Thursday, December 30, 2021

Richard Bauckham on Daniel 7:14 having a Then-Future Fulfillment According to the Book of Revelation

  

It should be noted that John cannot have thought Daniel 7:14 fulfilled in the redemption of people from all nations in the church (5:9), for in his exegesis of Daniel these are ‘the holy ones’ whom the horn (Revelation’s beast) fights and conquers (Daniel 7:21, to which Revelation 13:7a alludes), while still ruling the nations (13:7b). This persecution is that form which the people drawn from all nations emerge victorious in 7:9. But reading Daniel 7:14 as John must have read it, we are led to expect something more: the transfer of dominion over the nations themselves from the beast to Jesus Christ (cf. perhaps also Isa 66:18: ‘I am coming to gather all nations and languages.’ This verse is quoted in 2 Clem 17:4 in a way that assimilates it to the Danielic threefold phrase for the nations: ‘Ερχομαι συναγγειν παντα τα εθνη, φυλας και γλωσσας). (Richard Bauckham, “The Conversion of the Nations,” in The Climax of Prophecy: Studies in the Book of Revelation [London: T&T Clark, 1993], 330)