We slowly got used to our new conditions in Babylon.  King Nebuchadnezzar put us in his best university, assigned us the best available professors and experts in all the areas he wanted us to learn and gave us the normal time – three years – to finish our qualifications.  Of course, we did have one disadvantage – none of this education was to be in our mother tongue, Hebrew.

I have never been quite sure whether King Nebuchadnezzar originally wanted us in his court as trophies or because he felt that Babylon could learn something from foreign countries.  Whatever it was, he certainly treated us well.  Babylon was the centre of academic excellence at that time and we went to the best university available.  If you like, it was the best college or university in the world.

Our performance was to be reviewed every year and our supervisors made it very clear that, while they didn’t expect us to do quite as well as the native Babylonian students, we would be in serious trouble if we didn’t get reasonable results.

Many would call it an honour, and it certainly was a marvellous opportunity to learn all of the wisdom and science that a powerful empire could teach.  In the end, however, we found it a little disappointing because the knowledge that they promoted ignored established facts and tried to fit the world into their own predetermined views.  Our lecturers knew that their society was the best in the world and that they, personally, were the cleverest and best representatives of that society.  Unfortunately, the fact that they had been told these things from childhood meant that they were unable to open their eyes to obvious facts.  Because Babylon had defeated Judah, they had little but contempt for Judah.  Some of us exiles had more open minds, however.  We knew a God who had not only predicted this defeat, but had specifically caused it to happen as a punishment for national disobedience.

When you are blessed to know a God who can consistently foretell the future accurately, you listen to the other things that he says too – if you are wise.  So we knew that the creation and maintenance of the world came from one God, Yahweh.  And we knew that if there were questions about what would happen in the future, Yahweh could answer them.

Yes, we were able to walk a balanced path.  We revelled in the learning of mathematics and other items of science where they fitted with God’s view of the world as we knew it from our scriptures and the world around us.  But when they told us their peculiar stories about creation, the flood, witchcraft, the interpretation of dreams and the significance of the location of maggots in a decaying liver, we decided to listen to the maker first – after all, he is the one who knows!  “Science” is not all it’s cracked up to be.  We watched sadly as many of the young men from Judah showed that they weren’t so clear in the matter as they started to accept the Babylonian religion, science and so on.  The names of Babylonian gods littered their conversations and the God of Israel became a symbol of failure to them.  Even the success – God’s success – with our diet couldn’t convince them that they should think again.

Nevertheless, it didn’t take long before Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah and I were all getting results at the very top of our classes, despite the language difficulties.  Although my friends were only young, wisdom just oozed out of them because they were familiar with the wisdom of Yahweh.  Their minds soaked up the literature and language of Babylon as water soaks into a sponge, and the wisdom that they could mix with their new knowledge made them stand out in all of the classes, from Aramaic literature to the interpretation of dreams, from mathematics to palace etiquette.

At our first annual review, after just one year of education, Nebuchadnezzar read reports of our performance.  All of the student captives were called before the king, along with various professors and Ashpenaz the chief of the eunuchs.  It was our first visit to the king’s throne room.

Ashpenaz told me later that when Nebuchadnezzar scanned the results, he couldn’t believe what he saw.  The list included the results of all of the students in our year level from the entire university, and we captives were identified on the list with a special symbol.  Nebuchadnezzar looked at the results and tried to work out what had gone wrong.  You see, at that time, the university had a set of standard subjects that everyone had to do for each course, but you could also do extra subjects from other courses and higher year levels and get lots of bonus marks – as long as you passed and were doing well in the mandatory subjects.  We did a lot of extra subjects.  Imagine King Nebuchadnezzar’s surprise when he saw four of his trophy captives at the very top of the results list, with scores that were ten times as high as any of those achieved by his native Babylonian students!  It was a wonderful poke in the eye for his gods, although none of us ever told him so.  While I never show reverence for King Nebuchadnezzar’s gods, I never show contempt either.  I want him to learn for himself that Yahweh is so much better than his gods.  He is learning – slowly.

The king reviewed the results and asked Ashpenaz what should happen next with our education.  Ashpenaz replied that with those marks, our education was finished!  We had passed the accumulated number of marks needed to graduate.

There in the throne room, the king asked all of the captives lots of questions, but he concentrated on us four.  It was clear that he wasn’t completely convinced about these results.  But we were guided by God in our answers, and with his help and the wisdom from our scriptures, we were even able to answer some of his pet questions, problems that none of his enchanters and astrologers had ever been able to give him convincing answers for.  That impressed him, but he still got his Chaldean experts to ask us all sorts of questions from a huge range of subjects to see whether they could trip us up.  We did our best to make it clear that our wisdom came from Yahweh.  In the end, he and his experts were convinced, and so the four of us graduated and King Nebuchadnezzar appointed us to positions in his palace.  We even stood in his presence in the throne room itself from time to time.

Another victory for the God of Israel.

King Nebuchadnezzar is a little inconsistent.  He is obviously a brilliant commander in battle, but sometimes he is quite impulsive and acts without thinking things through very carefully.  He always has his Chaldeans and wise men available to give him advice, but sometimes he finds them frustrating and self-important.

Yahweh knew all about this, and he used it to get a message directly to the king.  One night King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream.  As usual, he asked his Chaldeans for an explanation of what it meant, but on that particular morning he was in a perverse mood and asked them to explain the dream without him telling them what the dream was.  If they had handled the situation carefully, they might have been able to gently convince him to describe his dream, after which it would have been easy for them to follow their dream interpretation manual.  Instead, they tried to throw their weight around and tell the king what to do.  That was always going to be dangerous, and in this case it would have been fatal for all the wise men of Babylon – including me – if the God of Israel hadn’t had everything firmly under control.

The first that I heard about it was when Arioch, the captain of the king’s guard, came looking for the four of us to take us to the prison, where all the wise men were to be executed.  I was the only one in our rooms at the time, so I found out what was going on and managed to talk Arioch into letting me go in to see the king.  After a while, the king agreed to give us one night extra[1]; if we could give him the explanation of his dream in the morning, all would be well, but if not, our heads would roll with everyone else’s.

I hurried back to our rooms and found Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah waiting for me there.  They had heard news of the king’s dream and were very worried.  Of course, none of us knew then that God had arranged this so that he could get the right interpretation directly to the king, while at the same time promoting in Babylon some people who served him – us four.

So we set about praying to God for answers.  The others couldn’t understand how I could be so sure that God would give the answers we needed, and I didn’t really know how to explain it to them.  God is God, and I know that I can trust him.  That was really all I could say.  Faith is hard to explain, and I can’t have faith for anyone else.  Of course, my friends were certain that God could do this, but they weren’t quite so sure that he would do it.  For some reason, they seemed to have more faith in praying that God would give me the answer, so that was what they did.

Anyway, the God who gives wisdom answered our prayers and showed me a vision that night.  I saw the king’s dream and what it meant.  There was no need for the Complete Manual of Dreams that the Chaldeans use, though I’m very familiar with it since it was part of our education and dreams have always interested me.  Once I knew what the dream was, I could see that the manual would not have given me the same interpretation at all and I knew that God’s interpretation would be right.  After a prayer of thanks, I went to Arioch with the news that Yahweh had shown the dream and its interpretation.  Everything was being set up marvellously to show that Bel and the other gods of Babylon were nothing, but that the God of Israel was in perfect control.

In just a few minutes, I found myself before the king.  He called me Belteshazzar, which I ignored, and asked me if I could interpret the dream for him.  This was the perfect opportunity to make the most important point, but I knew that I would have to play it carefully and not take too long about it or I might never get the chance.

I told Nebuchadnezzar that no wise men, enchanters, magicians or any of the rest of them could possibly do what he wanted – but I watched his reactions carefully as I spoke.  I could tell that he was thinking that I was complaining to him just as his Chaldeans had done the day before, accusing him of being unreasonable and not playing by the rules.  He was clearly becoming angry as I spoke, so I quickly moved to the really vital part of what I had to say: “…but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days.”

And that was the end of that, really.  I told him the details of his dream and gave him God’s explanation of it.  Once again, Babylon’s gods were shown to be powerless, and Yahweh, El, my judge, was shown to have power.

Blessed be the name of God forever and ever.

I hope that King Nebuchadnezzar continues to learn his lessons!

[1] Daniel doesn’t tell us how much time was allowed, all we know is that the answer from God was given in a vision of the night (Daniel 2:19).