The Rooted Podcast

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Hello everyone and welcome back to the Rooted Podcast from Bible Society. Today is the last episode in our Daniel series. We're going to be looking at some of the apocalyptic literature that we find in the book of Daniel. I'm Noelle and I'm here with Esther and also we're very happy to be joined again by Peter Hatton. Peter joined us last week to talk about dreams and visions and empire and exile and Daniel.

It was a great conversation. So we're really grateful that he's back with us. So thanks for being here, Peter. It's great to be with you. Really enjoyed it last time. So we can just get right into it. There are parts in the book of Daniel that we see more in the second half of the book. We begin to see specifically in some of Daniel's dreams and his visions what we'd call apocalyptic literature. I thought it'd be really interesting for us to just begin the discussion by talking about what we mean when we say that. So what do we mean by the word apocalypse? And what do we mean when we talk about?

apocalyptic literature in the Bible. I think a lot of people's heads will go towards the end times and eschatology. But what do we mean when we talk about that and specifically in Daniel as well? Scholars would say that apocalyptic literature is a genre, class of literature in the Bible, and like history or wisdom. And yeah, I get that. It tends to be particularly dramatic foretelling, you might say.

often with dreams and visions and that sort of thing. I want to just be a little bit careful about that. The word apocalypse comes from the Greek apokalypsos which means to take away the kalypsos, take away a veil. So it's basically a revealing, a revelation of what's going on in the present really, but also looking to the future which will come out of the present.

And so I want to be a little bit careful about just seeing it as end time stuff, though that's certainly part of it. But I think we can get fixated a bit on the end of the world and just say that's what apocalyptic is about. It's actually far broader than that. And I'd also want to make a very firm link between what we call apocalyptic and wisdom. It's not that Daniel is a wise man.

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an interpreter of dreams and of reality. And what he does is he reveals to us in the book, what is revealed to us is what's going on behind the facade of what we see in the world, in the world of politics. And behind that there are deep spiritual supernatural realities going on. I think that's really important. And that's a sort of wisdom thing to see the activity of God

behind what we see in the world. Well, and what you've said there kind of about how Daniel does, you know, he speaks wisdom in these situations. He reveals kind of mysteries in the sense that he interprets dreams. He's always very quick to kind of give the glory to God for that. He points to God as being the ultimate revealer of mysteries. Who's told him, who shared these insights with him. And obviously you see that

of angelic messengers come to him and give him an interpretation in other places. So yeah, I definitely think this is like God given wisdom for particular times in the book of Daniel. And what you said there about kind of not just being about the end times, we definitely see that in those final chapters of Daniel, don't we? Because we've got this sense, like in Daniel chapter 10, it tells us

right at the start, this is in the third year of Cyrus, King of Persia. So some of the exiles have been allowed to return, haven't they, to start this project of rebuilding the temple? But that's not going well. Yeah, I think actually the return from exile doesn't happen in the first years of Cyrus. They hoped it would, but actually it's delayed. And if you look at the end of Isaiah,

the final chapters of Isaiah, that is traditionally held to be the chapters in which that sense of disappointment is a bit expressed. Yeah. know, that we've gone back yet. In fact, the returns are later, under later Persian kings, not really under Cyrus. I Cyrus gives permission. Right. But it happens, it happens in a very minor way under him. So do you think that then might be why Daniel is mourning and he's sort of fasting at the beginning of chapter 10?

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I think that's exactly right. Yeah. The hopes of Cyrus have been disappointed. You know, they thought he was going to be this great liberator. And indeed, you know, his intentions were in that line. We know from this amazing document, the Cyrus Cylinder, that, you know, Cyrus's pitch to the deported peoples of the Babylonian Empire was, I'm going to let you go home and rebuild your temples.

not just the Jews. So we know this is very much historically grounded in reality. But also Cyrus had lots of fish to fry. mean, he was to expand the empire. And of course, he dies fighting in the north after about sort of 15, 16 years of his reign. So it's under his successors that the real moves, and it's sort of staggered, isn't it, back to Jerusalem really occur. Right.

And so then maybe into that kind of sense of disappointment that you mentioned or concern over, when is it, we thought this was going to happen. Is it happening? Please God intervene. You kind of get, don't you? You get this vision of a terrifying man and there's both kind of a revealing of what's going on behind the scenes now. You get these mention, this mention of kind of spiritual warfare, the prince of this.

people or King versus God and his armies. And then also you go on in chapter 11 to get prophecy really rather detailed about things that you are going to see on the surface, Kings, nations, wars, et cetera. So it isn't just revealing the end times in this case, it's revealing something that's happening now, something that will happen in time and then maybe pointing to things that haven't yet happened. Yes.

We have some confidence that we can map the dreams that recur throughout Daniel. They repeat themselves a lot. But in chapter 11, as you rightly point out, they get really quite detailed. And the map that goes on to them is the successive empires, which we've heard before, Babylonian, Persian, Alexander, and then the successor empires to Alexander. And then from them arises this this chapter,

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the 10th horn. And we think this is a real historical character called Antiochus Epiphanes, a Greek ruler of the second century. He actually tries to impose by force Greek culture on Israel, takes over the temple, rededicates it to the head god of the Greeks, Zeus, and sacrifices a pig. This obviously defiles the temple in the eyes of the Jews. And this sparks the great Maccabean revolt, of course.

And we'll perhaps come back to that later. as you say, this is not about the end of the world. This is about contemporary ancient Near Eastern history. And we've got a lot of confidence that we can map Daniel's visions and dreams onto this. we've got these dreams and visions from Daniel, but something that we've spoken about and that maybe could tell us more about Peter is the fact that time in Daniel seems to be an interesting thing.

not necessarily always linear, but it gets played around with a bit, doesn't it? Exactly. think playing around with it is very good. It catches the spirit of the book, which is a bit of a thought experiment, I think. And there's a lot of repetition. And basically what you see is cycles, same thing going on again and again. The king has a dream, it's interpreted, and then the consequences of that interpretation.

play out and we have these episodes first with Nebuchadnezzar, then with Belshazzar, then with Darius and with Cyrus and the same sort of things happening again and again. They're like in a circle and also the oppressive behavior of the kings. And what this reminds me of actually is that the way time is cyclical in another biblical book, the book of Judges.

where you recall the people's sin, as a result of their sin, they are oppressed, God raises up a deliverer, the land has peace for 40 years, and then they sin again. It's like they're in a cycle. And what's really interesting in Daniel and in Judges is that these cycles go back. The cycles go forward in history until Belshazzar, and then we get Darius the Mede, and then we have Daniel dealing with a dream in the time of Belshazzar, and then he goes back again to Darius.

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So it's like time isn't linear, it goes backwards. And I think this is very important because what it's saying is that even the cycles are progressive. Just as in Judges, at the end of Judges, you go back to the beginning of the occupation of the land by Israel. The final chapters of Judges deal with matters in the time of Moses' grandson. What it's saying is, you know, there's no progression to these cycles, they're going nowhere. And in fact, they began this behavior

trapped them in a cycle of sin right at the beginning of their occupation, which is actually quite chilling, isn't it? And the same thing's happening in Daniel. These characters who seem so powerful are actually condemned to repetitive cycles of sinful behavior, which are going nowhere. But, and this is of course the important thing, this is where we perhaps come to the end times notion, overarching this is God's linear progression

from initial human sin in the Garden of Eden to the final consummation he's going to bring out where the dead will rise. This is actually in Daniel for the first time we hear of explicitly the resurrection and there will be judgment and God will set things right. At some indefinite time in the future, his perfect timing, then we will have an end. There is a line in history. We're not trapped in these cycles if we are obedient to God.

I was just thinking, you mentioned resurrection there in that mention of God's big story. Shall I actually read some of the verses from chapter 12 that bring this idea in? So this is chapter 12, verses 1 to 4 in the ESV.

your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting content. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. But you, Daniel,

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Shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall increase. Many shall run to and fro. know, the stupidity of so much human activity and knowledge shall increase, but not wisdom. It's kind of humbling to think, yeah, we are in the time of people running to and fro and...

We're trying to be wise. We want to be one of these wise and righteous people who will shine like the stars ultimately, but sometimes we feel quite lost and we certainly see a lot of lostness around us. We're in the world of Revelation there, aren't we? I Revelation is picking up this language and developing it, you know, under the influence of the Holy Spirit and giving us more shape. But what interests me, of course, is the last verse.

of the previous chapter actually is talking about Antiochus Epiphanes. His efforts of taking over Egypt are thwarted by ships from Chittim, it says in chapter 11. Actually, that's a Roman expeditionary force. The Romans threatened Antiochus Epiphanes and said to him, if you try and take over Egypt, which was their granary, we will stop you. And such is the power of Rome at this point in the second century BC that he

He knows he can't go on. And so his great plan of expansion into Egypt is thwarted and he does some displacement activity, tries to expand his empire elsewhere. And then the last verse of chapter 11, just before the passage you read, and he, that's almost this little horn, almost certainly Antiochus, shall pitch his palatial tense between the sea and the glorious holy mountain. He's actually in the Holy Land.

Yet he shall come to his end with none to help him. We don't actually know how Antiochus died, it's a bit of a mystery. So that's where the history ends. Now, what I would then have expected is some reference to the great Maccabean revolt. And can you explain just quickly for readers who might not know what that was or how it comes into context here? Sure. Well, Antiochus' attempts to impose Greek culture on Jews

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are thwarted when a priestly family in the town of Mordin, which is a bit south and west of Jerusalem, start a revolt. They're led by a called Judas and he's given the nickname Makkabi, which means the hammer. And so the revolt is known, the Makkabian revolt. But the family were actually called the Hasmoneans. They were a priestly family, but not high priests, which is important because they then, after many years, they finally succeed in defeating the Greeks.

cleansing the temple and of course this is commemorated by Jews in the feast of Hanukkah and then for about just under a hundred years there was an independent Jewish state led by this family the Hasbunians and this is celebrated in books in the Apocrypha, Maccabees of course, which tells the story of the revolt if you're interested in reading it and also in the book which is confusingly called Ecclesiastic Cuff.

not to be confused with Ecclesiastes, but Ecclesiasticus, also known as Sirach, ends with a great hymn to Jonathan, one of the leaders of this family, who has become the high priest in Jerusalem, even though actually he wasn't of the family traditionally from which the high priest came, the family of Zadok, or Eirene. They were usurpers and they were actually quite very violent, they tried to extend their realm by force.

They're just another imperialistic family, but they happen to be Jews, you know? I see. And there's deafening silence in Daniel. You know, we end with the death of Antiochus. There's almost no mention at all of any resistance to him by the Jews, militarily. I think this is incredibly important. Daniel is not going to him any sort of imperialism, even Jewish imperialism.

It's all wrong. It's all just being that cycle of sin. perhaps when some of the Jews at the time they saw the Maccabean revolt happening, they might have been like, this is, you know, this is the fulfillment of prophecy because we're seeing these things removed. However, the way that it's kind of handled or not mentioned in the book of Daniel then is suggesting, no, this isn't the big conclusion to this fight, this spiritual warfare and the persecution that you're experiencing.

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there's more, and it's not going to be any human hand or person or family that does it, it's going to be God. Exactly right. The real end, the real deliverance, the real time of the end, it's slightly confusing because generally 12 .1 is translated at that time. As I read the Hebrew, it doesn't necessarily mean that time when Antiochus dies. It means at this time.

the time of the end. It's an emphatic, not a specific use of the Hebrew word here. So it's not referring to, you know, when the Antiochus dies, then the end will come. No, no, or any king in the future. This is the end time, which is, we won't know when that's going to happen. It'll be the perfect time. The question in 12 .7, I heard the man clothed in linen. This is Daniel speaking.

who was above the waters of the stream. He raised his right hand, his left hand towards heaven, and swore by him who lives forever God that it would be for a time, times, and half a time, and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end, all these things would be finished." So that refers back to an earlier chapter where we had 67 and a half weeks, and now we have concluding two and a half weeks making 70 times seven weeks, which is a

It's a perfect time. It's not meant to be tracked, I think, onto history. It's just saying, this is God's perfect timing. When everything is complete, then God will bring in the end. So, you just did bit of something with numbers in Daniel, which I think that there are a lot of numbers in Daniel and obviously in Revelation. And I think I've heard a lot of interpretations before.

where people are trying to do something with those numbers as if there's some sort of code or key or some way to work them in a certain way that means something. What do you think about that, Peter?

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I would just remark about those who have tried such systems, how often they have been disappointed. Yeah. The great disappointment in 1841 when a called Miller worked out that it was going to end in 1841. And I remember in my childhood in the early 1970s, Jehovah's Witnesses were very confident that the world would end in 1976.

But here you're saying in this passage you think that it just represents that there is a perfect time, but we have to really align what we think with the rest of scripture, which tells us that no one knows the time of the end. yeah, I mean, that's Jesus, isn't it? In Matthew chapter 24, when his disciples are asking him, when is the end coming? When are all these things that you told us about going to happen? And he kind of pulls on this language and imagery from Daniel as he's speaking, and he's kind of saying, well,

Only the Father knows that. So, in the Father's perfect time, I guess, as we've been discussing. And his message more to them in that Matthew 24 passage is, be ready. Because just like you've got that mention in Daniel chapter 12 of like, some people are going to be raised from the dust of the earth to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting content, he kind of finishes Matthew chapter 24 by saying, some will be saved, but some are going to be condemned and there'll be a weeping and gnashing of teeth.

So it's this picture of like an ultimate, a final judgment. But then, I mean, it's so interesting what you've already said about time, Peter, because, you know, this is talking about the end time, but with God, like time is everlasting. There's not an end in that sense. But there's an end to this period that we're in and the end we're told is going to be this final judgment scene. Well, that's how it appears to me, where

either you are of God's people or you're not. And going outside, Daniel, all things will be made new into revelation. know, behold, I make all things new. And again, in Romans 8, I think this is picked up that our freedom will also be linked in very important ways with the freedom of creation, which is groaning in birth pangs. And this is the sort of language which I think makes, to me, much more sense that when Christ returns,

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and we don't talk enough about the return of Christ, in my opinion. We won't all be snatched up to heaven. The earth will be remade and we with it. And this, think, is much more like the vision of Daniel, you know, that the end will come when, and with it, the era of these terrible cycles of human sin and violence will be brought to an end. And that's the great hope, isn't it? Yep.

It's a great help from, you know, even from chapter two, that conclusion of Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's vision of the statue, where it talks about this small stone that yet becomes the everlasting kingdom. Like, so all of these kingdoms will, they'll rise, they'll fall, they'll have their strength and trance and then their disintegration, but God's kingdom will never fail. is everlasting. Yeah.

Peter, you said something interesting that I wanted to ask you about earlier. We were looking at Daniel 12 verses one through four, and we were talking about the people who go to and fro trying to increase knowledge. And you said, that's like today. And then I looked at the heading of that. I'm looking in the NIV, and I looked at the heading of that passage, and it says, the end times. Is there a...

Is there maybe a way in which you would say that to an extent we are living in the period of what you would call the end times? Or that there was a period in which that time started and it's just indefinite until Christ comes? Or what did you mean by that, I guess? I want to stick with what Esther pointed us towards earlier. No one knows time, the day nor the hour. Not even the sun, says Jesus. The divine word made flesh is limited by his human.

capabilities here. So he doesn't know when the end is, but the father only. I think that's where I'm going to stick. Are we in a great crisis at the moment? Where the environment is under threats, where human greed and wickedness are very obvious to us, including our own. Does knowledge increase, but wisdom not very much? Do people run to and fro? You know.

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We're great travelers, aren't we? Yeah, that's true. Is this an unfallible sign that the end is near? No. No, but it is an unfallible sign as we see, you I find with the internet, for example, just the fact that I can know what's all the terrible things that are happening across the world, which in previous ages, I would not have been aware of any of that. With these things, it's like an amplification of this point that we cannot save the world ourselves.

there will always be people that are trying to destroy it. But then on the other side of that, you have all the attempts to establish peace, to save the planet from destruction and all that, but we cannot do it. And I think the more knowledge we have, the more that becomes evident. yeah, mean, that's something that I think our current society has to grapple with because do you say, well, obviously we're not going to be the saviors of the world, we're doomed? Or what is the

then. And I think that that's a really similar message, actually, to kind of what, you know, the reassurance that there is for Daniel in receiving this vision and for us thinking now, looking to God to be our savior, is that I think it's in Daniel chapter 10, this angelic messenger kind of says to Daniel, Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the word I speak to you and stand upright. For now I've been sent to you.

And he goes on to say, fear not Daniel for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before God, your words have been heard and I've come because of your words. So it's that idea that despite how things look and the destruction and desolation you see around you and your inability to fix this yourself, I am with you. You don't need to be afraid because there is this ultimate victory coming. Put your trust in me. Keep your faith in me.

even if you lose your life now, you will not lose it ultimately because you will be one of those raised in that ultimate victory of Christ. That's absolutely right. And great, you point us to that passage, which Daniel is called greatly beloved. And that's the security. I mean, I think, it Paul in 1 Corinthians 10? He says, we are those upon whom

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The end of the ages has come. And I think the end of the ages comes with the death of Christ, because that's the great victory, which actually defeats evil. Now, the evil one, and we have to say it like this because Daniel, just after the passage you've read, of course, we have an account of the angelic being.

saying, the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty -one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia. And what's happening there is the very ancient biblical understanding that the nations each have, as it were, angelic guardians. The B 'nei Elohim, they're often called, the sons of God. And so each nation has its assigned angelic

spirit. And what the nations have done, of course, is often worship these as gods rather than God. That's idolatry and a great sin. But nevertheless, there is this reality that each nation has its angelic protector, and some of them seem to have gone wrong. You know, there are powers of wickedness in the high places, and this is what this is referring to, an understanding of the spiritual world, which we often ignore in modern Christianity.

And so this is what's going on in Daniel. There is rebellion among the spiritual powers and those who remain loyal to God are contesting. And this is actually the great battle which is going on behind these human actors who are often just being jerked around by the powers, particularly the evil powers, focusing their tensions on the tyrants. So that's one of the great revelations here.

The real battle is the spiritual battle. But coming back to your point about Daniel and the victory that is going to be his at the resurrection, that victory was won when Christ triumphs over the powers of evil on the cross. Now this is not in Daniel's direct purview. We, think as Christians, are quite legitimate to point to this as the great victory, which will bring us to the end, the completion of time.

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And that end has already begun.

and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom and all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed." That makes me think of Jesus. So that idea that Jesus come in and die in and then rise into life is like the end of an age or the end of a time and then the inauguration of a new time and a new kingdom.

You kind of get that sense, there's still like the now and the not yet, isn't there, of the kingdom of God, that sort of space that we're in, that yes, this new kingdom has been inaugurated, but the final victory hasn't yet come. But you know, there's mentions in chapter nine, the 70 weeks. So verses 24 on it says, 70 weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin and to atone for an

Again, that makes me think of Jesus. Because he's the only one that can fully end our transgression, atone for our iniquity and all of that. So I do think Jesus is here in Daniel.

Well, Jesus thought he was. Yes. On trial before Caiaphas, Caiaphas says to him, are you the Christ, the son of the Blessed One? And he says, yeah, I am. And you will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of glory.

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And that's a direct reference to son of Daniel seven. And of course, let's not forget that Jesus's self -description was son of man. Now, whether he was speaking in Hebrew, in which case it would have been Ben Adam, son of Adam, or in Aramaic, it's Bar -le -noz, in a way is irrelevant. What it means is a human being, a son of Adam, but someone in human form.

And this is Jesus' self -description. He claims his humanity, but also with reference to that one inhuman form, will come at the end time when the court sits and to whom will be given power and authority and dominion. Yeah. It's powerful too when he does that because it's often he gets called so many things in the Gospels. People have so many different names for him. And often when they call him one of these names is when then he then refers to himself.

soon after as the son of men. So it's almost like he's trying to revert their attention back to what he's actually come for and what this is actually about. So we've looked at a lot in this episode, had a lot of thoughts on this sort of apocalyptic literature. But what can we take away from this for today? And what does this mean for us in our day to day lives? How can we be encouraged by this? big message from Daniel.

It would have been encouragement to the exiles at the time. If we might perhaps feel a bit like we're exiles in our own culture, we're sort of strangers in the society which isn't living to glorify God and that's what we want to do. Well, God sending his people into exile and our situation right now is not God abandoning his people.

We can see so clearly through Daniel how God is working in and through his people while they are away from what they thought of as their holy city and the place where they could truly worship God. And yet in exile, they're shown to be able to do that. And the visions that he gives Daniel and others are of him being sovereign over all of history. no matter this flow and trajectory of history that we see and the fears that we might have around that.

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The message is that God is still in control and he is going to bring about this ultimate victory, vindication, restoration, and this glorious, everlasting life in his presence. So the complete opposite of exile, we will be in his presence perfectly. I mean, I find that so encouraging. that's so well put. And the other thing I think that I'm encouraged by in a strange way,

is the progress of Daniel through the book. We start with this sort of rash, confident kid, you know, takes on everybody. But as we go through the book, I think, there is a linear progression in his life as he gets older and he's gone round the block and he's seen all this stuff. And the visions at the end are quite painful for him because he sees a lot of suffering, doesn't he? And yet he's greatly loved.

And so perhaps those of us who've been around the block a bit in Christian life and had quite a lot of disappointments, you know, because we've, I've certainly in my lifetime, I've seen the cause of God, the kingdom in this culture become increasingly marginalized. I'm not saying about the churches and I don't just identify with that. I do think there's been a real decline in faith and all sorts of stuff. I that's not the whole story. There's some wonderful things going on as well. I realize that.

But nevertheless, that doesn't matter. We can feel at the end, you know, coming towards the of our lives, a bit marginalized, a bit perhaps even sometimes cynical and tired and depressed even. That's okay. That happens because God is still in control. He is going to bring about his glorious kingdom. Even if his human servants are pretty weak.

Isn't that something you see literally from Daniel? You have one of these visions, he'll be lying weakened on his bed, devastated and just thinking, I don't know what to do with that. This is terrible and I don't understand. But then what he does is he gets up and he goes and serves the king and he's also a great intercessor. think we get signs of that in the fact that he just prays so consistently and he intercedes for his people. I think absolutely right.

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feel jaded at what we're seeing. I think that's a good encouragement from Daniel that, you know, get up, serve faithfully and be an intercessor. Pray, because that's not nothing. That's something really powerful for us to do. we'll bring it into land there. Thank you, Peter, so much for talking with us about Daniel. It's been so refreshing and really interesting just to hear your thoughts.

So thank you for being with us. Real privilege. Thank you for extending it to me. And that's it. That's it for the Daniel series. We will be back for our next series, which is going to be on the parables of Jesus that we find in the gospel. So we're really looking forward to that. In the meantime, if you love the podcast, if you'd love to give us a rating, that would be great or leave a review for us. We've also recently put out a survey where you can send in your thoughts and your feedback on what you love about the podcast, what you think could make it better.

We'd love to hear that. So you can find all of that in the description in the show notes. And we will see you in our next series. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Rooted Podcast. To find out more about Bible Society's mission to invite people to discover the Bible for themselves in England, Wales and around the world, visit biblesociety .org .uk.