Daniel

Category: Great Bible Leaders



Daniel means "God is my Judge". He is the hero of the biblical Book of Daniel. A noble Jewish youth of Jerusalem, he was taken into captivity by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and served the king and his successors with loyalty and ability until the time of the Persian conqueror Cyrus, all the while remaining true to the God of Israel.

While the best known Daniel is the hero of the Book of Daniel who interprets dreams and receives apocalyptic visions, the Bible also briefly mentions three other individuals of this name:

In Ezekiel (14:14, 14:20 and 28:3) refers to a legendary Daniel famed for wisdom and righteousness. In verse 14:14, Ezekiel says of the sinful land of Israel that "even if these three, Noah, Daniel and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness." In chapter 28, Ezekiel taunts the king of Tyre, asking rhetorically, "art thou wiser than Daniel?" The author of the Book of Daniel appears to have taken this legendary figure, renowned for his wisdom, to serve as his central human character.
The Book of Ezra (8:2) mentions a priest named Daniel who went from Babylon to Jerusalem with Ezra.
The First Book of Chronicles (3:1) mentions a son of David called Daniel.

Six cities claim the Tomb of Daniel, the most famous being that in Susa, in southern Iran, at a site known as Shush-e Daniyal.

He was not a prophet in Judaism, but the rabbis reckoned him to be the most distinguished member of the Babylonian diaspora, unsurpassed in piety and good deeds, firm in his adherence to the Law despite being surrounded by enemies who sought his ruin, and in the first few centuries CE they wrote down the many legends that had grown up around his name.

He is considered a prophet in Christianity, and although he is not mentioned in the Quran, Muslim sources describe him as a prophet.

The story of Daniel begins with how Daniel and his companions came to be in Babylon, followed by a set of tales set in the Babylonian and Persian courts, followed in turn by a set of visions in which Daniel sees the remote future of the world and of Israel. Daniel's story in Daniel 1–6 can be dated to the 3rd or early 2nd centuries BCE.


In the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim, Daniel and his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah are taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.The four are chosen for their intellect and beauty to be trained in the Babylonian court, and were given new names. Daniel was given the Babylonian name Belteshazzar, while his companions were given the Babylonian names Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Daniel and his friends refused the food and wine provided by the king of Babylon to avoid becoming defiled. They received wisdom from God and surpassed "all the magicians and enchanters of the kingdom." Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a giant statue made of four metals with feet of mingled iron and clay, smashed by a stone from heaven. Only Daniel was able to interpret it: the dream signified four kingdoms, of which Babylon was the first, God would destroy them and replace them with his own kingdom.

Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a great tree that shelters all the world and of a heavenly figure who decrees that the tree will be destroyed; again, only Daniel could interpret the dream, which concerns the sovereignty of God over the kings of the earth. When Nebuchadnezzar's son King Belshazzar used the vessels from the Jewish temple for his feast, a hand appeared that wrote a mysterious message on the wall, which only Daniel could interpret; meaning that the kingdom would be given to the Medes and Persians, because Belshazzar, unlike Nebuchadnezzar, had not acknowledge the sovereignty of the God of Daniel. The Medes and Persians overthrew Nebuchadnezzar and the new king, Darius the Mede, appointed Daniel to high authority. Jealous rivals attempted to destroy Daniel with an accusation that he worshiped God instead of the king, and Daniel was thrown into a den of lions, but an angel saved him, his accusers were destroyed, and Daniel was restored to his position.


In the third year of Darius, Daniel had a series of visions. In the first, four beasts came out of the sea, the last with ten horns, and an eleventh horn grew and achieved dominion over the Earth and the "Ancient of Days" (God) gives dominion to "one like a son of man". An angel interprets the vision. In the second, a ram with two horns was attacked by a goat with one horn; the one horn broke and was replaced by four. A little horn arose and attacked the people of God and the temple, and Daniel was informed of how long the little horn's dominion would endure. In the third, Daniel was troubled to read in holy scripture (the book was not named but could be Jeremiah) that Jerusalem would be desolate for 70 years. Daniel repented on behalf of the Jews and requested that Jerusalem and its people be restored. An angel referred to a period of 70 sevens (or weeks) of years. In the final vision, Daniel saw a period of history culminating in a struggle between the "king of the north" and the "king of the south" in which God's people suffered terribly; an angel explained that in the end the righteous would be vindicated and God's kingdom would be established on Earth.

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