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THE BOOK OF DANIEL
Lesson 1
Introduction and Chapter 1
Daniel the Prisoner and Prophet

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Holy Lord,

Throughout the history of humanity, You have given us men and women who are models of faith and courage. The prophet Daniel is such a man. Captured by a foreign power as a boy, he persevered in faith and faced death in maintaining his commitment to obedience to Your laws and prohibitions. Despite his years of exile in the service of pagan kings, he never lost his belief in the one true God of Israel or his faith that his God controlled the events of his life for a greater purpose. Give us the courage and perseverance of Daniel as we strive to complete our journeys to salvation, remaining faithful to Jesus Christ and the guidance of His Church. We pray in the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+ + +

Do not interpretations belong to God?
Genesis 40:8c RSV

Introduction

The Book of Daniel attributes authorship of the book to a Babylonian captive from the Southern Kingdom of Judah named Daniel. In 605 BC, the victorious Babylonians defeated the combined armies of the Assyrians and their Egyptian allies at the Battle of Carchemish. They immediately took possession of the defeated Assyrian Empire, including the vassal state of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Initially, King Jehoiakim submitted to the Babylonians and pledged his loyalty to King Nebuchadnezzar. The Babylonians took some vessels from Yahweh's holy Temple as trophies, and to ensure the continued submission of the King of Judah and his people, the Babylonians took some young boys of royal and noble birth as captives back to Babylon to train them in service to the Babylonian Empire (2 Chr 36:5-7; Dan 1:1-4). Among those young captives was a boy named Daniyy'el [in English, Daniel] whose Hebrew name meant "God judges." He became God's prophet in exile to a series of pagan kings. During his 67 years in exile from 605 BC until the third year of the reign of King Cyrus in 537 BC, Daniel received a series of visions promising deliverance and glory to his people and giving the historical countdown to the coming of the Davidic Redeemer-Messiah and His eternal Kingdom. His contemporaries were the prophet Jeremiah, God's representative to the people in Jerusalem and Judah, and Ezekiel, God's representative to the Judahites in exile in Babylon.

• Chapters 1:1-24a and 8-12 are in Hebrew.
• Chapters 2:4b-7:28 are in Aramaic.
• The Prayer of Azariah and the Hymn of the Three Young Men in 3:25-90 are in Greek.
• Chapters 8-12 are in Hebrew.
• Chapters 13:1-14:42 are in Greek.

The first six chapters, written in the third person, record the adventures of the young Daniel. The Prayer of Azariah and the Hymn of the Three Young Men in Chapter 3 only appear in the Greek Septuagint translations.

The second Aramaic section in Chapters 7-12 record a series of divine revelations Daniel received, most of which are in a first-person account. Chapters 13 and 14, written as a third-person account, contain stories that serve as "bookends" to the entire work. Chapter 13 relates a story about Daniel when he was still a boy, and Chapter 14 takes place when Daniel is elderly and serving his last pagan king. They were translated into Greek before the document found its way back to Judah where the two Greek chapters became part of the Book of Daniel as an appendix, and the whole book became part of the Old Testament canon in the time of Jesus.

Many Biblical scholars suggest Daniel was not the author of the work and there were at least three different authors from different periods that wrote in three different languages. There were probably at least two writers: Daniel in the first-person accounts and an editor who put the different parts of the writings of Daniel together and wrote the third person account.

There is an explanation for the use of the three languages. The language of Daniel's birth was Hebrew. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that he would write the earliest record of his experiences in his native language. Aramaic was the language of the ruling class of the Babylonians, the Chaldaeans, an Aramean people who lived throughout Mesopotamia (see the document "Who Were the Arameans" ).⁽¹⁾ Aramaic became the diplomatic language of the ancient Near East and the language Daniel's captors forced him to learn at the Babylonian court. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that once he was fluent in Aramaic that the record of his experiences with pagan rulers was set down in Aramaic either by Daniel or dictated to a secretary, but the written record returned to Hebrew when Daniel conversed with God's angelic messengers in Chapters 8-12.

The use of Greek is harder to explain. It does suggest that at one time Daniel's experiences were perhaps written by Daniel with at least the introduction (in Hebrew) and last two chapters (in Greek) recorded later by someone else, possibly an amanuensis (secretary) or an editor, and added to a series of documents written by Daniel over a period of 67 years and compiled into one work. A linguistic analysis of the Greek portion suggests its original composition was in either Hebrew or Aramaic. There may have been a separate part of the book translated into Greek, even though those parts already existed in Hebrew or Aramaic and added to the Greek translation. Greek became the international language of the entire region after the conquest of Alexander the Great in the 4^th-century BC. When King Cyrus of Persia allowed the Jews to return to their homeland in 539 BC, many Judahites remained in Babylon. The returning exiles likely carried a copy or copies of Daniel's book with them to Judah, but perhaps part of the work stayed behind with Jewish communities in Babylon.

The Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament that was in use in the time of Jesus included the Song of Azariah and the Tree Young Men and Chapters 13 and 14. When Rabbinic Judaism reset its canon in the Middle Ages, their rabbis dropped all Old Testament Bible books that no longer existed in Hebrew, eliminating seven books and parts of Daniel and the Book of Esther. Martin Luther adopted the Jewish canon in his German translation of the Bible, dropping the same books and passages, a practice adopted by other Protestants. However, the Catholic Church has always included these books and passages among the inspired writings.

In the Catholic canon of the Old Testament books, the Book of Daniel appears in the third division, coming after the Pentateuch of Moses and the Historical Books in the section of the Books of the Prophets. The Book of Daniel appears fourth after the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. However, in the Jewish canon, the Book of Daniel is not included with the Prophetic Books of the Prophets but is among the Writings and lacks the last two chapters that scholars refer to as deuterocanonical writings.

The placement of the Book of Daniel among the Writings in the Hebrew Tanakh may be because the Book of Daniel never refers to him as a prophet (navi in Hebrew) nor does any other Old Testament book. The only reference to a prophet in the Book of Daniel is to Daniel's contemporary in Jerusalem, the prophet Jeremiah (Dan 9:2). Daniel was, in fact, unlike any of Yahweh's prophets. Other prophets were divinely called to speak the words of God to the covenant people and their kings (like Nathan, Isaiah, and Jeremiah), or to the rebellious apostate Israelites of the Northern Kingdom (like Elijah, Elisha, Hosea, and Amos). But God also called Jonah to preach repentance to a Gentile people in need of repentance, and to the covenant people in exile (like Ezekiel, another contemporary of Daniel). In fact, for most of his life, Daniel was isolated from his fellow Judahites who lived in villages in Babylonia while he resided in the palace of pagan kings (Dan 1:20). However, Jesus calls Daniel a prophet when referring to one of Daniel's visions: "When you see the desolating abomination spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place ..." (Mt 24:15a, also see Mk 13:14).

The Book of Daniel begins in a third person narrative in Chapters 1-6 and then changes to a mostly first-person narrative until the last two chapters return to a third person narrative. Daniel remained in Babylon from the year of his captivity in 605 BC until the third year in the reign of King Cyrus II of Persia (as the Persians counted the reginal years) in 536 BC. There are three major divisions in the book:

1. Daniel's captivity and exile in Babylon in service to pagan rulers (1:1-6:29)
2. Daniel's visions and God's plan for the time of the Gentile nations (7:1-12:13)
3. Appendix (13:1-14:42)

The book also divides into Daniel's experiences during the reigns of several pagan kings:

• Chapters 1-4 are during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
• Chapter 5 is during the reign of Belshazzar.
• Chapter 6 concerns Daniel's service to Darius the Mede.
• Chapters 7-8 revert to the rule of Belshazzar. *
• Chapter 9 returns to Darius the Mede.
• Chapter 10 concerns the reign of King Cyrus of Persia.

*The ancient Chester Beatty papyrus Codex 967 avoids the confusion between Chapters 5-8 by placing Chapters 7-8 before Chapters 5-6.⁽²⁾

The Theme of the Book of Daniel and its Importance to the New Testament

The theme of the Book of Daniel is God's supremacy over rulers of this world, and how He protects and rewards those who, despite their struggles and sufferings, are faithful and obedient to their covenant relationship with Him. The book continually refers to Yahweh as "the Most High God (twelve times in 3:26; 4:21, 22, 29, 31; 5:18, 21; 7:18, 22, 25 twice, 27), emphasizing that the gods pagans worship are not equal to the God of Israel who controls the destinies of all peoples and their nations and judges all people and their actions rightly. However, the key to the Book of Daniel is the word of knowledge God gives Daniel to tell King Nebuchadnezzar in 2:45b, The Great God has shown the king what is to take place, referring to the future fulfillment of Daniel's visions in a historical context.

There are significant links to Jesus and the New Testament found in the Book of Daniel. Jesus' favorite title for Himself in the New Testament is "Son of Man" (cf. Mt 8:20; 9:6; Mk 8:31; 14:62; used by Jesus for Himself over 30 times). It is the title Daniel gives to the Redeemer-Messiah and mediator of salvation in Daniel 7:13. And, when Jesus speaks about the climax human history, He uses expressions and symbolic images found in the Book of Daniel. Also, the Book of Revelation, the last Bible book, is remarkably like the Book of Daniel. God reveals future events to both inspired writers in visions concerning the end of time that will result in the complete establishment of God's Kingdom. However, the visions Daniel receives differs from the visions of St. John in the Book of Revelation in that Daniel's visions look forward in time to the coming of the Redeemer-Messiah and St. John's visions take place after Christ's Resurrection and Ascension and describe His eventual triumph over evil in His glorious return and the creation of the new Heaven and earth (Rev 19-22).

*Dates are approximate and may vary slightly according to the source. The ancients counted without the concept of a zero place-value which is why the Bible records that Jesus was in the tomb three days from Friday to Sunday. However, modern commentators often fail to observe this tradition and the way different cultures counted the reigning years of their kings. The dates in our study are from the New Jerusalem Bible commentary.

TIMELINE B.C. EMPIRES:
---------------ASSYRIAN---BABYLON---PERSIAN--------------GREEK---------------------ROMAN----
Divided Kingdoms of Israel & Judah

Dating the Book of Daniel

Many modern commentators argue that the Book of Daniel is a product of the 2^nd century BC. However, this is not a view universally held. While the text has probably suffered from scribal errors in transmission over the centuries, and modern copies do not have it precisely as originally written, there are reasonable grounds for dating the original composition earlier. Several modern Biblical scholars date the book as early as the 5^th or even the late 6^th century BC, not long after the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon who ruled from 605-562 BC and during the lifetime of the prophet Daniel according to the Scriptural record (Terence C. Mitchell, Bible Review, December 1999, page 35).

Historical Background

Yahweh redeemed the children of Jacob-Israel, liberating them from slavery in Egypt and making them a free people. At Mt. Sinai, Yahweh formed a covenant with the children of Israel, making them His personal possession as a holy people and giving them the rank of His firstborn sons among the nations of the earth. Keeping His promise to the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He dispossessed the Canaanites of their land (Gen 15:13-16, 18-21) and used the new generation of the children of the Exodus generation as His instrument of justice. He dispossessed the sinful, child-murdering people of Canaan and settled the Israelites in God's "Promised Land" where they would live as His tenants (Lev 25:23). However, He warned them if they apostatized from His covenant and began to behave like the Canaanites in worshiping idols and adopting sinful practices, He would punish them by driving them out of the land He had gifted to them.

Yahweh was their divine King, and they were His faithful vassal people, but the Israelites wanted a human king to rule over them like their Gentile neighbors. After warning them of the negative consequences of being ruled by a human king, Yahweh granted their request. Saul was the first king of the United Kingdom of Israel. He was an imperfect man of imperfect faith. God withdrew His support from Saul and anointed the shepherd boy, David of Bethlehem, Israel's next king.

The great King David was the first of the Davidic kings. He was the king of a united Israel, and his son, Solomon, succeeded him as King of Israel. Solomon's son, Rehoboam, failed to keep the twelve tribes united, and the nation of Israel divided into the two kingdoms composed of the ten northern tribes that became the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin that formed the Southern Kingdom of Judah in 930 BC.

For the most part, the Davidic kings of Judah remained loyal to Israel's covenant with Yahweh while the Northern Kingdom immediately rejected the authority of the Jerusalem Temple and apostatized from the Sinai Covenant. Nine different dynasties of bad kings ruled the Northern Kingdom while there were good and bad Davidic kings who ruled the Southern Kingdom but maintained the covenant and the Jerusalem Temple as the center of worship. Yahweh repeatedly sent His prophets to call the Northern Kingdom to repentance until paganism threatened to overwhelm the people of the northern tribes. God released His divine judgment against them in the form of the Assyrian Empire, ending the Kingdom of Israel and sending the northern tribes into exile in 722 BC as He promised in the covenant judgments for apostasy (Lev 26:14-46; Dt 28:15-69).

The Davidic kings responded to the threat of apostasy from the covenant by calling the people to repentance and renewal of the covenant oath to Yahweh, sparing the Southern Kingdom from God's wrath. However, with the death of good king Josiah, the Davidic kings and the people strayed farther and farther from obedience to the Sinai Covenant, and God sent the Babylonians as His instrument of divine judgment. The Babylonians took possession of Judah as a vassal state in 605 BC, taking several young men from the royal house and nobility into exile, including Daniel and his friends. The Book of Daniel is a record of Daniel's years in exile and his persistence in faith and obedience to the God of Israel.

From David to Zedekiah, there were twenty-one Davidic kings (see the list of the Kings of the United and Divided Kingdoms of Israel and Judah). Queen Athaliah of Judah who ruled for a short time was not a descendant of David.

The last of the Davidic Kings:

• Josiah son of Amon (640-609 BC): Judah's last righteous king, was killed at the Battle of Megiddo by Pharaoh Neco of Egypt.
• Jehoahaz son of Josiah (609 BC): Succeeded his father. Egyptian Pharaoh Neco deposed him and took him in chains to Egypt, replacing him with his brother Eliakim. Neco renamed Eliakim, Jehoiakim, establishing Judah's status as a vassal kingdom of Egypt.
• Jehoiakim son of Josiah (609-598 BC): He was forced to become a vassal of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar after the defeat of the Egyptians and Assyrians at the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC. When he rebelled against the Babylonians three years later, he suffered a punitive invasion. However, when he rebelled a second time, Nebuchadnezzar deposed him and his 18-year-old son and co-ruler (Jehoiachin), taking them and many other Judahites as prisoners to Babylon.
• Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim (598 BC): Deposed by Nebuchadnezzar and spent the rest of his life as a prisoner in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar then made Jehoiakim's brother, Mattaniah (the third son of Josiah) King of Judah, renaming him Zedekiah.
• Zedekiah son of Josiah (598-587 BC): Judah's last king. He was a vassal of the Babylonians but formed a rebellious alliance with the Egyptians. His decision led to the final destruction of the kingdom.

See the complete list of the kings of the United Kingdom of Israel and the Divided Kingdoms of the Northern Kingdom Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah in the charts section.
The kings of Judah used the accession system of counting years of their reign (see footnote 6).

Nebuchadnezzar ("Nabu has protected the country") defeated the combined forces of the Assyrians and Egyptians at the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC and took possession of the Assyrian Empire, including the nation of Judah. That same year, he succeeded his father, Nabopolassar, as the king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from 605 BC to 562 BC. As soon as news of his father's death reached Nebuchadnezzar, he returned to Babylon to secure his succession but sent his armies to subdue the vassal kingdoms of the Assyrians and receive their promise of allegiance to their new overlord. Among those kingdoms that were now under Babylonian control was the Southern Kingdom of Judah, the last remaining Israelite kingdom.

The Babylonians initiated three deportations of citizens of Judah to Babylon (agrees with Babylonian archives):

1. In 605 BC, the Babylonians made Judah a vassal kingdom and sent some boys of royal and noble birth to Babylon as hostages and to train for service to the Babylonian Empire (Dan 1:3-7).
2. In 598 BC, Nebuchadnezzar deposed and executed rebellious King Jehoiakim and deposed his son and co-ruler Jehoiachin. Nebuchadnezzar made Jehoiakim's brother (Jehoiachin's uncle) king of Judah, giving him the throne name Zedekiah. The Babylonians sent Jehoiachin, the queen mother, and thousands of citizens of Judah into exile in Babylon, including the young priest Ezekiel (2 Kng 24:6-16; 2 Chr 36:9-10; Jer 22:24-30).
3. In 587 BC, as a response to King Zedekiah's rebellion and alliance with the Egyptians, the Babylonian army destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. They captured and blinded King Zedekiah after executing the remaining Davidic heirs. The Babylonians took most of the population of Judah into exile along with their last Davidic king (2 Kng 25:4-7; Jer 39:4-6; 52:2-30). It was the end of the Kingdom of Judah, the last part of what had been the Kingdom of Israel.

All Scripture passages are from the New Jerusalem Bible unless designated NAB (New American Bible), RSV (Revised Standard Version St. Ignatius Edition); IBHE (Interlinear Bible Hebrew-English), IBGE (Interlinear Bible Greek-English), or LXX (Greek Septuagint Old Testament translation). CCC designates a citation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The word LORD or GOD rendered in all capital letters is, in the Hebrew text, God's Divine Name, YHWH (Yahweh).

Chapter 1

Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he came to the throne, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem [...] He did what is displeasing to Yahweh, just as his ancestors had done. In his times, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded, and Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years, but then rebelled against him a second time.
2 Kings 23:36-24:1

Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon attacked him, loaded him with chains and took him to Babylon.
2 Chronicles 36:6

And those who had escaped the sword he deported to Babylon, where they were enslaved by him and his descendants until the rise of the kingdom of Persia.
2 Chronicles 36:20

The first six chapters of the Book of Daniel introduce the prophet Daniel and his friends who experience trials and ordeals living in a pagan land. However, their primary allegiance is not to pagan kings but to the God of Israel. The reader receives a view of life for the Judahite exiles in a land that does not practice their beliefs that is not unlike the Christian's experience living in exile in a secular world that is not our true home and does not appreciate Christian beliefs and practices. It is for this reason that the Church reads the experiences of Daniel and his three friends attentively and "realizes that she is truly linked with mankind and its history by the deepest of bonds" (Vatican II, Gaudium et spes, 1).

Daniel 1:1-4 ~ Daniel and Other Young Judahites Become Captives of the Babylonians
1 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched on Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 The Lord let Jehoiakim king of Judah fall into his power, as well as some of the vessels belonging to the Temple of God. These he took away to Shinar, putting the vessels into the treasury of his own gods. 3 From the Israelites [sons of Israel], the king ordered Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring a certain number of boys of royal or noble descent [bring the king's seed and of the nobles]; 4 they had to be without any physical defect, of good appearance, versed in every branch of wisdom, well-informed, discerning, suitable for service at the royal court. Ashpenaz was to teach them to speak and write the language of the Chaldaeans. [...] = IBHE, vol. III, page 2032.

1 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched on Jerusalem and besieged it.
Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was responsible for the conquest of the Southern Kingdom of Judah and for the deportation of the Jews to Babylon. He was the most successful of the Neo-Babylonian kings and the first pagan king Daniel served. Daniel interprets two dreams for Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 2:46-49 and 4:1-37), after which the king acknowledges the God of Israel three times (2:46-49; 4:1-3; 4:47).

Jehoiakim (Hebrew = Yehoiakim, "Yahweh raises up") was one of the last of the Davidic kings of Judah who ruled from c. 609/8-598 BC. 609/8 BC was King Jehoiakim's accession year and 608/7 his first year; therefore 606/5 was the third year of his reign as the ancients counted without the concept of a zero place-value. The armies of Nebuchadnezzar marched on Judah after their victory at the Battle of Carchemish in 606/5 BC, and King Jehoiakim became a vassal of the Babylonians. However, Jehoiakim rebelled against his Babylonian overlords three years later (2 Kng 24:1-2). In 598 BC, after putting down a series of other rebellions, Nebuchadnezzar marched against Jehoiakim and besieged Jerusalem, depriving Jehoiakim and his son and co-heir Jehoiachin (Jeconiah) of their throne and their kingdom. He took them, the Queen Mother and thousands of citizens of Judah into Babylonian exile (2 Kng 24:6-16; 2 Chr 36:9-10; Jer 22:20-30), placing King Josiah's remaining son (Jehoiakim's brother and Jehoiachin's uncle), Mattaniah, on the throne as Judah's last Davidic king, renaming him Zedekiah (2 Kng 24:17).

2 The Lord let Jehoiakim king of Judah fall into his power, as well as some of the vessels belonging to the Temple of God. These he took away to Shinar, putting the vessels into the treasury of his own gods. 3 From the Israelites [sons of Israel], the king ordered Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring a certain number of boys of royal or noble descent [bring the king's seed and of the nobles] ...
Verse 2 returns to the initial subjugation of Judah when Jehoiakim fell into the power of the Babylonians in 605 BC (see Dan 2:1 that takes place in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign in 603 BC). Shinar is the ancient name for Babylon (Gen 10:10; Is 11:11; Zech 5:11). The Babylonians took control of Judah and, as was their practice in dealing with conquered nations according to Babylonian chronicles, took trophies from Judah's most sacred shrine, Yahweh's Jerusalem Temple, back to Babylon to display in their pagan temples. In addition to confiscating religious artifacts and treasures of a conquered people as trophies, it was also a common practice for conquerors to remove certain relatives of the ruling family and the nobility, taking them as hostages to ensure loyalty, as the Babylonians did with the young Judahites.

Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch
The Hebrew word translated "eunuch" denotes a confidant of the king or high ranking palace servant and does not necessarily suggest the man was a castrated eunuch. The chief eunuch may also have been taken captive as a young man and educated to serve the Babylonian king. His similar experience (as well as God's intervention) may account for the special relationship that develops between Daniel and Ashpenaz (verse 9). In his first century AD history of the Jewish people, however, Flavius Josephus records that the Babylonians made some of the young Jewish captives eunuchs (Antiquities of the Jews, 10.10.186). The youths forced to endure castration were probably those chosen to serve as administrators to the royal harem while Daniel and his friends became administrators of the empire.

4 they had to be without any physical defect, of good appearance, versed in every branch of wisdom, well-informed, discerning, suitable for service at the royal court. Ashpenaz was to teach them to speak and write the language of the Chaldaeans.
Taking members of the royal family and the children of nobles' captive was a strategy practiced by other empires like the Egyptians, Hittites, and Assyrians. These hostages not only ensured loyalty from the vassal state but were trained to serve as diplomats and ministers for the ruling nation. "Chaldaeans" is a term that originally designated an Aramaic-speaking people who migrated into Babylonia in the first half of the first millennium BC. They gradually gained ascendancy there and became the ruling Neo-Babylonian class, changing the national language from Akkadian to Aramaic. The boys will be taught to speak and write Aramaic which was the diplomatic language of Mesopotamia and the nations of the Persian Gulf. Akkadian was the former language of the old Assyrian and Babylonian Empires.

The young boys selected from the royal family and the families of Judah's chief nobles had to be (according to the Hebrew wording of the passage) "without blemish."
Question: How is the same Hebrew expression used in Leviticus 21:17-23 and 22:18-25?
Answer: It is the same expression used to describe the requirements for an Israelite chief priest and as one of the conditions necessary in an animal that is fit for sacrifice on Yahweh's sacred altar.

The boys of royal and noble birth selection for service to the Babylonian king recalls the prophecy of Isaiah to King Hezekiah about eighty years earlier: Sons sprung from you, sons begotten by you, will be abducted to be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon (Is 39:7). We do not know if the Babylonians castrated Daniel and the other young captives.

See the list of Yahweh's eight covenants.
Question: The seventh covenant was the covenant with King David. What were the terms of the Davidic covenant? See 2 Sam 7:8-17; 23:5; 2 Kngs 23:36-37; 2 Chron 36:6.
Answer: God promised David an eternal and unconditional covenant in which his throne would endure forever for his heirs who would be "sons of God." However, God also promised to discipline any Davidic heirs who fell into to sin like a father chastises an errant son.

Answer: Question: Why did Yahweh let Davidic heir Jehoiakim and the nation of Judah fall to the Babylonians when He promised David his heirs would sit on his throne forever? What was King Jehoiakim's temporal punishment?
Answer: Yahweh promised David, in an unconditional, eternal covenant, that a Davidic heir would rule on his throne forever. However, God also told David He would punish David's heirs if they sinned. Jehoiakim committed evil acts, and the successful conquest of his kingdom by the Babylonians followed by his death were temporal punishments for his sins and the collective sins of his people.

Daniel 1:5-7 ~ The Lives of the Young Captives at the Babylonian Court
5 The king assigned them a daily allowance of food and wine from the royal table. They were to receive an education lasting for three years, after which they would enter the royal service. 6 Among them were the Judaeans Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. 7 The chief eunuch gave them other names, calling Daniel Belteshazzar, Hananiah Shadrach, Mishael Meshach, and Azariah Abed-Nego.

Important captives like Daniel received their food from the King's table to ensure that they had the best possible diet for the sake of their health. The empire was making an investment in these young captives, and the plan was to educate them for three years to prepare them to enter royal service (verse 5). The three years might be a literal period, or it may be symbolic since the number tree appears so frequently in the book (twenty-five times).⁽⁴⁾ In the significance of numbers in Scripture, the number 3 is one of the so-called "perfect numbers" representing perfection, fulfillment, or something important in God's divine plan. The four perfect numbers were 3, 7, 10, and 12. See the document on the "Significance of Numbers in Scripture."

The king place Daniel and three other young captives of royal or noble Judahite bloodlines in the care of the chief eunuch who gave them Babylonian/Akkadian names to signify their new lives as adopted servants of the Babylonian king:

• Daniel ("God judges) became Belteshazzar, a name meaning "(the god) Bel guard his life."
• Hananiah ("Yahweh favors me") became Shadrach (etymology uncertain).
• Mishael ("who is God") became Meshach (etymology uncertain).
• Azariah ("Yahweh has helped") became Abed-Nego, in Hebrew meaning "servant of Nego" which is a pejorative variation of Nebu, a Babylonian god of wisdom. A Hebrew scribe copying the Book of Daniel probably changed the name Abed-Nebu to Abed-Nego, and other copies repeated the change. The name of the god Nebu forms the theophoric prefix in the name of Nebuchadnezzar.

Daniel 1:8-15 ~ The Young Captives' Test of Faith
8 Daniel, who was determined not to incur pollution by food and wine from the royal table, begged the chief eunuch to spare him this defilement. 9 God allowed Daniel to receive faithful love and sympathy from the chief eunuch. 10 But the eunuch warned Daniel, I am afraid of my lord the king: he has assigned you food and drink, and if he sees you looking thinner in the face than the other boys of your age, my head will be in danger with the king because of you.' 11 To the guard assigned to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah by the chief eunuch, Daniel then said, 12 Please allow your servants a ten days' trial, during which we are given only vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 You can then compare our looks with those of the boys who eat the king's food; go by what you see, and treat your servants accordingly.' 14 The man agreed to do what they asked and put them on ten days' trial. 15 When the ten days were over, they looked better and fatter than any of the boys who had eaten their allowance from the royal table; 16 so the guard withdrew their allowance of food and the wine they were to drink, and gave them vegetables.

Most, if not all, of the food served at the king's royal table came from sacrifices offered in Babylonian temples to false gods and were foods forbidden under the Law of the Sinai Covenant (Lev Chapter 11). Eating food sacrificed to idols or the ritually unclean foods of Gentiles was a violation of the covenant with Yahweh and a defilement that would make the young Judahites ritually unclean; it was a sin akin to apostasy (Hos 9:3; Tob 1:12; Judt 10:5; 12:1; 2 Mac 6:18-7:42).⁽³⁾ The young men request only vegetables (literally seed-bearing plants) to eat and water to drink. Vegetables were safe from ritual contamination, and it is for this reason that Daniel asks the king's sympathetic chief servant to allow them to have a vegetarian diet with water to drink as a test for ten days. It is interesting to recall that in the Garden Sanctuary of Eden, when humanity was unblemished by sin and in perfect union with the Almighty, God only gave Adam and Eve seed-bearing plants for food (Gen 2:16).

The refusal of wine is less easy to explain. Either the young captives feared the wine produced by pagans was also ritually unclean, or they were acting under a Nazirite vow. The word Nazarite is from the Hebrew word nazir, meaning "set apart as sacred, dedicated, vowed."⁽⁵⁾
Question: What vow did a Nazirite take and under what conditions? See Num 6:1-8, 21-22; Am 2:11f. Name two Nazirites; see Judg 13:4f; 16:17; 1 Sam 1:11.
Answer: Nazirites vowed themselves to Yahweh's service. They abstained from all fermented beverages, from grapes (fresh or dried), from grape juice and any product from grapes. They could not cut their hair or come near a dead person. These restrictions remained in place during the period of the vow, whether it was for a month or a lifetime. Nazirites were considered servants of God like the prophets. Samson and Samuel were lifelong Nazirites.

Question: Why did Yahweh require the faithful observance of ritual purity laws under the terms of the Sinai Covenant that included abstaining from certain kinds of food (Lev Chapter 11), dressing in un-mixed textiles (Lev 13:27-28, 47-59; 19:19; Dt 22:11), wearing tassels on the four corners of a man's outer cloak (Num 15:37-39; Dt 22:8), not cutting the sides of a man's beard (Lev 19:27; 21:5), etc.? See Lev 11:45; 1 Pt 1:16. Why are these purity rituals no longer observed in the New Covenant?
Answer: The laws of ritual purity separated the children of Israel from their pagan neighbors, reminding them that Yahweh called them out of the pagan world to be a holy people of a holy God. The purity rites were no longer necessary in the New Covenant Kingdom of Jesus Christ. During His earthly ministry, Jesus touched and healed the ritually unclean, transferring His purity to them. In the Sacrament of Baptism, Jesus imparts His purity to the Baptized Christian who becomes a holy child in the family of God. Also, the goal of the New Covenant is a universal Kingdom composed of both Jews and Gentiles. Separation is no longer the plan.

Question: What is the result of their test?
Answer: God disposed the chief servant to feel affection and sympathy for Daniel and the other boys. God blessed the boys by giving them health and strength from their vegetarian diet.

Daniel 1:17-20 ~ Yahweh Rewards the Faith of the Captives
17 To these four boys God gave knowledge and skill in every aspect of literature and learning; Daniel also had the gift of interpreting every kind of vision and dream. 18 When the time stipulated by the king for the boys to be presented to him came round, the chief eunuch presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. 19 The king conversed with them, and among all the boys found none to equal Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. So they became members of the king's court, 20 and on whatever point of wisdom or understanding he might question them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and soothsayers in his entire kingdom. Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.

After three years of instruction, from c. 605-603 BC (as the ancients' counted) the chief servant presented the young captives to the King for their "final examination." Daniel and his friends were found to be the best of the young captives and promoted to become members of the king's court.

The "ten days" (verse 15) and "ten times better" (verse 20) may be symbolic numbers. In the symbolic use of numbers in Scripture, ten is one of the "perfect numbers" and signifies perfection of divine order (i.e., the Ten Commandments); therefore, suggesting that God oversaw the events surrounding the faithful young Judahites, and He ordained the results of the food test and the final exam by the Babylonian king.

Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.
King Cyrus II was born in c. 600 BC, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire of the Medo-Persians. He became king of the Medo-Persian Empire in 559 BC. The first full year of his reign was 558 BC, and he ruled until 530 BC.⁽⁶⁾ The first year of King Cyrus in verse 20 refers to the first year of the Persian king's conquest of Babylon that took place in 539 BC. Cyrus is mentioned 23 times by name in the Bible and alluded to several more times ( 2 Chr 36:22 twice, 23; Ezr 1:1 twice, 2, 7, 8; 3:7; 4:3, 5; 5:13 twice, 14, 17; 6:3 twice, 14; Is 44:28; 45:1; Dan 1:21; 6:28; 10:1).

Question: The mention of a king named Cyrus would recall what passages in the sacred texts for the Jews reading the Book of Daniel? See Is 44:24-28 and 45:1-7. What is significant about the mention of this pagan king?
Answer: The mention of Cyrus would make Jewish readers immediately recall the prophecies of the 8^th century BC prophet Isaiah who names a man named Cyrus concerning the restoration of Jerusalem and the Temple after Isaiah's prophecies of their destruction. The mention of the name of Cyrus reminds the faithful that God controls the destinies even of pagan kings who He directs according to His divine plan.

The Babylonians destroyed both Jerusalem and the Temple in 587 BC after the rebellion of Judah's King Zechariah. Centuries earlier, Isaiah prophesied a man, chosen by God and named Cyrus ("shepherd" in Hebrew) would be instrumental in restoring the covenant people to their holy city:

• ...who say to Cyrus, "My shepherd." He will perform my entire will by saying to Jerusalem, "You will be rebuilt, and to the Temple, "You will be refounded" (Is 44:28).
• Thus says Yahweh to his anointed one, to Cyrus whom, he says, I have grasped by his right hand, to make the nations bow before him and to disarm kings, t open gateways before him so that gates be closed no more (Is 45:1).

Question for reflection or group discussion:
Daniel found himself thrust into a pagan society that did not believe in his God nor did they practice the moral values and rituals of the belief that Daniel embraced. What lesson is there for us, living in a society that falls farther and farther away from the commands and prohibitions of Christianity? How can we take courage from Daniel's experiences, living in isolation from his people among pagans, but willing to risk his life by reminding faithful to his God?

Endnotes:

1. Abraham, the ancestral father of the children of Israel, was an Aramean from the city of Ur of the Chaldees (Gen 11:28), and Scripture calls Jacob-Israel, the grandson of Abraham and father of the twelve tribes of Israel, a "wandering Aramean" (Dt 26:5). The Table of Nations lists the Arameans as descendants of Aram, the son of Shem and a grandson of Noah (Gen 10:22).

2. The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri are a group of early Biblical texts written in Greek and mostly dating to the 3^rd-century AD. There are eleven manuscripts with seven consisting of parts of the Old Testament and three from the New Testament. The eleventh is from the apocryphal Book of Enoch and an unidentified Christian homily.

3. The Council of Jerusalem in c. AD 50 also required all Gentile candidates for Christian Baptism to abstain from food sacrificed to idols (Acts 15:13-29; 21:25).

4. References to the number three appear in 1:1, 5; 2:39; 3:23, 24, 51, 91, 94; 5:7, 16, 29; 6:2, 10, 13; 7:5, 8, 20, 24; 8:1, 14; 10:1, 2, 3; 11:2; 12:12.

5. In the New Testament, St. Paul took a temporary Nazirite vow which he completed in Acts 18:18. Part of the vow was to abstain from cutting one's hair until completing the vow (Num 6:5). In Acts 21:23-25, St. James of Jerusalem asked St. Paul to sponsor several young Christians who had completed their Nazirite vow.

6. The first year of a Babylonian king's reign was called his "accession year" and the new king's "year 1" did not begin until the first day of the following year. Historians call this the "accession year system" or the "post-dating system." For an understanding of the different ways the years of a king's reign were numbered in the Ancient Near East see "Dating the Reigns of the Kings of Judah and the Kings of Israel."

Michal Hunt, Copyright © 2018 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.

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Catechism references (* indicates Scripture if quoted or paraphrased in the citation):
2 Samuel 7 (CCC 709*); 7:14 (CCC 238*, 441*); 7:18-29 (CCC 2579*); 7:28 (CCC 215, 2465*)