God shows Daniel that the return to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon and the 200 golden years that were to follow under the generous rule of the Medes and Persians was not the future for God’s people to look forward to (it would be shattered by Alexander the Great’s conquests and the evil rule of King Antiochus IV). What Daniel could not yet see was how God was going to prepare the best possible future for his people in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
