The Daniel Dilemma: How to Stand Firm and Love Well in a Culture of Compromise

by Chris Hodges

Here’s how it happened: After the reigns of King David and his son Solomon, Israel splintered along geographical and tribal lines. Within a few generations, the ten northern tribes of Israel abandoned their faith in the living God and started worshipping idols. Obviously, God wasn’t pleased and sent warning after warning to the northern kingdom, only to have them ignored. Finally, their disobedience left him no choice; he allowed the Assyrians to conquer all ten tribes in the northern kingdom (see 2 Kings 17). Judah, including the smaller tribe of Benjamin, comprised the southern kingdom, where Daniel lived. Despite watching what happened to their northern kinsmen, the remaining people of Israel also drifted away from God. Again, God issued the same kind of warnings through his prophets—Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. But the nation of Judah refused to hear the messages of these men. This time judgment arrived in the form of the Babylonians under the leadership of their emperor Nebuchadnezzar. Having already conquered Assyria and Egypt, they descended on Judah and decimated the city of Jerusalem. They not only looted the temple but also enslaved the Jewish people. Judah crumbled, and the people of Israel became prisoners of war in an alien culture, exiled from their homeland. Daniel was one of these exiles. He was probably around sixteen years old when he was transported along with thousands of other Jews to be slaves in Babylon. His situation was as bleak as it gets. T...