Welcome to the beginning of our
Bible study in the book of Daniel. I've just handed out a couple
of things that will be useful in our study here and maybe link
some things together for you and make some things understandable. It's amazing how many things
come together in the book of Daniel and throughout the Old
Testament. So we'll be looking at those.
We're going to start off this morning by just reading chapter
1. of Daniel, it's only 12 verses long. Daniel 1.1, in the third year
of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar,
king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord
gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand with part of the
vessels of the house of God, which he carried into the land
of Shinar, to the house of his God, And he brought the vessels
into the treasure house of his God. And he spake unto Ashvanaz,
the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the
children of Israel and the king's seed, and of the princes, children
in whom was no blemish, but well-favored, skillful in all wisdom, and cunning
in knowledge, and understanding in science, and such as had ability
in them to stand in the king's palace, whom they might teach
the learning and tongue of the Chaldeans. And the king appointed
them a daily provision of the king's meat and of the wine which
he drank, so nourishing them three years, that at the end
thereof they might stand before the king. Now among these were
the children of Judah, Daniel, Ananiah, Mishael, and Azariah,
unto whom the prince of the eunuchs gave names, for he gave unto
Daniel the name of Belteshazzar, and unto Hananiah of Shadrach,
and unto Mishael of Meshach, and unto Azariah of Abednego. But Daniel purposed in his heart
that he would not defile himself with a portion of the king's
meat, nor with the wine which he drank. Therefore he requested
of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
Now God had brought Daniel into favor and tender love with the
prince of the eunuchs, And the prince of the eunuchs said unto
Daniel, I fear my lord the king who hath appointed your meat
and your drink, for why should he see your faces worse liking
than the children which are of your sort? Then shall you make
me endanger my head to the king. Then said Daniel to Melzar, whom
the prince of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael,
and Nezariah, prove thy servants I beseech thee 10 days. and let
them give us pulse to eat and water to drink. Then let our
countenances be looked upon before thee, and the countenance of
the children that eat of the portion of the king's meat, as
thou seest, deal with thy servants.' So he consented to them in this
manner and proved them ten days, and at the end of ten days their
countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all
the children which did eat the portion of the king's meat. Thus,
Melzar took away the portion of their meat and wine that they
should drink, and gave them pulse. As for these four children, God
gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom, and
Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. Now at the
end of the days that the king had said that they should bring
them in, then the prince of the eunuchs brought them in before
Nebuchadnezzar. And the king communed with them,
and among them all was none, or found none like Daniel, Hananiah,
Mishael, and Azariah. Therefore stood they before the
king. And in all matters of wisdom
and understanding that the king inquired of them, he found them
ten times better than all the magicians, and astrologers that
were in his realm. And Daniel continued even into
the first year of King Cyrus. So chapter one's really, it's a
summary, and from beginning to end, it covers a span of some
70 years. Verses one through 18 cover about
three years. Because that's how long the king
said, I want you to take these kids and fatten them up, and
then bring them back in, and we'll take a look at them in
three years. So that transpired in this period that we just read
about, verse 1 through 18. And then he says, and it continued
until the reign of Cyrus, which was the end of the captivity,
70 years. So one thing to understand about
Daniel, it's not really a linear book. There's 12 chapters but
it kind of goes back and forth and kind of reminds me of Genesis
because in Genesis 1 we have the creation and then in chapter
2 it goes back and fills in some details about some things that
happened during that creation. So it's kind of similar to that
literary style. Daniel is a remnant. according to the election of
grace. Daniel is a record of that remnant. And it says here
he was brought into favor. And many times we find in Daniel that he's called beloved of the
Lord. And that's how God looks at all
his people, beloved of the Lord. And even though things transpired, it's just such an interesting
book. They were like carried away with all the idolaters.
Even though he was beloved of the Lord and there was something
special about him because he was beloved of the Lord and the
Lord had cause them to have greater understanding and wisdom and
knowledge and understanding dreams and all those things. So it's
a remarkable book. Daniel chapter one marks the
fulfillment of the prophecies of Jeremiah and Isaiah, which
were written about 700 BC. I passed out this my stick people timeline here. And it starts here with the Solomon
completes the temple in 957 BC, just for a reference point. And
this whole chart here is not made so you can do math. It's
just made to kind of show you the relationship of everything
and what's going on. You know, one of the things about
Daniel is we know that all the things that Daniel prophesied
about took place. There's a record of them. And
we know that God said it would be this long from the beginning
of it till the end. Just as He said that there would
be 70 years captivity, that transpired just as He said. So we don't
need to do the math. We just have to read the results
and say, I'm pretty sure God got it right. So we don't need
to sit there and try to make the numbers line up and go into
the, well, the Hebrew calendar was this way, and they had five
days less a year than the American calendar, and the Chaldean calendar
was different. et cetera, et cetera. So we don't
really need any of that. But if you look on this chart
here, we find the approximate date of the birth of Daniel at
about 620 BC. And then we find that the captivity
took place roughly about 605 BC. And that would have put Daniel
being around mid-teenager when that occurred, 15, 12, 15 years.
We'll just say 15, because that's what I have on my chart. I'm
right. So in this book of Daniel, chapter
1, we find that three years goes by from the time, and maybe a
little longer, because they had to walk from Jerusalem to Babylon. So at the end of three years,
he would have been about 18. He would have been a young man.
And we find that Nebuchadnezzar said, boy, these guys are pretty
with it. These guys are pretty smart.
These guys are pretty intelligent. These guys are pretty wise. And
he took note of that. And throughout the book of Daniel,
we find that they were made rulers. They were part of the government
of Babylon. They were made advisors and governors
in the kingdom, which irritated the locals to no end. So we find Daniel, probably at
the end of chapter 1, he's probably about 18. And there was really... three conquests of Jerusalem
by the Babylonians. Because if you remember in our
introduction, we said that the Egyptians had invaded Babylon,
and then the Babylonians fought back and they smote them from
Carchemish, which is on your map there. Up in the upper part of Babylon, there's
a circle around it. And then there's a red line that
goes all the way down to another circle that says Sinai. So the
Babylonians smote the Egyptians all the way from Carchemish all
the way down into Sinai. And then they went back north because across that, straight
across from Jerusalem to Babylon is about 750 miles of desert
wherein there's no water. be hard to take care of an army
and plus a load of prisoners going across that. So they went
up the coast, back to Carchemish, and then down the Euphrates River
to Babylon. And along the way, I think they,
as mentioned to Norm this morning, I think they took all these prisoners
in Jerusalem And then they kind of dispersed them throughout
their kingdom as slaves and workers and hewers of wood and drawers
of water along the way. And so they didn't all end up
in the city of Babylon, but choiceless ones. went to Babylon where the
king was. And the rest of them were dispersed. And we have records of that in
Nehemiah and Ezra and the other prophets. We find Esther was
in Shushan. Esther and Mordecai and Nehemiah
were in Shushan. Daniel went to Shushan all the
time because In chapter 8 it says he was there on the king's
business when he had one of his visions. And so Daniel was kind
of all over that kingdom doing errands for the king. So Shushan
is marked out there on the right side. In the province of Elam
it says in your scripture. And then we have the Euphrates
River there that that red line goes along. And then next to
that is the Tigris. And then right about Babylon,
there's a place where the Tigris and the Euphrates River come
pretty close together. And it seems like the Babylonians
dug a little channel through there and made a canal that linked
those two rivers together. And they call that the River
Chebar. And that's where we find Ezekiel
and a group of captives on the river Chebar in Ezekiel chapter
one. So I was on the river Chebar
when a bunch of the captives came to me and wanted to know
why God was mad at them. So I 13 chapters told them, you
idolatrous people. And then in chapter 14, he mentions
Daniel. And so he was a contemporary
of Daniel there, and he knew about Daniel. Daniel would have
been about 30 when Ezekiel wrote chapter 14. Daniel would have
been a mature 30-year-old man that was well known in the kingdom,
very wise. And so we'll probably read that
in another lesson here. But many of the prophecies come
together right in this block. We have Ezekiel, we have Ezra,
we have Jeremiah, Isaiah. In Isaiah, the 39th chapter,
we have this, you're probably familiar with this from some other lessons, but if you'll
recall that Hezekiah was king and the Babylonians came to town
and he was showing off all the treasure in the house, bragging
about it and everything. Isaiah writes in chapter 39,
then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, and this would have been written
about 728 BC to 686 BC was the time of
Isaiah there, hear the word of the Lord of hosts. And he goes
on to tell him about the Babylonians going to come invade him. But you know, the Assyrians came
first in 701 B.C. and invaded Jerusalem and besieged
them and sacked them. So this is, you got bad, I got
bad news and bad news, which were you like first? But anyway,
he says, behold, the days come that all that is in thine house
that you just got through bragging about. And that which thy fathers
have laid up in store to this day shall be carried to Babylon.
Nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. And that happened in
597 to 587. There was three invasions of
the Babylonians because when they smote those Egyptians down
to Sinai and the Jewish people were paying tribute to the Egyptians,
And after the Babylonians kicked them out, they said, okay, now
you pay us that money instead of them. And then every couple
of years they didn't do that. And so the Babylonians would
come over and besiege them and kill them and make them promise
to pay. And then they would, just like
they did with the Lord, yeah, all that thou sayest, we will
do. And then they didn't do it. And so they got besieged again.
And he says, and all thy sons that shall issue from thee that
thou shalt beget, shall they take away and they shall be eunuchs
in the palace of the king of Babylon. That's what Isaiah wrote
to Hezekiah centuries before this would happen. Then Jeremiah
in chapter 25, you'll turn there to Jeremiah in chapter 25, The word that came to Jeremiah
in verse 1 of chapter 25, the word that came to Jeremiah concerning
all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the
son of Josiah, king of Judah, that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar,
king of Babylon, The prophet spake unto all the people of
Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, From the
thirteenth year of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah,
even unto this day, that is, the three and twentieth year,
the word of the Lord hath come unto me, and I have spoken unto
you, rising early and speaking, but you have not hearkened."
That was just the... He sent them prophets. that they
maltreated and abused and didn't listen. They said, turn you again
now everyone from his own evil way and from the evil of your
doings and dwell in the land that the Lord has given you and
to your fathers forever and ever and go not after other gods to
serve them and to worship them and provoke me not to anger with
the works of your hands and I will do you no hurt. Yet you have
not hearkened unto me, saith the Lord, that you might provoke
me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt.
Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, because you have not
heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families
of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar, the king
of Babylon, my servant, will bring them against this land
and against the inhabitants thereof and against all these nations
round about. and will utterly destroy them
and make them an astonishment and a hissing and a perpetual
desolation. And moreover, I will take from
them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, and the
voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, and the
sound of millstones, and the light of the candle. And this
whole land shall be desolation and astonishment, and these nations
shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. And it shall come
to pass when the 70 years are accomplished that I'll punish
the king of Babylon and that nation, saith the Lord, for their
iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it a
perpetual desolation. And I will bring upon that land
all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that's written
in this book, which Jeremiah hath prophesied against all the
nations. For many nations and great kings
shall serve themselves also and I will recompense them according
to their deeds, according to their work of their own hands."
So here we have the specific prophecy that they're going to
be taken captive and be slaves in Babylon 70 years. So you can see that on the timeline
here. about 605 B.C. in the middle
of your page there, where Jeremiah prophesied that that was going
to happen, and then that indeed did happen. And Nebuchadnezzar
did besiege Jerusalem three times. Each time he inflicted a little
more damage on them, first time he just went down there and beat
him up and said, pay me. And they said, okay. And the
second time he beat him up and took captives and took all the
treasure, or part of the treasure. It says he took a part of the
treasure out of the temple. and all these young people that
were supposed to go before the king. And then the third time
he came in 587 BC, He just took everybody that was
useful and they wrecked the city and they burned the temple and
all the houses of the great men and they burned the whole town
down and destroyed everything. So when you look up there at
the Solomon completes that temple in 957 BC, then we get down here
to 587 BC and it's destroyed. burned up and pillaged. The last time they went through,
they took even the brass. They took away and they carved
up the brass into chunks that they could carry and all the
rest of the treasure and stuff. And they only left the useless
people in town. So in 2 Kings 24, you'll find
that we might have that here in our reading. So in Jeremiah,
we have that prophesied of 70 years of captivity. And again,
we go back to Leviticus because it said, because they didn't
keep the Sabbath of the land was the reason. In addition to
the idolatries, but the root cause was they didn't even keep
the Sabbath of the land that the Lord said that every seven
years they should let the land rest. It would be a Sabbath of
the land, and we find that in 2 Chronicles 36-21, and that's
referencing Leviticus 25. So this failure to keep the Sabbath
of the land is specifically mentioned there in 2 Chronicles 36. in verse 17 says, therefore he
brought upon them the king of the Chaldees with Babylonians
who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their
sanctuary. So some of them took refuge in the temple and they
just went in there, chopped them and killed them anyway. And they
had no compassion on young man or maiden, old man or him that
stooped for age. He gave them all into his hand.
And then if we would read down through verse 21, it says, to
fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until
the land had enjoyed her Sabbath for as long as she lay desolate.
she kept Sabbath to fulfill three score and 10 years, 70 years,
just like Jeremiah said. So we have this cause of the
rebellion. You know, this siege, there was actually, again, the
three wars against Jerusalem for failing to pay in 605, 597
and 587 BC, And again, at the captivity,
much of the temple treasure was taken. And it says in 2 Kings
24 11 that they took the choice people captive. The poorer sort were left behind.
The poorer sort were just You're not going to be useful for it
to us in Babylon. We don't want you and we're not
going to feed you and care for you all the way back to Babylon. And remember on that map, I mentioned
this to you here in the introduction, If you look at where Jerusalem
is on that map, and there's a little red circle around Jerusalem,
then there's a red line that goes all the way up to Aleppo
and up toward Carchemish, and then follows the Euphrates River
all the way back down to Babylon. That would have been 1,750 miles,
a walk. And so maybe could understand
why them children of the Hebrews needed to be fattened up a little
bit when they got to Babylon. It was probably pretty raggedy
looking by the time they got to the king's palace there. And the final siege saw the remainder
of the vessels and implements of the temple taken. The temple,
the king's house, and much of Jerusalem burned and the walls
broken down. Jeremiah was taken prisoner at
this time. And then you find that in 2 Kings
25, verse 8, and in Jeremiah 39, verse 6 through 11. The king said, take Jeremiah,
but don't hurt him. You take him, but you take good
care of him. He did not want to cause harm to Jeremiah the
prophet. It's funny that the enemy took
more notice and took better care of him than his own people, who ignored him and mocked him
and disregarded him totally. In Jeremiah chapter 39, 8, he
describes that, and he says, and they called in, burned the
king's house and the houses of the people with fire, and they
broke down the walls of Jerusalem. And then they took him prisoner. So now we have this captivity
walk, 1,750 miles. And I was telling Norman, I think
probably what they did was they when they got up into the Babylonian
main part of the empire, from Carchemish and down the Euphrates
River, they dispersed those captives along the way for workers and
slaves and whatnot. And we find, you know, some of
them were in this area and some of them were in that area. And
Ezekiel said in his book, I was by the River Chebar when the
captives came to me and wanted to know why God was mad at them. Nehemiah, we find Nehemiah was
in Shushan when he was given his permission to go back and
do his part in the rebuilding of the Jerusalem in the temple
area, and then Esther and Mordecai in Shushan. So quite a few references to
those captives in the Old Testament there. So I wanted to spend just a minute,
we have 10 or so minutes left in our time here, And I thought it was valuable
for the church because here were some folks that were, that God
beloved. But they were in the middle of
an idolatrous country that continually rejected God. And yet they were
swept right up along with all of them according to the purposes
of God. And then we looked and we found
that through all of that, somehow it ended up in Matthew 1.21 in
the lineage of the Lord coming down to the birth of Christ. So he had his purpose in it,
but I'm sure those people that were living, you know, Daniel
and his friends, they're seeing what's going on
in their country. Man, look at all this idolatry
going on here. Look at all the bad stuff that's
going on. Not much they could probably
do about it, but they got swept right along with the rest of
them. And I'm sure they said, well,
this looks like it's working out for good. But I'm sure that
in their heart, they knew that somehow God was working things
for good. And they went along and did what
they were supposed to do. And God blessed them and took
care of them, just like Joseph down in Egypt. He made that eunuch
down there that head of the servants love him. And we just find that that's
just the way things go with the children of God. And so as
he's used, they marched this 1,750 mile trip down to Babylon
and they left Jerusalem, The size of Jerusalem at the time
was about 0.35 square miles, and the temple
in the king's house was the main feature of it, but it was relatively
small. Daniel, a prince of Judah, it
says there in our block of scripture that we read. They're called
children in Daniel 1.17. When they got to Babylon, they
went into this heavy indoctrination situation where they tried to
indoctrinate them into the That's what the king wants. I want them
to be knowledgeable and learn the Kaldi, and I want them to
learn our language, learn our gods, learn our religion, learn
all of our stuff. They changed Daniel, whose name
meant judge of God, to Belteshazzar, which is a Baal, or Baal will
protect. They change Hananiah, which means
Jah, or Jehovah, has favored, to Shadrach, which means command
of Eku, the moon god. And Azariah, Jah, or Jehovah,
has helped. They change to Abednego, servant or slave
of Nego, the god of wisdom and writing. So they tried to take away any
relationship or any knowledge or any link to the true God and
give Him these other names. So they come in. They leave this
relatively small thing of Jerusalem. And they come to Babylon, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
was listed as one of the seven wonders of the world. They weren't
hanging like Yvonne has all these pots that hang on hooks and stuff.
Hanging there meant kind of like a terraced. So they had these terraces that
had these big gardens in it. It means suspended or elevated off
the ground. not hanging like by a string. Babylon covered about 60 square
miles. Jerusalem covered 0.35. So I
just want you to, in your mind, say, here are these Hebrew children
coming from the place where the true God was supposed to be worshiped
in a temple. that where the word of God was
abhorred and even the sacrifices were corrupted. Everything was bad there. Then
they come to Babylon. Babylon, 60 square miles, roughly
the size of Washington, DC. Washington, DC is 68 square miles. Think of all the monuments and
things that are in Washington, D.C. You've got the parks and
the statues, the Capitol building, the White House, the Lincoln
Memorial, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Library of
Congress, Smithsonian, Vietnam Memorial, Washington Cathedral,
Arlington National Cemetery, just to name a few things in
that size of an area. Babylon was 15 miles on a side. That would be like almost from
here to Dufur or Mosier. The walls were like 25 foot thick
and two to 300 feet high, according to historian Herodotus. And even allowing for exaggeration,
it would have been pretty astounding. And I have a little article here
that I copied from Uriah Smith's book that he wrote on Daniel
in 1941. I just wanted to read this real quick here. And think about it in terms of,
compare this and then think about what John wrote about New Jerusalem
in Revelation. The character of the Babylonian
Empire is indicated by the head of gold, which we get into a
little bit later in the visions. It was a golden kingdom of a
golden age. Babylon, its metropolis towered
to a height never reached by any of its successors, situated
in the Garden of the East, laid out in a perfect square said
to be 60 miles in circumference, 15 miles on each side, surrounded
by a wall estimated to have been 200 to 300 feet high and 87 feet
thick. with a moat or ditch around this
of equal cubic capacity with the wall itself, divided into
squares by its many streets. Each one of the streets was 150
feet in width, crossing at right angles, every one of them straight
and level. It's 225 square miles of enclosed
surface laid out in the luxuriant pleasure grounds and gardens
interspersed with magnificent dwellings. The city with its
60 miles of moat, its 60 miles of outer wall, 30 miles of river
wall through the center. The Euphrates River ran right
through the middle of town and they had big gates that over
the river that closed together to block in, so you couldn't
come in there by boat or anything if they didn't let you. Gates of solid brass, hanging
gardens, rising terrace above terrace until they equaled in
height the wall themselves. Its temple of Belus, three miles
in circumference. Its two royal palaces, one three
and a half and the other eight miles in circumference. with
a subterranean tunnel under the Euphrates connecting the two
palaces. They dug a tunnel underneath
the, back in 500 B.C. or 600 B.C., they dug a tunnel
under the Euphrates River and made a passageway between the
two temples. Its perfect arrangement for convenience,
ornament, and defense, and its unlimited resources, This city
containing in itself many things which were themselves wonders
of the world was by itself another and still a mightier wonder."
Can you imagine those guys? I remember what it was like when
me and my brother moved from the hayfields of southern Oregon
up to Hood River, and they had an actual swimming pool and a
theater downtown that you could go to for 75 cents. We were in
Babylon now. You know, they marched 1,750
miles. The Oregon Trail was about 2,170
miles by way of comparison. And they made that trip, if they
didn't die from typhus or broken wagon wheel or starvation, four
to six months to make that journey from St. Louis to the Willamette
Valley. And so, we're about out of time. We conclude the first chapter
of Daniel, greatly beloved of God, he's called, who by the
Spirit would announce the time of the coming of Messiah the
Prince, who would be cut off, but not for himself. What a gospel
tale we have there. And the remnant in the land according
to the election of grace. We've got just a minute. Let's turn to Ezekiel chapter 14. As he writes this from the river
Chebar, that little canal they dug between the Euphrates and
the Tigris River there north of Babylon a little ways. In chapter 14 and verse 14, he's
writing, he says, though these three men, Noah and Daniel and
Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by
their righteousness, saith the Lord God. So he's talking about
this problem in Jerusalem and in the land of Israel there. And He says, even though I bring
swords and beasts and all these against it. Let's go down to verse 22. Yet behold, therein shall be
left a remnant that shall be brought forth, both sons and
daughters, Behold, they shall come forth unto you, and you
shall see their ways and their doings, and you shall be comforted
concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even
concerning all that I have brought upon it. There's gonna be a remnant,
and you're gonna be able to look at those remnant and see Matthew
chapter one. Verse 21. She shall bring forth
a son, his name will be Jesus. So we'll stop there, chapter
one. Next time we'll try to tackle
chapter two in one chunk or so. Thanks for your attention, and
as always, be free.