Understanding the Book of Daniel: How He Saw the Son of Man
Explore the book of Daniel: faithful exiles, the fiery furnace, the lions' den, dreams of falling kingdoms, and the Son of Man who reigns in Christ.
A Young Exile in Babylon
The book of Daniel begins with a defeat. In 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon marched on Jerusalem, and among the young men he carried off were four from Judah's noble families. They were teenagers, likely, chosen for their intelligence and promise, and they were about to be reprogrammed. New names, a new language, a new curriculum in Babylonian wisdom, a new diet from the king's own table. The empire's strategy was total: take the best of a conquered people and remake them into Babylonians.
Daniel had other ideas. In the very first chapter, before any dream or vision, the book plants its flag on a quiet act of conviction.
"But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food, or with the wine that he drank." (Daniel 1:8)
It looks small. A diet. Yet everything the book will say about faith under pressure grows from that root. Daniel and his three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, better known by their Babylonian names Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, decide that they can serve in a pagan court, learn its learning, and rise through its ranks, while still drawing a line they will not cross. They will be useful to Babylon without belonging to it. That tension, living faithfully as exiles in a world that is not home, is the spine of the entire book, and it is one reason Daniel has spoken so powerfully to Christians in every age.
The book falls into two clear halves that work together:
- Stories of faithfulness (chapters 1 to 6): Daniel and his friends stand firm under Babylonian and Persian kings, and God repeatedly rescues and vindicates them.
- Visions of the future (chapters 7 to 12): Daniel receives apocalyptic revelations of rising and falling empires, the judgment of God, and the coming kingdom that never ends.
The stories teach us how to live now. The visions teach us where history is going. Hold them together and you have Daniel's answer to the exile's deepest fear: has God lost control?
When Was the Book of Daniel Written?
Before going further, it helps to name a debate a thoughtful reader will eventually meet. The traditional and confessional position is that Daniel was written in the sixth century BC by Daniel himself, an exile who lived through the events he records and received genuine predictive prophecy about the empires to come. This is the view the book itself presents, and it is the view assumed throughout the New Testament.
Many critical scholars argue instead for a second-century BC date, during the crisis under Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Their central reason is that Daniel's later chapters describe the Greek period with such accuracy that, on their assumptions, the material must have been written after the fact. That reasoning rests on a prior conclusion that detailed predictive prophecy does not happen. If God does speak the future, the traditional dating stands without strain. It is worth being honest that the debate exists; it is also worth seeing that it turns less on the evidence than on whether one allows for real prophecy at all.
The Dream of the Statue: Kingdoms That Fall
In chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that torments him, and he demands that his wise men interpret it and, impossibly, first tell him what he dreamed. They cannot. Daniel can, because God reveals it to him. The dream is a great statue: a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, middle and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron mixed with clay. Then a stone, cut out by no human hand, strikes the statue's feet and shatters the whole thing, and the stone grows into a mountain that fills the earth.
Daniel explains that the metals are a succession of kingdoms, beginning with Babylon and declining through the ages that follow. Interpreters have long identified the classic sequence as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, though the precise labels are debated. The point of the dream, however, is not the metals. It is the stone.
"And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed... it shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever." (Daniel 2:44)
Human empires rise gleaming and fall to rubble. Every one of them. And into that history God will insert a kingdom of a different kind, one no army founds and no army can topple. The stone is cut without hands, meaning it is God's own work and not a human achievement. For a captive people watching Babylon's glory, this was staggering news: the empire that owned them was already on the clock.
The Fiery Furnace and "But If Not"
Chapter 3 puts the theme to the test. Nebuchadnezzar erects a golden image and commands everyone to bow. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse. Threatened with a furnace, they give one of the bravest answers in all of Scripture.
"Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up." (Daniel 3:17-18)
Read those two small words again: but if not. Their faith does not depend on being rescued. They believe God can save them, they hope he will, and they resolve to obey him even if he does not. That is worship stripped of bargaining. They will not serve the idol whether the furnace kills them or spares them.
God does deliver them. Thrown in bound, they walk in the fire unbound, and the astonished king sees a fourth figure with them.
"I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods." (Daniel 3:25)
Who is the fourth man? Christian tradition has often seen a preincarnate appearance of Christ, and that reading has a long and reverent history. It is worth noting, though, that the words are Nebuchadnezzar's pagan description, and a few verses later the king himself credits God for sending "his angel" to rescue them (Daniel 3:28). Scripture does not name the figure outright. What it declares plainly is that the God of Israel was present in the fire with his servants, and that is the comfort the chapter means to give.
Pride Humbled, Kingdoms Weighed
Chapters 4 and 5 are twin studies in pride. Nebuchadnezzar, at the height of his power, boasts over the Babylon he has built, and God humbles him with a season of madness until he lifts his eyes to heaven and confesses the truth.
"All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand." (Daniel 4:35)
The most powerful man alive learns that he rules only because heaven allows it. His successor learns the same lesson far more harshly. In chapter 5, King Belshazzar throws a drunken feast using the sacred vessels looted from the Jerusalem temple, and a disembodied hand writes on the wall: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, and PARSIN. Daniel reads the verdict. The king has been weighed in the balances and found wanting, and his kingdom is given to the Medes and Persians. That very night Babylon fell to the armies of Cyrus in 539 BC, exactly as the writing declared. The empire of gold, the head of the statue, was finished.
Daniel in the Lions' Den
By chapter 6 the empire has changed hands, and Daniel, now an old man, serves the new Persian administration under Darius the Mede. His rivals, jealous of his standing, cannot find any corruption to accuse him of, so they trap him using the one thing they know is unshakable: his devotion to God. They persuade the king to sign a decree that no one may pray to any god or man except the king for thirty days. Daniel's response is quietly magnificent.
"When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house... He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously." (Daniel 6:10)
He does not stage a protest or hide in a cellar. He simply keeps praying, windows open toward Jerusalem, as he always has. His faithfulness is not a reaction to the decree; it is the settled habit of a lifetime, and no law can dislodge it. So he is thrown to the lions, and God shuts their mouths.
"My God sent his angel and shut the lions' mouths, and they have not harmed me, because I was found blameless before him." (Daniel 6:22)
The identity of Darius the Mede is one of the historical puzzles of the book, and scholars have proposed several careful solutions. The theological point is unmistakable regardless: the God who ruled the fire rules the lions, and the empires may change their flags while his protection of his people does not.
One Like a Son of Man
At chapter 7 the book turns, and the visions begin. Daniel sees four dreadful beasts rising from a churning sea, each stranger and more violent than the last, a picture of the same succession of empires shown to Nebuchadnezzar, now seen from heaven's side as monstrous rather than magnificent. Then the scene shifts to a courtroom. The Ancient of Days takes his throne, his clothing white as snow, and the books are opened. And into that throne room comes a figure who changes everything.
"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. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away." (Daniel 7:13-14)
The beasts came up from the sea, from below, out of the chaos of the nations. This figure comes on the clouds of heaven, from above. Where the beasts seized power by violence, dominion is given to him by God. And where every empire in the statue eventually crumbles, his kingdom will never pass away. He is human in appearance, one like a son of man, yet he receives worship and eternal rule that belong to God alone.
This vision would become the single most important background for how Jesus spoke about himself. We will return to it, because it is where Daniel's whole book has been pointing.
The Seventy Weeks
Chapter 9 finds Daniel doing something rare in an apocalyptic book: praying. Reading Jeremiah, he realizes the seventy years of exile are nearly complete, and he confesses his people's sins and pleads for mercy. In answer, the angel Gabriel brings one of the most discussed prophecies in the Bible, the vision of seventy weeks, or seventy sevens, decreed for Daniel's people and holy city.
"Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness." (Daniel 9:24)
Christians have interpreted the timeline of the seventy weeks in several ways, and sincere believers still differ over its precise chronology and how much of it remains future. Those differences are real and worth studying with humility. What the passage states as its goal, however, is not obscure at all. The seventy weeks are decreed to finish transgression, to atone for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness. The prophecy goes on to say that an anointed one will be cut off and will have nothing (Daniel 9:26). An anointed one, cut off, to make atonement and bring in righteousness that lasts forever: whatever the calendar, the center of the seventy weeks is a Messiah who dies to deal with sin once and for all.
Resurrection and the Time of the End
The final vision, spanning chapters 10 through 12, pulls back the curtain further than anywhere else. Daniel is shown that behind the clash of visible kingdoms there is an unseen conflict, that history's turmoil is watched and governed by God, and that the future holds a time of trouble unlike any before it. And then, near the very end of the Old Testament's long story, Daniel is given a promise that reaches past death itself.
"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." (Daniel 12:2)
This is one of the clearest statements of bodily resurrection in the entire Old Testament. The hope of Daniel is not merely that empires fall and God's people endure their lifetime. It is that the dead will rise, some to everlasting life and some to judgment, and that God's servants will be vindicated at last.
"And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever." (Daniel 12:3)
Daniel is told to seal up the words and go his way; he will rest, and rise to his allotted place at the end of the days. The book that opened with a young man's quiet resolve closes with the promise that faithfulness reaches all the way through the grave.
Daniel and the Son of Man Who Came
Centuries after Daniel sealed his scroll, a man stood trial before the high priest of Israel. He had spent his ministry calling himself by a curious title, "the Son of Man," a phrase that could sound ordinary yet carried the weight of Daniel 7 for anyone with ears to hear. When the high priest finally demanded under oath whether he was the Christ, the answer left no room for confusion.
"And Jesus said, 'I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.'" (Mark 14:62)
That was Daniel 7, quoted at the decisive moment of Jesus' life. He was claiming to be the one like a son of man who comes on the clouds to the Ancient of Days, the one given everlasting dominion over all peoples and nations. The high priest understood exactly what he meant and tore his robes. In Jesus, the vision had a face.
And every thread of Daniel gathers into him. The stone cut without hands, the kingdom that no empire can destroy, is the kingdom Christ announced and inaugurated. The atonement decreed within the seventy weeks was accomplished when the anointed one was cut off at the cross to finish transgression and bring in everlasting righteousness. Even the resurrection Daniel glimpsed in the dust finds its firstfruits in Jesus, who declared that a day is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice.
"An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life." (John 5:28-29)
So the book of Daniel is far more than a collection of brave stories and strange dreams. It is a sustained argument that God rules the whole sweep of history, that faithfulness in exile is never wasted, and that every kingdom of gold and iron is passing away to make room for one that will not. Daniel kept his windows open toward a Jerusalem in ruins because he trusted the God who would one day set up a kingdom that stands forever. We now know that kingdom's King. He is the Son of Man who came on the clouds, was cut off for our sins, rose from the dust, and reigns at the right hand of Power. And in his hands, unlike every empire Daniel watched rise and fall, the dominion will never pass away.
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