Handwriting on the Wall 1
For Christmas, my in-laws gave me a copy of James Jordan’s new commentary on Daniel, The Handwriting on the Wall. (Thanks again!) Jordan has been working on this commentary for the past seven years (how very symbolical!), and it’s finally here.
I usually end up reading only commentaries that directly relate to the sermons I’m preaching, and I wouldn’t want to read most commentaries straight through, dry and technical as they often are.  This commentary is an exception on both counts. I’m preaching Mark’s Gospel, not Daniel, and yet I’m reading this commentary and reading it from start to finish. I’ll likely end up sharing chunks of it with you.
I finished the introduction about ten days ago. Here are a few things I appreciated:
* Jordan’s discussion of Daniel as a second Joseph (pp. 1-2). It’s very helpful when we see that what God did earlier through Joseph is being recapitulated in many ways, but on an even larger scale, in Daniel. History, after all, is not one thing after another; it’s a unified story by one author, and like a great symphony it repeats certain themes again and again.
* Jordan’s observation that Belshazzar must have been pretending not to know Daniel (in Daniel 5), since Daniel would have been ruling under Nebuchadnezzar when Belshazzar was growing up (p. 2n2).
* Jordan’s rejection of the idea that the book of Daniel (and in particular the parts that say “I” and claim to be by Daniel) might have been written by someone pretending to be Daniel:
By baptism and by faith, Christians are settled in union with Jesus Christ. They are to think what He thought. If Jesus was wrong about who wrote Daniel and when, then I am happy (indeed, compelled) to be wrong right along with Him. But certainly it is an abomination to suggest that the Father and the Spirit left Jesus Christ in the dark about the very Word of God that He believed He had come to fulfil! … It is not acceptable to suggest that Jesus, as the very Incarnate Word, did not understand the Written Word (pp. 6-7).
* Jordan’s discussion of the various parts of the book of Daniel and their historical context, and in particular his observation that Jeremiah and the Jews in Jerusalem ought to have known that Daniel was in a position of authority in Babylon and that Nebuchadnezzar was acknowledging Yahweh, the God of Israel, as the true and only God.
After all, Nebuchadnezzar sent out the declaration which is Daniel 4 to his entire empire (“To all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth”: Daniel 4:1). That would certainly have included Judea, which means that when Jeremiah was telling the king and the people to surrender to Nebuchadnezzar, they should have known that Nebuchadnezzar was a professing believer with Daniel at his right hand. Surrendering to him was surrendering to someone God had prepared in order to help them. But their refusal to surrender was sheer rebellion (pp. 11-12).
More on this theme later.
* Jordan’s brief treatment of the statement in Daniel 5:32 that Darius the Mede was “about” 62 years old when he conquered Babylon, 62 being a number that’s significant when Daniel talks about the seventy weeks (7 weeks + *** 62 weeks *** + 1 week: Daniel 9:25ff.) (p. 17).  I’m sure he’ll discuss the significance of this echo between Daniel’s weeks and Darius’s age at the appropriate place in the commentary.
* Jordan’s discussion of how the various events in Daniel 1-6 should have instructed God’s people about what they ought to do during the seventy weeks (p. 17). After all, Daniel 1-6 isn’t just some history (“This happened and then that happened”). It is preached history, history with a point, an application for Israel and, by extension, for us as well.
All of that struck me as particularly helpful stuff, and that was only in the introduction. I haven’t read any other commentaries on Daniel, so maybe this is all common knowledge, but it was news to me.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Great! Is encouraging for me to read those comments and to have them continually, as you hint, because they are helpful, when they are from a teacher like you and especially for me, Jordan’s writings are so helpful for my family, but I just have the BH writings online, some articles and MP3 which I have happened to download for free, and being from Albania, cant buy the book. Thanks.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:48 am
I am an albanian reformed believer. It is great to hear those comments, and that you are going to continue them. Not only from a teacher like you, but they have a special place, because I dont have the book, but could read pieces from it and comments. Thanks.
February 19th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
[…] Back in January, I wrote about the introduction to James B. Jordan’s new commentary on Daniel, The Handwriting on the Wall. Now here are some thoughts on the first two chapters of the book. […]