The defeat of God’s nation and people by Babylon did not compromise His sovereignty. Instead, this event – the loss of national sovereignty and people being led away in captivity to the land of Babylon – highlighted His sovereignty in a powerful way. God demonstrated both His judgment and compassion through this event. At the national level, He executed His judgment on Judah for their collective sin. However, at the individual level, God showed compassion and grace to the captives, including Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
Summary
The LORD God gave Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. In addition, Nebuchadnezzar took some of the vessels from the house of God and also selected some of the sons of Israel – youths who showed intelligence and discerning knowledge – to educate them for three years in order to serve him personally. Among these youths were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
However, Daniel was determined not to defile himself with the king’s food and wine. He sought permission from the commander of the officials to avoid consuming it. With God’s favor and compassion, the commander agreed to test Daniel and his friends by allowing them to eat only vegetables and water for ten days. When they appeared healthier than the other youths, the commander withheld the king’s food and continued to provide them with vegetables.
God gave these four youths knowledge and intelligence in every branch of literature and wisdom. After three years of education, they were presented to King Nebuchadnezzar and found to be ten times better than all the magicians and conjurers. Daniel continued to serve until the first year of King Cyrus.
Collapse of Judeo-centric Worldview
“God is on our side” is a phrase we often use to comfort ourselves, but it must be taken with caution. We need to be on God’s side, not the other way around. When Joshua met the captain of the host of the LORD before Israel’s first battle in the land of Canaan, he asked which side he was on, to which the captain replied that he came as the captain of the host of the LORD (Joshua 5:13-14). This reply implies that it was irrelevant which side he, who was representing the only true God, was on. Joshua immediately postured himself to the listening and obedience mode to the captain. As such, Joshua and the Israelites needed to be on the LORD God’s side.
Approximately 600 years later, it appeared that the people of Judah had forgotten this important lesson. They believed that God was on their side unconditionally and would protect them from Babylon, despite prophet Jeremiah’s warning. However, they failed to understand that their obedience and reflection of God’s holiness were necessary for God’s protection. They were chosen by God, but with the condition that they follow His commands (Deuteronomy 28). Continuing to sin and refuse to repent, they falsely believed that God would defend them. Although God had protected them in the past, deliberate sin and injustice could not be tolerated forever.
Therefore, Jeremiah’s prophecies and warnings of the collapse of Judah and the plundering of the Temple of God were fulfilled, which bewildered the leaders and prophets of Judah. Their Judeo-centric worldview and perhaps their understanding of the sovereignty of God also collapsed.
However, the national defeat and plundering of the Temple of God did not demonstrate the collapse of God’s sovereignty. Instead, they revealed a different aspect of God’s sovereignty, one that was wider and deeper than their formal understanding of God
The Sovereignty and Faithfulness of God in Defeat of His People
The book of Daniel opens with the “defeat” of God’s people and their nation. King Zedekiah of Judah was captured and the Babylonians completely overran Judah and Jerusalem. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took vessels from the house of God and brought them into the temple of his own god. Additionally, he took many fine and intelligent youths from among the sons of Israel as captives to eventually serve him and the kingdom of Babylon. At face value, this appeared to be a complete defeat of Judah and its God, the LORD. However, this event in no way compromised the absolute sovereignty of God. In fact, the defeat of Judah only highlights the sovereignty of the LORD.
In ancient times, conquests and wars were believed to be the result of struggles between different gods. The Babylonians, for example, believed that the defeat of Judah proved that their gods were stronger than the LORD of Judah (Daniel 1:1-2). Similarly, other nations believed in their gods within their own understanding. Their gods operated according to their respective beliefs of how gods should operate. When they won wars, their gods were praised as stronger than the gods of the defeated nations. When they lost wars, the power of their gods was nullified.
In other words, the value of these gods depended on the winning and prosperity of the people who believed in them. This is a great irony because if gods were dependent, then how can they be gods? In fact, they were merely just idols, created in the image of sinful and limited man. For gods to be considered true God, they need to be completely independent and transcendent over the understanding and reasoning of people.
In contrast to the gods of other nations, the true God, the LORD, does not operate within the realm of reason and understanding of finite human minds. The LORD God is a God of absolute principles that do not depend on the winning and prosperity of His people. The defeat of Judah and the plundering of God’s temple do not nullify God’s sovereignty. Although this event must have been a great shock to many in Judah, as many prophets continued to falsely prophesy that the LORD God would deliver Judah from the Babylonians, the defeat, deportation of the Jews, and plundering of the temple, in fact, testified to the faithfulness of the LORD and one of His principles: absolute justice.
- God of Principle I (Justice): God hates sin. As the people of Israel and Judah failed to obey the LORD, depriving justice to orphans, widows, and aliens, God delivered Judah to the Babylonians.
God, in faithfulness to His principle of justice, executed judgment on Judah at a national level. He had warned the Israelites in His covenant with them, spoken through Moses, that failure to obey His commands and show justice and mercy to the weak of society, such as orphans, widows, and aliens, would result in being removed from the land He had given them (Deuteronomy 28:58-64). During the last few kings of Judah, God sent many prophets to exhort their leaders to repent and obey His ordinances and statutes. However, the people of Judah repeatedly defied God’s call to live a holy life, resulting in oppression of the weak and injustice. God removed them from their land and delivered them to their enemies, as He had promised. Along with the defeat of Judah, God willingly allowed Himself to be humiliated as Nebuchadnezzar plundered the temple of God (Daniel 1:2).
Conclusion
The book of Daniel begins with a cataclysmic event of the collapse of Judah, which posed a great crisis to the identity and future of God’s people. However, this collapse was also an opportunity for the remnant of Jews who survived by God’s compassion to understand and experience His grace in a new way.
Likewise, we may face similar crises in our own lives, but let us stand firm and cling to God, for these moments may be opportunities to deepen our understanding of Him.
Give Life 