You usually leave your dessert to eat last, but let's begin with the good news first: you can understand the book of Daniel! Jesus told us to read it and He wouldn't promise that we could "understand" it if we couldn't (Matthew 24:15).
Yes, it is true that Daniel was told to "shut up the words, and seal the book." But being "shut up" and "sealed" was to last only until "the time of the end." Then would come a change: "knowledge shall be increased" (Daniel 12:4). We are now living in that "time of the end."
What Jesus said means that God and all His holy angels want you to understand the message of this precious book. Worldwide, millions are now reading it. As never before in history the Bible has become "a lamp unto [our] feet, and a light unto [our] path" (Psalm 119:105).
In love to you, God gave it long ago. "Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21, NKJV). Others through the ages have preserved it at the cost of sufferings and even martyrdoms. It's through the Bible that God speaks to human hearts today.
Daniel has survived attacks from those who doubt its inspiration. Modern discoveries of buried records in the Middle East confirm this book as written by the prophet when he lived in the Iraq of long ago. Jesus, the Son of God and Savior of the world, had something special to say about it. Concerning "Daniel the prophet," He said: "Whoso readeth, let him understand" (Matthew 24:15). No other book in the Bible did He single out in such a way.
Before you open the book, do something special: bow your heart before God and ask for His Holy Spirit to be your Teacher. "Behold, I will pour out My spirit unto you," He says, "I will make known My words unto you" (Proverbs 1:23). The Holy Spirit "shall teach you all things," and "guide you into all truth" (John 14:26; 16:13). "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find" (Matthew 7:7). These promises must apply especially to Daniel.
But let's be careful. Some are "unlearned and unstable" and "wrest [it], as they do the other scriptures, unto their own destruction" (2 Peter 1:20). "No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation" (2 Peter 1:20), that is, no one can dream up his own personal explanation of it. "Comparing spiritual things with spiritual" is the way (1 Corinthians 1:13). We shall have the help of the same angel to whom God commanded, "Gabriel, make this man [Daniel] to understand the vision" (Daniel 8:16). If God so wanted Daniel to understand, surely He will help us to understand.
There are "scholars" who believe Daniel was written by a novelist, not a true prophet. Miracles can't happen is the idea. No "prophet" in the 6th century B.C. could predict future events as Daniel did. Therefore, they insist, the book is a forgery from about the middle of the 2nd century before Christ. This unknown novelist made up these stories about an imaginary man to whom he gave the invented name of "Daniel." Then he tried to make people think they were "prophecies."
But there are facts:
(1) The language used in Daniel is not that which a later writer would use; it is correct only for the time of a real Daniel in the 7th or 6th century B.C.
(2) Accurate historical details such as Belshazzar being the last king of Babylon could not have been known to a later writer of the 2nd century B.C. The author of Daniel proves that he actually lived in the time of the fall of Babylon and the beginning of the Medo-Persian Empire.
(3) If Daniel is a forgery, its author was guilty of a capital crime because he claimed to be speaking of visions which the Lord Himself had given him: "The prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, ... even that prophet shall die" (Deuteronomy 18:20). Could Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, have been fooled into believing Daniel was a true prophet when he wasn't? He said he is "Daniel the prophet" (Matthew 24:15).
This book accepts Daniel as a truly inspired prophecy.
Because most readers will have the King James Version, we will use it in our study. Other versions may also be used sometimes to good advantage.
A brief note: we are not trying to blaze the way to some new discovery in history or theology. Our goal is to find the gospel in Daniel and open it so it makes sense all the way through to the ordinary reader. May our efforts bring you many happy and profitable hours.
Robert J. Wieland
Meadow Vista, California