Today, I am reading and commenting on  Daniel 7-8.

We usually interpret Daniel’s two visions in today’s passage together, and there is some merit to doing so.  However, they are separate visions, with separate interpretations provided in the passage, for a reason.  So, I am going to look at these two visions separately. In the interpretation of the vision we are told both that the four beasts are four kings and that the fourth beast is a fourth kingdom.  I am unsure if this represents two different things, or if the writer was just using “king” and “kingdom” interchangeably.  I will note that I have had dreams where things in the dream make that kind of transition: when they first appear they are one kind of thing, but later in the dream they are something else with no point in the dream where they change, I just knew they were one thing and now I know they are something else.  More importantly, we have the horn which overthrew the three other horns.  Both in the vision and in the interpretation we can see it as a ruler who claims power over God’s people while denying God’s power.  Yet, the rise of such a ruler presages God sitting in judgement over the world.  When a ruler or government ruler or government puts itself in the place of God, we should look for the great work which God is about to do.  I am not referring to where the government tries to co-opt the worship of God in support of its agenda and plans.  This refers to those times when the government seeks to replace worship of God with its own rites and rituals.  I intended to write something about the vision of the ram and the goat, but this has gone too long already.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.