When reading this verse, it is important to note that the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar II, defeats Egypt at Carchemish in 605 BC. In doing so, he shows that he is the most powerful person in the entire area. Up until this time, many countries in that region have been under the strong influence of Egypt, being vassal states of Egypt.

Because Judah is also a vassal state of Egypt, the army of Babylon appears at the gates of Jerusalem in 605 BC. King Jehoiakim realizes that he has no choice but to acknowledge Nebuchadnezzar as his overlord. He surrenders and lets Nebuchadnezzar into Jerusalem. As recompense, Jehoiakim is allowed to remain king if he continues to recognize the king of Babylon as his superior, which implies, among other things, that taxes are remitted to him.

It seems that God has surrendered his city to Babylon. It appears as if the world has overcome the church. The situation seems hopeless. However, we should not be too quick to draw this conclusion. In Daniel 1:2 we read about the background of this situation. Here we see that it is the Lord who rules, even in these circumstances. It is he who gives Jehoiakim into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. The Lord God causes Jerusalem to fall before Babylon. Without God’s permission, this would have been impossible. It is not as if the Lord is watching helplessly here. He is not the powerless one who can only observe what is happening to his people. He is not powerless as he sees his people, his temple and his city fall into the hands of pagans. The Lord here shows in this that he is faithful to his covenant. He has said that if his people are to become unfaithful to him, foreign kings will rule over them. If they do not remain faithful to him in love, they will be exiled. See Leviticus 26:25–35.

Jehoiakim is now in the power of Nebuchadnezzar. The king of Babylon proves this by removing objects from the temple in Jerusalem and placing them in the temple of a Babylonian god. By doing this, Nebuchadnezzar expresses the conviction that his god, either Marduk or Bel, has overcome the god of Judah. It implies that the Lord had thus lost out to his god, this being the thinking of the pagans in those days. Nebuchadnezzar does not yet realize that it is the Lord who has given him power over Jehoiakim. Likewise, it is the Lord who ensures that the items taken from his house in Jerusalem are kept in a safe place, so that later, after the exile, they can be used again in the rebuilt temple. We read about this in Ezra 1:7–11:

King Cyrus of Persia released the objects that had come from the temple of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem and placed in the temple of his own god. He entrusted their return to Mithredath, the treasurer, who turned them over with an inventory list to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah.  They were thirty gold bowls, one thousand silver bowls, twenty-nine censers, thirty gold bowls, four hundred and ten silver bowls of various kinds, and one thousand other objects – altogether five thousand four hundred objects of silver or gold. All this Sheshbazzar carried with him when he brought the exiles back to Jerusalem from Babylonia.

We can see in all of this that the Lord rules, even when it may seem that he is powerless.

What is seen in Daniel 1:1, then, is that it is the Lord who punishes his people. What is happening here is the sign that the exile will also come to the people of Judah. God’s punishment does not mean that all of his people will perish, but there is a great danger. The devil aims to take advantage of this situation. He will do everything in his power to cause the destruction of the entire nation, to make sure that the whole family of David disappears so that the Redeemer, who is to be born from this family, will not come. The devil will do his utmost to bring to nothing in and through the exile the redemption promised by God.