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Chapter 7:

In chapter 7, Babylon of course is the golden head. Then for the
silver parts of the great statue, we see Media and Persia, with
Persia the stronger of two. the third is the leopard, which goes
so fast as to barely touch the ground: this is Alexander with his
lightning conquests. But on his death, his empire at once breaks
into four parts under his generals. They are the Diadochi empires.

In Chapter 8, the ram is Persia which is greater than Media The
leopard is Alexander, whose conquests are so quick he hardly
touches the ground. But he dies young and his kingdom is broken
into four, the kingdoms of the Diadochi .A voice says this is for
end time.

Other records say it as Cyrus who took Babylon. But Josephus,
Antiquities. 5.2.50, says Darius, a kinsman of Cyrus made the
actual capture, while Cyrus was out fighting elsewhere.

We now turn back to the intervening chapters, 3, 4, 5, 6.

<Intervening chapters>: - the three men in the fiery furnace, the
vision of the giant tree, and the stories in the appendix
(chapters 13-14), could have served the purpose of encouraging the
Jews to perseverance in fidelity to their laws at a time of
persecution. The episode in chapter 4 of Nabuchodonosor's
temporary insanity (boanthropy) does seem strange. Yet we notice
that the Babylonian records carry no entries of activity on his
part between 582 and 575.

An objection used to be made about chapter 5: Baltassar is
presented as the last king of Babylon before its fall. But it was
said that the cuneiform records showed the last king was
Nabonidus. We now know that Nabonidus in the third year of his
reign, 553, made his son Baltassar coregent, and he himself left
for Tema in Arabia, where he stayed for about ten years, and never
reassumed the throne.

 

<In chapter 7 the four beasts rise from the sea>, showing they are
hostile and chaotic forces opposed to God. They seem to represent
the same sequence of kingdoms as the vision of the great statue in
chapter 2, except that here we get the detail of the small horn
that spoke arrogantly, which at least seems to many to be
<Antiochus IV of Syria.> But some details cannot fir Antiochus,
Modern scholars want to make it fit the events of the time of
Antiochus IV who persecuted the Jews, and desecrated the temple.
But he did not set himself up in the temple. Nor was there an
expiation of guilt after Antiochus, bringing everlasting justice.
The evil ruler in this passage magnifies himself above every god -
this does not fit Antiochus, who put not a statue of himself but
of Zeus in the Jerusalem temple. Verse 37 says he pays no
attention to any god -again, this does not fit Antiochus. St.
Jerome in his commentary on this passage thinks the figure is the
Antichrist. Already in 8:17 the angel-interpreter told Daniel that
the vision referred to the end-time. But we could make Antiochus a
weak prefiguration of the horror of the Antichrist. In 11:45 the
evil ruler will come to a sudden end, with no one to help him,
seemingly at the beautiful holy mountain, which probably means
Zion. But Antiochus met his end in Persia

Verses 13-18 still in chapter 7 includes the famous vision of one
like a son of man, who receives from the Ancient of Days dominion,
glory and kingship that will never be taken away forever.
Commentators like to make this individual son of man just the
"holy ones of the most high." But this is unrealistic, the Jewish
people never did get such a kingship, one that will last forever.
Nor would Jewish thought suppose a headless kingdom. However if
the figure is the Messiah, then we do have a rational explanation.
In Hebrew thought we often meet an individual who stands for and
as it were embodies a collectivity. Jesus often used the phrase
Son of Man to refer to Himself. This was part of His deliberately
gradual self-revelation.