The Life
Daniel was about fifteen years old when his world ended. The year was 605 B.C. The Babylonian army of King Nebuchadnezzar had just crushed the last Egyptian resistance at the battle of Carchemish; Babylon was now the master of the entire Near East. Nebuchadnezzar marched on Jerusalem, plundered the Temple, and carried away the cream of the Jewish aristocracy as hostages back to his capital city. Daniel was among them — a young man of royal lineage from the tribe of Judah, along with his three close friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The four boys were placed in a three-year educational program at the Babylonian court, where they were trained in Chaldean language, literature, and wisdom. They were given new names — Daniel became Belteshazzar, Hananiah became Shadrach, Mishael became Meshach, and Azariah became Abednego. They were dressed in finery and offered the king’s own food. They refused the food. They asked instead to eat only vegetables and water for ten days as a test, and at the end of the ten days they were healthier and stronger than all the other young men of the program. The Lord had given them favor. From that point forward, Daniel’s life was a series of impossible situations in which the Lord delivered him: interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams when no Chaldean wise man could; watching his three friends survive the fiery furnace; reading the writing on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast; surviving the lions’ den under Darius the Mede. He served at the highest levels of the Babylonian and Persian empires for over seventy years. He prophesied the coming of the Messiah down to the very week. He saw visions of the four world empires that would rise and fall before the coming of the Kingdom of God. He saw the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He died around 530 B.C., over ninety years old, having maintained perfect fidelity to the God of Israel through seven decades in the courts of pagan emperors.
When the four boys arrived at the Babylonian court, they faced their first test. The chief eunuch in charge of their three-year educational program offered them their daily portion from the king’s own table: rich meats, fine wines, every delicacy of the imperial cuisine. The food was problematic. Some of it was probably forbidden by the Mosaic dietary laws (pork, shellfish, and so on); some of it had probably been offered to Babylonian idols before being served. To eat the king’s food was to participate in the king’s religion. Daniel refused. He went to the chief eunuch and asked permission to be excused from the king’s portion. The chief eunuch was sympathetic but afraid: if the boys came out malnourished compared to the other young men of the program, his own life would be in danger. Daniel proposed a test: give us only vegetables and water for ten days, and then compare our condition to the other young men. The chief eunuch agreed. After ten days, the four Hebrew boys were visibly healthier and stronger than all the other young men of the program. The chief eunuch left them on the vegetable diet for the remainder of the three years. The Lord gave Daniel and his three friends remarkable wisdom and skill in all literature and knowledge; Daniel additionally received the supernatural gift of understanding visions and interpreting dreams. At the end of the three years, when the four boys stood before Nebuchadnezzar himself for evaluation, the king found them ten times better than any of the magicians or astrologers in his entire empire. The pattern that the boys established in the dining hall — fidelity to the God of Israel even at the cost of social pressure, willingness to be visibly different from their peers, refusal to participate in cultural practices that would compromise their religious identity — became the foundation of their entire subsequent ministry.
In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Nebuchadnezzar set up a great golden statue — ninety feet tall, nine feet wide — on the plain of Dura outside Babylon. He summoned all the officials of his vast empire to the dedication ceremony. He decreed that when the music played — horn, flute, harp, lyre, psaltery, and all kinds of music — every person was to fall down and worship the golden image. Anyone who refused would be thrown into a burning fiery furnace. The music played. Every official in the empire fell down and worshiped the image. Three Hebrew young men did not. Daniel’s three friends — Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, by their Babylonian names Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego — remained standing. Some of the king’s informers reported them to Nebuchadnezzar. The king flew into a rage. He summoned the three boys, demanded an explanation, and offered them one more chance: when the music plays again, fall down and worship, or be thrown into the furnace. “And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?” The three boys answered with one of the most extraordinary statements of faith in the entire Old Testament: “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up” (Daniel 3:17-18). Nebuchadnezzar ordered the furnace heated seven times more than usual. The flames were so hot that the soldiers who carried the three boys to the furnace were killed by the heat as they cast them in. The boys fell, bound hand and foot, into the middle of the burning fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar looked again. He stood up in astonishment and said to his counselors: “Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?” They said: yes. Nebuchadnezzar said: “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God” (Daniel 3:25). The fourth figure in the furnace, the patristic tradition has understood, was the pre-incarnate Word of God Himself. Nebuchadnezzar called the boys out. They walked out of the furnace unsinged — not a hair of their heads burned, not their clothes singed, not even the smell of fire on them. Nebuchadnezzar blessed the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
The Babylonian Empire eventually fell to the Medes and the Persians. Daniel — by now an old man, perhaps eighty years old — was retained by the new emperor Darius the Mede as one of three governors over the entire empire. Daniel was so distinguished that Darius was planning to set him over the whole realm. The other governors and officials, jealous of the foreign Hebrew’s position and unable to find any fault in his administration, hatched a plot. They went to Darius and persuaded him to issue a decree: for thirty days, no one in the empire could pray to any god or any man except to King Darius himself. Anyone who broke the decree would be thrown into a den of lions. The decree was specifically designed to trap Daniel. They knew his habits. They knew that three times a day, he opened his window toward Jerusalem and prayed to the God of Israel. Daniel knew about the decree. He went home, opened his window toward Jerusalem, and prayed three times that day exactly as he had always done. The conspirators caught him, reported him to Darius, and demanded the application of the law. Darius was horrified. He had not realized the decree was aimed at Daniel. He spent the entire day trying to find a legal way to spare him, but the law of the Medes and Persians could not be revoked. At sunset, weeping, the king ordered Daniel thrown into the lions’ den. He said to him: “Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee.” They sealed the den with a great stone, marked with the king’s own seal. Darius went back to his palace. He could not eat. He could not sleep. He could not be entertained. At dawn he ran to the lions’ den and cried out: “O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?” Daniel’s voice came back from inside the sealed den: “O king, live for ever. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt” (Daniel 6:21-22). The king ordered Daniel pulled out. There was not a scratch on him. Darius then ordered the conspirators — along with their wives and children — thrown into the same den. The lions had them before they hit the floor. Darius issued a new decree to all his vast empire: every person should fear and tremble before the God of Daniel, “for he is the living God, and stedfast for ever, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be even unto the end” (Daniel 6:26).
In the first year of the reign of Belshazzar, the last king of Babylon, Daniel received a series of apocalyptic visions that would shape the entire subsequent biblical theology of the Kingdom of God. The most theologically significant of these visions is recorded in Daniel 7. Daniel saw the four winds of heaven stir up the great sea. Four great beasts rose from the sea: a lion with eagle’s wings, a bear, a leopard with four heads, and a fourth beast more terrible than the others, with iron teeth and ten horns. The patristic tradition has understood these four beasts as the four great empires that would arise before the coming of the Kingdom of God: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. Then Daniel saw the throne room of heaven. “I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him” (Daniel 7:9-10). Then came the supreme moment of the vision: “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:13-14). The Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven, receiving dominion and glory and an everlasting kingdom from the Ancient of Days — this is the supreme Old Testament foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ’s own self-designation. The Lord called Himself “the Son of Man” more than seventy times in the Gospels. He used the title more than any other to refer to Himself. He took it from this Daniel vision. When He stood before the high priest at His trial and was asked under oath whether He was the Christ, He answered: “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64). The high priest tore his robes and accused Him of blasphemy, because the high priest understood exactly what He was claiming. He was claiming to be the figure that Daniel had seen in vision over five centuries earlier.
In Daniel chapter 9, the prophet receives perhaps the most extraordinary chronological prophecy in the entire Old Testament. The angel Gabriel comes to him and reveals: “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy” (Daniel 9:24). The phrase “seventy weeks” in Hebrew (shavu’im shiv’im) literally means “seventy sevens,” which the patristic tradition has understood as seventy weeks of years — that is, four hundred and ninety years. The angel then specifies: from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks (Daniel 9:25) — sixty-nine weeks of years, four hundred and eighty-three years. The decree to rebuild Jerusalem was issued by the Persian emperor Artaxerxes I in 458 B.C. Counting forward four hundred and eighty-three years brings us to approximately 26 A.D. — the time when the Lord Jesus Christ began His public ministry, was baptized in the Jordan by Saint John the Forerunner, and was anointed by the Holy Spirit at His baptism. The patristic tradition (especially Saints Hippolytus of Rome, Eusebius of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, and Cyril of Alexandria) has understood Daniel 9 as a precise chronological prophecy of the appearance of the Messiah. The angel’s further specification — “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself” (Daniel 9:26) — has been understood as the prophecy of the Lord’s Crucifixion. The prophecy continues with the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, which the Lord Himself confirmed in His own discourse on the Mount of Olives (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21) and which was historically fulfilled by the Roman armies under Titus in 70 A.D., approximately forty years after the Crucifixion. The seventy weeks prophecy is one of the most striking demonstrations of the precise providential timing that operates in the biblical economy of salvation.
These verses contain one of the most extraordinary statements of faith in the entire Old Testament. The three Hebrew youths — Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah — stand before King Nebuchadnezzar moments before being thrown into the fiery furnace. The king has just demanded their compliance with idolatrous worship and has just said: “Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?” Their answer is dense. First, they affirm the divine power: our God is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace. They do not minimize the divine sovereignty; they insist on it. Second, they affirm their trust: He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. They speak with confidence of the divine deliverance. But then comes the third clause that has shaped the entire Christian tradition of authentic faith: “But if not.” Even if the Lord does not deliver us, even if we burn alive in your furnace, even if our visible expectation is disappointed, our fidelity does not depend on the visible outcome. Be it known unto you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image you have set up. Their faith was not conditional. They were prepared for either outcome. If the Lord delivered them, they would praise Him for the deliverance. If the Lord allowed them to die in the furnace, they would die faithful. Their fidelity was unconditional. This is the deepest pattern of authentic biblical faith. It is not the faith that says “God will give me what I want.” It is the faith that says “God is able to give me what I want, and He will, but if not, I will still serve Him.” The Lord did deliver them. He sent the Angel of Great Counsel — the pre-incarnate Word — into the furnace with them, and they walked out unsinged. But the depth of their faith was demonstrated before they knew the outcome. They were already prepared to die.
These two verses sit at the center of the entire Christian biblical theology of the Kingdom of God. Daniel sees in vision a figure “like the Son of Man” coming with the clouds of heaven before the Ancient of Days. The figure receives dominion, glory, and a kingdom from the Ancient of Days, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed. Five hundred and fifty years later, the Lord Jesus Christ stood before the high priest at His trial. The high priest demanded under oath whether He was the Christ, the Son of God. The Lord answered with words that were a direct quotation of Daniel 7: “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64). The high priest understood exactly what He was claiming. He tore his robes. He accused Him of blasphemy. The Sanhedrin condemned Him to death. The Lord’s appropriation of the Daniel 7 figure as His own self-designation was the supreme Christological claim He made before His judges. The title “the Son of Man” appears more than seventy times in the Gospels, and the Lord uses it more than any other to refer to Himself. He took it directly from Daniel’s vision. Every time He used the title, He was identifying Himself as the eternal divine figure that Daniel had seen receiving the everlasting kingdom. The supreme Christological identification of the Old Testament prophet was the Lord’s own primary self-designation throughout His earthly ministry. The whole Christian theology of the Kingdom of God — its eternal nature, its universal scope, its divine origin, its inexorable establishment — traces back to what Daniel saw in vision in the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon.
According to the tradition preserved by Saint Cyril of Alexandria and recorded in the Orthodox synaxarion, Daniel and the three Holy Youths Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah lived to old age in Babylon and were beheaded together for the true faith. The story has a remarkable detail. When the executioner beheaded Hananiah, his head fell from his shoulders, and Azariah stretched out his cloak and caught it before it could touch the ground. Then when Azariah himself was beheaded, Mishael caught his head. Then when Mishael was beheaded, Daniel caught his head. The story articulates a theological truth about the communion of these four friends. They had grown up together in Jerusalem before the Babylonian exile. They had been carried into captivity together as fifteen-year-olds. They had refused the king’s food together. They had stood together against the worship of the golden idol. The three youths had walked together with the Angel of Great Counsel in the fiery furnace. Daniel had stood alone in the lions’ den, but he had also seen his three friends through every other crisis of their long lives. They had served the Lord together for over seventy years in the courts of pagan emperors. And at the end, when their long lives finally came to a close in martyrdom, they died together, the surviving brothers catching each other’s heads as they fell. The Orthodox tradition has understood their relationship as the Old Testament icon of authentic Christian friendship. The biblical truth is that authentic faith is rarely sustained alone. The supreme saints have almost always had companions in faith — fellow believers who walked with them through the long decades, shared their disciplines, supported their witness, and accompanied them through their trials. Daniel and the Three Holy Youths are the foundational Old Testament example of this pattern of companion sanctity. The Orthodox Church commemorates them together on December 17 every year, and on the Sunday of the Forefathers and the Sunday before the Nativity, alongside the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets whose ministries prepared the way for the Incarnation of the Word.
Daniel matters to every Orthodox Christian for many reasons. He is the supreme example of faithful witness in the courts of pagan power. He served at the highest levels of the Babylonian and Persian empires for over seventy years without ever compromising his fidelity to the God of Israel. He refused the king’s food when he was fifteen and refused to stop praying when he was eighty. He interpreted dreams for emperors who would not have understood the Hebrew Scriptures. He read the writing on the wall when no Chaldean wise man could. He survived the lions’ den. His three friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah are the supreme Old Testament example of authentic friendship in faithful witness. They walked into the fiery furnace together, stood with the Angel of Great Counsel in the flames, and at the end of their long lives they died together as martyrs, the surviving brothers catching each other’s heads as they fell. He is the supreme prophet of the apocalyptic vision. His vision of the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven shaped the Lord Jesus Christ’s own primary self-designation throughout the Gospels. His vision of the four world empires shaped the entire Christian theology of the Kingdom of God. His prophecy of the seventy weeks predicted the coming of the Messiah down to the very week. He is the friend of every soul that has ever maintained authentic faith in a culture that pressured for compromise. He is the friend of every Christian who has ever sought to serve God faithfully in a pagan environment, in a hostile workplace, in a family that does not share the faith, in a country that has departed from authentic Christianity. The same Lord who shut the lions’ mouths for Daniel is the same Lord who continues to preserve His servants in every age.