“Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went and said thus unto him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation.” (Da 2:24 AV)
Daniel shows a whole lot of class here. He could have used this opportunity to save his fellow Jews and destroy the pagan sages, but instead, he pleaded for their lives as much as his own. In part, I believe, because he knew only God could provide what the king requested and it was not right to put to death those who could not do the impossible. You have to be impressed with the compassion Daniel had here. This compassion paid dividends. For the remainder of his life, Daniel was never crossed by the Chaldean sages. The princes, yes. But not the wise men. Daniel showed compassion for his enemies and they did the same for him. The principle is rather simple. The political thing to do was for Daniel to allow the Chaldeans to swing in the wind. He could have saved himself and his three companions and allowed the others to fend for themselves. This would have been the expected response of someone in his position. He did just the opposite. He used the blessing of God to protect his enemies. That is taking the high road.
Turning the other cheek is not something we naturally do. Going even further and protecting those who once caused us harm is even more rare. Such is the case of one young man. Having gone through boot camp as the runt of the platoon, he received quite a bit of hazing. He was the one who constantly caused the platoon extra PT and other distasteful assignments. After boot camp graduation, individual graduates continued to their next training assignment. This young man went on to language school to train in the field of communication and decryption. One would think his reputation would have ended after boot camp. But his reputation followed him. After graduation from C school, he was assigned to a station overseas to work with the interception and decryption of enemy communications. Over the next few years, his colleagues learned of his reputation in boot camp and some of the difficulties he experienced in the past resumed. Then, one day, a string of messages came across the wire. No one could decrypt them. Everyone tried. The Commanding Officer was becoming impatient because he knew the importance of these messages. They had to be translated. No motivation seemed to work. So, he made the command decision to demote all who failed one rank if the answer did not arrive on his desk in eight hours. Finally, this young man was able to decrypt the messages and place the file on his CO’s desk. The messages were so vital to national security that the CO sat there stunned. He thanked the young man for his hard work and offered him a week's furlough as a reward. Rather than take the reprieve, he simply asked that no one in his unit would suffer a demotion. The request was granted.
This is what Daniel did. As a Jew, he and his fellows would have received harsh conditions more so than most. God’s hand of chastisement was upon them and they lived in very difficult circumstances. It would have been a temptation to treat those who had oppressed him in equally harsh ways. Rather, Daniel found forgiveness in his heart and mercy on his lips. He asked that the lives of his enemies be spared. He asked the king to show kindness to his fellow clerics regardless of how he was mistreated by them. This shows a great deal of love and maturity. Daniel is an example to follow. When we have the upper hand, sometimes it is best not to use it.
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