God’s Word for You

Daniel 1:2 In the land of Shinar

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, August 17, 2025

2 And the Lord handed Jehoiakim king of Judah over to him, along with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he sent these off to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god.

First, we notice in this verse that Daniel refers to God as “the Lord” and not “the LORD.” When we see “the LORD” spelled in all capital letters in the Old Testament, we encounter one of the great Hebrew names of God. It means “I AM.” This is how God explained his name to Moses: “I AM WHO I AM, This is what you are to say to the Israelites. I AM has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14). This is the name that declares God’s constant presence with his people, just as Jesus said, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Because the ancient Jews chose not to record the pronunciation of the word, we are left with making due with a word like “Jehovah,” which has the consonants of God’s name in Hebrew along with vowels from the word for “lord.” Yet it is a name that carries the gospel along with it. It is the name by which God makes promises, swears oaths to his people, and by which he blesses them. However, Daniel uses a title here, and not God’s holy name. It is the title “lord,” or “master,” and here it is not a message of the gospel, but of the law. For Jehoiakim in his third year was bound in bronze chains by Nebuchadnezzar, as we saw in 2 Chronicles 36:7, “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against him and bound him in bronze shackles to take him to Babylon.” But since that happened in Jehoiakim’s third year, and we know that he reigned for eleven years (2 Chronicles 36:5), we can guess that one of two things happened. Either he was briefly removed to Babylon the way that his ancestor Manasseh had been removed and then sent back again (2 Chronicles 33:11-13), or else he was bound in Jerusalem in order to be taken to Babylon, but then released again. But at the end of his reign, he was taken captive and led away, “never to see this land again (Jeremiah 22:12), and he died somewhere remote and perhaps nowhere near any civilization, since Jeremiah also says, “They will not mourn for him” and “He will have the burial of a donkey” (Jeremiah 22:18-19).

So in our verse, when Nebuchadnezzar sent “these” to Babylon, he is probably referring to the vessels looted from the temple, which made regular worship difficult or nearly impossible. And since Jehoiakim was sinning by leading the people into idolatry, regular temple worship was no longer happening at any rate.

Second, Daniel calls Babylon “the land of Shinar,” a name that is not heard very much outside the book of Genesis. It seems that when Daniel went there and discovered that he was living in a region that was still called by the name Shinar, he wanted to record this detail to remind the people about God’s way of looking after his people. For the plain of Shinar was where ancient men made the Tower of Babel (therefore a place where a great science and industry were possible, although this was abused in the account in Genesis 11). Also, the King of Shinar was one of the bandits who kidnapped Lot, Abraham’s nephew, and that King (Nebuchadnezzar’s predecessor if not his actual ancestor) was defeated by Abraham and his Amorite friends at the Battle of Hobah north of Damascus (Genesis 14:15-16). Therefore, Daniel hints, the King of Shinar can be defeated by a godly king once again, just as he once was by Abraham, except that there were no more godly kings of Israel to be had—not in Daniel’s lifetime. Instead, just like Lot and his family and all their possessions, the treasures of God’s house were taken away to the treasury of the god of Shinar, who was surely the Babylonian god Marduk, also called Bel (not Baal).

Yet a godly king was coming: the King of kings, and Lord of Lords (1 Timothy 6:15; Revelation 19:16). He is the one Daniel constantly has in sight, off in the horizon, but coming always on his way, the one “who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16). It is Christ who will save, and who indeed has already saved us. “Not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5-7). For faith does not justify because it is so good a work and so God-pleasing a virtue, but because it lays hold on and accepts the merits of Christ in the promise of the holy Gospel.

Israel’s first king, Saul, gave God the title “the LORD who rescues Israel” (1 Samuel 14:39). And Jeremiah said, “The LORD rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked” (Jeremiah 20:13). The prisoner can have hope that he will be set free. Those who are oppressed can have hope that the Lord will be their refuge (Psalm 9:9); and they can also remember Solomon’s words: “Better to be lowly in spirit and among the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud” (Proverbs 16:19).

For Daniel, there was hope in this land even though Israel was being punished for her sins. He himself could follow the Lord and be faithful to all God’s ways even though there was no priest to serve, no temple or altar for him to make sacrifices. There was only Daniel and a few companions, and their faith. But we see “a fine example from Daniel’s life” in this chapter. “We see how godly, how God-fearing, and how possessed he was of a great and noble faith in God, and all this in the very midst of the wild and pagan life and the abominable offenses which he had to listen to and look upon every day in Babylon” (Luther). For just as the terrors of sin and death are not merely thoughts in the intellect but are also a horrible turmoil in the will as it flees God’s judgment; just so faith is not merely knowledge in the intellect but also trust within the will, that is, to desire and to accept what the promise offers—reconciliation and forgiveness of sins. This is how Scripture uses the word ‘faith,’ as Paul shows: “Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God” (Romans 5:1). So we can look to Daniel as an example of the Christian life, to put our trust in God and to hold dearly to his promises, especially the forgiveness of our sins, so that we constantly see before us our Lord Jesus Christ, and our place with him forever in heaven.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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