Written by Peter Rodriguez
The Book of Daniel – Chapter 1
Available in other languages: Português
Part 1: Background (1-4)
Reading time: 15 minutes
“Bless Jehovah your God from the eternity to the eternity.
And blessed and exalted above all blessing and praise be the name of your glory. You are he, O Jehovah, you alone; you made the heaven, the heaven of the heaven, and all their host, the earth and all that are on it, the seas and all that are in them; and you keep all of them alive; and the host of heaven bows down to you.
You are he, O Jehovah, the God, who chose Abram and brought him from Ur of the Chaldeans and made his name Abraham.
And you found his heart trustworthy before you, and you made with him the covenant, to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it to his descendants. And you have established your words, for you are righteous and saw the suffering of our ancestors in Egypt, and heard their cry by the Red Sea; then you performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, and against all his officials, and against all the people of his land, because you knew that they acted presumptuously against our ancestors, and you won renown for yourself that has lasted even to this very day.
And you divided the sea before them, so that they could pass through the midst of the sea on dry ground; and you hurled their persecutors into the depths, like a stone into turbulent waters.
And you led them during the day in a pillar of cloud and in a pillar of fire during the night to give them light in the way they were to travel.
And you came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from the heaven and gave them right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments. And your holy Sabbath you made known to them. And for them you gave commandments, and statutes, and law by the hand of your servant Moses. And you gave them bread from heaven for their hunger, and brought water for them out of a rock for their thirst. And you said to them to go in to take possession of the land that you had promised to give them.
But they, our ancestors, acted presumptuously, and were stubborn, and did not obey your commandments.
And they refused to listen, and ignored your miracles that you did for them. Instead, they became stubborn, and in their rebellion appointed a leader to lead them back to their slavery in Egypt; but you are a God of pardons, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abundant in kindness, so you did not abandon them—even when they had made for themselves a molten calf and said, ‘This is your god who brought you out from Egypt,’ and did great provocations.
And you, in your great compassion, did not abandon them in the wilderness.
The pillar of cloud never turned away from them by day, guiding them on their journey, and the pillar of fire by night, to give them light in the way they were to travel. You also gave them your good Spirit, to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouth, and you gave them water for their thirst. And for forty years you sustained them in the wilderness. They lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell.
Moreover you gave them kingdoms and nations, and placed them in every corner; and they possessed the land of Sihon, and the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan.
And you made their children as numerous as the stars of heaven and brought them into the land that you had said to their ancestors to go in to possess.
So their children went in and took possession of the land. And you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hand, and their kings and the peoples of the land, to do with them as they wished. And they captured fortified cities and a fertile land. And they took possession of houses filled with every good thing, digged-wells, vineyards, and oliveyards, and fruit trees in abundance. And they ate and were satisfied.
And they became strong and delighted themselves in your great goodness.
Nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them to turn back to you, and committed great blasphemies.
Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies, and they brought trouble to them. Then in the time of their trouble they cried out to you, and you, from heaven, heard, and according to your abundant compassions, you gave them saviors, and they saved them from the hand of their enemies. But after they had gained relief, they returned to doing evil before you, and you left them in the hand of their enemies, and they ruled over them. Then they came back and cried out to you, and you, from heaven, heard.
And you rescued them—time and time again—according to your compassions.
And you admonished them to return to your law.
But they, they acted presumptuously, and did not listen to your commandments, and sinned against your ordinances that a person must do so that they may live. And they stubbornly turned their backs on you and refused to listen. And for many years, you bore with them, and you testified against them by your Spirit through the hand of your prophets. Yet they still would not listen, so you gave them into the hand of nations of the lands.
Even so, in your abundant compassions, you have not eradicated them and you have not abandoned them, for you are a gracious and merciful God.
[…] And our kings, our rulers, our priests, and our ancestors did not keep your law and did not listen to your commandments and to your testimonies that you testified to them. And they—in their kingdom and in your abundant goodness that you gave to them, and in the large and fertile land that you gave before them—did not serve you and did not turn back from their evil deeds.” (Nehemiah 9:5-35)
As a last effort to check them in their evil course, the Sovereign God, the Owner of all lands, would give Jerusalem into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar’s first attack on Jerusalem—the one mentioned in the introduction of the Book of Daniel—would come to be more lenient and would not result in the devastation of the city. Although all the calamities written in the law of Moses were set to fall upon the people of Judah due to their wickedness, God, in His abundant grace, had chosen to delay the full execution of these punishments for a few more years, offering the people even more opportunity to repent and change their fate. During these years, God would continue to send His servants and speak through His prophets, to warn and save this people from their wickedness and the tragic outcome to which their ways were leading them.
Now, let us read Daniel’s account of this first attack on Jerusalem—the event that led to his deportation to Babylon and set the stage for the story told in his book.
1: בשנת שלוש למלכות יהויקים מלך יהודה בא נבוכדנאצר מלך בבל ירושלם ויצר עליה In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and laid siege against it.
Jehoiakim king of Judah: This king was evil, and he committed many crimes against God’s law.
And he chose not to recant.
A messenger of God said to him: “Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness, and his upper rooms without justice. On his neighbor he lays service for nothing, and his wage he does not give to him. He says, ‘I will build for myself a large house, and spacious upper rooms.’ And he cuts out windows for it, and covers with cedar, and paints with vermillion. Do you reign because you lust to excel in the cedar? Did not your father eat and drink, and do judgment and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy, then it was well. Is not this to know me? A declaration of Jehovah. But your eyes and your heart lust for nothing but your dishonest gain, and to shed innocent blood, and oppression, and to do violence.” (Jeremiah 22:13-17)
In order to save them, God sent to him and to his people all His servants, the prophets, repeatedly urging them to repent.
Up to this time, and for some years afterwards, the divine message to the people of Judah was the same: “Please, turn back, every man from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that Jehovah has given to you and to your fathers from eternity and to eternity, and do not go after other gods to serve them, and to bow yourselves to them, and do not provoke me to anger with the work of your hands, and I will do no harm to you!” (Jeremiah 25:5-6)
But they ignored His messages, and they were unwilling to listen to Him.
For these reasons, because of their wickedness, God will in the next verse give the king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar: God chose him to rule over the entire world during that time.
“Thus says Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel, ‘[…] I have made the earth, the man, and the animal that are upon the face of the earth by my great power and by my outstretched arm; and I have given it to whom it seemed right in my eyes. And now, I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, my servant, and also the animal of the field I have given to him to serve him. And all the nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the time of his own land comes; also it. And many nations and great kings shall serve him. And it shall be, the nation and the kingdom which will not serve him—Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon—and that will not put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I will punish that nation—a declaration of Jehovah—with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have destroyed them by his hand.” (Jeremiah 27:4-8)
Thus, God gave the Babylonians world dominance for the next seventy years, during which all other nations were to serve them as their vassals.
Came to Jerusalem and laid siege against it: This was the first of the three sieges that Nebuchadnezzar laid against Jerusalem.
The last attack of Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem is the most famous and well-known, but it was not the only one.
According to this historical account in the Book of Daniel, the first siege of Jerusalem occurred in the third year of Jehoiakim’s reign. During this event, Nebuchadnezzar subdued Jerusalem, made Jehoiakim a vassal king, and carried away some captives, including the young Daniel and his friends, with others specially chosen for service in the court of Babylon (Daniel 1:3-4). The opening two verses of the book of Daniel introduce the story of Daniel in the Babylonian court. Naturally, he mentioned in his book that siege that led to his captivity in Babylon (the first one) rather than the later sieges.
The Bible records Nebuchadnezzar’s sieges against Jerusalem in three major events, which can be pieced together from passages in the books of 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, and Jeremiah.
- The first siege: “In his days [Jehoiakim’s] Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years; and he turned and rebelled against him,” (2 Kings 24:1)
- The second siege: “At that time [during the reign of Jehoiakim’s son] came up the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Jerusalem, and the city came under siege. And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, and his servants laid siege to it,” (2 Kings 24:10-11)
- The third siege: “And it came to pass, in the ninth year of his reign [Nebuchadnezzar’s], in the tenth month, in the tenth of the month, came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, he and all his force, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and they built against it a fortification round about. And the city entered into siege until the eleventh year of king Zedekiah,” (2 Kings 25:1-2)
Therefore, as we can see, although the third siege is the most famous and well-known, and the one that caused the complete destruction of the city of Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 36:17-19, Jeremiah 52:4-7), it was not the only one.
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah: Jeremiah 25 says that its content is “the word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, […].” (Jeremiah 25:1).
It is important to notice that all Jeremiah 25:1 is saying is that in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, Jeremiah received a message from God concerning all the people of Judah. This verse is not saying that Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem and besieged it in that year—only that Jeremiah received a certain message from God. Read Jeremiah 25, from verse one and continue reading until verse eleven, and notice that its content is only a warning received in Jehoiakim’s fourth year foretelling the total and complete destruction that would come upon Jerusalem.
Therefore, Jeremiah 25 is not foretelling the siege described in Daniel 1:1, as that siege did not cause the complete destruction of Jerusalem and occurred a year earlier, in the third year of Jehoiakim (Daniel 1:1).
Other parts of the Bible show that the complete destruction of Jerusalem predicted in Jeremiah 25 was the result of Nebuchadnezzar’s last attack, and not the attack described in Daniel 1:1-2.
After Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest described in Daniel 1:1-2, despite God’s repeated warnings asking the people to submit to Nebuchadnezzar and serve him willingly, the people of Jerusalem refused to listen, and remained obstinate, and time after time rebelled against Babylon and its divinely appointed ruler. This persistent defiance led to further sieges and increasingly severe punishments, ultimately culminating in the complete devastation of the entire land of Judah, as prophesied in Jeremiah 25.
Here is what the Bible says about what happened as a result of the third and final invasion:
- There was no food anymore in Jerusalem: “the famine was severe in the city, and there was no food for the people of the land.” (2 Kings 25:3)
- Jerusalem was set on fire: “he [Nebuchadnezzar’s servant] burned the house of Jehovah and the house of the king; and all the houses of Jerusalem and every great house he burned with fire;” (2 Kings 25:9)
- The walls of Jerusalem were demolished: “and all the forces of the Chaldeans, who were with the chief of the slaughterers, broke down the walls of Jerusalem all around.” (2 Kings 25:10)
- The temple in Jerusalem was completely looted: “And the pillars of copper that were in the house of Jehovah, and the bases, and the sea of copper that was in the house of Jehovah, the Chaldeans broke in pieces and carried their copper to Babylon. And they took away the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the spoons, and all the vessels of copper with which they ministered. And the chief of the slaughterers took away the firepans and the bowls which were of gold, gold, and which were of silver, silver.” (2 Kings 25:13-15)
- Exile of the inhabitants: “And Nebuzaradan chief of the slaughterers took them and made them go to the king of Babylon, to Riblah. And the king of Babylon struck them and put them to death in Riblah, in the land of Hamath; and he removed Judah from its land.” (2 Kings 25:20-21)
Thus, it was the third attack (which occured years after the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign) that brought that complete destruction to Jerusalem foretold in Jeremiah 25.
The text of Jeremiah said, “And you have not listened to me—a declaration of Jehovah—so as to provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own hurt. Therefore thus says Jehovah of hosts, ‘Because that you have not obeyed my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north—a declaration of Jehovah—and to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations all around, and I will devote them to destruction, and I will set them for a desolation, and for a hissing, and for everlasting ruins. And I will destroy from them the voice of rejoicing, and the voice of joy, the voice of bridegroom and the voice of bride, the sound of millstones, and the light of lamp. And all this land shall be a desolation, for an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.” (Jeremiah 25:4-11)
So, Daniel 1:1-2 is talking about another attack on Jerusalem, the first one, which resulted in Daniel and his friends being deported to Babylon (Daniel 1:3-4).
2: ויתן אדני בידו את יהויקים מלך יהודה ומקצת כלי בית האלהים ויביאם ארץ שנער בית אלהיו ואת הכלים הביא בית אוצר אלהיו And the Lord gave into his hand Jehoiakim king of Judah, and a portion of the vessels from the house of the God, and he brought them into the land of Shinar, house of his god, and the vessels he brought into the house of treasury of his god.
A portion of the vessels from the house of the God: Only a portion was taken, which is another evidence that this was not the famous third attack—the one in which all the vessels were taken.
- In his first attack, Nebuchadnezzar took only a portion of the vessels (2 Chronicles 36:7)
- In his second attack, he took the treasures (2 Kings 24:13)
- In his third and final attack, he took the remaining vessels (2 Kings 25:13-15).
Therefore, the attack mentioned in the book of Daniel cannot be the third one, as it only involved taking a portion of the vessels from the temple.
After the first two attacks, a messenger of God declared: “For thus says Jehovah of Hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the bases, and concerning the rest of the vessels that are left in this city, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon did not take, […] surely thus says Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the vessels that are left of the house of Jehovah, and the house of the king of Judah, and Jerusalem: To Babylon they shall be brought,” (Jeremiah 27:19-22)
Therefore, the attack mentioned in the book of Daniel is not the famous third attack, but rather the first.
3: ויאמר המלך לאשפנז רב סריסיו להביא מבני ישראל ומזרע המלוכה ומן הפרתמים And the king said to Ashpenaz, master of his eunuchs, to bring from the sons of Israel, and from the seed of the kingship, and from the nobles,
4: ילדים אשר אין בהם כל מאום וטובי מראה ומשכילים בכל חכמה וידעי דעת ומביני מדע ואשר כח בהם לעמד בהיכל המלך וללמדם ספר ולשון כשדים young men without any physical defect, and pleasing of appearance, and skillful in all wisdom, and knowers of knowledge, and discerning in science, and strong to stand in the palace of the king, and to teach them the writing and language of the Chaldeans.
Part 2: Daniel and His Friends in Babylon (5-21)
Reading time: 20 minutes
5: וימן להם המלך דבר יום ביומו מפת בג המלך ומיין משתיו ולגדלם שנים שלוש ומקצתם יעמדו לפני המלך And the king appointed for them a provision, day by day, of the king’s delicacy, and of the wine of his drinking, and to nourish them for three years, that at the end of which they would stand before the king.
6: ויהי בהם מבני יהודה דניאל חנניה מישאל ועזריה And among them, from the sons of Judah, were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
Daniel: Names in the Bible often bear variant spellings, but still refer to the same individual.
For example, Nebuchadnezzar’s name “is found in two forms in the Bible, Nebuchadnezzar and Nebuchadrezzar. […] This change from ‘r’ to ‘n’ which is found in the two writings of the name in the Hebrew and the Aramaic of the Scriptures is a not uncommon one in the Semitic languages, as in Burnaburiyash and Burraburiyash, Ben-hadad and Bar-hadad (see Brockelmann’s Comparative Grammar, 136, 173, 220).” (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia)
Daniel’s name is also found in two forms in the Bible: Daniel and Danel.
Despite the difference in spelling, the Jewish translators of the 3rd century B.C. recognized that both names were the same. As a result, they rendered the name as ‘Daniel’ (Δανιηλ) in both the Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Daniel, as seen in the Septuagint. The Masoretic text also treats Daniel and Danel as the same name.1Ralph H. Alexander, Ezekiel (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary). Moreover, all English translations, both ancient and modern, render the name in the Book of Ezekiel as ‘Daniel,’ acknowledging that Daniel and Danel are the same name.
All of those linguists, both ancient and modern, recognize that ‘Daniel’ and ‘Danel’ are merely variant spellings of the same name.
The name Daniel was common in antiquity and appears in a certain Ugaritic tale.2Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books, edited by Bill T. Arnold and Hugh G. M. Williamson However, the spelling of Daniel in the Book of Ezekiel differs from its spelling in the Ugaritic tale.3Ralph H. Alexander, Ezekiel (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary) Thus, the name ‘Daniel’ is spelled differently in the Book of Daniel, in the Book of Ezekiel, and in that Ugaritic tale.
To determine the identity of the Daniel mentioned in Ezekiel, we must examine how Ezekiel describes him.
First, in an Ezekiel’s anti-idolatry passage, the Daniel he mentions is presented as a model of godliness (this characteristic is reminiscent of the Daniel of the Book of Daniel). In contrast, the Daniel of the Ugaritic tale is an idolatrous character, who hosts a feast for the goddesses of childbirth, the Kotharat.4Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books, edited by Bill T. Arnold and Hugh G. M. Williamson This definitively rules out any identification of the Daniel from the Ugaritic tale with Ezekiel’s Daniel. The Daniel in the Book of Ezekiel is described as a man of complete integrity, who feared God and turned away from evil (Ezekiel 14:14)—just like the Daniel in the Book of Daniel. He was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. His life of righteousness stood in stark contrast to a nation steeped in idolatry and the worship of pagan gods (Ezekiel 14:3-5).
Another parallel with the biblical Daniel is that Ezekiel’s Daniel is someone distinguished by a specific kind of wisdom—the wisdom to understand mysteries and hidden things (Ezekiel 28:3), just like the Daniel in the Book of Daniel.
So, everything the 6th-century BC prophet Ezekiel says about the Daniel in his book corresponds to the historical, biblical Daniel.
7: וישם להם שר הסריסים שמות וישם לדניאל בלטשאצר ולחנניה שדרך ולמישאל מישך ולעזריה עבד נגו And the chief of the eunuchs set names on them: and he set on Daniel, Belteshazzar; and on Hananiah, Shadrach; and on Mishael, Meshach; and on Azariah, Abed-nego.
8: וישם דניאל על לבו אשר לא יתגאל בפתבג המלך וביין משתיו ויבקש משר הסריסים אשר לא יתגאל And Daniel set in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king’s delicacy, and with the wine of his drinking, and he asked the chief of the eunuchs not to defile himself.
9: ויתן האלהים את דניאל לחסד ולרחמים לפני שר הסריסים And the God gave Daniel to favor and sympathy before the chief of the eunuchs.
10: ויאמר שר הסריסים לדניאל ירא אני את אדני המלך אשר מנה את מאכלכם ואת משתיכם אשר למה יראה את פניכם זעפים מן הילדים אשר כגילכם וחיבתם את ראשי למלך And the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has appointed your food and your drinks; for why should he see your faces sadder than those of the young men of your circle? And you would make my head indebted to the king.”
11: ויאמר דניאל אל המלצר אשר מנה שר הסריסים על דניאל חנניה מישאל ועזריה And Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah:
12: נס נא את עבדיך ימים עשרה ויתנו לנו מן הזרעים ונאכלה ומים ונשתה Please try your servants for ten days, and let them give us from the vegetable food, and we will eat, and water, and we will drink.
13: ויראו לפניך מראינו ומראה הילדים האכלים את פתבג המלך וכאשר תראה עשה עם עבדיך And our appearances will be seen before you, and the appearance of the young men who are eating the king’s delicacy, and deal with your servants according to what you see.
14: וישמע להם לדבר הזה וינסם ימים עשרה And he heard them in this thing, and he tested them for ten days.
15: ומקצת ימים עשרה נראה מראיהם טוב ובריאי בשר מן כל הילדים האכלים את פתבג המלך And at the end of the ten days, their appearance was better and more robust than all the young men who were eating the king’s delicacy.
16: ויהי המלצר נשא את פתבגם ויין משתיהם ונתן להם זרענים And after that, the steward continued taking away their delicacy, and the wine of their drink, and he kept on giving them vegetable food.
17: והילדים האלה ארבעתם נתן להם האלהים מדע והשכל בכל ספר וחכמה ודניאל הבין בכל חזון וחלמות And to these four young men, each of them, the God gave them science and skill in every writing and wisdom; and he made Daniel understand every vision and dreams.
He made Daniel understand every vision and dreams: Due to this extraordinary wisdom that God gave him to interpret prophetic symbols, Daniel became renowned, and his fame spread among his contemporaries (Ezekiel 28:3).
After Daniel revealed and interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s secret dream (in the next chapter), the king made Daniel “ruler over all the province of Babylon” (Daniel 2:48). In this province governed by Daniel lived another 6th-century B.C. prophet, Ezekiel. Naturally, given Daniel’s high-ranking position, he was well known to his Jewish compatriot, Ezekiel, as evidenced by the references in Ezekiel’s writings to a man called Daniel, who was righteous and had the wisdom to understand mysteries.
“Are you wiser than Daniel? Is there no hidden thing that is obscured from you?” (Ezekiel 28:3)
Daniel says that his God reveals “hidden things” and knows “what is in darkness” (Daniel 2:22). Daniel’s extraordinary wisdom to interpret prophetic symbols came from his deep and holy connection with God, the source of all wisdom. As we have seen, he was a model of righteousness and godliness to his contemporaries (Ezekiel 14:14, 20). His righteousness and closeness to God enabled him to interpret prophetic symbols and mysteries.
The wicked does not understand them, but the wise/righteous does (Daniel 12:10).
18: ולמקצת הימים אשר אמר המלך להביאם ויביאם שר הסריסים לפני נבכדנצר And at the end of those days that the king had said to bring them in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them before Nebuchadnezzar.
19: וידבר אתם המלך ולא נמצא מכלם כדניאל חנניה מישאל ועזריה ויעמדו לפני המלך And the king talked to them, and among all the young men he found no one equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; and they stood before the king.
And they stood before the king: Therefore, Daniel and his friends began serving the king only after completing their three years of training (Daniel 1:5).
Daniel and his friends began their three years of training while Nebuchadnezzar was already a “king of Babylon” (Daniel 1:1). However, by the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Daniel had free access to the king (Daniel 2:16), indicating that he was already serving before him in the royal palace. Additionally, by that same year, Daniel and his friends were already counted among the wise men of Babylon (Daniel 2:1, 18), and Daniel was even appointed as the “chief of the prefects over all the wise men of Babylon” (Daniel 2:48).
If Daniel and his friends completed their three-year training in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, then their training must have started before his first year as king.
However, Daniel and his friends began their three years of training when Nebuchadnezzar was already a “king of Babylon” (Daniel 1:1).
The following Babylonian text will provide context that will help us understand this timeline:
“In the twenty-first year the king of Akkad [Nabopolassar] stayed in his own land, Nebuchadnezzar his eldest son, the crown-prince, mustered the Babylonian army and took command of his troops; he marched to Karchemis which is on the bank of the Euphrates, and crossed the river to go against the Egyptian army which lay in Karchemis. They fought with each other and the Egyptian army withdrew before him. He accomplished their defeat and beat them to non-existence. As for the rest of the Egyptian army which had escaped from the defeat so quickly that no weapon had reached them, in the district of Hamath the Babylonian troops overtook and defeated them so that not a single man escaped to his own country. At that time Nebuchadnezzar conquered the whole area of Hamath. For twenty-one years Nabopolassar had been king of Babylon, when on 8 Abu [August 15th] he went to his destiny; in the month of Ululu [September] Nebuchadnezzar returned to Babylon and on 1 Ululu [September 7th] he sat on the royal throne in Babylon. In the accession year Nebuchadnezzar went back again to the Hatti-land and until the month of Sabatu marched unopposed through the Hatti-land; in the month of Sabatu he took the heavy tribute of the Hatti-territory to Babylon. In the month of Nisannu he took the hands of Bel and the son of Bel and celebrated the Akitu Festival. In the first year of Nebuchadnezzar in the month of Simanu he mustered his army and went to the Hatti-territory, he marched about unopposed in the Hatti-territory until the month of Kislimu. All the kings of the Hatti-land came before him and he received their heavy tribute.” (Chronicle Concerning the Early Years of Nebuchadnezzar II (ABC 5), published by the Dutch historian Jona Lendering on Livius)
In summary:
- Nebuchadnezzar goes to Carchemish and defeats the Egyptians.
- In August 15th, his father, Nabopolassar, passes away from old age.
- Some days later, in September 7th, Nebuchadnezzar takes the royal throne in Babylon.
- In that same year, “the accession year” (which is the leftover portion of Nabopolassar’s 21st year), Nebuchadnezzar goes back to the Hatti-land.
- He marches unopposed through that territory until January/February (still in the same year, in the Babylonian calendar).
- In March/April, Nebuchadnezzar celebrates the Babylonian New Year
- May/June, the beginning of the Babylonian year, is called “the first year of Nebuchadnezzar” (although he was already reigning as king since the previous year).
- In that same year and month he comes to the Haiti-territory and marches unopposed until November/December of that same year and receives heavy tribute from the local kings.
We can see that this Babylonian record says that Nebuchadnezzar took the Babylonian royal throne in the year of his father’s death (which is called “accession year”).
At the same time, it also says that the beginning of his first year as king happened in the following year.
The same occurs in the Book of Daniel, another 6th-century B.C. document written in Babylon. In this book, in Daniel 1:1, Daniel refers to Nebuchadnezzar as “king of Babylon” before what is considered his first year of reign, because, as we saw in that Babylonian record, Nebuchadnezzar had indeed taken the royal throne before what is considered the beginning of his first year of reign. This also explains why the three-year training of Daniel and his friends had already been completed in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar: the accession year was the first year of their training, the first year was the second year of their training, and the second year was the third year of their training.
And this also explains why not only Daniel 1:1 but also 2 Kings 24:1 referred to Nebuchadnezzar as “king of Babylon” before what is considered the first year of his reign.
It also explains why the prophet Jeremiah said that the first year of Nebuchadnezzar was in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 25:1).
20: וכל דבר חכמת בינה אשר בקש מהם המלך וימצאם עשר ידות על כל החרטמים האשפים אשר בכל מלכותו And in any matter of reasoned wisdom that the king consulted them, he found them ten hands above all the scribes, the enchanters, who were in all his kingdom.
21: ויהי דניאל עד שנת אחת לכורש המלך And Daniel remained until the first year of the reign of King Cyrus.
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