Daniel
Daniel is one of the young men of Juda carried to Babylon in the third year of Joakim. He is renamed Baltasar, refuses the king’s table, reads Nabuchodonosor’s dream of the image, and is set over the province of Babylon. His three companions, Ananias, Azarias and Misael, are renamed Sedrach, Abdenago and Misach, and in the Septuagint the prayer of Azarias and the song of the three stand inside chapter 3. Daniel reads the writing on the wall, is cast into the den of lions and delivered by the Lord’s angel, and sees the Ancient of days and one coming with the clouds of heaven as the Son of man. Ezekiel names him beside Noe and Job, and Matthew has Jesus speak of “the abomination of the desolation” spoken of by the prophet Daniel.
In Scripture
Taken to Babylon
In the third year of Joakim, Nabuchodonosor takes the vessels of the house of God and young men of Juda to Babylon. Daniel is given the name Baltasar, purposes in his heart not to defile himself with the king’s table, and God gives him understanding in all visions and dreams.
The king’s dream
Daniel and his friends seek mercies from the God of heaven over the mystery, and it is revealed to him in a vision of the night. He tells the king the image and the stone cut out of a mountain without hands, and says the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed. The king falls on his face, says “your God is a God of gods,” and sets Daniel over the province of Babylon.
The fiery furnace
Sedrach, Misach and Abdenago will not serve the king’s gods or worship the image, and are cast into the burning fiery furnace. Azarias prays in the midst of the fire and the three sing; the king then sees four men loose and walking in the fire, the appearance of the fourth like the Son of God, and says God sent his angel. This verse is 3:92 here and 3:25 in English Bibles, where the chapter is 30 verses long.
A king humbled
Nabuchodonosor writes to all nations of the signs the most high God has wrought with him. At the end of the time his reason returns, and he blesses the Most High: all that walk in pride he is able to abase.
The writing on the wall
At Baltasar’s feast the fingers of a man’s hand write on the wall. Daniel reads it: Mane, Thekel, Phares. God has measured the kingdom and finished it, it has been weighed and found wanting, and it is divided to the Medes and Persians. In the same night the king is slain.
The lions’ den
The governors and satraps seek an occasion against Daniel and find none, because he was faithful. He is cast into the den of lions, a stone is put on its mouth and sealed with the king’s ring, and the king spends the night fasting. Very early in the morning he comes in haste and cries out to Daniel, who answers, “My God has sent his angel, and stopped the lions’ mouths.” Chapter 6 is numbered one verse higher here than in English Bibles, so this is 6:23 here and 6:22 in English.
The Son of man and the Ancient of days
Four great beasts come up out of the sea. Daniel sees the thrones set, the Ancient of days sit, the judgment sit and the books opened, and one coming with the clouds of heaven as the Son of man, who is brought near to the Ancient of days and given dominion over all nations. The saints of the Most High take the kingdom.
The seventy years and the seventy weeks
Daniel understands by books the seventy years of Jeremias, and turns to the Lord in prayer, fasting and sackcloth, confessing his sins and the sins of his people. Gabriel comes flying at the hour of the evening sacrifice and tells him seventy weeks have been determined upon his people and the holy city. From the going forth of the command for the building of Jerusalem “until Christ the prince” there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks, and after the sixty-two the anointed one shall be destroyed. In the midst of the week the sacrifice is taken away, and on the temple shall be the abomination of desolations.
Gabriel and Michael
Gabriel is told to make Daniel understand the vision. In chapter 10 a man clothed in linen says the prince of the kingdom of the Persians withstood him twenty-one days until Michael, one of the princes, came to help, and that no one holds with him in these matters but Michael, your prince.
The end
Michael the great prince stands up and a time of tribulation comes. Many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to everlasting shame. Daniel is told to close the words and seal the book to the time of the end, and to go and rest, for he shall stand in his lot at the end of the days.
Ezekiel
The Lord names Noe, Daniel and Job as the three who alone would be delivered by their righteousness, and tells Ezekiel to say to the prince of Tyrus, “Art thou wiser than Daniel?”
New Testament
Jesus tells his disciples to flee when they see “the abomination of the desolation” spoken of by the prophet Daniel, and tells the high priest he will see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of heaven. Hebrews 11 lists those who “shut the mouths of lions” and “quenched the power of fire.” Revelation says, “He is coming with the clouds.”