Big Idea: The incomparable Lord is sovereign over all earthly kingdoms, holding rulers and subjects alike accountable for sin and challenging believers to spiritual fidelity.

Understanding the Text

Daniel 1:1–21 introduces the narratives of chapters 1–6, which reflect the writer’s perspective on the approximately seventy years of Judean exile (605–538 BC) alluded to in verses 1 and 21 and throughout the book. It also serves as the Hebrew prologue to the book’s concentric Aramaic and Hebrew sections (chaps. 2–7 and 8–12). Daniel 1:1–7 is the first of three pericopes within the chapter marked by someone or something God “gives” (natan in 1:2, 9, 17). Here, it is Judah’s King Jehoiakim, some temple vessels, and selected Judean youths who are exiled to Babylon. This judgment of an ungodly Jewish…