Episode 28: Daniel in Babylon

Daniel is one of the most admirable figures in the Bible. He was carried captive to Babylon as a teenager and lived there all his life, serving several kings of two different empires. In an environment hostile to his faith he remained upright, prayed faithfully and was used by God to interpret dreams and receive visions about the future of the nations. His book contains well-known stories —the fiery furnace, the writing on the wall, the lions’ den— and prophecies about God’s eternal kingdom and the “Son of man”.

Young captives in Babylon

In 605 BC Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, besieged Jerusalem and took some young men of the royal family and the nobility, “children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom”. They were to be educated for three years in the language and literature of the Chaldeans to serve at court. Among them were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. The chief of the eunuchs gave them Babylonian names: Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Their Hebrew names honoured the God of Israel; the new ones honoured the gods of Babylon.

“Daniel purposed in his heart”

The king ordered the young men to eat the food and drink the wine from his table. But Daniel made a decision:

“But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.”
Daniel 1:8

The king’s food probably included items forbidden by the law of Moses or offered to idols. Daniel did not rebel violently but respectfully asked for a ten-day test of eating pulse and drinking water. At the end they looked healthier and fatter than the others. God gave the four young men knowledge and wisdom, and gave Daniel understanding in all visions and dreams. When the king examined them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers in his realm.

The dream of the great statue

Nebuchadnezzar had a dream that troubled him and demanded that his wise men tell him not only the interpretation but the dream itself. None could, and the king ordered all the wise men killed. Daniel asked for time, prayed with his friends, and God revealed the secret to him in a night vision.

The king had seen a great image: its head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly of brass, legs of iron and feet part iron and part clay. A stone cut out without hands struck the feet and broke it to pieces, and the stone became a great mountain that filled the whole earth. Daniel explained that the image represented successive kingdoms, beginning with Babylon, and that the stone was a kingdom God would set up that would never be destroyed and would stand for ever (Daniel 2:44). Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and acknowledged: “Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods.”

The fiery furnace

Later Nebuchadnezzar made a golden image sixty cubits high in the plain of Dura and ordered everyone to bow before it when the music sounded, on pain of being thrown into a burning fiery furnace. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused. Before the furious king they answered with admirable faith:

“If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”
Daniel 3:17-18

“But if not.” Their faith did not depend on being delivered. The king had the furnace heated seven times hotter and threw them in bound. The heat was so intense that it killed the soldiers who carried them. But then Nebuchadnezzar rose up in astonishment: he saw four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire unharmed, “and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God”. The three came out without the fire having singed their hair or their coats, nor had the smell of fire passed on them.

Nebuchadnezzar humbled

The king had another dream, of a great tree being cut down. Daniel warned him that it represented the king himself, who would be humbled until he acknowledged that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men. A year later, as he walked in his palace boasting —“Is not this great Babylon, that I have built…?”—, he lost his reason and lived like an animal for a time. When his understanding returned, he praised the God of heaven: “all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase” (Daniel 4:37).

The writing on the wall

Years later King Belshazzar held a great feast and, in his drunkenness, ordered the gold and silver vessels from the temple in Jerusalem to be brought so that they could drink from them while praising their gods. Suddenly the fingers of a man’s hand appeared and wrote on the wall of the palace. The king turned pale and his knees knocked together. No one could read the writing until they called Daniel, by then an old man. The words were: “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.” Daniel interpreted them: God had numbered his kingdom and finished it; he had been weighed in the balances and found wanting; his kingdom would be divided and given to the Medes and Persians. That very night Belshazzar was slain, and Darius the Mede took the kingdom.

In the lions’ den

Under King Darius, Daniel was made one of three chief governors, and the king planned to set him over the whole realm. The other officials, jealous, looked for some fault in him but found none. So they decided to attack him through his faith. They persuaded the king to sign an irrevocable decree: for thirty days no one could pray to any god or man except the king, on pain of being cast into the den of lions.

“Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.”
Daniel 6:10

Daniel did not change his habit. He was reported, and the king, who valued him, tried to save him, but the law of the Medes and Persians could not be changed. Daniel was thrown into the den. The king spent the night fasting and sleepless. At dawn he hurried to the den and called with a lamentable voice. Daniel answered: “My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me.” Daniel was taken up without any injury, “because he believed in his God”.

Daniel’s visions

The second half of the book contains visions of the future: four beasts rising from the sea, representing empires, and the judgment of the Ancient of days. In one of those visions, Daniel saw someone very special:

“I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.”
Daniel 7:13-14

Daniel also prayed, confessing his people’s sins, on reading Jeremiah’s prophecy of the seventy years, and received the prophecy of the “seventy weeks” (Daniel 9). The book ends with a hope of resurrection: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake… And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament” (Daniel 12:2-3).

Places in the story

Map of the places in this episode. Approximate locations; map data: Natural Earth (public domain).

Babylon: the great capital of the Neo-Babylonian empire on the Euphrates, with the famous Ishtar Gate (reconstructed today in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum).

The plain of Dura: a plain in the province of Babylon where the golden image was set up.

Shushan (Susa): a Persian city where Daniel had one of his visions, by the river Ulai.

Daniel’s tomb: tradition places it in Susa (Shush, Iran), where there is a shrine visited by Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Interesting facts

Two languages: part of the book of Daniel (2:4 to 7:28) is written in Aramaic, the international language of the time, and the rest in Hebrew.

Belshazzar confirmed: his existence was long doubted, until the Nabonidus Cylinder, found at Ur in the nineteenth century, mentioned Belshazzar as the son of King Nabonidus. That explains why he offered Daniel to be “third ruler” in the kingdom.

“Weighed and found wanting”: the expression, like “the writing on the wall”, is used today in many languages.

Without fault: his enemies found in Daniel “none occasion nor fault” (Daniel 6:4).

A lifetime: Daniel served from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar to that of Cyrus of Persia, more than sixty years.

Lessons for our lives

It is possible to be faithful in a hostile environment. Firm decisions are made in the heart, before the test. Respect and firmness can go together. True faith says: “But if not, I will still serve God.” Constant prayer is an anchor. God rules over the kingdoms of this world. Pride goes before a fall.

On the road to Jesus

Daniel’s prophecy of the “Son of man” coming with the clouds and receiving an everlasting kingdom is fundamental for understanding Jesus. Before the high priest, when asked whether he was the Christ, Jesus answered: “I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62), quoting Daniel. The stone cut out without hands that fills the earth represents the kingdom of God that Jesus inaugurated. The “fourth man” in the furnace reminds us that God accompanies his own in the fire of trial. And like Daniel, Jesus was accused through others’ envy, shut in a tomb sealed with a stone, and came out alive at dawn.

In the next episode we will meet Esther, the young queen who risked her life to save her people.

Prayer

Lord, like Daniel, I want to purpose in my heart not to defile myself. Give me courage to be faithful where I live and work, with respect and firmness. Help me pray constantly, as he did three times a day. And if I face the fire, be the fourth man at my side. Thank you for Jesus, the Son of man, whose kingdom will have no end. Amen.