PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

he chooses” (4:32). He is punished for this until he acknowledges the sovereignty of God,
as opposed to his own humanity.
This story is rehearsed in the presence of Nebuchadnezzar’s son Belshazzar in chapter 5,
who is similarly presented as refusing to humbly acknowledge God: “You have exalted
yourself against the Lord God of heaven!” (5:23). Belshazzar’s rule is brought to an end,
whereas Daniel is honoured.
In chapter 6, those in positions of royal influence conspire against Daniel, resulting in a
sentence of execution. God is depicted as miraculously saving Daniel, and his accusers
are executed in his place.
These pictures of individual reversal (of boastful rulers to condemnation, and righteous
sufferers to honour 19 ) are paradigmatic of the book of Daniel’s expectations for Israel as a
whole. The book utilises the promise of apocalyptic reversal as a means of providing
comfort, security, and hope for those who were presently experiencing the insecurity and
uncertainty of foreign domination:
The deferral of eschatological hope is part of a strategy for maintaining Jewish
life in a Gentile environment, even in the service of Gentile kings. 20
Indeed, the book ends in chapter 12 with the expectation of the resurrected vindication of
the righteous dead, and the final condemnation of certain others. Nickelsburg comments:
19
Similar examples of individual reversal occur in the Greek additions to the book,
Susanna and Bel and the Dragon.
20
John J. Collins, Seers, Sybils and Sages in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism (Leiden: Brill,
1997), 137. That the hope of apocalyptic reversal brings comfort and security need not
imply that the literature expressing such hope derives from a particularly downtrodden
group within Judaism. Such literature may represent an “establishment” theological
reflection on the possibility or nature of theocracy under foreign domination. Philip R.
Davies considers, “There is absolutely no hint that Daniel is the product of a fringe; its
opposition is only to the Seleucid monarchy; its writers are most probably aristocratic,
even priestly, scribes”. Philip R. Davies, “The Social World of Apocalyptic Writings,” in
The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological, and Political Perspectives:
Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study (ed. Ronald Ernest Clements;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 251-274; 258.
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