Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today we transitioned out of the hope literature portion of this book and into the

Apocalyptic Prophecies portion of this book. But I'm pretty sure you

already figured that out. Today, Daniel opens with a flashback to a dream or a vision he had

during King Bee's reign before he died and Darius took the throne. This time, even Daniel the

dream whisperer couldn't figure things out. He needed help from an angel. His dream was about four

beasts and the fourth beast was the worst by far.

It destroyed everything in its path. It had 11 total horns on its head, and one of the horns was

attacking three of the other horns. We've talked previously about how horns in scripture

represent strength and power, and the angel tells Daniel that these beasts represent empires or kingdoms,

and the horns represent kings. The biggest and worst horn is the one who will rise up and try to

destroy God's people. He'll try to abolish their laws, and he'll punish them for an amount of time

that most commentators believe amounts to three and a half years. We'll see that time period

referenced a lot in the apocalyptic books

of the Bible. As we know, numbers have a lot of significance to ancient Jews. Seven symbolizes

completion and perfection like the seven days of the week. On the other hand, some say 3.5

carries the idea of incompletion and possibly even failure. So maybe this time period is literal,

or maybe it's symbolizing the failure of the horn. Regardless of whether it's literal or figurative,

the end result is the same. The horn doesn't win, because God, the ancient of days, is on the scene

ready to issue judgment. He's on his fiery chariot throne and he brought his

servants, who are probably angels, with him. The horn mouths off to God, so God annihilates him.

Then someone referred to as the Son of Man comes in and begins to reign and his rule will never end.

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