Here are some miscellaneous
observations and thoughts from Daniel chapter 7: Commentators are generally
agreed that the “sea” which is stirred up in v.2 and produces the four beasts
of v.3 represents the troubled mass of humanity. John uses the same symbolism
in Rev. 13:1 where he saw “a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and
seven heads …” There are other Biblical references to the sea which support the
connection, but I think the most interesting is Isa. 57:19-21: “‘…peace, peace
to them that are near and them that are far, and I will heal them,’ saith the Lord.
But the wicked are not so. They are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose
waters cast up mire and dirt. ‘There is no peace,’ saith my God, ‘to the
wicked.’”
Once again, I think it does us
believers good once in awhile to come back and remind ourselves “this world is
not our home.” Even here, in this world, as He says, there is much peace for
you and me. However, as we are all aware, there is also much, much, much
trouble. Daniel reminds us once again to expect that our world will bear too
much resemblance to the ocean tossed by storms. When I lived in Toledo, next to
Lake Erie, I was amazed to realize just how much fun and recreation was offered
by such a large body of water. No wonder people like to live in such places! On
the other hand, I was equally amazed by how dangerous it was.
One day a friend had invited me
to go out with him in his cabin cruiser, but we’d no sooner left shore than he
looked at the western horizon and said, “Oh, no! We’ve got to get off the lake!”
We did, then I stood with him on a high hill and watched as a storm almost
instantly turned the lake into a bathtub of very violent waves. There were many
boats out on the lake apparently owned by people who didn’t know the lake like
my friend. One of them was some poor guy in a johnboat! I never heard of any
fatalities that day, but there sure could have been. I couldn’t believe how
violent the lake became and how quickly. My mother’s first husband perished on just
such a lake in just such a storm in Florida way back in the 1950’s.
Another thing Lake Erie brought
was the most horrifically violent thunderstorms I have ever experienced in my
life. I remember lying in my bed there in Toledo as the city was barraged with
almost constant very loud and very violent lightning. It was one deafening
crash after another and even overlapping, so violent you’d think it was going
to shake you right out of your bed. It seriously sounded like WW III had broken
out!
That’s our world, yes? It can be
a wonderful place of love and kindness and frankly an awful lot of fun! But may
we let Daniel remind us that, like Lake Erie, that same world can, in an
instant, turn into a hellish nightmare—a place we’d rather not be. As Paul said
in Philippians, “our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we look for the
Savior…” (3:20). We’re only still here because the Lord would have us serve Him
for a short time, just like Jesus, in the swirl of this world’s troubled sea. Sometimes
we watch the trouble from a high hill, glad to have been warned and not to be a
part of it, but sometimes it’s more like the poor fellow I watched in his
johnboat, being tossed up and down by six or eight foot waves, hanging on for
dear life.
In this troubled world, we have
Psalm 46, reminding us that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present
help in trouble.” It says, “Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give
way and though the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters
roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.” “Be still,” He says,
“and know that I am God.” Daniel warned us 2500 years ago, may we not lose
sight of his warning.
Another interesting thing about
Daniel is the similarities not only to the book of Revelation (which are many),
but also to the apocryphal book of Enoch. Jude quotes Enoch in his vv.14,15
saying, “Enoch, the seventh from Adam said, ‘See, the Lord is coming with
thousands upon thousands of His holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all
the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of
all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” There we see the similarity
to Daniel’s “thousands upon thousands attended Him; ten thousand times ten
thousand stood before Him…” (v.10). Apparently, Enoch is the only other known
writer who used the name “Ancient of Days” for God and mentioned “the Son of
Man” for the Messiah. The strong impression I would get is that Daniel was
familiar with the book of Enoch. That book, of course, is not in our Bibles and
is one of those books people suggest is a “lost book of the Bible.” I for one
am quite content to believe our God is big enough to have superintended the process
of preserving the Bible down through the centuries, so that what we hold in our
hands is in fact the Word of God.
At the same time, especially
since Jude quotes it, I do not personally doubt that it truly was a book written
by the real Enoch, “the seventh from Adam,” which was then passed down through
the millennia by godly people. The fact it was written by Enoch and the fact
that what it said was true does not make it Scripture. There have been some
excellent books written down through the centuries which are all jewels of
Biblical truth, yet no one considers them Scripture. Philip Doddridge wrote “Rise
and Progress” in the 1600’s. Jonathan Edwards preached “Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God” in the 1700’s. Charles Spurgeon wrote his “Treasury of David” in
the 1800’s. I have on my shelf, “Knowing God” by J.I. Packer and “How Shall We
Then Live” by Francis Schaefer, both of which to me are treasures which I would
be delighted to know my grandkids or great-grandkids would someday pick up and
read. But that doesn’t make them Scripture. I think the book of Enoch was real,
that what it taught was true, that it did influence Daniel’s choice of terms,
but that, in admitting all of that, we have no reason to doubt the completeness
of our 66 books of the Bible.
The only surviving copies of the
book are in various other languages but none are in Hebrew. Isn’t it
interesting though that Jude quotes it as if “of course, everyone knows…” That
would mean that there probably were Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek versions in
common circulation in the 1st century A.D. If that is the case, obviously
it would have been available for Daniel to read in the 6th century
B.C. Even if it isn’t Scripture, it’s just crazy to me to think that something
written down by Enoch himself was still around and in common circulation as
late as the 1st century A.D.!
