Some notes on Daniel 8:14 and nidaq

 

In the very important longdistance period prophecy of Daniel 8 on the two-thousand three hundred evenings and mornings = one day = one year in biblical prophecy the word appears nidaq.

The following is important:

1.      The word is a hapax legomenon meaning that it appears in that form of the Niphal as a passive meaning only once in the whole Old Testament.

2.      Semantics is the science of meaning and to find the meaning of words the context of a number of phrases of the same word helps establish its meaning. This is how dictionaries originate and this is how BDB Brown-Driver-Briggs allocated their meanings to words.

3.      When a word is rare, no context is available so one has to use surrounding hints in the same sentence to take the word to a certain context: temple/sanctuary.

4.      That said, the Jewish translator of the LXX or Septuagint or Greek translation of the Old Testament saw the sanctuary and realized that this action is to take place within a tabernacle/sanctuary context. Thus the translation was the Greek word as καὶ καθαρισθήσεται τὸ ἅγιον = and the sanctuary shall be cleansed.

5.      Both the Hebrew and the Greek of Leviticus 16:30 talks about the Day of Atonement as a day Atonement is made and cleansing takes place: ἐν γὰρ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ταύτῃ ἐξιλάσεται περὶ ὑμῶν, καθαρίσαι ὑμᾶς ἀπὸ πασῶν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ὑμῶν ἔναντι Κυρίου, καὶ καθαρισθήσεσθε. = “For in this day he shall make an atonement for you, to cleanse you from all your sins before the Lord, ad ye shall be cleansed”. But then, the word used in the Hebrew of Leviticus 16:30 is not nidaq but thaher as we see in the citation of the original:

  כִּי-בַיּוֹם הַזֶּה יְכַפֵּר עֲלֵיכֶם לְטַהֵר אֶתְכֶם מִכֹּל חַטֹּאתֵיכֶם לִפְנֵי יְהוָה תִּטְהָרוּ = “For on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins shall ye be clean before the Lord.” The Ptolemaic translator in Greek of Leviticus probably had that meaning also for nidaq because of the sanctuary context.

6.      For an Adventist the question should not be a polarization of cleansing and justified, a setting up of a sanctuary scene on the Day of Atonement versus a court scene. What is a Day of Atonement on earth in the Most Holy of Leviticus 16 is a Court Scene in heaven according to Daniel 7:9-13. It is two sides of the same coin. Not either cleanse or justified but both.

7.      The justification is not humans but God‘s character is justified in the eyes of all heavenly creatures as jury of the Investigative Judgment.

8.      The theology of salvation comes with a package of cleansing plus justification. See David in Psalm 51:2-4. Cleansed from washing of Baptism, the sinner is cleansed from his sin and cleansed from his sin God will be justified and clear when He judges. These verses breath the Investigative Judgment, the Day of Atonement language of Leviticus 16:30, the nidaq of Daniel 8:14.

9.      The final conclusion is that nidaq has both the context of an earthly and heavenly Court Scene or context but theologically is related to soteriology in the way David saw it that cleansed from sin means that God is justified in heaven in the Investigative Judgment or Court also in Heaven. It is the heavenly sanctuary that is the setting for the court scene there. That was to happen 2300 years since 1844 according to Daniel 8:14. This is regardless what R. Cottrell, D. Ford, or anyone since in California or elsewhere wants to say about the subject. God does not work with a theology of polarization of cleansing sins and be justified, an either or choice, but both as one package.