, represented by these kind of four monsters. And in the same way in chapter two-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... when Daniel is risen into a throne in Babylon after giving the interpretation of the four visions, we see a figure, these four visions of these different kingdoms being interpreted, and then another son of man ascending to a different throne.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: So they're, they're paralleling one another.

David: Okay.

Seth: Um, in chapter three, we have the fiery furnace.

David: Right.

Seth: It's this test of fidelity when Babylon goes crazy and demands self-worship.

David: Yes.

Seth: And that's paralleled with chapter six, which is the lion's den. And it's another test of fidelity of God's kingdom to a king that demands worship.

David: Yes.

Seth: Same thing happening.

David: Same thing.

Seth: And then in the very center of the book-

David: Mm

Seth: ... and normally the center of a chiasm is the most important.

David: Yes.

Seth: It's the, the central themes of the book, where they finally coalesce and come toge- together. You have Nebuchadnezzar has another vision of this giant tree that's chopped down and then goes insane. And then Nebuchadnezzar goes insane-

David: Yeah, he turns into like-

Seth: ... because he is the tree

David: ... a beast that eats grass for seven years.

Seth: A, yeah. And then he's given his kingdom back, and then he praises God. And the picture we have at the end of Nebuchadnezzar's life is one of repentance and humility-

David: Yep

Seth: ... and a kingdom being restored to Nebuchadnezzar and him giving more authority than he had before.

David: So you have the proud king being humbled.

Seth: Humbled, and then risen back up.

David: And risen back up.

Seth: Risen back up.

David: That's right, yep.

Seth: So kind of actually like the Son of Man being risen back up.

David: That's right.

Seth: It's the s- similar themes. But in the very next chapter-

David: It's mirrored with his son

Seth: ... it, it's probably his grandson, but yes.

David: Oh, okay, okay.

Seth: Uh, Belshazzar has an opportunity to humble himself, refuses that humbling, and is killed the very same night.

David: Mm.

Seth: And you have, in the middle of the book, a reflection on pride and humility and how one enters the Kingdom of God or remains in the empire of autonomy. And if you go into the Kingdom of God, you're risen up, like the Son of Man, like Daniel.

David: Mm.

Seth: But if you remain in the kingdom of autonomy, you die.

David: Okay.

Seth: The kingdom of pride.

David: So starting at the top and going into the center of the chiasm, you have-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... exile, the, the four kingdoms being judged.

Seth: Mm.

David: You've got the test of faith, and then you've got pride and humility.

Seth: Yep.

David: And then it works back out again.

Seth: Yes.

David: Pride and humility, the test of faith, the four kings being judged, and exile.

Seth: Yes.

David: Okay.

Seth: I can never tell if a chiasm comes across very well on audio.

David: On audio. [laughs]

Seth: [laughs]

David: We're sitting here doing it all with some of our hands.

Seth: [laughs] Maybe I'll just put it in the show notes.

David: Yeah, well, you know, don't make any promises you won't, you can't keep.

Seth: I can keep this promise.

David: You can keep this promise?

Seth: I got it right here. [laughs]

David: Okay. Okay, anything else about, about this? Uh, oh, how about, how are we gonna walk through-

Seth: Oh, yes

David: ... the Book of Daniel, um-

Seth: So we thought for a while about, "Well, let's do the chiasm. Let's do chapter one with chapters eight through 12, and chapter two with chapter seven, and chapter three-

David: Yeah, yeah, yeah

Seth: ... with chapter six." We could do that.

David: Yeah.

Seth: But there's so much gold in-

David: In each u- unit

Seth: ... in each unit that we're going to basically attack it chapter by chapter-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... until the visions at the end, which we'll either do in one big chunk or maybe two episodes.

David: Maybe we'll get lost in the weeds.

Seth: Maybe we'll get lost in the weeds.

David: We'll see.

Seth: Uh, but that's, that's what's coming up next.

David: Okay, so although it is this kind of chiasm, we're gonna go through it sequentially.

Seth: Yeah, and we'll, and we'll make references to the other stories-

David: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

Seth: ... as you're meant to.

David: Right.

Seth: So.

David: Okay, well, that's great. Well, I'm excited to walk through Daniel with you, Seth, and with everyone listening. So thank you so much for joining us this week on the Spoken Gospel podcast, and we will see you next week.

Outro: [Instrumental music] Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel creates short films, devotionals, and podcasts like this one. Everything we make is free because of generous supporters like you. To see our resources, visit spokengospel.com or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks for listening. See you next week. [Instrumental music]

Related Resources

Free videos sent straight to your inbox.

The Book of Daniel: Living in Babylon While Trusting in God's Sovereignty

Show Notes

Babylon Begins at Babel

The Resurgence of Babel in Nebuchadnezzar's Empire

Where Is the Gospel in the Story of Babel and Babylon?

The Sealed Scroll and the Book of Revelation

Reading Daniel as an Exile

Related Resources

Introduction to Daniel

View our devotional on Daniel 1

Ready to study a different book?

Listen to the Daniel Introduction podcast

Listen to the Daniel 1: A Test of Allegiance podcast

Listen to the Daniel 2: A Statue of Four Kingdoms podcast

Listen to the Daniel 3: A Raging Furnace podcast

Listen to the Daniel 4: Nebuchadnezzar Goes Insane podcast

Listen to the Daniel 5: The Writing on the Wall podcast

Listen to the Daniel 6: The Lion's Den podcast

Listen to the Daniel 7: A Cloud-Riding Son of Man podcast

Listen to the Daniel 8: Rams, Goats, and Abominations podcast

Listen to the Daniel 9: 70 Weeks and a Prayer for Mercy podcast

Listen to the Daniel 10: A Shining Metal Man and the Prince of Persia podcast

Listen to the Daniel 11-12: Not a When, But a Who podcast

Listen to the Daniel Sermon: Only God is in Control podcast