Be Strong and of Good Courage (Preparing Our Children for the Nations)

Daniel and his friends were forced to be in Babylon, but they would not let Babylon get into them. They made a conscious and determined decision to say no.

With courage and conviction Daniel approached the chief of the eunuchs and requested that he allow him to disregard the king’s order and not defile himself. What amazing boys their parents had raised! The stand they were taking had been years in the making. It did not happen overnight.

Daniel had more than conviction; he also had wisdom. He was blessed by God to walk in holiness and humility, a rare combination in any age. God honored his servant as a result. As “the Lord handed King Jehoiakim” into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar (v. 2), he “granted Daniel kindness [Hb hesed] and compassion from the chief eunuch.” Daniel shared his faith and convictions with Ashpenaz, and it moved this unbelieving official. Daniel stood his ground, but he did so with grace and humility. He was not arrogant or rude. He was not obnoxious or stubborn. He kindly and winsomely won over his superior in this instance (cf. Joseph in Gen 39:4 and Esther in Esth 2:9).

Still, as impressed and sympathetic as Ashpenaz was with Daniel, he understandably feared the wrath of the king and the possibility of losing his head! If Daniel and his friends performed poorly on inspection day, it was probably not them but Ashpenaz who would suffer the most. He would be the one held responsible. Daniel had won the admiration and favor and concern of his pagan captor, but things appeared to be at an impasse.

Daniel exhibits a wisdom far beyond his years, a wisdom that could have only come from God. It appears there are only two options. Option 1: They defile themselves. Option 2: Their new friend Ashpenaz loses his head. Daniel, however, proposes a third way, one in which everybody wins. He drops down the chain of command to the steward or “guard” (NIV) that Ashpenaz had assigned over them and proposes the following solution:

Please test your servants for ten days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then examine our appearance and the appearance of the young men who are eating the king’s food, and deal with your servants based on what you see. (1:12–13)

The number ten may be either literal or symbolic, but the main point is that Daniel asks for a test—one that essentially puts his God to the test. He believes and trusts God to honor their convictions and commitments to obeying his Word.

Their diet would be simple, and it would not break Mosaic laws, would not have been offered to pagan gods, and would not unduly obligate the four Hebrews to the Babylonian king (Pierce, Daniel, 19). Chapell is right: “Holiness is risky business . . . society may praise idealism, but it rarely tolerates living those ideals” (Gospel According to Daniel, 17). Daniel knew that defilement would only further distance him from his Lord. He would risk it all to keep that from happening. The choice was worth it. I really appreciate Chuck Swindoll’s summary of these verses:

In a world filled with people who rebel against the divine King, it is inevitable that believers of all ages will face situations in which their convictions will be challenged. We who are parents need to prepare our children for those occasions by both teaching them God’s truth and modeling integrity. And all of us who are Christians need to personally commit ourselves to living God’s way regardless of the temptations to live otherwise. (God’s Pattern for the Future, 17)

This is what Daniel and his friends had been taught. This is how they would live or die.

DANIEL 1:14–21

The great missionary to China, Hudson Taylor, said, “Unless there is the element of extreme risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith” (Newell, Expect Great Things, 89, emphasis added). There is little doubt that Daniel and his friends’ exploits, fueled by faith that God would honor their devotion, had the element of extreme risk. Indeed, the risk potentially could involve the deaths of Ashpenaz, his steward, and Daniel and his friends. However, the Hebrews had settled in their hearts long ago that they would remain faithful to their God no matter what. Compromise was a word that was not in their vocabulary when it came to spiritual conviction and commitments. God honored this in an amazing way!

The steward of the chief eunuch listened to four Hebrews and allowed them to pursue this dietary test “for ten days,” a definite and limited time (v. 14). The test was a resounding success, as God blessed them and rewarded their devotion to him. They “looked better and healthier than all the young men who were eating the king’s food” (v. 15). The Message says, “They looked better and more robust than all the others.” Daniel and his friends had resisted what the Reformer Heinrich Bullinger (1504–75) called the king’s “sweet poison” (Olasky, “Dare to Be a Daniel,” 64). The steward, as a result of their appearance and strength, “continued to remove their food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables” (v. 16). Daniel and his friends had honored God, and God had honored them by giving them favor with the guard and healthy bodies. Tremper Longman summarizes it well:

[Daniel] proposes this time a brief ten-day test . . . the guard agrees; the test works; and the four eat vegetables to the glory of God for three years. (Daniel, 54)

For the third time God gives (vv. 2, 9). Here God gives the four youths “knowledge and understanding in every kind of literature and wisdom.” Verse 20 informs us, “In every matter of wisdom and understanding that the king consulted them about, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and mediums in his entire kingdom.” These four were “Proverbs men” with the ability to see the things of life and this world from God’s perspective and to act accordingly. Again, there is striking irony in the situation.

God gave the four Judeans “knowledge and understanding.” Of course Nebuchadnezzar and those involved in their education would take the credit for their brilliance, but Daniel and the others would know to whom the credit was due. . . . For now, however, the divine origin of Daniel’s success is only understood in private by the four. (Longman, Daniel, 54)

Today by the gift of God’s divine revelation, we know the real story too.

God specifically blessed Daniel spiritually by giving him understanding in “visions and dreams of every kind.” This gift from God would prove extremely valuable in chapter 2 and beyond (cf. 4:4-27; 5:11-31; 7:1–8:27; 9:20-27; 10:1–12:13).

John MacArthur notes,

God enabled Daniel to interpret dreams and to receive visions. Visions and dreams were both a means of revelation from God, the former occurring while awake and the latter, while asleep. So Daniel was gifted as a seer, or prophet. As such, he was to serve as the very vehicle of God’s divine revelations. This verse, then, becomes the backdrop for the rest of Daniel’s prophecy. (An Uncompromising Life, 49)

After their three years of education, the four Hebrew teens are brought by the chief of the eunuchs to stand before the king, Nebuchadnezzar. They stood head and shoulders above all the rest: “No one was found equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.” Therefore, “they began to attend the king” (v. 19). They were brought right into the palace and into the king’s court; they were that impressive! Because they were socially, educationally, and personally superior—“ten times better than all the magicians and mediums in his entire kingdom”—Nebuchadnezzar gave the four Hebrews key administrative posts. He was confident they would serve and represent him well. Already in this Old Testament narrative we see the living out of that cardinal principle in Colossians 3:22-24:

Slaves, obey your human masters in everything. Don’t work only while being watched, as people-pleasers, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ.

We see them embodying Paul’s exhortation, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31).

Verse 21 is not so much a footnote as it is a summary of the long life and ministry of Daniel. Stephen Miller speculates that he lived eighty-five or ninety years (ca. 620–535 BC), noting that

Daniel lived through the entire Neo-Babylonian period (the exile) and continued into the reign of Cyrus (when the Jews were released from captivity), thus outliving his Babylonian captors. (Daniel, 73–74)

John MacArthur notes just how far the influence of the exiled teen possibly extended before it came to an end:

Daniel served in his influential position for seventy years. His integrity and uncompromising character had far-reaching results, for when I see the wise men coming from the East, I think of the impact Daniel’s theology must have had upon the Chaldeans’ astrology. God gave him the influence that I believe led to the decree of Cyrus to send the people back to their land . . . influence that led to the rebuilding of the wall under Nehemiah and to the reestablishing of the nation of Israel . . . influence that eventually led the wise men to come to crown the King who was born in Bethlehem. Daniel was behind the scenes of the history of the Messiah as well as the Messiah’s people. Daniel had unlimited influence for through his prophecy he brings homage to the one who is the “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Rev. 19:16) who reigns forever. (An Uncompromising Life, 50)

Daniel and his three companions remained faithful to their true identity, obeyed God, and were a shining testimony and witness both to God’s providence and to his grace. He sent them on a missionary journey, making them leave all that was familiar so that they might bear a faithful and true witness to kings and nations in foreign lands. They beautifully typify another Hebrew who will arrive six hundred years later who was also sent to a foreign land to bear witness to the one true God—a Jew by the name of Jesus. Like Daniel and his friends, the Son of God would leave his home and willingly embrace a sinful world without defiling himself even once (2 Cor 5:21; Heb 4:15; 1 Pet 2:21-25). Like these Hebrew boys he “would find favor with God and man (Luke 2:40 and 52). When he was still a child, his teachers ‘were amazed at his understanding and his answers’ (Luke 2:47)” (Helm, Daniel for You, 28). Jesus is the embodiment of the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:30).

Christ is the greater Daniel, the greater Hannaniah, the greater Mishael, and the greater Azariah. Jesus refused to compromise when he faced the emperor behind the emperor—Satan. How did Satan tempt Jesus to defile himself? He did so with food! Yet Christ remained faithful. Christ took the judgment faithless Israel deserved at the hands of another pagan empire, but he walked away from death to outlast the Roman Empire and every empire to come.

There is a certain divine irony in all this that is hard to miss. It is grace filled and gospel rich. Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah will give a faithful witness before Ashpenaz and Nebuchadnezzar and be brought to live in the king’s palace. Jesus, in contrast, would give a faithful witness before Herod and Pilate and be nailed to a cross. And yet by his death all who trust him will live forever with the King of kings and Lord of lords in his eternal palace. So be strong and of good courage in whatever God calls you to do. He is with you, and he is accomplishing so much more than meets the eye!