Old Testament · Major Prophets
דָּנִיֵּאל
Faithful in Babylon, the furnace, the lions' den, and visions of kingdoms rising and falling.
Half court stories, half apocalypse, and the seam between them is where the arguments live. The first six chapters are among the best-known narratives in Scripture, young exiles refusing the king's food, a furnace, writing on a wall, a den of lions, and they share one theme: empires demand worship, and there are things you do not do even under threat. The second half turns to visions of successive kingdoms that have been interpreted in radically different ways since before the New Testament was written. Dating is contested, with traditional and critical readers reaching different conclusions from the same material. Notice that a large section is written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew, the language of the empire, which suits a book about how to live inside one.
If you remember one thing
The first half teaches you how to live in Babylon; the second half tells you Babylon does not last. Both halves say the same thing from different angles.
“The God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed.”
Daniel 2:44
Daniel 9:24-27
The seventy weeks, one of the most disputed passages in Scripture. Four major readings are set out side by side in Going Deeper.
Named here rather than skipped. Where Christians read a passage differently, we say so instead of choosing for you.
Everyone here has a write-up, drawn from the same records that explain the names while you read the text.
Taken young into the Babylonian court, Daniel rose by wisdom and unbending faith, refusing the king's food, reading dreams and the writing on Belshazzar's wall, and emerging unharmed from the lions' den. His later visions map the rise and fall of empires to the end.
The Babylonian king who destroyed Jerusalem and its temple and carried Judah into exile. Daniel records his dreams, his furnace, his descent into madness, and his eventual acknowledgment of the God of heaven.
The king who threw a feast using vessels looted from the Jerusalem temple and saw a hand write on the plaster. Daniel read it for him: weighed, and found wanting. Babylon fell that night.
The ruler who reluctantly signed the decree that put Daniel in the lions' den, then spent the night fasting and came running at first light. His identity is one of the standing puzzles of Old Testament history, with proposals including Cyrus himself under another title, or a governor named Gubaru.
The Greek king who tried to abolish Jewish worship: he outlawed the Sabbath and circumcision, plundered the temple, and set up a pagan altar on it. The revolt that answered him is what Hanukkah remembers. He called himself Epiphanes, meaning God manifest, and his critics called him Epimanes, the madman.
Daniel's companions, who would not bow to the golden image and told the king that their God was able to save them, but that even if he did not, they still would not bow. The furnace was heated seven times hotter and a fourth figure was seen walking in it.
The rulers outside Israel who invade, extract tribute, or grant permission. Shishak of Egypt stripped the temple in Rehoboam's fifth year and left a relief at Karnak listing the towns he took. Necho killed Josiah at Megiddo. Tiglath-pileser III began the Assyrian deportations.
Daniel's three companions, given Babylonian names in place of their Hebrew ones: Hananiah became Shadrach, Mishael became Meshach, Azariah became Abednego. Their Hebrew names all contain a word for God, and their Babylonian ones honor Babylonian gods, which is the point of renaming captives.
The only two angels Scripture names. Gabriel appears as a messenger, interpreting Daniel's visions and announcing the births of John and of Jesus. Michael is called a prince and an archangel, and is described contending for Israel.
Never named in the Hebrew Bible, but present in it. Daniel's goat from the west with a conspicuous horn, moving so fast it does not touch the ground, and whose horn breaks at the height of its power to be replaced by four, is read across traditions as Alexander and the four generals who divided his empire.
When Alexander died his generals carved up the empire, and two of the resulting dynasties fought over Judea for a century and a half: the Ptolemies from Egypt and the Seleucids from Syria. Several kings and generals of both, named Demetrius, Ptolemy, Seleucus, Tryphon, Lysias, and Bacchides, move through the Maccabean books.
The Persian king whose policy was to send captive peoples home with their gods and their temple goods. For Judah that meant the end of exile. Isaiah names him as the LORD's shepherd and anointed, and a clay cylinder in the British Museum records his general policy in his own words.
Games built on this book’s people and story.
