The Lesson in Darius’ Decree

 

When we were studying Daniel back in December and got to the story of Daniel being protected in the lion’s den, I thought it was really interesting to read the decree King Darius sent out to his people afterwards. You’d think it would be something like, “Daniel’s God does signs and saves and delivered Daniel from the lions,” but there is more to it.

26 I make a decree, That in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel: for he is the living God, and steadfast for ever, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be even unto the end.

27 He delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions. (Dan. 6:26-27)

When even the conquering gentile king acknowledges God’s kingdom will not be destroyed, that’s a strong encouraging message to the Jews. It’s probably the main message of the book to the Jews, who had their kingdom taken over. It’s to remind them that God’s kingdom can exist even if their nation didn’t have independent political power. The Jews of Daniel’s day didn’t yet know that.  

Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the statue and the stone cut out without hands

https://www.lds.org/manual/old-testament-seminary-student-study-guide/daniel-2?lang=eng

My husband and I were reading Daniel 2 for our family scripture study, and my husband brought up an interesting question about the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the statue that eventually is broken in pieces by the stone cut out of the mountain without hands.  He said, “I have wondered why the Lord gave that dream to Nebuchadnezzar.”

I started to think about it and seemed to me that the dream may have been an answer to a question that Nebuchadnezzar had.  Can we get an idea of what this question might have been?

The dream essentially depicted a succession of earthly kingdoms and their relative comparison one with each other, ending with a symbolic representation of how the Lord’s kingdom would supersede them all.  This suggests Nebuchadnezzar had been pondering whether Babylon as a kingdom would be permanent or temporary, and if temporary, how long Babylon would last, and how it would compare with the other kingdoms afterward.   This would be a perfectly natural and legitimate issue for a ruler to think about, considering the effort they put into acquiring territory, creating order, and administering laws.  They would wonder how long it would last and how they would be remembered in history.

That the Lord gave Nebuchadnezzar this dream shows that the Lord knew his thoughts and questions and wanted to answer them.  It shows us that the Lord may give revelation in dreams to whomever He wishes, whether the receiver is converted or not.  We also see that this dream was directly related to Nebuchadnezzar’s stewardship as a king.  It gave him perspective about his role on the world’s stage.  He learned his kingdom was quite glorious by worldly standards in comparison with other later kingdoms, but that it still would be broken in pieces by the Lord’s kingdom and agency.  (Quite a mixed message, huh?)

Another question then arises from the first question.  Why then did Nebuchadnezzar require his wise men to tell him the dream as well as the interpretation of it?  It sounds like a petulant command of a man determined to trap his wise men.  From their complaint “There is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean,” (Daniel 2:10) they clearly think it unreasonable to expect them to read his mind.

However, we don’t know what powers these astrologers and magicians claimed for themselves.  We might suppose they claimed to speak for the Babylonian gods and to interpret omens to show the will of the gods.  If so, Nebuchadnezzar would have wondered how he might be able to tell whether they really could do as they said.  With this dream, Nebuchadnezzar realized he had been given something to know for sure about the will of the gods (or God) and he would surmise to himself, “If they claim to understand the will of the gods, then they should be able to have the gods tell them the dream and interpret it without me telling what it is, and if they can’t, then they don’t really know what they claim to know.” 

I don’t think Nebuchadnezzar was testing God here.  I don’t think he was yet to the point that he was identifying who was God among all the gods he knew of.  But I think he knew there was some source of divine intelligence out there that had communicated with him and he was trying to figure out who else had that personal connection.  I think I was testing his wise men to see who among them had a similar (or better) relationship with that divine source (who we know to be God). 

The dream also means something to Daniel, a Jew captive in Babylon.  It shows him that the power of Babylon is only temporary and eventually the Lord will triumph over all earthly powers.  It is a message of encouragement, and it is all the more powerful, coming as it does as a dream to a gentile king. 

How does this help us today?  I think it shows us that God can communicate with rulers of nations even today and answer their questions about their stewardships.  Of course, they may still make choices that aren’t the best and which bring unhappy consequences.   Nebuchadnezzar had to learn from going mad for seven years that God had power over him to exalt him or abase him.   Still, it is wonderful to know that God does not leave leaders alone to flounder.

Daniel, a type of Christ

The story of Daniel and the lion's den makes Daniel a very good type of Christ.

• Daniel was faithful (Christ was faithful)
• Daniel’s faithfulness was used against him by wicked, jealous rulers. (Christ’s faithfulness was used against him by wicked jealous rulers of the Jews)
• The gentile king believed Daniel and wanted to save him. (Pilate believed Jesus was innocent and wanted to save him.)
• The gentile king was forced to condemn Daniel to the punishment of the law. (Pilate was forced to condemn Jesus to the punishment of Roman law.)
• Daniel was put into a den of lions. (Jesus was put into a tomb.)
• A stone was laid on the mouth of the den. (A stone was laid on the mouth of Jesus’s tomb.)
• Daniel was to be torn by the lions. (Jesus was torn by scourging and by the cross.)
• Daniel came out of the lion’s den unharmed. (Jesus was raised from the dead with all his wounds healed.)

Daniel Purposed In His Heart

But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. (Daniel 1:8)

I think it is notable that Daniel made this determination in himself when he found his beliefs in conflict with the policies of those in charge of him. I think this story is very applicable to us today, surrounded as we are by the world.

The scriptures say that Daniel would not defile himself with the king’s meat. I used to think it was odd that Daniel was picky about what meat he would eat, until I remembered that the Law of Moses is pretty specific about what animals are “clean” and what animals are “unclean”. It is likely that Daniel was being given all kinds of strange creatures to eat.

Daniel provides us a great model to follow whenever people with authority over us ask us to do things against our standards. Daniel didn’t stew about what he was given to eat (pardon the pun); he went to a person who could make a decision and he explained himself. He also proposed an alternative and even an experiment so that results could be judged. (How scientific! A dietary experiment is recorded in the Bible!) Daniel’s strategy shows us that when we object to something, it would be wise of us to suggest an alternative course of action.

I faced this kind of situation in several of my classes as a Literature, Writing, and Film major at ASU. I knew as I registered for my Introduction to Film class that some films would be shown that would strongly conflict with my personal viewing standards, but the class was required for my major. Like Daniel, I purposed in my heart that I would not defile myself. I determined that I would talk to my teacher about it before the semester began and I fasted about what I should say before I went to see her. I told her about my concerns and my personal viewing standards and I offered to view alternative films and do extra work. We were able to arrive at an agreement. I found that because I chose clean films to do my film analysis papers on, I was able to look more carefully at the artistic elements and give more substantial commentary on them.

As another example, in my first poetry class, we were required to make five semester goals. For one of my goals, I determined that I was going to keep my poetry positive. I knew it was far too easy for poetry to become a medium for venting and ranting and mourning and spewing all kinds of cynical thoughts. As the semester progressed, I found that my goal was an extra constraint that required me to develop extra creativity. In particular, I gravitated toward a speculative approach. At the end of two semesters of poetry classes, my teacher told me she always looked forward to my poems and workshops of other people’s poems.

When we decide that we will not defile ourselves and we make an effort to work with authority to find alternatives, we are blessed. It’s not necessarily easy and we may be misunderstood and thought prudish and too sensitive, but we will have learned while staying pure.