Amidst all the tribulations and humiliations that inevitably follow those who choose to serve God we are nonetheless reminded that He is in charge of history by those cases infrequent, but memorable, when against the tendency of the world, saints are raised to the highest positions in the prominent nations of the world.
The Book of Daniel was written during the Maccabean Wars in which the Jews of Israel were suffering a war of extermination. To encourage them, the Book of Daniel calls its readers back to the days of the Babylonian Captivity, in which Daniel and some Jewish companions had been raised to very high positions in the empire, in a similar way that Joseph had been in Egypt. High places are very hazardous positions for anyone who follows God, but nonetheless these stories remind us that God triumphs in the end. The lesson is that during difficult times one ought to remember that nothing happens without God allowing it, and that we must remain hopeful and trusting even in the worst of times.
Prophecies about world history are not unknown in the Bible: Jeremiah predicted the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of Babylon, Isaiah predicted the fall of Babylon at the hands of Cyrus. Christ predicted the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of Rome.
Here as well is also one of the most memorable images of such a prophecy sent by God in a dream to Nebuchadnezzar and interpreted by Daniel. “In your vision, O king, you saw a statue, very large and exceedingly bright, terrifying in appearance as it stood before you. The head of the statue was pure gold, its chest and arms were silver, its belly and thighs were bronze, the legs iron, its feet partly iron and partly tile...a stone which was hewn from a mountain without a hand being put to it, struck its iron and tile feet...the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth”
Higher criticism soon to find its way to a footnote near you, will not allow the prophecy to go beyond the date that the book was written, but if we're going to be sincere, it really has to, in which case, the gold is the Babylonian Empire, the silver: the Persian, bronze: the Hellenistic, and Iron and the feet of clay: that of Rome. The stone is Christ whose church has filled the whole world.
The imagery can also become rather surreal reminiscent of Ezekiel or Revelation, in another vision, that of the four beasts. Antiochus is portrayed as part of a beast with ten horns and iron teeth. The persecutor of the Jews is portrayed as a “horn [that] had eyes like a man and a mouth that spoke arrogantly.”
It was even written by Josephus that when Alexander the Great conquered Palestine, the conqueror was shown the Book of Daniel which predicted his conquest of Persia, most likely referring to the passage of the one horned goat destroying the ram.
There are other, very famous, and picturesque stories in which kings are faced with miracles demonstrating the power and splendor of God. Daniel and his colleagues are thrown into the furnace for refusing to practice idolatry, but are unharmed, proceeding to praise God. The song they sing appears to be an indictment of idolatry. It is the forces of nature here that are not gods, but rather worship God themselves “Sun and moon, bless the Lord...Stars of heaven, bless the Lord.” And who has not heard about the lion's den or the writing on the wall?
In one story King Nebuchadnezzar goes insane. He is “cast out from among men, he ate grass like an ox, and his body was bathed with the dew of heaven, until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle, and his nails like the claws of a bird.” What to make of the historicity of such a story? I don't know, but the point made, obviously aimed at the Seleucid monarchs was that even kings are human, susceptible to all human frailties, unexpected and humiliating, a truth that has been borne out by history, and after all even in the end by Antiochus himself.
The Babylonians, the Persians, and the Seleucid empires have all crumbled to dust, forgotten by most, but in the case of whatever powerful but ephemeral nation now inevitably continues to cause difficulties for those who seek to follow God, the Book of Daniel continues to live in its lessons of patience and hope.