Chapter 1. The Captives in Babylon
Chapter 1. The Captives in Babylon With what sorrow of heart for the degraded condition of the people of God, and with what holy and wholesome fear, we contemplate this judgment of the almighty Lawgiver, in reading the opening verses of this prophecy of Daniel! At the same time we cannot but with worshipful hearts pay tribute to the patience and righteousness of the God of Israel: patience in His bearing for so many centuries with a people that, in spite of all the mercy and grace exhibited on their behalf, only knew how to be obstinate, thankless, contentious, and rebellious, from the hour in which He took them up when they were slaves in Egypt, until the day in which His sanctuary became defiled by the enemy, who poured through the gates of Jerusalem, his victorious armies: righteousness that could not go indefinitely with a people that joined hand in hand with the nations that were the original inhabitants of the promised land, and whom they were to dispossess, on account of the abominations that they had practised. The patience of God may for a little while hold back the righteous judgments demanded by the wickedness of the creature, for though judgment is His strange work, a work in which He has no pleasure, still it is His work and when the time arrives in which, were there any longer delay, an impression might be given to His intelligent creatures that rebellion against His authority was neither offensive to Him, nor ruinous to the rebel, He is certain to show His wrath, for a false impression to His universe He can never give. He can no more act a lie than He can speak a lie. The lesson we have to learn is the truth, and no other lesson is set before us. The order of creation may appear to us in a way that is not really what it is, but this forms no part of the lesson that God is teaching us, and our ignorance of such things is no loss to us, neither is our knowledge of them the slightest gain. The natural impression we have from the order of creation is, that the earth is a fiat plain, and in the heavens above our heads are stored the light, the warmth, and the refreshment, that make life possible upon earth. And when we come to the Scriptures we find no absolute contradiction of this. We are left, as far as these things are concerned, in our native ignorance. By the way in which He has placed us with respect to these things we are taught moral lessons, which are of more importance to us than astronomy, however interesting a subject it be. By the way in which the universe presents itself to our gaze we learn that every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning (Jas 1:17). The lights in the heavens give us, as I have said, light and warmth; and they are for signs, seasons, days, and years; and the clouds drop down the rain, and water the earth, and therefore there is seed for the sower, and bread for the eater, and men’s hearts are filled with food and gladness. When man learns the great truth as to the universe he is not morally bettered. The study of astronomy has made infidels, never believers; and there is nothing to hinder the greatest astronomer upon earth being the most immoral. The Scriptures are well piloted through numberless questions that are of no value to the soul of man. It is by the Lamb without blemish and without spot, who shed His blood for our redemption, that we believe in God, not through the knowledge of the starry vault. Astronomers have been infidels, and astronomers have been believers in Jesus; but it was not astronomy that made those infidels, but rather the conceit with which his little discoveries filled his foolish heart; neither was it astronomy that made these believers. It was pride of heart that made the infidel, and it was the grace of God that made the believer. The eternal power and divinity of God are witnessed in creation, but His heart of love is declared in redemption; and we love Him, not because He made the worlds, but because He first loved us (1Jn 4:19). And, indeed, the better we know the work of His love, the more we shall appreciate the work of His hands, and it is the knowledge of the work of His love that calls forth the worship of our hearts. The long-suffering of the Lord with that guilty nation had come to an end. They had failed Him completely. In His purpose, with respect to His government of the earth, He had marked out a position of distinction and great honour for them, but they had proved themselves to be a foolish people, a nation void of understanding, and utterly unworthy of the trust He had purposed to commit to them, and which He had made known to them by His servant Moses. Their spot was not the spot of His children. They rather bore the marks and characteristics of the ancient and primal rebel. They were a perverse and crooked generation, children in whom there was no faithfulness. They had proved themselves to be all this before they ever entered the promised land. Of them He says, “Their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter: their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps” (Deu 32:32-33).
Yet had He marked out a great place for them, as I have said. He calls to them in the love that they had so wantonly despised, and He says, “Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people [the Gentile nations] according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance” (Deu 32:7-9). Israel was to be the centre of the nations, a kingdom of priests, God’s peculiar treasure, through whom the nations would get light and nourishment; with God in their midst they would bear rule over the whole earth. But all this failed through their going after strange gods, and now in Daniel’s day power was in the hands of the proud Gentile. The throne of government was now in Babylon, and not in Jerusalem, and the people that should have borne rule over the whole earth were slaves by the streams of that idolatrous land. They might hang their harps on the willows and shed bitter tears as they thought of Zion, but they were back once more in the house of bondage, and wider the iron rule of the heartless oppressor, and tears availed them nothing. The time to weep is when the evil presents itself to us, and when we feel within us the tendency to gratify our carnal desires, for then we may expect the intervention of God in our deliverance, that our feet may be kept in the pathway of His will. It is late, though not surely too late, to weep before the Lord when we have fallen under the power of the evil, and the hand of God is upon us in the way of chastisement. I say it is not too late even then to mourn before the Lord, but it would have been better and happier had we mourned before Him, when we felt the tendency to give the flesh a little gratification. If we weep and chasten our own souls we are not likely to require to come under the chastening of the Lord. At the same time, the circumstances into which our waywardness has brought us we cannot always expect to be altered, but if our souls are truly restored to Him we can count on His presence with us in the circumstances.
It was true for the captives brought to Babylon from the hills and valleys of Judea, the penitent and the faithful amongst them enjoyed no less the favour of God in captivity than they did in their own beloved land, for the compassions of God are above and beyond the best thought of even the human heart renewed by grace. Was it nothing to Him to behold the walls of Jerusalem broken down by the proud idolater, the holy vessels of the Sanctuary in the house of the idols, as trophies of their victories, and the people of His choice either slaughtered unmercifully or in the chains of slavery? From what spring did the lamentations of Jeremiah the prophet flow but from that of divine affection produced by the Holy Spirit of the living God? And what were such lamentations compared with the tears of the rejected Messiah, and the cry that came from His lips as He contemplated the sorrows that were yet to fall upon the beloved city? “How often,” He says, “would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not.” The woes that fell upon Israel were from a human standpoint heartbreaking, but from a divine standpoint infinitely more so.
God had brought the people out of the land of Egypt, and from the house of bondage, where they were compelled to make bricks, and find the straw for that work wherever they could. For the moment they were glad to escape the drudgery and cruelty to which they had been so long subjected, but before they had crossed the Red Sea their thankless and faithless hearts were crying out bitterly against the God of their salvation. He divided the sea before them, so that they crossed into the desert on dry land, and He overthrew the host of Pharaoh in the waters that had been their salvation. He bore with their rebellious ways in the wilderness for a period of forty years, and eventually brought them into the land, driving out the nations from before their faces, and that by signs and wonders innumerable. But what their fathers had been in the wilderness the sons manifested themselves to be in the land—a generation of rebels. But for centuries in the land He bore with their lawless behaviour. He pleaded with them by the love He had manifested to them from the beginning of His intervention on their behalf. He hewed them by His prophets, He slew them by the words of His mouth, He chastised them with the rod of the original inhabitants of the land, who were pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides, He scourged them by means of the attacks of the nations, until from the head to the feet they were wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, which had not been bound up, neither mollified with ointment, and all to no purpose. He has to say to them, “Why should ye be stricken any more ye will only revolt more and more” (Isa 1:5). And now they were captives in a strange land, outwardly disowned by the God of their fathers, to be dealt with according to the caprice of an autocratic and idolatrous monarch, and to shed fruitless tears at every remembrance of Zion. Surely the way of transgressors is hard. Yet is the Lord righteous, for their rebellion against His commandment had been great. The king and the seed-royal in the hand and under the power of the Gentile monarch, and the holy vessels in the idol’s temple, bear witness to the righteousness of the God of Israel. But the God-fearing remnant, while they have to suffer along with the rebellious on account of the sin of the nation, and indeed much more than the rebellious, for their faithfulness to Jehovah brings upon them additional suffering, are not left without the protecting hand of the God whom they serve; and in the case of Daniel and of his compatriots this fact is abundantly verified. They more than all others seem to have to suffer, but their sufferings only serve as an occasion for the manifestation of the power of God on their behalf. If the face of the Lord is against them that do evil, His eyes are over the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry (see 1Pe 3:12). Whatever may be the external circumstances of the professed people of God, and however terribly His hand may seem to be against them, those that are faithful to His name and interests are ever the special objects of His protecting care and guardianship. Therefore we may boldly say, “The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me” (Heb 13:6).
Neither Daniel nor his three friends will defile themselves with that meat that was furnished to them from the table of the king. The nation of Israel had been put under certain laws that regulated the food they were to eat, while the Gentiles ate whatever their souls lusted after. The Jewish food regulations had a typical bearing, and now that that order of things is over we are told by the Spirit in His Word that, “Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1Ti 4:4-5). But this liberty was not accorded to the nation of Israel, who were still under the shadow of good things to come, while we have come to the substance.
Therefore these captives, at whatever cost to themselves, are determined to obey God rather than men. It might have endangered their heads thus to set the king at defiance; and this unquestionably would have been their fate, if it had come to the ears of the king that they had so done. Nothing but the direct intervention of God could have saved them. But their minds were made up, and they were thoroughly agreed that it was better to part with life than that they should trespass against the distinct commandment of the living God. This might have been viewed by those set over them by the king as stupid obstinacy at the very outset of their captivity, and by it they might have made enemies of those with whom they seem to have found favour. Besides all this, those who were responsible for their healthy appearance, when the day would come in which they would have to stand before the king, might have been condemned to death. But it was no accident their being in Babylon, and He who brought them there was watching over them, and had in His hand the hearts of those set over them, and their request for a time of trial with pulse and water for their nourishment was granted. And in the end, through the rich mercy of God, Melzar had no reason to regret the leniency he exercised on their behalf; they were fairer and fatter than all those who had eaten of the king’s meat. They were in the hand of God, who took care of their bodies, for He had a purpose with regard to their presence in Babylon, and until that purpose was accomplished they were as safe from harm as are the elect angels in heaven. God filled the vision of their souls, and not Nebuchadnezzar. The king’s wrath may be like the roaring of a lion, but when it is a question between him and the living God, the roar of the king is not heard in the soul of the faithful believer. The witnesses for God in this world are never thrown upon their own natural resources. He maintains His own testimony by whomsoever He will, in His own method, and by His own power, for the natural resources of the creature are valueless in the struggle between light and darkness. We have only to do what we are told in His Word, and leave the consequences to Him. He is well able to take care of His own interests, and nothing that is left in His hands can go wrong. The difficulty is, that we get nervous about ourselves, and wonder what is going to happen to us; while if we only could leave ourselves and everything that concerns us to His care, and in obedience to His revealed will attend to His interests, how peaceful and happy we should be! A sparrow cannot fall to the ground without our Father; and we are of more value than many sparrows. If He is determined to have us here for Himself, an army of murderers could have no power against us; if it were His blessed will that we should seal the testimony committed to us with our blood, what does it matter? “Whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom 14:8).
He had need of Daniel and his companions in Babylon, and whatever dangers might menace them as His witnesses, in Babylon they were to abide. And all the equipment that was necessary for the service with which they were to be entrusted came from Himself, “God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.” By divine teaching these servants of the living God left far behind, in wisdom and understanding, all the magicians and astrologers that were in the whole realm of the king. No man goes a warfare at his own charges. In the service of God we have not to make bricks without straw. A man may be very clever, but his natural cleverness would be very little service to him in conflict with the devil; in that conflict his cleverness goes for nothing Paul says, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (1Co 10:4-5). The carnal weapon was of no value in the work of the Lord, and therefore was it discarded by the Apostle. He had learned that all that is done for God in this world must be done in God’s power, and therefore did he glory in infirmities, that the power of Christ might rest upon him. The disciples, though they got their commission clearly from the Lord before His ascension, were told to tarry at Jerusalem until they would be endowed with power from on high (Luk 24:1-53); and Peter speaks of those who had preached the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven (1Pe 1:12). God’s testimony is maintained by God’s power.
It might have been thought that the subjection of the earthly people of God to Gentile domination was as truly a loss to Jehovah as to the people, for the destruction of their city, and all else that happened to them, gave a kind of warrant for the notion that the gods of Babylon had triumphed, and that the God of Israel had suffered a humiliating defeat. When He spoke of destroying the people in the desert for their refusing to go up into the promised land, Moses pleads against it on the ground of the disastrous effect such a thing would have upon His name among the nations of the earth, who would say that He had destroyed the nation because of His inability to bring them into the land (Num 14:1-45). Also in Deu 32:26-27 we read, “I said I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men: were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the Lord has not done all this.” He will not act in a way that shall give a false impression to His creature, and thus increase the darkness in which that creature walks. To enable the soul to find its way to God there is enough light in the darkest corner of the earth. Where men are in darkness it is because they prefer the darkness to the light, and not because there is no light shining. God never leaves Himself without witness. Surely there are greater and lesser degrees of light, but the least light in which men may be found, is sufficient to lead them to feel after Him, and if they do, they will find Him; for He is not far from every one of us (Act 17:27). The people of Israel were God’s witnesses in the midst of a world wholly given to idolatry (Isa 43:10), but because of their unfaithfulness they had been removed from the exalted position in which they had been set to shine for Himself. But He never was left without a small remnant that were true to His name and interests, and here, in the capital of this benighted monarch, four of these lights are found brightly gleaming. The light that was despised in Jerusalem is now radiant in Babylon. Not that it was more welcome here, but one cannot doubt that some of those poor Chaldeans were illuminated by it; indeed we may be confident that the king himself came under the power of that heavenly radiance. The refusal of one nation to have the light may create the opportunity for another nation to be tested by it. The descendants of those people who, on account of their rebellion against the authority of God, were made to suffer such terrible evil at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, are seven centuries afterwards told by the great Gentile Apostle, when they had violently opposed the Gospel, “Seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles” (Act 13:46).
God is in no way dependent upon the good-will of the creature for the effectuation of His own gracious purpose. He can use the failure of the creature, his rebellious behaviour also, as well as his faithfulness, for the carrying out of all that He has in view, for defeat He has never known, nor can know. John the Baptist says to the proud Pharisees, “Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father; for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Mat 3:9). Daniel and his companions are outwardly in the darkness of idolatry, and in the hands of the Gentile autocrat; but inwardly they are in the light of heaven, and in the hands of the living God, His servants accomplishing His gracious will, and giving light that down the centuries has illuminated the souls of the faithful until this present day, and that will continue to do so, until the Son of Man shall come in His glory. Chapters 2-6 bring to our notice the prominent place in which these four light-bearers were placed, and how brightly that light shone in the midst of the prevailing darkness.