Books · When Christ Returns — Complete Table of Contents
How can the saints be overcome by the Beast and still receive the kingdom?
Daniel sees both. A terrifying power wages war against God’s people—and prevails. Yet those same people inherit an everlasting kingdom. Between their apparent defeat and their promised victory stands a heavenly court.
What happens there changes everything.
Our investigation began with a question about Christian hope: what are we actually waiting for? We found that the gathering of believers belongs with Christ’s return, resurrection, and the transformation of His people. To understand that hope, we must now enter the prophetic world Jesus and Paul inherited.
Daniel is an essential place to begin. Here are the beasts, the Son of Man, the desolating abomination, the time of extraordinary trouble, and the awakening of the dead. These images already have a story before they appear in New Testament discussions of the end.
At the center of these visions is a promise: God’s kingdom will endure, and His people will share it. The beasts and their rulers belong within that larger story.
And Daniel’s story raises a searching question: What does God’s victory look like when His people appear to be losing?
1. An exile sees the end of empires
Daniel’s setting gives that question its weight. Jerusalem has fallen under foreign power. Daniel lives in exile, serving rulers whose kingdoms seem to possess the future.
In Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar dreams of an imposing statue composed of different materials. A stone, cut without human hands, strikes it; the statue collapses, and the stone becomes a mountain filling the earth. Daniel identifies the golden head with Nebuchadnezzar and describes successive kingdoms, followed by a kingdom God establishes that will never be destroyed (Daniel 2:31–45).
Chapter 7 returns to the rise and fall of kingdoms through a different image: beasts emerging from a turbulent sea. The fourth is especially destructive. Among its horns, a smaller horn emerges, speaking arrogantly and attacking the saints (Daniel 7:1–8, 19–25).
Daniel is shown a vision and then asks for its meaning. The explanation identifies the beasts as kings or kingdoms and the horns as kings (Daniel 7:17, 23–24). These are pictures of ruling powers. When the chapter returns to the beasts during the explanation, it is helping us understand the vision already shown.
It is rather like returning to a great historical drama with the camera focused on another feature of the conflict. The statue emphasizes successive kingdoms and their eventual collapse. The beasts expose devouring power, and the vision brings the suffering saints into view. Both visions come from God; the change of imagery develops the investigation.
A traditional Christian reading identifies the four kingdoms as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. In a common futurist interpretation of that sequence, the little horn is a final ruler arising within a future kingdom understood as a continuation or revival of Roman power. His persecution of the saints belongs to the crisis preceding Christ’s return. (Walvoord on Daniel 7)
Another reading counts Media and Persia separately, giving Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece. It identifies the little horn with Antiochus IV, a ruler of a kingdom that emerged from Alexander’s Greek empire. On this reading, the horn’s persecution directly concerns Jewish people suffering under Antiochus in the second century BC—before Jesus’ earthly ministry. (NABRE notes on Daniel 7)
These two readings differ over which ruler and persecution Daniel directly describes. The Antiochene reading places the crisis within the Greek kingdoms before Christ. The Roman reading connects the fourth kingdom with Rome, but identifying Rome alone does not establish future fulfillment; the claim that its final persecutor is still to come requires further argument. Likewise, identifying Antiochus does not settle how later Scripture may reuse Daniel’s imagery.
What does Daniel explicitly identify?
We should distinguish the names supplied by the text from the identities we infer. Daniel identifies Nebuchadnezzar as the golden head in chapter 2. Chapter 8 explicitly identifies its ram with the kings of Media and Persia and its goat with Greece. Neither chapter 2 nor chapter 7 names the fourth kingdom. (Daniel 2:37–40; 7:17–24; 8:20–22)
The combined Medo-Persian ram supplies a substantial reason for treating Media and Persia together when comparing the visions. But that comparison is still an argument across chapters. The separate-Media-and-Persia reading must explain it; the Roman reading must establish the identification of the unnamed fourth kingdom. Neither position becomes explicit merely because it appears in a familiar chart.
Rome’s historical case also has positive content. It succeeded Greek power as the major force in the Mediterranean, and the Gospels place the beginning of Jesus’ ministry under Tiberius Caesar and Pontius Pilate. Jesus announced God’s kingdom within that Roman world. This supplies a coherent historical setting for a Roman interpretation, while leaving the relationship between the kingdom’s inauguration and its final victory to be examined. (Getty, Persia: Ancient Iran and the Classical World; Luke 3:1–3; Mark 1:14–15)
Modern proposals about the fourth kingdom require a further examination of historical succession, geography, and religious allegiance. We will consider those possibilities together under “Conditional Modern Proposals,” after Section 7.
The interpretation within Daniel 7 already establishes the decisive contrast: earthly rulers rise, while the saints receive a kingdom that endures (Daniel 7:17–18). Whatever identification proves most persuasive, it must account for that movement from hostile dominion to divine judgment and the saints’ inheritance.
The remaining question is how they receive the kingdom when the horn is winning.
2. One word interrupts the persecutor’s victory
Daniel describes the conflict this way:
“As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom.”
The crucial word is until.
The horn’s success is real within the vision. God’s people suffer under its power. But that power has a boundary: the judgment of the Ancient of Days.
The title Ancient of Days presents God as the judge whose authority outlasts every earthly ruler. Earlier, Daniel has watched thrones placed, the Ancient of Days seated, and a vast heavenly assembly standing before Him. The books are opened. The boasting beast is judged and destroyed (Daniel 7:9–11). The interpretation describes its dominion being removed and announces who receives the kingdom (Daniel 7:26–27):
“the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High”
— Daniel 7:27, excerpt, ESV
Heaven’s verdict overturns what the conflict seemed to have established on earth.
The persecutor’s victory is temporary. The saints’ kingdom is permanent.
This has pastoral force before we settle any disputed chronology. Suffering under an enemy’s power need not mean that God has abandoned His people. Daniel places their affliction within a story whose outcome belongs to God.
Yet we should let Daniel’s own setting frame the identity question. The expression translated “saints” can also be rendered “holy ones.” Interpreters debate whether these are the faithful people, heavenly beings, or a portrayal linking the two. The question is broader than a choice between Israel and the Church. (NABRE note on Daniel 7:18)
The vision belongs within Israel’s prophetic world. Its relationship to the New Testament Church requires further biblical argument. Neither a prior removal of the Church nor its presence throughout a particular future period can be established simply by assuming the answer to that identity question.
What Daniel does show is substantial: the persecutor’s apparent mastery never becomes final ownership of the future.
Revelation later gathers Daniel’s lion, bear, and leopard imagery into a single beast rising from the sea, and again describes war against the saints (Revelation 13:1–2, 7). John is drawing on Daniel’s prophetic world. That connection gives us reason to compare the accounts, while the identity of the persecuted people and the timing of their deliverance still require examination.
That comparison also requires keeping the actors distinct. Daniel’s beasts represent kings or kingdoms. Revelation’s beast likewise exercises ruling power, but the woman called Babylon is identified as a city ruling over kings; the beast and its allies eventually destroy her. The false prophet is distinguished by the signs that deceive people into allegiance to the beast and its image. These figures have connected roles without becoming interchangeable. (Revelation 17:12–18; 19:20)
Consequently, identifying Daniel’s fourth kingdom, identifying Revelation’s final beastly power, and identifying Babylon’s city require related but distinct arguments. Even a persuasive Roman connection in one passage would not independently identify every later actor. An Islamic proposal must preserve the same distinctions. Nor can Daniel’s four beasts simply be equated, number for number, with Revelation’s seven heads. Part XXI will examine the city and its relationship with the beast in detail.
3. The Son of Man receives the kingdom
The direction of the vision
At the center of this reversal stands a figure unlike the beasts:
“with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.”
— Daniel 7:13, excerpt, ESV
Verse 14 shows why His arrival matters. He receives dominion, glory, and a kingdom embracing every people and nation. Dominion means authority to rule. Unlike the empires that rise and fall, His authority endures:
“his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away”
— Daniel 7:14, excerpt, ESV
Notice where He goes. He approaches the Ancient of Days and is presented before Him. The scene depicts the reception of royal authority; it does not explicitly describe a descent from heaven to earth.
That direction matters when Jesus later speaks of the Son of Man coming with the clouds. Interpreters who emphasize His enthronement and vindication have a textual reason for doing so. Those who connect the imagery with His future return must explain how Jesus applies Daniel’s scene. We will examine that application in its own setting.
Daniel also places the humanlike figure and the saints in a striking relationship. The figure receives everlasting dominion in verses 13–14; the saints receive the kingdom in verses 18 and 27. The ruler’s kingdom becomes the inheritance of His people.
Interpreters differ over whether the figure represents the faithful people corporately, serves as their heavenly representative, or is a distinct messianic ruler. These possibilities concern how the figure and the people belong together; a representative can also be an individual. Daniel 7’s interpretive notes outline the discussion.
Jesus applies the vision to Himself
For Christian readers, Jesus’ own use of the passage is decisive evidence to consider. When the high priest asks whether He is the Christ, Jesus answers affirmatively and says:
“you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
Jesus applies the Son of Man imagery to Himself. His answer brings Daniel’s cloud imagery together with Psalm 110:1’s place at God’s right hand. The man being judged by an earthly court claims the place of royal authority in God’s presence.
His royal authority is already real. Peter proclaims Jesus risen and exalted at God’s right hand (Acts 2:32–36). The future manifestation of His reign and completion of His victory do not mean that He first becomes King then. That distinction will matter as we follow the kingdom through the rest of the study.
Why the Greek Old Testament matters
To follow the Gospel writers’ use of Daniel, we need one piece of background. The Old Testament was already being read in Greek before Jesus’ earthly ministry. Its ancient Greek translations are commonly called the Septuagint, often abbreviated LXX.
These translations were widely used among Greek-speaking Jews and became a major scriptural resource for the New Testament writers. Their quotations frequently follow Greek wording, including places where it differs from the traditional Hebrew text. The Greek Old Testament therefore helps us understand the words through which the apostles proclaimed Christ. (Greg Lanier’s explanation and textual examples)
We should picture a collection of translations and revisions produced over time, rather than one uniform edition identical in every community. Hebrew and Aramaic also remained in use. The manuscripts preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls provide direct evidence of that multilingual world.
What about Jesus Himself? Luke 4:16–21 describes Him reading Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth. Luke’s quotation includes “recovering of sight to the blind” (verse 18, ESV). This wording appears in Greek Isaiah 61:1, where the traditional Hebrew text instead speaks of release for those who are bound.
That is a meaningful example of Greek scriptural wording in the Gospel’s account of Jesus’ ministry. But Luke does not identify the language of the physical scroll Jesus read. A quotation preserved in a Greek Gospel cannot, by itself, establish the language spoken or the manuscript used on that occasion.
The distinction is simple: we can compare the Gospel’s wording with Greek Scripture; identifying the exact scroll Jesus held is a further historical question. We have good reason to consult the LXX when reading the New Testament, without assuming that every quotation reproduces one Greek edition or that Jesus always read Scripture in Greek.
Two Greek forms of Daniel
Daniel requires an additional distinction. Two ancient Greek forms of the book survive. One is usually called the Old Greek. The other is traditionally called Theodotion, and it became the usual form of Daniel transmitted in Greek Christian Bibles. An edition labeled “Septuagint” may therefore print Theodotion’s Daniel, or provide both forms. The New English Translation of the Septuagint, or NETS, translates both so they can be compared.
“Theodotion” functions here as a conventional name for the Greek text. Its authorship and dating are debated, and wording associated with this form is already reflected in the New Testament. A Gospel parallel therefore does not require its author to have used a translation first produced after his lifetime. (Timothy McLay’s discussion, pp. 29–33)
Daniel itself contains both Hebrew and Aramaic. Chapter 7 is in Aramaic; chapters 8–12 are in Hebrew. The Greek versions translate these earlier-language texts, with differences that need to be examined passage by passage.
This matters directly to the Son of Man passage. In Daniel 7:13, the Old Greek describes the figure coming on the clouds; Theodotion describes Him coming with the clouds, corresponding to the Aramaic wording behind our main English quotation. Matthew 24:30 and 26:64 use the expression with “on,” while Mark 14:62 uses “with.” The NET Bible’s textual note on Daniel 7:13 identifies these parallels.
The comparison helps explain why Gospel wording may differ slightly even when the same Daniel passage is in view. A matching expression is evidence of a textual connection; it does not establish that a Gospel writer followed that version of Daniel at every point.
There is also a more difficult Old Greek variation in the next part of the verse. Some scholars understand its wording as portraying the Son of Man as like the Ancient of Days, bringing the figure into an especially close relationship with God. H. Daniel Zacharias argues that this Greek tradition helps explain Matthew’s portrayal of the Son of Man. The interpretation is disputed: NETS renders the Old Greek here as an arrival at the Ancient of Days. The Aramaic text and Theodotion clearly portray the figure approaching Him.
We should therefore keep both the evidence and its limits visible. The Greek tradition can deepen our understanding of how Jesus’ identity and authority are presented. It does not give us an undisputed replacement for Daniel’s throne-room scene or settle the timing of Christ’s return. To understand what Jesus means by coming with—or on—the clouds, we must read His words in their Gospel setting.
For now, the narrative connection is clear: the saints’ future belongs with the dominion granted in God’s presence. Their persecutor cannot secure an everlasting kingdom. The one who receives authority from the Ancient of Days can.
But how does this vision relate to actual history? Daniel’s later chapters make that question unavoidable.
4. The desolation has a history
Daniel’s visions involve real peoples, places, worship, and suffering. Before deciding how far their fulfillment reaches, we need to recognize the history they describe.
What corresponds to Antiochus?
Daniel 8 identifies its ram with the kings of Media and Persia and its goat with Greece. The great horn represents its first king, and the subsequent horns represent kingdoms arising from the divided realm (Daniel 8:20–22).
The Greek setting is explicit here. Similar horn imagery invites comparison with Daniel 7, but it does not by itself establish that the two visions describe the same immediate ruler.
Against that background, the later persecuting power has a strong historical correspondence with Antiochus IV Epiphanes. He ruled the Seleucid kingdom, one of the kingdoms that emerged from Alexander’s Greek empire. In the second century BC, he suppressed Jewish worship and desecrated the Jerusalem temple. First Maccabees 1:41–64 supplies an important historical witness to the persecution.
Daniel 11:21–35 develops a similarly recognizable setting: intrigue, covenant violation, attacks on the sanctuary, and suffering among the faithful. Verse 31 describes forces profaning the temple and removing the regular burnt offering. It then says:
“they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate.”
The expression concerns something detestable in God’s sight associated here with the desecration of His sanctuary. The surrounding actions make its seriousness clear: rightful worship is suppressed, the holy place is profaned, and those faithful to God come under pressure.
Yet Daniel also shows how God’s people respond. They resist, teach, suffer, and undergo refinement. Some fall by violence and captivity (Daniel 11:31–35).
Daniel connects steadfast action with knowing God: “the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action” (Daniel 11:32, excerpt, ESV). The positive calling within the crisis is to remain faithful and help others understand.
Faithfulness here is costly. The passage does not measure God’s approval by whether His people avoid suffering.
Where do the interpretations diverge?
The harder dispute concerns Daniel 11:36–45 and its relationship to chapter 12. The king exalts himself above every god, speaks against the God of gods, and moves toward his appointed end.
Does the same historical ruler remain in view? Does the prophecy turn toward a final ruler? Or does Antiochus supply a historical pattern that reaches a greater culmination?
The difficulty is concrete. Daniel 11:45 describes the king’s final encampment between the sea and the holy mountain, then announces:
“Yet he shall come to his end, with none to help him.”
— Daniel 11:45, excerpt, ESV
First Maccabees 6:1–16 recounts Antiochus’s final illness and death during his eastern campaign. That is a different geographical setting from the final scene described in Daniel 11.
Some historical-critical interpreters therefore understand Daniel 11:40–45 as an expected ending for Antiochus that did not unfold as described. The NABRE notes present that explanation. This reading must also account for the resurrection language that follows.
Futurist interpreters commonly understand the concluding description as moving beyond Antiochus toward a final opponent. They must show where and why that transition occurs; the historical difficulty by itself does not establish a change of ruler.
A typological reading understands the earlier persecutor as a pattern of a later one. That proposal must be supported by the passages that take up Daniel’s imagery. Repeated resemblance alone cannot tell us which details recur or when.
The question is therefore larger than whether Antiochus resembles Daniel’s ruler. He does in substantial ways. The question is whether that historical crisis accounts for the whole prophetic picture.
Does the northern setting identify the final ruler?
The geographical argument deserves attention without allowing modern boundaries to determine an ancient vision. Daniel 8 explicitly places its hostile king in the setting of the Greek successor kingdoms (8:20–25). Daniel 11 develops the conflict of northern and southern rulers, with the sanctuary and Daniel’s people at its center. Those features give a Middle Eastern proposal substantial material to examine.
Yet historical correspondence, a later prophetic pattern, and the identity of a future ruler remain distinguishable claims. If Antiochus anticipates a final persecutor, the passages must show which features carry forward. A shared pattern of desecration does not by itself require every geographical, genealogical, or religious detail to recur.
Daniel 11:40 introduces another interpretive question. Some understand the self-exalting king as the northern ruler whom the southern ruler attacks, followed by the north’s counterattack. Others distinguish him from both the northern and southern kings, understanding both to attack him. The pronouns and subsequent actions must be followed through the passage. Joel Richardson argues for the two-ruler reading; Walvoord presents the three-ruler interpretation. (Richardson on Daniel 11:40–45; Walvoord on Daniel 11)
This affects the proposed geographical identification, but neither reading names a modern religion. A northern ruler is not necessarily Muslim because some of that region’s present inhabitants are Muslim. Likewise, a connection with Roman territory would not necessarily make him a Western European. The location where an army gathers or fights must also be distinguished from its ruler’s homeland and from the location of Babylon’s city.
What religious allegiance does the king demand?
The king’s treatment of worship supplies a more specific test than geography alone. Daniel says he exalts himself above every god, yet also says:
“And in their place, he will honor a god of fortresses—a god his fathers did not know—with gold, silver, precious stones, and riches.”
Verses 36–39 must be read together. The king’s self-exaltation stands beside his honoring a god connected with fortresses and rewarding those who acknowledge him. Calling him simply an atheist would leave part of the description unexplained. Identifying that god with a particular modern religion also requires evidence that the passage itself does not supply by name.
Paul describes the man of lawlessness as opposing and exalting himself above every object of worship, taking his seat in God’s temple and presenting himself as God (2 Thessalonians 2:4). Revelation 13 describes worship directed toward the dragon, the beast, and the beast’s image, with death threatened for refusing the image’s worship. The shared themes give strong reason to compare these opponents. Identifying all of them as the same final individual remains a synthesis to be argued from their connected descriptions. (2 Thessalonians 2:3–9; Revelation 13:4–15)
Within that synthesis, an Islamic interpretation faces a genuine question: how do these demands relate to Islam’s insistence on God’s uniqueness? The Qur’an’s short chapter 112 emphasizes that God is one and incomparable. A ruler’s Muslim background would therefore not, by itself, explain worship directed toward a human figure and his image. (Qur’an 112)
Richardson answers that usurping divine authority and demanding absolute submission need not entail a verbal claim to deity. He also notes that proskyneō, the Greek verb translated as worship, can describe homage in some contexts. (Mideast Beast, printed pp. 155–161)
That linguistic observation deserves consideration. A servant bows before his master in Matthew 18:26, and Revelation 3:9 describes people bowing before believers’ feet. But a word’s possible meanings do not settle its meaning in every setting. Revelation 13 connects the beast’s worship with the dragon, a deceptive image, blasphemy, and deadly coercion. Those surrounding details require more explanation than ordinary political respect. Paul’s statement about presenting oneself as God must also retain its force. (Matthew 18:26; Revelation 3:9)
A future movement could depart from the religion it claims to represent, and a ruler could change his demands as his power grows. Those are conceivable developments. They remain additional hypotheses rather than positive evidence identifying the ruler. The same standard applies to any proposed religious or secular origin.
Daniel 7:25’s intention to change appointed times and law belongs in this comparison too. It describes the persecutor’s challenge to the order under which God’s people live. It does not explicitly identify Islamic law, and the existence of a religious legal program alone cannot establish the identification.
The resulting conclusion is measured: a future Islamic setting remains a possibility worth testing, while the self-exaltation, worship, and image passages remain substantial requirements it must explain. We can investigate that possibility without treating contemporary religious growth as fulfillment or losing Daniel’s firmer emphasis on the persecutor’s limited authority and God’s decisive judgment.
Why does Jesus send us back to Daniel?
Jesus invokes Daniel’s desolating abomination long after Antiochus, directing His hearers to watch for it (Matthew 24:15). That gives us a specific reason to investigate a later application.
Here “later” first means later than Antiochus. It does not automatically mean later than our own time. We still need to examine whether Jesus means Jerusalem’s destruction in AD 70, a crisis still future to us, or a relationship between those horizons.
Recognizing a genuine historical fulfillment and determining its full prophetic reach are related questions. We can acknowledge what happened in the second century BC while continuing to investigate how Jesus uses Daniel.
The Greek wording provides another connection. Matthew’s expression for the abomination of desolation closely matches Old Greek Daniel 12:11; Theodotion also uses the same central words. Daniel 9:27 and 11:31 belong to the wider background. Jesus’ reference thus directs us into Daniel’s connected picture of profaned worship and desolation. It does not identify one Greek version as His exclusive source or tell us how to punctuate every disputed sentence in Daniel 9. (Matthew 24:15 in Greek; the two Greek forms of Daniel 12)
Before following Jesus’ application, one further passage in Daniel needs careful attention. It is the passage behind many claims about a final seven-year period.
5. Seventy weeks: Who makes the covenant?
The familiar expression “a seven-year tribulation” depends in large part on an interpretation of Daniel 9:24–27. But the passage begins with Daniel praying about Israel and Jerusalem, and its purposes reach beyond the scheduling of a final crisis.
Daniel has been reading Jeremiah’s promise concerning seventy years. He confesses Israel’s sin and pleads for the city and sanctuary. Gabriel comes in answer to that prayer (Daniel 9:1–23).
We should hear the whole answer before deciding how its parts fit together.
Read the connected passage
The following quotation is from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB). Its rendering of “Messiah” and its division of verse 25 are explained below.
24 “Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.
25 Know and understand this: From the issuance of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, until the Messiah, the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of distress.
26 Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing. Then the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood, and until the end there will be war; desolations have been decreed.
27 And he will confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of the temple will come the abomination that causes desolation, until the decreed destruction is poured out upon him.”
The passage is compact, but we can follow its movement one step at a time.
First, follow what each verse contributes
Verse 24 gives the scope and purpose. The prophecy concerns Daniel’s people and holy city: Israel and Jerusalem. Its purposes include dealing with sin, making atonement, establishing lasting righteousness, sealing vision and prophecy, and consecrating what is most holy. The sealing is commonly understood in terms of the confirmation or fulfillment of what God has revealed. These purposes reach beyond the rebuilding of streets and walls.
This original setting matters. Later Christian interpretation must explain how Christ’s work and His people relate to these promises while respecting the people and city Daniel has been praying about.
Verse 25 introduces the periods and Jerusalem’s rebuilding. The seventy “weeks” are seventy units of seven. In this context they are commonly understood as sevens of years, giving 490 years. The passage distinguishes seven sevens, sixty-two sevens, and the one seven mentioned in verse 27.
On that reading, seven sevens amount to 49 years, and sixty-two sevens amount to 434. Together they make 69 sevens, or 483 years. One seven remains to complete the seventy.
The arithmetic explains the familiar expression “the seventieth week.” It does not yet establish the starting date, the historical meaning of each division, or whether the final seven follows the preceding period without an interval.
Verse 26 introduces the cutting off of an anointed figure and the destruction of the city and sanctuary. Notice the figures involved. There is the anointed one who is cut off, and there is a coming prince whose people destroy the city and sanctuary. The verse attributes that destruction to the prince’s people.
The sixty-two weeks are the second group already named. Readings that take the seven and sixty-two consecutively therefore place the cutting off after sixty-nine sevens in all.
For Christian readings, Jesus’ death and Jerusalem’s destruction in AD 70 are major events to consider. Other readings identify the figures and destruction within the earlier Antiochene crisis. The identities must be established from the wording, context, and proposed historical fulfillment.
Verse 27 describes a covenant, the interruption of sacrifice, and desolation. It speaks of one week and a decisive division within it. On the seven-year reading, half a week corresponds to three and a half years.
The BSB expresses the cessation as occurring in the middle of the week. The ESV says that sacrifice is brought to an end “for half of the week.” The half-week is part of the wording; its placement in a larger chronology depends on how the passage is understood.
But the verse begins with a person who is not named in that sentence:
“And he will confirm a covenant with many for one week”
— Daniel 9:27, excerpt, BSB
Who is “he”? Who makes the covenant and brings sacrifice to an end?
The English “he” is a pronoun—a word used in place of a person’s name. Here it expresses the subject carried by the Hebrew verb: a masculine singular actor. There is no separate Hebrew pronoun at this point identifying him. (Hebrew text of Daniel 9:27)
The issue is therefore the identity of the person performing those actions. Is this the anointed figure already mentioned, or an opposing ruler? If an opposing ruler, which one?
That question explains why readers can agree on the arithmetic and still construct very different accounts of the final week.
Translation details help explain the disagreement
First, “Messiah” and “anointed one” represent the same Hebrew expression. The BSB’s word “Messiah” means “anointed one,” as its footnote recognizes. The ESV uses “an anointed one.” These are ways of rendering the Hebrew word mashiach; the difference is not caused by one translation discovering a different person’s name in the text.
Anointing was associated with priestly as well as royal office; for example, Exodus 28:41 directs the anointing of Aaron and his sons for service as priests. The expression therefore needs to be interpreted in its setting. The English title by itself cannot settle whether the historical figure in a particular verse is Jesus or another anointed person.
Second, the translations divide the periods differently. In the BSB quotation above, the seven and sixty-two weeks are joined before the arrival of the Messiah, the Prince: together, sixty-nine weeks. The ESV’s main text places seven weeks before an anointed prince, followed by sixty-two weeks associated with rebuilding. Its footnote permits the seven and sixty-two to be joined before that arrival.
The ESV’s main-text division follows a strong pause marked after the seven weeks in the traditional Hebrew reading system. That system is part of what is called the Masoretic Text: the carefully transmitted Hebrew text with its vowel and reading marks. The marks record a reading tradition; they are not an English-style full stop written by Daniel. Translators weigh that tradition alongside the sentence’s wording and context. (Hebrew text of Daniel 9:25)
That difference affects whether interpreters identify the anointed figures in verses 25 and 26 as the same person. It is one reason the passage cannot be explained simply by adding the numbers and assuming that every identification follows automatically.
Third, “of the temple” is explanatory wording in the BSB. Its footnote acknowledges that the Hebrew speaks of a “wing” in a difficult expression involving abominations and desolation; “of the temple” is supplied in interpreting it. The sanctuary context gives reason to consider temple imagery, but readers should see where the translation makes that connection explicit. (BSB’s note on Daniel 9:27)
Where the Greek versions fit
Is the BSB quoting the LXX while the ESV translates the Hebrew? That would be an inaccurate way to explain this comparison. Both translations work from Hebrew for Daniel 9, while consulting ancient versions as part of their translation work. Their difference here concerns how to render and divide the passage. Their own source statements describe their approach. (BSB sources; ESV preface)
The Greek evidence is still useful. Theodotion’s Daniel 9:25 places seven weeks and sixty-two weeks together in the statement about the arrival of an anointed leader. That gives the combined reading an ancient Greek parallel; it is not simply a modern invention. The Old Greek differs much more substantially and does not present verse 25 in the same familiar form. This is another reason to specify which Greek Daniel we mean. (NETS, Daniel 9:24–27 in both Greek forms)
Ancient support for joining the periods does not, by itself, identify the covenant-maker in verse 27 or prove a gap before the final week. Nor does Jesus’ reference to Daniel’s abomination decide those questions for us. We still need to follow the people, actions, and purposes in the passage.
With the passage in view, we can now compare the principal readings without losing our place.
Three readings of the final week
An Antiochene crisis. On this reading, the prophecy’s climactic events concern Antiochus IV’s persecution in the second century BC. The anointed figure cut off in verse 26 is commonly identified with the high priest Onias III. The “he” of verse 27 is understood as Antiochus, and the covenant as an agreement with Jewish supporters of his policies. The cessation of sacrifice concerns the actual suppression of temple worship.
This interpretation draws strength from the historical desecration and the recognizable Antiochene setting in Daniel’s surrounding visions. It must explain the chronology and how that crisis accounts for the wide-ranging purposes of verse 24, including lasting righteousness and the resolution of sin. The NABRE notes on Daniel 9 present this approach.
Christ confirms God’s covenant. On this reading, the anointed figure is Christ, and He is also the covenant-maker in verse 27. His death and covenant work explain the chapter’s concern with atonement and righteousness. The ending of sacrifice is understood in relation to His completed sacrificial work, the subsequent judgment upon the temple, or a combination of those themes.
These interpretations differ in their handling of the week and the destruction of Jerusalem. Some understand the periods more symbolically. Meredith Kline’s covenant-centered interpretation is one developed example.
This reading has a strong connection to the prophecy’s redemptive purpose. Its difficulty is explaining how the covenant-maker, the destruction language, and the cessation of sacrifice fit the stated period. If cessation refers to Christ’s fulfillment of sacrifice, that is a theological understanding of its ending: temple offerings did continue after His death, as the setting of Acts 21:26 shows. The interpretation must explain what kind of ending Daniel describes and how it fits the week.
A future hostile ruler makes the covenant. On this reading, the anointed figure is Christ, but the “he” of verse 27 is a later opponent. The destruction of Jerusalem is commonly associated with the Romans in AD 70, and the coming ruler is connected with that imperial setting. The final week is a future seven-year period during which the ruler establishes a covenant and then suppresses sacrificial worship.
This is the reading behind the familiar identification of the covenant-maker as the future Antichrist. Its argument for a gap before the final week points to Christ’s death and Jerusalem’s destruction after the preceding weeks, together with the conviction that the prophecy’s purposes and final events await completion. John Walvoord’s exposition develops that case.
The interpretation must establish the identity of the future ruler, the interval before the final week, and the proposed fulfillment of the covenant and sanctuary events. Daniel does not explicitly announce the interval’s length. Nor does the covenant language itself identify a modern peace treaty with the state of Israel. Those are further proposals within the interpretation.
What can the prince’s people tell us?
Within the future-hostile-ruler interpretation, another question follows: what kind of connection does verse 26 establish between the coming prince and the people who destroy Jerusalem?
On the AD 70 identification, the destruction belongs to Rome’s military campaign. That gives the Roman connection genuine historical relevance. But an army’s imperial identity, its soldiers’ ancestry, and the religion of a proposed future ruler are different matters. Calling the army Roman does not independently establish that the future ruler must have Western European ancestry.
The Hebrew word translated “people,” ʿam, does not settle that question by requiring a particular bloodline. It can describe a people or nation, but it can also refer to a body of troops. In 2 Samuel 10:13, the same noun describes the men advancing with Joab into battle. The context must determine what relationship is being emphasized. (Hebrew of Daniel 9:26; 2 Samuel 10:13; Brown–Driver–Briggs entry for ʿam)
This does not rule out an ethnic association wherever the word occurs. It means that the word alone cannot prove that Daniel is identifying the majority ancestry of an army and predicting a later ruler’s identical ancestry. That more specific interpretation requires evidence from the passage and the historical proposal.
Richardson appeals to eastern recruitment in Roman forces when arguing against a necessarily European ruler. (Mideast Beast, chapter 7) Even if a particular reconstruction of those troops’ ancestry were established, it would not identify their future descendants’ religion or prove a Muslim Antichrist. The first-century campaign preceded Islam by centuries. Roman, Middle Eastern, Arab, and Muslim describe different categories and cannot be substituted for one another.
The prince’s relationship with the destroying people still needs explanation; the qualification does not make it irrelevant. It prevents that relationship from being turned prematurely into a modern nationality or religious identification. A Roman connection with later religious change and a proposed Islamic succession therefore remain distinguishable possibilities within the broader investigation.
These questions also remain downstream of the earlier dispute over the prince and the covenant-maker. An argument about the army’s identity cannot, by itself, establish that the prince is still future or that he is the subject acting in verse 27. The Antiochene and Christ-centered readings must continue to be assessed on their own arguments.
What can we carry forward?
The three readings give different answers to a concrete question: Who is acting in the final week, and what events fulfill his actions? That question should remain attached to the passage itself.
A gap may be argued from the structure and proposed fulfillments. It should neither be treated as an expressly dated interruption nor dismissed merely because its length is not stated. Likewise, a Christ-centered or Antiochene reading must explain the difficult details rather than relying on its main identification alone.
One distinction is especially important for our investigation: a future final week and a gathering before that week are two different claims.
Even if the future seven-year interpretation proves persuasive, Daniel 9 does not narrate the resurrection and catching up of believers or place that event before the week or at its midpoint. It also does not call the entire week either the Great Tribulation or a period of divine wrath.
In the familiar future-week interpretation, the midpoint marks a crisis involving sacrifice. Connecting it with Jesus’ description of tribulation, and locating the gathering in relation to it, requires the further passages we are about to examine.
Daniel 9 has given us Jerusalem, redemptive promises, an anointed figure, a covenant, sanctuary crisis, and desolation. We have enough to understand why the passage matters—and why identifying “he” cannot, by itself, settle the whole chronology.
For the explicit awakening of the dead, Daniel’s final vision takes us further.
6. Deliverance reaches beyond the grave
Daniel’s final extended vision runs through chapters 10–12. Chapter 10 opens another dimension of the conflict: it describes resistance from the prince of Persia, anticipates the coming of the prince of Greece, and identifies Michael as a helper of the heavenly messenger. The nations’ struggles have a heavenly dimension, although the passage supplies no complete account of its organization (Daniel 10:12–21).
That thread returns at the opening of chapter 12:
“At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
What Daniel clearly promises
The promise of deliverance concerns those recorded in the book. The words “at that time” connect this passage with the preceding crisis; they do not require the trouble to begin only after the king’s death in Daniel 11:45. The chapter heading does not begin an unrelated prophecy. Extraordinary trouble, deliverance, and the awakening of the dead belong to its connected closing scene.
The awakening from the dust, with contrasting everlasting destinies, strongly supports bodily resurrection. Some readings emphasize imagery of national restoration, but they must explain why the passage speaks this way about the dead and their enduring destinies. The personal promise to Daniel at the book’s close strengthens the resurrection reading.
Daniel also describes what faithfulness looks like. The wise, and those who help turn many toward righteousness, are promised lasting glory (Daniel 12:3). This recalls the teachers who suffer in Daniel 11:33–35. Resurrection hope therefore encourages patient instruction and faithful obedience, even when their witness is costly.
The word “many” in verse 2 leaves a question about the scope of this awakening. Some interpreters focus on a particular multitude within the persecuted people; others understand the dead comprehensively. The word alone does not resolve that disagreement or supply a resurrection timetable. Walvoord’s discussion illustrates differences even among interpreters who share a broad millennial position.
What the verse makes clear is that the dead awaken and that their destinies differ: everlasting life for some, shame and everlasting contempt for others.
Could this reach the judgment after the thousand years?
Daniel’s description can be read as reaching forward to the final resurrection and judgment associated with the end of the thousand-year reign in Revelation 20. But there is an important distinction between saying that his vision includes that final outcome and saying that everyone mentioned in Daniel 12:2 rises only after the thousand years.
Daniel presents the two resurrection outcomes together without mentioning a millennium or stating an interval between them. Jesus similarly speaks of resurrection to life and resurrection to judgment in John 5:28–29, without explaining a thousand-year separation there.
Revelation 20 supplies the distinction that makes the comparison necessary. John sees faithful people, including those killed for their testimony to Jesus, come to life and reign with Christ for a thousand years (verse 4). He then says:
“The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.”
Verses 5–6 identify the first resurrection and describe its participants as blessed, holy, and beyond the power of the second death. The chapter then describes Satan’s release and final defeat after the thousand years, followed by the dead standing before the great white throne for judgment (Revelation 20:7–15).
On a reading in which the first resurrection is bodily, some people have therefore already been raised and are reigning with Christ before that final judgment. That creates the question for Daniel: does he describe both stages together, or does he have one final awakening in view?
Two ways to understand the relationship
One reading understands Daniel as giving a broad view whose stages Revelation later distinguishes. Daniel presents the resurrection to life and the resurrection to condemnation together, while Revelation supplies a separation between the first resurrection and the raising of the remaining dead. On this future-millennial interpretation, Daniel’s description reaches through to the final judgment, but the righteous who rise to reign with Christ do not wait until the millennium has ended.
This is a coherent way to read the passages together. Its qualification is essential: the separation comes from the interpretation of Revelation 20. Daniel does not independently state it. Presenting the outcomes in one sentence need not prove that they occur simultaneously, but an interval cannot be established from Daniel’s silence either.
Another reading understands Daniel as describing one final bodily resurrection with contrasting destinies. It draws strength from Daniel’s joined outcomes and Jesus’ wording:
“an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice”
Jesus immediately describes their emergence as resurrection to life or resurrection to judgment (verse 29). A coming hour, all the dead, and two outcomes together provide positive grounds for this reading. The word “hour” alone does not settle its duration: John 5:25 uses it of a reality already beginning. The connected statements must be weighed alongside Revelation.
Readers who take this approach must explain Revelation’s first resurrection. Augustine understands it as present spiritual resurrection, followed by the final bodily resurrection, in The City of God, Book 20, chapters 6–7. His thousand years belong to the present age. In chapter 23, he directly compares Daniel 12:2 with John 5:28–29 and explains why he takes Daniel’s “many” comprehensively. His interpretation is historical testimony to weigh alongside the texts.
Another significant amillennial reading understands the first resurrection as departed believers entering heavenly life and reigning with Christ before their bodily resurrection. Anthony Hoekema develops this reading, emphasizing John’s vision of the martyrs’ souls. These interpretations differ over the first resurrection while affirming one future bodily resurrection of the righteous and the wicked.
Daniel 12:7 adds a question we will return to in Section 7. It connects the end of the holy people’s ordeal with the completion of “all these things.” How broadly does that expression reach? A reading that places one resurrection outcome much later must explain whether it refers to the concluding crisis and deliverance or includes every preceding outcome. The scope requires argument; simply observing that Daniel does not mention an interval is insufficient.
The comparison therefore involves both Daniel’s connected closing scene and Revelation’s first resurrection. We will examine the fuller evidence when we reach Revelation 20.
Could the whole awakening occur after a future millennium?
That is a more specific proposal. If we retain a bodily resurrection before a future thousand-year reign, yet place everyone awakened in Daniel 12:2 after that reign, we must explain who the righteous people raised at that later point are and how they relate to those already raised to reign.
One might propose righteous people who died during the millennium. That would require an argument from other passages: Daniel does not identify those raised to life that way, and Revelation 20’s final judgment scene does not explicitly name such a group. The opening of the Book of Life establishes its importance to the judgment; it does not, by itself, demonstrate an additional resurrection of righteous people at that moment (Revelation 20:12–15).
Daniel’s immediate context also needs to be respected. Extraordinary trouble, deliverance, and awakening belong to the closing vision connected with the hostile king’s end. If that crisis is identified with the one preceding Christ’s return, placing the entire awakening a thousand years later requires further explanation. The later date cannot simply be assumed because both everlasting destinies appear in the same verse.
The careful conclusion is that Daniel’s promise can encompass the final judgment after the millennium, while the timing of the different groups must be established by comparing the passages. Daniel gives a firm promise of resurrection and lasting accountability without supplying the complete order of Revelation’s visions.
The hope we can already carry forward
For clarity, keep the two major scenes in their own settings:
Daniel 7: The horn prevails against the saints until divine judgment overturns its dominion and the saints possess the kingdom.
Daniel 12: In the closing crisis, Michael arises, Daniel’s people face extraordinary trouble, deliverance is promised, and sleepers in the dust awaken.
These accounts invite comparison. Combining them into a fully synchronized timeline requires an additional argument.
Their shared hope already reaches beyond survival. Daniel has described faithful people falling under persecution. Resurrection means that death cannot finally deprive them of what God has promised.
That also keeps us from treating every severe crisis as proof that Daniel’s specified time of trouble has arrived. Faithful people suffer throughout history; identifying this particular crisis requires the passage’s fuller description.
7. The numbers set limits without explaining every interval
Daniel’s visions repeatedly assure us that hostile power has a limit. They also give several expressions of time. To understand them, we need to keep each number beside the event its passage describes.
Three and a half times: the limit of oppression
In Daniel 7:25, the saints are handed over to the persecuting ruler for “a time, times, and half a time.” The common understanding takes this as one year, two years, and half a year: three and a half years.
Daniel 12:7 uses the same expression in answer to a question about the end of the wonders Daniel has seen. It connects that period with the completion of the shattering of the holy people’s power; at that point, “all these things would be finished” (ESV).
In both settings, the period is associated with the ordeal of God’s people. Its stated limit belongs to the promise that their oppressor will not possess the future forever.
Revelation helps explain why readers compare this expression with 1,260 days and forty-two months. The woman’s nourishment in the wilderness is described as 1,260 days in Revelation 12:6 and with the time-times-half-a-time formula in 12:14. Revelation also gives forty-two months for the beast’s authority and for the trampling of the holy city (Revelation 13:5; 11:2), and 1,260 days for the witnesses’ prophesying (11:3).
Using twelve months to a year and thirty days to a month, three and a half years corresponds to forty-two months, or 1,260 days. That is the calculation behind the familiar comparison.
The correspondence is substantial. It gives us a reason to read the passages together. Whether all these periods begin and end together, and how their literal or symbolic dimensions work, must still be decided from their respective settings. Equal durations do not automatically establish identical starting dates.
The 1,290 and 1,335 days: a starting point and a blessing
Daniel 12:11 gives a more specific point from which to count:
“from the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up”
From that point, the verse names 1,290 days. The next verse adds:
“Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days.”
— Daniel 12:12, ESV
The 1,290 days therefore have a stated reference point. The following blessing names 1,335 days without separately restating its starting point or identifying the event reached. Continuing the count from the same point is a natural reading, but the event associated with the blessing is not named.
How do these figures relate to 1,260 days? Daniel 12 does not itself use that number. It enters the comparison through Revelation and the interpretation of three and a half times.
If all three periods are counted from the same starting point, the arithmetic is straightforward: 1,290 ends thirty days after 1,260; 1,335 ends forty-five days after 1,290, or seventy-five days after 1,260.
What the arithmetic cannot tell us is what occurs during those additional days. Proposals involving sanctuary cleansing, judgment, or the establishment of kingdom administration remain proposed explanations. Neither a shared starting point for every passage nor a complete schedule of those events has been supplied by subtraction.
The blessing directs attention to patient waiting. Daniel gives his readers a reason to endure without explaining every event they may wish to put on a chart.
The 2,300 evenings and mornings: Daniel 8’s sanctuary question
The next number comes from a different vision. We are returning to Daniel 8, where the question concerns an attack on the sanctuary and the interruption of worship. Keeping that setting in view will help us understand what the number measures.
Earlier in this article, we met Daniel’s ram and goat. Gabriel identifies the ram with Media and Persia and the goat with Greece. The goat’s great horn is broken, and four horns take its place, representing kingdoms that follow it (Daniel 8:20–22).
Against that background, Daniel sees a smaller horn grow powerful and attack what belongs to God. The regular sacrifice is taken away, the sanctuary is overthrown, and truth is thrown to the ground. The interpretation later describes a king who destroys the holy people (Daniel 8:9–12, 23–25).
The sanctuary is the holy place of worship associated here with the Jerusalem temple. The regular sacrifice was part of Israel’s daily worship: the law prescribed one lamb in the morning and another at twilight (Numbers 28:3–4). Stopping these offerings meant forcibly interrupting the worship God had commanded.
Now the question in Daniel 8:13 becomes understandable. Daniel hears one holy one ask another how long this vision of interrupted sacrifice, desolation, and trampling will continue. The answer is:
He said to me, “It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be properly restored.”
The number belongs to a promise of restoration. The holy place has been violated, but that condition will end. The verse directs us toward the sanctuary being put right and restored to its proper use.
This is why the history of Antiochus IV matters. His suppression of Jewish worship and desecration of the temple provide a strong historical correspondence with the vision. First Maccabees records the desecration in 167 BC and the temple’s purification and rededication under the Jewish leader Judas Maccabeus in 164 BC. The annual celebration of that dedication became Hanukkah (1 Maccabees 1:54–59; 4:36–59). Whether this earlier crisis also supplies a pattern for later events requires further biblical argument.
But how should the “evenings and mornings” be counted? Two principal explanations are offered when the period is understood in ordinary days.
One reading counts 2,300 complete days. An evening and a morning together describe a daily cycle. On this understanding, the period contains 2,300 such cycles. Interpreters who connect this longer period with Antiochus commonly look beyond the interruption of sacrifice alone to a broader period of assault on Israel’s worship.
Another reading counts 2,300 scheduled offerings, giving 1,150 days. Because worship included a morning offering and an evening offering, these interpreters count the two occasions separately. One day would account for two missed offerings; 2,300 divided by two gives 1,150 days. The argument for this reading comes from the passage’s concern with the regular sacrifice.
The disagreement is therefore about what is being counted: whole days or individual occasions for sacrifice. Daniel does not explicitly instruct the reader to divide the number by two. The 1,150-day calculation depends on understanding the expression as a count of offerings. Walvoord discusses both readings and argues for complete days.
The ancient Greek evidence is relevant here. The two ancient Greek forms of Daniel, known as Old Greek and Theodotion, explicitly include the word “days” in verse 14. That provides ancient support for understanding the number as full days. It does not, by itself, identify the historical starting date. (NETS translation of both Greek versions, Daniel 8:14)
The roughly three-year interval between the temple’s desecration and rededication helps explain the appeal of the shorter calculation. But those dates do not establish an exact 1,150-day fulfillment. The longer calculation also requires an argued starting point. We should distinguish the strong historical correspondence from a claim that every day has been securely identified.
For our investigation, keep the question attached to its answer: How long will the sanctuary crisis continue before the holy place is restored? Daniel 8 supplies its number in that setting. It does not identify the 2,300 evenings and mornings as the 1,260 days in Revelation, or tell us to add them to Daniel 12’s 1,290 and 1,335 days. A proposed connection must explain the different passages and events, not merely combine their numbers.
The numbers assure us that oppression has a limit. They do not authorize us to fill every space on a chart with an event Daniel has not named.
Conditional Modern Proposals
Could Daniel’s fourth kingdom be connected with an Islamic empire? Could a Roman connection coexist with a later Islamic governing power?
These are distinguishable proposals. They deserve examination, but their status must remain clear: Daniel does not name either modern scenario. Each depends on arguments about the identity of the fourth kingdom, the relationship between historical and future fulfillment, and the continuity required between an ancient empire and a later power.
The following discussion examines those additional arguments. Its conclusions remain conditional upon the scriptural questions developed throughout this article.
Could the fourth kingdom be an Islamic empire?
Joel Richardson proposes Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and the historical Islamic caliphate, followed by a future revival of that caliphate. He emphasizes the fourth kingdom’s crushing power and argues that Islamic conquest of the earlier kingdoms’ territories fits the description better than Rome. His explanation for omitting Rome emphasizes the dream’s Babylonian geographical setting. (Richardson, Mideast Beast, chapter 5)
This proposal has historical material to examine. Seventh-century Arab-Muslim conquest brought the Sasanian Persian state to an end. That development helps explain the proposed comparison. It does not establish that the Sasanian state should be counted as the same prophetic kingdom as Daniel’s Medo-Persia, or that Islamic rule must therefore be Daniel’s fourth kingdom. Those identifications require their own arguments. (Getty, Persia: Ancient Iran and the Classical World)
The central textual question concerns the fourth kingdom’s destructive power:
“…it will shatter and crush all the others.”
—Daniel 2:40, BSB, excerpt
Does that description require possession of every territory the preceding kingdoms held at their greatest extent? Or does it portray the overwhelming power of a succeeding dominion?
Daniel does not explicitly define the geographical test. Verse 39 also describes the third kingdom as ruling the whole earth, so the scope of imperial language must be interpreted consistently. Comparing maps can illuminate a proposal, but the passage must establish what the maps are being asked to demonstrate.
The fourth kingdom’s action must also be distinguished from the stone’s action. The kingdom crushes; the stone strikes the statue and brings its materials down together. God’s kingdom brings the preceding kingdoms to their decisive end (Daniel 2:34–35,40,44–45). We should not transfer every feature of that final destruction into a requirement concerning the fourth empire’s historical conquests.
The Islamic proposal must explain its selection of kingdoms, including the omission of Rome, and why different Muslim dynasties should count as one prophetic dominion. The Roman proposal must likewise explain its treatment of imperial divisions and later successors. For either proposed revival, the claimed continuity, interruption, and renewed dominion require evidence.
Daniel 7 supplies further requirements: ten kings arise from the fourth kingdom; another king subdues three, oppresses the saints for the stated period, and loses his dominion through divine judgment (7:23–27). Military expansion or religious hostility may resemble part of that portrait. A persuasive identification must account for the connected description.
The evidence examined here therefore warrants testing Richardson’s proposal. It does not establish the Islamic caliphate as Daniel’s required fourth kingdom or eliminate the competing readings.
Could a Roman connection coexist with Islamic government?
A different proposal retains a Roman connection while envisioning a later Islamist governing program. Here Islamist describes a political project seeking to organize government around its interpretation of Islam; it does not assign a shared political intention to Muslims collectively.
Imperial connection, geographical location, and religious allegiance are different questions.
The Roman world extended far beyond Western Europe. During the seventh century, territories in Syria, Egypt, and North Africa passed from Byzantine, or Eastern Roman, rule into Muslim rule. A territory’s Roman past and its later Islamic government can therefore coexist as historical descriptions. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition)
That history makes the proposed combination intelligible. Establishing prophetic continuity requires more. A future interpretation must explain why the particular dominion belongs to Daniel’s fourth kingdom, how its ruler and allied kings fit the vision, and how its religious demands correspond to the relevant passages.
Simply occupying former Roman territory is too broad a test.
This scenario also differs from identifying the historical Islamic caliphate itself as the fourth kingdom. The two proposals cannot be combined without explaining their different accounts of imperial succession. Neither proposal independently identifies Babylon’s city, which Part XXI will examine.
The European Union is not named in Daniel’s visions. A European or Middle Eastern location cannot, by itself, determine a future ruler’s religion. Likewise, a ruler’s religious background would not settle whether his eventual claims and actions fulfill the passages under consideration.
What would make a modern identification persuasive?
The tests developed in Sections 4 and 5 remain essential.
A geographical argument must establish which features of Daniel’s historical setting carry forward into a proposed future fulfillment. A religious identification must explain the self-exaltation, worship, and image passages. An argument from the people who destroy Jerusalem must establish the relationship Daniel describes without treating imperial identity, ancestry, and a later religion as interchangeable.
Daniel 7:25’s reference to changing appointed times and law belongs within that comparison. The existence of a religious legal program alone does not establish that a particular movement fulfills it.
These standards apply equally to a proposed Roman revival, an Islamic revival, or a combination of Roman connections and later Islamic government. A familiar interpretation still requires evidence. An unfamiliar interpretation deserves a hearing proportionate to the evidence it supplies.
Compatibility with selected prophetic features does not establish prophetic identity.
Current events may prompt worthwhile questions. Religious growth, political ambition, territorial influence, and persecution cannot independently identify Daniel’s final persecutor. Nor can an imagined future change in a ruler’s behavior serve as evidence that the proposed identification is already correct.
The arguments examined here leave these modern scenarios conditional. Neither has been established as Daniel’s required outcome. Our investigation must remain open to correction as the remaining passages are examined.
Daniel’s central assurance stands on firmer ground: the persecutor’s dominion is limited, God judges it, and the saints receive the kingdom (Daniel 7:25–27). That promise does not depend on our successfully naming a modern state or movement.
The promise Daniel could carry
Daniel himself asks for understanding and does not receive every answer he seeks. Yet the book’s final word gives him something to trust:
“you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.”
— Daniel 12:13, excerpt, ESV
That promise brings the investigation back to the man who received it. The kingdoms will rise and fall. The visions will demand patient study. Daniel’s own life will reach its end. God will still give him his inheritance.
We can now answer our opening question. The saints receive the kingdom because the persecutor’s victory is subject to God’s judgment, and their hope extends even beyond death. Their suffering never grants the Beast the final word.
This is the framework we carry forward: persecuted saints, limited hostile dominion, heavenly judgment, the Son of Man’s kingdom, and resurrection hope. The exact placement of the gathering remains to be investigated.
Jesus will explicitly direct His hearers back to Daniel. He will speak of the desolating abomination, great tribulation, the Son of Man, and the gathering of His elect.
When Jesus invokes Daniel, where does He put the gathering?
Next: Part III — After the Tribulation: What Did Jesus Describe?
Scripture and source notes
1. The kingdoms and the holy ones. For contrasting readings of Daniel 7, compare John F. Walvoord, “Daniel’s Vision of Future World History,” with the NABRE notes on Daniel 7, especially 7:1–27, 13–14, and 18. These sources document the Roman/futurist and Greek/Antiochene interpretations, alongside the questions concerning the Son of Man and the holy ones.
2. The two Greek forms of Daniel. R. Timothy McLay’s translation of Daniel in the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS) presents Old Greek and Theodotion side by side. Compare 7:13, 8:14, 9:24–27, and 12:11. The versions should be identified separately; a Greek parallel can illuminate New Testament wording without independently settling the chronology.
3. Antiochus and the sanctuary. 1 Maccabees 1:41–64 describes the suppression of Jewish worship; 4:36–59 recounts the sanctuary’s purification and rededication; 6:1–16 recounts Antiochus’s final illness and death. These historical witnesses inform the comparison with Daniel 8 and 11. Jesus’ later appeal to Daniel in Matthew 24:15 requires further examination of the prophecy’s reach.
4. The seventy weeks and the covenant-maker. Read Daniel 9:24–27 within Daniel’s prayer and Gabriel’s answer. Representative interpretations include the NABRE notes (Antiochene), Meredith G. Kline’s “The Covenant of the Seventieth Week” (Christ-centered), and Walvoord’s “The Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks” (a future final week). The actor’s identity, division of the weeks, and any intervening gap require argument; none independently places the gathering.
5. Resurrection and the millennium. Compare Daniel 12:1–3, 7, 13, John 5:28–29, and Revelation 20:4–15. For differing amillennial readings of the first resurrection, see Augustine, The City of God, Book 20, chapters 6–7 and 23, and Anthony A. Hoekema, “The Millennium of Revelation 20.” Daniel does not state a millennium or an interval between the two resurrection outcomes; their relationship must be argued from the combined passages.
6. Daniel’s time periods. Keep Daniel 8:13–14 beside its sanctuary question, and Daniel 12:7, 11–12 beside its descriptions of oppression, interrupted worship, and patient waiting. For the Greek versions of 8:14, consult NETS in note 2. Matching durations do not establish identical starting dates, and subtracting the numbers does not identify events the passages leave unnamed.
7. Conditional modern proposals. Joel Richardson’s Mideast Beast, especially chapters 5, 7, and 9–10, supplies the Islamic empire proposal examined here. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition documents the historical transition in former Byzantine territories. That history does not itself establish prophetic identity; the modern proposals remain conditional upon the textual tests developed above.