Daniel 7
[1] It is an apocalypse, a literary genre in which a heavenly reality is revealed to a human recipient;[2] it is also an eschatology, a divine revelation concerning the moment in which God will intervene in history to usher in the final kingdom.
[13] Most scholars accept that the chapter was written as a unity, possibly based on an early anti-Hellenistic document from around 300 BC; verse 9 is usually printed as poetry, and may be a fragment of an ancient psalm.
The overall structure can be described as follows:[14] The Book of Daniel is an apocalypse, a literary genre in which a heavenly reality is revealed to a human recipient.
Apocalypses are characterized by visions, symbolism, an other-worldly mediator, an emphasis on cosmic events, angels and demons, and pseudonymity (false authorship).
[15] Daniel, the book's hero, is a representative apocalyptic seer, the recipient of the divine revelation: has learned the wisdom of the Babylonian magicians and surpassed them, because his God is the true source of knowledge.
[15] The book is also an eschatology, meaning a divine revelation concerning the end of the present age, a moment in which God will intervene in history to usher in the final kingdom.
The Kingdom of Judah began the period as a Babylonian client state, but after a series of rebellions Babylon reduced it to the status of a province and carried off its élite (not all its population) into captivity.
In his most infamous act he built an altar to Zeus over the altar of burnt offerings in the Temple (the "abomination of desolation"), sparking in 167 BC a massive popular uprising against Hellenic Greek rule which led to the retaking of Jerusalem by Judas Maccabeus and the purification of the Temple in 164 BC.
[4][5] Many scholars have accepted the view that the imagery of Daniel 7 comes ultimately from the Canaanite myth of Baʿal's battle with Yamm (lit.
In Daniel 7, composed sometime before Judas Maccabeus purified the temple in 164 BC, they symbolise Babylon, the Medes, Persia and Greece:[19] The "ten horns" that appear on the beast is a round number standing for the Seleucid kings between Seleucus I, the founder of the kingdom, and Antiochus Epiphanes ,[20] comparable to the feet of iron and clay in chapter 2 and the succession of kings described in chapter 11.
The usual suggestion is that this figure represents the triumph of the Jewish people over their oppressor; the main alternative view is that he is the angelic leader of God's heavenly host, a connection made explicitly in chapters 10–12, where the reader is told that the conflict on Earth is mirrored by a war in heaven between Michael, the angelic champion of Israel, assisted by Gabriel, and the angelic "princes" of Greece and Persia; the idea that he is the messiah is sometimes advanced, but Daniel makes no clear reference to the messiah elsewhere.
