But If Not: Daniel and Covenant Integrity in Babylon
Come Follow Me 2026 — Week 45 (Nov 9–15) — Daniel 1–7
Introduction: Faithfulness Without Guarantees
The book of Daniel is, at its core, a theology of faithfulness without guarantees. It asks: What does covenant integrity look like when the surrounding culture has all the power, when the king can throw you in a furnace or a lion’s den for noncompliance, when there is no certainty that God will intervene? The answer Daniel provides is not easy or comfortable — but it is one of the most important answers in the entire canon.
The book divides roughly in half: the first six chapters are narrative stories of faithfulness under pressure; the last six are apocalyptic visions. The chapters assigned for Week 45 (Daniel 1–7) cover the major narratives and the pivotal vision of Daniel 7 — together they constitute one of the most theologically rich sustained units in the Old Testament. From Daniel’s refusal of the king’s meat to the Son of Man coming in clouds, these chapters chart a complete map of what it means to live for God in a world that does not.
Daniel 1: Covenant Identity Under Cultural Pressure
The book begins with an act of quiet, deliberate resistance. Daniel and his three companions have been chosen for training in the king’s court — given new Babylonian names, immersed in Babylonian learning, and fed from the king’s table. The food from the king’s table almost certainly includes meat sacrificed to idols and violates the dietary laws of the Mosaic covenant. Daniel does not organize a protest. He does not make demands. He simply requests, politely and privately, to eat vegetables and water instead.
Daniel 1:8
“But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.”
The phrase “purposed in his heart” is the theological key to the entire book. Daniel’s covenant integrity is not reactive — it is not a response to a crisis but a settled identity formed before the crisis arrives. He knows who he is before Nebuchadnezzar gets to define him. This is the first principle of Daniel’s theology of faithfulness: decide before you are tested.
The result of their faithfulness is that God blesses Daniel and his companions with wisdom and health exceeding all the other trainees. But the chapter does not present this as a prosperity formula. The blessing is real, but the point is not that faithfulness always produces health and success — the rest of the book will quickly complicate that reading. The point is that covenant identity can be maintained even inside Babylon, and that God honors those who maintain it.
The Word of Wisdom connection in LDS thought is obvious and has been made by many teachers. But the deeper application is broader: every Latter-day Saint living in a culture that offers its own version of the king’s meat — its dominant values, its identity-forming narratives, its standards of success — faces the same question Daniel faced: what have I purposed in my heart before the pressure arrives?
Daniel 3: “But If Not” — The Most Important Two Words in the Old Testament
If Daniel 1 establishes the principle of prior covenant commitment, Daniel 3 tests it at maximum intensity. Nebuchadnezzar erects a massive golden image and commands that all peoples bow and worship at the sound of the royal music. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse. The king, furious, offers them a second chance — and their answer is one of the most theologically significant speeches in the entire Old Testament:
Daniel 3:17–18
“If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”
These two words — “but if not” — are the theological center of the book of Daniel. They capture with perfect precision the structure of mature faith. The three young men are not uncertain about God’s power: “our God is able to deliver us.” They are not falsely certain about God’s specific action: “but if not.” And their obedience is not contingent on the outcome: “we will not serve thy gods.”
This is not the faith of a prosperity gospel — that faith would say “God will definitely deliver us, because we are faithful.” This is the faith of the cross — which trusts God even when God does not rescue in the expected way. It is the faith of Gethsemane: “not my will, but thine.” It is the faith of Job: “though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”
The story ends with the fourth figure in the furnace — “like the Son of God” (3:25) — which Christian readers have always understood as a theophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. The deliverer does not prevent the three men from entering the fire. He enters the fire with them. That is the shape of God’s faithfulness in Daniel 3: not always removal from suffering, but presence within it.
LDS Applications of “But If Not”
- Elder Dennis Simmons, April 2004 — General Conference address specifically on Daniel’s “but if not” as the model of unconditional faith
- D&C 121:7–8 — Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail: “if thou art called to pass through tribulation... be of good cheer” — the same “but if not” structure
- Alma 7:11–12 — Christ takes upon Himself our infirmities, that He might know how to succor — the fourth man in the furnace, theologically unpacked
Daniel 5: Weighed in the Balance
Daniel 5 contains one of the most dramatic scenes in all of scripture: the feast of Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar’s son, who brings out the sacred vessels taken from the Jerusalem temple and uses them to toast his own gods. At the height of the feast, a hand appears and writes on the wall: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. The king’s color changes, his thoughts trouble him, and his knees knock together.
Daniel, called to interpret, provides the translation: Mene (numbered — God has numbered your kingdom and finished it), Tekel (weighed — you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting), Upharsin/Peres (divided — your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians). That night, Belshazzar was slain.
The phrase “weighed in the balances and found wanting” has entered the English language as a permanent idiom for moral failure on divine assessment. What makes the judgment so pointed is the reason for it: Belshazzar knew what had happened to his father Nebuchadnezzar (humbled before God) and “hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this” (5:22). It is not ignorance that condemns — it is knowledge unacted upon.
This is a solemn teaching about accountability: the more we know of God and His ways, the greater our responsibility to act accordingly. The saints who have been taught the gospel, made covenants, and received the Holy Ghost carry a weight of knowledge that makes the standard of “weighed in the balance” all the more searching.
Daniel 6: The Lion’s Den — Prayer as an Act of Resistance
The story of Daniel in the lion’s den, like the fiery furnace, is far more theologically sophisticated than its reputation as a children’s story suggests. Daniel is not cast into the den for a public confrontation. He is cast there because his enemies know that his commitment to prayer three times daily is so deep that he will not give it up even under a royal decree. They construct the law specifically to target the one thing Daniel will not compromise.
When Daniel learns of the decree, “he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime” (6:10). Not secretly. Not with one eye on the door. Just as he had always done. This is the “purposed in his heart” of chapter 1, lived out under maximum pressure.
The chapter ends with Darius declaring that Daniel’s God is “the living God, and stedfast for ever, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be even unto the end” (6:26). Daniel’s faithfulness becomes a witness not just to Israel but to the surrounding empire. That is precisely what a covenant people is called to be — a witness.
Daniel 7: The Son of Man in the Clouds
Daniel 7 is one of the most consequential passages in the entire Bible for understanding Jesus’ self-understanding. In the vision, four great beasts arise from the sea (representing successive world empires), and then “the Ancient of days” — a title for God — takes his seat, and judgment is given:
Daniel 7:13–14
“I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.”
Jesus’ most common self-designation in the Gospels is “the Son of Man” — used dozens of times. He is not using a generic Aramaic idiom for “human being.” He is repeatedly invoking Daniel 7. When the High Priest at His trial demands “Art thou the Christ?” Jesus answers: “I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62) — a direct quotation of Daniel 7:13. The High Priest tears his clothes. He understood exactly what Jesus was claiming.
Daniel 7 thus provides one of the most clear prophetic foundations for the Messianic identity of Jesus. The Son of Man receives an everlasting kingdom from the Ancient of Days — and the book of Revelation, Doctrine and Covenants 65, and the entire millennial theology of Latter-day Saint thought draw directly on this vision.
Conclusion: Integrity as Witness
The theology of Daniel 1–7 can be summarized in a single sentence: the covenant community’s faithfulness in the face of empire is itself a form of prophecy. Every time Daniel prays toward Jerusalem, every time the three young men refuse to bow, every time God vindicates His servants, the surrounding culture gets a window into the nature of the true God.
This is why the stories of Daniel are not merely historical curiosities or entertaining adventure tales. They are a theology of how God’s kingdom advances in the world: not through political dominance but through the integrity of faithful people who have “purposed in their hearts” what they will and will not do, and who trust the God who walks into the fire with them even when they cannot predict whether the fire will harm them.
But if not — we still will not bow.