Today’s reading: Daniel 4; Colossians 4
I was struck this morning, in Daniel 4, how Daniel advises Nebuchadnezzar to act righteously and to show mercy to the oppressed, but doesn’t tell him to break off the worship of his gods.
We have talked quite a bit on this blog about how Yahweh disinherited the nations at the Tower of Babel, scattering the people who were previously His own, and giving them over to lesser gods to be ruled and governed by them, but how those lesser gods were faithless in their stewardship of the nations and so God declares they will ultimately be judged for it. (If you’re not familiar with this and it sounds off the wall, I’ve gone in depth on this in a number of other posts you can look up, or you can grab Dr. Michael Heiser’s book Supernatural or The Unseen Realm for a more detailed breakdown.) Well, this chapter of Daniel seems to me to be reinforcing this notion, and making it clear that the Jews (at least some of them) understood this.
If God really did give the nations over to other gods (and I believe He did), then it was actually good and right for Nebuchadnezzar to worship the god(s) to which his people were given over instead of worshipping Yahweh. However, if the worship of those gods resulted in unrighteousness or exploitation of the oppressed, God’s expectation on people was that they would not follow their gods into these things. We actually see this all throughout the Old Testament, where God never stands against or judges a nation (apart from Israel) for not worshipping Him, but instead of their lack of justice and their exploitation of the vulnerable. So while it makes complete sense, it still struck me that Daniel, in advising this pagan king how to stave off the judgement of Yahweh, makes no mention of stopping the worship of other gods, nor of starting to worship Yahweh Himself.
This makes me think too of what Paul says in Acts 17, in reference to the worship of idols, that, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent…”
So it was not God’s expectation that the nations would worship Him, but now, in Christ, God is calling His people back to Himself, with the expectation that we will listen and turn to follow Him through faith in Christ.
I just find it interesting that Daniel clearly understood that this was not God’s expectation of Nebuchadnezzar.
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