Exile and return
Daniel was a young man from Judah taken to Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem. He served Babylonian and Persian kings for decades, explained their dreams, and would not stop praying to God. For that he was thrown to the lions and came out unhurt. The second half of his book holds his visions of the future.
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Daniel and his friends are picked for training at the king’s court. They refuse the king’s food and thrive on vegetables and water.
Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a statue of gold, silver, bronze and iron. God shows Daniel the dream and its meaning.
His friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego will not bow to the golden image. They walk unburned in the fire with a fourth figure.
At King Belshazzar’s feast a hand writes on the wall. Daniel reads it: the kingdom is ended. That night Babylon falls.
A law forbids prayer to anyone but the king for 30 days. Daniel prays three times a day as before and is thrown to the lions. God shuts their mouths.
Daniel sees four beasts and “one like a son of man” given an everlasting kingdom.
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But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king’s food or with the wine he drank, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself.
Daniel 1:8He made up his mind
If that is so, our God, whom we serve, is able to rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and out of your hand, O king, he will rescue us. And if not, let it be clear to you, O king, that your gods we will not serve, and the statue of gold that you have set up we will not worship.”
Daniel 3:17-18Even if he does not
Once Daniel knew the document had been signed, he went into his house. Its upper room had windows opening toward Jerusalem, and three times each day he would kneel down, pray, and give thanks before his God, exactly as he used to do before this.
Daniel 6:10He prayed as before
Questions people ask
Each answer is marked: in the Bible, tradition, readers disagree, or not known.
Readers disagree
Tradition holds that Daniel wrote it in the 500s BC. Many scholars date its final form to about 165 BC because of how closely chapter 11 follows events of that time. Christians who hold either view read it as Scripture.
Readers disagree
He is named only in Daniel. Some identify him with Cyrus or one of Cyrus’s governors. Others think he cannot be matched to anyone known from other records.
See Daniel 5:31
In the Bible
Jesus calls himself the Son of Man and quotes this vision at his trial, so Christians read it as pointing to him.
See Mark 14:62
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