A God Who Dwells With Flesh

I. Introduction

Historical Setting:

Babylon was a vassal state of Assyria during the 7th c. BC, but its power was steadily growing.

Under Nebopolassar, Babylon grew to the point where he felt able to challenge Assyria, so he sent his son, Nebuchadnezzar, with the army, to attack Assyria.

He was successful in routing the Assyrians and pushing them back to Carchemish.

Pharoah Necho II came to the aide of the Assyrians, killing King Josiah of Judah along the way and installing Jehoiakim as King in Judea.

Necho II was defeated and fled back to Egypt.

Nebuchadnezzar pursued him but stopped at Jerusalem, intending to take it before invading Egypt.

While besieging Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar heard that Nebopolassar had died.

He offered peace to Jerusalem in exchange for tribute, which included articles of gold and silver from the temple, a representative of noble youth, and a yearly payment.

Jehoiakim agreed, and Nebuchadnezzar left to be crowned king of Babylon.

Date and Location:

Daniel was taken in the first deportation of Nebuchadnezzar in 605 BC.

Daniel 1:1–5 “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 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. 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, 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. The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate, and of the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time they were to stand before the king.”

Token tribute. Best of the best.

Meant to be trained as a magi in the courts of Nebuchadnezzar.

Daniel seems to have compiled the book at the end of his ministry, in 536 BC.

Daniel 1:20–21 “And in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom. And Daniel was there until the first year of King Cyrus.”

Daniel 10:1 “In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a word was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar. And the word was true, and it was a great conflict. And he understood the word and had understanding of the vision.”

Daniel’s last vision date in Ch 10 roughly aligns with the end of his civic duties as recorded in Ch 1, implying that the whole account was compiled at once out of various records that had been made along the way.

His civic and religious ministries spanned two empires and five kings.

Daniel is the author of all of it, with the exception of Ch 4, which attributes its authorship to Nebuchadnezzar himself.

Structure:

12 chapters in two parts.

First 6 historical and chronological.

Last 6 prophetic visions and not chronological.

Chronological order seems to be:

Ch 1-4

Ch 7-8

Ch 5-6

Ch 9-12

Also divisible by language.

Dan 1:1-2:4 in Hebrew.

Dan 2:4-7:28 in Aramaic.

Dan 8-12 in Hebrew.

The “Time of the gentiles” in Aramaic?

Or Daniel, who was trained in Babylon, just used the trade language for many of his notes and it left an artifact.

Historicity: Daniel properly records numerous details.

Different treatment of conquered people by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians.

The madness of Nebuchadnezzar (Ch 4) was once uncorroborated by secular history, but the discovery of a Babylonian historical tablet (BM 34113), though fragmentary, definitely describes a season of mental illness followed by worship of the “Lord of Lords.”

The religious life of polytheistic Babylonians vs the monotheistic-trending Persians.

The various Babylonian occultic priestly castes are rightly labeled by Daniel in Dan 2:2, 27.

Zoroastrianism will take over Persia about 100 years after the writing of Daniel.

Already a willingness to acknowledge one supreme God rather than numerous ethnic deities.

Babylonian’s worship of totems (Ch 3) historically verified.

Methods of execution are appropriate for Babylonians (Burning alive, dismemberment) and Persians (lions).

Political structures of the different empires are correct (Satraps, princes, etc.).

History of the conquest of Babylon by the Medio-Persian empire, originally doubted, was later found to be accurate.

Daniel’s forecast of the succession of empires in Ch 2, 7, and 8 are very accurate.

Controversy:

The details of Daniel 11 are so exactly the story of the battle between the Seleucids and Ptolemies that the whole book as been roundly criticized as pseudepigraphal.

Perspective 1: Daniel never existed historically. The book was written in 165 BC to comfort the Jews suffering under Antiochus Epiphanes.

Assumes that prophecy, especially of this detail, is impossible.

Assumes that the entire narrative is fictional and allegorical.

Perspective 2: Daniel was a historical person who did provide valuable services to kings of Babylon and Persia in their courts. Ch 1-6 are historically written by Daniel. Ch 7-12 were written later, by second-temple mystics who also influenced the writing of 1 Enoch and other apocalyptic literature.

Assumes that some prophecy and dream interpretation is possible.

Ch 7-12 is different enough in genre to warrant a different author.

Ch 11 is written after the fact.

Perspective 3, Historical: Daniel is the author of it all, and prophecy, including prophecy of exacting detail, is possible.

This is the historical reading.

Not challenged until the 1800’s.

This is the position we take.

Josephus records in the Antiquities of the Jews, Book 11, Chapter 8, that a Jewish priest read Daniel 8 to Alexander the Great when he came to Jerusalem.

In Qumran, 8 manuscripts of the book of Daniel were found, unlikely if the book had just been written. Also, non-scriptural theological works (commentaries) found at Qumran quoted Daniel as scripture, also highly unlikely if it was new.

Belshazzar, the king in Ch 5, 7, and 8, was unknown to secular history for many years.

The son of Nebuchadnezzar was Nabonidus, who was the final official king of Babylon.

Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus, who was left to run the kingdom while Nabonidus was away on a military campaign against the Persians.

Nabonidus’ royal records in the form of clay cylinders and tablets record this arrangement and name Belshazzar in numerous places.

Explains why Belshazzar can only offer to make Daniel 3rd in the kingdom. He was only 2nd.

Darius the Mede is still not supported by archaeology.

He is the king in Dan 5:30-6:28; 9.

Cyrus conquered Babylon, according to several secular historians.

There is no gap in the Medio-Persian kings in which to insert Darius the Mede.

Possibility 1: Darius a throne name (true) used repeatedly in the Persian dynasty. Perhaps Cyrus the Great is Darius the Mede.

Daniel 6:28 “So this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.”

Aramaic grammar would allow for Darius and Cyrus to be equated.

Why, then, is the same person referred to with two different names in different stories?

Possibility 2: Darius the Mede is a throne name for Gubaru, the general of Cyrus who oversaw the capture of Babylon.

Cyrus did not personally reign over Babylon for several months, delegating its management to his general.

Gubaru was in fact a Mede, but he is never called by the throne name “Darius” outside of the Bible.

Gubaru died months after taking the city. Was his post-conquest management long enough to account for the stories in Daniel?

Possibility 3: For a short period of time, the joint Kingdom of the “Medes and Persians” did in fact have two heads of state. The last Median king, who served alongside Cyrus, was Cyaxares II.

When he died, Cyrus the great became the sole ruler.

Did Cyaxares II rule in Babylon before his death and go by Darius? Possibly.

No real gap in the records to allow this, though. Gubaru passed Babylon directly to Cyrus.

Cyaxares II was a weak Median figurehead next to Cyrus’ power.

The mystery remains.

God has shown Daniel to be historically sound in all other cases.

Confident that this will be resolved in time.

The controversies around the book of Daniel all stem from the very detailed prophetic accounts that were fulfilled exactly.

Is God able to give that kind of detail in advance?

Does He do it?

II. Body

Daniel 1 in high-level overview.

Vs 1-4, Daniel and his friends, of the nobility of Jerusalem, are brought as tribute to Babylon and trained to serve among the king’s court ministers.

Vs 5-16, the youth reject the king’s food for water and vegetables, and God honors their faithfulness in allowing them to look better than others who ate the king’s food.

Vs 17-20, the youth are given a three-year education and emerge as among the brightest of the king’s wise men, especially in the area of dream interpretation.

Vs 21, a summative statement of the length of Daniel’s tenure.

Vs 18ff obviously were written after later narrative events recorded in the book and are not chronologically before Ch 2.

Daniel 2: 1-28.

Nebuchadnezzar’s second year:

Daniel and his friends had a 3-year training program.

They were not finished with it, which is why they don’t appear in the main body of wisemen who appear before the king.

Dan 1:18 says that they were the best at dream interpretation. This is likely why they got that reputation.

Nebuchadnezzar, like Pharoah and Abimelech, receives divine revelation from God in the form of a dream. God reveals things to pagan kings so that He can direct the affairs of His chosen people through them.

Multiple categories of wisemen are mentioned here, according to different methods of gaining occultic knowledge.

Magicians

Enchanters (Magi)

Sorcerers

Chaldeans (ethnic hereditary priestly class)

Daniel is lumped in with the Magi in several passages (Dan 1:20, 5:20).

Nebuchadnezzar doesn’t tell his dream.

He forgot it? Not likely.

He just became king in his father’s place. Perhaps he is testing the power of his magical advisors.

Vs 4: “...in Aramaic.” From this point to the end of Ch 7, the text is in Aramaic.

The king threatens, in historically accurate ways, to destroy his advisors if they are shown to be frauds.

They protest that it is impossible to satisfy the king’s request.

Dan 2:10. This is harder than any request that has ever been made of a wise man.

It is possible that Nebuchadnezzar knew that his dream implied the chance of empires or kingdoms, and he didn’t want to plant that idea in the minds of his advisors.

The wise men had a “book of dreams” that guided their interpretation of dreams based on their content, but they were completely unprepared to discern a dream without it first being relayed to them.

Daniel 2:11 “The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.””

“The gods.” elahin (Aramaic for “gods”), a term that corresponds to the Hebrew word elohim (“gods” or “God”).

Likely referencing a pantheon of many gods with whom the magi interacted.

The lower-level gods could be interacted with, but they didn’t have the power to reveal what the king asked.

But it was a very early opinion that the Supreme God was withdrawn from human affairs, and had committed the government of the world to intermediate beings—internuncii—demons, or æons: beings of power far superior to that of men, who constantly mingled in human affairs. Their power, however, though great, was limited;

The power of these lesser gods is not up to the task, and God openly mocks them for this.

Isaiah 41:21–24 “Set forth your case, says the Lord; bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob. Let them bring them, and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome; or declare to us the things to come. Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; do good, or do harm, that we may be dismayed and terrified. Behold, you are nothing, and your work is less than nothing; an abomination is he who chooses you.”

Isaiah 57:13 “When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you! The wind will carry them all off, a breath will take them away. But he who takes refuge in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain.”

Through prayer and fasting, God grants Daniel insight as to the King’s dream and its meaning.

Daniel’s first response is worship and thanksgiving, and then he moves to answer the King’s challenge.

Daniel 2:25–28 “Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste and said thus to him: “I have found among the exiles from Judah a man who will make known to the king the interpretation.” The king declared to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation?” Daniel answered the king and said, “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these:”

Arioch seeks glory for himself.

Daniel gives glory to God.

God reveals mysteries, not the magical arts of Babylon.

But God does dwell among men!

Daniel is frequently cited as someone with whom God dwelt.

Daniel 4:8 “At last Daniel came in before me—he who was named Belteshazzar after the name of my god, and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods—and I told him the dream, saying,”

Daniel 5:11 “There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods were found in him, and King Nebuchadnezzar, your father—your father the king—made him chief of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and astrologers,”

The events of Ch 2, happening during Daniel’s training, won him this reputation.

It has been God’s desire to be with his people from the beginning!

Exodus 25:8 “And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.”

Revelation 21:3 “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

Jesus, of course is the clearest picture of God dwelling among men! John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

We, the church, are now indwelled by the Spirit of God.

Ephesians 2:22 “In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

1 Corinthians 3:16–17 “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”