The Prophecies of Daniel: Part 1, The Historical Setting

JK Selers

Updated, April 7, 2025

Clashing Empires

Before we begin to study the prophetic visions found in the Book of Daniel, I would first like to explain the times that Daniel lived in.

The prophet Daniel (+/– 620–538 BC) lived during the age of clashing ancient empires. These empires gathered large armies and fought one another in wars of conquest. The Holy Land, where Daniel resided, stood at the crossroads of these great civilizations. Babylon in the east, Assyria in the north and Egypt in the west, competed for domination of the region for millennia. At the time of Daniel, Assyria held sway.

Under Ashurbanipal (669–627 BC), the Assyrian Empire had expanded from Mesopotamia to the Nile valley, from the Arabian deserts to the head waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the mountains of central Asia Minor. At the time of Daniel, the little kingdom of Judah had become a vassal of the vast Assyrian empire.

Neo-Assyrian Empire and its expansions By Ningyou

During the reign of the righteous King Josiah of Judah, from 640-609 BC, the Assyria Empire began to crumble from within. The various Assyrian conquests began to chafe at Nineveh’s rule. The Neo-Babylonian Empire in the Mesopotamian valley was growing in allies and power in the east while Egypt, in the west, took advantage of Assyria’s decline. During this chaotic period, the king of Judah, Josiah, was able to rule with autonomy and without foreign intervention.

Nabopolassar, king of Babylon who ruled from 626 to 605 BC.

Then came the Babylonians. Nabopolassar rose up and rested control of Babylon in 620 BC from king Sin-shar-ishkun of Assyria. Nabopolassar with his allies in Media, Scythia and Cimmeria drove the Assyrians out of Mesopotamia and back to Nineveh in the north.

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Egypt’s armies, taking advantage of the chaos that was left of the crumbling Assyrian empire, seized territory up to the Euphrates river in Syria. Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt lead an army in 609 BC to fight the Babylonians for control of northern Syria. King Josiah, attempting to retain independence from Egypt for the kingdom of Judah, chose to stop Necho in the valley of Megiddo. During the battle, king Josiah was killed and his army defeated. Josiah’s son, Jehoahaz took his place and ruled for three months. On his return to Egypt, Necho took Jehoahaz captive and replaced him with his older brother Jehoiakim who was more mailable to Egypt. Necho as punishment for Judah’s failed attempt to stop him, imposed a brutal levy of 3 3⁄4 tons of silver and 75 lbs. of gold on Judah with a heavy yearly tribute.

Egytptian War Chariot

After four years of fighting Babylon, Necho of Egypt went on to face Nebuchadnezzar II, the crown prince of Babylon, at Carchemish in northern Syria and was defeated (605 BC). Necho retreated behind the head waters of the Euphrates to Hamath of southern Syria. Soon after Egypt’s defeat at Carchemish, Nebuchadnezzar was notified that his father had died. Before leaving for Babylon to be crowned king, Nebuchadnezzar settled the affairs of the region he had just conquered, taking with him slaves from each of the countries. Berossus of Babylon wrote:

Nebuchadnezzar, “having settled the affairs of Egypt, and the other countries, as also those that concerned the captive Jews, and Phoenicians, and Syrians, and those of the Egyptian nations; and having committed the conveyance of them to Babylon to certain of his friends, together with the gross of his army, and the rest of their ammunition and provisions, he went himself hastily, accompanied with a few others, over the desert, and came to Babylon.” (Antiquities of the Jews, by Flavius Josephus, translated by William Whiston, Release Date: January 4, 2009, Book 10, chapter 11, para. 1.)

Among those slaves were Daniel and his three friends: Hanania, Mishael, and Azaria (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego).

Jehoiakim, seeing which way the wind blew, switched alliances from Egypt to Babylon and began paying tribute to Nebuchadnezzar.

In 601 BC Nebuchadnezzar attempted to invade his rival, Egypt, and was repulsed with heavy losses. This failure led many of the small vassal states in the Levant (modern day Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria) to rebel against Babylon. King Jehoiakim saw a chance and switched sides again. The prophet Jeremiah warned Jehoiakim not to change Judah’s allegiance to Egypt but rather keep his loyalty to Babylon. The Lord had warned Jeremiah what would happen if Judah angered Babylon. Jeremiah prophesied that Babylon would destroy Jerusalem and take Judah into captivity for 70 years. King Jehoiakim ignored Jeremiah, stopped paying tribute to Babylon and swore allegiance to Egypt. (Jeremiah had preached against the wickedness of the people of Judah for many years and that Babylon would destroy Jerusalem and the Temple and take the people captive if they did not repent. Jeremiah 15:2, 5-6; 16:10-13; 19:3-9; 20:4-6) What came next was often repeated in the long history of God’s dealings with His covenant people when they ignored His prophets.

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Babylonian Captivity

It didn’t take long for Nebuchadnezzar to gather an army to put down these rebellions. Just as Jeremiah had warned, Nebuchadnezzar invaded the kingdom of Judah taking several towns and laid siege to Jerusalem in 597 BC. After four months of siege, Jerusalem fell and king Jehoiakim was killed. Nebuchadnezzar pillaged both Jerusalem and the Temple, taking all of the spoils back to Babylon. However, he did leave the city and Temple intact…this time. Besides the treasure, Nebuchadnezzar took additional hostages from the royal court, prominent citizens and craftsmen, and a large portion of the Jewish population, about 10,000 in total, and dispersed them throughout the Babylonian Empire.

Young Daniel and his three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego) are four of those thousands who Nebuchadnezzar took back to Babylon to build up his kingdom to one of the greatest Empires to occupy the region.