There is not any way for Daniel and his friends to live in Babylon without a minimum of some element of compromise. There is not any way for them to live and love in Babylon while being completely disengaged. And to be able to have any meaningful engagement it’s going to mean they should slot in, a minimum of indirectly. It’s interesting to me as we read through Daniel 1:8-21 all the places where they do compromise. Frankly, it’s unsettling.
You know that phrase “line within the sand”? It means placing a marker and saying something like, “I’ll go this far, but no further. I won’t cross that line”. It’s shocking to me that Daniel didn’t draw the road. Let me explain.
When you were brought into exile, you didn’t have much freedom. They desired to take every little bit of their Hebrew identity out of them and make them full-fledged Babylonians. Their plan for Daniel and his friends was to make them “smart men” of Babylon.
This would require learning Aramaic and Akkadian. No more Hebrew. They didn’t draw a line there. They would have been immersed of their literature and learned all of their history. We’re talking a unique flood narrative, and credit given throughout to the false gods of Babylon. No line was drawn. Part of their education would have been in learning the best way to read the longer term through astrology and sheep livers. It was, essentially, divination. Daniel needed to learn this. This is where I’d have drawn the road. Daniel didn’t. They didn’t even budge when their names were modified.
But when it got here to eating food from the king’s table, Daniel drew his line. Why? Why draw it here? There are several theories. Some think it needed to do with the food not being kosher. That’s possible, but why did he take pleasure in chapter 10? It likely wasn’t a protest because no person knew about this except one person. It might need been since the foods were offered to the Babylonian gods, but that doesn’t explain why they may eat vegetables—those would have been offered, too. What is occurring here may be present in Proverbs 23:1-3.
The reason why Daniel and his friends refused the king’s food is since it was deceptive food. Eating the king’s food was to create a relationship of dependency with the king. It’s because this was the one place where they may draw a line within the sand and say, “No, we are going to depend on YHWH.” It’s where they may sever that tie and remind themselves and others and eventually show others…that GOD was the one to depend on.
Likewise, we’d do well to take into consideration our places of dependency upon this fallen kingdom and work to sever that dependency.
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