Daniel 1
EDTThe Book of Daniel
The book of Daniel is the young man’s guide-book. There were three stages in the courage of Daniel.
I. The Trial of the Flesh. The curtain rises in Babylon. We see Daniel moving already in the higher circles. He puts a rein upon himself. He avoids all excesses. It was not that he had to resist the temptation of physical appetite. It was that he had to resist the temptation of being a man up to date. What he required was not self-restraint. It was courage. Babylon, like Rome, put a social imprimatur upon her practices; to refuse conformity was to incur ostracism. The man who resists them will require the spirit of a hero.
II. The Trial of the Intellect Daniel is poring over a problem. Nebuchadnezzar has had a dream. He has summoned what would now be called the Fellows of the Royal Society to interpret that dream. But he has accompanied the invitation with a threat: all who fail are to be put to death. Daniel was one of this Royal Society, and was therefore under the threat of the king. One could save the society. Daniel sets himself to solve the problem and to save his brethren. Daniel alone succeeded. Why? That which turned the scale between Daniel and his colleagues was courage. In the sphere of practical judgment humanity errs less from want of intellect than from want of nerve. There have been more prizes lost through excitement than through deficiency. But Daniel had ceased to fear for his life, because he had begun to fear for something else the lives of others.
III. The Trial of the Spirit. A singular decree had been promulgated by the court of Babylon. Prompted by jealousy of the rising Jewish favourite a powerful faction persuaded the weak Darius to test his loyalty by threatening his religion. They procured the passing of a law which enjoined on every man abstinence from prayer during the entire space of thirty days, and, as the penalty of transgression, sentenced every delinquent to the den of lions. Will he have any chance in the struggle? Yes, and he has won. Daniel has conquered the lions, has made them shut their mouths. By the very consciousness of superiority the meek have inherited the earth. Whence this unexpected preeminence? Let Daniel answer. He says that before receiving the kingdom, the form in the likeness of man ‘came to the Ancient of Days’. He means that the secret of his power was an influence outside the cave his religion. He was the only creature that made an approach to the Eternal.
G. Matheson, * Representative Men of the Bible,* p. 331.
Daniel 1:1-21
Daniel 1:2 * ; Daniel 1:6
I was taken captive when nearly sixteen years of age. I did not know the true God; and I was taken to Ireland in captivity with so many thousand men, in accordance with our deserts, because we departed from God and kept not His precepts.
St. Patrick’s * Confessions.
The strangeness of foreign life threw me back into myself.
Newman, * Apologia,* I.
Daniel’s Self-denial Daniel 1:8
We are told about a great many good men in the pages of the Bible: some who were generally beloved by God, as the Prophet Daniel; some who found grace in the eyes of Jehovah, as Noah. It is instructive and interesting to investigate why these men found grace and why they were beloved.
I. The Life of Noah. If we examine the life of Noah, we find that he had at least four characteristics:
a. He was obedient to God.
b. He had faith in God.
c. He reverenced God.
d. He worshipped God.
We can thus see to some extent why he found grace in the eyes of Jehovah. The life of Noah, like every other life in the Old Testament, is meant to be an example to us, to show what our lives should be or what they ought not to be.
II. The Life of Daniel. Again, if we investigate the life of Daniel, we can see some reasons why ho was greatly beloved:
a. He obeyed.
b. He resisted temptation.
c. He held fast to that which was right.
d. He was tempted, yet he refused to partake of the king’s meat and imbibe of the king’s wine.
He had his reward from God, and also in the worldly sense; for we are told that at the end of ten days after his abstinence his countenance appeared fair, and he was fatter in the flesh than all the others who did eat of the king’s meat. Daniel lived at a court where there was much intemperance, much luxury, and much idolatry; and, therefore, thought it his duty in the circumstances to abstain from the king’s meat and drink, as from things offered to idols. We need not necessarily suppose that Daniel was a temperance advocate. We have no reason to think that he regarded wine as a pernicious, deadly thing; but he thought it his duty, because of the occasion and the surroundings, to do without it.
References. I. 8. Spurgeon, * Sermons,* vol. xxxix. No. 2291. I. 8-21. A. Maclaren, * Expositions of Holy Scripture* * Daniel,* p. 40.
See Addison’s * Spectator* (No. 195), and Dante’s * Purgatorio,* xxii. 145.
Most failures lie in not going on long enough. I heard a man in a meeting in the country long ago say, that one of the most encouraging verses he knew was a verse of common metre to this effect:
Go on, go on, go on, etc.
James Smetham.
What is commonly admired as successful talent is far more a firm realizing grasp of some great principle, and that power of developing it in all directions, and that nerve to abide faithful to it, which is involved in such a true apprehension.
Newman.
Reference. II. J. G. Murphy, * The Book of Daniel,* p. 85.