Who was Daniel in the Bible?

At the close of the history of Hezekiah, the noble king of Judah, as reported by the prophet Isaiah, is found a significant prophecy. Hezekiah, like so many other good men before and after him, had fallen into the crime of the devil, pride (1 Timothy 3:6), and the Lord through the prophet Isaiah announced therefore the future judgment upon the royal house of David: "Behold the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day shall be carried to Babylon, nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken. He said, moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days" (Isaiah 39:6-8). About one hundred years after this startling prophecy was literally fulfilled. The opening verses of the book of Daniel introduce us to this. The Babylonian king came and besieged the city of Jerusalem and conquered it. Among those carried away was Daniel and his companions. Daniel, as we learn from the third verse of the first chapter, was of princely descent. This young man, the captive in Babylon, became, through the marvellous providence of God, one of the leading figures and prominent actors in the great Babylonian empire, under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. He was made, in spite of his youth, a great man--the prime minister of Babylon. Of his personal history, his character and remarkable experiences we know more than of any of the other prophets of God. As a mere lad he was brought to the strange land as a captive. We behold him and his companions, true to Jehovah, maintaining their God-given place of separation. He honored Jehovah and Jehovah honored him. Soon the Lord used the young captive by revealing unto him the forgotten dream of Nebuchadnezzar and the interpretation of the dream. Then followed the exaltation of the obscure captive; and afterwards he seemed to have been the close companion of the great Gentile monarch, who acknowledged finally the Lord-God of Israel as his God. Then God honored him by giving him the great visions of the future, so remarkable in their scope. The Lord appeared unto him; he talked with angels, and the messenger Gabriel addressed him as "the man greatly beloved." As an old man he had been quite forgotten during the reign of the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar; only the queen mother, the aged wife of Nebuchadnezzar, remembered him. In that memorable night when Babylon fell the old prophet interpreted the handwriting on the wall, though old in years, still young in his faith. Under the reign of Darius he was cast among the lions, on account of his devotion to Jehovah, and wonderfully delivered. What a man of prayer he was we learn from the ninth chapter. He reached a very old age, continuing even into the reign of Cyrus, and when his great work was done, ere the Lord called him home, he received the promise: "But go thy way till the end be; for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of days" (12:13). In the great faith chapter of the Hebrew Epistle his name is not mentioned, but his deeds are there. "Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions" (Hebrews 11:33).

Daniel belonged to those Jews who had been led away captive to Babylon at the first siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in the year 605 BC (compare Dan. 1:1-2 with 2 Kings 24:1 and 2 Chron. 36:6-7). By this Isaiah’s prophecy to king Hezekiah was fulfilled which was spoken of around 100 years before Daniel’s time. This prophecy said that the descendants of Judah’s king would become servants of the king of Babylon (compare Dan. 1:3 with Is. 39:5-7). Daniel was one of these nobles und descendants of the Jewish royalty who were destined to serve at the Babylonian court after profound training. He was probably not more than 15 to 20 years old at his imprisonment.

Daniel was a singularly 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 youthful days, and witnessed for the truth till the reign of King Cyrus, a period covering about seventy years.

Nothing could exceed the ruin in Daniel's day. God's people were in captivity. His house was destroyed, and the vessels thereof adorned the idol temples of Babylon. Daniel and his friends were captives in the palace of King Nebuchadnezzar, a godless monarch, who cared nothing for God or for His people. Of these captives, of royal and noble parentage, the king had selected a certain number. "And the king spake to Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the princes; children in whom was no blemish, but well-favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the 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, of the children of Judah — Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah" (Dan. 1:3-6). They had to undergo a three years' curriculum at the college of Babylon, and were to live during their worldly pupilage, with all the surroundings of idolatry, and subject to immense temptation. There is no person exempt from temptation, but I conceive that Daniel and his fellow-students were subject to peculiar temptation, to drop their faith and their Nazariteship.

Early in life, however, a blow descended which brought him down very low. Jerusalem fell, before the military prowess of Babylon. Zedekiah, its last king, the head of Daniel's house, was dethroned, and Daniel, though spared with other young princes in the general slaughter, found himself a captive in a foreign land.

The prophet's name again gives us an indication of the general character of the book, "God is judge". The setting of the book is in the realm of the captivity, a distinctive realm from that of Jeremiah, but it is not with the prophecies themselves that we are now occupied, but rather the vessels whom God has used to give us these prophecies as seen in Daniel and his three companions — Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. They were all of the seed royal and had an outstanding place in the nation of Israel but were now, in the governmental ways of God, found as captives in Babylon. God having allowed this captivity is going to use it for His own glory, and ultimately for the blessing of His people, and we should keep that thought in mind. Whenever darkness or difficulties have existed in the history of the Church of God, men and women have been needed to stand in relation to the testimony, and if we are to stand in our day the characteristics portrayed in this book are those we shall need.

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

In chapter 1 Daniel and his three friends are introduced to our notice as captives in a strange land, and under Gentile oppression. Their faithfulness to God, and His overruling providence exercised on their behalf, are brought before us in few words, but with great encouragement for our naturally timid souls; mention also being made of the fact that Daniel continued unto the first year of King Cyrus. In chapter 6 we are told that “This Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.” He and his three companions were of a hated, and at that time a humbled, race, and the high positions held by them in the kingdom, as well as their faithfulness to the God of their fathers, the only true God, increased to a very large degree that insane and bitter odium. They were endowed by the favour of God with more wisdom and knowledge than all the learned men in Babylon, and for this reason they ranked high among the lords of that mighty empire, and this itself was a sore grievance to those proud men. But they were there under the protection of God, and while He had need for them in that place, nothing could harm them.

And what was Daniel's position? He was a captive among the Chaldeans at Babylon; but Palestine was for him the pleasant land. His captivity takes off nothing from its interest. It was a very small province of an immense empire, almost unknown in the empire, so small was it in comparison. But to God it was everything. His purposes were ever towards it.

A selection is made of the noble captives, and these were probably destined to rule as puppet governors over their fellow Jews. It is not an unknown ploy in the history of tyrants. It should be noted however that God had made a prior selection. Daniel was known to God from before his birth, and chosen for service before the events that now unfold. His birth into the aristocratic family, as well as his pathway up to this point, were all mapped out in the mind of God. Nevertheless these times were to be very turbulent for the youth. He experienced the siege and plunder of Jerusalem, the intrusion into and destruction of God's temple, as well as separation from home and family. These events would bring Daniel into the deepest exercise.