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Daniel is the hero in
the book in the Old Testament, which bears
that name. Traditionally, authorship is
ascribed to Daniel himself. The
Council of Trent
decreed the sacred and canonical character of
certain fragments to complete the Book of
Daniel, and proclaimed the ancient and morally
unanimous belief of the
Church of God.
Daniel was
captured by Nabuchodonosor (although
inaccurate, Nebuchadnezzer is the modern
translation) during the reign of Joakim, the
King of Babylon. Along with Daniel were three
youths, Ananias, Misael and Azarias.
He belonged to the tribe
of Judah, and was of noble descent. When he
was about fourteen years of age, he was
captured by Nabuchodonosor and brought to
Babylon. There, with the three youths, he was
entrusted to the care of Asphenez, the master
of the king's eunuchs, to be trained as
Chaldeans, or members of the class of the
magi,
(astrologers, sorcerers, enchanters and
magicians). The magis are the advisors to the
Babylonian court.
Because of his
skills and wisdom, Daniel rose to the rank of
governor of the province of
Babylon. He became "chief of the governors" over all the wise men of
Babylon, after
passing a dangerous test of the astrologers by
the king, which could easily have cost Daniel
his life. The three other children, Ananias,
Misael and Azarias, too, were made
administrators of the province of
Babylon by the king.
In the third
chapter of the Book of Daniel, King
Nabuchodonosor built a golden statue. Then the
satraps, prefects, governors, and nobles
convinced the king to declare that all the
people of the nations should fall down and
worshiped as soon as they heard the sound of
the trumpet, flute, lyre, harp, psaltery,
bagpipe, and all the other musical
instruments. Anyone who did not was to be cast
into a white-hot furnace. The three Hebrew
companions of Daniel, Ananias, Misael and
Azarias, who were faithful to the God of
Israel, did not. They were thrown into the
white-hot furnace. However, the three walked
about in the flames, singing to God and
blessing the Lord.
In the fire
Azarias stood up and prayed aloud and an angel
of the Lord went down into the furnace to join
Azarias and his companions. Whereupon the
flames rose above the furnace, spread out,
burned the Chaldeans nearby, and cooled the
inside of the furnace as though a dew-laden
breeze were blowing through it. The fire in no
way touched them or caused them pain or harm.
The king saw
the three men and the angel of God walking
about in the furnace. Alarmed at what he saw
King Nabuchodonosor asked but was assured that
only the three Hebrew men were indeed cast
into the furnace. The king came to white-hot
furnace and ordered the men out. The satraps,
prefects, governors, and nobles of the king
came together and saw that the fire had had no
power over the bodies of these men. Neither
the hair of their heads nor were their
garments were singed; there was not even a
smell of fire about them.
King
Nabuchodonosor then "Blessed be the God of
Ananias, Misael and Azarias, who sent his
angel to deliver the servants that trusted in
him; they disobeyed the royal command and
yielded their bodies rather than serve or
worship any god except their own God.
Therefore I decree for nations and peoples of
every language that whoever blasphemes the God
of Ananias, Misael and Azarias shall be cut to
pieces and his house destroyed. For there is
no other God who can rescue like this."
Nabuchodonosor
had other dreams that Daniel interpreted. In
one Daniel successfully read the cryptic
handwriting by an angel of God, where in that
night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans
would be slain by his own sons, who later
fled.
After the death
of Nabuchodonosor, Daniel remained in that
exalted position under Darius the Mede.
Darius, moreover, thought of setting Daniel
over the entire kingdom. Fearing such an
elevation, Daniel's fellow-officers, plotted
to convict him of disloyalty to the Crown.
They secured from the king a decree forbidding
anyone, under penalty of being cast into the
lions' den, to ask any petition of either god
or man, except the monarch, for thirty days.
A faithful
follower of the God of Israel, Daniel
nevertheless prayed, three times a day, at his
open window, towards Jerusalem. This they
reported to the king, who was then forced to
apply the punishment to the violator of the
decree. Upon Daniel's miraculous preservation
in the lions' den, Darius published a decree
that all in his realm should honor and revere
the God of Daniel, proclaiming that He is "the
living and eternal God". And so Daniel
continued to prosper through the rest of the
reign of Darius, and in that of his successor,
Cyrus the Persian.
Just as Daniel’s
deliverance in the den of the lions, and the
deliverance of the three Hebrew men were
miraculous, Daniel’s visions were apocalyptic.
During his time, the four succeeding world
kingdoms, Babylonian, Median, Persian, and
Greek, were opposed to the messianic kingdom
of the people of God. In the Book of
Daniel 7:2-8 in the
first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon,
Daniel had a terrifying dream as he lay in
bed. The four immense beasts in his dream were
symbolical of the Gentile powers judged in due
time by "the Ancient of days", and finally
replaced by the universal and everlasting
Messianic kingdom.
Book of Daniel
contains Messianic predictions including the
prophecy of the seventy weeks. As Daniel was
praying to God, the angel Gabriel appeared and
explained to him that in the seventy weeks,
"an anointed one" will be cut off. Then the
people of a prince who shall come will
"destroy" the city and the sanctuary. He will
then make a firm covenant with many. He will
then cause sacrifice and oblation to cease and
the abomination of desolation to be set up,
until he meets with his fate.
The traditional
interpretation of the seventy weeks maintains
that the prophecy of the seventy weeks refers
directly to the appearance of Christ in the flesh, His death, His establishment of the New Covenant, and
the destruction of
Jerusalem by
the Romans.
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