A devout believer in astrology, King Louis XI of France was deeply impressed when an astrologer correctly foretold that a lady of the court would die in eight days' time.

Deciding, however, that the too-accurate prophet should be disposed of, Louis summoned the man to his apartments, having first told his servants to throw the visitor out of the window when he gave the signal.

"You claim to understand astrology and to know the fate of others," the king said to the man, "so tell me at once what your fate will be and how long you have to live."

"I shall die just three days before Your Majesty," answered the astrologer. The shaken king canceled his plans! [show less]

Remember the story of young Daniel? The teenage prisoner of war captured from ancient Israel and taken to Babylon? Let’s go back to that story again.

Daniel is away from home with no temple for worship, no priests for intercession, no sacrifices for absolution. He’s cut off from his roots, from the centre of his world and what gave his life meaning. In other words, he was kind of a lot like you and me. Our world just doesn’t seem as certain as it once did.

It seems to change everyday. There aren’t any absolutes anymore. Which might sound great – until you hit a crisis and need a definite answer. This is how Daniel was feeling when he had another dream. A dream about a ram and a goat (see Daniel chapter 8). These animals are rather less spectacular than the ones he saw in a previous vision (see chapter 7). But once again they represent world super-powers, showing the world as it appears to be.

Notice how they’re described. The two animals are charging, powerful, strong, savagely forceful. They’re enraged, striking, throwing each other down, trampling each other. They both become enormously great, and in all of that there’s not a single mention of God. Just like the world in which we live. A world of swaggering political powers, cynical governments, crazed terrorists. A world that’s difficult to make sense of. And God? Apparently absent.

But only apparently so. Daniel’s vision illustrates this. These beasts aren’t the first dream characters to be powerful, enraged, or despotic. Or the first real ones, either. King Nebuchadnezzar was like that. He conquered Jerusalem, ransacked its temple, took Daniel and hundreds or thousands of others into exile, threatened to execute all his wise men, threw Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego into a furnace, and pranced around on his palace roof proclaiming, ‘Is not this great Babylon I have made!’ (see Daniel 1-4)

And nobody seemed to oppose him.

Until one day, during a personal crisis, he finally realised that despite appearances to the contrary, God was really in control (Daniel 4:33-37).

But back to the ram and goat dream. From among these beasts a peculiar little horn comes on the scene, and continues the arrogance of the ram and goat, but to an even greater degree. This symbolic horn opposes God, persecutes whoever follows him, and tries to eliminate worship (8:9-12). It’s like things just keep getting worse.

Check out chapter 7, though. This ram and goat dream comes hard on the heels of previous one. The dream in Daniel 7 develops the message of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in chapter 2. Remember that one? (about:prophecy)

The vision of Daniel 2 – where Nebuchadnezzar dreamed about the huge metal statue – sets the pattern for the rest of the book. Passing quickly over the metal and clay kingdoms, the book of Daniel is interested particularly in the stone which smashes Nebuchadnezzar’s image to smithereens. In other words, its interest is in the end. It’s the same here, with the ram and goat dream: ‘the vision is for the time of the end’ (Daniel 8:17, see also v. 19).

It’s all about meaning. Meaning in my life right now. Most of all, having a meaningful end.

questions, questions
But in the meantime, it seems like the animals are in control. Symbolically and realistically. That was certainly Daniel’s experience. He’d been taken into exile by the Babylonians. Then he lived long enough to serve the next superpower of Medo-Persia (the ram). In this vision he sees the coming kingdom of Greece (the goat), its disintegration, and on beyond, and beyond – all the way to the end. Which is all well and good. But if God’s own special people got exiled, and his personal temple destroyed, and his worship abolished – then is God in control anywhere? It’s a fair question. If these swaggering animals are symbols of governments on earth, then does God really rule in heaven? Is God truly in control?

For many people, the Bible is a book of answers. But it is also a book of questions.

Daniel chapter 8 is no exception. All the way back into ancient times, people have had questions about God. Like:
‘Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?’ (Psalm 10:1), or
‘How long must I bear pain in my soul?’ (Psalm 13:1).

It’s that last question here in Daniel 8. ‘For how long is this vision ... ?’ (Daniel 8:13). ‘How long?’ I ask that when my experience doesn’t live up to expectations. How long will things last like this? How long before I can be sure that I’m safe? How long?

answers, answers
So much for questions. But here is the answer from the holy bible: ‘For two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be restored to its rightful state’ (Dan 8:14).

At first glance? Doesn’t make much sense, does it? This answer sounds as cryptic and symbolic as the animals which raise the question. Strangely, the answer makes no reference to the ram or goat. It just states that the sanctuary will be ‘restored to its rightful state’. So what is its rightful state?

Originally the sanctuary, or temple, was where people worshipped God. Where God symbolically lived among the people (Exodus 25:8). So when the sanctuary is restored to its rightful place, that means God will be restored to his rightful place.

In order to appreciate the full impact of this vision, and to understand one or two of its details, we must look at the next chapter. There, we see Daniel considering a prophecy of Jeremiah. It stated that Judah would spend seventy years in exile (Jeremiah 25:11-12; 29:10). As Daniel is thinking about Jeremiah’s seventy years, God reveals a prophecy concerning four hundred and ninety years. That’s seventy times seven.

What’s the significance of these numbers?

numbers, numbers
In ancient Israel there was a cycle of sabbatical years, where every seventh year the agricultural land was left fallow, slaves were freed, and all debts were cancelled. (e.g. Exodus 23:10-11; Leviticus 25:1-7; Deuteronomy 15:1-2, 11-12). Jeremiah’s prophecy was based on this principle (see 2 Chronicles 36:21). Jeremiah’s seventy years represent a cycle of ten sabbatical years. In addition there was a cycle of jubilee years, calculated as occurring every seventh sabbatical year (Leviticus 25:8). This cycle of seven sabbatical years, or forty-nine years, inaugurated a jubilee in the fiftieth year (Lev 25:10), in which all property reverted to its original owner, slaves were freed, and agricultural land lay fallow.

So, Daniel 9 begins with Jeremiah’s seventy years, or ten sabbatical years, and concludes with a new prophecy concerning 490 years, or ten jubilee cycles. Just as the jubilee year had greater significance than the sabbatical year, so Daniel’s 490 years has broader scope than Jeremiah’s seventy years.* Jeremiah’s ten sabbatical years would result in Judah’s release from exile. But the prophecy of the 490 years provides a time ‘to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness’, and points to the arrival of ‘the Anointed One’ or Messiah (Daniel 9:24-25).

That is, release far greater than Judah’s return from Babylon, but an ultimate jubilee. What’s more, the prophecy provides an indication of when this expected figure would arrive. There will be a period of 483 years (69 x 7) from the decree to restore Jerusalem to the coming of the ‘Anointed One’.

If we start from the decree issued by the Persians in 457 BC (to release God’s people from captivity) and count forward 483 years we come to AD 27. The prophecy continues that ‘in the middle of the [seventieth] “seven” he will put an end to sacrifice and offering’ (Daniel 9:27). The seventieth and last period of seven years concludes in AD 34. Thus this ultimate act of the Anointed One would occur during AD 27-34. And that is precisely when Jesus Christ was crucified, died and rose from the dead, acts which brought an end to the system of sacrifices and offerings.**

finding clarity
Maybe this makes it clearer how Daniel 9 adds detail to Daniel 8 and its prophecy of the two thousand three hundred ‘evenings and mornings’ or days. Just like the animals in Daniel’s dream are not literal, neither is the time period. Elsewhere in the Bible days are used to represent years (e.g. Numbers 14:34; Ezekiel 4:6), just as ‘weeks’ are used to represent cycles of seven years in Daniel 9.

So it seems likely that the period in Daniel 8 is actually 2,300 years – not days, and that the prophecy of the seventy weeks (490 years) in Daniel 9 provides its starting point. Two thousand three hundred years from 457 BC brings us to AD 1844. Beginning then, the process of ‘restoring the sanctuary to its rightful place’ began, according to the prophecy. Daniel 9 helps you and me understand Daniel 8, and so does Daniel 7. Just as the judgement in Daniel 7 is good news announcing the end of injustice, persecution, and evil, so the ‘restoration of the sanctuary’ makes clear who has chosen to be on God’s side.

It amounts to a judgment also, answering the question: Who takes God seriously and lives as if that commitment makes a difference? These prophecies in Daniel are appeals for you and me to side with honesty, compassion and justice. They also provide an answer to the question asked by people who ache to overturn the injustices afflicting the world.

Living as we do, after the close of the seventy ‘weeks’ and the two thousand three hundred ‘days’, those injustices continue to test our patience and make us ask God, ‘How long?’

God’s answer? ‘Not much longer.’ [show less]

How do you feel about bible prophecy after the last few studies? Anything different from before?

Have you ever thought of the bible as a book of questions instead of answers?

What isn’t clear to you from the 2300 days prophecy? What makes the most sense?

How does the study in Daniel help the picture fit together? Is it getting clearer? What do you most want to understand in the future? [show less]

Will you wait for God to set everything right in your life situations?

Dear God,
These prophecies remind me that you sent your friends to share how you died to save us from the eternal death penalty. Help me to know how to respond, so that I don’t act like those who rejected you. I want to be ready for your coming. AMEN.

re:tell Today in the Word, July 16, 1993. http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/p/prediction.htm. 13 April 2006.

* Jacques Doukhan, ‘The Seventy Weeks of Dan 9: An Exegetical Study’, Andrews University Seminary Studies 17 (1979), pp. 1-22.

** The previous two paragraphs are adapted from Laurence A. Turner, ‘The Coming of Jesus Anticipated’, in Bryan W. Ball and William G. Johnsson (eds.), The Essential Jesus: The Man, His Message, His Mission. Boise, ID: Pacific Press, 2002, pp. 71-73. [show less]