Readings:
Daniel 1-2
Colossians 2

Daniel 1-2

We start a new prophetic book today, and one of the major differences between this book and the last few Old Testament books we’ve read is that this one is not about judgment on Israel. It has a few different themes running through it, but it’s made up of three distinct parts; first is several stories from Daniel’s time in Babylon, the second is some apocalyptic visions, and the an appendix that most likely belongs earlier in the book with the stories from Babylon but is placed at the end as an appendix for several possible reasons.

The last few chapters that make up the end of Daniel are not contained in Protestant bibles because they’re only found in Greek and not Aramaic like the rest of the book. The Old Testament in use during the time of Christ was the Septuagint but the Jewish people rejected this Greek translation a couple centuries after Christ, and this tradition is followed by Martin Luther some 14 centuries later. Even in the late first century there was evidence that Jewish leaders of the day were rejecting parts of the Septuagint. Justin Martyr writes that they were removing these passages as early as AD 160

But I am far from putting reliance in your teachers, who refuse to admit that the interpretation made by the seventy elders who were with Ptolemy [king] of the Egyptians is a correct one; and they attempt to frame another. And I wish you to observe, that they have altogether taken away many Scriptures from the translations effected by those seventy elders who were with Ptolemy, and by which this very man who was crucified is proved to have been set forth expressly as God, and man, and as being crucified, and as dying; but since I am aware that this is denied by all of your nation

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho

Daniel is a noble from Jerusalem and is probably among the very first round of exiles from about 605 BC. The book opens up talking about when Nebuchadnezzar first laid siege to Jerusalem and took some of the liturgical vessels back to Babylon and put them in the temple of his god. This is most likely the temple of Marduk, because he was the highest god in the Babylonian pantheon. In the ancient near East it was common to take things from a conquered land, especially temple furnishings, and place them in the temples of your local deities, because it’s symbolically shows the overthrow of one by the other. In a few chapters time, we’ll see this doesn’t work out how they think it will.

Daniel and his friends had theophoric names, as was most names in Judah, but their names referenced the God of Judah so they get new names with the gods of Babylon instead. This was the reason behind their renaming here.

Daniel and his three friends refused to eat the food offered to them and insisted on vegetarian diets. Not that meat is completely forbidden in Old Testament law, but unless it’s drained of its blood it is not kosher. Daniel could’ve also been concerned that once cooked in lavishly seasoned dishes, they’d be unable to determine if it was from clean or unclean animals. They were in the king’s court so very far removed from the butchery of animals and preparation of meals, so this was probably done out of an abundance of caution. The point of this is that the finest meals and wines were available to him, but he prefered obedience to God over all of that.

I’m chapter 2 Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that troubles him enough to call in all the sages, magicians, wise men and the like, who are all tasked with interpreting the dream. They’re promised riches if they can interpret it, and death if they cannot. They agree but then when they ask to hear the dream the king says they must tell him what he dreamed and what it meant.

This would be hard enough, especially with a possibility of death on the line, if it was just guessing a number between 1 and 10, but this is a dream that could be any infinite number of things. It would be humanly impossible to know what someone dreamed at night, and they tell him as much.

So when the king issues a death sentence for all the wise men in the kingdom this apparently applies to Daniel and his friends, even though they’re still in their 3 year training period to be court officials. Daniel asks for a moment with the king to try and do this impossible task, and save the lives of him and his friends.

Daniel prays and God reveals to him what to say to Nebuchadnezzar. He goes before the king and says that this task is humanly impossible, as his own wise men and priests have already told him, but that God has revealed it to him. The phrase he uses “latter days” can be misinterpreted, especially by those of a dispensationalist worldview, to mean the end of time, but it was a phrase that was somewhat common in the Old Testament and it refers mainly to the age of the messiah.

The dream is told in detail in the text here so we don’t need to go over it, but a few of the symbolic elements I’d like to touch on. The fact that the image is representative of great empires is symbolic of the idolization of worldly power, and the fact that it’s all being foretold and then interpreted by the power of the God of Daniel shows that he is in control of not just the destiny and fate of the hebrews, but of all the nations. He causes the rise and fall of empires and controls the flow of history according to his perfect plan.

The head of gold is Babylon, the silver is representing the Persian empire that will overthrow Babylon in a few decades, then Alexander the Great and his Hellenistic empire will in turn overthrow the Persians, and finally the legs of iron are the Romans. The idol becomes progressively less valuable and more durable in strength and endurance as you descend. But the legs are not purely iron, they have clay mixed in around the feet and that causes the iron to be unstable and brittle. This causes division, and anyone that’s studied Roman history can see this division and brittle strength from the time of Caesar gets progressively worse until the division becomes almost complete in the reign of Diocletian. The clay mixing in might represent the western empires attempts at resettlement of Germanic tribes along its frontier that only led to more instability and the eventual fall of the western Roman Empire.

The stone is Christ, and the mountain that grows out of it is the kingdom of God. Christ being killed on the mountain top of Jerusalem and seating himself in glory upon his throne, the cross. This kingdom is everlasting and it shatters the idolatry of polytheism in its wake.

Colossians 2

Paul preemptively tells them that they are close to his heart and often in his thoughts, despite having never met in person. He tells them this in case the false teachers that were undermining him in other places make their way to their city. They would probably start by questioning how long it had been since they seen Paul or received a letter from him, so he cuts this off before it begins.

He warns them against the false teachers that would tell them they had to live by the Mosaic Law, and that gentile converts were not “fully Christian” until they were circumcised. He says they may not be circumcised in the flesh, but that they were circumcised in Christ. This is referring to baptism as the circumcision of the heart.

Paul says that all the feasts and sabbaths and regulations of the old covenant were just a shadow of what was to come, and that promise to come is Christ. He is the fulfillment of the old covenant, so if you are in him you are observing the heart of the old covenant through Jesus.

Tomorrow’s Readings:
Daniel 3
Colossians 3-4