The Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, to be His own people in the world. Before they entered the land of Canaan, the Lord said of them: "Lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations." (Numbers 23:9)
Thus God never intended His people to form themselves into a kingdom or government, like the nations. They were first, "the church in the wilderness;" (Acts 7:38) and He intended them to be only the church-not a state- when they dwelt in the land.
The government of Israel was intended to be a theocracy pure and simple--God their only King, their only Ruler, their only Lawgiver. The system formed in the wilderness through Moses, and continued in Canaan through Joshua, was intended to be perpetual. But Israel desired a king, a state, "like all the nations." (1 Samuel 8:5 also vs. 20)
"Like all the nations." The Israelites did not realize that to be in this respect unlike other nations, was a special privilege and blessing. God had separated the Israelites from every other people, to make them His own peculiar treasure. But they, disregarding this high honor, eagerly desired to imitate the example of the heathen! (Ellen White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 607)
Israel would be reckoned among the nations. They persisted in having a king. And though they must reject God in order to have a king and be like all the nations, they insisted on doing it. And in rejecting God that they might be like all the nations, they became like all the nations that rejected God. Their kingdom came to naught, their government perished, and the people themselves were scattered among the nations.
God had placed them in Palestine, at that time and for ages afterward the pivot of the known world. At this pivot He placed His people to be a light to all the nations, that those nations might know of the true God. By having God abiding with them, He intended them to influence all the nations for good. But they not only would be like all the nations; they became even "worse than the heathen." (2 Chronicles 33:9)
The land could no longer bear them; it must spew them out, as it was obliged to do with the people before them. (Leviticus 18:28)
As they had frustrated God's purpose to enlighten all the nations by them in the land where He had planted them, He would fulfill His purpose, and enlighten all the nations by them in the lands where He had scattered them. As they had lost the power to arrest and command the attention of all the nations, that they might consider God and His wonderful ways and works with the children of men, He would now use them to enlighten those who had acquired the power to arrest and command the attention of all the nations, and thus cause all nations to consider the wonderful ways and works of God with the children of men.
This is the whole philosophy of the captivity of Judah and of the position of Daniel in Babylon. This will be certainly seen as we now proceed to the study of the book of Daniel.
God had brought Nebuchadnezzar to the place of authority over all the nations. Two years before Daniel was carried captive to Babylon, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, saying: "Thus says the Lord to me; Make bonds and yokes, and put them upon your neck, And send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers which come to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah; And command them to say unto their masters, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Thus shall you say unto your masters; I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me. And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come: and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him. And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, says the Lord, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. ... But the nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those will I let remain still in their own land, says the Lord; and they shall till it, and dwell therein." (Jeremiah 27:2-8,11)
But Nebuchadnezzar did not yet know the Lord. He must be given the opportunity to know Him. And then if he would acknowledge God, he, being in the place of authority over all the nations, could call the attention of all the nations to the Lord whom he had come to know. And thus the knowledge of God, by means of His people in captivity in Babylon, would be brought to the attention of all the nations.
By the excellency of the learning and ability of the youthful Daniel and his three companions, they were brought into immediate connection with Nebuchadnezzar; "they stood before the king." (Daniel 1:19)
Thus the captive people of God were the means of divine enlightenment to those who ruled the world, that this divine enlightenment might be given to the world.
But Israel might have done this themselves from the pivot of the world in their own land, if only they had always honored the Lord in their own land, as these young men honored Him in their captivity.--Advent Review, March 8, 1898.