Daniel

Life and work

Daniel was among the young Judean nobles taken to Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar's first siege of Jerusalem, around 605 BC, and selected along with three companions — Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, renamed Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego — for training in the Babylonian royal court (Daniel 1:1-7). He resolved not to defile himself with the king's food, requesting a diet of vegetables and water instead, and the four were found healthier and wiser than their peers at the end of the trial period (Daniel 1:8-20).

Daniel's rise began when he alone could report and interpret Nebuchadnezzar's forgotten dream of a great statue made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay, which he explained represented a succession of kingdoms culminating in an everlasting kingdom set up by God. Nebuchadnezzar promoted him to rule over the province of Babylon and made him chief of all the wise men (Daniel 2).

When Nebuchadnezzar's three companions refused to bow to a golden image and were thrown into a fiery furnace, they emerged unharmed, accompanied — Nebuchadnezzar said — by a fourth figure 'like a son of the gods' (Daniel 3). Daniel later interpreted a second dream in which Nebuchadnezzar himself was warned of a coming humbling, fulfilled when the king was driven from human society for a time (Daniel 4).

Under Belshazzar, Daniel interpreted the mysterious handwriting that appeared on the wall during a royal feast — 'Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin' — announcing the end of Belshazzar's kingdom that very night, whereupon the text records that 'Darius the Mede' took the kingdom (Daniel 5). This chapter has generated significant scholarly discussion, since Belshazzar's exact status is now known through extra-biblical sources.

Under Persian rule, now an old man, Daniel was elevated to one of three administrators over the kingdom, provoking jealous rivals to trick King Darius into signing a decree banning prayer to anyone but the king for thirty days. Daniel continued praying openly toward Jerusalem three times a day as before, was thrown into a den of lions for it, and was found unharmed the next morning, prompting Darius to issue a decree honoring Daniel's God (Daniel 6).

The second half of the book shifts to Daniel's own apocalyptic visions: a succession of four beasts representing four kingdoms (Daniel 7), a vision of a ram and a goat concerning Persia and Greece (Daniel 8), the prophecy of 'seventy weeks' concerning the restoration of Jerusalem (Daniel 9), and a long, detailed final vision of future conflicts, concluding with a promise of resurrection for the righteous and the wicked (Daniel 10-12).

Daniel's career, as the book presents it, spanned from the Babylonian exile under Nebuchadnezzar through the reigns of Belshazzar, Darius the Mede, and into 'the third year of Cyrus king of Persia' (Daniel 10:1) — a span of roughly seven decades, making him, if the traditional chronology holds, one of the longest-serving officials across two successive empires recorded in Scripture.

Centuries later, Jesus directly named Daniel by title in his Olivet Discourse, warning his disciples to watch for 'the abomination of desolation, spoken of by the prophet Daniel' as a sign of coming crisis (Matthew 24:15) — one of the clearest direct citations by Jesus of any specific Old Testament prophetic figure by name.

Dating

Taken to Babylon as a young man in 605 BC (Daniel 1:1-6) and still active as late as Cyrus's third year, 536 BC (Daniel 10:1). His birth and death years aren't stated; tradition places his death in Babylon or Persia not long after his final vision.

Extra-biblical evidence

Scripture references

• Daniel 1-12 — The book bearing his name
• Matthew 24:15 — Jesus directly names 'Daniel the prophet' regarding the abomination of desolation
• Hebrews 11:33-34 — Widely understood as alluding to Daniel's experiences (stopping the mouths of lions, quenching fire)

Further reading

• Encyclopaedia Britannica: Daniel
• The British Museum: Nabonidus Cylinder

Reflect

Daniel kept his windows open and prayed as he always had, law or no law — what habit anchors you when the pressure rises?