Not So Fast (A reflection on Daniel 1:1-2)

“In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah,
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord handed Jehoiakim king of Judah over to him, along with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god.” Daniel 1:1-2, NASB

After two years in the Gospel of Matthew, I have recently turned to the book of Daniel for my devotional reading. Matthew ends on a high note: the Resurrection and the Great Commission. Jesus the Christ who had suffered, bled and died and laid in a borrowed tomb is gloriously and wonderfully alive. The movement that the religious authorities thought had died with him is about to explode in their front yards a few short weeks from then. 

Daniel, however, begins totally differently. The Kingdom of Judah, the covenant people of God, is conquered. Jerusalem, the holy city of God, the resting place of Solomon's grand Temple that housed the Ark of the Covenant which has stood for over 300 years, is desecrated when soldiers of Nebechadnezzar's army enter it and gather up many of the sacred furnishings and cart them off to Babylon. Daniel's book begins like the crawl at the beginning of Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back, “It is a dark time for the Rebellion...” Or so it seems.

It's sorta like this

Wendy Widder, author of the Story of God commentary for the Book of Daniel frames the story of Daniel in this way:

"On the historical surface, the events of verses 1-2 portray the defeat of the Judean king at the hands of the Babylonian king. In the worldview of the ancient Near East, a king's military victory        signaled the victory of his god over the god(s) of the conquered people. As a representative of his god, a king engaged in battle as a way to expand the god's territory. This way of seeing the world is evident in the account of Nebuchadnezzar's success over Jehoiakim: the Babylonian king took vessels from the temple of Israel's God and transferred them to the coffers of his god in Babylon (1:2). The king's military victory mirrored the religious        victory of his god over the God of Jerusalem."

It's a good read

"However, the text reinterprets these historical events. Nebechadnezzar's victory was, in fact, no victory at all. Rather, the God whose temple vessels were on their way to Babylon had given [Text note: NIV “delivered.” This is the first of three occurrences of the phrase “God gave” in chapter 1 (vv. 2, 9, 17)] his king and his vessels into the foreign king's hand. This was no defeat of the God of Israel. As he had done centuries earlier when the Philistines captured the ark of the covenant and put it in the temple of Dagon, the God of Israel only appears to have been defeated (1 Sam 4-5). Actually, he was very much in control."

There is a lot going on in the world these days that suggests that not only is the One upstairs asleep at the wheel; rather, He doesn't seem to be in control of anything whatsoever. Wickedness – that sense of living life autonomously, apart from the rule of God – seems to be on the rise. Our culture seems eager to embrace new levels of “dumbness” in the guise of being  WOKE. And as the fear of God seems to be evaporating from people's consciousness, all matter of foolishness begins to happen. Our rants are becoming biblical:  

God, how long do I have to cry out for help

    before you listen?
How many times do I have to yell, “Help! Murder! Police!”
    before you come to the rescue?
Why do you force me to look at evil,
    stare trouble in the face day after day?
Anarchy and violence break out,
    quarrels and fights all over the place.
Law and order fall to pieces.
    Justice is a joke.
The wicked have the righteous hamstrung
    and stand justice on its head. (Habakkuk 1:1-6, The Message)

In other words, if You are who You say You are why don't You do something about this mess we're in?!

Marduk ain't as powerful as 
he would like you to think

It's an old complaint and God's heard it many times before. I'm sure many of those Judeans voiced that very thing as they were forced into exile by the Babylonians. But Daniel tells us at the very beginning of his story that contrary to what a lot of people thought God was doing something about it. Marduk, the patron god of Babylon, hadn't defeated Yahweh: Yahweh surrendered the king and the inhabitants of Judea into the Babylonian hands. Yes, his people were now a conquered people but frankly they hadn't handled freedom very well. With the exception of a few seasons of renewal and revival on the whole the people had embraced covenant unfaithfulness and eventually paid the price for it just as Yahweh had promised. But their deportation to Babylon was beginning a whole new chapter in their history one in which they would thrive not decline.

But there's more. Not only is this defeat not really a defeat but even though Babylon at this particular moment appears to be the victor in reality they are taking their first steps toward judgment. Says Widder: 

Not one of our better moments

"Not only does the text make clear the real situation
behind the events of Jeohoiakim's downfall, but it also foreshadows the demise of mighty Babylon itself. By stating that Nebechadnezzar carried the temple vessels off to Shinar [Text note: The Hebrew here is Shinar, an infrequently used word for Babylon or Babylonia (see Gen 10:10; 11:2; 14:1, 9; Jos 7:21; Is 11:11; Zech 5:11)], an infrequently used name for Babylon, the narrator    provides something of a mental hyperlink. The mention of Shinar brings to mind the story of the tower of Babel, the biblical birth of the city of Babylon, where men blurred the lines between deity and humanity, and God came down to judge their hubris (Gen 11:1-9). The author of Daniel calls to mind this story of beginnings because, in the pages that follow, he will tell the story of Babylon's end in similar fashion. Nebechadnezzar may worship his god in his Shinar temple, but he is a king who will act more like a god himself. And the ultimate end of Babylon will come on a night when a certain king Belshazzar will make even    Nebechadnezzar look almost saintly. The mighty kingdom of Babylon will come to an end because of human pride."  

So instead of leading off with a dirge of lament Daniel actually begins on a paean – albeit a subtle one – of praise. Despite what seems like a total route of Yahweh, the Lord God is most definitely in control. History, we're reminded as Daniel unfolds, is not cyclical as the ancients believed. It's going someplace – it's going [SPOILER ALERT] to an apogee of worship:

“I kept looking in the night visions,
And behold, with the clouds of heaven
One like a son of man was coming,
And He came up to the Ancient of Days
And was presented before Him.”
“And to Him was given dominion,
Honor, and a kingdom,
So that all the peoples, nations, and populations of all languages
Might serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away;
And His kingdom is one
Which will not be destroyed.” Daniel 7:13, 14, NASB

But I'm getting ahead of myself. For now it's good to know from the get-go of Daniel's book that things are not usually what they seem. The Lord God is alive and well and working all things out toward his appointed end. For the believing faithful in exile, we must keep trusting and keep looking for him to bring great good out of the debris of the times we live in.

A glimpse of coming attractions