Day 240: Daniel 4–6 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Hey Bible nerds, this is Dr. Manny Arango. Welcome to the Bible Department podcast powered by ARMA. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebibledepartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. Family, welcome to day 240. Man, we are making our way through the book of Daniel today. We've got Daniel chapters 4, 5, and 6. If you've done the reading, then we're going to have a blast like always. We're going to dive into some context clues. We don't have nearly as many context clues today as we had yesterday, since yesterday was the start of a new book. And then we'll move into some nerdy nuggets. I'll try to give you at least one for each chapter that we're going to cover. And then we'll move into our timeless truth. And I love our timeless truth for the day. I love the book of Daniel in general. If you've done the reading, then you already have tons of context for what we are about to talk about. If you have not done the reading, then stop the video, pause the audio, go do the reading, Daniel chapters 4, 5, and 6, and then come back. And this episode is designed to supplement your reading, not substitute your reading. So, let's dive into some context. Daniel chapter 4, Daniel chapter 5, and Daniel chapter 6 are all going to have slightly different context. Because Daniel chapter 4, Daniel chapter 5, and Daniel chapter 6 are all dealing with a different king or a different ruler. So, Daniel chapter 4, the ruler is Nebuchadnezzar. That's been the ruler up until Daniel chapter 1, 2, 3, and now chapter 4 is all under the rulership or government of Nebuchadnezzar. Then, in chapter 5, we are going to get a change. Belshazzar is going to be the ruler, and we got a caveat with Belshazzar, he's not actually the king, he's the king's son, and he's a regent. And we'll deal with that a little bit when we get to chapter 5. And then Daniel chapter 6, we're going to have really, historically, it's Cyrus, but Cyrus is going to get called Darius in Daniel chapter 6, and we're going to deal with why that's the case. So, three different rulers, three different moments in history, and honestly, you can see that Daniel is going to live a pretty long life. Why? Because for Daniel chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4, Daniel is relatively young. We don't know his exact age in Daniel chapter 4. We know that he's taken into exile as a young man in 605 BC, so we know that date. We also are going to get some dates as we move on. So, what we're going to see is Daniel is going to be in the Babylonian court from 605 BC all the way into the 530s BC. So, my man is going to spend over 70 years

in the Babylonian court, and so that's going to be fascinating. So, that's just a little bit of context. We're going to begin to see a 70-year-long lifespan for Daniel, and that's going to span three different rulers. Like I said, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and the text is going to say Darius, but we know from history that it really is Cyrus. So, that's a good amount of context, and we'll deal with each chapter as the context comes. I'll kind of give you some dates right now. Chapter 4, the date is unknown, but again, it's somewhere between 605 BC and 562 BC, probably more towards the later date, as seven years go past in the actual chapter. So, we're closer to 562 BC. When we get to chapter 5, we can be precisely dated, I mean, as the events take place on the very night of Babylon's fall in 539 BC. So, chapter 4, chapter 4, there's a range of dates that are possible. For chapter 5, we know the exact date. It is the night of the fall of Babylon. This is 539 BC. And then, chapter 6 takes place in the years following the purge of Babylon. takeover of Babylon and its territories, so at some point in the early or mid 530s BC. Okay, so different context for each chapter that we are actually looking at today. Last kind of bit about context is that there's a massive chiasm. There's actually a double chiasm in the book of Daniel. We won't talk about the double, we won't talk about both. There's actually multiple chiasms. There's chiasms everywhere in the book of Daniel. There's a weakness of mind when it comes to biblical scholarship. It's finding chiasms. I really do rely on other people to find chiasms for me, but here we go. Chapter 2 and chapter 7 mirror each other. Okay, chapter 2, we get four kingdoms and then we get four kingdoms and beasts that come out of the sea in chapter 7. Okay, so we're gonna get four kingdoms in chapter 2 and chapter 7. Okay, and then you move in. Okay, we're gonna get in chapter 3, we're going to get the three Hebrew boys. We don't know them. We're not gonna, we'll reject Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. We know them as Mishael, Azariah, and Hananiah. They're gonna get thrown into the fiery furnace. What is that mirrored with? In chapter 6, Daniel's gonna get thrown into the lion's den. Okay, so we're gonna get four kingdoms in chapter 2, four kingdoms in chapter 7, and you move in and you're gonna get the Yahweh's faithful are gonna get thrown into the fiery furnace, and

Yahweh's faithful are gonna get thrown into the lion's den, and you move in again, and Yahweh's gonna humble Nebuchadnezzar's pride in chapter 4, and Yahweh's gonna humble Belshazzar's pride in chapter 5. Okay, and so what is the center of the chiasm? It is chapter 4, verse 37, chapter 4, verse 37, and it says this, Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right, and all his ways are just, and those who walk in pride he is able to humble. So that's a massive theme for the entire book of Daniel, that those who are arrogant, those who are prideful will be humbled, and what's the inverse? Those who honor God, those who are faithful to God, even in the face of evil rulers, are actually exalted. Okay, so we'll get more into that when we get into our timeless truth, but that is the center of that chiasm. There's other chiasms, we'll talk about the other chiasms as we continue on the other days. Okay, so with all the context that I think we need, number one, you got a date, you got a range of dates for chapter 4, you have a very specific date for chapter 5, and then you have a range of dates for chapter 6, and then just knowing that we've got a chiasm here. Okay, the passage, the passages or the chapters that we're reading today exist within a chiasm, there's a center to that chiasm, and the center of that chiasm is really going to let us know that pride and humility and God's ability to humble prideful pagan rulers is gonna be front and center in terms of a central theme of this passage or of this chunk of Scripture. All right, let's dive into some nerdy nuggets. I'm gonna try to give you a nerdy nugget from chapter 4, a nerdy nugget from chapter 5, and a nerdy nugget from chapter 6. Daniel chapter 4, this one is fascinating, this one blows my mind actually. Okay, so Daniel is going to be given a pagan name, a Babylonian name, Belteshazzar. Belteshazzar is his pagan name. We're not gonna remember his pagan name, but we are gonna remember Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego's pagan names, but you know I talked about that yesterday. If you haven't watched yesterday's video, go back and watch yesterday's video. Here's what's fascinating, Daniel chapter 4 verse 9, okay, we're gonna read this together. Daniel chapter 4 verse 9, Nebuchadnezzar needs a dream

interpreted. This is giving Pharaoh and Joseph vibes, okay, and this is Nebuchadnezzar talking. He says, I said, Belteshazzar, chief of the magicians, I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you, and no mystery is too difficult for you. Here is my dream, interpret it for me. Okay, so Nebuchadnezzar does not refer to Daniel as Daniel, he refers to Daniel as the name he gave Daniel, which is Belteshazzar. Okay, Belteshazzar, and here's the next part that I want to hone in on. Chief of the magicians. We have a Jew, a servant of Yahweh, who's clearly faithful to Yahweh, who's chief of the magicians. Now, here's what's really cool. When God begins to exalt Christians and exalt, you know, God-fearing, God-believing people to positions of influence, here's the ripple effect that it can have. When you open up the Gospels and you begin to see that there are magi coming from the East who want to worship Jesus, you have to ask a question. How did these pagan magicians, magi comes from the word magician, how do these pagan magicians know that there would be a Messiah who is gonna be born of the Jews? Well, it's because there's a man named Daniel who took his leadership over those pagan magicians seriously hundreds of years before those magicians would ever set out to try to find a Messiah by the name of Jesus. And so, right here, we have proof that Daniel is going to influence the magi or the magicians, the astrologers, okay? If you go up just a couple of verses to verse 4, it says, I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at my home in my palace, contented and prosperous. I had a dream that made me afraid I was lying in my bed. The images and visions that passed through my mind terrified me, so I commanded all the wise men of Babylon, can't hint, wise men of Babylon, be brought before me to interpret the dream for me. When the magicians, enchanters, astrologers, and diviners came, I told them the dream. So, the wise men or the magi or the magicians, aka the astrologers, the people who know how to read the stars, come and appear at the cave that Mary and Joseph are at to worship King Jesus. It is because they have been insanely influenced by this guy named Daniel, which means if you're a Christian and you've been placed in a position of authority over pagans, you should really

take your position seriously because there may be a ripple effect that's going to cause something significant to happen hundreds of years into the future. What if I told you that what you're learning in this video was just the tip of the iceberg? The Bible department is actually powered by ARMA. What is ARMA? I'm so glad you asked. ARMA is an online subscription based platform that we designed to help people, everyday people, learn the Bible for themselves. We started ARMA so that anybody, anywhere, could have access to trustworthy and entertaining Bible and theology content. In addition to this podcast, we have over 60 courses on individual books, the Bible, on theology topics, and on some hot topics like homosexuality, tithing, and women in ministry. But really, ARMA is a community. A community of people that I've gotten to know. A community where thousands of people are currently finding family, asking questions, and nerding out on the Bible together. If you want a community to read the Bible with you this year, or if you want to dive into some deeper theological content, or if you want more exclusive access to me and the entire ARMA team, how about you go to thebibledepartment.com. I'll be sure to post the link in the description of this video. Let's make this your year to become a Bible nerd. Alright, that's our nerdy nugget from chapter 4. Let's get to chapter 5. In chapter 5, we are told that King Belshazzar makes a feast in Babylon. So this is the same way that the arrogance of Nebuchadnezzar is gonna get highlighted in chapter 4. The arrogance, or the pride, of Belshazzar is gonna get highlighted in chapter 5. So these are mirroring each other. Belshazzar, interestingly enough, a lot of people used to use this passage as a place where the Bible was incorrect. Because, in fact, Belshazzar is not the king. Alright, the Bible is gonna say that he's the king. He's not the king. The problem with this story is that there was no Babylonian king called Belshazzar. And the last king of Babylon who would have been reigning at this time is a man by the name of Nabonidus. Okay, Nabonidus. Good old Nabo. For years, this was seen as an example of how the stories in the Bible are just fairy tales, are fables, are fabricated, are made up with only occasional links to historical reality.

That is until... Babylonian and Persian records were found that state that Nabonidus spent most of his rule campaigning with the army away from Babylon and so he placed his son as regent in the city to govern the Empire when he was fighting and guess what his son's name is? That's right, Belshazzar, which interestingly enough, so let's go to Daniel chapter 5 verse 29. Okay, Daniel chapter 5 verse 29, Belshazzar is actually gonna say something quite interesting to Daniel. He's gonna say this, Then, at Belshazzar's command, Daniel was clothed in purple, a gold chain was placed around his neck, and he would proclaim the third highest ruler in the kingdom. Why number three? Well, because Nabonidus is number one, Belshazzar is number two, and Belshazzar can't make Daniel number two because he's not number one. This is why Daniel is made number three, number three in all command. You see how it's giving Pharaoh and Joseph vibes, but the only problem is Belshazzar is not the king, but he's the king's son and he's been placed there as a regent. Nerdy nugget from chapter 5. Okay, now the way that the Persians are going to take over or overthrow the Babylonians is that the river ran right through the middle of the great city Babylon, and so all the Persians did was they went upstream, dammed up the river, the river went dry, and then they crawled through the river gates and took over the city in one night, which is exactly what Isaiah prophesied would happen. So exactly what Isaiah said would happen hundreds of years before it happened actually happened. So that is chapter 5. Let's go to chapter 6. Okay, I'll give you one nerdy nugget from chapter 6, and I love this one. Okay, it says, it pleased Darius. Okay, ah, this one's difficult. Okay, a lot of people would say, because we know that Cyrus is the person that actually is going to overthrow the Babylonian Empire and rule the Persian Empire at this point in history, but the Bible is telling us that it's a person named Darius, and there's only two possible, you know, solutions for this. The first solution is that Darius kind of functions like the word Caesar. Okay, so Darius is actually a title. Now, that could work because we have three

different Darius's in the Persian Empire throughout the kingdoms, throughout the kingdom of the Persian Empire, we have three different Darius's. That's possible. It could also be possible that Darius is simply the governor that Cyrus appoints, the governor that's gonna be over the city of Babylon. Hey, there's options here. Neither of those are super satisfying, but hey, that's the reality, and I want you to know that there's some tension here, okay, because we know from history Cyrus is the person ruling, but the Bible is gonna call him Darius. All right, and the NIV is gonna deal with this by saying like the reign of Darius, comma the reign of Cyrus. So anyway, different translations are gonna deal with this in different ways. You can look at your Bible to see like what, you know, how your translation of the Bible deals with it. All right, so this is what is actually fascinating. So Daniel's gonna get thrown into a lion's den, and this story gets talked about a lot in Sunday school, but I've never seen a Sunday school picture with this portrayed accurately, because we know that Daniel gets deported from Jerusalem in 605 BC. We know that. That's a historical date, okay, and we also know that the Babylonian Empire is not gonna fall until, I'm trying to find the exact date, until 539 BC, okay. So Daniel is exiled from Jerusalem in 605 BC, and then the Persians are gonna take over in 539 BC in one night. Now some time has gone on by the time Daniel 6 even hits, which means if he's a youth in 605 BC, this story takes place 66 years later, okay. If he was a teenager when he was taken, then he is in his 70s or even 80s in the story where he gets thrown into the lion's den. If he was in his 20s in 605 BC when he was taken then then he could be in his 90s in the story. So this is a story of a very old man who still refuses to be a pagan. Daniel is so much more gangster now that you know homies it like 84 like nah feed me to the lions bro like like Daniel is a very old man when this story when this very iconic story takes place. After almost 70 years of serving pagan kings in a pagan court he is still just as much a righteous loyal Jew as he was when he was a young man when he insisted on eating kosher food. That is the example here. We have stories of young men staying loyal to

their king Yahweh in chapters 1 & 2 and and even though they live in the heart of the pagan world and we also have stories of old men who are still loyal and have never ever ever bowed the knee as we get to chapter 6. Okay so we've we Daniel is a young man in the beginning of the book and he's an old man in chapter 6. Regardless of whether he's young or old his stance has not changed. I will not bow the knee. Nebuchadnezzar is not my king. Cyrus ain't my king. Belshazzar ain't my king. Nebunidas ain't my king. Like Yahweh is my king and I'll be loyal to Yahweh to the day that I die. Which leads us to some timeless truths. There's a couple actually in today's section of reading. The first is God humbles the proud. This is a massive lesson. Whether that's Belshazzar. While Belshazzar is feasting. Okay so the Persians have besieged the city and Belshazzar in chapter 5 decides let's throw a feast because the Persians could they're never gonna successfully break in to Babylon. Our gates and in our walls will hold. While he's arrogantly celebrating in the middle of a siege they dam up the river and they come right through and take over Babylon right there. Like in the blink of an eye. So God immediately humbles the proud. Okay and so that's a massive theme. Whether it's Nebuchadnezzar or Belshazzar. Proud, proud rulers get brought to their knees. They get humbled in the book of Daniel. That's a massive timeless truth. That anyone who exalts themselves will be humbled. But anyone who humbles themselves will be exalted. This is a theme in Jesus's teaching and Jesus's lessons in the New Testament. Number two. Next timeless truth. God honors and protects those who are faithful to him. And whether it's the fiery furnace or the lion's den. God protects those who don't bend the knee. If you're loyal to Yahweh, Yahweh will protect you. And number three. Last timeless truth. God's people have the ability to flourish. Yes even thrive. When they're in nations, organizations, places, and environments that are hostile to their God and to the gospel. Please do not think that just because we don't have perfect conditions or a Christian country that we can't flourish and thrive and cause the pagan world to flourish and thrive because we are in it. Man, if there's a massive theme

throughout the entire book of Daniel, it's that people who love God and serve God and who are loyal to God and faithful to God can get elevated to a position of influence and they can thrive and flourish even in the middle of pagan cultures as long as they are loyal to Yahweh. And that is true not just for Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael. That is true for you. That is true for me. That is true for the world that we live in right now. And so tomorrow we've got day 241. We'll be going through Daniel chapter 7 through 9. I'm super excited. Hey, if you're on a streak, I'm proud of you. I'm so proud of you. I'm rooting for you. If you're not on a streak, let's get it going. No better time to get on a streak than today. So let's go ahead and let's get on a streak. I'll see you right here tomorrow as we keep trekking through the book of Daniel. I hope that it's been a value add for you today, and I believe it's gonna be a value add for you tomorrow. I'll see you right here as we open up the Scriptures together tomorrow. Love y'all. Peace.