The Daniel – Isaac Newton Connection Chapter 12

 

The Daniel – Isaac Newton Connection

Isaac Newton, who lived from 1642-1727, is known as one of the world’s greatest scientists. But not many people know he was fascinated with the book of Daniel. He was a devout Christian, and Bible scholar who studied the Old Testament in the original Hebrew.

At the end of his days he spent more time studying and writing about the prophecies in the book of Daniel than he did in charting the heavens.[1]

But prophecy is not something we can figure out with our own understanding; it is something that God reveals or opens up to our understanding.

The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of the law.[2]

Daniel, himself, was even puzzled by some of the prophecies he received. In fact, in the last chapter of Daniel, after having had a vision and having received a prophecy, Daniel says,

And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end.[3]

If we go back earlier in the chapter we find a similar declaration from the Lord:

But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased.[4]

Try as they might, neither Daniel nor Isaac Newton could properly understand the Daniel prophecies. I believe we today have better understanding of the Daniel prophecies than Daniel and Isaac Newton had, because we are closer in time to the fulfillment of those end-time events. 

Many Bible scholars believe today’s vast modern transportation system of planes, trains and cars is a fulfillment of the second part of the verse “many shall run to and fro.” An interesting side note is that when Isaac Newton was alive, he predicted that in the future man would be able to travel at speeds as fast as fifty-miles-an-hour. Voltaire, the famous French skeptic, said, 

Now look at that mighty mind of Newton who studied gravitation. When he became an old man and got into his second childhood, he began to study the book that is called the Bible. And it seems in order to credit its fabulous nonsense we must believe that the knowledge of mankind will be so increased that he will be able to travel at the rate of 50 miles an hour. The poor dullard! No man can travel at the rate of 30 miles an hour and get his breath![5]

Now we know that Voltaire was indeed the “poor dotard,” and not Newton. 

The fact that the average person has access to an innumerable amount of knowledge through today’s computerized world is surely a fulfillment of “knowledge shall be increased.” It behooves us, therefore, to study the Scriptures diligently like Isaac Newton, and like those in the city of Berea of whom Paul spoke, 

These were nobler than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.[6]

Please do not take my word for it. Get out your Bible, read, study, fast, pray and ask God to open up His Word to you. 

Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.[7]

Notes:

[1] Garraty, John Arthur and Gray, Peter; The Columbia History of the World, Harper and Row, 1972.
[2] Deuteronomy 29:29
[3] Daniel 12:8-9
[4] Daniel 12:4
[5] http://www.theinformedservant.com/newton-voltaire-and-the-privilege-of-hindsight/ (accessed 03/2016)
[6] Acts 17:11
[7] Psalm 119:18

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