Daniel 11:5-30 “The Jewel of Contentment”

Beginning with verse 5, the angel tells Daniel about the period of time from the death of Alexander the Great until Israel’s arch-villain Antiochus Epiphanes. The prophecy covers a period of about 150 years. As the angel told Daniel in verse 4, upon his death, Alexander’s kingdom was divided “to the four winds.” It was split up between his four generals. Of particular interest to the Jewish people and to Bible history were the ones the angel calls “the kings of the north” and “the kings of the south.” As was often the case, the land of Israel ended up in the cross-fire between those kings all through that 150-some year period.

As I’ve observed before, this prophecy is so intricately detailed and historically accurate, the scoffers have no choice but to say it had to be written after the fact. If anyone wants to trace it from verse to verse, there are many, many books written which provide that information. Personally, I am finding it of more value to step back and see what I can learn from the prophecy as a whole.

What we’re reading about is 150 years of endless war and murder. That should come as no surprise as that is business of kings – war and murder. Amongst us peasants, there is the general idea that it would be great to be a king. We see their wealth and power and long to live in a palace “like them.” That same perception extends to everyone who is “rich and powerful,” including professional athletes, Hollywood actors and actresses, corporate CEOs, politicians, and the like.

What we all fail to realize is what their lives are really like. Paul warned us in I Timothy 6:9,10, “People who want to get rich fall into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. [They] pierce themselves through with many sorrows.” The problem with being rich and powerful is that everyone else wants your wealth and power. If you want to keep it, in this world, you’ll have to fight to keep it. To be rich and powerful is to enter into a lifestyle consumed with the fighting to keep the wealth and power you’ve gathered.

It means living behind walls and having to maintain 24-hour security. It means living in a world where you can’t trust anyone, even your own family, as they connive and scheme to get your wealth and power for themselves. In today’s world, it means being photographed everywhere you go and everything you do, then having it all manipulated into news and magazine stories fabricated by journalists with no regard for truth. Why do kings need armies to begin with? Is it not to either protect them from everyone else who wants what they have, or to go and take what belongs to someone else? That’s what armies do.

As you read through Daniel 11:5-30, that is all you see – wars and murder. Add to that the intrigues and deceit, with much of it rising from their own family members as everyone vies for power. Verse 27, for instance says, “The two kings, with their hearts bent on evil, will sit at the same table and lie to each other.” Even Israel’s history of their kings became the same story, as we see it in David’s family with Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah.

So what can you and I learn from all of this? As Paul said in that same passage in I Timothy 6, “But godliness with contentment is great gain…If we have food and clothing, let us be content with that” (vv.6-8). Contentment. Let Daniel 11 remind us all what a jewel contentment is. I am not rich and I’m certainly not powerful, but I also don’t have to live behind a wall! Joseph Sutcliffe (ca. 1820) noted here in Daniel all the endless strife and murder and wrote: “Happy the cottager, dwelling on mount Caucasus, milking his goats, and living for a hundred years.” What he is saying is it is better to be a poor farmer than a king in his palace!

I am very thankful for my family. I grew up in a world where we were anything but rich and powerful, yet my parents and grandparents were always very content people. We were quite aware there were “rich” people around us, but there was never even the slightest expression of discontent with the world in which we lived. Contentment was simply our way of life. On both sides of my family, both the Bixbys and the Nevins, everyone just worked very hard and found some way to get by from day to day. We did not ever even think about being envious of the rich, or long to be like them. Of course, as a child and growing up, I had no idea what a blessing it was to grow up in a world of contentment.

When I took my job at Chamlin, my total salary/benefits package went to nearly three times what it had been for years. When that happened, looking back now, I realize that Joan and I didn’t change our lifestyle at all. It never even occurred to us that we could buy a big expensive house or two new cars. We just went on living the same way we always have. The result was that we actually had a nice amount of “extra,” which did take away the awful, constant worry of how we’d pay the bills. It also allowed us to be generous with others who were in need.

When we’d leave for a vacation, we used to laugh that we didn’t need to worry about the house while we were gone. There was nothing worth stealing! We might not live in a palace, but neither did we have to worry about it when we were gone! As the Bible says, “The sleep of a working man is sweet, but the wealth of the rich permits them no rest” (Eccl. 5:12).

James tells us that God “has chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith” (2:5). Why is that? We need go no further than Jesus’ parable of the sower and his seed. What did He say? “The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the Word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful” (Matt. 13:22). To live a life of contentment is one thing that actually protects us from being spiritually deaf!

One thing we should insert here is that the Lord does choose some people to be rich and powerful. Back in I Timothy, Paul doesn’t say the rich should make themselves poor. He says, “Command those who are rich not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God...Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share” (6:17,18). Obviously, there are some people who can actually handle wealth and power. Let us not despise them for that wealth and power.

We need someone to run the companies and provide us with jobs. We need people to serve in the government. We need people in all kinds of leadership positions. Someone has to be the king, though it will mean they live in that world of constant battle. Us peasants are to pray “for kings and all those in authority,” and why is that? “That we may live peaceful, quiet lives” (I Tim, 2:2). Rather than envying their position, we should be thankful that they are willing to live in that world of endless fighting – specifically because it allows us to live peaceful, quiet lives.

That is precisely what the Lord desires for the vast majority of human beings. He says in II Thes. 4:11 to “Make it your ambition to live a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands.” Rather than envying people of wealth and power, we should pray for them and then just be content to live our own “peaceful, quiet” lives.

Daniel 11 must have been quite a comfort to the Jews who lived through that awful period of 150-some years. Every step of the way, they could have seen that, obviously, the Lord is still quite in charge, even though their world was in constant convulsions. That, of course is another lesson we could learn from stepping back and considering this prophecy as a whole. However, may you and I let it open our eyes to see the old adage, “All that glitters isn’t gold!” It is actually a great blessing that you and I are not rich! The Lord has very kindly withheld power and riches from us, precisely to protect us from the miseries that attend that lifestyle.

Contentment is a precious jewel. Jesus reminded us, “A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). We all can today thank God not only for what He has given us, but also for what He has withheld! May Daniel 11 remind us of exactly this truth!