03: World News & Prophecy - Daniel 1:3-21

[Darris McNeely] Welcome back to World News and Prophecy class. We are into the book of Daniel 1 here in today's class. We've got a number of things to cover, still dealing with a little bit of background to the book of Daniel, but I think we've covered most of that. Last class, we got into the book of Daniel 1 with a few verses. And I think what I want to do is largely just read through Chapter 1, which is a self-contained story of Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego as three friends in this episode that kind of sets the stage for the entire book of Daniel in many ways as to how they come into the positions that they are. Remember, they are now captives of Babylon. They are enslaved.

It begins in the year 605 B.C. with the first incursion by King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon against Judah. We talked about that in the last class. And so 605 B.C. becomes kind of our benchmark when the story opens here in what is described as…

Daniel 1:1-2 “The third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand with some of the articles of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his God. And he brought the articles into the treasure house of his God. 

I talked last time about that being the god Marduk, M-A-R-D-U-K. And the fact that there was no image or idol within the temple in Jerusalem, necessitated Nebuchadnezzar carrying off golden vessels, very valuable vessels that were part of the temple service for the priests and the communicants, the Israelites, as they would bring offerings to the temple and all of the ceremonies there. That's what they carried to Babylon, which obviously was of value, but it was the only tangible thing they could extract from the temple to put into the temple of Marduk to essentially say, "We beat these guys. We've claimed something that is valuable to them."

Now, these vessels are more than just, let's say, plates and cups and bowls. They're gold and silver, but they also represent something else. And we're going to come back to that after we go through the story here. And we will even have these vessels playing a critical role in Chapter 5 when Babylon comes to a conclusion. And so the articles or the treasure house of...or the articles that he took from the temple into his own treasure house, from the temple in Jerusalem, are quite significant. And there's a kind of a personal significance that we really need to understand. So let's keep reading and get through an overview of Chapter 1 and then make some points out of this. 

Daniel 1:3-4 "Then the king instructed Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs, to bring some of the children of Israel and some of the king's descendants and some of the nobles, young men in whom there was no blemish, but good-looking, gifted in all wisdom, possessing knowledge and quick to understand, who had ability to serve in the king's palace and whom they might teach the language and literature of the Chaldeans."

And so it was a training program that they entered into. They were gifted people. As I said, they scored quite high on the SATs, 14, 1500, whatever the highest probably would have been for them, or at least for us, the equivalent. They probably would have blown it off the charts with their knowledge of language, culture, just their intellect. Nebuchadnezzar recognized this, and he's wanting to draft them into the service to the State of Babylon. And so they're going to learn the language and literature of the Chaldeans, which is a completely different structure, language, and literature, religion than what they were used to in Judah.

Keep in mind that...at least the pious inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah, and there were some. We talk about the downfall of both Israel and, particularly, Judah in this story here because of their sins of idolatry. And that was quite prevalent. But you have to remember, as you read the Bible narrative and what it does tell us beyond the big headline of, let's say, sin and idolatry, always there's a people at any point in God's dealings with His nation Israel, there's a group of people we might want to call them a remnant. There's a group of people who hold to the faith. They believe God. They believe the Word of God, the Scriptures that they have. And they may be in a minority, but they are there.

And while others may be, in a sense, abandoning faith, not keeping the Sabbath, not keeping God holy, even worshiping the different gods of the land that were prevalent and had been brought into the city and into the culture, there were always people who weren't. Daniel and his friends, obviously, had parentage who didn't. They were faithful. And that is always critical to understand as you read through the story of Israel especially. And also, it's helpful to remember even in our own experience in the Church today and as we work with one another, deal with one another within the Church. But Nebuchadnezzar wanted to take those who were, in a sense, well-grounded, and he was going to put them through a training program.

Daniel 1:5 Says, "The king appointed for them a daily provision of the king's delicacies and of the wine which he drank and three years of training for them so that at the end of that time they might serve before the king."

 Now, note here in verse 5, three years of training. We're going to come back to that later. It's a three-year training program. You know, you could get a bachelor's degree today in a university. If you really work hard, maybe you go in with some advanced credits, you can do a three-year program, come out with a bachelor's degree easily today.

So look at this in a sense as an undergraduate training program in the statecraft and the entire culture of Babylon and it takes for three years. Now, we're going to see something when we get to Chapter 2, verse 1 that we'll come back to on what this three years means. Three years does mean three years but just kind of hold that thought. 

Daniel 1:6-7 "Now, from among those of the sons of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. To them the chief of the eunuchs gave names. He gave Daniel the name Belteshazzar, to Hananiah, Shadrach, to Mishael, Meshach, and to Azariah, Abed-Nego." 

Their names were changed. Now, we typically refer to these three as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. We even in our...you know, as we read the Bible today, we don't necessarily refer to their Hebrew names but the names that they were given there at Babylon. Now, I want to come back to this importance of this name change. This is a very critical feature to understand about the book of Daniel, what was happening with Daniel and his three friends, and it has a very important lesson for us today that is very relevant as we look at our culture, our time, the importance of a name, and what a culture does to bring people into what is called assimilation or some might call it indoctrination by language, by naming, the naming of even an individual or a practice or custom. But we'll come back to that. I want to kind of get the overview of this as we go along.

Now, we have a name change and we have a diet, if you will. They're going to line up in the cafeteria of their school and the food that is going to be served is Babylonian food or Chaldean food. It will be a whole different diet. You know, those of you that have traveled internationally, you get out of here, if it's America you go to Europe or you go to Asia or Latin America, different food. And while you might get a McDonald's or Kentucky Fried Chicken in these places, especially in Africa, you can find Kentucky Fried Chicken all over Africa, but the chickens are not the same size over there as what we might have here. But that's another story.

But largely, the diet and food internationally is different than what we're used to. And sometimes our bodies know that and react to that. But your food is a part of your culture, and they're going to be fed Chaldean food. We'll come back to that, again, along with the names. So let's just continue with the story.

Daniel 1:8-10 Tells us that, “Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank. Therefore, he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Now, God had brought Daniel into the favor and goodwill of the chief of the eunuchs. And the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, 'I fear my lord, the king, who has appointed your food and drink.'" 

In other words, the king set up all this system, he's approved the menus, and he expects that his orders to be carried out because there's a larger purpose than just having a meal in the dining hall. He wants to make these Jews Babylonians. He wants to get into their mind and he wants to change the way they think and they act. And so the eunuch is fearful about that.

Daniel 1:10 "For why," he says, "should he see your faces looking worse than the young men who are your age, then you would endanger my head before the king."

Let me just pause and make a comment I forgot to make when we were back in verse 3 and 4. The Ashpenaz is called the master of the eunuchs, and there's always a discussion, was Daniel a eunuch? And the word that is used here for eunuchs can go either way. In other words, it can apply to a man who has been castrated and, therefore, a eunuch or it can refer to something else, and it doesn't have to mean that they have been emasculated. Scholars are divided on that, all right? And I know sometimes people will refer to scriptures about the prophecy about the king's descendants being eunuchs and try to apply that to Daniel, but I think that that's a stretch into the text of Daniel. And scholars are divided upon it.

It says that, back in verse 4, that these young men were without blemish. Now, that can be taken to mean that in other words, they were intact, they were whole, all right? They had not been emasculated. And that's pointed out by, again, the text and by those that study these things as well. And so my personal feeling, and I'll label it as such and for the record, as we go through Daniel and Revelation, we'll read the Bible, we'll see what it says. I will always teach you how we in the Church have always taught and looked at the prophecies or the matters in the text. And then where there may be questions, questionable interpretations that could go multiple, maybe there's two different or three different possible explanations, I sometimes will tell you that.

I think understand we're in an academic setting here, not necessarily a church service-type setting. And in this academic setting, I think it's important, and we on the faculty agree to that, Dr. Dunkel does as well, that we lay everything out, show what the Bible teaches, how we've always interpreted this and understood it in the church. And then if there are multiple options or opinions, we'll talk about those as well. And on this one, it's not a matter of necessarily doctrine or teaching, it's understanding what is there.

I will tell you, but this is my personal feeling and I will always tell you if I have my personal feeling on this, I don't think Daniel's a eunuch for the reasons that I've said. And I just like my heroes to be not eunuchs. So I've never had a hero that was a eunuch. So that's just my way of looking at it. You take it for what it's worth. And beyond that, there's nothing really else that is said. You have to infer that from Scripture. When we were talking about doctrine the other day, we didn't get a chance to go through the pyramid of doctrine. Maybe we can do that at another time in terms of this pyramid that kind of represents basis by which we establish our doctrine that begins with the broad base of a pyramid, which is sound scriptural teaching and how we kind of work our way up on that. So on this particular point, we'll leave it there at that point. And so let's go on in verse 11.

Daniel 1:11-14 "Daniel said to the steward, whom the chief of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, 'Please test your servants for 10 days and let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink.'" Pretty strict diet, vegetarian, water, no wine. "'Let our appearance be examined before you and the appearance of the young men who eat a portion of the king's delicacies. And as you see fit, so deal with your servants.' So he," Ashpenaz, "consented with them in this matter, tested them 10 days."

He probably figured, "All right, we can do this for 10 days. And we should know some results by then. And it's not going to blow the program and perhaps I can kind of do this under the radar within the school here, the structure of the palace. We'll find out what happens." 

Daniel 1:15-16 Tells us, "At the end of 10 days, their features appeared better and fatter in flesh than all the young men who ate the portion of the king's delicacies. Thus, the steward took away their portion of delicacies and the wine that they were to drink and gave them vegetables."

And so they went on what it seems a vegetarian diet during this time. 

Daniel 1:17 “As for these four young men, God gave them knowledge and skill in all literature and wisdom and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.” 

Now, from verse 16, we should not conclude that Daniel or the other three then became lifelong vegetarians. That would be reading something into the scripture. What happens when you read something into the scripture? Yes, Ruth, what's that? Isagesis. You're doing an isagesis. You're not doing a good hermeneutic. All right, you're reading something in. It just says that they were vegetarian, and we would take it in the context of the scripture, Chapter 1, that this would be for this three-year program. We'll see other times where Daniel goes on a fast, and he goes off wine, which indicates that he probably was drinking wine normally. And so we should not conclude that this is a scripture advocating vegetarianism. It seems that it was only for a period of time. So you have to be careful, again, not to read too much into a scripture in order to draw a teaching or understanding out that may not be what the scripture is talking about.

But Daniel and the three were given knowledge and skill in the literature and wisdom. By that, we would not conclude that they engaged in the black arts and the magic, the sorcery, of the Babylonian culture, which was heavy. It was largely based on that. I talked about that in the opening lecture. The mystery religions, the mystery rituals, of Babylon were quite prevalent. Daniel and his friends didn't engage in them. Did they study them? Did they become acquainted with them? I think they did. But that doesn't mean that they practiced them. And they knew how to draw a line. They studied whatever they had about astronomy and astrology at the time, whatever their level of science and understanding about the natural world. They would have studied that.

Again, the literature of the country, the history of the culture, the poetry of the country. They would have been schooled in that and would have had to have learned that as well. But even in their mastery of that, they didn't lose their faith and their knowledge about God and His way. And they probably were better schooled in all the knowledge of the Babylonians than others in the palace and in the system. God gave them that knowledge. And we will see this, particularly, with Daniel and, certainly, with the three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, in Chapter 2, in that their faith was strong, but also with Daniel in that as the story goes on, Daniel is given the ability to interpret dreams, his own visions, and favor in God's eyes with what God reveals to him throughout the rest of his life. And it's all done because the foundation is laid right here in these events of Chapter 1.

Daniel 1:18 Says, "Then at the end of the days, when the king had said that they should be brought in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar." 

Look at this as kind of a graduation ceremony. Probably it had been in the main palace room at Babylon. A ceremony, you know, music, and presented to the king in some way as they have matriculated through the three-year system, they are now ready to be used within the state system of Babylon. 

Daniel 1:19 "The king interviewed them and among them all none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Therefore, they served before the king." 

And so it seems to indicate that they had a special favor and perhaps, you know, graduating at the top of the class, we might say. And because of that, then they were slotted into some probably unique roles. Now, in Chapter 2 and 3 and 4, we will see Daniel integrating and working with Nebuchadnezzar in a very intimate relationship, almost like he's got the office next door to the king's office. You know, the king would have had the corner office as, you know, any executive has in business today in an office building. Typically, the corner office is the president's office, the EXEC, CEO. I imagine Daniel had a small office probably right next to it by what we see in his relationship with Nebuchadnezzar as it advances through the chapters which gave him access to the king, favor to the king because of what Nebuchadnezzar found in Daniel and the others.

Now, what happened to the other three? Just a preview of Chapter 3 now. I think I've confused that earlier, but in Chapter 3, we have the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego being cast into the fiery furnace. We all know that story. That's one that comes out of the book of Daniel. We usually have it in a lot of our Sabbath school classes. Why the three of them? Daniel is not mentioned in Chapter 3. Why are they singled out? We'll talk about that, but give you a little bit of a preview.

It may be that those three were given, let's say, top governor-type roles beyond the city of Babylon out into the empire. And that's one supposition or speculation as to why they are not mentioned in Chapter 2 or outside of Chapter 3 and the rest of the book of Daniel dealing with Babylon, and why they may be in the position that they are in to have to bow down to this image Nebuchadnezzar will build in Chapter 3. 

But we'll talk about that at that time. But I think what Chapter 1 is telling us is that these four found favor and they served before the king. 

Daniel 1:2-210 It says, "And in all matters of wisdom and understanding about which the king examined them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers who were in all his realm. Thus, Daniel continued until the first year of King Cyrus."

 King Cyrus, this is where you first hear about a man that we'll talk more about later. It is King Cyrus. In history, he is known as Cyrus the Great, and he is the king of Persia. He defeats the Babylonian Empire, and he will be the founder and the chief individual of this second part of the image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Chapter 2. We'll talk about him, but this is where he is mentioned.

And then it says, "Daniel then continued," meaning he continued in the office with Nebuchadnezzar through the subsequent decades, more than two decades that went on in terms of his career of public service. He had a very distinguished career going up to the year 539. Actually, I'll put that one date down. Cyrus defeats Babylon in the year 539 B.C. So if Daniel is taken captive in 605 and by 601 he's working for the king, he's going to have a very long career just in Babylon. And we'll see in the story that he actually makes it back into, in a sense, a top position in Persia but not without a particular trial which we read about in Chapter 6. But this is his term of service about 65 years. That's a career for anybody today and it's a long and distinguished career for Daniel as they go along there. And so that's Chapter 1 in a nutshell, a familiar story.

But I'd like to go back for a moment to talk about the food that they would not eat and go a little bit deeper into this so that we can understand what was taking place and also, impart an application for us today why this is relevant. Why did Daniel and his three friends decide not to eat of the wine and of the king's delicacies? Why did they go veg here for this particular time? Well, keep in mind that the scripture tells us that he didn't wish to defile himself. All right. He didn't want to be impure. The term for that would be unholy. Unholy. Now, keep in mind as Daniel and his friends would have been raised in Jerusalem in a religious family or pious family, he would have understood the rituals of the temple, the sacrifices, and the priesthood, and would have known about the law and would have been schooled in that, no doubt.

Essentially, from the practice of his family, if not in some other more direct role, perhaps that his family might have had within the temple structure, we just don't know that, but he understood the laws of holiness. He understood that the people of Israel, the nation of Judah were to be a covenant people with God. They were to be a holy people. And he was now in a Gentile land. He was in a pagan nation. And he's having everything turned upside down. He's in effect being made into a Babylonian. And so what we're looking at is a resolution that Daniel and his friends had of heart and mind, an inner conviction, and then they acted on that down to even what they were going to put into their mouth. But it would have stemmed from a conviction of the people of Israel, their holy God, they were to be a holy people. Yes, they had sinned. And yes, this captivity was as a result of that. But that didn't negate the individual responsibility that Daniel and his friends had. And you know, that is a very important part of the message of the prophets at this time.

I did mention how this is an age of five prophets, remember? Remember the five prophets that we talked about in the last class that spoke at this time? Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and then there were two minor prophets, Habakkuk and Zephaniah, all dealing with this period right at the close of the age of Judah. And their message, taken as a whole...now, Ezekiel's was an exile message, but the other four, Daniel would have been somehow familiar with, it was indicting the people for their lack of holiness, their sins. And so it seems that God was, through those prophets, bringing it down to the level of the individual responsibility. Yes, the nation had a covenant relationship with God that was made at Sinai. We call that the Old Covenant. And here was a priesthood, and there was this collective worship.

But God, through the prophets at that age, was showing that you as an individual have an individual obligation to obey God and accountability, which leads to judgment. We haven't got there yet, but remember Daniel's name means God is judge. Dan-el, El means God, and Dan means to judge. Daniel, God is the judge. And perhaps that was not lost on Daniel. We haven't got to the naming part of it yet, but to think about the individual accountability. And so when they're in the food line, in the cafeteria, in the palace or the office building of the Babylonians, they're not going to eat that food that is put before them. And they draw that line so close to, if you will, the standard of holiness that they won't go beyond that. And it might be even a little bit more rigorous.

There's nothing in the law that forbade wine. All right. You could drink wine, just don't get drunk. But Daniel says, "We're not even going to drink the wine." And so he's going to live in the light of what God's way stood for, that temple stood for, and keep in mind one other thing that we've already talked about and that's the vessels that were taken from the temple to Babylon. I want you to keep that in mind. We'll come back to that concept of the vessels here. And so he was not going to give up or stray too far from that concept of the glory and the holiness of God. I'll just put that down here as part of one possible reason. Now, there's a second possibility as to why they didn't eat the king's delicacies. And that's because of the food laws of Leviticus. All right, we all know that. I'll just put down food laws in my world-famous spelling here.

Leviticus 16. You don't eat pig, shellfish, specific animals that God laid out, you don't eat these. They were created for a different purpose and that was part of it. And certainly, that would have been served up in the cafeteria line, roast pork, pork chops, I don't know if they had cured ham at the time, but that would have been on the serving line. And so they kind of just want to avoid that as well, and though it's not explicitly mentioned in the text, I think that that would have been a part of what they understood to be what would be served to them. There's a third possible reason for Daniel's refusal, and that may be that the food, some, if not all of the food, would have come from the many temples in Babylon and that food would have been sacrificed to idols. And they didn't want anything connected with that.

Now, Paul's going to later, in the New Testament...and you'll learn this as you go through Corinthians, he's going to teach the church that food offered to idols is nothing. It's taking part in that service where the food is offered to the idol that you are to stay away from. But what we're looking here with Daniel, if this was a part of his reasoning, he wanted nothing to do with that either. And that was going to be not entered into his view of how he should be. The text doesn't actually mention idolatry at this particular point in Chapter 1, and we would be inferring that, but the reality would be that a lot of the food that would have gone into the cafeteria would have come from that.

And when you stop and consider, let's say, a banquet in a pagan temple, there would have been a great deal of immorality, drunkenness, overeating of that food and wine, and it would have been the whole package was something that you wanted to stay away from. And Daniel, but seems he could be saying, "We're going to stay away from even that as well. We'll just eat the vegetables. That wouldn't have been part of the sacrifice. And even though wine is allowed, we're not going to do the wine." One thing you should understand about wine in the ancient world, we open a bottle of wine today, if your parents do that in your home, for a special occasion or a meal. Usually, it's about a 12% alcohol, and we drank that wine straight out of the bottle.

In the ancient world, Babylon to Rome, wine had a higher alcohol content, a little bit different structure, and they would water down the wine to extend it. And that was a common thing. But it would have still been potent enough. You drink too much of it, you would be drunk. And Daniel understood that there would have been continual toasts to the gods. And that was all a part of it there. When we come down to Chapter 5, which we did read in the first class period, when Belshazzar brings out the vessels from the temple of Marduk that had been taken from the temple in Jerusalem, that then becomes the focused centerpiece in Daniel 5 of this last revelry for the Babylonian empire, drunkenness, debauchery, immorality. Persians are at the gate, the empire is coming down.

And we make this connection between Chapter 1 and Chapter 5 with vessels of gold and silver, goblets into which wine would have been, big plates upon which food would have been served, and then individual plates for the person taking part in that with the priests in the temple in Jerusalem. All of that is representing something. What does it represent? What's the connection for us? Well, if you'll turn over to 2 Corinthians 4, Paul makes a comment here that helps us to understand what we're talking about and why the vessels of the temple were with, why their deportation to Babylon, and then their use in the feast of Belshazzar gives us something, I think, to connect to why Daniel refused to eat this.

Could it be that Daniel understood something that we may be told here in 2 Corinthians 4? Let's begin reading at verse 6.

2 Corinthians 4:6-8 The Apostle Paul writes, "For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have," verse 7, "this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We're hard-pressed on every side yet not crushed. We're perplexed but not in despair." 

What is that treasure? Well, the treasure is God's Spirit. What's the vessel? It's this body of ours, flesh and blood. Paul will say in other places that we are the temple of God's Spirit. And by receiving God's Spirit, that's God in us. That is the very essence and the nature of God in us. We'll talk about that when we get to the first doctrine we're going to study on the nature of God. We're holy only because God's presence through His Spirit is there. And we are vessels to show His honor, His glory, His holiness. And so we don't have a physical temple with vessels that we go to and part of our worship. In a sense, we are each spiritual temples. We are part of the body of Christ. We are part of the church. We worship God directly and together as a community within the church and holy in that sense, and we obey the laws of God. And we don't eat pork. And we don't take part in festivities and revelry and parties and a lifestyle that is anti-God. All right.

You may choose not to drink alcohol at all. That's your liberty. If you do choose, according to God's Word, we do it in moderation. And we learn to eat in moderation. Foods that are allowed but also not to the point of excess and know when to stop. And so when we look at that, it's quite a strong message. 

2 Timothy 2:20-22 Peter writes, "But in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver," he's referring to a great house being, you know, primarily a temple or someone's wealthy house. "There are vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honor, some for dishonor. Therefore," verse 21, "if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, from the dishonor, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, and useful for the master prepared for every good work." And so, again, Peter shows that we are to be a vessel, a goblet, a plate for honor to serve God. Verse 22, he says, "Flee also youthful lusts, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, and with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." 

And so Paul had not read 2 Corinthians because it had not been written yet, or I'm sorry, Daniel. Daniel, I think we can put things together as what we were going to learn about his life.

He had a great deal of knowledge and understanding about what holiness was about and how the individual is to be accountable to God for righteousness, for faith, for love, for peace, and to stay as far away from paganism, from revelry, from anything that would bring him to a place where he could not be used by God. And so we can look at these reasons here that we're looking at. I forgot to put the third one up here and that is of idols. And perhaps it's a combination of all of them as we look at what we're told in Chapter 1. And it offers us a very important lesson about holiness, how we live our lives, the choices we make in our world today. You and I live in a modern Babylon that is full of false religion, false ideas, false culture, as we will see through this study, much of which is derived from ancient Babylon.

That's why it's important to understand what we're learning here in Daniel and what the Bible says about Babylon. But we're living in our own modern Babylon. We have to go, as one author says, "Against the flow." And the decisions that we make, do make a difference when it comes to our place, worship, and relationship with God. So keep that in mind in regard to the reason why Daniel and his friends would not eat of the delicacies of the king's table. All right, we've talked about the food laws and the reason they didn't eat food. Let's talk for a moment out of Chapter 1 here in Daniel about the change of the names.

You look in the slide here, we see that Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah had their names changed to Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. They had Hebrew names coming in. They were given Babylonian names. Now, this was not by accident and there was a design to this. And again, there's a lesson for us to know about not only our own personal names and how God names things and people. We know in the Bible that people have their names changed. Abram becomes Abraham. Jacob becomes Israel in the Old Testament story. And those names have meaning. So what was going on here was, again, part of the assimilation into the Babylonian culture, and it went down beyond what went into their bodies by food. It goes now to your name and how you are called.

If you see that Daniel, his name in Hebrew it's God is my judge, but he's called Belteshazzar, lady, protect the king. And that's the pagan deity, a female deity, protect the king. Hananiah becomes Shadrach, which means...Hananiah, Yahweh is gracious, to Shadrach, I am very fearful of God. Well, that's quite a contrast. I'm fearful of God. That's really contrary to how we should approach God or even think about God. And so you go from a name that reminds you Hananiah, God is gracious. And that can form and shape really a lot of our personality and our character to I'm fearful about God. Mishael, who is and what God is, to Meshach, I am of little account. From a name that puts your focus on who and what God really is to such a demeaning idea that I'm of no account. Azariah, God has helped, to Abed-Nego, servant of Nebo, the god Nebo.

And so this, as I said, was really an attempt at social engineering and assimilation. The objective was to obliterate inconvenient distinctions, to kind of blend everybody together. We call that homogenizing. You know, we buy homogenized milk today, which means that the cream and all the rest of the milk is just kind of brought together, homogenized, one unit, one entity. The idea of everybody having equality? You ever hear that word today, equality? Everybody, you know, equal opportunity or the outcomes should all be equal, which is quite a bit of difference from being everybody having an equal opportunity to, well, the outcome has to be equal for everybody. But that's the way our words are used today to define our culture.

Nebuchadnezzar wanted to control these people. And it went down to their name. And there's a great deal for us to understand in that as we look at what God is doing. You know, this comes down into our modern world. We have this term today called political correctness. Intended nobly to not create offense and we should not seek to offend people. Politically correct dialogue has gone quite far from just polite discourse and talking in public to where today we see intolerance, suppression of open and honest public discussion. And in the high-tech sectors today with Google and other search engines, there is a concerted effort to control information by what is put in through algorithms and hate speech in parts of Canada, England especially, Australia, I believe.

You have, in Australia, laws that forbid at the point of the penalty of law certain things that can be considered hate toward a religion or other groups. And that has changed public expression. So we have that going on today. And in one sense we're seeing this here as we look at what is taking place in the changing of the names. And we can go deeper into the scriptures to appreciate what we're talking about. Keep in mind this is being done at Babylon. Back in Genesis 11:1-4 is the story of the beginning of Babel after the flood. And the whole earth had one language and the same words it says.

Genesis 11:1-4 "People migrated," it says, beginning in verse 1, "from east to west. They said to one another, 'Come let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. And they said, 'Come let us build ourselves a city,'" and this is Babel which is the precursor of Babylon. "Let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens and let us make a name for ourselves lest we be dispersed upon the face of the whole earth." 

Now, there's nothing wrong with excellence in culture, society, even architecture, excuse me, engineering. We can admire the Babylonians and many other cultures and much in the modern world today in regard to that. But in Genesis, we see something different because you know the rest of the story here, God comes down and confounds the languages because He sees that if the society would advance too rapidly there would be a disruption in His purpose and plan. But their intent was to make a name for themselves.

But we have a contrast in Genesis 12, right away, when the scene shifts to Abraham, who is a forefather of Daniel. 

Genesis 12:1 "God says to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.'" 

So the contrast between Genesis 11 and Genesis 12 was that the inhabitants of Babel were going to make a name for themselves, implying apart from God to what God says to Abram, "I will make your name great. That you will be a blessing." It's what God will do for Abram who will have his name changed to Abraham. The contrast there and how God is revealing Himself to Abraham and telling him what his life's purpose and meaning is going to be all about...because Genesis 12 sets out a different way of life and course for Abraham that takes up the rest of the story of Abraham and the book of Genesis and even into the New Testament.

Ironically, this comes back in Hebrews 11, where it talks about Abraham and others like him and patriarchs and his descendants seeking an eternal city, a different city than Babylon, and it's typified by Jerusalem. And as I said at the beginning of our study, the book of Daniel is really a study about two cities. "A Tale of Two Cities," to borrow a phrase from Charles Dickens' Babylon and Jerusalem. That's one way to look at not only Daniel but really the whole Bible. Babylon representing Satan's city, Jerusalem representing God's city or God's way of life. Satan's way, God's way. And so when we look at this name-changing that's going on with Daniel and his friends, they're in Babylon. They're being assimilated, and it goes so far as to have their names changed so that they then begin...the idea would be that they begin to think in terms of not only Babylonian culture but religion and about pagan deities.

But I would imagine that in private they probably didn't change their nomenclature. They referred to each other by their Hebrew names. But officially their names were changed in that way. A name is important in so many ways that we learn from the Bible. And God is showing us something here that the emphasis on the fact that we draw our ultimate significance from being made in the image of God. And we're not going to make a name for ourselves. Conversion, spirituality, the way that Daniel is being shown to be adhering to is to be yielded to God, to let ourselves be made into the image of God. And that is our identity. Not what we have of and by ourselves. By this I'm not advocating any of us try to change our names or we have to do anything like that. But I think the large lesson that we take away is that Daniel and his friends knew that their identity truly was in God as represented by their initial Hebrew names. And though this was imposed upon them, we can see by their example that they didn't let that change them.

And so just like the issue of food, they were going to maintain their identity and not be subjugated, and even in that way, by the culture, by the society. You know, today we have to... Words have been turned around to have different meanings today. There was a time when the word gay did not mean what it means today, all right? It just didn't. You could use that and no one associated it with a sexual identity issue. Just wasn't done. That may be hard for you to imagine, but that's how I grew up there. You know, abortion today has been redefined as reproductive rights in a political sense. A woman's reproductive rights. Abortion has nothing to do with reproduction. It's the termination of the reproduction process that God designed into the human female body, into life. But words, phrases are changed to begin to change our thinking into more acceptance or assimilation into ideologies of the present time. Remember that. That's a big lesson to take away from the story of Daniel here and his friends in the name-change that they had to deal with and endure at that time.