Footsteps,
Pawprints,
and
Prophetic Times
As a review from previous lessons, the “water” dragon who gave authority to the “land” beast was Egypt. Historically, Pharaoh Neco to Nebuchadnezzar.
This principle is applied when studying prophecy from a Jewish standpoint:
- When the beast emerges from the wilderness or forest, it is strong and builds empires that endure.
- When the beast emerges from the water, or sea, it will quickly weaken and die, no matter how fierce it may appear.
This week we'll address prophetic time as it pertains to the exiles of Judah. The Northern Tribes were scattered by Assyria, yet Assyria is not counted among the Beast kingdoms in Daniel's vision. Small details like this help us to understand prophetic nuances.
Assyria may have been a singular beast, but it was never counted as part of the image of the Beast. That identity is reserved for those who destroy or defeat Israelite rule in Jerusalem. (Is 37:10) Daniel’s prophecies are bound together by one catalyst: a concern for the welfare of Jerusalem. To trace the Beast kingdoms, one can simply trace Jewish history.
Daniel sees more than the Medo-Persian bear and leopard-beast of Greece. He also sees other symbols, such as Persia and Medea as a two-horned ram (Persia as the longer “last” horn) destroyed by the male goat of Greece. A horn can represent either the kingdom or a particular ruler of that kingdom. Instead of wild beasts, such as the bear and leopard, in this vision, they are rogue domestic beasts, the ram and the goat.
- Then I raised my eyes and looked, and behold, a ram which had two horns was standing in front of the canal. Now the two horns were long, but one was longer than the other, with the longer one coming up last. I saw the ram butting westward, northward, and southward, and no other beasts could stand against him nor was there anyone to rescue from his power, but he did as he pleased and made himself great...
- ...While I was observing, behold, a male goat was coming from the west over the surface of the entire earth without touching the ground; and the goat had a prominent horn between his eyes. He came up to the ram that had the two horns, which I had seen standing in front of the canal and rushed at him in his mighty wrath. And I saw him come up beside the ram, and he was enraged at him; and he struck the ram and smashed his two horns, and the ram had no strength to withstand him. So he hurled him to the ground and trampled on him, and there was no one to rescue the ram from his power. Then the male goat made himself exceedingly great. But once he became powerful, the large horn was broken; and in its place four prominent horns came up toward the four winds of heaven. (Da 8:3-8)
The goat was Greece and Alexander its large horn.` When he was asked who should succeed him, Alexander said, “the strongest”, which led to his empire being divided among four "horns" of his generals in 323 BC: Cassander, Ptolemy, Antigonus, and Seleucus (known as the Diadochi or 'successors’).
Four stable powers emerged following the death of Alexander the Great: the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, the Seleucid Empire, the Attalid Dynasty of the Kingdom of Pergamon, and Macedon. Although not true directions “toward the four winds of heaven”, in general, the Seleucids ruled the east, the Ptolemies the south, the Macedonians the west, and the Attalids (Antigonus) the north.
Remember the Divine “engine” of the twelve tribes facing the four winds controlled by the four angels? When Israel is apostate, she abandons her watch to those different powers instead of synchronizing them.
- The shaggy goat represents the kingdom of Greece, and the large horn that is between his eyes is the first king. The broken horn and the four horns that came up in its place represent four kingdoms which will arise from his nation, although not with his power.
- And in the latter period of their dominion, when the wrongdoers have run their course, a king will arise, insolent [az panim] and skilled in intrigue. And his power will be mighty, but not by his own power, and he will destroy to an extraordinary degree and be successful and do as he pleases; he will destroy mighty men and the holy people. And through his shrewdness he will make deceit a success by his influence; and he will make himself great in his own mind, and he will destroy many while they are at ease. He will even oppose the Prince of princes, but he will be broken without human agency. (Da 8:21-25)
If we see the prophecy above as having two time fulfillments, then the first fulfillment is not sealed, but recorded in history. The Roman emperors overflowed and ruled for centuries the boundaries beyond any previous beast kingdoms. They did rule by arrogance and cunning, perfecting the assimilation techniques of the Greeks and using the iron teeth of the Iron Age weapons to enforce submission.
The Romans came to power after the “wrongdoers” had run their course. Sages offer two interpretations: 1) the Greeks who seduced Jews into their systems, and the resulting 2) the Hellenistic Jews who were as much the enemy as Antiochus Epiphanes. The Romans used conscripted military, subduing their enemies not with their own power, but by harnessing foreign soldiers, even adopting grown men who served well. Romans shrewdly offered citizenship and its benefits. Even Paul was a citizen of Rome.
Although the whole world of sinners is responsible for Yeshua's willing sacrifice, Rome is legally responsible for the Prince of Princes’ crucifixion. Rome opposed Yeshua, as Daniel saw. Rome also sent the Jews/Israel into their final exile, destroying ”the holy people.”
Now let's see a technique similar to the above, a different animal introduced into the prophetic timeline.
- Therefore a lion from the forest will kill them, a wolf of the deserts will destroy them, a leopard is watching their cities. Everyone who goes out of them will be torn in pieces because their wrongdoings are many, their apostasies are numerous. (Je 5:6)
Because the lion “of the forest” did not kill Daniel, it suggests that it had been turned into a lion ”from the sea,” powerless to harm a righteous man. It is interesting that the leopard, Greece, is mentioned by Jeremiah as “watching.”
What about the wolves inserted into the beast texts?
The wolf is a time-marker, linking destruction with “evening,” the beginning of an exile, or “morning,” the end: “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning, he devours the prey, and in the evening, he divides the spoils.” (Ge 49:27)
The desert wolf hunts in the evening, representing the exile. The wolf divides the meat of the hunt. In the morning, the pack munches on the leftover bones of the prey. Evening represents the onset of exile; morning represents the end of the exile.
Here are other examples of the wolf as a time marker:
- “The desert creatures will meet with the wolves, the goat also will cry to its kind. Yes, the night-bird will settle there and will find herself a resting place.” (Is 34:14)
The deserts of Israel come alive at night, and the creatures come out of their dens. The desert wolves, which are usually Arabian wolves in Israel, begin moving in the evenings toward water and finding food. They return to their dens in the morning.
- “Their horses are faster than leopards, and quicker than wolves in the evening. Their horsemen charge along, their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swooping down to devour.” (Ha 1:8)
- “Her leaders within her are roaring lions, her judges are wolves at evening; they have no bones to gnaw in the morning.” (Zeph 3:3)
- And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and the fattened steer will be together; and a little boy will lead them.” (Is 11:6)
In the Messianic Kingdom, the time of lying down (evening) will become one of peace instead of destruction and predation (wolf). The enraged male goat (Greece) will be “young” and lie down with the leopard beast (Greece). This is perhaps a hint to “older” serving “younger,” or soul serving spirit in a return to Edenic principles, man rules over the beast kingdom in harmony.
- “He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters the flock.” (Jn 10:12)
The scattering of the flock is an exile, or “evening” marked by the arrival of the wolf. The "hired hand" is not completely committed to the flock because he's only with them for what benefit he can derive. Once that benefit becomes a liability, he runs away from the coming exile and loses his identity with the flock of Israel.
One of the remarkable accounts of Daniel’s life occurred during the reign of Darius the Mede (Daniel 6). The imprisonment in the lion’s den began at sunset and ended at sunup. Through the long night of Daniel's symbolic "exile," the Shomer Yisrael, Guardian of Israel, never slumbered or slept, shutting the lions’ mouths.
Symbolically, the lion was Babylon, the kingdom conquered by the Medes. Daniel survived that exile and regime change and became one of the three rulers of the 120 satraps, and they turned on him because King Darius was about to promote him over all the kingdom. In fact, the conspirators call Daniel, “one of the exiles from Judah.” The trap was constructed from Daniel’s faithfulness to pray toward Jerusalem. Daniel had no fear of the exiles or night watches because of his prayers. He would not run away from the night and wolf.
This may be one reason Daniel is associated with one of the fractals of “the one whom my soul loves.” As Israel searched for Moses to deliver them from exile, so the Jews looked to Daniel as a beacon of hope in exile. It was Daniel who corrected the calculation of the exile from the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, adding eighteen “missing” years from their interpretation of Jeremiah’s prophecy. This recalculation kept the Jews from being discouraged and losing faith in the release from exile and the rebuilding of Jerusalem.
Daniel was a primary influencer in Babylon, Medean, and Persian governments, which eventually led to the rebuilding of the Temple. Whether Daniel personally returned to Judah or not is debatable, but the midrash suggests that he’s identified by another name in the list of returnees. Because of Daniel’s faithful rescue from the long night, King Darius proclaims Daniel’s God rescues, saves, performs miracles, and His kingdom will never end, inspiring the exiles.
We, too, look for rescue from our exile, even as we perform our jobs in Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. We are influencers, not influenced by their wickedness. And we, too, look for the faithful Shepherd who has never left us or forsaken us in our exile. The Tribe of Benjamin is waiting, hungry like the wolf to crunch up the last bits of exile when King Messiah turns the predator into prey.
We tentatively plan to live stream Footsteps, Pawprints, and Times on YouTube at approximately 4:00 pm Eastern on Shabbat.
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