STAYING TRUE: 1) Develop Strong Convictions

In this study we look at the book of Daniel.  We are all familiar with the story of Daniel and the lion’s den, but there is a lot more of this history than you know.  This centuries old story highlights the world’s antagonism toward the things of God and his followers.  You will find more information about the book of Daniel in the introduction to this session on our website.

The book of Daniel is about a prophet who remained faithful when kings and companions challenged him to forsake his God in favor of the cultural god of his slave-master.  The Book of Daniel portrays him as unashamed, unwavering and unwilling to compromise in his devotion to HIS God, and he presents an excellent role model for our consideration.

One behavior that stands out is Daniel’s faithfulness in prayer.  Another it’s his willingness to show courage.  Daniel thus serves as a model for believers who want to stand strong today despite the world’s disapproval and opposition.  Daniel remained unashamedly faithful; we can too.

Our first session is titled Develop Strong Convictions.  The point of this study is that it is our convictions, not our circumstances, that define who we are.

We have all assimilated to some degree into the culture in which we live. We want to be friendly and make personal connections with those around us. Our understanding, customs, and traditions all grow out of our culture. Different people hold different customs and traditions. That’s not necessarily bad, but it becomes an issue when those customs and practices conflict with the biblical standards to which God calls us. 

In the book of Daniel, we find a man who had convictions and lived out those convictions in a culture that called for a different standard and a different focus.  

We look at Daniel 1:3-13,17-19

The events in the first chapter of Daniel took place in “the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah.” Two rival empires dominated the world—Egypt and Babylon. Kind of like the US and the USSR of its day.  We’ll delve a bit into the details in a bit, but the Egyptian army attacked and defeated Judah, killing king Josiah, a good king.  Four years later, the Babylonians defeated Egypt, conquering all of Syria-Palestine. And King Jehoiakim, a bad king, was placed by Egypt on the throne of Judah.  He then rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, which, naturally, brought the Babylonian army against Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judah and imposed a forced exile on some of the Jewish population. Daniel and others from the nobility and royalty were among those in this first wave of deportees to Babylon.  

Let’s dissect Daniel 1:3-7 to start learning more.

Daniel 1:3-7

3 The king ordered Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the Israelites from the royal family and from the nobility—

4 young men without any physical defect, good-looking, suitable for instruction in all wisdom, knowledgeable, perceptive, and capable of serving in the king’s palace. He was to teach them the Chaldean language and literature.

5 The king assigned them daily provisions from the royal food and from the wine that he drank. They were to be trained for three years, and at the end of that time they were to attend the king.

6 Among them, from the Judahites, were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

7 The chief eunuch gave them names; he gave the name Belteshazzar to Daniel, Shadrach to Hananiah, Meshach to Mishael, and Abednego to Azariah.

Daniel’s book covers a period of about seventy years—from Nebuchadnezzar’s first conquest of Jerusalem in 605 BC to around the third year of the Persian king Cyrus in 536 BC. 

The book of Daniel divides neatly into two equal parts. Chapters 1–6 are historical and inform us of events that happened to Daniel and a few other young Hebrew exiles in Babylon. Chapters 7–12 are prophetic and record four visions given to the elderly Daniel concerning the kingdoms of this world and God’s coming kingdom.  

A feature of this book about which you may not be aware is that it is written in two languages—Hebrew and Aramaic. Parts of the first two chapters (Chapters 1:1–2:4a) are written in Hebrew, as are chapters 8–12, But parts of chapter 2 to chapter 7 (Chapters 2:4b–7) are in Aramaic. Chapters 2–7 relate to what Jesus called “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24) and outline the course of secular world history. Thus they were written in Aramaic, the language of diplomacy and commerce of that time. Chapters 8–12 concentrate more on the future of God’s covenant people, and so were written in Hebrew.

A number of purposes can be discerned for the book Daniel wrote. First, as chapters 1–6 demonstrate, Daniel recorded some of the history of a group of the Jewish exiles who were taken from Jerusalem to Babylon in 605 BC, of which Daniel himself was a member. Second, chapters 7–12 reassure God’s people that while the kingdoms of this world will come and go, God is moving the course of human history along to His desired goal. The world situation is not out of His control, and it will end with the coming of God’s kingdom on earth. A third purpose of Daniel’s book was to provide insight, guidance, and principles to God’s people as to the extent of cultural accommodation they could suitably make in a dominantly secular society that often was hostile to their faith.

As we noted in the introduction, Verse 1 states the setting as “the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah.” Two rival empires then dominated world power—Egypt and Babylon—both at opposite ends of the Fertile Crescent, with Israel in the middle. Just as the US and the USSR were on opposite ends of the world during our time.  

As the Egyptian army moved north toward Assyria, it attacked and defeated Judah, killing its  king, Josiah, in 609 BC at the Battle of Megiddo.  Josiah had made reforms to move the people of Judah back closer to their Mosiac roots and away from the secularly popular religious practices in the metropolitan areas of the northern kingdom of Israel.  

When Josiah was killed, he was replaced by his son Jehoahaz, but pharaoh Neco, within three months, removed him, transported him to Egypt, and placed his brother Jehoiakim (also known as Eliakim) on the throne of Judah in 609 BC (2 Kings 23:28–24:7; 2 Chron. 35:20–36:8). Thus, at this time period Judah WAS considered a part of Egypt.  

Four years later, in 605 BC at the Battle of Carchemish, the Babylonians defeated Egypt and conquered the whole of Syria-Palestine.  They made Jehoiakim a vassal to the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar. However, Jehoiakim soon rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar. That brought the Babylonian army against Jerusalem. Thus in 605 BC, when Nebuchadnezzar first conquered Judah, he imposed a forced exile on some of the Jewish nobility population. Daniel and others from the nobility and royalty were among those in this first wave of deportees to Babylon in 605 BC. (Under Nebuchadnezzar, two other waves of forced deportation occurred.  One eight years later in 597 BC, which involved Ezekiel, and the second eleven years later in 586 BC at the final fall and total destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple.)

King Josiah had worked to reform Judah and returned it to its Mosaic origins.  He restored the original Mosiac terminology and references as he removed all  the acculturation of God’s teaching to the world’s terminology that had been done.  For example the name of YHWH had basically been morphed into Baal because the northerner could “relate” with Baal, but they could not “relate” to a desert God. 

Where the god Baal had existed before, the Northern Kingdom of Israel rationalized something along the lines of “ Baal means lord, and and our Mediterranean, metropolitan people don’t relate to the fire and smoke of the desert God of YHWH….let’s just start referring to YHWH as Baal.”  It was sort of like how Zeus in the Greek pantheon is Jupiter in the Roman one.  The conquers change the name to suit the people.  Josiah did away with that and called his people back to their origins.  BUT his son Jehoiakim turned back to appeasing his conquers and the people rather than appeasing and honoring God.  Kind of like humanity does today.

More than just a “let’s make it easy on the people” attitude Jehoiakim took an ACTIVE role in making “God fit the people” rather than the “people worship God”. Jehoiakim encouraged idolatry in Judah, and he did it with vengeance. He ordered indignities to be performed on Uriah’s corpse (a faithful contemporary prophet of Jeremiah’s; see Jer. 26:20-23), and cut up and burned the first edition of Jeremiah’s scroll (Jer. 36). 

After three years as king, the Babylonians’ defeat of Egypt in 605 BC brought about Nebuchadnezzar’s attack on Jerusalem and Jehoiakim. This was when Daniel and other noble persons were forced into exile in Babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar was the son of King Nebopolassar. He became king upon his father’s death. He defeated Pharaoh Neco of Egypt in 605 BC at the Battle of Carchemish, thereby gaining domination of Syria-Palestine and the Euphrates valley for the Babylonian Empire. He proceeded to put down further revolts in Judah in 597 BC and 586 BC, eventually destroying the Jewish kingdom and its capital city of Jerusalem, along with the utter destruction of Solomon’s Temple. Nebuchadnezzar instituted a policy of forced deportation, and thus took many Jewish captives to Babylon.  Later, the Persian king Cyrus the Great allowed the city, its walls, and its temple to be rebuilt when he permitted the Jewish captives to return to their land, ending their exile.

From the root meaning “to confound,” Babylon (conceptional drawing at left) goes back in Bible times to the tower built there, and God’s act of confusing the languages (Gen. 11:9). The ancient city was first founded by Nimrod, then many centuries later was ruled by the famous Hammurabi from 1810–1750 BC. The height of its splendor and fame, however, came under Nebuchadnezzar, who built great temples and canals, fortified the city’s double walls, and constructed the magnificent hanging gardens. The great city was perhaps the first to reach a population of 200,000 and is estimated to have been up to a half a million people in Daniel’s day.

Jerusalem (conceptual drawing at right) was the capital of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Its name means “city of peace.” David conquered the ancient city, then called Jebus, from the Jebusites (2 Sam. 5:6-7; 1 Chron. 11:4-5). David also bought a threshing floor there from a Jebusite, upon which Solomon later built the Jerusalem temple.

Marduk was the king of the gods of the Babylonians, and was Nebuchadnezzar’s god and the patron god of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar built a great temple to him in Babylon. Marduk was also known as Merodach and Bel. You will find pictures of Marduk pyramid (ziggurat) as it was envisioned and how it stands today in the session introduction article on our webpage. 

Ashpena was the  chief eunuch verse 3 tells us.  The title eunuch does NOT mean that he was a literal eunuch, the word could be rendered “leading man” or “officer”, or in this case, perhaps the “chief administrator”.  The same Hebrew word is used of Potiphar and he was married. Ashpena was the chief of the officials under Nebuchadnezzar, and was responsible for selecting and caring for the conquered foreign nobles who were to be trained in the ways of the Babylonians, including the cuneiform script for the Chaldean language.

Daniel was placed in circumstances beyond his control as he experienced his exile in Babylon, he and his friends were in training for the express purpose of attending the king at his court. They were to serve the king. Men of letters played an important role in the courts of ancient societies. In Babylon, such training began about age 15 and continued to about age 18.

Daniel and his friends had Hebrew names but Babylon commonly imposed new names on foreigners who entered government or public service. Daniel means “God is my judge.” His name was changed to Belteshazzar, meaning “Protect his life!”—or, if a reference to the Babylonian god Bel, then either “May Bel protect his life!” or “Bel’s prince.” Daniel was re-named specifically after the name of Nebuchadnezzar’s god.

Hananiah means “Yahweh is gracious” or “Beloved of Yahweh,” but was changed to Shadrach, possibly an allusion to the name of Marduk, of the moon god Aku, or of the sun god Rak. 

Mishael means “Who is what God is” or “Who is as God,” but was changed to Meshach. We are not certain of the meaning, but this name is possibly also a reference to the moon god Aku, thus meaning “Who is as Aku.”

Azariah means “Yahweh has helped” or “Yahweh is my help,” but it was changed to Abednego, meaning “Servant (or worshiper) of Nebo [Nabu],” the Babylonian god of commerce and money, who was the son of Bel.

All four of the Hebrew young men’s original names had theological meaning that would have reminded them of their heritage and of the true God. The Babylonians replaced each of these names with names significant to their world. Much as Jehoiakim had enforced in Judah.  The two sets of names appear together only here in the book of Daniel.

But Daniel stood on principle. He would NOT partake in non-kosher food. 

Daniel 1:8-13

8 Daniel determined that he would not defile himself with the king’s food or with the wine he drank. So he asked permission from the chief eunuch not to defile himself.

9 God had granted Daniel kindness and compassion from the chief eunuch,

10 yet he said to Daniel, “I fear my lord the king, who assigned your food and drink. What if he sees your faces looking thinner than the other young men your age? You would endanger my life with the king.”

11 So Daniel said to the guard whom the chief eunuch had assigned to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah,

12 “Please test your servants for ten days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink.

13 Then examine our appearance and the appearance of the young men who are eating the king’s food, and deal with your servants based on what you see.”

Daniel determined he would not let his circumstances redefine who he was or his relationship with God.  He would not defile himself with the king’s food or with the wine. There were two concerns behind this rejection. First, the food the Babylonians consumed did not meet the requirements of the Mosaic law and thus was considered unclean. Second, was the fact that the food and drink from the Babylonians were first offered to their pagan gods before being consumed, kind of like “pagan god approved food” stamped on it. The meals were consecrated to their gods, and those who took part in them, in effect, rendered honor (worship) to those pagan gods.

For Daniel to participate in such meals would have been self-defiling. Further, in the East, to share a meal was to enter into a covenant friendship, to commit oneself to the allegiance of the person—in this case, to that of the king. This Daniel could not do.  In fact, well over a century earlier, Hosea had prophesied about this very situation for the exiles of the Northern Kingdom of Israel where many Jews during the period of Greek dominance between the Old and New Testaments made a similar commitment to Daniel’s. In short all of this was to say, “thank you for serving me this meal, but because us use it as a stamp of approval for YOUR god which is at odd to MY believe in MY GOD, I choose NOT to partake, I will eat something different.”

Daniel and his friends had chosen to not partake of the rich, courtly food and had determined to enter into a more kosher and balance diet.  It was God and His intervention that caused the chief administrator to treat Daniel with a deep-seated sympathy. Because God caused him to respond in this way, it opened the door for Daniel to propose his alternative suggestion to the chief administrator. 

But the course of action Daniel suggested not only could endanger the lives of the captives, it would also endanger that of the chief eunuch because he was solely responsible for these captives’ care and would be held accountable for them with his life. Ashpenaz could lose his life for changing the king’s orders and directions. 

But an unnamed guard of lesser rank saw a practical benefit for HIS supporting Daniel. This man agreed to test Daniel’s proposal for ten days. He, no doubt enjoyed the king’s rich food and wine himself while he substituted vegetables and water for the young men’s portion of meat and wine. According to verse 16, it seems the guard apparently not only substituted their food for the ten-day test period, but also for the course of the next three years! 

The word vegetables literally means “things sowed.” Neither the vegetables nor the water would have been offered to the pagan gods, nor would eating them have violated the Mosaic food laws. The vegetables likely would have included a variety of grains and greens, not just vegetable like peas, beans, and legumes.

During their time of learning, Daniel and his friends applied themselves and were successful in their studies.

Daniel 1:17-19

17 God gave these four young men knowledge and understanding in every kind of literature and wisdom. Daniel also understood visions and dreams of every kind.

18 At the end of the time that the king had said to present them, the chief eunuch presented them to Nebuchadnezzar.

19 The king interviewed them, and among all of them, no one was found equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So they began to attend the king.

Daniel’s conviction to stay true to God did not waver, and he used the gifts and skills God gave him to serve.  All four of these young men were given insights and comprehension that their comrades could not achieve by their own means. Knowledge here refers to the God-given ability to discern what is true from what is false. Understanding relates to the mastery of the entire corpus of the Babylonian writings—every kind of literature. Wisdom is the ability to apply wisely and correctly the knowledge they acquired. Such gifts were given to all four young men. In this sense they were like Moses, who was skilled in all the wisdom of Egypt.

To Daniel, something more was given. Like Joseph, God gave Daniel understanding of all kinds of visions and dreams. Daniel had the ability to see, understand, and interpret what dreams and visions meant. Dreams occur while one is sleeping. Visions normally occur when one is awake. This will become important in the chapters that follow. The reference here includes not only the dreams and visions that came to Daniel, but also those that came to others. Daniel now lived in a culture and society that placed great emphasis on dreams and visions and on their interpretation. So this was an important gift of God to Daniel that would help him significantly as the years went by.

These four young men began to attend the king. These young men were so diligent in their studies that no one was found equal to them. But after saying that, Daniel returned to make a further comment on the king’s final examination of these four young men: “In every matter of wisdom and understanding that the king consulted them about, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and mediums in his entire kingdom”. These four were absolutely superior to “all”—not just some—of “the magicians and mediums.” And not just superior to those who studied with them for three years or who lived in Babylon. No, they were superior to all those “in his entire kingdom”—which was a most extensive empire.  These were considered the wise men of Babylon.

And it all started with a strong conviction of staying true to their belief in their God.

Next week we will see that our prayers really do make a difference as we Pray with Passion.