Briefly describe the concept of a dual reference.
“One prophecy can foretell both events in the distant future and foreshadowing events in the nearer future.”
Before I tell you the meaning of the Greek word translated ‘parable,’ let’s recap yesterday‘s lesson. Based on our previous study, briefly explain why the Old Testament was translated into Greek from Hebrew.
“Koine Greek had become the common language throughout the empire; most of the known world.”
While we’re on the subject, to what does the abbreviation ‘LXX’ refer?
“The Greek translation of the Old Testament: the Septuagint.”
We ultimately come to know this ‘Little Horn’ of Daniel 7 by additional New Testament names. Please recall several of them in this space:
“The Man of Lawlessness, The Beast, and The Antichrist”
Please read Daniel 8:8-14. Record several horrific effects the more immediate small horn (Antiochus IV) would have on Israel, ‘the Beautiful Land.’
“It (he) demanded to be worshiped as God, outlawed daily sacrifices to God, defiled and desecrated the temple, and threw truth to the grounds.”
If you attended the [previous] session, please glance at your notes and write [the names of Alexander’s generals] for familiarity’s sake.
“Cassander, Lysinachus, Ptolemy and Seleucus”
Where in Daniel 8:9-12 do you see hints that Satan himself was at work with his own agenda?
“I’m not sure, but maybe 8:10, ‘it reached the host of heaven, and threw some of the starry host down to the Earth and trampled on them.’ Or perhaps 8:12a, ‘Because of rebellion…’ I’m not sure to whose rebellion it is referring (Satan’s or the Israelites’)”
Look back at the time period when Daniel received this prophetic vision. When did the vision come to him (Daniel 8:1)?
“In the third year of King Belshazzar’s reign ⚝?⚝ (which confuses me in the historic details of lesson 5)”
God is a God of timing. What do you recall about this particular king regarding his use of the sacred vessels that had been stolen from Jerusalem’s temple (Daniel 5:2-4 )?
“Belshazzar flagrantly disrespected sacred items from God’s Temple.”
If God allowed Satan to stop them from offering their sacrifices, what might the Jews have concluded?
“There was no way they could be eligible to approach God, and perhaps he didn’t even want them to do so.”
Dearest Rachel –
Transcribing this particular lesson reminded me of the insight you gleaned (and pointed out for further scrutiny) about how Satan has no clue when the end times will come and who the antichrist will be. As such, he has to raise up little antichrists throughout every generation of history. The fact that Daniel’s prophetic revelation of the ‘little horn’ can be applied to Antiochus Epiphanes as well as the ultimate ‘man of lawlessness’ who presumably is yet to come (because the world has yet to end, nearly three thousand years – or barely a million days – since) just goes to illustrate that fact.
What’s amazing is that history between then and now has been littered with those who would (for reasons beyond my comprehension – because who would surrender their immortal soul for such a brief time in the drivers’ seat? Or does each one in their turn truly think that they will somehow escape death, and their fading into the mists of history, while they go off into their eternal “reward” for their subjection to the real ‘prince of the power of the air’?) rule the world, more often than not for selfish reasons. It’s as if there is no end of folks willing to audition for the part of antichrist, even as you would think they should know that the role isn’t a victorious one in the end.
Then again, when the people who are supposedly God’s special people are subjugated under one’s own feet, maybe it is difficult to consider that the tables will turn, and the God whose neck one stands on (in the form of His vanquished children) will return the favor. Why should an all-powerful God pretend to lose, even for a short while, to an inferior opponent? It’s an odd situation, and one that, even with the whole Book before us – let alone the scraps and fragments available in those days – it’s hard to wrap our minds around.
Just as ·everyone [L people] ·must [is/are destined/appointed to] die once and ·then be judged [T after this the judgment]
Hebrews 9:27, Expanded Bible
To be sure, both this verse and the Roman world it was written in postdate Antiochus, but there is a part of their custom that all this reminds me of. On those rare occasions when a conquering general was feted with what they referred to as a “triumph” (the closest equivalent we might think of is a ticker-tape parade, and given that ticker tape has fallen out of use, we may never see anything like it again), there was supposedly a servant riding in the chariot with him, whispering repeatedly “remember you are mortal… remember you are mortal…”
Then again, to achieve such a pinnacle of conquest, a man would have had to have seen death; lots of it, some of it up close and personal. How could he not remember that? And given that he, too, supposedly answered to gods – many of which were petty and cruel, unlike the One we know and serve – why would he think he could usurp their place and get away with it? As you can tell, the ‘antichrists’ of old, and their motivations, baffle me. Then again, there are those who have been missed by bullets that begin to think of themselves as untouchable; why wouldn’t the same happen with those the sword swings miss as well?
Still, it does imply that, when the final generation arrives, the ‘man of lawlessness’ will be orders of magnitude worse than those in the past. If nothing else, the ancient conquerors may have felt compelled to offer fealty to some deity or another; our modern era has been tending toward the opinion that ‘man is the measure of all things.’ If there is no One to answer to in their mind, what is stopping the next would-be antichrist from being the worst they could possibly be?
…other than that they will only have so long with it all, before they have to say “so long” to it all.
Letters to Rachel 