The Basics of: Daniel
Remember the dude that survived inside a pit of lions? Yeah, that guy.
Don’t confuse the story of Daniel with the unfortunate story of Siegfried & Roy’s white tiger attacking Roy on stage back in ‘03. Big cats were involved, yes, but that’s where the similarity ends.
The book of Daniel has a lot more than just the namesake surviving the lion pit.
I’d actually say that this book is one of the most enjoyable to read in the Bible.
“Why, Rev. Dr.?”
Because
a) this book is an absolute PAGE TURNER. There is crazy content from the beginning to the end….
and b) Daniel has a couple of visions and dreams that are actually understandable today.
Meaning, you don’t need to know a lot of obscure information about ancient Near East countries or religions. It’s pretty cut and dry, especially if you are familiar with any kind of symbolism in the Bible.
So, let’s get into it!
STUFF Y’ALL SHOULD KNOW ABOUT OUR BOY DAN
- This is written by (and named after) the man of the hour: Dan.
It’s all his story and his narrative as we go through the book, with the timing of the book making a lot of historical sense. The start of the story is around Daniel’s exile from Judah around 605 BC, and the story ends during good King Cyrus’ reign.
Quick Reminder from a Previous Post.: Judah (the Southern Kingdom) was living life in a sinful manner when they got conquered and overthrown by Babylon. But then, PLOT TWIST, Babylon was conquered. There was a Persian guy, Cyrus the Great (I’m sure you’ve heard of him and if you haven’t, get a subscription to the History Channel), who conquered Babylon in 539 BC give or take, and went about changing the rules of how Babylon would be run, i.e. making it more Persian. Cyrus let a lot of the exiled Israelite folk go back home, “wow, how nice of him!”, so they could rebuild their cities and their faith. All around, he was a decent dude if you don’t count the murders and wars.
Here’s the thing about Daniel: he wasn’t just some poor kid from Judah who got the short end of the stick. He was of noble blood and got exiled anyways, BUT…Babylon chose Daniel and his friends to do an internship they never asked for.
“An internship?”
Yes, essentially (except, it was also forced - either do the internship or die basically). The Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar ($5 for anyone who can successfully say his name 10 times fast without messing up) wanted good looking young men who were relatively smart and quick learners to be trained (the internship) to be of service to his court. So, the book of Daniel is about them serving the Babylonian court…kind of.
Keep in mind that a good chunk of this story is about Daniel (duh), but also about his friends: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. This is a running joke of the Bible - having one guy with an extraordinarily normal name and then the rest of the people are just a mess of vowels. A real life Paul from Dune kind of a moment.
Anywho, if you have trouble remembering their names, just think of them as Daniel and His Gang of Merry-Men.
- Daniel and His Gang of Merry-Men were rebels.
They stood their ground when the internship asked things they didn’t want to do, most of which had to do with abandoning their faith and covenant with God. Daniel and His Gang of Merry-Men remained firm in their beliefs, proving to Nebuchadnezzar that the group did not serve Nebuchadnezzar, and only served God
Quick Archaeological Tidbit from the Rev. Dr.: Chapter 4 resembles something called The Prayer of Nabonidus found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, written in Aramaic. If you don’t read chapter 4, let me paraphrase for you: Daniel dreams that Nebuchadnezzar is an idiot and will pay for his crimes. He essentially tells him that if Nebuchadnezzar doesn’t stop acting like an animal, God is going to turn him into an animal…
And then he turns into an animal. Pretty wild.
The Prayer of Nabonidus talks about Nabonidus having some major disease for seven years and a Jewish man comes to save him, so Nabonidus writes a prayer thanking and honoring God. There isn’t a line about Nabonidus turning into an animal, but some interpreters believe the letter does reference it.
The interesting point I’m making here is that those who were familiar with The Prayer of Nabonidus were probably more familiar with this than with Daniel & Nebuchadnezzar. Had someone told them that King Nebuchadnezzar turned into an animal, they would have said something like “that’s a weird name, I was told it was Nabonidus.”
Because they were rebels, but God lovin’ rebels, God blessed Daniel and His Gang of Merry-Men with many skills. One of those skills, as you may realize now, was understanding and interpreting dreams and visions.
AND, because they were rebels for God, the Babylonians tried killing them more than once.
- “You’re gonna suffer….but you’re gonna be happy about it.” - Ron Weasley, but also Daniel
One of the main overarching themes of this book is that you can live a faithful life despite your circumstances. You can still have faith in God and be faithful to what He asks, even if you are suffering.
Daniel and His Gang of Merry-Men quite literally proved that.
The thing is, I think that if any of us went back in time to meet Daniel, we would find it to be unbearable. I think we would have seen the crappy situation of exile and enslavement to be a good excuse to rebel sinfully and just give up… but not Daniel and His Gang of Merry-Men.
Between Daniel’s friends (Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego) getting thrown into a preheated oven (AND SURVIVING!!) and Daniel being thrown into a pit full of big meat-eating purr-machines (AND SURVIVING!!), the four of them really suffer quite a bit.
However, they have the faith to know that God’s got their backs.
- 12 chapters makes for an EASY read.
It’s easiest, in my opinion, to read Daniel in two sections.
First, in order to understand Daniel and His Gang of Merry-Men, you have to read about their trials and what they go through in order to be a trusted source of information to the Babylonians.
Then you get to read Daniel’s visions, all of which have some serious merit.
Quick Tidbit with the Rev. Dr.: If you struggle with the prophetic books of the Bible (like me), then Daniel is a really excellent starting place for you. Daniel’s visions in Chapter 8 have a lot of interesting word choices that you can easily tie into historical fact. For instance:
Daniel sees that there will be four kingdoms that rise (Macedonia/Greece, Thrace/Asia Minor, Northern Syria/Mesopotamia, and Southern Syria/Palestine/Egypt).
Daniel sees that one king will rise from Greece and have a large horn (could be Alexander the Great).
Daniel sees a wicked king with a little horn (BURN! But also, could be Antiochus IV Epiphanes).
Thus, read them in two sections:
Daniel and His Gang of Merry-Men REALLY Going Through It (1-6)
Daniel probably Deals with PTSD and Dreams (7-12)
Not so bad, right?
Go read with confidence. Thanks for being here.
