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Future Shock
Sickened Daniel
When Daniel saw the end it was so overwhelming and incomprehensible, it made him sick.
Look at Daniel 10:14.
While in exile in Babylon, the prophet Daniel was given a vision of the future of Israel, up to the coming of the Messiah. Up to this point in the vision, those things that Daniel saw were relatively familiar, cities, events, and people in a context that were not too far removed from his concept of reality. But then he was shown the things to come in the last days.
The angel told him in Daniel 10:14 “Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days; for yet the vision is for many days.”
Daniel was so staggered by what he saw it made him faint, verse 18 records that ‘one like the appearance of a man’ touched him, and strengthened him so that he could go on.
Daniel tried to describe those things he saw using terminology that made sense to him, but it comes to us as a series of baffling symbols, images, and beasts. The things he saw terrified him.
Because the visions were so completely removed from his understanding of reality, he was unable to describe them in terms that even he was able to comprehend. And so it remained, for thousands of years.
Great Bible commentators like Calvin and Luther did not even attempt to interpret the books of Daniel, or the Revelation, for that matter, saying they were allegorical or symbolic books.
Matthew Henry, writing in the 18th century, did not fare much better. Even commentators on these books in the early 20th century admitted they had trouble fitting the pieces together.
After all, they dealt with a restored Israel, a revived Roman empire, and a one-world government. Such things were deemed to be impossible, therefore to be interpreted as allegories.
The revealing angel understood what Daniel did not. (Jack Kinsella)