“The Assyrian”, the god Asshur / evil spirit, didn’t die or become inactive in any way when it lost a human body. The title “God of this world” informs us that he simply moves from one self-and- power-obsessed human being to another as empires rise and fall, remaining active and present in world politics through key leaders, but God sees through his veneer and reveals him to us.
“My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian / Pharoah at this time oppressed them without cause.” (Isaiah 52:4)
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places…that man of sin [will] be revealed, the son of perdition;” (Ephesians 6:12, II Thessalonians 2:3)
The relationship between the kings of Assyria and Neo-Babylon / Chaldees had traditionally been close, with the royal families linked by marriage. Shalmaneser III of Assyria (858-824 BC) and Marduk-zakir-šumi I of Babylon are depicted as equal partners on the front of Shalmaneser’s throne base from his palace at Kalhu.
So when the Assyrian Empire decayed from within, the guiding spirit of the sacral king naturally moved over to fresh meat in the Babylonian Empire.
Zedekiah…reigned eleven years in Jerusalem.
- And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD his God,
- and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the LORD.
- And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God:
- but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the LORD God of Israel.
- Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen…
- And…they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets…till there was no remedy.
Therefore [in judment] he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees.” (II Chronicles 36:11-17)
“I Nebuchadnezzar…saw a dream…a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth… It is thou, O king, that art grown and become strong…and thy dominion to the end of the earth…and, behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven; He cried aloud, and said thus, Hew down the tree…Let his heart be changed from man’s, and let a beast’s [instincts only, no intellect] heart be given unto him till thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will…to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.” (Daniel 4)
And Nebuchadnezzar was indeed God’s witness to the world.
“Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; Peace be multiplied unto you. I thought it good to shew the signs and wonders that the high God hath wrought toward me. How great are his signs! and how mighty are his wonders! his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation.” (Daniel 4:1-3)
“Thou, O king [Nebuchadnezzar], art a king of kings:”
The title king of kings, used even in the 20th century by the shahs of Iran, implies that the central authority exercised power through a pyramidal structure that was controlled at levels below the supreme authority by individuals who were themselves, in a certain sense, kings.
“for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory…wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven, hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all.” (Daniel 2)
This is nothing less than the kingdom of the whole earth bequeathed to the first Adam, seized by the god of this world from the Adams, and held by spiritual wickedness in high places until reclaimed by the Seed of the Woman.
“the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David…hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made US unto our God kings and priests: and WE shall reign on the earth.” (Revelation 5:5-10)
WE – humans – instead of Satan’s spirit minions.
Reframe Daniel’s prophecy from this perspective.
- “Thou art this head of gold.
- And after thee shall arise another kingdom [differentiated by degradation] inferior to thee,
- and another third [also degraded] kingdom of brass…
- And the fourth [version of this world] kingdom shall be strong as iron.”
Daniel is not referring to Nebuchadnezzar as the first of four kings but to his kingdom of Babylon as the first capitol of one single image / entity – the Empire that bears rule over all the earth until they are all crushed at the same time by the Almighty’s weapon.
“And in the days of these kings [of the four ethnicities of one antichrist empire] shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and shall break in pieces and consume all these [the four] kingdoms [ruled by under-kings].
“a stone was cut out without hands [unlike the metal images which had to be made by a higher order being], which smote the image…Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together…and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain [joining heaven to earth], and filled the whole earth.” (Daniel 2:28-45)
This is obviously one of Jesus’ supporting scriptures as Daniel’s 70 Weeks came to an end and Jesus was prepared to take over.
“the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?
“Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures?”
Now that’s downright snarky. Jesus is being provocative, picking a fight with these arrogant academics.
“The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head…[replacing the first head]. Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits [of God’s Spirit] thereof.
And whosoever shall
- [instead of joining this stone to be built up with it]
- fall on this stone [the same as ‘fall on his sword’] shall be broken [he’s warning that resistance is suicide]
- but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
Jesus isn’t coming up with threats of his own. He is simply repeating Daniel’s prophecy and extrapolating to them the inevitable crushing of each kingdom’s rulers who stopped carrying out God’s will for the earth. Even in chastisement – especially in chastisement – God’s will was always to draw people to him for salvation.
And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.” (Matthew 21:23-46)
We can follow the sequence of world rulers through a maze of prophecy in Daniel to highlight the continuity of one spirit – either God’s Holy Spirit or Satan’s Mystery of Iniquity:
- incarnating and empowering world leaders
- through heirs either genetic or adopted or claimants
- over time, geography and nationalities
- to our time in history
in a series of kings of kings over an ever-expanding reach of territories.
~600 BC Beginning with Medo-Persian ethnicity of the single Empire
“the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honour…And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this…that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain / crushed by the Cornerstone of the Kingdom of God.
“And Darius the Median took the kingdom.” (Daniel 5)
Couldn’t be clearer. “The kingdom” formerly ruled by Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar has been transferred to a ruler of another ethnicity but remains the same kingdom.
“Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD / YHVH God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth…the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem. (Ezra 1:2-3)
Cyrus’ successor Darius the Great was anti-christ, insinuating himself into kingship via a coup against the rightful heir and spinning lies about himself. He set up new taxes, a guaranteed-to-happen antichrist scheme for bilking the masses to enrich the elite.
Are you picking up the pattern out of what seems to be a confusing mix of good and bad rulers?
It doesn’t matter – the Most High God uses both to carry out his purpose – to pass judgment on the good and bad, to separate the sheep from the goats.
“O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge…Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but
- it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few…
- And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant…shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.” (Isaiah 20)
And that’s not just the Jews. Since Isaiah wrote this warning to his people the Gentiles have been grafted in to Israel.
“Until the internet age, Alexander the Great was probably the most famous human being who ever lived…inspired not just Caesar…[but] Napoleon, Hitler and other would-be world conquerors from the West.” He was also noted for instituting a new system of taxation, while those who supported his rise to power were exempted from taxation.
Taxation. Now there’s a key element in discerning between the good and the bad.
“….his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven…even for others beside those…”
“the king of the south...one of his [Alexander’s] princes…shall be strong…and have dominion.”
Geographically, the south can only be Ptolemy’s Egypt and the north starts with Seleucid Asia Minor but unlike Egypt which is bounded by deserts, and Mesopotamia which is walled in by mountains, the north expands west over time into a vast empire that stretches across the whole world. And isn’t that limitless opportunity where Satan sets up his throne.
Hellenism presented a unique challenged to the Jews of the Levant and their culture. It was devoid of some of the more unacceptable pagan aspects of the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians – and its universality enticed Jews who wished to elevate their standing in the Greek-Seleucid Empire. Many Jews learned Greek and adapted Judaism with Greek philosophy and culture, leading to surgical reversal of circumcision to blend in while participating nude in the games, and abandoning their Jewish identity by taking Greek first names. These outrages against YHVH’s covenant with Israel led to chastisement.
To consolidate his power Antiochus outlawed Judaism’s essentials – the rite of circumcision, the study of Torah, and the keeping of kashrut (Jewish dietary laws). In the Jews’ Holy Temple, he placed a statue of Zeus / Satan the supreme god he believed was manifest in his own royal being — and sacrificed swine on the altar. He stripped the Temple of its sacred gold vessels and stole the silver and gold coin. These actions so outraged the Jews that they fought back, facing great tribulation and death to emerge once again as God’s heritage.
“And in the end of years…”
The “end of years” can only be the end of Daniel’s prophetic 70 weeks determined upon Israel, i.e. the decades coming up to the birth of Jesus the Christ.
“they shall join themselves together; for the king’s daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north”
With the benefit of hindsight we know that the southern ruler was the famous Pharaoh Cleopatra VII from the Greek Ptolemaic Dynasty who sought to strengthen her weakening hold on the family legacy by forging an alliance with the rising star Julius Caesar.
Like Helen of Troy, Cleo was a prize for any aspiring ruler grooming personal relationships with the gods. Cleopatra was the product of generational incest harboring and maximizing the traits / genes of the Egyptian version of the same gods from whom the Julian clan proudly claimed descent. Cleo bore Caesar his only begotten (i.e. acknowledged heir) son in 47 BC, anticipating he would grow up to become sole ruler of the now conjoined Eastern and Western Roman Empire.
Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC did not end Cleo’s plans. She succeeded in winning the support of Marc Antony, who, as Julius Caesar’s favorite general in the civil war, was Caesar’s most likely heir. With his considerable support in the Senate and the Army, and with Cleo’s substantial financial support from wealthy Egypt he would certainly make himself Caesar’s successor. Marc used his political connections to declare Cleo’s son as Julius Caesar’s legitimate heir and King of Kings. Adding insult to injury, despite being married to Octavian’s sister and the illegality of Roman marriages to non-Romans, Marc contracted an Egyptian marriage with Cleo, even fathering three children with her.
You got to admit there is more drama in ancient history than in modern soap operas.
Certainly the inexperienced 19 year old Octavian was no rival, but in the end it depends on God’s backing in the game. World war waged for the next ten years until the Battle of Actium marked a seismic shift in the history of the Ancient Mediterranean. The ships of Mark Antony and Cleopatra outnumbered Octavian’s fleet…[but] Before the battle, Antony had to burn many of his warships since a deadly disease had decimated his crews.
The “inexperienced young” Roman conqueror of the Greek empire nearly doubled the size of the empire, adding territories in Europe and Asia Minor and securing alliances that gave him effective rule from Britain to India. He spent much of his time outside of Rome, consolidating power in the provinces and instituting a new system of taxation.
Octavian’s assumed title / attribute Augustus means “divine”. He and his successors to this title were claiming to be god incarnate.
Sound like an oddly familiar geopolitical alliance?
“Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day…Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except…that man of sin be revealed,
-
- the son of perdition
- Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped
- he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God
- For the mystery of iniquity doth already work.” (II Thessalonians 2:3-9 )
There would have been no question to the readers of Paul’s letter as it circulated throughout Roman territory that the “mystery of iniquity” was the current ruler of the fourth world empire who blatantly called himself Augustus Divi Filius / God, son of God, whether Nero Caesar in 54-68 AD or each and every one of the following holders of the title Augustus or Caesar / heir to the current Augustus Emperor.
The kingdoms Daniel predicted would come into being are still in play. Doesn’t it just make sense to take seriously his prophecies, study them out and connect them to current world history?
The United States has a “special relationship” with the state of Israel, characterized by sending Israel $3.8 billion in aid and an additional $8 billion in loan guarantees every year because Israel has played an invaluable role in helping the United States dominate the Middle East.
In response the fragmented and fractious Islamic nations are starting to gather together under a leader who can unify them as a renewed Empire.
Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us: they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek…then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel…And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land…thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.” (Micah 5)
Kingdom Come 