Why the Pain?
A blunt exposition of Daniel 7:15–28
Daniel prophesied to a devastated people.
In 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar dragged Judah’s best to pagan Babylon, leaving Jerusalem in rubble and God’s temple in ashes.
What was the point of this desolation? Why the Pain?
Daniel’s disturbing First Vision in chapter 7 teaches God’s people the source and reason for this suffering. Verses 1 to 14 describe the vision and verses 15 to 28 explain it:
Daniel 7:15–16 I, Daniel, was troubled in spirit, and the visions that passed through my mind disturbed me. 16I approached one of those standing there and asked him the meaning of all this. So he told me and gave me the interpretation of these things.
God’s vision left Daniel disturbed and exhausted. God’s Word often does that to those who listen.
Daniel 7:17–18 “The four great beasts are four kings that will rise from the earth. 18But the holy people of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it for ever—yes, for ever and ever.”
The “holy people” (קדישׁ, qaddish) are the “sacred ones” whom God separates and consecrates to himself. Thus Paul always addressed Christians as “saints” (ἁγιοι, hagioi). We are God’s people because God has seized us from out of the world to be his very own, to live distinctly godly lives. Daniel himself exemplified this.
Although four kingdoms will come and go, the eternally enduring Kingdom of the Most High, who wields supreme and sovereign power, will be given to his consecrated people. They will have full citizenship rights and will share in its government.
Daniel 7:19–22 Then I wanted to know the meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others and most terrifying, with its iron teeth and bronze claws—the beast that crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left.
20I also wanted to know about the ten horns on its head and about the other horn that came up, before which three of them fell—the horn that looked more imposing than the others and that had eyes and a mouth that spoke boastfully. 21As I watched, this horn was waging war against the holy people and defeating them, 22until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favour of the holy people of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom.
Yet again the fourth ten-horned beast is said to be “different” from the first three, which corresponded to the successive Babylonian, Persian, and Greek empires. It is different because it is more powerful and vicious than the first three. And rather than denoting a single empire, its superfluity of horns represent all godless powers on earth – whether political, military, economic, cultural, or spiritual – until the end of time, when the Son of Man comes in final judgment.
The global and ’til-the-end-of-time nature of this fourth kingdom is emphasised in the next verse:
Daniel 7:23–24a He gave me this explanation: “The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it.” The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom.
The vision now focusses in on the single malevolent horn which rules over the other nine, over every earthly and godless power:
Daniel 7:24b–25a After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. 25He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws.
Remember from verse 8 that what began as a “little horn” has “the eyes of a human being”, indicating intelligence and cunning, and “a mouth that spoke boastfully.” This is “the power behind the throne” of the ten-horned fourth beast. This is the “lawless one”, Satan himself, “doomed to destruction”:
2 Th. 2:4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
The fourth beast’s primary weapon is his “iron teeth”: his deadly pompous mouth, his arrogant self-proclamation as divine, his speaking “against the Most High.” Daniel’s second vision will explain that “by his cunning he shall make deceit prosper under his hand” (8:25 ESV).
Satan’s most lethal weapon, which he used to slay Adam and Eve and all their descendants since, is words. Lies, half-truths, deception, trickery, hypocrisy, falsehoods, flattery, fakery, duplicity, counterfeiting, disinformation, distortion, equivocation, false claims, and false accusations. Words that do not match what is true and real.
All words are powerful:
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Hamlet agreed, “Many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills.”
“Loose lips sink ships” was a common saying during World War Two.
Like sharp iron teeth, lying words destroy. Hitler’s speeches lashed monstrous armies to devastate most of Europe. Mohammed’s Koran has blinded countless millions for a millennium and a half. In the West, Charles Darwin’s 1859 Origin of the Species degraded human beings from imago dei to imago simiae – with staggeringly brutal consequences.
By what lies specifically did the satanic little horn oppress God’s Judah? By challenging the “set times” of worship such as Sabbath and Passover. By questioning God’s laws, the Torah:
“Must we love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, and mind? Must we love our neighbour just as ourselves?”
Daniel 7:25b The holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time.
This is most disturbing. God would deliver (עהב, yehav, “give,” “yield,” the same word describes Darius giving money to Ezra to rebuild the Temple) his holy people into the hands of another: the fourth beast, the boastful little horn, Satan himself.
But not for long. The times adds up to three and a half. (See NIV footnote.) In apocalyptic literature seven is the number of completeness. Verse 25 promises that God will not deliver his people over to oppressive lies for forever and certainly not for as long as they deserve.
Daniel wrote in the furnace of suffering.
Daniel shows that although suffering comes proximately from the hands of ephemeral godless empires, it comes ultimately from the Sovereign LORD, the Son of Man, who rules over all.
Why? Why does he deliver his people to suffer at the hands of godless powers? What is the purpose of the conquests, destruction, chaos, and agony?
Three overlapping things:
First, the beasts are the Son of Man’s sword of justice, his judgment upon godlessness, idolatry, and disobedience, and the rampant cruelty that disgorges from godlessness.
Second, the beasts execute the Son of Man’s judicial handing-over to godlessness: “If you don’t will to live under my humane rule then live under beastly rule.” Getting what our sinful hearts want is indeed a terrible punishment:
Romans 1:28 Just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.
“If you want Molech as your god then have Molech.” “If it pleases you to find my laws oppressive then believe that and live your way and reap the consequences.”
Third, the beasts are the Son of Man’s chastisement of his people, to turn their hard hearts back to him.
Hosea 6:1 Come let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.
So in our troubles we must always ask whether or why God is chastising us.
Godless Babylon, Persia, and Greece didn’t intend to execute God’s judgment and chastisement, but to pillage. Yet what they intended for evil the Son of Man intended for good: to bring justice upon his idolatrous and law-breaking people, to foreshadow his final judgment, and to chastise them and bring them to their senses.
In his mercy Christ will crush the Liar’s power and reign forever.
Daniel 7:26–27 But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed for ever. 27Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.
Once we greedily swallowed the lies of the little horn and abandoned God.
But the Son of Man redeemed and forgave us. He has given us the good and eternal Kingdom that we had once forsaken. We will reign with him.
Daniel 7:28 This is the end of the matter. I, Daniel, was deeply troubled by my thoughts, and my face turned pale, but I kept the matter to myself.
Christ wins, full stop. “It is finished.” He will deliver his people from the bestial and iron-toothed lies of the lawless one.
Thus he restored the exiles to Jerusalem.
Thus the incarnate LORD brought truth and freedom upon the earth.
Thus he has redeemed you, and will return to set all things right.
Main picture: Edvard Munch, Skrik. National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Public Domain.