Daniel 9

is the God who saves people and rescues them from danger and death, and who performs signs and wonders (Dan. 6:27; see 3:28–29; 4:3; Deut. 6:22; Neh. 9:10; Ps. 74:9; 105:26–36; 135:9; Jer. 32:20–21).

God’s servant prospered (v. 28). Since Darius the Mede is a “shadowy figure” in ancient history, we aren’t sure how long he ruled Babylon and exactly when Cyrus took over the throne personally. It’s been suggested that since Darius was sixty-two years old when he took Babylon (5:31), he may have died within a few years and then Cyrus ascended the throne. Regardless of what transpired, Daniel was respected by Darius and Cyrus and continued to be a witness for the Lord. He lived to see Cyrus issue the edict that permitted the Jews to return to their land and rebuild their temple (2 Chron. 36:22–23; Ezra 1:1–4) and may have been used of God to help bring about this fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy (Dan. 9:1–2; Jer. 25:11–12). Certainly his prayers for his people played an important role in the positive attitude Cyrus had toward the Jewish people.

Along with the account of the deliverance of the three men from the fiery furnace (Dan. 3), the report of Daniel’s deliverance from the lions’ den must have brought great encouragement to the Jews in exile. They knew about Jeremiah’s prophecy and wondered if their God would really deliver them. But if He could deliver three men from a furnace and Daniel from the lions, surely He could deliver the exiles from Babylon and take them back to their own land.

But Daniel has a message for God’s people today who are being attacked by the enemy and suffering because of their righteous stand for the Lord. Whether we face the fiery furnace (1 Peter 1:6–8; 4:12–19) or the roaring lion (5:8–10), we are in the Lord’s care and He will work out His divine purposes for His glory. “Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (v. 7 nkjv).

When speaking at a press conference in Cairo on February 1, 1943 Sir Winston Churchill said, “I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place.”

Among the Jewish people, that kind of “prophetic” activity could have resulted in the death of the so-called prophet (Deut. 18:20–22). Worshipping false gods and listening to false prophets had led to Israel’s spiritual decay and ultimate collapse as a nation. The people hadn’t obeyed what the prophets commanded, so Israel was exiled in Babylon; and there they learned to take the prophetic word very seriously, because it was the only hope they possessed. The church today needs to heed the word of prophecy because it’s the light of certainty in a world of darkness and uncertainty (2 Peter 1:19–21).

Note three stages in Daniel’s experience with the prophetic message that spoke concerning his people and the city of Jerusalem.

The first year of Darius was 539 BC, the year that Babylon fell to the Medes and the Persians. This great victory was no surprise to Daniel, because God had already told him that the Medo-Persian Empire would conquer Babylon. In Nebuchadnezzar’s great “dream image,” the head of gold would be replaced by the chest and arms of silver (chap. 2); and later visions revealed that the bear would conquer the lion (chap. 7). But long before Daniel’s day, both Isaiah and Jeremiah had predicted the fall of Babylon, so it’s no surprise that Daniel started studying afresh the scroll of the prophet Jeremiah.

The Word of God. One of the beautiful things about the inspired Word of God is its constant freshness; no matter how often we read it, there is always something new to learn or something familiar to see in a new light. Had Jeremiah’s scrolls of the Old Testament been organized like our modern Bibles, he would have read Jeremiah 24 and been reassured that the Lord would care for His people no matter what ruler was on the throne. From 25:1–14, he would learn the reason for the exile as well as the length of the exile—seventy years—and this would be corroborated in 29:10–14. The exile of the Jews in Babylon was no accident; it was a divine appointment, and they would not be released until the very time that God had ordained.

Daniel called Jeremiah’s writings “the word of the Lord.” King Jehoiakim had tried to burn up Jeremiah’s prophecies, but the Lord preserved them because they were His very words (Jer. 36). “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matt. 24: niv). “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isa. 40: niv). “Long ago I learned from your statutes that you established them to last forever” (Ps. 119:152 niv). Over the centuries, people have ignored, denied, attacked, and sought to destroy the Holy Scriptures, but the Word of God is still here! God especially protected the scrolls written by Jeremiah because He wanted Daniel to have a copy to take with him to Babylon.

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16), the Old Testament as well as the New, and Holy Scripture is the only dependable source of truth about God, man, sin, salvation, and the future events God has in His great plan. In these days of rapidly changing ideas, events, and situations, the unchanging Word of God is our dependable light and unshakable foundation.

The God of the Word. This is the first time that Jehovah, the covenant name of God, is used in the book of Daniel, and it is used only in this chapter (vv. 2–3, 10, 13–14, 20). But we must remember that, at that time, the Lord was calling the nation of Israel “LoRuhama—not loved” and “Lo-Ammi—not my people” (Hos. 1) because Israel had broken His holy covenant. When you are outside the covenant, you can’t sincerely use His covenant name and expect to receive covenant blessings.

However, Daniel came to God pleading for mercy and forgiveness for himself and his people, and that’s the kind of praying the Lord Jehovah wants to hear. In fact, the promise of God’s forgiveness was written right into the covenant. “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me … then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember; I will remember the land” (Lev. 26:40–42 nkjv). Certainly as Daniel studied the Scriptures and prayed to Jehovah, he had in his mind and heart both the holy covenant (Lev. 26; Deut. 27—28) and Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple (1 Kings 8:33–36).

God’s plan for His people. God revealed to Jeremiah that the people of Israel would be taken to Babylon and be exiled from their land for seventy years (Jer. 25:11–12; 29:10). God had commanded His people to give the land a “sabbath rest” every seven years and a “Year of Jubilee” every fifty years (Lev. 25). Both the forty-ninth and the fiftieth years would be “sabbatic years” when the people were not allowed to sow seed or cultivate their orchards. They had to trust God to make the food grow to meet their daily needs. This law was not only good for the land, helping to restore its fertility, but it was also good for the spiritual life of the nation. However, it was not until the nation’s captivity in Babylon that the land enjoyed its sabbath rests (2 Chron. 36:20–21).

From what date do we begin to count off the seventy years, and when did the captivity officially end? To answer these important questions, we must highlight the key dates in Jewish history at that time. Babylon began to attack the kingdom of Judah in 606 BC, and Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed in 586. The first Jewish captives were taken to Babylon in 605, Daniel and his three friends being among them. In 538, Cyrus issued the decree that permitted the Jews to return to their land and rebuild the temple (Ezra 1:1–4), and in 537 about fifty thousand Jews returned to Jerusalem under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Joshua the high priest (Ezra 1—2).

If we decide that the captivity officially began in 606–605 with the attack on Jerusalem and the deporting of the first captives, then seventy years later would take us to 537–536, when the first exiles returned to their land and the foundations of the temple were laid. In other words, the first captives left Judah in 605 and the liberated exiles returned to the land in 537–36, a time period of roughly seventy years. However, some students feel that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple should be the starting point (586), with the captivity not officially ending until the second temple had been built and dedicated (515), another period of approximately seventy years. Since both interpretations make sense, it shouldn’t be necessary to debate the issue.

We need to be aware of three important facts. First, in sending His people into captivity, the Lord was keeping His covenant promise, for He had warned them that they would be punished if they persisted in disobeying Him (Lev. 26). It appears that Israel’s years of captivity in Babylon helped to cure the Jewish people of their detestable sin of idol worship.

Second, the captivity brought blessing to the land, for the land had been abused by farmers who would not let the land enjoy its sabbatical rests. The land belonged to the Lord (25:23; see Deut. 11:12), and He would not permit His people to defile it by sin and idolatry and waste it by not giving it times of rest. For every sabbatical year the Jews failed to honor, they added one more year to their own bondage in Babylon.

Third, when Daniel made this discovery about the seventy years, the period of captivity was about to end! If Daniel was taken to Babylon in 605, and he discovered Jeremiah’s prophecy in 539, then he had been in Babylon sixty-six or sixty-seven years. The next year (538), Cyrus would make his decree permitting the Jews to return to their land. The prophet was probably eighty-one years old at this time. He himself would not be able to return to the land, but he rejoiced that others could return.

Daniel is a wonderful example of balance in the spiritual life, for he devoted himself to both the Word of God and prayer (Acts 6:4). Some believers are so wrapped up in prophetic studies that they have little concern for the practical outworking of God’s will. All they want to do is satisfy their curiosity and then proudly share their “insights” with others. When Daniel learned God’s truth, the experience humbled him and moved him to worship and to pray.

Preparing for prayer (v. 3). You don’t have to read very far in the book of Daniel before you discover that he was a man of prayer. Daniel and his three friends sought the face of God when Nebuchadnezzar threatened to slay all the magicians and counselors (2:16–23). It was Daniel’s habit to pray to the Lord three times each day (6:10–11), a practice he continued even when it was illegal to pray to anyone except the king. When God showed Daniel visions of future events, the prophet wasn’t satisfied until he had asked for an explanation (7:15ff.; 8:15ff.). Prayer was a vital part of Daniel’s life.

Daniel prepared himself to pray, because he knew that his prayer would affect the future of the Jewish nation and the lives of the Jewish captives in Babylon. It would be his holy task to confess the sins of the Jewish nation, asking God to forgive His people and receive them back again. He humbled himself in sackcloth and ashes; he fasted; and he directed his heart and mind to the Lord. Preparation for prayer and worship is as important as prayer itself, for without a heart that is right with God, our prayers are just so many pious words. Daniel met the conditions for answered prayer set forth in Leviticus 26:40–45 and 2 Chronicles 7:14.

Worshipping the Lord (v. 4). Too often we rush into God’s presence and ask for things, without first pausing to worship Him. Daniel prepared himself for prayer, as did Ezra (Ezra 9:3–5) and the Levites (Neh. 9:5–6). It’s important that we focus on the character of God and not become too preoccupied with ourselves and our burdens. The “invocation” to Daniel’s prayer is a primer of biblical theology. His words describe a God who is great and faithful to keep His promises, a God who loves His people and gives them His Word to obey so that He can bless them. He is a merciful God (Dan. 9:18) who forgives the sins of His people when they come to Him in contrition and confession. This is also the way Nehemiah prayed when he sought God’s will concerning rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. 1:5ff.).

It’s one thing to pray to the Lord and quite something else to be a worshipping intercessor. When we see the greatness and glory of God, it helps to put our own burdens and needs in proper perspective. By exercising even little faith in a great God, we can move the hand of God to accomplish wonders that will glorify His name. Dr. Robert A. Cook used to say, “If you can explain what’s going on in your ministry, God didn’t do it.”

Confessing sin (vv. 5–15). Several times in Israel’s ministry, the intercession of one person brought about the nation’s deliverance from judgment. On two occasions, God was ready to wipe out the entire Jewish nation, but the intercession of Moses stayed His hand (Ex. 32:7–14; Num. 14:10–25). God answered Elijah’s prayer and sent the rain that was so desperately needed (1 Kings 18), and He heard Jehoshaphat’s prayer and gave Israel victory over the large invading army of Moabites and Ammonites (2 Chron. 20). King Hezekiah cried out to God when the Assyrian army surrounded Jerusalem, and the Lord sent His angel to slay 185,000 enemy soldiers (Isa. 37; 2 Kings 19). “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5: niv). God doesn’t have to wait for the entire nation to repent and cry out for mercy; He will start to work when He hears the believing prayers of one faithful intercessor.

While Daniel’s prayer was certainly personal, he so identified with the people of Israel that his prayer involved national concerns. The pronoun he uses is “we” rather than “they” or “I.” He confessed that he and the people had sinned greatly against the Lord and broken the terms of His gracious covenant. According to Daniel 9:5–6, the Jews had sinned, rebelled, turned away from His law, disobeyed His commands, done wrong, and refused to listen to the messengers God had sent to them. “And the Lord God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy” (2 Chron. 36:15–16 nkjv). God had been longsuffering with His covenant people, but the time came when He had to act.

What were the consequences of the nation’s rebellion? They became a sinful people, a people covered with shame (“confusion of face,” Dan. 9:8), and a scattered people. Their land was overrun by enemy soldiers, their great city of Jerusalem was destroyed, and their holy temple was desecrated, robbed, and burned. No wonder the Jews were ashamed! But it was their own sins that had brought these disasters, because their kings, princes, and priests had disobeyed God’s laws and refused to obey God’s prophets.

The leaders and the people knew the terms of God’s covenant, but they deliberately violated them. The Jews were unfaithful to God’s covenant, but God was faithful to keep His word. If the nation had obeyed, God would have been faithful to bless them (Ps. 81:11–16); but because they rebelled, He was faithful to chasten them. “You have fulfilled the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us great disaster” (Dan. 9: niv). Daniel didn’t make excuses for the nation, nor did he say that God’s covenant was too demanding. Israel had enjoyed great blessings when they had obeyed the law, so why should they complain when they experienced great suffering because they disobeyed the law?

But there was something even worse than the sins that brought divine punishment to Israel. It was the refusal of the Jews to repent and confess their sins even after being taken captive! They spent their time praying for judgment against Babylon (Ps. 137) rather than seeking God’s face and asking for His forgiveness. God’s will for Israel in captivity was outlined in Jeremiah 29, but the Jews didn’t always follow it. Daniel’s approach was biblical: “For the Lord our God is righteous in everything He does” (Dan. 9: niv). Why would He bring His people out of Egypt and then allow them to waste away in Babylon? Daniel knew that God had purposes for Israel to fulfill, and so he reminded God of His past mercies (v. 15).

Asking for mercy on Israel (vv. 16–19). God in His grace gives us what we don’t deserve, and God in His mercy doesn’t give us what we do deserve. Daniel asked the Lord to turn away His anger from Jerusalem and the holy temple. He admitted that the sins of Israel (including Daniel) were the cause of that great catastrophe, but that God had promised to forgive if His people would repent and confess their sins. “We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy” (v. 18 niv). But even more, Daniel desired the nation to be restored that God might be glorified. After all, the Jews were God’s chosen people, and Jerusalem was the place of His holy temple; the longer the people and the land were under God’s wrath, the less glory the Lord would receive. “Your city and your people bear your Name” (v. 19 niv).

God answered Daniel’s prayer. The next year, Cyrus issued a decree that permitted the Jews to return to their land, take the temple treasures with them, rebuild the temple, and restore the worship. What a remarkable ministry Daniel had in Babylon! He was counselor to four kings, intercessor for the people of Israel, a faithful witness to the true and living God, and the author of one of the basic books of prophecy in the Old Testament.

Daniel now knew God’s immediate plans for the nation of Israel, but what about the distant future? He had already learned from the visions God gave him that difficult days lay ahead for God’s people, with a kingdom to appear that would crush everything good and promote everything evil. Would God’s people survive? Would the promised Messiah finally appear? Would the kingdom of God be established on the earth?

Daniel is about to receive the answers to those questions.

We don’t know at what time of day Daniel began to pray, but he was still praying at the time of the evening burnt offering, which was about three o’clock in the afternoon. He was living in Babylon but was still measuring time by Jewish religious practices! His body was in Babylon, but his mind and heart were in Jerusalem. Had the temple been standing and the priests still officiating, this would have been “the ninth hour,” when the lamb was offered as a burnt offering (Ex. 29:38–41; Acts 3:1; 10:30). It was one of the three occasions during the day when Daniel set aside time to offer special prayer to the Lord (Dan. 6:10; Ps. 55:17). This was also the time when Ezra the scribe prayed for God to forgive the sins of the Jewish remnant that had returned to the land (Ezra 9:5). There is a sense in which prayer is seen by God as a spiritual sacrifice to Him (Ps. 141:1–2).

While Daniel was praying, the angel Gabriel came swiftly to him, interrupted his prayer, touched him, and spoke to him. Daniel had met Gabriel before after seeing the vision of the ram and the goat, and Gabriel had explained its meaning to him (Dan. 8:15ff.). Now the angel had come to explain to Daniel what God had planned for Jerusalem, the temple, and the Jewish people. The phrase “fly swiftly” (v. 21) has given rise to the idea that angels have wings and fly from place to place, but arrows, bullets, and missiles fly swiftly and don’t have wings. Angels are spirits and therefore don’t have bodies (Ps. 104:4; Heb. 1:7). When they appear to humans, they take on temporary human form. The angelic creatures seen by Isaiah (Isa. 6:2) and Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:6, 8, 11) did have wings, but they were special creatures performing a special ministries. The NIV translates the phrase “in swift flight”and makes no mention of wings.

The seventy “weeks” (v. 24). The word weeks means “sevens,” so Gabriel was speaking about seventy periods of 7 years, or 490 years. Keep in mind that these years relate specifically to Daniel’s people, the Jews, and their Holy City, Jerusalem. In his prayer, Daniel’s great concern was that his people be forgiven their sins against the Lord, the city be rebuilt, and the temple be restored (v. 16); and these are the matters that Gabriel will discuss. To apply this important prophecy to any other people or place is to rob it of its intended meaning.

Gabriel explained that during those 490 years, the Lord would accomplish six specific purposes for the Jewish people. The first three have to do with sin and the last three with righteousness. The Lord would “finish the transgression,” that is, the transgression of the Jewish people, and “make an end of” Israel’s national sins. This was one of the main burdens of Daniel’s prayer. Israel was a scattered suffering nation because she was a sinful nation. How would the Lord accomplish this? By making “reconciliation for iniquity,” that is, by offering a sacrifice that would atone for their sin. Here we come to the cross of Jesus Christ, Israel’s Messiah.

When Jesus died on the cross, He died for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2; John 1:29), and therefore we can proclaim the good news of the gospel to sinners everywhere. But He also died for the church (Eph. 5:25) and for the people of Israel. “For the transgression of my people was he stricken” (Isa. 53:8). Jesus died for sinners in every tribe and nation (Rev. 5:9; 7:9), but in a very special way, He died for His own people, the Jewish nation (John 11:44–52).

The last three divine purposes focus on righteousness and the future kingdom of Messiah. When Jesus returns, He will establish His righteous kingdom (Jer. 23:5–6; 31:31–34) and rule in righteousness (Isa. 4:2–6). In that day, the Old Testament prophecies of Israel’s glorious kingdom will be fulfilled, and there will be no need for visions or prophets. “To anoint the most holy” refers to the sanctifying of the future temple that is described in Ezekiel 40—48.

These six purposes declare the answers to Daniel’s prayer! Ultimately, Israel’s sins will be forgiven (Zech. 12:10—13:1), the city of Jerusalem will be rebuilt, and the temple and its ministry will be restored, all because of the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross. All of these wonderful accomplishments will be fulfilled during the 490 years that Gabriel goes on to explain. He divides the seven sevens—490 years—into three significant periods: 49 years, 434 years and 7 years.

Period #1—49 years (v. 25). During this period, the Jews will rebuild the city of Jerusalem in troubled times. The key issue here is the date of the decree. This is not the decree of Cyrus in 538 permitting the Jews to return to their land and rebuild their temple (Ezra 1; Isa. 44:28), because the emphasis of this decree is on the city of Jerusalem. While some students opt for the decree of Artaxerxes in 457, sending Ezra to Jerusalem (Ezra 7:12–26), that decree also emphasized the temple and its ministry. The decree of Daniel 9: is probably that of Artaxerxes in 445 authorizing Nehemiah to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and restore the gates (Neh. 2:5–8).

Period #2—483 years (v. 26). Gabriel affirmed that 483 years are involved from the giving of the decree to the coming of “the Anointed One, the ruler” (7 x 7 = 49; 7 x 62 = 434; total = 483). When you count 483 solar years from the year 445, you end up with AD 29/30, which brings us to the time of Christ’s ministry on earth. But this Anointed One, the Christ, will not be permitted to rule; for His people cried out, “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15). “We will not have this man to reign over us” (Luke 19:14). The Messiah will be “cut off, but not for himself” (“and will have nothing,” ). This speaks of His rejection by the Jewish nation (John 1:11; Luke 13:33–35) and His crucifixion as a criminal, turned over to the Roman authorities by His own people and one of His own disciples. But He died for the sins of the world, including the sins of the Jewish nation.

We know that Jesus arose from the dead and returned to heaven. He sent the Holy Spirit to empower His people to bear witness to the whole world (Acts 1:8), beginning in Jerusalem (Luke 24:46–53). But the same nation that allowed John the Baptist to be slain and asked for Jesus to be crucified went on to persecute the church and themselves kill Stephen (Acts 7). In AD 70, the prophecy in Daniel 9: was fulfilled when the Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, and the Jewish nation was scattered. The Romans are “the people of the prince that shall come,” and that prince is the future Antichrist that Daniel described as “the little horn” and the blasphemous king (7:8, 24–25; 8:23–27). This takes us to the third period.

Period #3—7 years (v. 27). The pronoun “he” refers to “the prince that shall come” (v. 26), this is the Antichrist. We are now in the final seven years of the prophetic calendar that Gabriel gave Daniel, the period that we know as “the tribulation” or “the day of the Lord.” While the world has always known wars and desolations (Matt. 24:3–24), the end of the age will introduce a time of terrible suffering that will climax with the return of Jesus Christ (Rev. 6—19; Matt. 24:15–35).

The event that triggers this last seven-year period is the signing of a covenant between the Antichrist and the Jewish nation. At this time, the Antichrist is a key political figure in Europe—one of the ten toes of the image in Daniel 2, and the “little horn” who emerges from the ten horns in 7:8, 24ff.—and he has the authority and ability to end the “Middle East problem.” He covenants to protect the Jews from their enemies, probably so they can build their temple and restore their sacrifices. The spiritually blind Jewish leaders, ignorant of their own Scriptures, will gladly enter into the covenant. “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me,” Jesus told the Jewish leaders of His day; “if another comes in his own name, him you will receive” (John 5: nkjv).

After three and a half years, the Antichrist will break the covenant, seize the temple, and put his own image there, and will force the world to worship him (2 Thess. 2; Rev. 13). This is the “abomination of desolation” (Dan. 11:31; 12: nkjv) that Jesus spoke about that marks the midpoint of the tribulation period (Matt. 24:15; Mark 13:14). The “man of sin” and “son of perdition” (2 Thess. 2:3), who up till now has deceived the world by playing a shrewd political game, will now reveal himself as a tool of Satan and a cruel world dictator. Christ will defeat him when He returns to establish His kingdom (Rev. 19:11–21).

The strange parenthesis. Whether Daniel understood all that he heard is not revealed to us, but Gabriel’s message assured him that the nation of Israel would be restored to their land, the city of Jerusalem and the temple would be rebuilt, and God would make provision for the cleansing of the nation. But Gabriel didn’t tell Daniel what would happen between the sixty-ninth and the seventieth “weeks.” Between Daniel 9:26–27 there is a strange parenthesis. Why?

Because this prophecy has to do with the Jews, the Jewish temple, and the city of Jerusalem (v. 24). But the period of time between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks has to do with the church, the body of Christ, which was a mystery God had hidden in Old Testament times and didn’t reveal until the time of Christ and the apostles (Eph. 3:1–13). Daniel wasn’t told that the rejection and death of the Messiah would bring about a new thing, a spiritual body that would include Jews and Gentiles and in which all natural differences would be unimportant (Eph. 2:11–22; Gal. 3:22–29). One reason the Jewish legalists opposed Paul was because he put Jews and Gentiles on the same level in the church, and the traditionalists wanted to maintain the “superiority” of the Jews as revealed in the law and the kingdom prophecies.

Some of the prophecy in Daniel 9:24–27 has already been fulfilled, and the rest will be fulfilled in the end times. We are today living in the age of the church, when Israel has been partially blinded and temporarily set aside (Rom. 9—11). Like Paul, we must have a heart concern for the Jewish people, pray for them, and seek to share the gospel with them. Gentile believers have a debt to the people of Israel (Rom. 15:24–27) because they gave us the knowledge of the true and living God, the inspired written Scriptures, and the Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Lord still has more to teach Daniel about the future of His people, and we will consider these prophecies in the chapters to come.