Daniel Eleven

“Those who have insight among the people will give understanding to many, yet they will fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by plunder for many days. Now when they fall they will be granted some help, and many who are not sincere will join with them in hypocrisy. Some of those who have insight will, in order to refine, purge and make them pure until the end time, because it is still to come at the appointed time. Then the king will do as he pleases, and he will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will speak monstrous things about God; and he will prosper until the indignation is finished, for that which is decreed will be done. He will show no regard for the gods of his fathers or for what women desire; nor will he show regard for any other good; for he will magnify himself above them all. But instead, he will honor a god of forces, or fortresses, a god whom his fathers did not know; he will honor his deity with gold, silver, costly stones and treasure” (which, in updated lingo we might call assets.)

I lifted these words from an ancient book, written by a wise man who had been captured and compelled to serve an ancient emperor. Any resemblance to persons or circumstances of our present era is, although intentional on my part, still a matter of interpertating the times in which we live. Any congruity between our present day and whatever was happening in the slings and arrows of history’s outrageous fortune is, we discern, duly noted. History does not repeat, but is does, as we poet types say, “rhyme.” Just sayin’. King of Soul