Team Talk
Bible Heroes
The Life of Daniel
The life of Daniel can be read in his own writings in the book of Daniel and in Ezekiel 14:14, 20; 28:3; and Mark
13:14. There are some striking similarities between the life of Daniel and that of Jacob’s son Joseph. Both of
them prospered in foreign lands after interpreting dreams for their rulers, and both were elevated to high office
as a result of their faithfulness to God.
After Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, besieged Jerusalem, he chose of Israel’s royal household noble men who
were handsome and showed an aptitude for learning, to be trained in the ways of the Babylonians. After their
three years’ training, they would be put into the king’s service (Daniel 1:1-6). Daniel, whose name means “God is
my judge,” and his three countrymen from Judea were chosen and given new names. Daniel became
“Belteshazzar,” while Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah became “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.” The
Babylonians believed that, by giving them new names that were completely disassociated with their Hebrew
roots, Daniel and his friends would become subservient to their new rulers and the culture they now lived in.
Daniel and his compatriots proved to be the wisest of all the trainees, and at the end of their training, they
entered the service of King Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel’s first sign of faithfulness to God was when he and his
countrymen rejected the rich food and wine from the king’s table, because they deemed it a defilement, and
became vegetarians. As their health improved, they were permitted to continue with their chosen diet. In their
education, the four men from Judah became knowledgeable in all Babylonian matters, and Daniel was given by
God the ability to understand dreams and visions of all kinds (Daniel 1:17).
In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar was troubled with a dream that he could neither remember nor
interpret. His magicians and astrologers were unable to interpret a dream, much less to know what the dream
was. The king decreed that all the wise men, including Daniel and his companions, must be put to death.
However, after Daniel sought God in prayer, the mystery of the king’s dream was revealed to Daniel, and he was
taken to the king to interpret it. Daniel immediately attributed his ability to interpret dreams to the one true God
(Daniel 2:28). The key feature of the dream, as Daniel told it to the king, was that one day there will be a
kingdom set up by God that will last forever, and that it will destroy all previous kingdoms known to man (Daniel
2:44-45). With this, Daniel was honored by King Nebuchadnezzar and placed in authority over all the wise men
of Babylon. At Daniel’s request, his three countrymen were also placed in positions of authority as
administrators of Babylon.
In time, King Nebuchadnezzar built a huge golden statue and decreed that all his people bow down
and worship it at the given signal. His decree went on to say that whoever refused to bow down to
it would be thrown into a blazing furnace (Daniel 3:6). Word reached the king that Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego were not worshipping his gods or the statue, and so they were summoned
to Nebuchadnezzar’s court. Faced with being thrown into a blazing furnace, the three faithfully
announced that their God could rescue them from the fire, but even if He did not, they would not
bow down to the image (vss. 16-18). The furnace was so hot, seven times its normal heat, that the
king’s soldiers were killed while putting the three into it. Then Nebuchadnezzar saw that there were
four men in the furnace, completely unbound and walking about and that the fourth figure looked
like he was a son of a god (vs.25). When the king called them out of the furnace, he and his
governors were amazed to find that not a single hair of their heads had been scorched, nor was
there even the merest smell of fire about them.
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