When we left off in our last post, we concluded that while the Little Horn of Daniel 8 and the Little Horn of Daniel 7 share much in common, the Scriptures nonetheless differentiate between the two. Although they are both similarly hostile to God’s holy people (Daniel 8:24, 7:25), they are nevertheless distinguished one from the other, separated in time by the succession of empires. The Little Horn of Daniel 8 is Greek in identity and the Little Horn of Daniel 7 is Roman. Among the significant differences between the two, one of the most prominent is the period of persecution by the Little Horn of Daniel 8. The duration of his persecution is described in terms of literal days: “Unto two thousand and three hundred evenings and mornings” (Daniel 8:14). As with the days of creation (Genesis 1), “the evening and the morning” is one literal day, and 2,300 such evenings and mornings is 2,300 literal days. Those 2,300 literal days all occur within the One Week of Daniel 9:27; the 1,290 days of Daniel 12:11 all occur within those 2,300 literal days; and the 1,290 literal days, plus an additional 45 literal days, comprise the 1,335 literal days of Daniel 12:12. Our objective this week is to identify those three periods of literal days— all the evenings and mornings. 

By way of a refresher, we provide to the reader the Scriptures that refer to these respective periods, and the events that occur within them:

“Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” (Daniel 8:13-14)

“…and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.” (Daniel 9:27b)

“And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.” (Daniel 11:31)

“And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished. … And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.” (Daniel 12:7,11)

“Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.” (Daniel 12:12)

When viewed together we note that within the seven year period of the One Week of Daniel 9 (171 -164 B.C.) there is a 2,300 day period during which the people and the sanctuary are trodden underfoot, sacrifices are taken away, and the abomination of desolation is set up. Within those 2,300 days there is a 1,290 day period during which sacrifices cease and the abomination of desolation is set up. This 1,290 day period is also identified as either “half” of “the week” (Daniel 9:27), or “time, times and an half” (Daniel 12:7). Finally, there is a 1,335 day period that includes the 1,290 days, plus an additional 45 (Daniel 12:11-12). As we have explained in this series, all of these events transpired under the period of Greek rule and the chief antagonist of the narrative is the Greek Antiochus IV, King of Syria, a descendant of the Seleucid line of successors of Alexander the Great, the “first king” (Daniel 8:21) of the Greeks.

As we noted in The Seventieth Week of Daniel 9, the last Week of Gabriel’s prophecy is bounded by the seven-year period from 171 B.C.—when Antiochus IV strengthened a covenant with the Jews to raise their children as Gentiles—to 164 B.C.—when the Jews recovered the Most Holy, took down the abomination of desolation, and anointed the sanctuary and the altar in accordance with Exodus chapter 40. Most of what we discuss this week (all but the last 45 days) takes place within that seven-year period.

The 2,300 Evenings and Mornings

King Antiochus IV is known to have conducted two expeditions into Egypt—one in 170 B.C. and one in 168 B.C.. It is the first expedition that is of interest to us here. The apocryphal books, 1 and 2 Maccabees, that record the period of the rise and fall of Antiochus IV inform us that the king unlawfully elevated Menelaus to the office of High Priest in the same year Onias III was murdered, 171 B.C.. It was then that he strengthened the covenant he had made four years earlier with Jason, who himself had usurped Onias III as High Priest.

It was only after he had thus established his kingdom that he thought to expand it, and take over the land of Egypt:

“When Antiochus saw that his kingdom was established, he determined to become king of the land of Egypt, that he might reign over both kingdoms. So he invaded Egypt with a strong force, with chariots and elephants and cavalry and with a large fleet. He engaged Ptolemy king of Egypt in battle, and Ptolemy turned and fled before him, and many were wounded and fell. And they captured the fortified cities in the land of Egypt, and he plundered the land of Egypt. After subduing Egypt, Antiochus returned in the one hundred and forty-third year [170 B.C.]. He went up against Israel and came to Jerusalem with a strong force.” (1 Maccabees 1:16-20)

Significantly, Antiochus did not invade Egypt until after Menelaus had been made High Priest (171 B.C.), and managed to plunder the land of Egypt and return to Jerusalem by 170 B.C.. We do not have sufficient data to identify the exact dates of Antiochus’ departure and return, but we do know that kings quarter for the winter and go out to war in the spring (2 Samuel 11:1), and Antiochus did, too (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book XII, Chapter 7, paragraph 2). We also know that on his second invasion of Egypt (168 B.C.), Antiochus IV was stopped by a Roman envoy, Gaius Popilius Laenas, and his invasion was cut off by July of that year (Alan K. Bowman, Egypt after the Pharaohs, University of California Press (1996) 31-32). Whether his invasions were abbreviated because Ptolemy of Egypt “turned and fled before him” (170 B.C.), or because a Roman envoy intervened (168 B.C.), both of them were of short duration. The second one did not last beyond the heat of summer. In the case of the first invasion, he returned through Jerusalem on his way to Antioch. Upon his arrival in Jerusalem, Antiochus IV began to persecute the Jews:

“He went up against Israel and came to Jerusalem with a strong force. He arrogantly entered the sanctuary and took the golden altar, the lampstand for the light, and all its utensils. He took also the table for the bread of the presence, the cups for drink offerings, the bowls, the golden censers, the curtain, the crowns, and the gold decoration on the front of the temple; he stripped it all off. He took the silver and the gold, and the costly vessels; he took also the hidden treasures which he found. Taking them all, he departed to his own land. He committed deeds of murder, and spoke with great arrogance. Israel mourned deeply in every community, rulers and elders groaned, maidens and young men became faint, the beauty of women faded. Every bridegroom took up the lament; she who sat in the bridal chamber was mourning. Even the land shook for its inhabitants, and all the house of Jacob was clothed with shame.” (1 Maccabees 1:20-28)

Thus did Antiochus IV begin to plunder the sanctuary and oppress God’s people in 170 B.C., upon returning from his first invasion of Egypt.

If Antiochus departed from Antioch in the spring of 170 B.C., was back in Israel after concluding his first invasion, and was desirous to depart “to his own land” (1 Maccabees 1:24) and quarter comfortably there for the winter—which was typical for the time (Acts 27:12, 1Corinthians 16:6, 2 Timothy 4:21, Titus 3:12)—we might imagine that his arrival in Jerusalem would occur by September, well after his springtime departure for Egypt, but well before taking winter quarter in Antioch. Twenty-three hundred days onward from September of 170 B.C. would bring us to December of 164 B.C., the month the Jews rededicated the sanctuary (1 Maccabees 4:36-52). Thus, the 2,300 evenings and mornings “to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot” (Daniel 8:13), from Antiochus’ sack of Jerusalem on his return from Egypt in 170 B.C. until the restoration of the sanctuary in the winter of 164 B.C..

The 1,290 Days

Two weeks ago we covered The Seventieth Week of Daniel 9, and noted that Antiochus IV published a decree abolishing sacrifices in 167 B.C.—after his second sack of Jerusalem—in the year following his second invasion of Egypt. By the winter of 167 B.C., he had desolated the sanctuary and erected the Abomination of Desolation—the Statue of Jupiter—on the altar. These are the specific events identified in the second half of the One Week of Daniel 9:27, as well as in Daniel 11:31 and 12:11:

“…and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate…” (Daniel 9:27)

“…and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.” (Daniel 11:31)

“And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.” (Daniel 12:11)

The only precise dates we have in the narration from 1 Maccabees are that the abomination of desolation was set up in the winter of 167 B.C.—the 25th day of the month of Chislev—and that the sanctuary was rededicated on the third anniversary of the abomination (1 Maccabees 1:54, 4:52-54). We also have from Flavius Josephus the recognition that the prohibition of sacrifices lasted “three years and six months” (Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book I, Chapter 1, paragraph 1).

As Josephus explains it, Antiochus’ decree to abolish sacrifices occurred six months prior to the abomination, and as the authors of 1 Maccabees describe it, “the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, and that each should give up his customs” (1 Maccabees 1:41-42). He “appointed inspectors over all the people” to implement the decree, and enforce pagan sacrifices “city by city” (1 Maccabees 1:51). During those six months, “Many of the people …  forsook the law, … and they did evil in the land” while many others were driven into hiding (1 Maccabees 1:52-53). It was only after the prohibition of sacrifices and the appointment of the inspectors, and the enforcement of the decree that the abomination of desolation was erected on the altar (1 Maccabees 1:54).

Granting Josephus’ six months for the decree, the inspectors and the enforcement of the prohibition “city by city,” places the prohibition of sacrifices in June of 167 B.C.. One thousand, two hundred and ninety days onward would bring us to December of 164 B.C., the month the Jews rededicated the sanctuary (1 Maccabees 4:36-52).

The 1,335 Days

The 1,290 days represented the second half of the last week of Daniel 9 (Daniel 9:27; 12:11). We therefore take the anointing of the Most Holy in December of 164 B.C. to be the conclusion of the One Week and of the 1,290 days. The narrator in Daniel 12 then adds another 45 days to the 1,290 to arrive at 1,335 days:

“And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.” (Daniel 12:11-12)

Forty-five days beyond the first Hanukkah, the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple, moves us well into January or February of 163 B.C., a full month and a half since the rededication of the temple.

Historically, Antiochus IV’s death has been offered as a potential fulfillment of the 1,335 days to bring the whole narrative to its conclusion. However, if the historical information we have is correct, he died much later than 45 days after the rededication. The Temple rededication began “on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month [Chislev]…  in the one hundred and forty-eighth year,” 164 B.C. and took eight days to accomplish (1 Maccabees 4:52,56). Antiochus IV died “in the one hundred and forty-ninth year,” 163 B.C. (1 Maccabees 6:16). Even if Antiochus died as early as the first day of the first month (Nisan) of the new year, that would still place his death at least 57 days after the completion of the temple cleansing, twelve days too late. But the evidence shows that he died even later than that.

After the completion of the rededication, Judas Maccabaeus and his men “fortified Mount Zion with high walls and strong towers round about” (1 Maccabees 4:60), which would be no small task, certainly an effort lasting more than a few days. Antiochus was 600 miles away in Babylon at the time (1 Maccabees 6:4), a four month journey from Jerusalem (Ezra 7:9). When he was finally informed of the rededication of the Temple, he was also told that the Jews “had surrounded the sanctuary with high walls as before” (1 Maccabees 6:7). Thus, considering that the messenger departed from Jerusalem after the rededication and after the high walls had been built around the sanctuary, and that it was a four month journey to reach him, and that Antiochus died of grief “many days” after receiving the news (1 Maccabees 6:9), it appears from the data that Antiochus must have died no fewer than 120 days (four months) after the rededication of the Temple, and certainly several months later even than that.

In any case, he eventually died, having been “broken without hand” (Daniel 8:25), but his death was so much later than 45 days after the rededication, that it would not have been the key milestone to signify the completion of the 1,335 days. But there is something that would have. All we need to ask is what the Jews would have done next after cleansing the interior of the temple. The answer to that question lies in Ezekiel.

To understand what happened during those 45 days we turn to Ezekiel’s vision of the restoration of the Temple. Recalling that Judas “chose blameless priests devoted to the law” (1 Maccabees 4:42) to cleanse the sanctuary, it becomes clear they did so in accordance with the instructions received from Ezekiel. When Ezekiel was transported to Israel in a vision in the 25th year of the Babylonian captivity (Ezekiel 40:1-2), he was told to instruct the people of Israel about the Law of the House of God. Importantly, Ezekiel was to instruct the Jews about what true repentance from their sins would look like. They had defiled God’s Holy House with their idols. If they were truly sorry, they would restore the temple in accordance with “the pattern”:

“Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern. And if they be ashamed of all that they have done, shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them. This is the law of the house; Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house.” (Ezekiel 43:10-12)

Given that repentance was the prescription for the Jews before they had ever been sent into captivity in Babylon (Jeremiah 7:23), and that repentance was the prescription for the Jews during the captivity (Jeremiah 33:7-8), and that repentance was the prescription for the conclusion of the Seventy Weeks (Daniel 9:24), and that repentance was the desired end of The Leviticus 26 Protocol (Leviticus 26:40-45), Ezekiel’s explicit description of repentance would have weighed heavily on the minds of those “blameless priests devoted to the law.” As Ezekiel reported, “if they be ashamed of all that they have done,” they will not only restore the “form” and “fashion” of Temple, but will also attend to the “goings out” and the “comings in thereof.” When we review the steps taken by the Jews after they occupied the Temple Mount, we find that they followed Ezekiel’s instructions precisely.

The “Law of the House,” as Ezekiel reports it, begins with the sanctuary and the altar, and prescribes eight days of “burnt offerings upon the altar” (Ezekiel 43:13) in order to cleanse and purge it (Ezekiel 43:18-27). When they took back the Temple Mount, Judas’ first objective was “to cleanse the sanctuary and dedicate it” (1 Maccabees 4:36). The priests then “cleansed the sanctuary” (1 Maccabees 4:41-43), and “celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days” (1 Maccabees 4:56), just as Ezekiel had prescribed:

“Early in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month … they rose and offered sacrifice, as the law directs, on the new altar of burnt offering which they had built. … So they celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days, and offered burnt offerings with gladness;” (1 Maccabees 4:52-56)

Notably, the entire effort of rebuilding—the altar, the curtains, the holy vessels, the table of showbread, the lamp stand—as well as the rededication, focused on “the sanctuary and the interior of the temple” (1 Maccabees 4:48). The dedication of the altar and the interior of the temple is that for which they had been preparing since their victory at Beth-zur earlier in the year. As we noted above, kings go out to war in the spring (2 Samuel 11:1), and Beth-zur had been Syria’s first military engagement of 164 B.C.. After routing the Syrian army at Beth-zur (1 Maccabees 4:28-36), Judas immediately turned his attention to rededicating the sanctuary, which at the time was unoccupied and desolate. He would have taken the Temple as early as late spring, and certainly no later than summer. Yet it was not until December of that year that the work of restoration was complete, and that work had focused exclusively on the rebuilding and refurbishing of the inner court, the sanctuary. It had been months of work and it was finally cleansed after eight days of sacrifices in accordance with the pattern of Ezekiel’s vision. What would they do next after cleansing the interior of the temple? They would do exactly as  Ezekiel instructed. They would attend to “the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof.”

Following on the eight days of sacrifices for purifying the altar, Ezekiel then proceeds to describe the priests’ garments, chambers and duties (Ezekiel 44:17-19), for “I will make them keepers of the charge of the house, for all the service thereof, and for all that shall be done therein” (Ezekiel 44:14). Here what is emphasized is their obligation to maintain “the difference between the holy and profane” (Ezekiel 44:23), a reference to the “middle wall of partition” to which Paul also refers in Ephesians 2:14, a wall to separate the inner and outer courts, separating the Jews from the Gentiles. The next step, according to Ezekiel, would be to refurbish the wall of separation, the wall that would restore what had been lost in the covenant with Antiochus—the distinction between the Gentiles and the children of Israel. As Ezekiel proceeds with his instructions, he addresses the fact that the Jews had not properly maintained that distinction:

“And the LORD said unto me, Son of man, mark well, and behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears all that I say unto thee concerning all the ordinances of the house of the LORD, and all the laws thereof; and mark well the entering in of the house, with every going forth of the sanctuary. And thou shalt say to the rebellious, even to the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; O ye house of Israel, let it suffice you of all your abominations, In that ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when ye offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant because of all your abominations. And ye have not kept the charge of mine holy things: but ye have set keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for yourselves. Thus saith the Lord GOD; No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary, of any stranger that is among the children of Israel.” (Ezekiel 44:5-9)

As we proceed in the narrative from 1 Maccabees, having until this point focused on the temple interior and consecrating it in accordance with Ezekiel, the Jews then turned their attention to the exterior of the temple, the priest’s chambers and importantly, the reestablishment of the wall of separation, to “mark well” the “entering in” and the “going forth” from the sanctuary:

“They decorated the front of the temple with golden crowns and small shields; they restored the gates and the chambers for the priests, and furnished them with doors. There was very great gladness among the people, and the reproach of the Gentiles was removed.” (1 Maccabees 4:57-58)

What is rendered “golden crowns” and “shields” here is actually a mistranslation (and a common one at that) of the golden “wreaths” and “breastplates” prescribed in Exodus 28:22-24 for the adorning of the priestly chambers and garments outside the temple, but within the wall of separation. What is described here is the chambers of the priests whose duties were to serve as the gatekeepers who maintain the separation between the holy and the profane. The attention is therefore now turned from the sanctuary to the gates and the priests who keep charge of them. Their focus was on Ezekiel 44 and the duties of the priests to maintain the separation between Jew and Gentile.

This work on the priest’s chambers and on the wall of separation would have taken place after the dedication of the temple “in the ninth month” but before the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the first month of the next year. We know this because the authors of 1 Maccabees place the refurbishment of the priests’ chambers and garments, as well as the gates and doors of the wall of separation, after the dedication but before the next assembly of all Israel. The next  “whole assembly of the congregation of Israel” would have been at the Feast of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the first month of the new year (Exodus 12:6, Deuteronomy 16:8). In fact, the full restoration of priestly ministries (Ezekiel 45:1-17) and the restoration of those two feasts had been explicitly identified by Ezekiel as the next objectives of his vision (Ezekiel 45:18-23).

The authors of 1 Maccabees cover that three-month span in rapid fashion, over the course of just four verses:

Rededication of the Temple: “So they celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days, and offered burnt offerings with gladness; they offered a sacrifice of deliverance and praise.” (1 Maccabees 4:56)

Restoration of the Wall of Separation: “They decorated [lit: arranged] the front of the temple with golden crowns [lit: wreaths] and small shields [lit: breastplates]; they restored the gates and the chambers for the priests, and furnished them with doors. There was very great gladness among the people, and the reproach of the Gentiles was removed.” (1 Maccabees 4:57-58)

Feast of Passover: “Then Judas and his brothers and all the assembly of Israel determined that every year at that season the days of dedication of the altar should be observed with gladness and joy for eight days, beginning with the twenty-fifth day of the month of Chislev.” (1 Maccabees 4:59)

The temple was rededicated. Then the wall of separation and the priestly ministries thereof were restored. Then at the next Passover, three months after the dedication, they decided that the rededication of the altar should be celebrated annually. According to Ezekiel’s instructions, that separating wall and its gates would have had to be completely restored by the first day of the new year, at least two weeks prior to Passover (Ezekiel 45:18-19). We therefore place the reestablishment of priestly ministries at the wall of separation between the rededication in December and Passover, three months later. Given the months of work spent refurbishing the altar and the sanctuary, forty five days is a reasonable amount of time for the refurbishment of the priestly chambers, and garments, and the wall, the doors and the gates.

The idea of reestablishing the wall of separation as the final event in the narrative may strike a dissonant chord for those who have viewed the Seventy Weeks of Daniel as a Messianic Prophecy, for Christ removed the “middle wall” between Jews and Gentiles (Ephesians 2:14). We remind the reader, however, that the Seventy Week Prophecy was Mosaic, not Messianic, and it focused on restoring the old order of the First Covenant, not on the introduction of the Second. The chief offense of the Jews in the last Week of Daniel was that they entered into a covenant with the Gentiles, and went so far as to remove the mark of their circumcision (1 Maccabees 1:15), a mark that distinguished the Jews from the surrounding nations (Genesis 17:11-14). They had entered into a covenant to remove that distinction, and as in Ezekiel’s day, the priests had “brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh” (Ezekiel 44:7), and had not “mark[ed] well the entering in of the house, with every going forth of the sanctuary” (Ezekiel 44:5). The “difference between the holy and profane”  had been abandoned, and it, too, needed to be restored. 

Not only was the wall of separation the next objective in the pattern of Ezekiel’s vision—a pattern that the Maccabees were clearly following—but it was also necessary in order to reverse the policy established under the covenant with the Gentiles. The difference between the circumcised and the uncircumcised had to be restored after the altar had been cleansed, and that is what the Jews did next, and they completed it in time for the next solemn assembly. Thus, we identify the reestablishment of the wall of separation as the event marking the conclusion of the 1,335 days.

The holy house would be anointed 1,290 days after the prohibition of sacrifices (Daniel 9:24, 27; 12:11). “Blessed is he” (Daniel 12:12) that endures until the “difference between the holy and profane” is restored, and “the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof” are correctly administered again—the 1,335 days.

By way of concluding our discussion on the Seventy Weeks and the Leviticus 26 Protocol, we note that the Jews had been called to repentance since the earliest days of Jeremiah’s ministry, but they would not repent, so Jeremiah invoked the Leviticus 26 Protocol, and consigned them to 70 years of chastisement. The Jews had not repented during the 70 year chastisement, which is why Gabriel invoked the Leviticus 26 Protocol again, and consigned them the Seventy Weeks of chastisement. Ezekiel’s vision identified what true repentance would look like”if they be ashamed of all that they have done” (Ezekiel 43:10), and apparently the Maccabees followed that instruction to the letter.

The outcome of such a change in the disposition of the Jews—repentance, and acceptance of the chastisement—was that God would then gather His people from the lands to which He had scattered them, for He had not forgotten them:

“And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God.” (Leviticus 26:44)

The objectives of the Leviticus 26 Protocol had been satisfied, and therefore what Judas and his brothers did next was to go into the lands of the Gentiles and bring God’s people back. 1 Maccabees 5 describes the sorties of the Maccabees into Galilee to the north, Gilead to the east and the land of Esau to the south and the land of the Philistines to gather God’s people from the lands to which they had been scattered for their sins. The Jews had repented of their profanities and defilements according to the Law of Moses, the Law of the House as revealed to Ezekiel, and the prophecy of Gabriel in Daniel 9, and they were restored to their land, and their land was restored to them.

We reemphasize here that all of this transpired under the rule of a Greek antagonist, as the natural reading of Daniel 8, Daniel 9, and Daniel 11 suggests. Because understanding the Little Horn of Daniel 8 as a Greek antagonist is so critical to our understanding of Papal Catholicism as the Roman antagonist of Daniel 7, we will continue this series next week by expanding our analysis of Daniel chapter 8.