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And then I ran across this piquant phrase in Nathan Bierma's book Bringing Heaven Down to Earth, in which he quotes a play by (coincidentally) Daniel Jurman: "In every way that is unimportant, let them make us Chaldeans."

The speaker, of course, is Daniel.

Like the Chaldeans, in all the unimportant ways. It's a compelling idea, but also, on further thought, a strange interpretation of the book of Daniel. For Daniel had some unlikely ideas about what was important and what was unimportant. Upon arriving in Babylon, the capital city not far from modern Baghdad, his first recorded decision was to ask for a diet of vegetables instead of the king's meat and wine. Commentators observe that the meat might have been offered to Babylonian gods, yet a Jew would have had a thousand encounters every day with all manner of uncleanness and idolatry in the city of Babylon. How did Daniel conclude that the king's table was worth making a fuss over, while enrolling with his friends in a comprehensive course on Chaldean language and literature? Surely avoiding a thorough cultural indoctrination would be more important than choosing the king's asparagus over the king's lamb.

Yet from all appearances, Daniel was indeed the "model Babylonian." There is no love lost in Scripture for the empire of Babylon, yet somehow Daniel intuited that he could immerse himself in Babylon's foreign culture without losing his distinct identity. The psalmist lamented, "By the waters of Babylon we lay down and wept. … How can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" (Ps. 137:1). But that was a question, not an answer. Daniel answered the question while praying in front of an open window every day: It is possible to sing the Lord's song, if you manage to discern the important ways that you still belong to the Lord.

It seems that for Daniel and his comrades, being a counterculture consisted of surprisingly small decisions—small acts of reorientation to remind them daily that in spite of their privileged status in the capital city of the world's most powerful empire, they belonged to another King and another kingdom. The Book of Daniel also records, like the Book of Esther, dramatic decisions to serve God rather than the foreign king. But it is unique in giving us a glimpse into the daily choices, such as eating vegetables and praying in Hebrew, that prepared the exiles for those moments of courage.

Daniel is also unique in how vividly it shows the exiles devoting themselves, as Jeremiah had instructed them, to the welfare of the city of their exile. At one point, Daniel is called into Nebuchadnezzar's presence to interpret a dream with fateful implications for the king's legacy. He begins, "My lord, if only the dream applied to your enemies!" And he ends, "Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be then that your prosperity will continue" (Dan. 4:19–27). Even in the midst of pronouncing God's decisive judgment, Daniel sought the prosperity of Nebuchadnezzar and his people.

Later, Daniel is granted a sweeping vision of God's intentions for history, a vision that leaves Babylon in the dust of future empires. "I, Daniel, was worn out," he says. "I lay exhausted for several days." And then this astonishing report: "Then I got up and went about the king's business" (Dan. 8:27).

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December 2006, Vol. 50, No. 12