Gigi Kammeyer

Jerusalem was burned, and even the Temple was left a mass of smoking ruin.

Some of the people were sent to Egypt, some to Babylon, some to the lands of the Medes and Persians, far, far away from their beautiful city where they had not remembered to live in peace and goodness.

Now a new life began for the Jews. . . They began to wish themselves back home again in their own lovely country. They understood how wicked and cruel they had been to each other, and here in the lands where only foolish idols were worshipped, the Jews remembered the beautiful Temple of Jerusalem, and the wise teachings of the one true God.

They tried harder and harder to live good pure lives, and they always hoped that one day God would find them worthy and allow them to return to their own Kingdom of Judah.

Dear Friends in Christ,

Daniel and the rest of the Jews were in exile, strangers in a strange land, adapting as best they could, even finding favor with their overlords, but all the time dreaming and longing for their own place and life.

I loved the Book of Daniel in my Bible Tales. What stories! Daniel in the lions’ den, Belshazzar’s feast, the writing on the wall, the fiery furnace, vegetarianism works. And Oh! Those strange and exotic names: Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego.

The last six chapters of the Book of Daniel fall in the genre of prophecy or, better, apocalyptic writings. Prophetic writings contain symbolic acts and are informed by a sense of personal contact with God, while in apocalyptic writings the acts are replaced by elaborate imagery, animals, angels, bizarre supernatural visions, and God is not personal but at his most administrative. This is what happens in the latter half of Daniel.

At the very end of Daniel, chapter 12, the tone of the prophecies changes. A time of great trouble is to come, when the angel Michael will appear;

And at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be written in the Book.
And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
And they that be wise shall shine in the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.
But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end. (12:1-4)

The genius of Daniel is in the stories. Daniel in exile, dreamed dreams of regaining his true life, if he would only hold fast to the truth. Above all, like most dreamers, he performed his necessary, difficult work, and he waited, trusting God’s words “Blessed is he that waiteth”.

Adam Clarke draws the following points from Daniel 12:13:

Every man has his way to go
Every man has an end
There is a rest provided for the people of God
There is an inheritance for the people of God

…the dream of a universal human being who exists beyond death as we know it.

In Christ,
Gigi Kammeyer