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Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast. Powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. Let's be honest, a lot of us are still treating digital ministry like it's a backup plan from 2020. But discipleship isn't just happening on Sundays anymore. People need gospel centered connection every day of the week. And if you're stuck juggling five different platforms, one for giving, another for sermons, something else for events, it's no wonder engagement feels off. That's not ministry, that's a mess. Subsplash changes that one platform. Everything you need, media, giving, events, messaging, your app, your website built specifically for churches. No hacks, no workarounds, just clarity and simplicity. Because every day you wait, families scroll past your sermons, new guests click away from clunky sites, and real people miss real moments with Jesus. Don't waste another summer stuck in digital survival mode. Use it to get ahead, simplify, upgrade, get back to what matters. Head to subsplash.combible-dept and schedule a free no pressure demo. And let this be the summer your church gets focused and fully equipped family. Welcome to day 242. We are finishing up the Book of Daniel today. We've got Daniel chapters 10, 11 and 12. But to be honest, there's a couple of things from chapter nine that I'm gonna wanna touch on. And we will do that as long as we've got time to do that in this episode. So you can kind of see this as maybe some loose ends that I didn't get a chance to deal with yesterday. But really mainly we're gonna deal with chapters 10, 11 and 12. And we're really, really, really gonna key in on chapter 11. So I'm gonna try to tackle everything, but you know, I don't have all the time in the world. This isn't like a full blown course on the Book of Daniel, but I'm trying to gonna, I'm gonna try to give you as much as I can. If you've done the reading, you're probably a little confused. I'm not gonna lie. This isn't like the most obvious, like blatantly obvious reading in the world. But if you've done the reading, let's dive in. If you have not done the reading, then I am going to suggest that you stop this video Pause the audio and get the reading done. Because these episodes are not designed to substitute Bible reading, but to supplement Bible reading. So let's dive in. I really want to give context. Context, actually really, really easy. Shouldn't take as long at all. Then we'll dive into some nerdy nuggets. Most of them will come from chapter 11, just a heads up. And then we'll dive into our timeless truth. So the final part of Daniel from chapter 10, verse 1, all the way to the very, very last word, has the exact same context. And this entire, you know, three chapters, it's divided by these chapters, but it's just one prophetic vision. Okay? And the date given for these visions are the third year of Cyrus's reign, 24th day of the first month. This would place it around 536 B.C. remember, Babylon falls in 539 B.C. and so Cyrus starts reigning. The first year of Cyrus's reign would have been 539 B.C. so three years into his reign, you got 536 B.C. that is the context for these words. And just to remind you, Daniel's just an old man at this point. This man is well into his 80s. He would have been somewhere between the ages. I'll give you a range. Somewhere between 15 to 25, when he was taken off into captivity. And he's been in Babylon amongst Pagans for about 70 years. Okay, so he's somewhere between 85 to 95 years old. This is an old guy. So he's taken into captivity in 605 BC and it is 536 BC you can do the math. He. The man is. The man's old. All right, the man's. The man's old. All right, let's. I know it may be odd. That's our context. Okay? That's the context that we need. I know it may be odd that I'm skipping chapter 10, but really, I got a lot to cover in chapter 11, and I want to make sure that we use our time well. So I'm going to get to chapter 11. Now, what you may not know is that from chapter 11, verse 1, all the way to verse 35, chapter 11, verse 1, all THE way to 35, all covers prophecy that's already been fulfilled. Okay? Once you get to verse 36 onward, this is. Most scholars believe stuff that has not been fulfilled yet. So in 35 verses, we are going to have 135 fulfilled prophecies. Okay, 135 fulfilled prophecies. This is some of the most accurate, detailed, prophetic predictions in the entire Bible, right here in Daniel, chapter 11. The predictions are so accurate we can line them up like line for line with what happened in history, our past, Daniel's future, what happened in history that a lot of scholars, like, even conservative scholars, reputable scholars, all kind of believe Daniel was probably written later. Okay. I'm not necessarily in that camp, but a lot of people will really doubt whether or not Daniel was written like during the exile, but that maybe Daniel was written way later, maybe even closer to the Maccabean revolt. Because a lot of the details about the Maccabean revolt in the time period circling the Maccab or surrounding the Maccabean, Maccabean revolt are going to get talked about. So let's dive into Daniel, chapter 11. Okay. And we're not gonna look at all 135 fulfilled prophecies, but we can look at a solid amount of these prophecies. Okay, let's just start with verse two to four. I'm just gonna kind of read these as quickly as I can. I mean, it's like reading a history book, but it's straight up prophecy. And Daniel is going to predict the future really, really accurately. Verses 2 to 4 Persian kings are mentioned, which could be Cyrus the Great, Cambyses, Darius I, or Xerxes. Xerxes fits the bill of the Persian king who stirs up everybody against Greece, as he was the king who invaded Greece, defeated the 300 Spartans and their allies at Thermopylae. Thermopylae. Thermopylae. Thermopylae. I don't. Thermopylae. I think it's maybe Thermopylae. Yeah, you can fact check me. Thermopylae. Let me know in the comments. Is it Thermopylae? Thermopylae. Thermopylae. You tell me. Okay. But then was defeated on land at Plataea and at the Sea of salamis. Okay. Verse 3, chapter 11, verse 3. The mighty King who rules with great dominion would be Alexander the Great of Macedon, who defeated, conquered and expanded the Persian Empire. Chapter 11, verse 4. The kingdom, Alexander the Great's kingdom is divided into four winds, not to his actual heir or heirs, but it speaks of how Alexander's heir never succeeded him, but his empire broke into four parts, ruled by his generals. On Alexander the Great's deathbed, he was asked who should reign in your place? And his response was the strong, which essentially set these four guys up to fight each other. But anyway, neither here nor there. It's just A history nugget, chapter 11, verses 5 to 6. We're actually going to get into who the king of the south is and who the king of the north is. The kingdom is going to get split into four. Four generals are going to take it. The two that are really, really important are going to be the king of the north and the king of the south. Who is the king of the south? That would be Ptolemy. Okay, P T O L E M Y Ptolemy. It's a silent P ktolemy is going to be the king of the south because he's going to take Egypt that entire territory. King of the north is going to be Seleucus. So these are two generals, Ptolemy and Seleucus. The king of the north is going to take Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia. And you're going to have the Ptolemaic Empire and the Seleucid Empire. Okay? So the Greek empire or Alexander the Great's empire, going to get split up into four. But the two really, really important parts, especially for Daniel, are going to be the king of the north and the king of the south. King of the south, which is Egypt, is going to be Ptolemy, and king of the north is going to be Seleucus. All right, chapter 11, verse seven to eight fits the reign of Ptolemy III. That's the king of the South. Okay. Verse nine of chapter 11, Antigus III or Antigus II actually king of the north. This is gonna talk about him and his sons. Chapter 11, verses 11 to 12 is describing the war between Antiochus III and Ptolemy IV, in which Ptolemy took Judea from the Seleucids. Then in verse 13 to 16 of chapter 11 is gonna describe Antiochus III. Okay, so this is the next generation. Antiochus III retook Judea from the Ptolemies. He did so with the support of a pro Seleucid Jewish camp who welcomed him back as a Liberator. This around 198 BC. Remember, Daniel's not describing these events. He is predicting these events, but he is describing them with such accuracy, it seems like he is actually describing them, which again, is going to lead a lot of scholars to believe that this content is written actually during the time period. Okay, he's not looking at you a crystal ball. He's looking at that newspaper. But we believe that he's actually a prophet. All right, let's go. Chapter 11, verse 17 and 19 is the aftermath of that war between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids. First is there's a peace that's made in which Antiochus marries his daughter, the future Cleopatra I, to the Ptolemaic heir, the future Ptolemy V. Okay? But then he tried to extend his territory on the coastlands, but was prevented by a commander, which is a reference to the Roman general Scipio, whose power prevented Antiochus from increasing his kingdom even more. It then ends with Antiochus death near Susa. Then we get chapter 11, verse 20, looks at his successor, Seleucus IV, who sends an emissary to collect his tribute. A man by the name of Heliodorus, but is soon assassinated. Chapter 11, verse 21 to 35. He is succeeded by Antiochus IV. Now, Antiochus IV is a very well known figure in history and a thorn in Israel's flesh. This guy was terrible. This guy sucked bad, okay? A lot of people call him Antiochus IVs 4th or Antiochus Epiphanes or Antiochus Epiphanes. I've heard it pronounced all kinds of ways by different scholars. I like Antiochus Epiphanes. That just feels fancy to me. Okay, so this is Antiochus the force. The. I keep saying the force, but it's the fourth Antiochus iv, okay, Is a contemptible person. And the rest of this section deals with his story. So how he executed Onias iii, the high priest, but made alliances with leading Jews. Verse 22 to 24. This happened in 171 B.C. he would then go to war with Ptolemy. The fifth, I'm pretty sure, or the sixth. Sometimes I'm not that good at reading Roman numerals. Okay, from chapters, that's verses 25 to 26, which would end with deceitful negotiations. Verse 27. Returning home, he would increase his pressure on Hellenizing the Jews. Verse 28. Another war would break out, another invasion of Egypt, but this time Antiochus was forced to withdraw because the presence of the Roman navy came to help the Ptolemies. This shame and anger would then lead to Antiochus taking out his frustration on the Jews and ruthlessly trying to make them Greek. And this is verse 29 and 30. Now what you need to see is that Israel was, I mean, perfectly or imperfectly, unfortunately, really situated between the king of the south and the king of the north. Okay? If you were going to travel to get down to the south, which is Egypt, and you were coming from Persia, you'd have to go through Israel. So what's happening is that Antiochus Epiphanes goes down to Israel of gets his butt kicked and on a tantrum back up to the north, passes through Israel and really Makes life very difficult for the Jewish people. Okay? This is also like this. This historically, this stuff is. Stuff is happening after the Hebrew Bible's done, okay? So after the last book of the Hebrew Bible in, before Matthew, Christians would call this the 400 silent years. Okay? The intertestamental period is when this historical. These historical events are actually taking place. All right, let's keep moving. This would include forbidding sacrifices in the temple. Okay? So he wants to Hellenize them, which Hellenization means to make someone Greek. He's forcing Greek culture down their throats. There was even a process during this time period where people could reverse their circumcisions as a means to try to Hellenize them. All right? So he forbid sacrifice in the temple. He outlaws circumcision and outlaws the Sabbath and dedicates the temple to Zeus. Now, when he dedicates the temple to Zeus, whew, this is rough. He sacrifices a pig on the brazen or the bronze altar, all right? And gets pig blood all over the temple. I mean, this is terrible. This is what Daniel's gonna call the abomination that leads to desolation. The abomination that leads to desolation. Why is this important? Because Jesus is going to talk about the abomination that leads to desolations, okay? In Mark 13:14, and in Matthew, chapter 24, verse 15 and 16, here's what Jesus says. So when you see standing in the holy place, the abomination that causes desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel, let the reader understand, okay? Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. So Jesus is going to essentially communicate that the abomination that leads to desolation is something that Daniel prophesied would happen. But that prophecy is fulfilled in its lifetime, but then can be recycled. Like, the prophecy can get reactivated. So now there's another abomination that leads to desolation, and it's actually gonna happen in 70 A.D. jesus is gonna warn about it. And so it's a desecration of the temple that leads to the desolation of the temple. So in the 35 verses, we just. I mean, we just ran through. We didn't even walk through them. We ran through, okay, over 135 unique prophecies were fulfilled. And that's just incredible. Okay? It's so incredible that a lot of scholars just think, yeah, like Daniel, they. They don't really place Daniel in a Babylonian time period. They place Daniel way later in this post Alexander the Great time period. They really see that the book of Daniel has a lot to say about the holiness of the Jewish people in the face of Hellenization. And what do these two things have in common? Well, Daniel in his lifetime is having to maintain his identity and language and culture in the face of Babylonian persecution. And the Jews living in the intertestamental period are having to maintain their language, their culture, their identity, their customs, their religion and their faith in the face of Hellenization. This problem or this issue of Hellenization is not gonna go away. By the time Jesus is walking the streets of Jerusalem. The big question is, how do we engage with Greek culture? Or how do we respond to Greek culture? That's a better word. How do we respond to Greek culture? And what the book of Daniel actually shows us is there's three things that you can do, and two of these are bad, and one of these is how you're actually supposed to act. And Daniel is the poster child for it. Okay? Number one, you can escape it. You can do what in Jesus's time the Qumran community is going to do. These are the Essenes. These are the people who go out to the wilderness. They're like, we don't want anything to do with Greek culture. We don't want to dirty ourselves. We're going to remain holy, we're going to separate, we're going to get out of here, we're going to escape, okay? And we're not going to. We're not going to be around wicked, sinful people at all. The opposite extreme is to embody culture, the secular culture. This is what I would call assimilation. Okay? Instead of escaping, you embody. You're not just of the world. You're not just in the world, you are of the world. Both of these extremes are extremes. Obviously escaping is better than just embodying. But the person who escapes can't evangelize, right? Like, they don't have a witness. There's no one to evangelize to. They don't know any body who needs salvation. The third is what Daniel personifies, and it is what I believe Daniel wants the future generations to personify who are under Antiochus, Antiochus, Epiphany, Antioches, Epiphanes, reign, and that is engage. So there's escape, embody, engagement. And that leads us to our Thomas truth that those are the three options that we have. Like, we can escape, we can embody, or we can engage family. The wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold, literally. Today I walked into A Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books a Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. Hey, are you looking for a really cool gift or just solid tools to support your faith in daily Life? Check out Mr. Pen. They've got no bleed Bible pens and highlighters that actually work on thin Bible pages. Journaling Bibles, Bible tabs and faith based journals. Even school supplies for parents, teachers and students. Mr. Penn was started by Christian teachers in Louisiana on a mission to serve the schools in their local community. Community. And now They've got over 100,000 five star reviews on Amazon. I'm a huge fan of their Bible highlighters and pens. Super smooth and gentle enough to write notes in the margin of your Bible. 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And so I kind of wanna do some math with you to help you out. Okay? So if you go to Daniel chapter nine, I'll just straight Read this for you. All right, verse 24 of Daniel, chapter 9. Daniel, chapter 9, verse 24 says this. 77s are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring an everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place. No one understand this. From the time the word goes on to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the anointed one, the ruler, comes, there will be seven sevens and 62 sevens. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench. But in times of trouble. Okay, so let's like, let's actually break this down. So we've got seven sevens, which is actually 49 years, and then 62 sevens, which is actually 434 years, which total 483 years. Now you can't do this with a Julian calendar, which is our modern Western calendar, but you can do this with a Babylonian and Jewish calendar. You can actually figure out how many days that is. That is actually 483 years is actually 173,880 days. Now some brilliant mathematicians have actually figured this out. And here's what the Bible's gonna tell us. That when does the clock start ticking? It says that the clock starts ticking from the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem from the anointed and then until the anointed one. Okay, so it says from the time that the decree goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. That's going to happen in Nehemiah chapter two. We actually have a precise date for that. That's March 14, 445 BC. And if you take 173,880 days after that date where Xerxes declared that he was going to allow the children of Israel to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild their town, their city. Here's what we get. We actually get April 6, 32 AD. You want to know what happens on April 6, 32 AD? Jesus is actually going to ride into Jerusalem in Luke chapter 19 on a donkey on the exact day that the Jewish people would have chosen lambs for slaughter. This actually would have been the 10th of Nisan. In the Jewish calendar, the 10th of Nisan is the day where they selected a lamb that would get slaughtered on the 14th of Nisan. So on the 10th of Nisan, you get what we call the triumphal entry. And Jesus comes into Jerusalem on the triumphal entry. And he's got some interesting words in Luke chapter 19. I'm actually going to read them for you. Because Jesus is actually disappointed that the people were not ready to receive him with faith. Verse 41 of Luke chapter 19 says this. As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, if you even you had only known on this day what would bring you peace. But now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in from every side. That's 70 A.D. they will dash you to the ground, you and your children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another because you did not know or recognize the time or the day of God's coming to you. Well, what's fascinating is that based on Daniel, they were supposed to know the day, they were supposed to realize that the decree went out on March 14, 445 BC, and that on April 6, 32 AD, exactly 483 years, like into the future, based on just some math from the Book of Daniel that their Messiah would come. What does it say here in the Book of Daniel? It says, know this. From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, the Anointed One, the ruler, the Messiah, the Prince comes. There will be seven sevens and 62 sevens. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench. But in times of Trouble, after the 62 Sevens, the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood. War will continue until the end and desolations have been decreed. He will confirm a covenant with many for 1 7. In the middle of the seven, he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation until the end that is decreed is poured out on him. Now I believe that the Jewish people were supposed to know April 6, 32 AD their anointed one, their ruler would actually come and he would get put to death as a sacrifice not for himself, but for, but for them and for us. And so I really wanted to run through chapter 11 and just show how many prophecies got fulfilled and then go back to chapter nine and show if there's a prophetic role in office. It is the gift to prepare us for what is next. And I, I don't like using the Bible as a way to try to figure out when Jesus is going to come back. But I do believe that the people were given clues to figure out when Jesus was gonna arrive the first time. However, the timeless truth in all of this is that the people of God are never called to escape culture. We're definitely not called to embody culture. We're always called to engage with culture and like Daniel to stand up and be salt and be light. That's not just true for Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael. That's not just true for the Jews living under the oppressive regime of Antiochus Epiphanes. That's not just true during the Maccabean revolt or during Jesus's day. That is true for you and I today. That's a timeless truth. And I always love to end the episodes on A timeless Truth. All right, I hope that you've enjoyed this story of Daniel, who goes from a refugee to royalty. Love the Book of Daniel. Tomorrow we're in the Book of Obadiah. We got day 243 on the Bible reading plan. I'll be right here walking us through the Book of Obadiah. We're gonna cover all of Obadiah in just one day. It's gonna be fun. I'll be right here. How about you get a streak going if you already got a streak going? I'm so proud of you. I'll see you right here tomorrow for another episode of the Bible Department. I love you guys so much. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show@thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram. The Bible Department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses at the Bible Department. We'll see you back here tomorrow.