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Context No. 1086 of 4322 · Daniel (Greek)

Context · Reflection

Daniel (Greek) 14:38-42: in context

38Daniel said, “You have remembered me, O God! You haven’t forsaken those who love you!” 39So Daniel arose and ate; and the angel of God set Habakkuk in his own place again immediately. 40On the seventh day, the king came to mourn for Daniel. When he came to the den, he looked in, and, behold, Daniel was sitting. 41Then the king cried with a loud voice, saying, “Great are you, O Lord, you God of Daniel, and there is none other beside you!” 42So he drew him out, and cast those that were the cause of his destruction into the den; and they were devoured in a moment before his face.

This is from the Greek additions to Daniel. Daniel has been thrown into a lions' den for a second time, and God sends the prophet Habakkuk, miraculously carried from Judea by an angel, to bring him food. Daniel receives it with a cry of gratitude: you have remembered me, O God; you have not forsaken those who love you. On the seventh day the king comes mourning, expecting to find Daniel's bones, and sees him sitting alive among the lions. The king cries out, great are you, O Lord, the God of Daniel, there is none other beside you, pulls Daniel out, and throws his accusers to the beasts.

The line at the heart of the story is Daniel's: you have remembered me, O God; you have not forsaken those who love you. In the lions' den, abandoned by every human power, sentenced and left to die, Daniel's response to God's provision is not surprise but a settled confidence confirmed, God has not forgotten me. And the way God remembers him is oddly tender and specific: not a lightning bolt against his enemies but a meal, food carried across the world by a bewildered prophet, God's care showing up as bread in a pit. It says something about how God tends his own in their worst extremity, that his remembering often looks like sustenance for the day rather than immediate rescue, presence and provision inside the trial rather than escape from it. Daniel is still in the den; the lions are still there; but he is fed and he is not forgotten. And the watching king, like Nebuchadnezzar before him, is moved by seeing God preserve his servant, confessing that there is none beside the God of Daniel. God remembers the ones who love him, often first with daily bread in the dark.

In my own lions' den, can I trust that God has not forsaken those who love him, and receive his provision, even a small daily bread in the dark, as proof that he has remembered me?

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