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Understanding the Book of Daniel is a thought-provoking podcast that explores one of the Bible’s most mysterious and powerful books. Each episode dives deep into the historical context, prophetic visions, and spiritual lessons found in Daniel—revealing how its timeless truths speak directly to the challenges we face in the modern world.
Whether you're navigating uncertainty, seeking courage in the face of adversity, or looking for spiritual insight in a chaotic age, this podcast connects ancient wisdom to contemporary life. Join us as we uncover how Daniel’s faith, resilience, and revelations offer guidance, hope, and clarity for today’s journey.
Welcome to the Understanding Daniel
podcast. My name is Peter Englert, and
I've got two friends here. Let me
introduce our guests first. We have the
guest today, Ron Pierce. He is a professor
emeritus from Biola University. He
actually wrote the commentary on Daniel,
Teach the Text, and we're very excited to
have him. But then also, I have my very
good friend, co-host, Rich Christman here.
Rich. How you doing? Hi, Ron. Hi, Peter.
So excited to be on a show with you. It's
been a while, maybe two years since I've
been on a show with Peter. So excited to
be back here. And good to meet you, Ron.
Good to meet you as well. Well, we're
going to get started. Our question today
is how does Daniel give us hope for the
end of the world for end times? And, you
know, Ron, why don't we start here?
Because we're going to take a unique path
to respond to that question. How did you
get so intrigued with the book of Daniel?
Yeah, I mean, of course I went through the
Sunday school stories as a kid, and so I
always had the Daniel in the lion's den
and the friends in the furnace. But I was
an Old Testament major at Talbot, and as
such, I needed to take Aramaic, and as
such, we ended up in a Daniel class. So I
kind of got started there, and with
Talbot, it's more systematic theology, so
a lot of interest in end times. and
schemes of end times. But then in my
doctoral program, I started focusing more
on what we call biblical theology. And in
that context, my focus went from sort of
the end times, as we think of them today,
to the place where Daniel was. So I began
to think of the book more in his terms,
look at it in his eyes. Then I started
teaching it, and in the context I
discovered the incredible literary beauty
of the book. The structure, the way the
languages are arranged, Aramaic and
Hebrew, the chiastic structures, the way
The dates are arranged, so Daniel puts
this together. Some days I think he had
too much time right at the end of his life
because it's so beautifully constructed.
And then the real surprise for me was the
spiritual formation component. I was doing
a series of spiritual formation studies
toward the end of my career, about the
last 10 years. And in that context, I
began to discover things in Daniel that I
never saw coming. So, a long time Daniel
and I have, a long time in the same
direction. That's so cool. Could you just
actually, for our listeners that may have
different levels of, you know, background
in theology, could you just explain really
quick the difference between a systematic
theology and a biblical theology? Sure,
yeah, systematic theology is probably the
more common, where we take pieces of
scripture from here and there, try to put
them together in a grand scheme of what's
going to happen at the end times, for
example, in what we call eschatology.
Biblical theology, or sometimes it's
called canonical theology, looks back at
the text in its own context. So rather
than thinking, what's going to happen in
the 21st century? We're thinking, what was
Daniel experiencing in the 6th century BC?
Um, and so when we look at prophecy in the
book of Daniel, uh, we're thinking sixth
century BC, we're looking at it through
his eyes. And that's what I really found
intriguing. That's fascinating. That's so
interesting. Let me, um, I want to take a
little bit of a left turn here, um,
because just, you shared your, your story
about, um, going through the Aramaic. So
there is a little bit of discussion about
the importance, the oddness of Daniel 7
through 12 being in Aramaic. Why was it
put in the Bible? What's its level of
importance versus the Hebrew and the
Greek? And there's a lot of discussion
around that. You've been teaching Daniel,
I don't know, for a few years now. How do
you respond to that, especially since that
was part of your first just really study
in Talbot? Yeah, the Hebrew and Aramaic
mix in the book of Daniel is interesting
because the first six chapters are
narrative and we're most familiar with
them. The last six chapters are more
apocalyptic with strange visions and
symbols. The Aramaic actually bridges the
two and pulls the two together. So Daniel
didn't allow the book to get disconnected
in any way as he was structuring it. If
you pull it out here, then you lose the
last half of the Aramaic. If you pull this
piece off here, even with the narratives,
if you go 1 through 6 and 7 through 12,
yeah. So I think it's there to keep it
together. I also think it reflects the
context, because the people who were first
reading this book were speaking Aramaic,
not Hebrew. They had lost their ability to
speak Hebrew in the exile, and they had
spoken the more common trade language of
Aramaic. So the book now takes on a little
bit of international flavor, or
cross-cultural flavor, instead of just
this purely Jewish flavor. And I can
imagine the early readers of Daniel are
thinking, why did he put some of it in
Aramaic? I mean, if we can't read Hebrew,
then it's not going to help to only have
some of it in Aramaic. We did the whole
thing in Aramaic, but he doesn't. He puts
it partly Aramaic, partly Hebrew, and it
doesn't really fit neatly into either one
of the structures. So it's part of the
glue that holds the book together. And I
think part of just the literary beauty of
the book. Is there any significance at all
in the fact, is Aramaic a more poetic
language in any way than Hebrew? Is there
any connection there to the way that
Aramaic reads or what it sounds like when
read aloud? No, not at all. I mean, if you
didn't know the grammar, you would almost
think, when I say grammar, I'm including
the way words are formed, word endings. If
you didn't know that, it looks just like
Hebrew. And it sounds just like Hebrew.
It's just maybe you put the definite
article at the end of the word instead of
the beginning of the word. But it's just
those kind of differences. And the words
sound a little bit differently. And then
there are some words that develop in
Aramaic that weren't in Hebrew. But 90% of
overlap. Well, let's take a turn to your
unique perspective on this passage. One of
the things that you teach on and you've
noticed as you've read through Daniel
hundreds and even probably thousands of
times is his Dark Night of the Soul. I
want to read you a quote from St. John of
the Cross where we got that from. After I
read this quote, I just want to hear from
you maybe what stands out to you of what
relates to Daniel here. St. John says
this, God, he takes us into the dark
night. He weans us from all the pleasures
by giving us dry times and inward
darkness. In doing so, he's able to take
away all these vices and create virtues
within us. Through the dark night, pride
becomes humility. Greed becomes
simplicity. Wrath becomes contentment.
Luxury becomes peace. Gluttony becomes
moderation. Envy becomes joy. And sloth
becomes strength. No soul will ever grow
deep in the spiritual life unless God
works passively in that soul by means of
the dark night. Wow. Wow. Oh, there's so
much there to unpack. What strikes me
first of all is the way we have tended to
treat Daniel as a Sunday school story. And
I appreciate that, the early Sunday school
stories and veggie tales and the images of
Daniel and his friends and this kind of
thing. But I think we lose in doing that,
we lose the depth of character that Daniel
exhibits in the book. and we lose the path
that he took to get there. So he comes,
he's 14 years old, roughly, when he's
taken into captivity. At the end of the
book, he's 84 years old. So we track him
for 70 years. Most people don't realize
when he was in the lions, then he was 80,
not 20 or 30, as most of the pictures put
it. And in that context, he was torn away
from everything, which, yeah, which was, I
think, the beginning of his dark night. I
think there were questions in Daniel's
mind, where is God in all of this? How can
God let this happen to Judah and
Jerusalem? And it was just starting, and
then Daniel watches it get worse and worse
with the second and third deportation
until the temple's destroyed. And I can
only imagine how much he struggled and
questioned as that night just kept getting
darker and darker. But I think John of the
Cross is right. I think there is a
purification that takes place in what
Eugene Peterson has called sometimes that
long obedience in the same direction. And
I always think of Daniel when I read
Eugene Peterson's book on that, although
he connects it with Jeremiah. But I think
of Daniel because here he is, probably
when he was in his 20s, his friends were
taken out of the palace. That's when the
fiery furnace story takes place. And then
they're reassigned out among the people.
So here's Daniel in his 20s, let's say,
Alone in the palace for the rest of his
life. And that's where I think God works
with him in that deep sense of spiritual
formation from the inside out. in a sort
of furnace of his own, but a darkness
being the furnace. Yeah, I could go on
with that. There's more intrigue in my
mind right now about Daniel and his dark
night than there are answers. But I think
that's part of what the dark night is. It
is a place we go to know God more deeply
than we ever could have known God in some
other way. You know, before we kind of
jump more in the text about that, you
know, at the time that we're recording
this, there's been a lot of tragedy. You
know, there there was the Charlie Kirk
assassination, the 24th year of September
11th, the anniversary. Obviously, every
listener probably has perspectives and and
views on that. What? As we think of maybe
even nihilism or cynicism. What about
Daniel 7 through 12? Should we be really
honing in on, especially at this time when
it just seems like everything else is out
of control? Yeah, and I think the last
phrase that you used there is exactly
where we began, I'm thinking of our friend
Tremper Longman from Westmont, who
constantly in his work repeats this, God
is in control. God is in control. And I
think Daniel had to kind of repeat that in
his own head. Because he had lost so much,
and then even being in Babylon, it's okay,
you're going to go to Babylon, you're
going to be there 70 years. But then
different nations arise, not just one
kingdom, but several kingdoms. And then at
the end of the Babylonian Empire, they
don't get to go back right away. And
Daniel's upset about this. So world
events, from his perspective, great world
events, are all turned upside down. What
he knew to be true as being part of God's
people in Jerusalem, a very bright Jewish
boy living in Jerusalem, probably grew up
listening to Jeremiah the prophet. And so
he had heard what was coming, but it
doesn't matter if we hear it, when we
finally experience it, it's just, yeah,
it's traumatic in the greatest sense of
the word. So yeah, when I come to Daniel
12, That's where I go. Matter of fact, I
often go to contemporary world events. In
teaching it over the years, we've had a
lot of those moments, including 9-11. When
it first took place, I was teaching a
class on Daniel, and people were thinking,
the world's collapsing around us. And I'm
saying, that's exactly what Daniel
thought. My world is collapsing around me,
and I don't know where the future's going.
And then, and I know we're just beginning
to touch on this, but in chapter seven
through 12, there's a lot more darkness
than there was in chapters one through
six, especially for Daniel. Here's a guy
that he used to be able to interpret the
dreams for Nebuchadnezzar, for example,
for the king as a young kid. So 14 years
old, he's interpreting the king's dreams.
But when we get to chapter seven and
eight, Daniel can't even interpret his own
dreams and they're dark and foreboding.
And I don't think it's just because
there's ugly beasts coming up out of the
water and all this kind of thing. I think
it's because he sees the suffering of his
people coming in the distant future. And
he's thinking, hey, didn't we already have
that? Isn't that gonna be over by then?
And there is this, three and a half year
number that pops up where this great
suffering is going to take place of God's
people. We stand back and say, oh, three
and a half years. I wonder how that fits
in this number and that number. We get our
prophecy charts out. We have this great
time. For Daniel, he only had one thing on
his mind. My people are going to suffer
intensely like that. I thought we were
going to be done with it by then. And then
we're just going to get to go home and
things are going to get better. Kingdom of
God is coming. And the angel says, no,
there is something foreboding coming in
the future. And I think that's part of
Daniel's dark night. He doesn't understand
why. He's confused, frustrated. And
sometimes I think Daniel was pretty upset.
You know, before we move on, um, because,
you know, I'm, I'm looking at some of your
outlines here. I think it might be really
helpful because I love what you said. We
know Daniel one through six fairly well.
Um, we know that Daniel one, you know,
there's the diet, you know, the Daniel
diet, and then we get to Daniel six and
that's, uh, uh, the Daniel in the lion's
den. You touched on a few things, but just
kind of in a systematic big picture way.
What in each chapter is kind of what
Daniel's talking about with the end of the
age? Just kind of giving us a brief
snapshot from each chapter. I think that'd
be helpful for our listeners. Sure, sure.
In one through six, yeah, we move from
Daniel the teenager to Daniel the
80-year-old in the lion's den. But when we
get to seven, we back up. And we're back
now, instead of him being 80, we're back
to when he was 60, maybe even his mid-50s.
And so it's that point where the kingdoms
are changing, where new kings coming in,
instead of his old friend, sometimes foe,
Nebuchadnezzar, we have new kings coming
in. And Daniel, he not only sees this
foreboding future, he seems to lose his
own privilege. He's not the favorite boy
in the palace anymore. Especially as we
get into the, If we back up a little bit,
Chapter 5, into the Belshazzar moment,
Daniel is somewhere in the back room and
the Queen Mother has to come out and say,
hey, you should call Daniel. Belshazzar
doesn't care about Daniel anymore. So with
Chapter 7 and 8, we back up to the
beginning of Belshazzar's reign. and
Daniel coming into a period where his own
importance seems to be waning and the
future becomes very dark. So chapter seven
and eight just form a pair by themselves.
Chapter seven's far more mysterious, a lot
of images, wild beasts, this kind of
thing. Chapter eight, we actually have
names put to some of the kingdoms. So we
know we have Babylon, and then we know we
have the Median Empire, the Medes up
north, and then the Persians, which are
kind of down south, modern day Iran. And
then we have the Greeks coming. These are
the named kingdoms that we have for
Daniel, and he would have understood them,
especially at a later time in his life. He
would have heard of Greece having sort of
developing over there in the West, but the
others are more Eastern empires, Middle
Eastern empires. So then we jump ahead in
time to chapter nine, which is the end of
the exile. It's the last year and
Daniel's, he opens the chapter by reading
in Jeremiah. And so he's thinking, yeah,
Jeremiah said 70 years, click, click,
check my watch, it's 70 years, time to go
home. And so dear Lord, time to go home.
He has this long lengthy prayer. And then
the angel comes and says, well, It's not
just 70, but it's like 70 times seven.
It's like Jesus saying to Peter, you have
to forgive way more than you thought you
were going to have to forgive. Only this
case, it seems that this suffering is
going to go much longer than Daniel
thought it was going to go. And so that's
where we jump in and we want to figure out
the numbers and when everything's
happening regarding the end times. But
Daniel, he's sitting there thinking, no,
no, no, no, no. We've paid the price. Time
for our people to go home. What do you
mean it's seven times longer than we
thought it was going to be? And then for
perspective, 10 through 12 is like one big
unit. And it's right at the end of
Daniel's life. So now he's 84. Right at
the end of his life, he has another
vision. And this vision, a long one and
very detailed kind of thing without names,
but a lot of detail. of different empires
coming and going. And again, I think it's
the Medes, and then the Persians, Cyrus
the Great, the Persians, and then the
Greeks coming. And we know for sure that
the Greeks are in there. We can pinpoint
Alexander the Great and all this. But then
we get to the end of it, and once again,
it just fades into darkness. And Daniel,
he's still trying to figure things out
until an angel finally shows up and says,
you know, Daniel, You can close the book
now. It's over. It's like a person on
their deathbed and somebody finally comes
in and says, it's okay to let go now. And
I think that's what the angel is saying to
Daniel. He's still arguing with God. What
about this time of suffering? What's this
so many days of suffering that we have?
No, just let go of it. And here we have
that remarkable way the book ends with an
image of resurrection. That is so rare in
the Old Testament. But Daniel, you can die
in peace because a resurrection is coming.
And then it's over. It's like, whoa. So I
just, yeah, I just love walking through
Daniel like that because it takes me back
through all of that incredible drama. And
I think trauma that Daniel goes through.
Yeah. It's like the end of an Avengers
movie. The Messiah will return. Yeah,
that's awesome. Yeah, absolutely. I have a
question for you. Only with Daniel, he's
feeling a little bit more of the darkness
hanging over. That's the challenging kind
of foreboding thing for Daniel. He has to
go back to those moments when he saw hope
coming. Yeah. So, I have heard said, which
is not a direct quote from the Bible by
any means, I've heard it said many times
that God is a God of clarity. Right? And
I've also heard that our Lord works in
mysterious ways. Right? God is far beyond
human reckoning. Right? So considering all
you just said, I'm not asking you to pick
a side here. I'm saying, would you comment
a little bit on someone who has the
question, well, is God, as God presents
himself and his plans in scripture, is God
presenting himself clearly? Should we, you
know, read the text exactly as it says, or
is God inviting us into a mystery that we
can't understand in this time? What would
you say to that? I want to say yes. I want
to say yes, absolutely. No, I think it's
what we understand as clarity. We're
looking for details. And Daniel was at the
end too. It's like 1150 days, 1335 days.
Daniel says, tell me about the 1150. And
God just says, no, no, no, no, no. Don't
worry about that. There's resurrection
coming. There's the big picture. And
Daniel was fussing over the details. But I
think he was fussing over the details
because they represented suffering. So if
you say you're gonna suffer for a week or
a month, you go, could you clarify that a
little bit? That's a difference. It's a
little different, yeah. Exactly, yeah. So
I think we read it, I would say we read it
literally. And understand that in a
literal read, in other words, take it as
it is. But understand we're gonna use
figures of speech. So we're going to use
symbols of beasts coming up out of the
water to represent kingdoms changing and
images like that. But the key, I think, in
Daniel 7 through 12 is you root yourself
in the person of Daniel. by doing one
through six, and even seven and eight a
little bit, you still see a little, but
one through six, you root yourself in that
person. And then when you read seven
through 12, you read it through his eyes.
So you're not asking questions, for
example, about 9-11. You're not asking
questions about Russia. You're asking
questions about Babylon to Greece. And
then you're saying, okay, God, what are
you teaching me through those historical
times of great suffering for just the
Jewish people, so just the Southern
Kingdom? And what happened to the other 10
tribes out there instead of just the
Southern Kingdom? But you've narrowed it
down to the remnant, and now the remnant's
going to suffer. And that's just very
literal from Daniel. So yeah, I think we
should read it literally, but I think we
need to get to know the person of Daniel
in his own context, in the 6th century BC,
and feel the loss, and then we can take
principles from that and apply it And we
just go down the line and pick the
century. It still applies very much, not
just because of the dark night, but
because we face world events. Now, Daniel
wasn't facing an event with China, so he
was facing his world of events. which was
just the Middle East. America wasn't in
the picture at all. Russia wasn't in the
picture. I would tell my students, don't
drag those nations into the picture,
Daniel. He's talking about four major
kingdoms, maybe Rome in the picture.
That's a big debate among evangelicals,
and it's not important for me to solve
that debate. But mostly it's Babylon,
Media, Persia, and Greece. And it's during
the time of the Greeks that there's a
great amount of suffering that Daniel
looks forward to. And then after the
suffering, God's kingdom comes. And after
the Greek comes the person of Jesus right
at the very beginning of the Roman Empire.
But so so I see messianic hope in there.
But for Daniel, it's just rather faint. He
didn't see clarity on that one at all. But
that's so interesting. too, because you
say that, you know, Daniel looks at his
watch, like you said, right? Oh, it's been
70 years, time to go home, and oh, it's
actually 70 times 7, you know, the feeling
there, you know, then we look at these
literal kingdoms setting up, perhaps
making it to the time of Rome, then the
kingdom of heaven will be at hand, and
Jesus comes, and the the Jews at his time
are like, great, I'm looking at my watch,
click, click, the kingdom of heaven is
here, he's gonna overthrow Rome, he's
gonna establish the kingdom, and still
it's my kingdom is here, but not yet. And
that's not of this world. Yeah, there is a
already and not yet that both have to hold
on to. And we, as evangelicals, sometimes
try to separate those, you know, the one
groups arguing for the here and now, and
the others arguing for the then and there.
And I don't think we need to, yeah. I
think we can understand the mystery that
there's a very clear sense in the ministry
of Jesus that the kingdom of God is here.
If I am doing these kind of miracles, then
the kingdom of God is among you. And yet
the kingdom's still coming. So the great
fulfillment of it. But if we, I come from
a tradition where there's way too much
emphasis on then and there, what we call a
dispensational tradition, where it's all
about the then and there and literal
interpretations and this kind of thing.
And I think we need the corrective that
our more covenantal brothers and sisters
bring us by saying, no, there's a very
real sense that it's here and now. if you
cancel that left-behind Bible study we're
gonna do that I cancel that yeah this is
why we bring rich on yeah he's more funny
than I am um I have I have so many
directions I want to head but I do want to
take a little bit of a turn just from
listening to you um What do you think
Daniel has to say about aging? You've been
studying Daniel for decades, and you just
talked about the book, how it follows him
through the decades. As you reflect
personally, but then for people reading
it, what does Daniel do for us when it
comes to aging? Oh, I like that question
very much. And you've been very polite not
to say, and you've really gotten old
during your time of studying Daniel. But I
have, I mean, I turned 79 next month. So
I'm clicking 80 and I'm thinking, is there
a lion's den waiting for me? Because I've
never envisioned Daniel as the old man in
the lion's den. until I saw the beautiful
painting by Breton Riviere called Daniel's
Answer to the King. You've got to look it
up. The original is still hanging over in
Europe. Breton Riviere, French artist,
Daniel's Answer to the King. And he has
Daniel, the 80-year-old man. This is the
best picture I've ever seen of this. So
yeah, I think Daniel, I'll speak for
myself here as the soon-to-be 80-year-old
man. Daniel tells me that God isn't
finished with me yet, that perhaps some of
the most important times in my life and
ministry may be lying tomorrow or in the
future or in the next five years. Yeah, in
the next four, five years if I'm counting
Daniel at 84, there we go. I'll just be
Daniel there for a moment. But I also look
back, we talked about the dark night, I
look back at the dark nights that I've
experienced along the way while studying
Daniel. And I've had some really dark
nights in my life. Yeah, another day,
another story. But in those contexts,
Well, let me put it this way. When I
started my spiritual formation training 10
years ago, 2015, I came back to one of my
friends at Biola who taught spiritual
formation, Betsy Barber. And I said to
Betsy, I said, she asked me how it was
going. And I said, oh, this is incredible.
I'm discovering things I never thought I'd
discover at this point in my life. And I
said, I only wish I would have learned
this 30 years earlier. And Betsy looked at
me and she said, you weren't ready for
this 30 years earlier. And I've really had
to think about that, that a long, slow
process of preparation. And now, not in
spite of it, but because of all that
you've gone through, all that God's done
in your life, now you're ready for this
thing that God has prepared for you from
before you ever were born. Yeah, that's
exciting to me. Right up until the end,
that's exciting to me. You know, I mean,
just to get personal, you know, somebody
was engaging me about dreams and. I just
was thinking about, in Daniel, dreams are
used to share wisdom. I think about my own
journey. There's this American dream. I
had probably the American pastor's dream.
Some of that is happening, some of it
isn't, but to go back through the Dark
Knight, you know, the pride becomes
humility and all these things. And I'm
thinking about Daniel's life. And when you
talked about him, you know, even in his
midlife feeling alone. And if I'm not near
where he was age wise to Belshazzar, but.
You know, it's almost as if the Bible
doesn't want to necessarily teach you, but
it wants to acknowledge reality. And not
that those two things are different,
because it could say, hey, you're going to
get to your midlife and have a crisis. But
no, it describes it says, you know, Daniel
wasn't, you know, he wasn't Belshazzar's
favorite. You know, he was behind the
scenes, and I think in some ways that's
what's powerful about narrative. Is that
like what you're talking about? Hey, I'm
almost 80. Am I going to have a lion's den
type moment versus like your life? And
like, I think even what you're doing for
the first and the second part is I think
we read the Bible without forgetting that
the Bible actually reads us. Oh yeah,
yeah, yeah, that's an intriguing thought.
that the text is kind of reading us as we
go along. Yeah, I'd like to think the
Spirit of God is doing exactly that
through the Word of God and guiding us in
our reading so that we have these aha
moments. When perhaps, same in the aging
theme, when we thought we were too old for
any more new aha moments, that I just
retired a year and a half ago from 48
years of teaching. I was going to try to
make 50, but I decided not. And my wife,
Pat, kind of looked at me and said, wow,
we can go travel now. What are we going to
do with all this free time? And I hear it
all the time. What are you doing with all
your free time? And I have to smile a
little bit and say, I've got so much I
want to do yet that I just changed jobs. I
just don't get a paycheck anymore from the
old job. I'm not teaching students in
classes anymore. But I'm kind of excited
as to what God has for the future. And I
wonder if Daniel thought about that,
especially since he was in his latter
years when the exile ended. Yeah. Do I get
to go home? Am I too old to go home? We
don't know if he ever did go back or not.
Probably not. Probably died in exile. But
I wonder what he was thinking at that
point. I wonder if his friends ever came
back to talk to him in the palace. I think
I might, Peter, in our previous
discussion, I might've mentioned my
thought about a historical novel on
Daniel. And if I do, I'm gonna have
Azariah be the writer of the book. story
of Daniel. I have him come back right at
the end, see Daniel on his deathbed, stay
with him through those last months, and
then he puts it all together into the
book. Yeah. For our listeners, why don't
you tell them who Azariah is? Oh yeah,
sorry. We know the boys as Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego. Sadly, those are
their pagan names that honor pagan gods.
But because we just heard the story from
chapter three and didn't pay a lot of
attention to chapter one, we don't know
their Hebrew names. So it's Hananiah,
Mishael, and Azariah. So Azariah is the
third in the list. And Jewish tradition
has it that Azariah is the one who sort of
led the great prayer in the furnace.
There's even a deuterocanonical, an extra
biblical document that was created, the
prayer of Azariah and the song of the
three young men. It's a beautiful,
poetically structured document that kind
of supplements Chapter 3 in the Book of
Daniel. It's not part of the Bible, but I
always have my students read it so they
can kind of step into the shoes of Azariah
and his two friends in the furnace. And it
also challenges them to get away from just
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Although,
yeah, we are so connected to those names.
I don't have any real hope that we're
gonna move forward, but I try, yeah. It's
so funny that we know the boys by their
Babylonian names, but then we know Daniel
as Daniel, not Belteshazzar. It's just
funny how he gets that treatment. But
since you brought up apocryphal works, I
gotta ask, what are your thoughts on Bell
and the Dragon? There's the extra chapter
that some Christian traditions have at the
end of Daniel, but not in the typical
evangelical NIV Bible. What are your
thoughts on that? Yeah. Yeah, the Prayer
of Azariah, the Song of Three Young Men,
and Belle and the Dragon are the two
additions to Daniel that were done in the
Greek era. And so Belle and the Dragon, I
don't find it as helpful. It's almost
humorous. I mean, if you if you can have
humor in the context of Daniel and Cyrus
and the Lions, then all this, but I think
it's laid out in kind of a almost satire
format. I find them very useful, and for
part of some Christian traditions, they
keep them connected with the apocryphal
and superpigmental books. I don't see them
as what the Protestant church sort of
viewed and agreed upon was the canon. So
yeah, so I'm not as Catholic maybe as I
might be in that context, but I think
they're really worthwhile reading and
studying, especially the prayer of
Azariah's beautiful Hebrew poetry prayer,
like Psalms, and put in the context of
suffering, and for them, for his three
friends, almost certain death. I would
even say, and I know we're kind of getting
off a little bit here, but I would even
say in the way they talked to
Nebuchadnezzar in that chapter, they had
really serious doubts. I think they were
pretty sure they were gonna die in the
furnace, but they decided God is worth
dying for, so we're gonna just die out of
faithfulness. And then the great surprise
came when God sent the angel. That's the
language of the text, and I know there's a
lot of discussion about a messianic
interpretation of the angel being Jesus.
So, setting that aside, God delivers them
miraculously and brings them out. I think
they were stunned as anybody, probably as
stunned as Nebuchadnezzar was that day. So
as we come to a close, I think what I want
to do with the last question, I hope that
people, as they've listened to you talk
about the Book of Daniel, but specifically
Daniel 7 through 12, it's so applicable to
everyday life, whether we're walking
through crisis, dark night of the soul. I
had no idea we were going to talk about
aging. But with the closing question with
this is whether I'm doing reading the Book
of Daniel as an individual or whether I'm
reading it with my small group going
through it as a church series. What would
you want people to experience and feel as
they read Daniel seven through 12? Yeah,
yeah. Let me tie that together, if I may,
with the other question that was there,
what would Daniel say to us today? Because
I think Daniel would have loved to have
had us experience something, and I think
that's probably pretty close to what God
would want us to experience. So I think
Daniel would say, I've been there, I know
your fears, I know your doubts. Instead of
putting me on a pedestal, walk beside me.
And so then what do I take away from that
then? And Daniel, I see honesty before God
with Daniel. I think we have, yeah, we
have put him on a pedestal. and to a
degree that we can't really relate to him.
I think Daniel is honest with God. I think
at the end of the day, he remembers that
God is in control. I'm gonna come back to
Trevor's line there that he keeps
repeating. He remembers God is in control,
but that doesn't simply make him, how do
we say in the literal Christian song,
happy every day. Daniel's not happy every
day. Some days are terribly dark and
depressing. And in some days he's arguing
with God and wrestling with God. But at
the end, he ends up trusting in God's
goodness and God's grace through the
darkness and despair that he so deeply
experienced, recognized across this long
life of his. And by the end of the time, I
can imagine Daniel saying, by the end of
the time, did I accomplish anything in the
process except interpret a few dreams? I
wonder if Daniel ever had a clue of what
his memoir was going to mean to people
down through the ages. But yeah, I think
we can trust God through the dark,
difficult times and honestly wrestle with
God when we are saying, God, I don't like
the way you're doing it. I really wish it
were done differently. I wish you would
not have that suffering ahead for us. And
then we can say, okay, but I'll trust you.
Well, um, just want to encourage you all
again, make sure you check out Ron Pierce,
teach the text. And, um, you know, we're
hoping by the end of this podcast, it's
just going to inspire you to write the
book on Daniel dark night of the soul. And
then, uh, the, uh, the biography about
Daniel. So, Hey, we're going to put you to
work. I want to read that novel. We're
going to put you to work on it. We're
going to put you to work in retirement.
Hey, if people are looking for you,
where's the best place to find you online?
Oh, I'm in the process of constructing a
website. But you can simply go to Biola
University's website, and then you pick up
the faculty page in Biola, and just
ron.pierce at biola.edu. And so as faculty
emeritus, I still connect with Biola and
can easily be reached through that. And I
love interacting with people, connecting
with people, so yeah. Well, Ron, thank you
so much for joining us. We want to thank
our producer, Nathan. And Rich, it was so
fun having you here. Yeah, it was great to
be here. Yeah, thank you, Rich. You spoke
to Rich. He was so excited about that
picture. I feel like that picture of
Daniel, that painting, is going to come
out. So it's great. Oh, I hope so. I love
it, yeah. It hangs on my wall in a very 30
by 40 print in my room. So yeah, it's an
inspiration. Well, thank you so much for
joining us in the Understanding Daniel
podcast. We hope you have a great day.