Introduction These transcripts are from Kay Arthur's lectures on the old course on Daniel and not the new lecture series circa 2006. They are provided as a service to the body of Christ with the written permission of Precept Ministries International. This material is the property of Precept Ministries International and all rights are reserved.
The transcripts are for the most part verbatim with deletions identified by the characters (...). The utilization of italics, bolding, hyperlinks and pop up notes represent editorial additions. Any written additions are identified by the designation "Ed note". All references are the NASB unless otherwise indicated.
Please note that these lectures by Kay Arthur supplement the excellent Precept Upon Precept inductive Bible study on the Daniel. Click on the link below and note that you can download lesson 1 free of charge.
Below are links to the excellent Precept study of the Revelation. If you are planning on doing this four part study, I would strongly encourage you to first complete the Daniel study, as knowledge of the prophecies in Daniel is critical to a full understanding of the prophecies in the Revelation. Note that for each part, you may download a PDF of lesson one at no charge.
If you can find a local Precept class studying Revelation, I would strongly encourage you to join the class, as I know of no other study available anywhere in the world that will equip you so thoroughly to discern the signs of the times and cause you to live expectantly as you look for Christ's Return!
Related Resources:
- Daniel Resources from literal perspective
- Revelation Resources from a literal perspective
- Great Tribulation
- Day of the Lord
- Daniel's Seventieth Week - chart
- Daniel's Seventieth Week Charted Parallel with other Daniel prophecies
- Millennium 1 - Early Church drift from literal interpretation of Rev 20
- Millennium 2 - Context & events leading up to Millennium
- Millennium 3 - How OT describes Millennial Messianic Age
- Daniel 1 Commentary
- Daniel 2 Commentary -- Da 2:1-23
- Daniel 2 Commentary(2) -- Da 2:24-49
- Daniel 3 Commentary
- Daniel 4 Commentary
- Daniel 5 Commentary
- Daniel 6 Commentary
- Daniel 7 Commentary(1) -- Da 7:1-6
- Daniel 7 Commentary(2) -- Da 7:7-14
- Daniel 7 Commentary(3) -- Da 7:15-28
- Daniel 8 Commentary
- Daniel 9 Commentary(1)
- Daniel 9:24 Commentary
- Daniel 9:25 Commentary
- Daniel 9:26 Commentary
- Daniel 9:27 Commentary
- Daniel 10 Commentary
- Daniel 11 Commentary(1) -- Da 11:1-19
- Daniel 11 Commentary(2) -- Da 11:20-45
- Daniel 12 Commentary
If you want to understand history and what’s happening in our world today, you need to understand Daniel
Only God can reveal what will happen in the future. Isaiah records God asking
who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it. Yes, let him recount it to Me in order, from the time that I established the ancient nation. And let them declare to them the things that are coming and the events that are going to take place. (Isa 44:7, cp Is 42:9, 45:21, 46:9, 10)
In Genesis 6-8 we see that God destroyed the world with a flood because of sin. A holy and righteous God must judge sin, whether that sin is national or individual. After the flood, God commanded Noah and his sons (Shem, Ham, and Japheth) to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." (Ge 9:1)
In Genesis 11, the people rebelled against God and instead of seeking to fill the whole earth they settled in the land of Shinar and set about to build a tower, saying
"Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name; lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." (Ge 11:4)
As a result of their direct rebellion to God's command
"the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, (which later became Babylon) because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth. These are the records of the generations of Shem… " (Ge11:8, 9, 10)
Shem became the ancestor of the Hebrews, through Abram. Moses records that
"Terah lived seventy years and became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. 27 Now these are the records of the generations of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran; and Haran became the father of Lot… " (Ge 11:26)
2000 BC*
GOD CUTS A COVENANT
WITH ABRAHAM
(*Editorial note: date approximations are added and are taken from the International Inductive Study Bible)
God then spoke to Abram declaring to him to
Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Ge 12:1, 2, 3) (Related Resource: Covenant: Abrahamic versus Mosaic)
God made a promise that salvation would also be for the Gentiles ("all the families of the earth shall be blessed").
Paul later explains that Abraham heard the good news even though he lived in the time of the Old Testament…
the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify (declare righteous) the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, (his name having been changed from Abram to Abraham) saying, "ALL THE NATIONS SHALL BE BLESSED IN YOU." (Gal 3:8)
In Genesis 15 Abraham waited for his promised descendant, but remained childless. So God
took him outside and said "Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants ((Hebrew = seed = 2nd person masculine singular cp Ga3:16) be." Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. (Ge 15:5, 6)
In these passages we see that Abraham believed God and was justified or declared righteous (dikaioo-word study) by faith.
Paul adds that
the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, "And to seeds," as referring to many, but rather to one, "And to your seed," that is, Christ. (Gal 3:16).
So we see that Christ (Messiah) would come from the line of Abraham.
In Genesis 15 God tells Abraham (still called Abram) that he is to
Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years… 16 "Then in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete. (Ge 15:13,14, 15, 16)
God promised Abraham a seed , a land, and a nation but He also predicted that the Hebrews would be enslaved for 400 years and that at the end of that time they would return to the land of Canaan.
Abraham eventually had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, the latter begat two sons, Esau and Jacob (later named Israel). The covenant God had initially made with Abraham in Genesis 12:1, 3, 3 was passed to Isaac (not Ishmael) and then to Jacob (not Esau). Jacob had 12 sons who gave rise to the 12 tribes of Israel. Of his 12 sons, Jacob "loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a varicolored tunic." (Ge 37:3) To make matters worse, Joseph had two dreams (Ge 37:5, 6,7, 8, 9) in which his father, mother and brothers were portrayed as bowing down to him. As a result "his brothers were jealous of him" (Ge 37:11) and instead of killing him they "sold him (this was Judah's idea) to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. Thus they brought Joseph into Egypt." (Ge 37:28)
In Egypt,
"Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought (Joseph) from the Ishmaelites" (Ge 39:1) and "the LORD was with Joseph, so he became a successful man. And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian." (Ge 39:2)
Joseph was tempted by "Mrs. Potiphar" ("lie with me", repeatedly Ge 39:7, 12!) but he resisted her advances proclaiming
"There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil, and sin against God?" (Ge 39:9)
Falsely accused by Mrs. Potiphar, "Joseph's master took him and put him into the jail, the place where the king's prisoners were confined" (Ge 39:20) where he correctly interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh's chief cupbearer and baker. After "two full years" (Ge 41:1) in jail, on the cupbearer's recommendation, Joseph was summoned by Pharaoh to interpret his dreams. Joseph explained that in Pharaoh's dreams "God has told to Pharaoh what He is about to do" (Ge 41:25), predicting "seven years of great abundance" followed by "seven years of famine" (Ge 41:28, 29). Pharaoh believed Joseph's interpretation and set him "over all the land of Egypt." (Ge 41:41)
Why did Joseph hang on? Because he held fast to the Word of God and believed the God of the Word and this belief "held him"!
1875BC
ISRAEL IN EGYPT
In time his brothers come to Egypt to secure food in the famine and end up bowing to him as their master. Joseph sums up his "mistreatment" declaring to his brothers
’As for you, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive" (Ge 50:20, cp Ro 8:28-note)
1445 BC
EXODUS FROM BONDAGE
Next we see God fulfilling His sure word of prophecy (2Pe 1:19-note) spoken to Abraham when he made a covenant with him, promising that the Hebrews would be enslaved for 430 years in Egypt after which they would come out. In Exodus we see that
the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. So God heard their groaning and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Ex 2:23, 24)
At that time God raised up Moses (a Levite) to be their deliverer. He was raised in the court of Pharaoh and "when he was approaching the age of forty" (Acts 7:23) took the deliverance into his own hands, killing an Egyptian (Ex 2:12) and being forced to flee to the land of Midian, where he pastured sheep for 40 more years (Acts 7:30) Moses had tried to deliver the Jews in his own strength but it had not been the LORD's timing (430 years).
In Exodus 3:1-22 "I AM" (Ex 3:14) sends Moses to "Pharaoh" that he might "bring… the sons of Israel out of Egypt." (Ex 3:10). On the night of the "LORD'S Passover" (Ex 12:11) (the Passover foreshadowing Christ the Passover Lamb of God, cf 1Cor 5:7, cp Jn 1:29) God brought the sons of Israel out of Egypt in order to bring them into the promised land of Canaan. (See Ex 3:1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17,18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
However "when the LORD sent (the sons of Israel) from Kadesh-barnea" telling them to "Go up and possess the land which" He had given them to possess, instead of obeying, they "rebelled against the command of the LORD" and they "neither believed Him nor listened to His voice." (Deut 9:23, cf Nu 14)
As a result of their unbelief, the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years (Nu 14:34) After the forty years have passed and just before God brings them into the promised land, Moses instead of doing what God had commanded ("speak to the rock" Nu 20:8),
"struck the rock twice with his rod" (Nu 20:11).
"But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them." (Nu 20:12)
Throughout the book of Deuteronomy God tells the Jews how they are to live when they enter Canaan, instructing them to "utterly destroy" the idolatrous inhabitants, to "make no covenant with them", to "show no favor to them" and not to "intermarry with them" lest the pagan wives turn their "sons away from following" God "to serve other gods." ( Deut 7:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
1405-1381 BC
CONQUEST OF CANAAN UNDER JOSHUA
Under the command of Joshua Israel enters into Canaan in a successful 3-pronged attack. As Joshua approaches the end of his life, he challenges the Jews declaring
"Fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD" and "Choose for yourselves… whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." (Josh 24:14, 15)
1373-1051 BC
DARK DAYS OF JUDGES
The conquest of Canaan is followed by a three to four hundred year period of the Judges characterized by spiritual darkness, caused by apathy to the Word of God, failure to drive out the idolatrous nations ("did not drive them out" is the repetitive refrain in Jdg1:19, 21, 28, 30, 31, 32,33-see notes) resulting in apostasy (turning from God) and finally culminating in outright anarchy, all summed up by the last verse in Judges which records that
"In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes." (Jdg 21:25-note)
The last judge Samuel was also a prophet (1Sa 7:6, Acts 13:20) followed by the period of rule by kings. Luke records that
"then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years." (Acts 13:21)
Saul was not God’s first choice (see Jacob’s blessing on Judah in Ge 49:8, 9, 10)
1011-971 BC
DAVID REIGNS AS KING
Luke records that after reigning 40 years God removed Saul and
"He raised up David (who in contrast to Saul was of the tribe of Judah) to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, 'I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.'" (Acts 13:22) adding that "from the offspring of (David), according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus," (Acts 13:23)
David reigned 40 years and was succeeded by his son, Solomon, (971-931BC) who began well but who disobeyed God's warning and
"loved many foreign women" and these "turned his heart away after other gods (overt idolatry) and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been." (1Ki 11:1, 2, 3, 4) (cp Solomon's own advise in Pr 4:23-note!)
"So the LORD said to Solomon, "because you have done this, and you have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you… " (1Ki 11:11) and so the Kingdom was Divided.
931 BC
DIVIDED KINGDOM
The southern kingdom, with Jerusalem as the capital, consisted of two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, the Temple of God, and was ruled by Solomon’s son Rehoboam (and he was hard on the people, cp 1Ki 12:8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
The northern kingdom, with Samaria as its capital, was ruled by Jeroboam who made 2 golden calves (1Ki 12:28, 29, 30) for the 10 tribes to keep them from going to Temple in Jerusalem. Jeroboam’s sin of idolatry preceded Judah’s with the result that God judged the sin of the Northern Kingdom first.
Isaiah prophesied from the time of Uzziah (790BC, king of southern kingdom) through the reign of Hezekiah (686BC). The three major world powers during Isaiah’s time were Egypt to south, Assyria to north, and Babylon to east, the first two being the strongest at this time in history.
Isaiah prophesied primarily to Judah and to the children of Israel who were looking to Egypt for help instead of relying on their Lord. Isaiah records God's warning
Woe to the rebellious children," declares the LORD, "Who execute a plan, but not Mine, and make an alliance, but not of My Spirit, In order to add sin to sin; who proceed down to Egypt, without consulting Me, to take refuge in the safety of Pharaoh, and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt! (Isaiah 30:1, 2)
The second giving of the Law in Deuteronomy just before the children of Israel entered Canaan under the command of Joshua should have been a clear warning of the dangers for a human king (Ed note: God anticipated the inherent dangers some 400 years earlier!):
When you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you, and you possess it and live in it, and you say, 'I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,' you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses, one from among your countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your countryman. "Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself [Solomon did - 1Ki 4:26, 28, 10:28, 29], nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since the LORD has said to you, 'You shall never again return that way.' "Neither shall he multiply wives for himself [Solomon did], lest his heart turn away (1Ki 11:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12); nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself [Solomon did - 1Ki 10:27]. Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, (Why was it so important? Why not read books about history of "successful" kings?) that he may learn to fear the LORD his God (List the advantages of a healthy, reverential fear of Jehovah! = Pr 1:7, 2:5, 8:13, 9:10, 10:27, 14:26, 27, 15:16, 33, 16:6, 19:23, 22:4, 23:17, cp Job 1:1), by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left; in order that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel. (Dt 17:14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
God instructed the king to write out a copy (Dt 17:18, 19, 20) of Genesis through Deuteronomy so that he would know how he was to live before the people, so that he would understand history, so that he would understand God and how God interacts with man, so that he would know how man was to live before God, and finally so that he might know the blessing God promised to those who would choose to live in obedience to His Word (cp Dt 7:12, 13, 14, 11:26, 27, 28, 29, 15:4, 6, 10, 14, 18, 16:10, 15, 28:2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, Deut 30:19, 20, Dt 33:29)
David made a copy of the Pentateuch and so did Solomon but he did exactly what he was told not to do, especially in regard to multiplication of wives.
722 BC
NORTHERN KINGDOM EXILED TO ASSYRIA
Because of Jeroboam's sin of idolatry the Northern Kingdom was judged by the hand of Assyria in 722 BC .
God keeps His word…
There is a day of judgment yet for Israel and the world
God declares what will happen before it takes place
We do well to take heed
God’s Word is a light that shines in a dark place (2Pe 1:19)
If only the Children of Israel had listened to the word of God
How important it is that you and I listen and obey the word of God
Don’t let history bore you--it’s His Story
He is righteous and holy
The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him
and He will make them know His covenant.
Ps 25:14