Foundry United
Rev.
“Life in the Lion’s Den: Sermons about Daniel”
Sunday, January 2,
2011
Rev.
Exile in a Palace
Daniel 1:8-16
The Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible is the story of four young people who grew up in the part of the nation of Israel called Judah. Their ethnicity was Judean and their religion was Judaism. Their names were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. In Hebrew their names meant: Daniel – "God is my Judge," Hananiah – "God has favored," Mishael – "He who is what God is," and Azariah – "Yahweh has helped." These were good and pious Judean names. They were no doubt the children of pious and traditional Judean families.
They were young people when the Chaldeans who had conquered the great and ancient city and empire of Babylon set siege to Judah and conquered Judah.
The King of the Chaldeans was named Nebuchadnezzar. King Nebuchadnezzar ordered his palace master, his chief of staff, Ashpenaz, to bring the brightest and best of the young people of Judah to his palace to become part of his palace staff.
Daniel 1:4 says Ashpenaz was to choose: "young men without physical defect and handsome, versed in every branch of wisdom, endowed with knowledge and insight, and competent to serve in the king's palace."
They were to be healthy, smart, good looking, educated, and competent. Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were the ones selected.
So the Book of Daniel is the story of the experiences of these four bright, gifted, good looking, talented Judeans in the Chaldean palace.
This is where we will be spending the month of January…in the Chaldean palace in Babylon with the four young people from Judah as they live out their lifetimes in exile in a palace. Our goal is to see what we can learn from their experience and from their faith.
So let's try to understand the context of the story.
First, there is the king – King Nebuchadnezzar, ruler of the Chaldean Empire, the former Babylonian Empire, the largest and most powerful empire known in human history prior to the Roman Empire. It was the empire that finally managed to defeat even the mighty Egyptian Empire.
Nebuchadnezzar was a warrior king; he was a general. His father Nabopolassar was the first king of the Chaldean dynasty. Nebuchadnezzar led his armies. He was a ruthless general. It was General Nebuchadnezzar who led the Chaldean armies against the Egyptians and defeated them; he expanded the Chaldean Empire into Arabia. He carried off the great artistic treasures of Arabia and took them back to the palace in Babylon.
When his father died he became king and, as king, he continues to expand his empire into the regions of Sythia and Phonecia.
He also applied the ruthless brilliance he had displayed as a general to the building up of the city. He built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. He enclosed the city within impenetrable walls. He built a kind of towering building called a ziggurat, a tower so tall and impressive that it was the basis of the story of the tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis. He built the Ishtar Gate out of cedar and blue tiles, another wonder of the ancient world.
Nebuchadnezzar revived Chaldean religion with its hundreds of gods. He built temples to the god Marduk who was the supreme god of the Chaldean pantheon of gods and goddesses. Marduk was a god of aggression and conquest and power. Nebuchadnezzar covered the ceiling of Marduk's temple with gold and silver. It was one of the most ornate and beautiful temples ever built for any god. Nebuchadnezzar filled the entire city of Babylon with statues of the gods.
Nebuchadnezzar greatly developed the study of astrology, dream interpretation, and divination (which were the sciences of his time). Babylonian during the Chaldean era was considered the intellectual capital of the world. The Book of Daniel is written within the intellectual assumptions of its time in which astrology and dream interpretation are considered sophisticated intellectual pursuits. And we would probably have never gotten to the sciences we study today without them.
Nebuchadnezzar was a man with great appetites, a man subject to great rages, and capable of great violence. No king in his era was, or is still today, more famous. He is discussed in six books of the Old Testament, ten rabbinic commentaries, six books of the Apocrypha, a number of Arabic commentaries, as well as within Greek and Latin literature.
In contrast to King Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldean palace, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were from Judah. This was long after Israel's time of being a global power under the leadership of kings David and Solomon, and even then their empire had never equaled anything like the Chaldean Empire in size, power, or accomplishment. During the three hundred years between the death of King Solomon and the time that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judah, Israel had grown smaller and smaller, and weaker and weaker. Ten of the 12 tribes of Israel had been lost, their lands conquered, and all that remained were the two smallest tribes of Judah and Benjamin, a small region known as Judah.
For the past 300 years Judah had mostly been a vassal nation of whichever empire was greatest at the time. Its best hope was to be overlooked. It was not a center for anything. It was a backwater.
Probably the only reason Nebuchadnezzar bothered to take the time and effort to conquer Judah was because of the temple in Jerusalem, which had ancient plates and goblets made of precious metals which Nebuchadnezzar took and brought to his palace to be used in ceremonies honoring the Chaldean gods.
Daniel 1:1-2 says:
In the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. The Lord let King Jehoiakim of Judah fall into his power, as well as some of the vessels of the house of God. These he brought to the land of Shinar, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his gods.
Nebuchadnezzar wanted the vessels of precious metals from the temple for his gods. And apparently he wanted the healthiest, smartest, best-looking, most competent young people of Judah.
Now, here's what I want to say today as we begin this study.
What Nebuchadnezzar did is what power always does. Power always claims the smartest, best-looking, and most competent for itself.
How else do you suppose we all got here to Washington?
Empire always brings the smartest, best-looking, and most competent to its capitol and into its palace.
We don't know whether Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were forcible taken to the palace, or whether they were recruited, or seduced, or offered internships, or scholarships. It doesn't matter. Power always finds a way to attract the best and the brightest.
Then power always tries to do what Nebuchadnezzar and his chief of staff Ashpenaz tried to do to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
Nebuchadnezzar and Ashpenaz tried to strip Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of their identities and heritage.
First, they gave them new names.
Look at Daniel 1:7
The palace master gave them other names: Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego.
He took away their Judaic names. He replaced their names with titles. They became known not by their upbringing or their heritage or their background or their personality, but by their functions. When your position description or your job title becomes more important than your name, you'll know you are in the palace.
Second, the specific names he gave them are very important. Their Judaic names had religious meanings. They were all about Judaic values.
Daniels new name Belteshazzar was actually the name of a Chaldean god. Nebuchadnezzar says in Daniel 4:8 about Daniel – "he was named Belteshazzar after the name of my god."
Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego were names of other Chaldean gods.
This was a big deal, because Judaism despised idols. It was the first two of the big Ten Commandments. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make unto yourself any graven images – no idols.
Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego were the names of idols.
Nebuchadnezzar and Ashpenaz tried to take away their religious identity, their religious values, their religious heritage.
There was a third way that Nebuchadnezzar and Ashpenaz tried to strip Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of their identities.
Scholars debate this, but Ashpenaz's title in Daniel 1:3 is, in Hebrew rX [sar] of the yro [saw-reece' ], which can be translated prince of the eunuchs. They made Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah eunuchs. This is an important part of the story. I can't cover it this morning, but I am going to talk about it next week.
In exchange for what the palace took from them, what did Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah get?
Daniel 1:5 says:
The king assigned them a daily portion of the royal rations of food and wine. They were to be educated for three years, so that at the end of that time they could be stationed in the king's court.
They got an education. Three years. An empire quality education; a Georgetown education; a GW, an AU education.
They got access to the king and the king's court. They got access to power.
And they got a royal salary. Royal rations of food and wine.
So here is one of the questions we encounter in the Book of Daniel. What are we willing to give up for access to power? What are we willing to give up for an empire quality education? What are we willing to give up for royal rations of food and wine?
Daniel gave it all up. He gave up his name. He was given the name of an idol. He became an eunuch.
He gave up a lot.
But in order to save his soul in the palace, he needed a practice. His practice was to eat a kosher diet, which in his circumstance, because there was no other kosher food, was a diet of vegetables and water.
Daniel did not distain education; he did not distain access to power; he did not distain life in the palace. Daniel became a friend and advisor to a dynasty of kings, but he needed a practice that helped him know who he really was.
People of faith belong in places of power where decisions that impact the world are being made. We don't need to wear our faith on our sleeve. We don't need to use the familiar religious words. We can even use words and ideas that would scandalize the folk back in Judah. We can be known by the names of gods we don't believe in.
But, in the palace, we need a practice that tells us who we really are.
This is why Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah ate kosher food. And it is why we eat this holy meal. We can, must, should be in the palace, but we need a practice.
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