The Daniel Fast: A Brief Background (Fasting Edition #49)

Our fasting quote of encouragement today is from Arthur Wallis. He said: "Fasting is important, more important perhaps, than many of us have supposed. When exercised with a pure heart and a right motive, fasting may provide us with a key to unlock doors where other keys have failed; a window opening up new horizons in the unseen world; a spiritual weapon of God's provision, mighty, to the pulling down of strongholds."

Our fasting devotional today is titled "THE DANIEL FAST: A BRIEF BACKGROUND" from Dr. Elmer L. Towns in his book "Fasting for Spiritual Breakthrough".

The Hebrew, Daniel, had been taken into captivity by the Babylonian army as a young man, and transported to the city of Babylon. He and his three friends from Judea were being trained as diplomats/bureaucrats to serve in the Babylonian government. It was probably King Nebuchadnezzar's plan to have them carry out his administrative policies over the Jewish remnant.

The plan included giving the four Hebrews the finest delicacies and wine from the king's own provisions according to Daniel 1:5. But for reasons we will discuss later, such food was not acceptable to the Hebrews. So Daniel proposed to the king's servants that they be allowed to "fast" from the king's sumptuous fare, and to eat only vegetables and drink only water. If, after 10 days, they were not in better health than their Babylonian counterparts, Daniel promised that they could be dealt with as the Babylonian guards wished. (The fact that they were allowed to demonstrate the effectiveness of their vegetarian diet indicated how important Daniel and his three friends were to the Babylonian government.)