Daniel was still a teenager when King Nebuchadnezzar invaded Jerusalem and carried him off captive to Babylon, along with other young men of the Jewish nobility. Overnight, he lost his homeland, the temple, and the life he had known.
Even surrounded by a strange culture and a pagan court, Daniel decided not to defile himself with the king’s food and customs. That quiet faithfulness, exercised right from the start, marked his entire life.
The book that bears his name is divided into two distinct parts. In the first six chapters, Daniel and his friends face trials and threats in the court of powerful kings. In the final chapters, God reveals to Daniel visions about the future of the nations and of Israel itself.
Kings rise and fall, empires are born and collapse, but one truth runs through every page of the book. God reigns above them all, and it is he who brings down proud rulers and raises up others, always according to his own purpose.
The blazing furnace and the lions’ den show that obeying God can cost dearly in the presence of powerful kings. They also show that he is fully able to deliver, and that it is worth trusting him even when deliverance is slow to come.
Daniel’s night visions bring strange beasts, horns, and symbolic kingdoms, difficult to decipher on first reading. All of them point, however, to the same certainty: a kingdom that no human empire will ever be able to destroy, the eternal kingdom of God.
Written partly in Hebrew and partly in Aramaic, the book speaks directly to anyone living as a foreigner in a strange land. It speaks to anyone trying to remain faithful to God in a world that does not share the same faith.
This book invites the reader to look beyond the headlines and crises of the present moment. Behind kings, wars, and empires, there is a God who governs the whole of history and cares closely for those who trust in him.
Read Daniel and discover that no human throne, however imposing it may seem, is a match for the eternal throne of God.