Daniel 1:8-21--Daniel's Faithfulness

Daniel 1:8-21
English Standard Version

Daniel's Faithfulness
8 But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. 9 And God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs, 10 and the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, “I fear my lord the king, who assigned your food and your drink; for why should he see that you were in worse condition than the youths who are of your own age? So you would endanger my head with the king.” 11 Then Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had assigned over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, 12 “Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king's food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see.” 14 So he listened to them in this matter, and tested them for ten days. 15 At the end of ten days it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king's food. 16 So the steward took away their food and the wine they were to drink, and gave them vegetables.

17 As for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. 18 At the end of the time, when the king had commanded that they should be brought in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. 19 And the king spoke with them, and among all of them none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Therefore they stood before the king. 20 And in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom. 21 And Daniel was there until the first year of King Cyrus.

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This passage gives us an overview of the entire historical narrative portion of the book of Daniel.  We know that Daniel and his three friends were taken captive under King Nebuchadnezzar and that the Babylonian Exile was to last 70 years (Daniel will later learn this by reading the book of Jeremiah while in captivity, and he will intercede for the sins of the nation so that they may be ready to return from Exile at the proper time).  He would serve the various kings of the Babylonian and Persian empires until King Cyrus, the king that would issue the decree for Israel to return to the Promised Land, to rebuild the Temple, and to rebuild the city and walls of Jerusalem--and he used the empire's tax money to pay for it.

Daniel will be a faithful witness to these pagan kings, along with his three friends.  This passage introduces us to those key themes of faithfulness, integrity, and blamelessness.  Those are all similar, interconnected ideas, but they are slightly different.  Let's start with faithfulness, or what some may call loyalty.  Daniel will be put through many tests of his faithfulness or loyalty to see if he will be faithful or loyal first to the king and the kingdom of Babylon, or if he will be faithful and loyal first to the LORD and His Kingdom.  Every time, without fail, Daniel will purpose in his heart to remain faithful to the LORD and obey His commandments above all else.  He chooses to obey God and trust God to deal with the consequences, even when those consequences appear to end in certain death--the same can be said for his three friends.  They will make some of the boldest statements in all of the Bible regarding these matters of how the king can try to kill them, but whether in life or through death, the LORD will deliver them from the evil king and they will not disobey the LORD, even to save their own lives because their lives are not their own to begin with--even they belong to the LORD.

Next is the issue of integrity.  That is that a man of integrity is the same person in private and in public.  They do not put on any masks when they worship the LORD or go out into the workplace or public, but become a different man when they are alone in the confines of their home and in front of their friends and family.  Daniel especially was someone that was known for being a true believer and being the same person in his public life and private life to the point of when people that will be jealous of him want to devise a trap, they know that none of the typical ways of trapping a politician with women or money or lust for power will work.  They know that they will have to convince the king to make a decree that will make it illegal for Daniel to do what he did each and every day.  Daniel could not and would not stop being what he was and doing what he always did even if the king's law told him it was illegal to do so for a month (more on that later).  He will say that he must obey god rather than men in these matters.

Last is blamelessness which ties in with what I just said about the people jealous finding no fault within him.  Daniel is one of the few people in the Bible to whom the term blameless is applied and we never hear anything bad about him.  That does not mean that Daniel never sinned, but in his public and private life, no one had anything bad to say about him because he had a reputation for always doing the right thing.  A lot of that comes from the wisdom that God will give to him and how he stopped and prayed about everything, but I'm sure Daniel wasn't free from temptation--he just loved God enough to refuse to give into it.  We all are also called to be blameless in our conduct before God and men.

The first of these loyalty tests that I mentioned is in today's passage and I referenced it last time.  Daniel and his three friends were to eat from the king's table while they were receiving their three years of Babylonian education (read that as indoctrination).  However, they knew that that the meat and wine had been sacrificed to idols and they purposed in their hearts not to eat it and defile themselves because it was against the Law for them to do so.  Though many others were willing to compromise, they would rather starve than defile themselves with the food from the king's table.  The eunuch that was in charge of them feared for his own life because he could not show the king four young men who were skin and bones because the eunuch was in charge of their health and well-being, and because Daniel cared about the eunuch and did not anyone to lose their life on his behalf, he proposed that the eunuch feed them nothing but vegetables and water (which had not been sacrificed to idols) for just ten days and see if they weren't as strong and healthy as those who had been eating meat and drinking wine.

The eunuch begrudgingly agreed and after ten days they were the strongest and healthiest men in the group and the eunuch ended up changing the food given to all the young men to vegetable and water (I'm sure many of them were unhappy with Daniel and his friends at this point, but Daniel's obedience led to the rest of the group that was willing to compromise no longer being tempted to defile themselves, and that was more important).  All the men grew stronger and healthier than when eating from the king's table and this was not just an issue of diet, it was supernatural that obedience leads to blessing.  There was real risk to the lives of Daniel and his friends and the eunuch in this passage and it took real faith for them to not eat the same food as everyone else, but the reason for their decision was that obedience was worth it and the eunuch saw that faith and figured it was worth putting their God to the test, and I have an idea that eunuch probably learned much that day about the LORD that was worth more to those four men than their own lives, and that he would learn more as he follows their careers and sees even more times that they choose the LORD above their own lives.  Light is breaking forth into the darkness as they choose obedience even at the risk of not just their own comfort, but their very lives.

In return, the LORD will bless all of them and give them long lives and give them wisdom to govern the people for many, many years.  None will be found like these four among all the Jewish men as God will look on them with favor and cause them to have favor with the men who hold them captive (similar to the story of Joseph).  I think there are actually a lot of parallel between Daniel and Joseph and Daniel and his four friends were there in that place and that time what many people viewed as a time of great evil was a time of God working great salvation, not just for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles.  We see in Daniel that the LORD can turn the hearts of pagan kings, and we will see some wonderful declarations from King Nebuchadnezzar and King Darius about who God is what He has done, how He always saves His people and how He alone is worthy of the worship of all nations and people need to stop worshiping other gods.  This will be the backdrop for King Cyrus who is a Messiah figure (literally referred to with this title) and is a type of Christ.  Though he was a Persian king, he loved the LORD and the LORD's people and is a picture for us of how Gentile believers should treat the Jewish people