Lent day 2

 Daniel 1

Daniel Removed to Babylon

1In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2And the Lord delivered into his hand Jehoiakim king of Judah, along with some of the articles from the house of God. He carried these off to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, where he put them in the treasury of his god.

3Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of his court officials, to bring in some Israelites from the royal family and the nobility— 4young men without blemish, handsome, gifted in all wisdom, knowledgeable, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace—and to teach them the language and literature of the Chaldeans.

5The king assigned them daily provisions of the royal food and wine. They were to be trained for three years, after which they were to enter the king’s service.

6Among these young men were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. 7The chief official gave them new names: To Daniel he gave the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abednego.



Its hard not to read these opening verses of Daniel and think about what has been going on in Ukraine and Gaza over the past couple of years. Invasion. Captivity. Kidnap. We have a very current image in our heads of what a city besieged looks like. It looks like people without food and water, People whose homes have been destroyed and whose young men have been sent to fight. The Bible doesn't tell us more than a few words about what it was like, but maybe today more than most we can start to imagine. True, Nebudchanezzar didnt have bombs and machine guns, but he did have weapons, probably trebuchets and spears and flaming arrows and (given that Babylon was the centre of the bitumen producing world,) plenty of boiling tar. No matter the era, war is a bloody and violent undertaking. The siege of Jerusalem would have been no different. In Jeremiah 4:7 Nebudchanezzar is called the “destroyer of nations,” an apt description, as history records that he extended his empire through conquest such that it stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea

https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2019/10/17/nebuchadnezzar-an-archaeological-biography

God delivered Jerusalem into the hands of the enemy. The people of God must have felt terrified, abandoned, confused. Where was God? Why had He allowed this to happen? What would life be like under a new ruler who was as heathen as it was possible to be? Maybe the questions the Ukrainians in the occupied eastern territories have been asking themselves for the past couple of years. How would you feel if you were invaded, bombed, conscripted, injured?  We have alot to be thankful for that most of us in the UK havent faced such a threat for a long time.

I wonder why Nebudchanezzar decided he needed young leaders from Jerusalem in his inner court. Maybe because all of his own young leaders were off fighting, expanding his vast empire. Maybe because he was actually an astute leader of men who recognised that if he didnt grab and indoctrinate these young men then pretty soon he would have a counter-insurgency on his hands. He went for the best. It's interesting that the first qualities he seemed to look for were external. He wanted good looking noblemen. Literally spotless. If you had teenage acne you didnt get in. 😂 This fits with the notion that Nebudchanezzar was vain, into looking good, a show off. Know any politicians like that? Grandstanding peacocks? The second quality he was after was wisdom. He wanted the best brains on his team not on the side of his enemies. He wanted 'qualified' people. As I look at that list of pre-requisites it strikes me that Jesus would not have made the cut.  He wasn't noble, He had nothing about His physical appearance that made Him stand out.  He wasn't educated. Earthly leaders promote people based on the externals.  God sees the heart.

Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah had the good fortune to be of noble birth, good looking, clever and suitable to serve at court.  Having endured the trauma of being besieged, ransacked, and then kidnapped they ended up in the court of their enemy being expected to learn a foreign language in order to work for their captor.  Its easy to read the words and almost impossible to imagine what that must have been like.  Today there are Israeli prisoners being held somewhere in Gaza not knowing if or when they will ever get home. Wondering where their families are and if they will ever see them again.  Daniel and his mates were young, probably traumatised and prisoners in a foreign land. They weren't even allowed to keep their own names. They didn't know what was going to happen to them.  Terrifying.

Because we know the end of the story we can see God busy 'working all things together for the good' of Daniel, his compatriots and the whole nation.  But from Daniel's perspective life at the start of this story must have seemed impossible. It was full of pain and loss and disappointment and hardship. God doesn't do things the way we think He ought to.  Or the way we would like Him to,  He doesn't lead us in comfort and peace on roads paved with gold.  More often than not our roads are potholed and muddy and difficult to navigate and we feel besieged and under fire. But there is a bigger picture. 

Take heart.  Look beyond the circumstances.  You are not yet at the end of your story. God is good.