Today, I am reading and commenting on  Daniel 1-2.

I really like the story of how Daniel and his friends chose to eat only foods which met Jewish dietary laws.  The first aspect of the story shows us four young men who were brave enough to request of their captors a less enjoyable experience in order to remain faithful to their beliefs.  The second aspect of the story shows us that God rewarded them for their faithfulness by making healthier and more capable of learning than their counterparts.  From what is written and what we know of the diets of the elites of the day, the diet chosen by Daniel and his companions was probably healthier than that of their counterparts.  But the moral of the story is NOT that they excelled because they ate a healthier diet.  The moral of the story is that they excelled because they were faithful in honoring God.

I have often spent a lot of time considering the meaning of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.  However, today I want to focus on what this story tells us about our relationship with God.  When Nebuchadnezzar made his demand on the wise men present, their response was that only the gods can meet that demand and they are not available to us to ask.  Daniel had a different response.  He agreed with the other wise men in stating that only a god could provide what the king asked, but he saw it differently.  First, Daniel took the position that there was only one God, not many gods.  Second, Daniel believed that God would communicate with those who sought Him.  Therefore, Daniel turned to God in prayer, and asked his friends to do likewise.  The other wise men viewed the gods as beings who were inaccessible to men.  Daniel and his friends viewed God as one to whom they could turn for guidance.  Let us be like them: faithfully honoring God in the face of other’s skepticism, and prayerfully seeking His guidance.

I want to make one other point.  In the book of Daniel, his friends are mostly referred to by the Babylonian names they were given, but Daniel is mostly referred to by his Hebrew name.  Related to that is the fact that Ezekiel refers to a man by the name of Daniel who was legendary for his wisdom and righteousness.  So, the reason Daniel was not referred to more in the book of Daniel as Belteshazaar was so that people would see that he was similarly wise and righteous as his legendary namesake.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.