From Daniel to Paul: Jewish Apocalyptic Texts and the Hope of Israel
In Module 6, we worked through an introduction to Paul—his life, his historical context, and a survey of Second Temple literature. From there, we explored how Paul drew upon the same central events and themes found in that literature. He referenced them without explanation in his letters—assuming his audience already shared that framework—as he wrote words of encouragement, exhortation, and correction to the churches.
We then turned to the three major novelties in Paul’s thought, which distinguish him from most Second Temple Jewish writings:
The suffering of the Messiah as atonement. Paul uniquely interprets the Messiah’s suffering as a means of divine atonement—not just martyrdom, but atonement for the sins of Israel and the nations in view of the coming judgment. This is unprecedented among the prophets or martyrs of Israel’s history.
The gift of the Spirit. Paul presents the Spirit as a unique confirmation and assurance of Jesus’ identity as the Messiah and as a pledge of the coming resurrection.
The mission to the Gentiles. Paul embodies God’s intentional mission to bring the Gentiles into Israel’s hope, something central to his life and ministry.
In each of these, Paul does not describe them in the abstract, systematic way often emphasized in modern academic studies. Rather, he frames them within the presupposed structure of Jewish apocalyptic expectation: the coming resurrection, judgment, and restoration of all things.
In this session, we’ll move into what functions as an epilogue. In this lesson, we’ll survey some of the Jewish apocalypses, and in the next lesson we’ll tackle the so-called “problem sayings” about the kingdom.
John Harrigan mentioned a quote from H.H. Rowley, one of the mid-20th-century English Baptist scholars who, after World War II, devoted significant study to Jewish apocalyptic thought. They approached it positively—though their work didn’t shift broader scholarly sentiment at the time, it remains valuable. In The Relevance of Apocalyptic, Rowley writes:
“The apocalypticists believed in God and believed that he had some purpose for the world he had made and that his power was equal to its achievement. Their faith goes beyond belief in divine control of history. Indeed, it is a faith in the divine initiative in history for the attainment of its final goal. Such a belief is fundamental to the Christian view of God in the world.”
The key idea here is that God is not merely in control of history—He is actively driving it toward its intended end.
Central Apocalyptic Texts
Another scholar, D.S. Russell, in his Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic (1964), produced a survey that remains one of the most competent and thorough introductions to the subject. That survey concentrate on three central texts: 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch. Together they form the hub of Jewish apocalyptic literature in its classic style and format. Of course, there are many others—the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, the Apocalypse of Abraham, and apocalyptic elements in works like the Life of Adam and Eve or Jubilees. But these three—1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch—best represent the tradition.
1 Enoch
The book of 1 Enoch is actually a collection of five distinct writings:
The Book of the Watchers – A reflection on the angelic “Watchers” (cf. Daniel 4), both good and evil, their role in the Flood, and the Nephilim.
The Similitudes (or Parables) – Likely a later work (first century CE), more messianic in character than apocalyptic.
The Astronomical Book – A calendar text advocating a 364-day year, which the Qumran community seems to have adopted.
The Dream Visions – Includes the famous Animal Apocalypse, which we’ll look at more closely.
The Epistle of Enoch – Featuring the Apocalypse of Weeks and other epistolary material.
The Similitudes in particular stand out for their messianic imagery. For example, in chapter 46 we read:
“At that place, I saw the One to whom belongs the time before time. And his head was white like wool, and there was with him another individual, whose face was like that of a human being. His countenance was full of grace like that of one among the holy angels ... And he [the angel] answered me and said to me, "This is the Son of Man, to whom belongs righteousness, and with whom righteousness dwells. And he will open all the hidden storerooms; for the Lord of the Spirits has chosen him, and he is destined to be victorious before the Lord of the Spirits in eternal uprightness. This Son of Man whom you have seen is the One who would remove the kings and the mighty ones from their comfortable seats and the strong ones from their thrones. He shall loosen the reins of the strong and crush the teeth of the sinners. He shall depose the kings from their thrones and kingdoms." (1 Enoch 46:1-5)”
Here we see imagery drawn directly from Daniel 7. Much of apocalyptic literature functions this way—as visionary commentary on Daniel, projecting its themes forward and expanding on its eschatological vision.
So this is how 1 Enoch takes up the phrase “Son of Man” from Daniel 7. He is described as the one “to whom belongs righteousness, and with whom righteousness dwells.” Later in the same vision we read that “he will open all the hidden storerooms, the Lord of the Spirits has chosen him, he will depose kings from their thrones,” and so on. This is typical of the Similitudes—they carry this distinctive apocalyptic style and flavor throughout.
The Animal Apocalypse
Now, the Animal Apocalypse is really the central apocalyptic vision of 1 Enoch. It’s also quite long—it would take around 30 minutes to read it in full—so I’ll summarize its overall sweep before we read a shorter section together to get a sense of its texture.
The Animal Apocalypse (beginning in chapter 85) is a rather unusual dream vision. It portrays the history of redemption, from Adam all the way to the Maccabean period, using animals as symbols. Adam appears as a snow-white cow. The patriarchs are represented as oxen. The offspring of the fallen angels are depicted as all kinds of distorted land animals—very graphic in detail—with the angels themselves described as stars mating with heifers, producing elephants, camels, and other strange creatures.
Faithful Israelites are symbolized as sheep, while Gentiles are portrayed as birds, wild beasts, and birds of prey. The Egyptians, specifically, appear as wolves. After the Exodus, the sheep move through cycles of blindness and sight during the period of the judges and kings, experiencing oppression and deliverance, including the building and destruction of the temple.
The vision concludes with the exile, the return, and then 58 “seasons” leading up to the Maccabean revolt. It climaxes in the final judgment and the establishment of the Messianic kingdom, which is pictured in continuity with the original Adamic order. Strikingly, the Messiah is again represented as a snow-white cow, and we read: “all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky feared him and made petition to him continually.”
This vision was written after the Maccabean revolt, in the context of an intense expectation that the Messiah and the Day of the Lord were near at hand.
After the flood, Enoch describes the rise of many classes of creatures: lions, leopards, wolves, snakes, hyenas, wild boars, foxes, squirrels, swine, hawks, eagles, kites, striped cows, and ravens. These symbolize the nations of the world. Among them, however, a snow-white cow is born (chapter 89, verse 11). This cow gives rise to a wild donkey and another snow-white cow, and then the donkey multiplies. That cow in turn bears a black wild boar and a snow-white sheep. Here the narrative is recounting Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael, and then Esau and Jacob—contrasted through these animal images.
Jacob’s line, the 12 sheep, grows and expands, but one of them is handed over to the donkeys, who in turn give him to the wolves—the Egyptians. This represents Joseph. Then the Lord brings the other eleven sheep to join him in a pasture among the wolves, and together they multiply into many flocks. The wolves fear their increase, and so they oppress them—casting their young into a river. The sheep cry out in anguish, praying to their Lord.
Then one sheep escapes to the wild donkeys—Moses fleeing to Midian among the Ishmaelites. The Lord of the sheep descends in response to their cries and calls Moses to return to the wolves and speak to them, joined by another sheep, Aaron. They go to the assembly of the wolves to warn them not to harm the sheep. But the wolves intensify their oppression. The sheep cry out again, and finally the Lord of the sheep intervenes. He strikes the wolves, drowns them in the waters as the sheep pass safely through, and delivers His flock.
Clearly, this is a symbolic retelling of the Exodus. And the vision continues in this manner—through the Judges, the monarchy, the exile, and onward—recasting Israel’s story in elaborate apocalyptic imagery. Ultimately, it looks ahead to the Maccabean revolt and beyond, to the climactic Messianic kingdom.
The goal in reading from the Animal Apocalypse is to simply give you a sense of how these apocalyptic visions sound and unfold.
The Apocalypse of Weeks
That naturally leads us into the Apocalypse of Weeks, which is another major vision in 1 Enoch. The Apocalypse of Weeks is divided into two parts, though in the final compilation of 1 Enoch the sections ended up misplaced. The first portion appears in chapter 93, while the second part concludes in chapter 91. This vision portrays history as a sequence of “weeks” tied to the destiny of the elect. It begins with figures like Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, moves through the establishment of the Law, the Davidic kingdom, the monarchy, exile, and even an apostate generation (that’s chapter 93). Then chapter 91 brings the conclusion: the Messianic kingdom, divine judgment, the renewal of heaven and earth, and “many weeks without number” extending into eternity.
One striking line reads: “It shall be a time of goodness and righteousness, and sin shall no more be heard of forever.”
Let’s read a section from chapter 91, verse 12, which captures the flavor:
“Then after that, there shall occur the second eighth week, the week of righteousness. A sword shall be given to it in order that judgment shall be executed on the oppressors, and the sinners shall be delivered into the hands of the righteous. And at its completion, they shall acquire great things through their righteousness. A house shall be built for the Great King in glory forevermore. Then after that, in the ninth week, the righteous judgment shall be revealed to the whole world. All the deeds of the sinners shall depart from the earth and be written off for eternal destruction, and all people shall direct their sight to the path of uprightness. Then after this, in the tenth week, in the seventh part, there shall be eternal judgment. It shall be executed by the angels of the eternal heaven. The first heaven shall depart and pass away, a new heaven shall appear, and all the powers of heaven shall shine forever sevenfold. After that there shall be many weeks without number, forever. It shall be a time of goodness and righteousness, and sin shall no more be heard of forever.”
The exhortation that follows addresses Enoch’s children: “Walk in the way of righteousness, and do not walk in the way of wickedness, for all those who walk in the ways of injustice shall perish.”
This gives us a clear picture of how Jewish apocalypses resolve the tensions of protology—the problem of Adam and the generations that followed. Their vision of history culminates in a sudden, eschatological resolution: the Messiah arrives, the Day of the Lord is executed, all things are restored, Jerusalem and the Temple are glorified, and a new heavens and new earth emerge. The point of this vision is not abstract speculation; it is exhortation—discipleship shaped by the fear of the Lord and a call to walk in righteousness in light of the coming judgment.
Transition to 4 Ezra
Turning now to 4 Ezra: its feel and style differ somewhat from 1 Enoch, though both heavily reference the traditions of Daniel—especially Daniel 7. In its earliest form, 4 Ezra contained only chapters 3–14. Chapters 1–2 were later Christian additions, and chapters 15–16 also appear to be later Christian epilogues.
Throughout history the book has been known by various names, which can get confusing. In fact, if you open the Pseudepigrapha, you’ll find an entire chart at the beginning showing the range of names attached to 4 Ezra at different times. For our purposes, we’ll keep things simple and just step into the text itself.
4 Ezra is built around seven visions. The first few grapple with the problem of theodicy: Ezra asks how God can allow so much rampant evil on the earth. In response, an angel answers him with parables, sayings, and visions of the end of the age. The message is consistent: God allows evil because He is merciful and patient, even toward the ungodly, but He will bring rectification at the Day of the Lord and the coming of the Messiah.
The book is filled with strong language about “the end”—the end of this present age and the restoration of all things. In fact:
The third vision (chapter 7) carries strong messianic expectation.
The fourth vision (chapter 10) depicts a mourning woman—representing Jerusalem—who is suddenly and miraculously transformed into the heavenly Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem.
The fifth vision is the complex “eagle vision.”
The sixth vision presents a messianic figure, “the man from the sea,” who rises from the waters.
The seventh vision commissions Ezra himself.
Among these, the parable of the seeds (chapter 4, repeated in chapter 8) is especially important. It introduces agricultural imagery that becomes foundational for later Jewish and Christian teaching. Jesus Himself builds on this imagery in His parables—the sower, the wheat and tares, and the harvest at the end of the age. He even says in Mark 4, “If you don’t understand this parable, how will you understand all the parables?”
In 4 Ezra, however, the growth of humanity through the metaphor of agriculture often takes on a negative tone. This is important background when we consider Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed: placed between the explanation of the wheat and the tares, and drawing directly from Daniel 4, it carried very different connotations in its Jewish apocalyptic setting than we might assume today.
4 Ezra 4 deepens this theme and gives us a window into how Jews in the Second Temple period viewed humanity—beginning with Adam, as if it were a crop growing in the field. The angel says to Ezra:
If you are alive, you will see, and if you live long, you will often marvel, because the age is hastening swiftly to its end. For it will not be able to bring the things that have been promised to the righteous in their appointed times, because this age is full of sadness and infirmities. For the evil about which you ask me has been sown, but the harvest of it has not yet come... For a grain of evil seed was sown in Adam's heart from the beginning, and how much ungodliness it has produced until now, and will produce until the time of threshing comes! Consider now for yourself how much fruit of ungodliness a grain of evil seed has produced. When heads of grain without number are sown, how great a threshing floor they will fill! (4 Ezra 4:26-32; cf. 8:37-62)
In other words, this present age is irreparably broken—filled with evil, sorrow, and weakness—and cannot fix itself. That sets the stage for God alone to intervene suddenly, miraculously, and apocalyptically on the Day of the Lord.
This recalls what we read earlier in 2 Baruch 53–54, where Adam is presented as the origin point of all that went wrong—a perspective Paul later echoes in Romans 5. In Jewish apocalyptic writings, Adam surfaces repeatedly as the figure where “it all started” and where “it all will be resolved.” These writings attempt to weave together the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and Israel’s sacred story into a sweeping narrative from beginning to end—and Adam becomes the starting thread of that tapestry.
The point is clear: what began with a single seed in Adam’s heart has multiplied into an uncountable harvest of sin and corruption spread across the earth. That harvest, however, will be cut down at the time of judgment.
This imagery leads directly into the tribulations of the last days under the Antichrist, followed by the coming of the Messiah. That’s where the famous Eagle Vision begins in chapter 11. Ezra recounts:
On the second night I had a dream, and behold, there came up from the sea an eagle that had twelve feathered wings and three heads ... He said to me, "This is the interpretation of this vision which you have seen: The eagle which you saw coming up from the sea is the fourth kingdom which appeared in a vision to your brother Daniel. But it was not explained to him as I now explain or have explained it to you. Behold, the days are coming when a kingdom shall arise on earth, and it shall be more terrifying than all the kingdoms that have been before it. And twelve kings shall reign in it, one after another." (4 Ezra 11:1; 12:10-14)
The vision then spirals into extraordinary complexity: wings with sub-wings, some growing, some shrinking, heads replacing one another, one devouring another. It’s bewildering—so much so that, in my view, it resists any tidy alignment with history.
The angel attempts an interpretation. He explains:
“This is the interpretation of the vision of the eagle which you have seen. The eagle which you saw coming up from the sea is the fourth kingdom which appeared in a vision to your brother Daniel. But it was not explained to him as I now explain to you. Behold, the days are coming when a kingdom shall arise on earth, more terrifying than all that have come before it. Twelve kings shall reign in it, one after another.”
Clearly the angel ties the vision directly to Daniel 7.
The vision concludes with the sudden appearance of a lion, who rises from the forest, roars, and rebukes the eagle. The angel interprets this in messianic terms:
“As for the lion that you saw rousing up out of the forest, reproving the eagle for its unrighteousness—this is the Messiah, whom the Most High has kept until the end of days, who will rise from the posterity of David. He will come and speak to them, denounce their ungodliness and wickedness, and lay before them their contemptuous dealings. First he will set them alive before his judgment seat, and after he has reproved them, then he will destroy them.”
So the Eagle Vision, though dense and difficult, points us toward the same conclusion as Daniel: history culminates in the rise of an evil kingdom, followed by the arrival of the Davidic Messiah, who will execute judgment and bring the age to its climactic end.
The judgment seat of the Messiah—as Paul speaks of in 2 Corinthians 5—is here associated with the climactic end of the Gentile nations raging against Israel at the close of the age. The Messiah appears and destroys the Antichrist by His power, just as 2 Thessalonians 2 describes. Yet, in the same breath, God promises mercy:
“He will deliver in mercy the remnant of my people, those who have been saved within my borders. He will make them joyful until the end comes—the day of judgment which I spoke to you at the beginning.”
So God sustains His people with joy and with the hope of Messiah’s coming, even in the darkest days of the Antichrist’s reign, as this present evil age rushes toward its conclusion.
Chapter 13 then presents the Vision of the Man from the Sea, a long and complicated vision, but one that follows the same pattern of expectation. The Messiah arises from the heart of the sea, flying with the clouds of heaven. An innumerable multitude gathers to wage war against Him, but He destroys them with the fiery breath of His mouth and gathers to Himself a peaceable people.
The angel interprets the vision: the hostile nations assemble, but the Messiah stands upon Mount Zion, which is revealed to the whole world as prepared and built by God. The gathered peaceable multitude is identified as the ten tribes of Israel, long exiled since the days of King Hoshea (vv. 40–50). In verse 52 the angel makes it explicit: the messianic Son of David comes in His appointed time, destroys the wicked nations, restores Jerusalem, and regathers all twelve tribes into the eschatological kingdom.
This is why the seers used visions—because visions impress themselves deeply on the mind. Spoken sayings and liturgical repetition had their place, but apocalyptic visions could paint history in unforgettable images. Whether these visions were actual revelations or carefully imagined compositions, their purpose was the same: to shape Israel’s understanding of history, to interpret the Scriptures, and to unify God’s people around a shared redemptive narrative.
These were not obscure texts. 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch were being copied and circulated widely throughout Israel and the Diaspora. So when the New Testament writers invoke this kind of language and imagery, they are calling back to a world already steeped in these apocalyptic patterns.
2 Baruch
Among them, 2 Baruch stands out with a slightly different tone. Because Baruch was Jeremiah’s scribe, the book carries a distinctly prophetic flavor, more in the style of Jeremiah than of Daniel. It is organized around seven seven-day fasts, during which Baruch receives visions and angelic revelations that he then declares to the people. Within it are three major apocalypses:
The Apocalypse of the Twelve Calamities (chs. 26–30)
The Forest Apocalypse (chs. 36–40)
The Cloud Apocalypse (chs. 53–70/76, depending on the ending)
The chapters are short, but the themes are rich.
In the Twelve Calamities vision, Baruch asks whether the coming tribulation will be long. The angel replies that time is divided into twelve parts, each appointed for its disaster: commotion, slaughter, famine, earthquakes, demonic visitations, fire, violence, injustice, and finally a twelfth part that is a mixture of all the rest. The picture is not of neatly ordered stages, but of calamities blending together into one great storm at the end of the age.
The Forest Apocalypse is shorter, focused on the final kingdom. Baruch sees a forest of trees, with one towering cedar representing the Antichrist. A vine and fountain—the messianic kingdom—rise up, destroy the cedar, and uproot the forest. The angel interprets: this is the fourth kingdom of Daniel 7, harsher than all before it. Yet in the end, the Anointed One convicts its ruler on Mount Zion and establishes His everlasting dominion for the protection of God’s people.
Finally, the Cloud Apocalypse gives a sweeping panorama of history. A great cloud rises from the sea, raining alternating streams of black and bright waters—the black always outweighing the bright. Each stream corresponds to a period in Israel’s history, from Adam to Abraham, from Egypt to the monarchy, exile, and restoration. After the twelfth bright stream—the rebuilding of the temple—comes an exceedingly black flood of tribulation, followed by an exceedingly bright flood of restoration. It concludes:
“For that time is the end of what is corruptible, and the beginning of what is incorruptible.”
Paul echoes this very language in 1 Corinthians 15 when speaking of resurrection. And Baruch’s doxology in chapter 75, praising God’s inscrutable wisdom, sounds strikingly like Paul’s praise at the end of Romans 11. Both reflect the same awe before God’s grand redemptive plan.
Let me give you a sense of how this unfolds in 2 Baruch, particularly in chapter 59. Here we find the fourth bright waters, which symbolize the coming of Moses, Aaron, Miriam, Joshua son of Nun, Caleb, and all those of that generation. The text describes how Moses was shown extraordinary things. Verse 4 says:
“For He showed to Moses many warnings, together with the ways of the Law and the end of time.”
In other words, Sinai is not just about receiving the Torah; it is projected forward to the ultimate end of the age. This is a classic example of Second Temple interpretation—reading later revelation and eschatological expectation back into earlier narratives.
So Moses is shown the Torah and the time of the end, as well as the likeness of Zion with its measurements, modeled after the sanctuary of his own day. In this way, God reveals Zion and the future temple to Moses, even though Zion itself scarcely appears in the Torah and is later associated with David.
But the vision goes far beyond that. Moses is shown:
the measures of fire, the depths of the abyss, the weight of the winds, and the number of raindrops,
the suppression of wrath and the abundance of long-suffering,
the truth of judgment and the picture of coming punishment,
the root of wisdom, the richness of understanding, the fountain of knowledge,
paradise, Gehenna, vengeance, faith, hope, and the hosts of angels,
the treasuries of light, the orders of the archangels, and even the inquiries into the Law.
This is what Baruch calls the fourth bright waters. The whole period of Moses and Sinai is interpreted as nothing less than a revelation of the cosmos, of God’s wisdom and knowledge, and of the ultimate end of the age—even though none of this appears in the original Exodus account.
At the close of the vision, we read words that anticipate Paul’s language in 1 Corinthians 15:
“It will happen that after He has brought down everything in the world and has sat in eternal peace on the throne of His kingdom, then joy will be revealed and rest will appear. Health will descend like dew; illness, fear, tribulation, and lamentation will vanish. No one will die untimely, nor will adversity strike suddenly. That time is the end of what is corruptible, and the beginning of what is incorruptible.”
These are the last bright waters—the final vision that follows the last dark waters. From there the text moves into a doxology of praise.
Conclusion
Taken together, these apocalyptic visions—whether from 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, or 2 Baruch—give us a feel for the worldview of the time. They show us not only the form of apocalyptic literature but also its function: to narrate history from Adam at the beginning to the climactic end of the age, to the Antichrist, and finally to the sudden reversal of history at the Day of the Lord. That day brings judgment, resurrection, the Messiah enthroned in Jerusalem, and the glorified temple.
This framework helps us when we turn to the New Testament. When Jesus and Paul speak of the Day of the Lord, the Resurrection, or the Messianic Kingdom, they rarely define these terms. Occam’s razor would suggest it’s because their audiences already knew what was meant—they were steeped in this apocalyptic expectation.
So when Jesus says, “If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out… It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God maimed than to be thrown into Gehenna” (Mk. 9:47), He does not stop to explain what the kingdom is, what Gehenna is, or what the Day of Judgment entails. Nor does He explain when He says, “The men of Nineveh will rise up at the Judgment and condemn this generation.” Those concepts were already part of the common apocalyptic vocabulary of the time.
In our next lesson, we’ll look specifically at Jesus’ sayings about the Kingdom of God, and Paul’s references as well. Because while the rest of the Jewish apocalyptic framework carries straight into the New Testament largely unchanged, the Kingdom itself is often singled out as though it had undergone a radical redefinition. We’ll test that claim and see that even in the debated passages, the Kingdom fits best when read in continuity with the traditional Jewish apocalyptic hope.
References
This study draws on John Harrigan’s teaching, Discipling Gentiles into the Hope of Israel.