Jeremiah records the awful scene in Lamentations. God’s people, the great and the small, those who hated God, those who didn’t believe in God, those who believed in Him but didn’t follow Him, and those who were faithful, were then carried off into exile. For seventy years, the people of God would have to follow God, trust in God, and worship God as His people in a foreign land. Babylon became the dividing line in Israel’s history. Just as we say b.c. and a.d. when speaking of human history, we speak of pre-exilic and post-exilic (pre-exile to Babylon and post-exile to Babylon) when speaking of the history of Israel. Even the birth narratives of Jesus mention Babylon.
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But in the Bible, Babylon is not only that place where Nimrod sought to build a tower to reach to heaven; it is not only the place where God dispersed mankind by dividing them into different languages; it is not only the capitol of the Chaldean Empire in ancient Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq); Babylon is not only a real place for Daniel; but in the Bible, Babylon is a metaphor for every group, every condition that threatens faith in God’s people. Thus, Peter will speak of writing from Babylon in 1 Peter 5:13, though presumably he was really writing from Rome. In Revelation, the Lord speaks of the final enemies of Christ as Babylon.
The place where our faith is under attack, the place of antagonism for the gospel, the place to which we are led that seems alien to our faith—that is Babylon.
But the good news of Daniel is that God is also in Babylon. God is in the hard places of life. God is in the prison with you. God is in the antagonistic classroom with you. God is in the wicked workplace. God is in the unbelieving home. And in Daniel God doesn’t minimize the pain of Babylon; He reveals it as it is.
In Daniel 1 we learn five lessons about what discipleship in Babylon is all about.
Discipleship in Babylon — A frightening place where the enemies of God encircle you (Daniel 1:1)
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it (Daniel 1:1).
I am gripped by the word “besieged.” It is the Hebrew verb (tsur) meaning, “to siege, besiege, enclose.” Slowly but surely Judah had wandered from God (not Daniel, but his nation) until one day the enemy encircled them. Through no fault of his own, Daniel was also encircled. To follow the Lord now was to follow Him in the presence of enemies. Gleason Archer noted that this whole Book of Daniel is about God’s sovereignty. God’s sovereignty has led you to live before the Lord in the presence of enemies.