Friday
Friday
The Sovereignty of God
The Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes.
Daniel 4:32
It is difficult for us to imagine the instability that the exiles felt in Babylon. Jerusalem, the stable center of their national life, was far away and in ruins. They themselves were defeated and humiliated aliens. “The Beautiful Land,” as Daniel called it (11:41), which God had promised to give them, had been depopulated and was now occupied and farmed by foreigners. Throughout the six hundred or so years of their existence, the tiny kingdoms of Israel and Judah were sandwiched between the mighty empires of the north (Assyria and Babylon) and the south (Egypt). Again and again their sacred territory was invaded and overrun by foreign troops. The very foundations of their faith were undermined. Where was their God? The answer of the book of Daniel was that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, the Most High God rules over all human kingdoms.
This was the message of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in chapter 2. The enormous statue that he saw had a golden head, silver chest and arms, a bronze torso, iron legs, and feet of iron and clay. These different parts symbolized successive empires, which Daniel did not specifically identify but which have been traditionally understood as referring to Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece (which “will rule over the whole earth” [v. 39]), and Rome. Then, as we watch, a little rock came hurtling through the air, shattered the image, and then grew into a huge mountain that filled the earth. This was the kingdom of God, which “will never be destroyed” (v. 44). So the violent scenario of kingdoms in conflict continues throughout the book. It culminates in the he-goat, whom we recognize as Alexander the Great, charging from the west (8:5–8). He is succeeded by the kings of the north and of the south, namely the dynasties of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies of chapter 11.
We read in the Psalms that “the LORD reigns” (e.g., Pss. 97 and 99), and the book of Daniel is a vivid illustration of this cry of faith.
For further reading: Daniel 2:36–45