What began in Eden developed in Uz and continued in Babylon. We have to remember that the book of Daniel has its own characteristics and is unlike, say, Isaiah or Haggai. We find Nebuchadnezzar fizzing, spluttering and thundering as only an established tyrant can. Tyrants have much in common with each other.
In Babylon Daniel is into apocalyptic mode. He sees Nebuchadnezzar pounding the stage like Alan Rickman going after that troublesome Robin Hood. He sweeps off the table-ware. He flings his hands into the air. He rages. He has Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego thrown into the furnace. Then he realises that he is not the only one in the land with power. He realises he has made a mistake and caused a very serious affront to someone with power beyond his own. What has he got himself into? Bad mistake.
A pity. Neb had made some intelligent moves and looked like doing well – for a dictator, that is. Think of his plan of training some of the most promising of his captives to take on responsibility. They might be reluctant to collaborate at first but surely they would know where their best interests lay. But Neb had got himself into more than he realised. Daniel worshipped a God with a continuing purpose. That purpose God had pursued through Moses, Abraham and even strange characters like Samson. Neb was a mere dictator. He did not know he was swaying on the edge of the important things that were taking place.
Daniel was the man of destiny in all this turmoil. We may see him as something of a super-man. As Neb might go mad and graze like an ox. He might see his empire, like all empires, fading and coming to nothing. Daniel, the interpreter of dreams, could see all this coming. He was strong on prediction.
So Neb sounds off like a fog-horn in a pea-souper. That’s what he does best. But the person with the loudest voice is not always the best one to listen to. We have to recognise a Daniel when we see one.
SCOTTISH WELCOME
Beat this. ‘For all who are bruised by life or have lost their way, for all who want to know what life is really about but also for those who seek friends and help St Mary’s opens its doors and arms’ That is the welcome awaiting visitors to St Mary’s Scottish Episcopal Church, Port Glasgow.
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