Daniel

Daniel (Hebrew Daniyyel, "God is my judge") was a Judean exile of noble or royal descent who rose to high office in the courts of Babylon and Persia and became one of Scripture's great prophets, the human figure behind the book that bears his name. His life models unwavering faithfulness to God amid a pagan empire, and his visions opened a window onto the rise and fall of world kingdoms and the everlasting kingdom of God.

Daniel was carried to Babylon in the first deportation under Nebuchadnezzar, around 605 BC, and chosen with other promising youths for training in the language and learning of the Chaldeans (Daniel 1:3–4). Renamed Belteshazzar, he nonetheless "resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food" (Daniel 1:8), and God gave him and his three companions — Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah — wisdom and skill beyond all the king's wise men. God further granted Daniel the ability to interpret dreams and visions: he made known and interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the great statue, declaring that "the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed" (Daniel 2:44), and later read the mysterious handwriting on the wall at Belshazzar's feast, announcing the fall of Babylon that very night (Daniel 5:25–28).

Under Darius the Mede, Daniel's excellence provoked the envy of rival officials, who trapped the king into a decree forbidding prayer to anyone but himself. Daniel continued to pray toward Jerusalem three times a day as before (Daniel 6:10), was cast into the den of lions, and was delivered unharmed because he trusted in his God (Daniel 6:22) — one of the Bible's most enduring testimonies to faithful courage and divine rescue. He served into the reign of Cyrus the Persian, spanning the whole period of the exile.

The book's second half records Daniel's own apocalyptic visions (chapters 7–12): the four beasts and the "Ancient of Days," before whom comes "one like a son of man" given everlasting dominion (Daniel 7:13–14) — a title Jesus claimed for Himself; the prophecy of the seventy weeks (Daniel 9:24–27); and a vision of resurrection, when "those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life" (Daniel 12:2). Daniel also searched the prophecy of Jeremiah and understood the seventy years of exile (Daniel 9:2), responding in fervent confession and intercession. Jesus cited Daniel's "abomination of desolation" in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:15), and the New Testament's apocalyptic imagery, especially in Revelation, draws deeply on his visions. Ezekiel, his contemporary, names Daniel as a byword for righteousness and wisdom (Ezekiel 14:14).