In the book of Daniel, there are lots of memorable stories in the literal text, and there are memorable spiritual stories going on in the internal sense, too.

The first chapter is centered on a story in Daniel's life - a sort of anecdote - in which he and his friends, now captives in Babylon, refuse the food that is being offered to them from the King's table.

Before that anecdote begins, though, there's some background: the Kingdom of Judah has been conquered by the Babylonian Empire. Many Judeans have been taken captive, and brought to Babylon.

The chapter begins with the phrase "in the third year." Even a cursory study of the Word shows that many sequences begin by setting a time in which the action takes place. Time in the Word always indicates a spiritual state (AC 4901). When the Word mentions blocks of time, days, weeks, months, years, they indicate states people pass through. Each term indicates a different state. To differentiate further between them, numbers are often attached to define the state. In the phrase, "in the third year," the number "three" contains the idea of fullness, an end, and a new beginning, and contains within it the added dimensions of a judgment on the past.

So the story begins with the end of one state, and the beginning of the next. The finishing state, represented by the king of Judah, Jehoiakim, gives way to a second state: Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. The story of Jehoiakim, during whose reign Daniel was captured, describes the final throes of a deteriorating spiritual condition.

In the third year of his reign, Jehoiakim stopped paying tribute to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar did not immediately invade Judah, preferring to give other conquered states, Syria, Moab, and Ammon, the task of harassing Jehoiakim with the intention of reducing him to submission. When this did not work, he attacked, forcibly reducing the city to submission. During Jehoiakim's revolt, Nebuchadnezzar took hostages to Babylon, including Daniel.

'Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, represented the Babylonian falsification of the Word, and destruction of all truth therein (AR 47:4 ).

At the end of the first verse, Nebuchadnezzar comes to Jerusalem and besieges it. This contains two elements: the first is Jerusalem; the second is his treatment of the city. Jerusalem was the center of worship in Judah, although by the time of Jehoiakim, the temple was desecrated. Secondly, in ancient times, the siege of a city did not necessarily mean its destruction, and at the time Daniel was taken captive, the city was not destroyed. But a siege was a long and disastrous event, weakening the fiber of the city. The siege perfectly illustrates the situation of spiritual things of the church with a person, represented by Jerusalem, when they are weakened by false thoughts and selfishness, depicted first by Jehoiakim and then by Nebuchadnezzar. Selfishness, attracted by a love of falsity, given a free hand by a lack of interest in the Word, besieges the mind until the bonds of consciousness are relaxed and selfishness wins.

This sets the natural and spiritual environments in which the story takes place. The historical Daniel lived in Babylon; he worked for kings, administering their kingdom. Spiritual meanings transcend this external, though they correspond perfectly to the details of the literal story.

Nebuchadnezzar's transfer of the vessels from the house of God to the house of his own god underscores and illustrates the meaning of the "third year" in the first verse. "The third year" signals the end of one stage and the start of the next. The desecration of the temple dramatically demonstrates this, for the temple, which should have been the center of Judah's worship, should have been protected at all costs. In reality, the temple was already desecrated by the sins of Jehoiakim, which were so bad they tipped the scales of Divine justice against Judah. With Nebuchadnezzar besieging the city, and the relinquishing of these vessels, the state of Judah's integrity came to an end — her most holy vessels were carried into captivity, and an entirely new chapter of Judah's history began.

This second verse refocuses the emphasis from the action of Nebuchadnezzar to the Lord: while the first verse states that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, the second shows the hand of the Lord in this. The clear indication is that Nebuchadnezzar did not conquer Judah from his own power, but "the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand."

In Hebrew, the word for "Lord" is "Adonai," the Latin is "Dominus." While the Writings have no entry for the word "Adonai," the term "Dominus" is frequently used. The name "Lord" describes the Divine good — the Lord's love operating in peoples' lives (AC 2921). The book, Divine Love and Wisdom, poetically describes the quality of this love as "consisting in this, that its own should be another's; to feel the joy of another as joy in oneself, that is loving" (DLW 47). The Word shows the Lord's love in many places: from love, He took on the human form and saved the human race; from love, He brought both heaven and hell into order; and from love, He revealed Himself by means of the Word. Love is the very being of the Lord; it is the root and source of each of His actions through the ages. The words "the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hands," shows that this was from the Lord's love.

The Lord did not deliver Jehoiakim into Nebuchadnezzar's hand as punishment, but to illustrate how He brings goodness from an evil situation. If He did not do this on a daily basis, the whole foundation of human our regeneration would be undermined. Once Jehoiakim, representing the lusts for falsity, is submerged by the love of self, which is Nebuchadnezzar, people's spiritual lives would be over unless the Lord had a way of arresting the slide into hell and spiritually rehabilitating us.

The vessels held captive in the temple of the Babylonian god is a depiction of people, as they grow older, turning away from the things they learned in youth, and embracing things that appeal to their selfish will; they forget the spiritual things they learned as children. Selfishness destroys the taste for the truth, and with that destruction, people gradually lose the power to resist the allure of selfishness. This is what happened when Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem: the selfishness inherent in every person finally overruns the concepts of the truth already weakened by a lack of will to think and act according to the truth — represented by Jehoiakim. Selfishness carries off the vessels of the temple; it subverts the things that should introduce people to worshiping the Lord for another cause: the service of self.

After setting the scene in the first two verses of the book, we come to the central character of the story: Daniel himself. His introduction into the story fills the major segment of the first chapter. Verses three to five are transitional swinging away from Nebuchadnezzar the warrior king, to Daniel, the hero of the rest of the book. At this point, the focus is still on Nebuchadnezzar as an administrator. His power over Daniel appears in these verses, and indicates the power of the falsities (Nebuchadnezzar) arising from selfishness (king of Babylon), over the human conscience and commitment to truth, represented by Daniel. At this point in the story, Daniel is a helpless young man at the mercy of the king.

In the spiritual text, Daniel is the presence of the Lord within people, even in their pre-regenerative state when truth is captured and dominated by selfishness and twisted thinking. The Lord is central to the entire theme, both literally and spiritually: the Divine Love is ceaselessly in human lives, continually striving to turn people away from selfishness towards good. It is a great teaching of the Heavenly Doctrines that the Lord never breaks a people's state, but rather bends them within the bounds of human freedom and response. Historically, He placed Daniel in Babylon to show how He keeps the human conscience alive to judge actions, point out errors, and finally to lead people into His kingdom.

Enter Ashpenaz. The position "master of the eunuchs" makes Ashpenaz a high ranking court official. He is entrusted with the important task of training Jewish captives for future use in the Babylonian empire. In this capacity, he represents a common human situation: some people have the ability to appear to be good, nice, kind, and honest, while bent on fulfilling some hidden, and often selfish, agenda. But the Lord uses these visible qualities of good to lead people into true goodness. In many cases, regeneration is more of a change in a people's motives than a change in actions.

Only certain boys were suitable for the kind of training Nebuchadnezzar had in mind: the young men could have no blemish, they must be good looking, gifted in all wisdom, possessing knowledge, and quick to understand. Each of these criteria describes aspects of the truths the Lord cultivates in people in order to combat selfishness.

These boys were fed from the royal table. The concepts of "eating" and "drinking" in the Word describe the absorption of goodness and truth into people's lives. When people eat food and drink wine, these become a part of them, assimilated into the body. A similar thing happens with goodness and truth on the spiritual level. The process of learning or experiencing something good or true is very similar to the way people eat food and drink: the meal enters the stomach where it is digested and becomes a part of the person's spiritual life.

Babylon, a symbol of extreme selfishness, is diametrically opposite to the Lord Himself. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who represents the falsification of the Word from that selfishness, is the opposite of the Lord's truth given in the Word. The food he offered the boys would, on a spiritual level, undermine everything they stood for. Only innocence, defined as a willingness to follow the Lord by living according to His truth, can lead people from the clutches of selfishness; yet it is the very nature of selfishness to undermine that innocence and pervert truths. This is what is described by Nebuchadnezzar's apparently kind act of giving the boys food from his own table. This becomes clear in his motives: "three years of training for them, so that at the end of that time they might serve the king." This three-year period was to produce servants. The subversion of truth is never a quick process – people go through years of torment from hell before they totally surrender to it. Yet if they have no innocence, if the food of thought has always centered on selfishness and falsity, the time will come when the person's resistance breaks down completely, and that person will serve our spiritual Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

So Daniel appealed to Ashpenaz for permission to avoid eating the king's delicacies. In the literal sense, this took courage. Ashpenaz had a great deal of authority and Daniel was a mere captive. This courage is needed for spiritual change. When external actions are in the grip of false thoughts and rationalizations from selfishness, altruism is easily quelled. It takes courage to change motivation and to act from truth rather than falsity, especially when this change of motivation requires very little external behavioral change. Yet it must be done, and so Daniel made the request.

Every effort to come into order is blessed by the Lord. Daniel worked up the courage to ask, and God brought Him into favor and good will. The name for the Lord used here, "God," shows the presence of the Divine truth. This makes sense because Daniel represents truth affecting people's natural lives. This is from the Divine truth presented in the Word. Without Divine truth, people have no understanding of truth, and remain in falsity and selfishness forever.

When Daniel made his request, Ashpenaz was afraid that Daniel would not prosper as the other boys, and he, Ashpenaz, would be blamed. This is the essential nature of merely external good: when behavior is good without any sort of spiritual rudder to guide it, people find themselves led as easily by falsity as by truth. People guided by nonspiritual natural good allow themselves to be easily persuaded by evil, for evil spirits are in their element or their life's delight when they can get into another's desires; once they have entered, they allure that person into every kind of evil (AC 5032:3).

Ashpenaz faced a situation: one of his promising boys was rejecting the king's food and might soon look worse than the other boys. This means that truth, which challenges selfishness, begins to lose its appeal. Yet the challenge must be borne out to its conclusion. If people give in so quickly to selfish desires, their spiritual life would be over quickly. The solution is to look for another alternative, another place where the truth can gain a toehold in our minds.

Daniel appeals to the "steward." There are times when external behavior, good as it may seem, is too closely related to selfish will to respond to an appeal from truth. Sometimes the route of truth through the minds needs to begin at the outer, and often subordinate, elements of our lives – the steward.

To some degree, all people go through this process: before regeneration, we are motivated by selfishness, yet learn truth, and eventually learn to think from truth and develop an affection for it. This is how the Lord develops a toehold in the selfish nature of the unregenerate person. Eventually, adopting the affirmative principle and allowing truth to influence our actions, we find ourselves changing for the better: the stranglehold of selfishness on every facet of our lives begins to slip, and the slow process of liberation begins. But this truth is still in its early stages. In the first states of regeneration, the deeper levels of our mind are still under the control of selfishness and the falsities from it. Nebuchadnezzar is still on his throne, king of the most powerful empire in the world.

Daniel's experiment had been successful, and the final verses of this first chapter extol the wisdom of the four young men. Truth developed and cultivated in our lives appeals to our inner sense of selfishness – a selfish person can take pride in intelligence and wisdom. It is a wonderful thing to be thought good and wise. These are virtues a person can use for selfish ends.

But, as future chapters will show, the beginnings of a conscience spells the end of a life of selfishness. It may take a long time, just as Daniel lived and labored in Babylon for many years, but ultimately the conscience will be victorious, and selfishness banished.

2921. 'My lord, you are a prince of God in the midst of us' means the Lord as regards Divine good and truth with them. This is clear from the meaning of 'a lord' and of 'a prince of God', and from the meaning of 'in the midst of us'. The fact that the expression 'lord' is used when good is the subject is clear from the Old Testament Word, for there Jehovah is sometimes called Jehovah, sometimes God, sometimes Lord, sometimes Jehovah God, sometimes Lord Jehovih, sometimes Jehovah Zebaoth, and always for a hidden reason which cannot be known except from the internal sense. In general when the celestial things of love, that is, when good, are dealt with, the name Jehovah is used, but when the spiritual things of faith are dealt with, the name God is used. And when both together are dealt with, the names Jehovah God are used. When however the Divine power of good, that is, when omnipotence is the subject, Jehovah Zebaoth (or Jehovah of Hosts), and also the Lord, are used; so that the names Jehovah Zebaoth and the name the Lord have the same sense and meaning. From this also, that is to say, from the power of good, men and angels are called 'lords', and in the contrary sense those are called servants or slaves who have no power at all or else have a power received from their lords. From these considerations it becomes clear that here 'my lord' in the internal sense means the Lord as regards good, which in what follows below will be illustrated from the Word. 'A prince of God' however means the Lord as regards the power of truth, that is, as regards truth, as becomes clear from the meaning of 'a prince' or 'princes' as first and foremost truths, dealt with in 1482, 2089, and from the fact that the phrase 'a prince of God' is used, for the name God is used when truth is dealt with but the name Jehovah when good is dealt with, 2586, 2769, 2807, 2822. As regards 'in the midst of us' meaning among them or present with them, this is clear without explanation.

[2] That in the Old Testament Word the names Jehovah Zebaoth and the name Lord have the same sense and meaning is clear in Isaiah,

The zeal of Jehovah Zebaoth will do this; the Lord has sent a word into Jacob, and it has fallen on Israel. Isaiah 9:7-8.

Elsewhere in the same prophet,

A mighty king will have dominion over them, said the Lord, Jehovah Zebaoth. Isaiah 19:4.

In Malachi,

Behold, suddenly there will come to His temple the Lord whom you are seeking and the angel of the covenant in whom you delight. Behold, He is coming, says Jehovah Zebaoth. Malachi 3:1.

More plainly, in Isaiah,

I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. Above Him stood the seraphim; each had six wings. One called to another, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah Zebaoth. Woe is me! For I am cut off; for my eyes have seen the King, Jehovah Zebaoth. And I heard the voice of the Lord. Isaiah 6:1-3, 5, 8.

From these places it is evident that Jehovah Zebaoth and the Lord have the same meaning.

[3] But 'the Lord Jehovih' is used more particularly when the help of omnipotence is sought and prayed for, as in Isaiah,

Say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold, the Lord Jehovih will come with might, and His arm will exercise dominion for Him; behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him. He will pasture His flock like a shepherd. Isaiah 40:9-11.

For further examples of this use of 'the Lord Jehovih', see Isaiah 25:8; 40:10; 48:16; 50:4-5, 7, 9; 61:1; Jeremiah 2:22; Ezekiel 8:1; 11:13, 17, 21; 12:10, 19, 28; 13:8, 13, 16, 18, 20; 14:4, 6, 11, 18, 20-21; Micah 1:2; Psalms 71:5, 16; and many other places.

[4] What is more, in the Old Testament Word 'the Lord' entails the same as 'Jehovah', that is to say, 'the Lord' is used when good is dealt with, and therefore also the Lord is distinguished from God in the same way as Jehovah is from God; as in Moses,

Jehovah your God, He is God of gods, and Lord of lords. Deuteronomy 10:17.

In David,

Confess the God of gods, for His mercy is for ever; confess the Lord of lords, for His mercy is for ever. Psalms 136:1-3.

[5] But nowhere in the New Testament Word, neither in the Gospels nor in the Book of Revelation, is Jehovah used. Instead of Jehovah the name the Lord occurs - for hidden reasons to be dealt with below. The fact that in the New Testament Word the Lord is used instead of Jehovah is quite clear in Mark,

Jesus said, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Therefore you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your thought, and with all your strength. Mark 12:29-30.

The same is expressed in Moses as follows,

Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah; and you shall love Jehovah your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:4-5.

Here it is evident that the name 'the Lord' is used instead of Jehovah. Likewise in John,

I looked, and behold, a throne had been set in heaven, with one seated upon the throne. Around the throne were four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind. Each had for himself six wings round about him, and was full of eyes within. They were saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God omnipotent. Revelation 4:2, 6, 8.

This is described in Isaiah as follows,

I saw the Lord seated upon a throne, high and lifted up. Above Him stood the seraphim; each had six wings. One called to another, Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah Zebaoth. Isaiah 6:1-3, 5, 8.

In this case 'the Lord' is used instead of 'Jehovah', that is, 'the Lord God omnipotent' instead of 'Jehovah Zebaoth'. The fact that the four living creatures are the seraphim or cherubs is evident in Ezekiel 1:5, 13-15, 19 and following verses; 10:15. That in the New Testament 'the Lord' is Jehovah is also clear from many other places, as in Luke,

An angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah. Luke 1:11.

'An angel of the Lord' is used instead of 'an angel of Jehovah'. In the same chapter the angel told Zechariah regarding his son,

He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. Luke 1:16.

'To the Lord their God' is used instead of 'to Jehovah their God'. Also in the same chapter, the angel told Mary regarding Jesus,

He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to Him the throne of David. Luke 1:32.

'The Lord God' is used instead of 'Jehovah God'. Still in the same chapter,

Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour. Luke 1:46-47.

Here also 'the Lord' is used instead of 'Jehovah'. And again in the same chapter, Zechariah prophesied, saying,

Blessed is the Lord God of Israel. Luke 1:68.

'The Lord God' is used instead of 'Jehovah God'. In the same gospel,

An angel of the Lord stood before the shepherds, and the glory of the Lord shone around them. Luke 2:9.

'An angel of the Lord' and 'the glory of the Lord' are used instead of 'an angel of Jehovah' and 'the glory of Jehovah'. In Matthew,

Blessed is He coming in the name of the Lord. Matthew 21:9; 23:39; Luke 13:35; John 12:13.

'In the name of the Lord' is used instead of 'in the name of Jehovah'. There are many other places besides all these, such as Luke 1:28; 2:15, 22-24, 29, 38-39; 5:17; Mark 12:10-11.

[6] Among the hidden reasons why people called Jehovah the Lord were the following: If when the Lord was in the world they had been told that He was the Jehovah mentioned so many times in the Old Testament, see 1736, they would not have accepted it because they would not have believed it. And there is the further reason that as regards the Human the Lord did not become Jehovah until He had in every respect united the Divine Essence to the Human Essence, and the Human Essence to the Divine Essence, see 1725, 1729, 1733, 1745, 1815, 2156, 2751. These became fully united after the final temptation, which was that of the Cross; and it was for this reason that after the Resurrection the disciples always called Him Lord, John 20:2, 13, 15, 18, 20, 25; 21:7, 12, 15-17, 20; Mark 16:19-20; and Thomas said,

My Lord and my God. John 20:28.

And as the Lord was the Jehovah mentioned so many times in the Old Testament, therefore He also told the disciples,

You call Me Master and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If therefore I your Lord and Master have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one anothers' feet. John 13:13-14, 16.

These words mean that He was Jehovah God, for in this instance He is called 'Lord' as regards good, but 'Master' as regards truth. That the Lord was Jehovah is also meant by the angel's words to the shepherds,

To you is born this day a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11.

'Christ' is used instead of 'Messiah', 'Anointed One', and 'King', 'the Lord, instead of 'Jehovah' - 'Christ' having regard to truth, 'the Lord' to good. Anyone who does not examine the Word carefully cannot know this, for he believes that our Saviour was called Lord because this was an everyday expression that was used to offer respect to Him, as to others, when in reality He was so called by virtue of His being Jehovah.