The Desire of My Heart

For those unfamiliar with the book of Daniel, it describes four kingdoms that will rise up at the end of the age. Daniel 2:28 makes clear that the statue dream is for the end of the age — not during Nebuchadnezzar's reign, nor Cyrus's, nor Alexander's. The four kingdoms are Babylonian, Medo-Persian, and Grecian. This end-of-the-age context is repeated throughout the book: Daniel 8:17–20 says it three times, Daniel 10:14 says it, and Daniel 12:4 says it. Four distinct sections of Daniel all confirm that these kingdoms are for the end of the age.

So what does that mean for us? If we are living at the end of the age, then those four kingdoms must still come to power. Beginning with the first: Babylon is Iraq. Baghdad sits just 45 miles from ancient Babylon. Saddam Hussein's Iraq fell in 2003 — that is the first kingdom Daniel spoke of. The second kingdom Daniel identified was Persia, which is modern Iran. Since Iraq fell in 2003, Iran has been the dominant superpower in the Middle East. That is fairly well understood. Two kingdoms down.

The third kingdom is listed in Daniel as "Yavan" — often translated as Greece in modern Bibles, but that is a mistranslation. Any biblical ancient atlas will show that Yavan is located on the western coast of Turkey. Likewise, the other names in Ezekiel 38 — Gomer, Togarmah, Magog — all correspond to lands within modern Turkey according to those same ancient atlases. This means Turkey is the third kingdom about to rise. They are already growing in power, though most attention remains fixed on Iran. According to Daniel 8, Iran is about to fall — not through America or Israel, but through Turkey.

So three of the four kingdoms Daniel identified are now visible: one already gone, one presently dominant but about to fall, and one on the rise. This brings us to Daniel 10, which bridges the accounts in Daniel 2 and 7 and addresses these kingdoms directly. In Daniel 10, the angel Gabriel tells Daniel that Iran and Israel will fight twice. Gabriel says: "I have been fighting the kingdom of Persia and have come to you after 21 days. Now that I have told you what is to happen, I must go back and fight him one more time." That is two conflicts. The first was the twelve-day war in June. The second is the conflict we have just witnessed. At the close of Daniel 10, Gabriel declares that Yavan — Turkey — is coming next.

From there, Daniel 8 describes Turkey crushing Iran at some point in the future. Daniel 10, then, is the transitional chapter connecting the second kingdom (Persia/Iran) and the third kingdom (Yavan/Turkey), after which the beast kingdom follows.