Daniel’s Chiasmus and a Parallel in Our Day

First a seldom-told Bible story. And then something about our day.

engraving of Nebuchadnezzar gone mad, found here

Chiasmus in Daniel

I’ve been studying Daniel for a while. I’m not an accredited Bible scholar, just a reader. Some years ago I heard someone mention that some of the chapters of Daniel are a chiasmus. As I look at it, I believe that includes chapters 2-8.

A chiasmus is a literary structure in ancient Hebrew writings—such as the Old Testament—that have a mirroring shape. There’s an idea expressed, then another idea, and another until it has reached its end point. Then that point somewhat repeats, and goes back through the other ideas, ending with a sort of restatement of the first idea. If you have a, b, c, d, then you’d have d, c, b, a. I think it looks something like a sideways V, or a greater than sign: >. But it was thought to resemble an X, which is where the work comes from : chi = X 

Here’s an example from Psalm 3:7-8:

And this one is Isaiah 60:1-3:

A chiasmus can be short or long, simple or complex. The multiple chapters of Daniel make up the longest I have looked at. If you take the chapters as a whole, your “a” sections are chapter 2 and 7-8. Chapter 2 is about a dream about the powerful kingdoms from Nebuchadnezzar down through Rome, and ending in the multiple kingdoms that follow Rome from its fall up until the final days, which is also the meaning of Daniel’s dream in chapters 7-8.

The “b” sections are chapters 3 and 6, both about those who refuse to betray their God, suffer a death sentence, but are preserved. In chapter 3 these are the three brothers in the fiery furnace, and in chapter 6 it’s Daniel in the lion’s den.

The center “c” sections are chapters 4 and 5, both of which basically show that a proud ruler who refuses to honor the real God will see their downfall; they lack power to prevent it.

The thing what triggered my recent study of Daniel was hearing something about a chiasmus in general. (I think this was a video podcast with Jack Welch, who has spent decades studying and discovering chiasms in the Book of Mormon. But I can’t pinpoint which video. Nor was he referencing Daniel; that idea came from somewhere else long before.) Anyway, the idea is that the focal point is the central turning point. In other words, it’s the central point that is most important.

That isn’t obvious to me in the examples above (which I found here). But, assuming that’s true, the central point of this Daniel chiasmus is comprised of these two chapters in the middle that we hardly ever talk about.

In chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar, the powerful Assyrian ruler who has taken the kingdom of Judah into captivity in Babylon, is a heathen ruler believing in many gods. But he does recognize that Daniel has the “spirit of the gods” in him, because of his ability to interpret dreams, and he makes him one of the principals in the kingdom, over the other advisors. Some believe it was Daniel’s teachings to these “wise men,” passed down through the ages, that gave the “wise men” the idea to look for the star to seek the Messiah many centuries later. (Or those New Testament wise men could have descended from people like Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, who descended from Abraham through is third wife, Keturah. Or they could have come from some scattered people from the northern kingdom of Israel, who were captured about 130 years before Daniel and his people were captured.)

So, Nebuchadnezzar honors Daniel, but he isn’t actually a convert. And there comes a point where he is hard-hearted and boastful. He has had a dream involving a tree cut down to the roots, which allows Daniel to warn him, but he doesn’t at that time repent. And, if I understand the story, not too long afterward he goes mad for some years (I think 7 years, or at least 7 periods of time). He’s like a wild man living among the cattle and eating grass. And then he comes to himself; he recognizes that he has no power of himself, but only what God grants. And, in his humbled state, he is returned to his throne.

Chapter 5 starts with Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar’s son, in the ruling position. He takes the temple vessels, which were captured and taken when they sacked the temple in Jerusalem. And he uses the holy vessels to serve wine to 1000 of his lords at a big, showy banquet. The result is, he sees the hand of a mighty being (probably God), writing on the wall. He’s frightened to his core; his legs are shaking. He can’t read the writing. So he goes through all his advisors—apparently Daniel had been somewhat retired under him—and none can give him the meaning of the writing. His wife calls to his attention that Daniel exists, and was much approved of by his father, and he should be able to read it.

So Daniel comes and does that. He tells Belshazzar the meaning of “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin,” which is, “God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.” “Thou art weighed in the balance, and art found wanting.” “Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.” He thanks Daniel for the interpretation. He might even consider doing something to prevent the prophecy from taking place. But that very night, Belshazzar is slain and Babylon falls. Darius of the Medes takes over ruling.

The walls of Babylon were 40-100 feet thick and 300 feet high, running about 14 miles in length on each side.   No one thought the city could be taken without a long, drawn-out siege. But the enemy had used a drainage canal, and diverted the water from it, so troops could enter the city using the canal as a passageway. The city actually was conquered in a day—which parallels the prophecy in Revelation for figurative Babylon to fall in a day (or maybe in only an hour, depending on which verse).

The city ended up being more free under Persian/Median rule, so the people were willing to accept the new rulers. And that was the end of the Assyrian empire’s rule.

 

Our Day

So, what does this have to do with news in our day? I don’t know. I’m just looking at patterns. The two parallel dreams in chapters 2 and 7-8 definitely tell us something of our day, since we’re post-Roman Empire, with many nations. So maybe there’s a pattern for us in this chiasmus.

That central point is that a ruler who rejects God and claims power in himself can be taken out of power at God’s will.

In Nebuchadnezzar, there was a powerful ruler—the most powerful in the known world at that time—who lost his mind. He was technically still the ruler, but the people were ashamed of him, and left him alone, apparently, in his madness, for years. We aren’t told in scripture who filled the leadership vacuum in his absence.

We also had a “ruler” of the most powerful nation on earth who lost his mind. Hmm.

One more parallel is that the empire that came in to rule—and to liberate—was headed by Cyrus (Darius of the Medes was subordinate to Cyrus of the Persians). Trump has frequently been compared to Cyrus, particularly related to the Abraham Accords. So maybe there is a scriptural parallel going on. 

The news lately has been that people on that side of the political aisle are finally admitting that Biden had lost his cognitive abilities. Jake Tapper has a book he co-authored coming out. He personally spent years covering up and even squelching questions about Biden’s decline. But now we’re supposed to see him as virtuous for his truth telling. Megyn Kelly did a thorough take-down of him, as he tried to skate by, claiming he didn’t know until that debate last June; she wasn’t having it. 

Tapper’s theme seems to be that Biden’s real fault was announcing that he was running for a second term, thus preventing the party from going through a primary process to choose a successor and have time to campaign for that person.

But that’s not the real problem. Not even close.

Those of us with basic observation skills saw Biden’s decline by 2019, and brought it up during the 2020 campaign (leaving aside the corruption that should have disqualified him). He was never capable of handling the presidency. So the obvious question is—and has been for all these years—who was running the country?

Over the years, Obama has been cited as a possibility. He hung around Washington, DC, after his presidency ended, which is unlike all past presidents. It was like he was never going to let go of power. And he had a lot of Deep State power still during Biden’s regime. Maybe he had a spare office in a basement somewhere.

There was also the likelihood of Jill Biden, playing the role of Woodrow Wilson’s wife, Edith, keeping her husband’s incapacity out of sight of his cabinet following his stroke. Edith Wilson had intended to have her husband run for reelection, and just keep him mostly hidden the whole time. Crazy! So when Jill Biden was doing that very thing, people had a historical precedent to compare her to. She did, according to reports, run cabinet meetings, along with Hunter Biden, on occasion, especially this past year. At least Edith Wilson had the finesse to claim she was just taking notes for her husband, and she would bring back his responses; she wasn’t just coming out and claiming authority she didn’t have, even though she was illegally wielding it. In that case the cabinet, of Wilson’s own party (the Democrats then as well) threatened to remove him if she didn’t stop the reelection campaign. In Biden’s case, the cabinet, at least those allowed to see him, seemed fine with the coverup.

Recently the more specific question of the autopen has come up. The purpose of the autopen is to put the president’s signature on proclamations, awards, honorary things that no one would object to. Never, until Obama, was an autopen used for official business like signing a law in his absence. But during his term one was used when he was in Hawaii when his signature was needed. It was for something that he clearly intended to sign, so that precedent was set. But we assume there was a fair amount of paper trail to prevent use of the autopen without his express consent.

Under Biden, it’s hard to say whether any of his presidential signatures—even the real ones—were done intentionally. But with his severe decline—and image evidence shows this—many of his signatures were done by autopen. This could include all 6,000 of his end-of-term pardons. He was in St. Croix on vacation when a significant number were signed. There were other signatures when he was at the beach in Delaware (where he seemed to spend more time than at the White House).

President Trump has called for investigations into the legality of the autopen under these circumstances, possibly nullifying all those pardons. Investigations seem to be leading to the possibility that pardons were given in exchange for money.

tweet about Rep. Tim Burchett concerning
Biden staffers taking bribes for pardons

People on the inside were calling the “cabal” that was running the country the “politburo,” as in the old Soviet Union. Whatever it was, it was not democracy or constitutional leadership by a duly elected president.

Glenn Beck spent his Wednesday night special on this topic. He has a number of lists from various sources on who was taking it upon themselves to run our country according to their own agenda. And then he compared them. So we'll take a look at his chalkboard.

Glenn Beck's chalkboard on autopen use and coverup,
screenshot from here

To start with, to check their own thinking, they asked a couple of AI programs to list who—what positions—would be necessary to carry out a shadow presidency and keep it hidden. The first group consists of those who would be making decisions and actually using the autopen.

Group I—Decisions/Autopen

1.        Jeff Zeints/Ron Klain—both Biden’s Chief of Staff at different times

2.        Annie Tomasini—Deputy Chief of Staff

3.        Neera Tanden—Domestic Policy Advisor

4.        Jake Sullivan—National Security Advisor

Group II—Optics/Concealing

1.        Mike Donilon—Senior Advisor to Jill Biden

2.        Anthony Bernal—Jill Biden's Chief of Staff

3.        Ashley Williams—another Senior Advisor

4.        Steve Ricchetti—Counselor to the President

So that’s the starting point—speculation by AI and Glenn’s team. Then Glenn compares that to several others who has speculated.

Congressman James Comer, who says he intends to get to the bottom of this, suggests Neera Tanden, Annie Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, and Ashley Williams. All four are among that total of eight.

He spoke with Lindy Li, a former Democratic fundraiser who got frustrated with the deceit and came out telling all. She gave two names: Jeff Zeints and Annie Tomasini. Both are in Group I.

Glenn looked at a January New York Times piece about the Biden White House deceit. That article names Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti, Annie Tomasini, and Anthony Bernal. All four are among the total eight.

He looked at a Wall Street Journal article from December. That article names Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti, Ron Klain, Annie Tomasini, and Jake Sullivan. All five are among the total eight. 

Anthony Bernal, Annie Tomasini, and Ashley Williams,
in a tweet by @amuseMay 28

In Jake Tapper's/Alex Thompson's book mentioned above, they list Mike Donilon, Ron Klain, Steve Ricchetti, and Bruce Reid, who was Biden’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. He’s the only one that didn’t already appear among the total of eight.

Additional speculation from David Sacks, President Trump's Financial Advisor and Crypto Czar, adds Senator Elizabeth Warren to the list of Biden controllers (clip shown here). And then there was an undercover video of David Hogg of the DNC, claiming that the main controller was Jill Biden's Chief of Staff Anthony Bernal, in concert with the First Lady (clip shown here). Bernal was on the list of eight; Warren was not, but she had a lot of influence from her position on the Finance Committee.

If you are naïve enough to assume they were just carrying out the will of the president, because they knew him so well and were so loyal to his agenda, then you’d have to explain why Ron Klain had multiple meetings in the White House with worldwide cabal leader Alex Soros. And Klain was also the go-between for the Squad (radical wing) and Biden. (Biden's personal corruption was less ideological.)

And, if ideological reasons for their usurpation weren’t enough, you could assume greed was an encourager. Donilon made $4 million on the failed Biden campaign (I don’t know how you make money on a failed campaign, but apparently he knows). Ricchetti had several family members employed by the Biden administration.

These names are speculation only at this point. Investigations—and then prosecutions—have to be done based on evidence. But if any of these individuals weren’t involved, how did they not know what was happening? And who else was conducting this illegal usurpation of power?

We could say, Behold the Beasts of Revelation. One group carries out the evil tyranny; the other group uses propaganda to make it appear powerful.

I don’t think the beasts are limited to our country’s government. But this is definitely a prime example.

And it falls in a day. Which specific day? You could name the June debate last year, when the nation saw what most of us had been seeing for half a decade, that Joe Biden was in mental decline. Or you could name the July 13^th day when God spared Donald Trump’s life in Butler, PA. I had written before that the end of the 42-month reign of the beast (Rev. 13:5) might be late July 2024, which turned out to be when Biden’s campaign ended, 42 months after his inauguration.

There’s more liberty now. But we haven’t fully recovered yet. It’s a tough job after that messy tyranny. I pray we get there soon.

If the scriptures are telling us something, it is that God is in control. And honoring Him is necessary for protection, because He can take down Babylon (another name for the beast, and the worldwide cabal, the whore of all the earth, etc.) in a day.