He draws the line. He does not draw the line on nonessentials. He draws the line when it comes to the Word of God. This is the point at which he resisted. He didn't give in to a culture around him. He made some tough decisions. In order to see a picture of the biblical background that brought him to this platform we must ask ourselves a few questions.

We should begin by asking the "where?" question. Where does Daniel take place? There are two places mentioned in the early verses of his book. One is Judah. After the reign of King Solomon the twelve tribes of Israel divided. There were ten tribes in the Northern Kingdom and two tribes in the Southern Kingdom. Judah and Benjamin were in the south. Jerusalem was the capital of the Southern Kingdom. They had 19 kings that ruled over them over a period of three and a half centuries. Eleven of those kings were bad and eight of them were relatively good.

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In contrast, the Northern Kingdom never had one good king. They went into the Assyrian captivity in 722 B.C. Thus, Judah is the Southern Kingdom. The Southern Kingdom is where Daniel was born and raised. The other place mentioned is Babylon. All humanistic thought can trace its journey back there to the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11). In Daniel's day the Babylonian Empire was the world power. Its capital was about 50 miles from the modern city of Baghdad, Iraq. Babylon was the capital of pagan worship and was without question the world power of its day.

Next we come to the "who?" question. Again, we're introduced to several people. There is Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon. He designed the wonders of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar was an amazing man who built an incredible city and developed a world empire. We also are introduced to Jehoiakim who was the king of the Southern Kingdom at the time. He was nothing more than a puppet. He led the Jews by inner-corruption to worship other gods and did evil in the sight of the Lord. (2 Kings 24:19) The Bible tells us that he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood. (2 Kings 24:4)

We're also introduced to a young man named Daniel who was a descendant of good King Hezikiah. He was a boy under the revival of Josiah and that move of God's Spirit had a profound impact upon his life. He was an extremely bright young man who, if he had lived today, would have been the type of young man who would have had an appointment to one of the military academies or one of the respected institutions of higher learning in our world. His world was turned upside down when he was taken into Babylonian captivity by Nebuchadnezzar with the first group of exiles in 605 B.C.

Next we come to the "when?" question. Daniel 1:1 tells us that these events took place in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim. That is, 605 B.C. These were days of severe punishment for Judah. A group of bright and outstanding young future leaders were taken captive to Babylon. In 597 B.C. another group was exiled. Then, in 586 B.C. the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and the city of gold herself were laid waste and destroyed and the rest of the remnant was taken into Babylonian exile. Thus, by the time the captivity was complete Daniel had already been living in Babylon for almost 20 years.