Category: The Book of Daniel
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Déjà-vous All Over Again
Nebuchadnezzar’s first disturbing dream came to him when he was a new king (chapter 2). He saw the “large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance” (2:31, NIV ) and, although the dream troubled him, things ended well for him. The interpretation bode badly for empires that succeeded him, but Nebuchadnezzar was the head of…
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Say It with a Song
So what’s this important something Nebuchadnezzar had to say? The suspense has probably been causing you pain for a week. Let me put you out of your misery. The great and mighty king of Babylon is bubbly. He’s tickled to tell his story. The stuffy wording of most translations zaps the life right out of…
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“Dear Everyone, I’m pretty great, but…”
I still send letters, honest to goodness letters, through the mail. (I’d say I still write letters, but that’s not true. I type them.) When I tell people this, they look at me funny. (I try to avoid telling them at the same time that I don’t carry a cell phone.) Sometimes I consider it…
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What I Did on My Summer Vacation
I didn’t blog. And, aside from two weeks teaching the book in Myanmar, I didn’t think about Daniel. Thus, I am in need of review. Presumably, so are you. I will resist my teacherly urge to spend the next three blog entries reviewing (especially since I’m only writing once a week these days) and instead…
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Can I Get a Witness?
Every time I teach this chapter, I have confused students. It’s not my fault – they’re confused when they come to class after working independently on the chapter. Of course, by the time they leave, all confusion is cleared away. Okay, I’m probably not that good, but I can help with a few things. Here’s…
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Moving to a New Chapter…or not
Look! We’re starting a new chapter! That is, we’re starting a new chapter unless you happen to be reading the Hebrew Bible…then we’re still in chapter 3, verses 31–33. In any English Bible, the same verses are in chapter 4, verses 1–3. In these three verses Nebuchadnezzar makes a proclamation to “all peoples, nations, and…
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At least he could count to 4…
Counting to ten is not in Nebuchadnezzar’s skill set. When the king figures out that the three Jews didn’t, after all, misunderstand his command about bowing down to the golden image, his “image” changes. The narrator plays on the word “image” here, though the cleverness is lost in most English translations. They say something like “his attitude toward…
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He’s Able, He’s Able, I Know He’s Able…or Is He?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are usually held up as paragons of faithfulness and of faith – they wouldn’t bow down and they believed God was able to deliver them from the furnace. Whether or not He would deliver them was another matter – but He certainly was able. And all God’s people said, “Amen!” Most…
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Men of Few Words
The heroes of the fiery furnace story are Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, but they are quiet heroes, speaking a mere forty-one (Hebrew) words in a single speech (vv. 16–18). The Chaldeans and the king are regular chatterboxes by comparison. The Jews are also collective heroes – that is, never do we hear of just Shadrach…
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He’s Too Much (ba-dum-bum-bum)
You’ve probably never associated Nebuchadnezzar with any part of Christmas – and I can understand why – but I’ve found a connection. As a child of the 70s, I loved the Christmas TV special The Year Without a Santa Claus – not because I wished for such a year (though Santa never made it down our…
Three Rubies Press 