Copyright © 2006 by The Voice of Prophecy

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THEY CALL HIM “J. J.”

The story was published in Sports Illustrated back in 1999. It’s a made-to-order introduction to the last story in the first half of Daniel. The article described a tall, skinny guy, 6 foot 3, 150 pounds, with his share of the skin eruptions that worry many teens, and a good set of fashionable bands on his teeth. But you would scarcely notice any of that when you took your first glance at the cover picture. What hits you between the eyes is the brilliant, close-cropped red hair.

But if you visited him at his school that year, and saw him leaving religion classes you’d have been even more struck by the phylacteries on his forehead and on his arm. Inside those black cubes are words from Deuteronomy and Exodus. So despite the atypical red hair, you'd never miss the fact that Tamir Goodman is a very orthodox Jew. And he’s a real nice guy.

Back in 1999 he played point guard on the Talmudical Academy team, a 17-year-old 11th grader in a school of 72 students; which meant the chances of a coach building a winning team were somewhat remote—unless Tamir went to your school.

Some 30,000 Orthodox Jews live in Upper Park Heights, including Tamir, so there are kosher delis up and down the main street. But everything comes to a standstill on Saturday. As Sport's Illustrated put it, I quote, "It's shabbos, the Jewish day of rest. Remember thy Sabbath and keep it holy. Commandment IV on the original Top Ten list." So like all the other orthodox Jewish children, on this day, there are no telephones, car rides, and no purchases from sundown Friday until the first three stars appear on Saturday evening. It's been that way for about 5,800 years.

But after Sabbath there's basketball. And Tamir is a wiz on the court. He's so good the home team calls him J.J., for "Jewish Jordan."

That year, Maryland offered Tamir a scholarship. Can you imagine the Terrapins grabbing this boy a year and a half before graduation? Yeah, he was that good.

The coaches knew he ate only kosher food. He'd never be on a gym floor on Friday night or Saturday. He wouldn’t even travel on Saturday. But they wanted him all the same. They wanted him for the rest of the week. They wanted this kid who's so committed to both basketball and his principles.

How God must smile when He sees young people like Tamir stand for what they believe. The world is open to such people. We can't have enough of them. They dare, they stand-often alone. They challenge us all to live principle-centered lives. It reminds me of the words I sang as a boy:

Dare to be a Daniel
Dare to stand alone
Dare to have a purpose true
Dare to make it known

And those words enshrine the theme of Daniel 6.
We've been climbing the slopes of Mt Daniel in the first five chapters of the book, exploring the narratives, because in the rest of the book, they'll help us understand the prophecies, as Connie Jeffrey mentioned a moment ago.

When you read Daniel 6 and 7 together, one of the first things you notice is that historical chronology is sacrificed in favor of the chiastic structure. It's a good illustration of how important the chiastic structure is to our understanding of the book. Today we open chapter 6.

When the Medes and Persians conquer Babylon, Darius quickly gets down to organizing the new territory. First, he seeks to be sure the restless natives don't get any wide-eyed ideas of threatening the new administration. So he appoints a council of 120 administrators. We read in Daniel 6:1

It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes, which should be over the whole kingdom; And over these three presidents; of whom Daniel was first:
Can you imagine the political maneuvering at this time, the soldiers and generals posturing for positions of power? And presumably the qualified, or the favored, get them. But who sits at the top of the administration heap? Darius? Well not exactly, he doesn't want to tangle with details. He wants to be royal, and rule. The night Darius and Cyrus overthrew Babylon, the story of Daniel filled everyone's ears. I wonder if the words of the angelic hand were still smoldering in the plaster as the soldiers entered the banquet hall? I imagine they were, only to fade with the coming of the dawn of a new day. But the survivors told that story with relish to their new rulers.

Darius knew intuitively that Daniel was his man, the perfect Prime Minster. Happily he was not a Babylonian, that would have been a disaster for his purposes, but Daniel, the man who had just predicted that a new empire was about to begin. He had legendary wisdom, and impeccable credentials for the job. Not only a nice person, a skilled diplomat, a great orator, a superb organizer, but also a man of principle, and nothing in the world could dissuade him from adherence to his principles.

He had some odd ideas to be sure. He talked about only “one” God, which kind of put all the gods of Medo-Persia in a bad light, but what did that matter! In fact this “unknown” God had gotten Daniel and his friends out of some scrapes the likes of which had never been heard in the murky myths of all history. Survive a trip inside a furnace? Describe and interpret dreams? Outwit and outflank the wisest men in the world? Daniel got the nod, and his tenure began.

The Median soldiers were furious! They were fit to be tied. Imagine an old fogy in his 80s, and a Jew, being put over them? What an insult! Why? they wanted to know. Why Daniel? So they plotted to bring him down. The Bible says:

. . . the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent (Dan 6:4).

But their anger, as intense as the furnace of the three worthies, never escaped their ornate Babylonian conference rooms. Every document they wrote got the stamp: "Top Secret." They conducted every strategic planning session in whispers. Only the most trusted lieutenants were part of the scheme. The other two presidents that served with Daniel came and went as if nothing were afoot. They held their meetings and made their plans in an atmosphere of great deference to the elder statesman. And in his trusting way, he never caught a sniff of their treachery.

After some weeks of secret meetings, things were going nowhere. They talked and schemed until late into the night. But every potential trap led to a dead end. Daniel did everything so thoroughly, so thoughtfully, so expertly, they couldn't fault him! Then suddenly it came to them. We read here in Daniel 6 verse 5, that they said:

“We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God."

If they couldn’t get at him in his civil life, they’d try to get him in his religious life.

“He has this strange religion,” they said, “He's off praying three times a day, doesn't matter what we're discussing, he dismisses the meeting and goes off to his apartment for prayer. And he never works on Saturday, not even in a crisis. Surely somewhere in there, we can find a fruitful hunting ground.”

At that point their schemes came together quite quickly. Why hadn't they thought of it earlier? They’d get the king to make a decree that would flatter him, and appear to be a way to solidify his new reign, and at the same time take a butcher's knife and slice right through the center of Daniel's religious lifestyle. Brilliant! They trooped in before Darius hoping they’d leave with their plan bearing the king’s seal and see Daniel thrown into a den of lions.

And they were successfully! But the story has a far different end than they had planned, for shortly after, they found themselves thrown to the lions.

Don’t miss the incredible conclusion to this wonderful story from antiquity, and what we can learn from it today. That’s tomorrow!