Prophecy as History Written in Advance

How God’s Roadmap Becomes Clear—Beginning with the Old Testament prophets, Scripture had always given God’s people at least a vague idea of what was going to happen before it occurred, and only after those events took place did the prophecies become clear, displaying the accurate fulfillment of exactly what God had predicted. Within the book of Daniel, that roadmap continued with the most comprehensive and detailed description of world history written in advance, with the most notable being the “statue” of Empires found in Daniel 2, as well as the already fulfilled historical events from Daniel chapter 8 through 12, which included the monumental and completely fulfilled Christ-centered prophecy in Daniel 9.

Many of those events took place during the 400 years before Christ was born, which was the time period after the book of Malachi was written, when Israel had been left without any prophets, yet they still had amazingly precise predictions of what was going to be occurring during those centuries. Similarly, even though we too no longer have prophets that foretell the future, our ancestors who utilized their Traditional Interpretation of Revelation were able to accurately see the roadmap of events that were to occur during the Church age. Even though they were brutally persecuted, they were greatly encouraged with the knowledge of how God has been fighting for His Church and fulfilling His prophecies one by one. By knowing precisely where they were at on God’s timeline, they were able to accurately know what was going to happen next.

While many theologians have noted that we no longer have prophets that “foretell” future events (ours can’t predict events, but instead can only “forthtell” God’s message for us, such as guidance, correction, or encouragement), we’ve still been able to know what was going to begin happening “shortly” after Revelation had been written, because Revelation is also history written in advance, and most by now has already been fulfilled. Just like believers who used the roadmap given by God’s Old Testament prophets as they waited for the “First” Advent of Jesus and were able to recognize just how much had already been fulfilled, we too have a similar roadmap in Revelation as we wait for the “Second” Advent of Jesus, and we should also be able to recognize just how much has already been fulfilled, especially since it’s what our ancestors so thoroughly documented for us.

Why Skeptics Attempt to Late Date Daniel—The predictions within the book of Daniel were so accurate that skeptics of the Bible claim that Daniel must’ve been written “after” the prophesied events had transpired. The reason they do so is that the accuracy of the detailed prophecies, such as in Daniel 8 and Daniel 11, are so spectacular that even the most hardened skeptic is simply unable to deny the accuracy of the description. Fortunately, rather than it being deceptively written after the events had transpired, there’s abundant literary, historical, and biblical evidence that points to the book of Daniel being written in the sixth century BC, which is well before those events took place.

Identification of Herod as “the King”

Quite interestingly, it’s often possible for us to find the interpretation of Scripture somewhere within in Scripture itself. An exceedingly important concept we’ll continue to repeat throughout our upcoming studies is that “Scripture interprets Scripture.” God had a plan for revealing His prophecies, and He helps show us His plan throughout His Word. For one example, a commentary on Daniel 11 can be found here, which shows how verses 36-45 weren’t about a future antichrist, but were instead about Herod the Great, “the king” of Judea when Jesus was born, also see this full study by Philip Mauro, chapter 9, starting on page 67.

Daniel 11 starts with kings from different directions, yet when we get to verse 36 we’re suddenly told about “the king,” which leads us to look back towards Judea rather than those different directions, and by allowing “Scripture to interpret Scripture,” it shows us that Herod the Great is the only one who is called “the king of Judea” in the Gospels, such as in Luke 1:5. He was the significant leader who killed all male boys under the age of two in Bethlehem in order to attempt to kill the Messiah whom he thought might’ve threatened his own kingship. All of which fulfilled the prophecy in Jeremiah 31:15 according to Matthew 2:17-18. It just makes much better sense to see that Daniel 11:36-45 was referring to the next important leader, Herod the Great, rather than jumping to the end of time and supposedly describing a future antichrist.

John Gill (1697–1771) was an influential English Baptist minister and is recognized as the first major writing Baptist theologian whose works have had a lasting influence in the Baptist tradition. Known for his deep scholarship and emphasis on historical-grammatical exegesis, Gill’s “Exposition of the Old and New Testament” (1746–1763) stands as one of the most thorough commentaries of his time. As a Historicist, Gill emphasized the symbolic fulfillment of biblical prophecy through specific historical events and figures.

In his exposition of Daniel 11, Gill connects Herod the Great with the prophecy in Daniel 11:36-45, identifying him as a key fulfillment of the “king” in the passage. He writes:

“The king of Daniel 11:36, though often misapplied to a future antichrist, actually refers to Herod the king of Judea, who opposed God’s people and reigned during the time of Christ’s birth. His violent acts, including the massacre of children in Bethlehem, align with the prophetic description of a king rising against the true worship of God.”

Rather than being like dispensationalists who seem to instinctively anticipate breaks in prophecies that then supposedly jump to describing a future End Time antichrist instead of recognizing past historical fulfillments, we must instead instead first see if there had instead been a continuous historical narrative. Fortunately, that’s exactly what we find in Daniel: a continuous historical narrative of already fulfilled prophecies without incongruous breaks. Everything was fulfilled right on time.

Transition to the Next Study

What we’ve established so far is the shape of prophecy: it is given ahead of time, it often outlives the prophet, and it becomes clearer as history unfolds.

Next we need to look at how prophecy communicates—especially how Daniel uses symbols and why “kings” can sometimes mean “kingdoms.” That will form the focus of Study 3 — Symbols, Kings, and Kingdoms.