Introduction to Daniel

3/7/2013 9:59 AM

INTRODUCTION TO DANIEL

            I have wanted to study the book of Daniel for a long time that is on my own and not in a classroom.  I have been in two Sunday school classes looking at the book of Daniel, and the first time that that happened was probably at least 20 years ago and one of the things that I remembered from that class is that the teacher found most of his material for the 10^th and 11^th chapters in the library, that is the public library.  I suppose that those two chapters are what scares me the most, but that is a long way off as I plan on doing only one chapter a month in this study.

            Let’s begin this introduction with the first verse in the book of Daniel and comment on it and then look at some background material on Daniel’s book.  “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.”  I want to focus in on the two different kingdoms, that is the kingdom of Babylon and the kingdom of Judah where Jerusalem is located.  We will have to go back to the book of Genesis to find the first reference to the term Babel, which is in the tenth chapter.  This chapter comes after the flood and tells of the descendants of Noah’s three sons, for it was from these three sons that all humans came from.  I remember studying the book of Genesis and Warren Wiersbe stating that in the book of Genesis when genealogies were given that the genealogy of those who were not godly were given first, and we find that in the tenth chapter of Genesis, for the godly line that came from Noah was Shem who is in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.  The line of Ham is an ungodly line for we see in the ninth chapter of Genesis that Noah made a vineyard and from the grapes he made some wine which he drank and then went to sleep.  Let’s look at this from Genesis 9:24-27 “24 ¶  When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. 25  So he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brothers.’ 26  He also said, ‘Blessed be the LORD, The God of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant. 27  ‘May God enlarge Japheth, And let him dwell in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant.’”  Whether or not Canaan was even born at this time is not known, but we see that Noah’s younger son, Ham, had homosexual tendencies and it would grow worse with his offspring, for it was because of these tendencies that God would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah later on in the book of Genesis. As we go down the genealogy of Ham in the 10^th chapter of Genesis we see that one of his grandson’s was Nimrod and it is Nimrod who started a kingdom in Babel.  “6 ¶  The sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim and Put and Canaan. 7  The sons of Cush were Seba and Havilah and Sabtah and Raamah and Sabteca; and the sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan. 8  Now Cush became the father of Nimrod; he became a mighty one on the earth. 9  He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD." 10  The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar (Genesis 10:6-10).”  The next mention of Babel (Babylon) is in the next chapter of Genesis.  “9  Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth (Genesis 11:9).”  This is familiar story in the book of Genesis where after the flood all the people spoke the same language and so it was easy for them to learn faster, and what they learned was not pleasing to the Lord for they were building ziggurats.  The following is from the website www.bible-history.com 

  “The Tower of Babel

“Of the ziggurat built in Babylon at the time of Hammurapi we know little but there is a large amount of documentation of the ziggurat that existed in the time of Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BC) who deported the Jews.

“This was a ziggurat already old by the time of his reign and could have been the same as the ziggurat that existed in the reign of Hammurapi. Its Babylonian name was "Etemenanki" (see below) which means in English "House of the platform of Heaven and Earth".

This temple is often associated with the famous Tower of Babel which men built to rival God. Indeed so it must have seemed to an Israelite observer whose cities were often no more than the size of our villages. They would be confronted first with the size of the city, which encompassed, at that time, both sides of the Euphrates. Babylon in the time of Nebuchadnezzar II was large even by our standards. In the city they would see the ziggurat, which would seem to them, usually living in single story houses, to reach almost to heaven. Many Jews would have seen it with their own eyes when they were deported to Babylon in about 600 BC. This would have no doubt reminded them of the events at the Tower of Babel.

“The Bible reveals very little about the ziggurat. There are other sources outside of the Bible that reveal what a Ziggurat is. We have a Babylonian tablet that gives us the dimensions of the ziggurat at the time of Nebuchadnezzar II. The ziggurat’s condition declined and it was in ruins when Alexander arrived in 331 BC.”

            What we see here is that mankind began a false religion in the very early years of man on planet earth and that religion has been around ever since, but God will destroy it as we will see in the book of Revelations.  I bring this up because Daniel was to be indoctrinated into this kind of religion, but we will see when we begin to study the book of Daniel that Daniel was a man who would not compromise, which is a theme that runs throughout the book of Daniel.  What we have is a religion, a false religion, that comes from Babylon and the true “religion” that is found in Jerusalem and as we look at this first verse in Daniel we would think, if we did not know the rest of the story, that the false religion had won over the true religion.

            We know from the very first time this religion that began in Babylon that God hated it for they were exchanging the God of creation with another made up God which of course was headed up by Satan.  When we look at the book of Revelations we will find two Babylon’s that God will destroy, one is the Babylon of money and power, and one is the Babylon of false religion.  There is a book, an older book called “Two Babylons” written by Alexander Hislop, and when checking on this book I found the following information, “The Two Babylons, subtitled The Papal Worship Proved to Be the Worship of Nimrod and His Wife is a religious pamphlet published in 1853 by the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland theologian Alexander.”

            I knew that the book was old, but did not realize it was that old.  At any rate when one looks at the 17^th chapter of Revelations it will show that God is going to destroy the false religion of Babylon and then the next chapter shows how God will destroy the money driven power driven Babylon and how the people of that day will weep when it is destroyed.  “and were crying out as they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, ’What city is like the great city?’ 19  "And they threw dust on their heads and were crying out, weeping and mourning, saying, ’Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had ships at sea became rich by her wealth, for in one hour she has been laid waste!’”  (Verses 18-19 of Rev. 18)

            I just want to briefly speak of the Babylon that Daniel lived in and not get into too much detail about it.  The second king of Babylon is named Nebuchadnezzar and it was his father, the first king who was Nabopolassar that actually defeated the Assyrians and began the Babylonian Empire.  “Nabopolassar revolted against the Assyrian Empire (which had ruled Babylon for the previous 200 years) after the death of the last effective Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, some time between 631 BC and 627 BC. He then took on the title of King of Babylonia.
Assyria, weakened by internal strife and ineffectual rule following the death of Ashurbanipal, was unable to resist the alliance of the Chaldeans and Medes, who combined to sack the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in 612 BC. Following a prolonged siege at the Battle of Nineveh, Nabopolassar took control of Nineveh. In 609 BC, Nabopolassar took the Assyrian city of Harran, where Assyrian forces had retreated after the fall of Nineveh.
From 610 BC until his death, Nabopolassar also waged war against Egypt, which was allied with Assyria. In 605 BC, his son Nebuchadnezzar fought Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt and the remnants of the Assyrian army at the Battle of Carchemish, shortly before Nabopolassar died.”  (Wikipedia)
            Daniel was probably only 14 or 15 years old when he was deported to Babylon in 605 BC, which was the first deportation of the Jews to Babylon.  Just as Joseph was sent by God to Egypt to prepare for the rest of his family, so Daniel was sent by God to Babylon to prepare for the rest of his “family.”  God would use Daniel in a similar role that He used Joseph.  Their ages were indeed similar when they were taken from their families, along with their tasks.  There were two more deportations of Jews to Babylon, 597 BC and 586 BC, which is where the city of Jerusalem along with the temple were destroyed. 
            I would like to say at this point that the parents of Daniel must have been great parents because of how Daniel lived his life after being taken from them into Babylon.  They were unsung heroes of the faith. 
            Tomorrow’s SD we will begin our journey through the book of Daniel (God willing).
3/7/2013 11:13 AM