Daniel: Part 3 – The Progressive Maturation of a Believer in the End Times from Immaturity to Full Stature and a Redeemed Body
Dan 1:2 And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.
As stated in the previous article on Daniel, there is a spiritual interpretation underneath the literal story of Daniel that shows us things about the workings of our inner being. Things that are outward in the natural world have corresponding spiritual meanings that reveal what we are like inwardly. For the book of Daniel, I view Daniel as being our spiritual mind throughout the entire book. When it is first awakened with our new birth in Christ, it needs to grow and mature. It is the part of us that is close to Jesus and heaven but is mostly hidden from us by the veil of our flesh which is our natural mind (along with bodily cravings) that views life from a natural worldly perspective.
Throughout this study, the natural mind changes according to the working of God through our spirit. In the beginning of our new birth in Christ, our natural mind is in control. In the sense we are seeing here in Daniel 1, it is likened to Nebuchadnezzar (the natural mind) having taken Daniel (the spiritual mind) captive out of Jerusalem.
And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand
Jehoiakim’s name means “Jehovah will raise.” In our life, when we are taken captive by trials and temptations, it is through these that God raises us higher in our spirit so we can be closer to him. Without difficulties in our lives, we cannot grow spiritually.
In the natural Jehoiakim was not a good king; in fact, he was a very wicked king, but his spiritual significance lies in his position as a king of Judah. To the Israelites it was a sacrilege to hurt a king because a king was Jehovah’s anointed.
Jehoiakim, as king of Judah, held this honor, and as king he represented God’s truth. Even if a king was evil, he was still held in honor and was not to be harmed because of what was represented by his position. The Israelites were the only ones who had the Ten Commandments and the words of the prophets. Moses, as God’s spokesman, declared to the Israelites it was a sacrilege to hurt a king because a king was Jehovah’s anointed and as king he had in his possession the words of the Law:
Now it shall come about, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this Law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. (Deut 17:18)
We know that David upheld this belief to the highest extent in that he had many opportunities to kill King Saul but he refused to do so. Even though Saul was seeking to kill him and was responsible for David having to continually hide in stark wilderness enclaves, David as God’s anointed future king declined to harm him.
So with all this in mind, here is what the internal sense of this first clause is:
And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand
The Lord gave the written Word of God (Jehoiakim king of Judah), into the power (hand) of the natural mind (Nebuchadnezzar).
When we are first born again, we want to read the Bible, so we determine to read it every day. We may find, however, that it is difficult to understand. Some of us persevere and break through into some understanding while others of us give up trying to understand and just resort to reading what others say about it or listening to what the preacher preaches about it.
However we choose to approach our knowledge of God and heaven, as contained in the Bible, is up to us. One thing is certain, we can make a choice about how we handle it because it has been given into our hand. We can decide to read it every day for a certain period of time or a certain number of verses, or we can decide to save it for later, and unfortunately for many of us later often does not arrive so far as our reading of the Word goes. To take it a step further, we can decide to actually study the Bible and look up the words in the original language and keep a notebook based on our studies, etc. Regardless of how we decide to handle the Word, it is in our hand and it is our choice.
with part of the vessels of the house of God
Along with the Word itself, as we saw in King Jehoiakim, the natural mind (Nebuchadnezzar) also has part of the vessels of the house of God.
Vessels, according to Strong’s Concordance, are receptacles. In the temple they were often made of gold and silver. Gold signifies the nature of God and Silver signifies redemption. For our understanding here where we are talking about the natural mind, silver vessels will contain our knowledge about redemption and gold our understanding of God. Note that these were partial. Our natural mind has very limited understanding of spiritual things.
which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.
We need to define a few of these things mentioned here and then we can see our interpretation of this verse based on our thorough research into their spiritual meanings:
Shinar means “the watch of him who sleeps.” If one researches every mention of Shinar in Scripture, one finds it is always associated with something evil be it confusion (tower of Babel), wickedness (Zechariah 5), wars and rebellion (Genesis 14), temptation (Joshua 7), etc. These are all aspects of a mind that knows not Christ.
The spiritual side of our being that can know and commune with God has mostly been sleeping since the fall of Adam and Eve. In Christ it is awakened and in relationship with Jesus can begin to “watch” over the natural mind and begin to work with it to cleanse it and bring it into submission to God.
Nebuchadnezzar’s treasure house would have had literal images and statues made of various elements that he considered to be gods, but as for our natural mind we fill it with facts, history, things learned in school and books, and things learned by experience. There is nothing wrong with these things when they are used for God’s purposes, but in the natural mind, apart from our love for Jesus Christ, these can become gods of logic, reason, intellect, entertainment, science, etc.
Verse and Interpretation
Dan 1:2 And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.
The Lord gave the written Word of God (Jehoiakim king of Judah), into the power (hand) of the natural mind (Nebuchadnezzar) in an immature believer. This natural mind has a limited understanding of redemption and the nature of God (vessels of the house of God) which is all mixed in with his thoughts of confusion, temptations, wickedness, rebellion and other sins (Shinar) such that he worships the gods of logic, reason, intellect, entertainment, science, etc. (treasure house of his god). The spiritual mind that has been sleeping since the fall (Shinar) must be awakened to work with God to cleanse and train the natural mind if we are to have a deeper relationship with God and move in the supernatural realm of the gifts of the Spirit.
