As for every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and conjurers who were in all his realm. And Daniel continued until the first year of Cyrus the king. Daniel 1:20-21
Daniel is one of the most amazing characters in the Bible for a number of reasons. Our canon of Scripture places Daniel among the prophets but the Jewish Scriptures do not. The Jewish Canon places it in a group called The Writings. While one cannot deny Daniel’s prophetic gift, he did not hold the office of prophet. Certainly God calls on him repeatedly to speak to the various leaders of Babylon, but that leads us to another unique thing about Daniel. Other than the fact that Daniel was a Jew and was taken at a young age from his home in Judah the contents do not speak of or to the Jews.
So what do we know about this enigmatic figure and author of one of the 39 books of our old testament (one of the 24 in the Jewish Canon)? Daniel lived in the sixth century BC. His family was either of the royal family or the nobility. Pretty much everything that we know directly of Daniel comes from the book bearing his name. The authorship of the book is much debated but I do not doubt that Daniel wrote it near the end of his life, probably after he had retired from public service. I find most other textual criticism to be contrived either for academic reasons (you have to write your dissertation on something) or with the express need to explain away the miraculous. He grew up during hard times in Judah. His dedication to God from the very beginning would indicate to me that his parents were godly people living in ungodly times. They are not mentioned here or elsewhere in Scripture. If they did survive the siege and capture of Jerusalem Daniel was taken from them at around the age of 13. This was the typical age at which the Babylonians of this era began training for public servants. We are able to historically place the siege and capture of Jerusalem right around the year 605 BC. This enables us to date many aspects of Daniel’s life, particularly when his service to Babylon began and ended. This is what caught my attention and brought me to look a little deeper at the life of this man of God, this man of hupomone (perseverance). Daniel as we said was not a prophet, he was not a priest nor a missionary. He was a public administrator and in many ways a politician by trade. Daniel served God in the Babylonian courts and government until the year or year after Cyrus captured Babylon seizing control of that empire. That event is historically established as occurring in 540 BC. So Daniel served God in his capacity as an administrator for several versions of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 605 BC until 540 BC, or including training around 65 years! That is some serious Hupomone! Throughout that time he maintained his dedication to and love for God, even facing death! He probably spent the last few years of his life (from 540,41 to 543,44) penning the book under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit which would become of part of the canon of Scripture we hold as the Word of God today! He was very much an Old Testament Missionary, called to a pagan people to speak the heart of God. Consider his words to Nebuchadnezzar: ‘Therefore, O king, may my advice be pleasing to you: break away now from your sins by doing righteousness and from your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, in case there may be a prolonging of your prosperity.’ Daniel 4:27 It seems that most often studies of Daniel focus in on either the eschatological aspects of his prophecies or just a few specific events within the book. The next few weeks will be dedicated to looking at Daniel and the Long Haul.
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