URC Daily Devotion 6 September 2024

Daniel 8: 15 – 27

When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I tried to understand it. Then someone appeared standing before me, having the appearance of a man, and I heard a human voice by the Ulai, calling, ‘Gabriel, help this man understand the vision.’ So he came near where I stood; and when he came, I became frightened and fell prostrate. But he said to me, ‘Understand, O mortal, that the vision is for the time of the end.’

As he was speaking to me, I fell into a trance, face to the ground; then he touched me and set me on my feet. He said, ‘Listen, and I will tell you what will take place later in the period of wrath; for it refers to the appointed time of the end. As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia.  The male goat is the king of Greece, and the great horn between its eyes is the first king.  As for the horn that was broken, in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not with his power.

At the end of their rule,
    when the transgressions have reached their full measure,
a king of bold countenance shall arise,
    skilled in intrigue.
He shall grow strong in power,
    shall cause fearful destruction,
    and shall succeed in what he does.
He shall destroy the powerful
    and the people of the holy ones.
By his cunning
    he shall make deceit prosper under his hand,
    and in his own mind he shall be great.
Without warning he shall destroy many
    and shall even rise up against the Prince of princes.
But he shall be broken, and not by human hands.

The vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true. As for you, seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now.’

So I, Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for some days; then I arose and went about the king’s business. But I was dismayed by the vision and did not understand it.

Reflection

It’s been a long time since the death of Daniel’s ‘king of Greece’, Alexander of Macedon aka Alexander the Great, who, when he died in 323 BCE, left an enormous, powerful, empire and an almighty power struggle.

In the centuries that followed Alexander’s demise the region that included what we now think of as Iraq, Iran, Syrian and Lebanon, eventually came under the control of the Seleucid empire.  Around 200 BCE the Seleucid monarch Antiochus The Great had a son called Mithridates who, by means of plentiful deceit and cunning, ultimately became Antiochus IV. He was indeed a king of bold countenance, and definitely skilled in intrigue.

Antiochus IV was also known as ‘Epihanes’ which means ‘God manifest’: declaring himself to be Zeus incarnate (in his own mind he was great) he went on the rampage. Of all the villains in the Bible, Antiochus Ephiphanes is one of the very worst. A supervillain of epic, Biblical, proportions.

Among his various villainies Epiphanes sacked the Jerusalem temple. He stole the holy things stored there and slaughtered many Jews (the people of the holy ones). He destroyed scriptures and outlawed sacred practices – he caused the civil war you can read about in the books of the Maccabees.

Many miles and years separate us from this dreadful scoundrel, clouding the meaning of the texts written about him. Echoes of his destructive reign, however, reverberate through history and, tragically, continue to shape current conflicts.  

Imperial baddies like Antiochus should represent the antithesis of a loving, relational, God. Somehow, though, we seem determined to claim for the divine the capacity for the kind of dominant power and military might that characterises supervillains like Epiphanes. When we do this, we encourage the destructive myth of redemptive violence.

Prayer

Living God
we fetishise power, idolise absolute authority,
make false deities out of leaders, empires and ideologies,
and even ascribe to you the same characteristics,
as if true, divine, love, would ever – could ever, force, compel or coerce.
Oh love that lives in, among and beyond us,
lead us to live reflecting the lustre of your light.
Steer us towards paths of peace,
let us walk, talk, and trust no more the ways of war.
Amen