“The past causes the present, and so the future. Any time we try to know why something
happened…we have to look for factors that took shape earlier.” (17)
God offered them a deal; God would take care of the Hebrews if they would serve him. The Hebrews agreed, they entered the Promised Land, and all went well for a while.
But as time passed, the Hebrews split into two
different kingdoms and both began to ignore their side of the bargain they had
made with God.
Sometimes a good king would come to power that would
listen and lead the people back to worshipping God, but that did not happen
often and, when it did happen, it did not last long. The Northern half of the split Hebrew
kingdom, called Israel, was the worst and evil king after evil king ignored
God’s pleadings and warnings. God
finally withdrew his protection and, in the year 722 BCE, the Assyrian army
invaded, killing and taking prisoners, virtually wiping out the entire Northern
kingdom.
But the Southern kingdom had not yet reached the end of its probation, if you will. For the most part the people remained rebellious, but God continued to plead with them and warn them until finally, more than a century after the Northern kingdom fell, he had to give up on the Southern kingdom. By this time the Assyrian kingdom was no longer the big dog in the area…Babylon had become the world’s dominant empire and was swallowing up country after country.
In
Judah, the Southern kingdom, an evil king named Jehoiakim rose to the throne in
the capitol city of Jerusalem. Little
did he know what was going to happen during his short reign…God was fed up with
Judah and had withdrawn his protection.
During the third year of Jehoiakim’s turn as king, king Nebuchadnezzar
of Babylon marched his army into Judah and conquered the entire country.
Good people often get caught up in bad things, and
not all of Judah had abandoned the worship of God. A young man named Daniel, and several of his
friends, were faithful servants of God but when Judah fell to Nebuchadnezzar,
they were caught up in the fray and taken as prisoners to the capitol city of
Babylon. Here Daniel found favor with
those in power and was assigned to work in the palace.