Background on the Book of Daniel

In this study we look at the book of Daniel. Daniel shows us how to “just say No” in an authoritarian, tyrannical government.

This centuries old story highlights the world’s antagonism toward the things of God and his followers.

The book of Daniel is about a prophet who remained faithful when kings and companions challenged him to forsake his cultural God in favor of his slave-master’s cultural god.  The Book of Daniel portrays him as unashamed, unwavering and unwilling to compromise in his devotion to HIS God.

Here is some insight to whet your appetite.

His name, Daniel, means “God judges” or “God’s Judge.”  He was a prophet living in the sixth century BC, exiled from Judah and living in Babylon along with much of the Jewish nation during the Babylonian captivity.

The theme of the book of Daniel is the hope of the people of God during the times of the Gentiles, the time between the Babylonian captivity and Jesus’ return.  A time of God’s people living under ungodly world dominion.

The book promotes hope by teaching that at all times the Most High God is ruler over human kingdoms.

Timeline from 620 BC

• 620 BC– Birth of Daniel  

•      “      – Josiah’s reforms were he removed all manner of idolatrous items from the temple and purified his kingdom of non-YHWH references, associations, idols, and terminology.  The Jewish nation restored itself to it Mosiac roots. 

• 612 BC – Ashur, Nineveh, and the the Assyrian Empire, under Nabopolassar falls.

• 609 BC – Josiah killed by the Egyptians at Megiddo

• 605 BC – Babylonians defeat Pharaoh Neco of Egypt at Carchemish.  The Babylonians rise to hold the balance of power in the region.

• 605 BC – Babylonians besiege Jerusalem; some of the royal family and nobles, including Daniel, are taken to Babylon.

• 604-603 BC – Daniel and his Hebrew companions are trained to serve Nebuchadnezzar.

• 602 BC – Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the colossal statue and Daniel’s interpretation.

• 586 BC – Jerusalem again falls to the third Babylonian siege and Solomon’s Temple is destroyed.

• 573-566 BC – Nebuchadnezzar’s seven years of insanity.
  

• 562 BC – Evil-merodach, Nebuchadnezzar’s son, succeeds him as King of Babylon.

• 539 BC – Daniel interprets the handwriting on the wall for Belshazzar.  Cyrus captures Babylon without resistance.

•      “       – Gabriel visits Daniel with the message of seventy weeks.

• 538 BC – Cyrus issues a decree allowing the Jews to return to Judah.
  

• 536 BC – Daniel, now 84 years old, is thrown into the lions’ den.

• 535 BC –Daniel receives a vision of future events.

Tell me more about Babylon, a concise history:

The city of Babylon was located about 50 miles south of Baghdad along the Euphrates River in present-day Iraq. It was founded around 2300 B.C. by the ancient Akkadian-speaking people of southern Mesopotamia.  

Babylon became a major military power under Amorite king Hammurabi, who ruled from 1792 to 1750 B.C. After Hammurabi conquered neighboring city-states, he brought much of southern and central Mesopotamia under unified Babylonian rule, creating an empire called Babylonia. Hammurabi turned Babylon into a rich, powerful and influential city. He created one of the world’s earliest and most complete written legal codes. 

Hammurabi encircled his city with walls. Nebuchadnezzar II further fortified the city with three rings of walls that were 40 feet tall.  The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that the walls of Babylon were so thick that chariot races were held on top of them. The city inside the walls occupied an area of 200 square miles, roughly the size of Chicago today.

Nebuchadnezzar II built three major palaces, each lavishly decorated with blue and yellow glazed tiles. He also built a number of shrines, the largest of which stood 280 feet tall, nearly the size of a 26-story office building. 

The empire fell apart after Hammurabi’s death and then a new line of kings established the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which lasted from 626 B.C. to 539 B.C. The Neo-Babylonian Empire became the most powerful state in the world after defeating the Assyrians at Nineveh in 612 B.C. 

 

The Book of Daniel opens after King Nebuchadnezzar’s first siege of Judah in 605 BC, after which Daniel and his friends, along with much of the Judean nobility, were removed to live in Babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar assaulted Judah again in 597 BC.  This time he took 10,000 Judeans back to Babylon as captives.  AGAIN in 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem and destroyed the city, Solomon’s Temple.  This time he exiled the people of Judah to Babylon.    

 

Nebuchadnezzar‘s ziggurat today 

Daniel’s ministry begins in 605 BC when he arrives in Babylon and extended throughout the Babylonian captivity, which ended in 539 BC after the third year of Cyrus the Great,  The legendary Medo-Persian King who overthrew Babylonia less than a century after its founding. The fall of Babylon was complete when the empire came under Persian control.

Many Judeans returned to Jerusalem after the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great’s Persian forces. Many of the Jewish nation were dispersed all over the world in what has come to be called the diaspora.  Some stayed in Babylon, and a Jewish community flourished there for more than 2,000 years. Many from this community relocated to the newly created Jewish state of Israel in the 1950s.