Allan MacRae: Prophecies of Daniel: Lecture 10I wanted to bring out to you the fact that this word "Messiah" or "anointed one" is used in the Old Testament for a king in about half the cases. It is used for the people of Israel in a number of cases; it is used for priest in four or five cases; it is used even for a prophet in a couple of cases. It is used for a king in about half the cases where it is used. Now, here is a commentary, The Prophesy of Daniel by E.J. Young. A commentary whichhas some very good things in it. Dr. Young has made a very thorough study of the book ofDaniel, and when he is not prejudiced on a certain point, his material is often of great value. But there are a few points where he has great prejudices, and when covering a debated subject like that, he sometimes jumps to conclusions rather quickly. Here he makes the statement that in the verse which I refereed you to in Daniel 9 verse 25 where it says, “Messiah the prince,” he says, “This must refer to Christ. It must be a prediction of Christ because he is the only one who was both a king and a priest.” Well, now, in the phrase "Messiah the prince," the word "prince" suggests it is referring to the king. But does Messiah mean it is referring to a priest? Well, you have gathered your own evidence by looking at the use of the word "Messiah" in the Hebrew or in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word "Messiah" is translated as "anointed" in most cases and in half the cases it is used of a king. So "Messiah the prince" might be one who is a king and a priest, but it doesn’t have to be; it is simply one whom God has set apart for an important task. So in that verse, whether it is talking about Christ or not is a matter to be decided on other grounds and not simply to be decided by the fact that the King James Version used this word, or by an inadequate argument as this one, which unfortunately Dr. Young gave. As you see, as you look at the original Hebrew, Dr. Young's argument looks quite out of place. Now, so much for that assignment, although I should mention that the next assignment deals with those same verses in chapter 9. It is brief passage which has had a tremendous amount of discussion in the Christian world. And it only relates to one verse in the passage; and the assignment is quite a simple thing which you could probably do in1a few minutes, but it takes longer to explain what it is. Therefore I have posted the three copies of the assignment on the board. I believe once you read it you will have practicallyall of it in mind. You won't need to copy but a tiny bit that is on the board.Now, we are looking at Daniel 11. The last two lectures we spent quite a bit of time on Daniel 11. Daniel 11, as we have noticed, contains a great many statements which would be very difficult to interpret in advance. But they are statements which when the events occurred, some of them you could say fit this or that historical time period well but it could fit with about a dozen other times. But there are other statements which fit very specifically only one historical situation. And we noticed in chapter 11 how it starts in verse 2 and refers to the fact that “There will be yet three kings in Persia and the fourth will be far richer than all of them. And by his strength through his riches he will stir up all against the realm of Greece.” And you would not know exactly what is going to happen if you lived in Daniel’s days, although you could form a pretty good guess that there would be three more kings of Persia and the fourth one would be richer than any of the previous ones, as Xerxes was, and that he would make a great attack on Greece. And it was the greatest attack perhaps that has ever been made on Greece. Perhaps one of the greatest attacks in all history was that tremendous army which Xerxes turned against Greece. He made such an impression on the Greeks, from their managing to survive that attack, that it was very important in all their thinking 200 years later. Theywere psychologically prepared for Alexander the Great to go back and attack the Persian Empire and destroy it. And then in the third verse we notice, “A mighty king shall arise, who shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will.” And of course this could be said of many different people, but the following verse speaks specifically about Alexander the Great, so we know that verse 3 here was a description of Alexander the Great, the mightiest king the world had perhaps seen up to that time, who nothing seemed to be ableto stand before him. But you notice between verse 2 and 3 there is an unmentioned interval of over 150 years. Daniel simply passes from Xerxes who attacked Greece, to 2Alexander the Great, who destroyed the Persian Empire. Daniel skips over 150 years without any reference to it. Then in verse 4 it tells about the division of Alexander’s Empire. In advance it might be hard to know what is meant, “And when he stood up his kingdom will be broken.” In other words, he didn’t have his power very long; he was just a young fellow in his early thirties when he died rather suddenly. And His Kingdom was broken although they tried to keep it together, but they soon got to fighting. Pretty soon it was divided into three large important sections and a few smaller sections. So it was divided, not according to the dominion of his rule, nor according to his posterity for within the next fifteen years every relative of Alexander: his mother, his brothers, his children, every relative of his was killed. His kingdom was not according to his posterity or the dominion of which he ruled, it was given to others. And then verse 5 says, “The king of the south shall be strong," and one of Alexander's generals who took the most southern part of his empire, Ptolemy who took Egypt, was a very strong king. You couldn’t have predicted exactly what this would meanin the future, but when it came to pass you would say, “Well isn’t this wonderful that Daniel predicted this three hundred years in advance.” Then we continue “The king of thesouth shall be strong and one of his princes shall be strong above him and have dominion.” And when you find one of Ptolemy generals, Selucius, going up and getting control of the whole eastern half of the Persian Empire, that certainly is the remarkable fulfillment of this. You wouldn’t know in advance what was going to happen but when it happened you can see how