Chapter 1

A Royal Hostage in Babylon

 

 

608 BC was a bad year for the Jews. Josiah had ruled for eighteen years as God’s faithful servant. Then he went against God’s direction and died at Megiddo fighting Pharaoh Neco (2 Chron 20—24). His son Jehoahaz took over, but after three months Neco deposed him and made his brother Eliakim the king and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Next, to keep Jehoiakim in line, Jehoahaz and some of his family were taken to Egypt as royal hostages (2 Chron 36:1–4). They’d be comfortable as long as Jehoiakim behaved, but if the Jews rebelled, they’d be roadkill. This arrangement let Neco to keep Judah in line without leaving his army there. As long as they paid the tribute money, he didn’t bother them (2 Chron 35:22—36:12, 2 Kgs 23:35).(1)

Then Nebuchadnezzar showed up.(2) In 605 he defeated the Egyptian army at Carchemish, making it “non-existent.”(3) He marched south through Lebanon intending to finish the job in Egypt. Judea just happened to be in his way.

Nebuchadnezzar didn’t have any particular beef with the Jews, so when he arrived, he made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Pay tribute to Babylon instead of Egypt, and everything would be fine. Refuse, and be destroyed. One look at Nebuchadnezzar’s army sealed the deal. The Jews switched sides. What did they have to lose?

 

Israel and the Covenant

Before we go any further, we need to review God’s covenant promises to Israel. When they entered the Promised Land (Deut 28:1–14), God promised that if they followed Him, He’d defeat all their enemies (v. 7). The whole world would see how powerful Yahweh was, and would be afraid (v. 10). God would bless the Hebrews so much that everybody would come to them to borrow (v. 12). Of course, anyone else who followed God would be blessed, too (Exod 12:48).

But the Hebrews constantly rebelled. This led to trouble from the Philistines, Amalekites, Moabites, Edomites, and any other unfriendly neighbors. The northern ten tribes were so evil that God finally disowned them (Hos 1:9). In the eighth century BC Assyria relocated the northern tribes and brought in outsiders.(4)

The Jews weren’t all that much better. Before long, God ran out of patience with them. Jeremiah told the Jews they’d better straighten up and fly right. If they didn’t, they’d be in real trouble.

 

The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah . . .  "these twenty-three years the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened" . . . 'Turn now everyone from his evil way and from the evil of your deeds, and dwell on the land which the Lord has given to you and your forefathers forever and ever; and do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the work of your hands, and I will do you no harm. Yet you have not listened to Me, declares the Lord, ' . . . "Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts," 'Because you have not obeyed My words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,' "declares the Lord," 'and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them, and make them a horror, and a hissing, and an everlasting desolation.' (Jer 25:1–9 partial).

 

God’s covenant blessings are for covenant-keepers. But the Jews weren’t interested in God’s ways. They “devised iniquity and gave evil advice” (Ezek 11:2). They believed that since they were in Abraham’s bloodline, the land blessings in Genesis 15 belonged to them (Ezek 11:12). So God prepared to remove the birthright blessings He had given them (cf. Exod 4:22). He didn’t want to (cf. 2 Pet 3:9), so He gave them a full warning and time to come around.

 

Royal Hostages

 

The Jews had just agreed to Nebuchadnezzar’s deal when a messenger arrived from Babylon. His father Nabopolassar had died. This was a real emergency. If Nebuchadnezzar stayed with the army, somebody else might take over the throne. Nebuchadnezzar’s life expectancy would suddenly become very short.

So Nebuchadnezzar took a few men and made a thousand mile forced march across the desert to Babylon in twenty days. He “sat down on the throne” on September 7, 605 BC.(5) Before he left, Nebuchadnezzar gave orders for some of the Jews to be brought back to Babylon as hostages, just like Neco did a few years earlier. The hostages were to be the best and brightest, preferably from the royal family (1:3–4). Once they got to Babylon, they were sent to Babylon U to prepare for service in the royal court. They were well treated, and ate from the king’s choice food (1:5).

Four of the captives were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. As soon as they arrived, they were given Babylonian names to show they were now under the power of the Babylonian gods (1:6–7). This didn’t sit well with Daniel and his friends, but what could they do? As captives, any open resistance would get them killed. Later, Daniel “adjusted” the names to avoid giving any credit to pagan gods.(6)

 

Hebrew Names and meanings		Babylonian Names and meanings		Daniel’s “adjustment”
Daniel	God is my judge.	Belteshazzar	Bel-shazzar: “may Bel (the principal Babylonian god) guard his life”	“t” added to “Bel”
Hananiah	Yahweh has been gracious.	Shadrach	Shada-Aku: “Order of Aku” (Sumerian moon god)	Aku reduced to the letter “k”
Mishael	Who is what God is?	Meshach	Mushallim-Aku “who is like Aku”	Aku reduced to the letter “k”
Azariah	Yahweh has helped.	Abed-nego	Ardi-Nebo: “Servant of Nabu”	Babylonian “ardi” becomes Hebrew “abed” and “g” replaces “b”

 

It didn’t take long for Daniel’s group to find an opportunity to show the power of Yahweh. But first, they had to step out in faith.

The king’s food was the best available, prepared by the best chefs. Meat wasn’t the problem, since the Hebrews weren’t vegetarians.(7) But king’s food was ceremonially offered to idols, and they weren’t about to give any credit to the Babylonian gods. If they ate it, they’d be acting like the false gods were real and should be worshiped. This was intolerable (cf. 1 Cor 10:25–29). It would defile them before God. So they made a stand.

Daniel went to the commander of the officials in the royal court and asked permission to not eat the food that had been offered to idols.(8) But he didn’t ask the favor that way. He diplomatically asked for a vegetarian diet for himself and his friends (1:12).(9) The commander thought he’d lose his head (literally) if the Hebrews looked sick, so he turned the deal down. Daniel wasn’t about to give up, so he spoke to the overseer the commander had appointed over them. He bought into a ten-day trial (1:11–14).

At the end of the ten days, Daniel’s group looked noticeably healthier than the kids who’d been pigging out on all the rich food (1:15). As a result, they got vegetables the rest of the time.

Their final was an oral exam by the king (1:17–20). Daniel’s group didn’t just pass. They were ten times better than all the magicians and conjurers in his realm. They didn’t just beat the other kids in their class. They were better than the professors! That’s what I call being blessed. God made sure nobody could miss how good His servants were.

 

A Few Keys

The story in Daniel 1 is over, but there are a couple key items we need to look at because they will be important later on. First, Daniel reports he and his friends were “ten times better.” That’s not possible.

If you can walk, talk, and chew gum, nobody’s ten times smarter than you are. Yes, there are geniuses, but if your IQ is average, theirs isn’t likely to be more than twice as high as yours. In this case, “ten” is a figure of speech that means “a lot.” That’s important. When we see the number ten again, we’ll need to know that it’s not intended to be an exact number. It’s a round number, and means something like our word “several.” In other words, it can be as few as six or seven, or as many as a dozen or fifteen.

Daniel served into the first year of Cyrus (539–8 BC, 1:21).(10) A lot happened in those 67 years. There was a revolt in 594 BC. Nebuchadnezzar’s personal records talk about hand-to-hand combat in the palace, with the king personally dispatching a number of rebels. Next, the Jews rebelled in 586 BC by trying to get Pharaoh Neco to kick the Babylonians out of Judea. Nebuchadnezzar resolved that by destroying Jerusalem and the Temple. He took “all Jerusalem captive” to Babylon (2 Kgs 24:14). He also took all the sacred vessels of the Temple to Babylon (2 Chron 36:18). This language deserves our attention.

When Nebuchadnezzar first conquered Jerusalem, he took some of the articles of the house of the Lord to Babylon (2 Chron 36:7). This act symbolically declared that the Babylonian gods were more powerful than Yahweh.(11) When Nebuchadnezzar had to come back to Jerusalem, he took the new king and more of the Temple articles to Babylon, reinforcing the message (2 Chron 36:10). In 586 he finished the job. This time, Nebuchadnezzar declared the total victory of his gods over Yahweh by taking “all the articles of the house of God” to Babylon (2 Chron 36:18).

After Nebuchadnezzar died, there were another five kings over Babylon.(12) Daniel served through all the intrigue and palace revolts. This is extremely unusual, since after a palace coup the new king would purge any officials he had any suspicions about. God certainly blessed Daniel.

After Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon, Daniel was still a court official, even though he was in his eighties. But shortly he went to his rest to wait for God’s final victory (12:13).

 

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