Gods Messiah. The role of the Son of David is a central theme among Israels prophets. Israel never forgot Gods promise to provide seed from her ideal King to rule forever on the throne in Jerusalem ( 2 Sam 7:16 ). Isaiah thought of Gods commitment to David as a pattern for the everlasting covenant God wanted with Israel ( 55:3-4 ). Jeremiah asserted that the covenant with David was as unbreakable and secure as Gods appointment of the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night (33:20-22). The son of David figure was an anointed one, since the kings of Israel were traditionally anointed with oil by a prophet. This anointed one (Messiah in Hebrew, Christ in Greek) was the principal figure for the prophets, who speak of a movement from chaos and defeat to victory and redemption for national Israel. But as an exilic prophet, Daniel was living and working after the actual loss of the monarchy. No ancient Near Eastern community could survive the absence of a king. But Israel had the capacity to preserve spiritually what she had lost materially. In Daniel, the concept of the Messiah was reinterpreted toward the universal, rather than being limited to a single nation, Israel. Thus there is a Davidic substratum, or ideological undercurrent in Daniel 7:13-14. Daniel had envisioned evil incarnate in the form of the little horn, the symbol of a ruthless human dictator who stops at nothing to achieve his own selfish ambitions ( 7:8 and 8:9 , though the two horns are not identical). Now Daniel sees the Messiah as the antithesis of personified evil. Eventually the Son of Man will lead his people (the saints of the Most High) into triumph.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 01:13:34 +0000
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