Who was Daniel in the Bible?

Daniel was a strikingly beautiful character. A captive at the court of Babylon, of royal or noble birth (Dan. 1:3), he began to stand for God in his youth, and he witnessed for the truth until the reign of King Cyrus — a period covering about seventy years.

Daniel ("My judge is God") also prophesied in captivity. He earned a place of honour and respect among the Gentiles by the simple, firm reality of his faith in the Living God, which produced a life of consistent godliness, of wise and careful conduct, with no compromising of truth.

Reaching Daniel 1:8, our thoughts are arrested by the words, "But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself." A great statement this! Had he not so purposed, no Book of Daniel would have found a place in our Bibles. Notice first that the Spirit of God in the record disowns his heathen name and uses his original one, which means "God is Judge." The man evidently lived in the light of his name. And notice, second, that he purposed not in his head, the seat of intelligence, but in his heart, the seat of affection toward God, before whom he walked. This is the kind of purpose that stands firm and does not waver.

Daniel was chief president, and placed in authority over all the councillors of Darius. But this fact made him the victim of jealousy. A Jewish prime minister was, of course, intolerable to the pride of the Medo-Persian nobles. The result was that they plotted his downfall. But where could they find a fault? His administration was blameless, his life beyond reproach. They could only find it in the fact that he did not acknowledge their gods.

He might have closed his window and drawn his curtains and gone into the privacy of his room to pray, or he might have waited for midnight when no human eye could see him and no human ear hear him. But no; this beloved servant of God would not hide his light under a bed or a basket. There was a great principle at stake. It was not merely that he would pray to the one living and true God, but that he would pray with "his windows open towards Jerusalem." And why "toward Jerusalem"? Because it was God's centre. But it was in ruins. True, for the present, looked at from a human standpoint. But to faith, and from God's standpoint, Jerusalem was God's centre for His earthly people.

Daniel was qualified for intercessory prayer by the purity of his own ways. He is one of three men — Noah, Daniel and Job — whom the LORD Himself singled out as outstanding in righteousness (Ezek. 14:14)… No cloud lay over his own relationship with God, so he was free to intercede for the state of God's people — in this a picture of the great Intercessor.

Daniel personally had no direct part in bringing about the scattering that had taken place seventy years before, but the absence of personal responsibility, and the passing of time, does not lead him to ignore the division and scattering, or to lay the blame on individuals long since gone from the scene. On the contrary, he identifies himself before God with the people of God; he says, "We have sinned."

Daniel gives a prophetic overview of the times of the Gentiles, that is, the four world empires: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. After the complete failure of these empires' government, the people of Israel will finally be restored to God, and Christ will reign over all as king.

How near the Lord comes to him, as He says to him, "O Daniel, a man greatly beloved!" What a touching form of address. He entered into the sense of how deeply the Lord loved him. The sense of the love of God is deep joy to the soul.