NOTES ON THE FIRST READINGS FOR THE THIRTY-FOURTH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME

(Cycle 1)

(if a festal day falls on any of these days, the readings of the feast are used instead)

For the last week of the Church year, we turn to the book of Daniel, which, with its vision of the final victory of the Messiah, suitably concludes the year’s readings.

The book was written during the reign of the pagan king Antiochus Epiphanes, whose oppression of the Jews, provoking the Maccabees’ revolt, was described last week. The book’s intention was to console and reassure Jews during this time of oppression; God can depose kings and set up new ones, so that the tyranny will not last for ever. The author makes use of a common device by taking a character of the past (Daniel) and putting onto his lips, or into his ears, various prophecies of ‘future’ happenings which in fact are in the present for the original readers of this book.

We are told that Daniel was one of those exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon when Jerusalem fell in 587BC. There is no hard evidence that Daniel actually existed, but never mind; he is a character of religious folklore and the stories about him, the wonders God allows him to achieve, his wisdom and his interpretation of dreams are all intended to present a theological truth.

Antiochus Epiphanes died in 164BC and Daniel was presumably written shortly before that, and certainly after Antiochus’ desecration of the Temple, which is described in this book. The author (or authors, for there may well have been more than one, and certainly various editors have had a hand in the compilation) shows an interest in the end of the world, and – though not in our extracts – the resurrection of the dead, thus betraying a comparatively late date of writing.

The book divides into two halves: chapters 1-6 are stories of Daniel in Babylon, chapters 7-12 contain four visions of kingdoms, of which we only read the first.

Monday: Daniel 1: 1-6, 8-20. We are told of Daniel’s deportation to Babylon (the author uses the ancient term Shinar, found in Genesis, to give a suitable sense of antiquity). Being noble and intelligent, he, along with Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, is chosen to be instructed in the culture of the Chaldaeans (the Chaldaeans were actually early invaders of Babylon who mingled with the native stock, ‘Chaldaean’ also being used as a general term for astrologer, soothsayer, magician). Daniel and the others plead not to be made to eat the food of the Babylonian court, which would defile them (the relevance of this to King Antiochus’ attempts to force Jews to eat pork is obvious). Here we see the author projecting the food laws of his time back into the 6th. century, when we know things were much more lenient.

Tuesday: Daniel 2: 31-45. Daniel interprets the king’s dream when the Chaldaeans could not. In fact the king required not only an interpretation; he actually wanted the dream described, and did not tell them it! Only Daniel could meet this demand. The dream is of a statue composed of different metals. In other cultures there were traditions about the ages of the world based on metals (gold, silver, bronze, iron). Here the metals stand for empires. Gold, silver, steel and iron+clay represent, in chronological order, (1) Babylon (2) the Medes (3) the Persians (4) the ‘Greeks’, i.e. Alexander the Great and his successors. In the folk interpretation of history each of these empires destroyed the previous one; in actual fact the Medes did not conquer Babylon: the Persians conquered the Medes and then took Babylon. The fourth empire is described as composite, because Alexander’s empire was divided among his army generals. Two of these, Syria and Egypt, rose to prominence - the line of Antiochus was the Syrian one – and were eventually to fight each other. The stone breaking from the mountain and destroying the statue represents God’s holy people, though for the New Testament interpretation the stone is Christ.

Wednesday: Daniel 5: 1-6, 13-14, 16-17, 23-28. The king here is one Belshazzar, son of Nebuchadnezzar. This is inaccurate, but no matter; in history there was a Belsarrausur, son of the last Chaldaean king, Nabonidus. The point is that the king’s banquet is sacrilegious: it uses the vessels looted from the Jerusalem temple, and the hall is lit by the seven-branched Temple lampstand. When the writing appears on the wall, the king promises Daniel he will be a “third” (= a high official) in the kingdom if he can interpret it. This parallels the story of the Pharaoh and Joseph in Genesis. The writing would have been in consonant script, omitting the vowels: mn, tql, prs. These could be mene, teqel, peres (which were values of currency) or mena, teqal, peras (meaning ‘he counted’, ‘he weighed’, ‘he divided’). Prs also gives the interpretation paras (=Persians), appropriately in view of their overthrow of the Babylonian empire.

Thursday: Daniel 6: 12-28. Daniel in the lions’ den. The court officials (‘satraps’ are regional officials), jealous of Daniel, persuade the king to sign an edict forbidding anyone to pray for 30 days to anyone but the king alone (not that this is something which in the context of Persian culture would ever have actually happened). While some Persian kings might have been unable to revoke an edict they had issued, this is certainly not the case with the king in today’s reading, who although called “Darius the Mede” was in fact Darius I of Persia, who conquered Babylon in 521. He was not a ruler likely to be held back by any impediment of tradition.

Friday: Daniel 7: 2-14. Lastly, today and tomorrow we read the first of the four visions which conclude the book. It is a vision of four beasts, which like the metals in the statue (Tuesday) represent four empires. Friday’s reading is quite difficult and is not helped by the fact that the text has probably become disarranged (we can tell this by comparison with the book of the Apocalypse, where this text of Daniel is used in a version differing from our present text). It is clear that each beast, representative of a kingdom, has a numerical significance.

As the reading stands, we have the following:-

1)  a lion with eagle’s wings; the eagle’s wings are torn off, the creature is lifted upright and given a human heart.

2)  a bear, raised up on one side, with three ribs in its mouth, commanded to eat quantities of flesh.

3)  a leopard with four wings and four heads.

4)  a beast with great teeth and ten horns; a small horn sprouts from amongst them and causes three of the original horns to be pulled out.

Rearranging this in accordance with the text of the Apocalypse, Nos. 3 & 4 remain the same. But we now have:-

1)  a lion with eagle’s wings, with three fangs (‘ribs’) in its mouth, commanded to eat quantities of flesh. The wings are then torn off.

2)  a bear raised up on one side and given a human heart.

These four beasts are then 1) Babylon: the three fangs are the three kings of Babylon named in the Bible, consuming flesh by virtue of being a conqueror, but losing its wings when the Persians destroy the power of the Babylonians.

2) The Medes, the “one side” representing the one king of the Medes named in the Bible,

given a human heart by virtue of aiding humanity in destroying the Babylonians (we have already seen that popular history ascribed this to the Medes rather than the Persians)

3)  The Persians, with four kings named in the Bible.

4)  The Greeks, successors of Alexander the Great. The tenth horn is Antiochus Epiphanes who defeated three kings in Egypt and Armenia. The verdict of the heavenly court then destroys the fourth beast. The others are “deprived of their power”, lingering on as petty kingdoms but not empires. In this way the book of Daniel reassures persecuted Jews that Antiochus Epiphanes will be overthrown.

The heavenly vision culminates in the coming of a “son of man”. In earlier writings, this title was the personification of the heavenly kingdom. In later thought, the title was identified with the Messiah (this development occurring about two centuries before Christ). In the New Testament, Christ applies this title to himself.

Saturday: Daniel 7: 15-27. The interpretation of the fourth beast, making clear the reference is to Antiochus Epiphanes, who did away with Jewish feasts, sabbath and Law. However, the beast’s domination will only be for “a time, two times, and half a time”, a cryptic way of saying 3½ years. This is a symbolic figure: half of 7 years, half of the perfect time. 3½ years is the period of evil.