Theological Musings of a Thirty-Something

[I wrote this in 2020. At that time I was a Christian. I still tend to stand by my interpretation of this passage]

Focus Text: Luke 13:31-35

Jesus’ self-understanding and entire mission was, in my opinion, deeply shaped by the book of Daniel. This statement seems so undeniably obvious to me that it almost needs no explanation. And if we submit to this assumption, we start to discover lots of unexpected and exciting connections between the sayings of Jesus and the pages of Daniel. Luke 13:31-33 might just be one of those exciting connections. Here is the text in question:

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”

And Jesus said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. (33) Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’ (Luke 13:31-33)

Immediate Observations:

One initial observation here is that Jesus wasn’t speaking literally: Herod wasn’t a literal fox; and Jesus likely wasn’t a literal three days journey away from entering Jerusalem. To me, this sounds like prophetic language.

I support this claim by two further observations. Firstly, the rather odd and near poetic way Jesus describes ‘three days’ as “today, tomorrow and the third day,” instead of just saying “three days.” Secondly, Jesus’ double use of the word “behold” in this clump of sayings: to Herod in verse 32 (“behold, I cast out demons”) and then later to Jerusalem in verse 35 (“behold, your house is forsaken”) seems to suggest prophetic jargon. The word “behold” is often prophetic language used by NT authors when quoting Old Testament scripture and used by Jesus himself in similar ways (footnote A).

Three Days and One Fox:

Jesus’ use of “today, and tomorrow, and the third day” (v. 32 and 33) is odd and cryptic. But once we turn to the equally cryptic book of Daniel, we a connection to Daniel’s unique prediction of a three-part timetable in his apocalyptic drama.

In Daniel 7 we read of a vision of a future “forth beast” (7:7) rising from the sea which symbolized a future “fourth kingdom.” The king of this future kingdom is described as someone who would:

“Speak words against the Most High, wear out the saints of the Most High and attempt to change of the sacred seasons and the law” (7:25).

The key part for our study is when the text then says:

“…and [the saints] shall be given into [the king’s] power for a time, two times and half a time.” (7:25)

The following two verses then speak of God’s judgment on the “fourth beast”:

Then the court shall sit in judgment, and [the beast’s dominion] shall be taken away to be consumed and totally destroyed. The kingship and dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High (7:26-27)

I want to emphasize this “three-part timetable” in v. 25. It is a “3.5 time-period.” This timetable also appears in Daniel 12:6-7.

“How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?” And I heard the man clothed in linen swear … that it would be for a time, times, and half a time…” (Dan 12:6-7)

In short, a 3.5 time-period is Danielic language that speaks of God’s saints suffering under a Beast, but then God coming to judge that Beast and establish his saints as kings over the world. The fact that Jesus continually pulled from other imagery in Daniel 7 (such as ‘one like the Son of Man’), makes it very possible that he was also referring to this “3.5 time period” in his saying in Luke 13:32-33.

Consider this scenario: When the Pharisees warned Jesus about Herod wanting to kill him, Jesus goes to the cryptic, visionary drama of Daniel 7 where a Beast (a fourth kingdom) oppresses God’s Holy Ones. This is what Herod was doing to Jesus and his followers. In response, Jesus turns the tables (so to speak) on the threat King Herod represented in his day, and he does so in a classic apocaylptic fashion. Anyone with ears to hear would have heard Jesus’ subversive (and seditious?) response: Yes, for a short period (“today and tomorrow, and the third day”) the powers of Judea are seeking to destroy God’s Holy One(s), but Jesus will continue his kingdom ministry and go to Jerusalem (on “the third day”), where in one final great apocalyptic act, he will win the victory over the Beast (that Herod represents). The kingdom will be inaugurated and Jesus’s movement will be enthroned. The drama of Daniel 7 is re-cast around Jesus and his followers.

This also gives us insight into why Jesus would call Herod a “fox/jackal” in verse 32. The ancient Semitic culture did not make a clear distinction linguistically between foxes and jackals, using the same Hebrew word for both (Perrin: Priest, 210). This title of “fox/jackal” of course could have simply been a way of generally calling Herod a “sly man” as one commentary suggests (Tyndale Commentary, 2008) or a man who was “deceitfully cunning” (ESV Study Bible, 2008). But my suspicion is that just si again connecting to the drama of Daniel where the apocalyptic oppressor of God’s people is represented as a “Beast.”

This becomes even more likley for me when we turn to Luke 9:58

“As they were going along the road, someone said to [Jesus], “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Luke 9:57-58)

Jesus here speaks of both foxes/jackals and the “Son of Man” of Daniel 7 all in the same breath. I tend to think there was a connection in Jesus’ mind. I nod my head to the brilliant insight of Jesus scholar Nicholas Perrin who suggested the animals in this cryptic saying were more than just placeholders to teach about domestic comfort, but that:

“working within the standard metaphorical register of Jewish apocalyptic, Jesus’ ‘foxes’ and ‘birds of the air’ respectively allude to Herod and his temple-based retainers, on the one side, and the occupying Romans, on the other – all of whom, so the metaphor implies, are under demonic thrall.” (Perrin: Priest, 211).

Perrin explains how he comes to this conclusion (Footnote B) and his connection between these images and the apocalyptic langauge of Daniel and the Son of Man in Daniel suggests that when Jesus thinks of Herod as fox, he is thinking in terms of a Daniel 7 narrative with “beasts” that ravage.

But you might be asking, How could Jesus really think that King Herod Antipas was the actual fulfillment of that terrifying Beast of Daniel 7? Seems like a letdown. Surely Daniel wasn’t predicting a little regional Galilean puppet king, a practical historical nobody. And with that that I end with a look at how Daniel was a surprisingly flexible text for Jesus and the early Christians.

The Endless Flexibility of Daniel:

There is sort of an irony, in my opinion, that Daniel, while being the most specifically detailed prophetic book of the Old Testament (spelling out specific timetables, specific kings, battles, kingdoms and so forth) is also the book of the Bible that gets interpreted the most diversely and flexibly in the New Testament.

Simply put, the New Testament does not give us one clear, straightforward, “authoritative” interpretation of Daniel. Instead, it gives a myriad of different interpretations.

Consider this one clear example. In Daniel 12:2, we read that, at the time of the end,

“many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2).

This verse really is peculiar. We would expect it to say “all who sleep” will be resurrected, but instead it just says “many” will be resurrected. And we see that different New Testament authors interpret this odd verse differently.

On the one hand, Matthew says that when Jesus died and let out his last breath on the cross, “tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised” (Matt 27:52). The linguistic parallels to Daniel 12:2 are too strong for me to deny that Matthew is clearly suggesting that some people being resurrected at Jesus’ death was the fulfillment of the “many” in Daniel 12:2. This event is certainly unhistircal for a myriad of reasons, yet this was Matthew’s logic.

But Revelation interprets this Daniel 12:2 verse very differently. It’s likely that the future “thousand-year reign” in Rev 20:4-6 is John’s envisioned fulfillment of Daniel 12:2. In this future “thousand-year reign,” not all of God’s people are raised, but only those who suffered during the time of tribulation. This is emphatically made clear in v. 5, “the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.”

So we can see the authors of the New Testament (Matthew and John of Patmos) stating that Daniel 12:2 has two different fulfillments. They are radically different and irreconcilable if we are demanding a clear one-for-one fulfillment.

So, where do we go from here? I suggest we stop thinking of prophetic books like Daniel as stringent, “one-prophecy = one-fulfillment” type writings. This clearly isn’t a conclusion that the Bbile can bear the weight of. Instead, the prophets are flexibly interpreted.

And this helps us with reading Jesus.

Jesus seemed to see his entire short ministry as being a figurative “3.5 time-period” of suffering Daniel predicted (Lk 13:32-33).

But Jesus also seemed to frame his actual death and resurrection within this “3.5 time-period” using the language of resurrection “after three days” (Mrk 8:31; 9:31; 10:34). (Footnote D)

We see similar flexibility with Jesus’ use of Daniel’s 70 weeks (Footnote D).

And who is the beast of Daniel 7? Well, let’s allow some flexibility. While Jesus seemed to predominantly cast the Jerusalem Priesthood as the current personification of “the beast” (Mrk 14:61-62), king Herod could also be cast in that light as well, as we have seen (Lk 13:32). And then we must mention Revelation’s casting of the “beast” as another imperial entity entirely (Rev 13).

Daniel was flexible, even within the tradtitions that stem from Jesus himself. The Jesus tradition behind Luke 13:31-33 demonstrates that Jesus was continually casting his mission and work in light of the great drama of Daniel 7, and he did so flexibly. I suggest, perhaps if the church is allowed to follow in step with Jesus and read Daniel flexibly, too, we also will discover, like Jesus, this unfolding drama of God’s victory in lots of surprising places in our world. And perhaps these are places waiting for people filled with the Spirit of Jesus to get involved, and to bear their cross in the midst of the beast.

FOOTNOTES

(Footnote A)

Jesus didn’t always use “behold” like this, but consider a few examples: Jesus’ quote of Malachi, “Behold, I will send my messenger before you…” (Lk 11:32; Mal 3:1), Jesus’ statement, “Behold, something greater than Solomon…and Jonah is here” (Lk 11:31-32), or him describing his forthcoming death, “Behold we are going to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered” (Lk 18:31). There are many other times Jesus used this phrase, not always prophetically, but they have the sense of encouraging those who hear to perceive something important that has deep significance (Lk 7:25; 10:3; 13:30; 22:10, 21; 23:29).

But we see the deeper prophetic/scriptural meaning clearer in how Paul uses it (1 Cor 15:51; 2 Cor 5:17; 6:2) as well as the author of Hebrews (2:13, 8:8, 10:7, 10:9), Peter (1 Pe 2:6) and Jude (1:14). Revelation uses the word 26 times, which should give us an indicator of its prophetic significance for first century Jews and Gentile converts to early Christianity.

(Footnote B)

Perrin, indebted to the previous interpretations of T.W. Manson (1951), follows the animal imagery of “birds of the air” and “jackals/foxes” in Jeremiah 9:10-11, through into the second century BCE Enoch literature (the “Animal Apocalypse” in 1 Enoch 89-90) to make the conclusion that the animal metaphor of “jackals/foxes” connect to “(demonically inspired) local powerbrokers (the Herods)” and “birds” to “(demonically inspired) Gentiles (the Romans).” He adds that “although it is difficult to say whether and to what extent birds and jackals would have carried this kind of metaphorical freight in the everyday conversations of Jesus’ day, we can at least say that in the post-exilic era wherever these terms are used within the context of a prophetic or apocalyptic discourse, they bear this specific meaning” (211).

(Footnote C)

Jesus use of the phrase “after three days” is probably an allusion to Daniel rather than Jesus giving a chronological prediction since Jesus was actually raised “on the third day” (1 Cor 15:4) (Perrin, Temple, 106-109). If Jesus was giving an “accurate chronological prediction” then he got it wrong. But once we cast his saying into its Daniel context, we see what Jesus is really doing.

(Footnote D)

Consider Jesus’ use of Daniel’s rather specific 70 weeks (70-7’s) in Daniel 9:24-27. On the one hand, Jesus does seem to say that the 70 weeks will climax ‘literally’ (I use that term loosely) with the Jerusalem Temple’s destruction by the Romans after its “abominfootnoteation of desolation” (see Mark 13:14), which will leave the “house desolate” (Matt 23:37-39). Yet, at the same time, he flexibly alludes to Daniel’s 70-7’s when he tells his disciples they are to be a community that forgives each other “seventy [times] seven” (Mat 18:22). Cryptically, he is telling them that in their forgiveness as a community they are rolling back the exilic age and inaugurating God’s “end of exile.” The 70-7’s is flexibly used here to created group identity and mission.

WORKS CITED

Perrin, Nicholas. Jesus the Temple. 2010

Perrin, Nicholas. Jesus the Priest. 2018