Introduction to Daniel

Daniel 1:1–4 ESV

1 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god. 3 Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, 4 youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans.

To properly understand Daniel, we must know what it is and what it isn’t.

Daniel is often seen as a book of prophecy, written to tell us how the world will end and things that are going to happen

While, to a degree, that is included in this book, that is not what Daniel and the Lord is trying to tell us

To really get what Daniel is teaching us, we must understand the context around the book and the prophecies

We can get the context, by learning about the culture and Jewish history

The Weaving of Scripture

One thing we often miss in the Old Testament is that many of the books were written at the same time and tell the same events from different perspectives

In Daniel 1 we saw Daniels account of the Babylonian’s carrying away some of the Jews.

We also se this in 2 Kings 24

We see that the king of Israel at this time is Jehoiakim,

He wasn’t appointed king by God, but by the Egyptian Pharaoh

2 Kings 23:34 “34 And Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz away, and he came to Egypt and died there.”

This happened because God had already decided to judge Israel

2 Kings 23:27 “27 And the Lord said, “I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.””

This was because of the evils done in Israel dating all the way back to King Solomon.

Things like idol worship and child sacrifice

We also see the beginning of the captivity in the book 2nd Chronicles

2 Chronicles 36:10 “10 In the spring of the year King Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon, with the precious vessels of the house of the Lord, and made his brother Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.”

We also see prophets alive and ministering during this time

Some of the Biblical books of history that discuss this time period are:

2nd Kings

2nd Chronicles

Ezra

And other prophets of the day were:

Jeremiah

Ezekiel

Habakkuk

Haggai

A Book of the Covenant

Covenant. Arrangement between two parties involving mutual obligations; especially the arrangement that established the relationship between God and his people, expressed in grace first with Israel and then with the church. Through that covenant God has conveyed to humanity the meaning of human life and salvation. Covenant is one of the central themes of the Bible, where some covenants are between human beings, others between God and human beings.

Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Covenant,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 530.

Often when we think about covenants, we think of a few specific covenants:

Adam: the promise of a deliver

Noah: the promise to not flood the earth

Abraham: The promise of the land

Mosiac: Covenant of the Law

New Covenant: The covenant of grace

In all of these we often think about it in terms of the Adamic and Abrahamic covenants, God will do it, and the recipient (mankind, Abraham’s descendents) will benefit.

That’s not what we are talking about here, instead we are talking about the covenant God made with Israel as they were about to enter the land.

This covenant has demands upon man and promises from God

The promises are both a blessing and a curse

We see this in Deuteronomy 11

In that chapter the Jews are called to Love the Lord and keep his commandments always

God calls them to remember the works of God in the Exodus, what God did to Pharaoh and the parting of the Red Sea

He reminds the people of the rebelion of the Sons of Korah, where the earth opened up and swallowed them

Deuteronomy 11:8 ESV

8 “You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess,

Therefore…Because God did these great things, you will keep His commandments

Deuteronomy 11:13-25 lays out the promise of blessings upon Israel because they keep His commands

In verse 26 he tells them there is a blessing and a curse

Deuteronomy 11:26–28 ESV

26 “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.

The Two Mountains of the Covenant

As part of the covenant God is preparing to make, he commands the Israelites to “set the blessing” on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal

Mount Ebal

Mount Gerizim

These are two mountains in the promised land

And these mountains were to be both a symbol of the covenant and a place to ceremoniously enter into covenant with God

We later see Deuteronomy 27-28, God outlines in depth the blessing and the curses that will be brough upon Israel

Moses describes great blessings:

They will be plentiful in the land

The ground will produce much

The flock will grow

There enemies will be defeated

They will attack you and flee in 7 directions

You will abound in prosperity

Lend to many nations and not borrow

only go up and not down

IF YOU obey he commands of the Lord your God (v28:13-14)

The Curse:

Cursed in the city and cursed in the fields

your children shall be cursed

the fruit of the fields

the herds

cursed when you go in and when you go out

You will be cursed, confused, frustrated

until you are destroyed and perish quickly

pestilence

wasting disease and fever

fiery heat

drought

blight

mildew

you will be pursued and over take

you will be defeated and killed

the birds will eat your bodies

you will be a horror to all people

the plagues of Egypt

starvation so bad you will eat your children and

women will eat the their afterbirth and newborn in secret because they will have so little

Specifically if we look at Deuteronomy 28:36-37 we see how this passage is pointing to Babylon

Deuteronomy 28:36–37 ESV

36 “The Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. 37 And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you away.

The entire curse was not fulfilled just in the Babylonian captivity, but also all the way till the present day

We especially see the fulfillment of this curse in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, which we will talk about later in this study

The Covenant was put in place with Moses and the people of Israel in the wilderness, but upon entering the land, the people of Israel had the ceremony (Joshua 8) as God commanded them

The Israelites broke God’s covenant.

Throughout the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles we see Israel worshiping other God, sacrificing children and forgetting the Words of the Lord

Daniel is the beginning of God’s punishment

But there is hope

Sovereignty is God’s Purpose

Daniel is not a book written to tell us what will happen next on God’s prophetic timeline

Daniel’s book has 1 purpose, to let us know that the kingdoms of man will not be victorious against the Kingdom of God

Daniel offers us a great promise, in spite of Israels inability to keep God’s law, God will one day confront the beast and rescue His people

God moved Daniel to write this book and gave Daniel these visions, not to have us worry about modern events and how they fit into prophecy, but to show both Israel then, and us today, that God will not abandon His people, and God wins.

In the book of 2nd Chronicles, Solomon finishes building the first temple (the temple mentioned in Daniel chapter 1) and we get a passage many people use today to call Americans to repentance.

But know this, it is not a promise to America, it is a promise to God’s people…

Here is what it says:

2 Chronicles 7:11–22 ESV

11 Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king’s house. All that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house he successfully accomplished. 12 Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. 13 When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, 14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. 16 For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. 17 And as for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my rules, 18 then I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to rule Israel.’ 19 “But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, 20 then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. 21 And at this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ 22 Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’ ”

The message of Daniel is, God wins!

If my people…