Daniel 1:8

Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah are among the young men of Judah carried to Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem and plundered the temple (Daniel 1:1–2), around 605 BC. They were chosen for their intelligence, their appearance and their promise, to be taught the language and learning of the Chaldeans for three years, with a daily portion of the king’s food and wine (Daniel 1:3–5). Training of this kind was how the empire drew the brightest young people of conquered nations into its own service and loosened their ties to their own people. The king’s table was part of the plan, because food from the king’s hand bound the captives to him and to his court.

Verse 8 opens with “But”, and Daniel’s resolve stands against all of that. “Purposed in his heart” is in Hebrew literally “set upon his heart” (yāśīm ʿal-libbō). The verb sûwm means to put or set, and lêb, the heart, takes in the will and the mind as well as the feelings. Daniel settles the matter within himself, as a firm decision of the whole person, before the pressure of the moment and before he says a word to anyone.

The verb gâʼal, “defile”, means to soil or stain, and here it is uncleanness before God. The words “defile himself” come twice in verse 8, once in his resolve and once in his request, so we hear plainly what drives everything he does. The food he refuses is the king’s pathbag, a word of Persian origin meaning a dainty or a portion of provision, the choice food sent out from the royal kitchen. With it goes “the wine which he drank”. The word for wine is yayin, and the word behind “drank”, mishteh, means drinking and can also mean a banquet or feast.

Daniel’s name, Dânîyêʼl, is formed from the word for a judge and the word for God, and Strong’s gives its meaning as “judge of God”. In this verse he makes a careful judgment of his own, by the law of his God.

Verse 9 tells us why Daniel’s request found a hearing: “Now God had brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs.” The name used for God, ʼĕlôhîym, is plural in form, and when it names the true God it is a plural of majesty, usually with a singular verb, as here. The verb nâthan is the ordinary word “to give”, used very widely for put, set and make, and the Hebrew says that God gave Daniel favour. Daniel’s own courtesy and wisdom are real, and the verse places the source of the official’s goodwill in God.

Two words describe that goodwill. Cheçed, “favour”, is kindness or goodwill, the word that so often describes God’s own faithful love for his people. Racham, “tender love”, is compassion, and by extension the same word means the womb, so it carries the warmth of deep feeling. Together they say that the official had real kindness and affection for this young captive.

He is the sar of the çârîyç, the chief over the eunuchs. Sar names a head person or official of any rank, and çârîyç is a eunuch, a trusted officer of the court. Eunuchs often held positions of great trust and power in the royal courts of that day, partly because their condition kept them from founding a dynasty of their own. Their chief had charge of the king’s young trainees and their daily provision, so his goodwill mattered greatly to a captive who meant to ask for something the king had ordered otherwise.

God has done this for his servants before and since. He gave Joseph favour with the keeper of the prison in Egypt (Genesis 39:21), and Esther found favour with the king of Persia (Esther 2:17). Proverbs says that when a man’s ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him (Proverbs 16:7), and it speaks of finding favour in the sight of God and man (Proverbs 3:4). Verse 9 comes right after Daniel’s resolve, and it shows God at work in the heart of a pagan official in a foreign palace, on behalf of the young man who had set his heart to honour him.

The official’s goodwill is real, and so is his fear. “I fear my lord the king,” he says. Yârêʼ is the adjective “fearing”, said of someone who is afraid, and in a moral sense of one who is reverent. He fears his ʼâdôwn, his lord or master, a word for one who rules. The king “hath appointed” the young men’s food and drink, and the verb mânâh means to weigh out, allot or appoint. Their ration was the king’s own order.

His worry is what the king will see. “Worse liking” translates zâʻaph, which properly means to boil up, and figuratively to be fretful or sad. Here it describes faces that look worse, drawn and poorly. “The children which are of your sort” are the other young men in training, and the word behind “sort” means a circuit of time, an age, so he means youths of their own age. If the four look worse than those, he says, “then shall ye make me endanger my head to the king.” Chûwb means perhaps to tie, and so to owe or become liable, and rôʼsh is the head. His head would be forfeit, and his life would be at stake.

In a court where the king’s word was absolute, that fear was realistic, and it shows the cost of Daniel’s request to others as well as to himself. The official fears the king, while Daniel’s resolve rests on the fear of God. Proverbs warns of the fear of man (Proverbs 29:25), and a psalm answers it: “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?” (Psalm 118:6). Daniel treats the official’s fear as genuine and looks for a way through it, and God uses even the official’s anxiety to bring about the test that follows.

Daniel next speaks to Melzar, “whom the prince of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah”. Meltsâr is of Persian derivation and names a butler or other officer of the Babylonian court, so it is probably a title, such as steward or overseer, more than a personal name. “Had set” is the same verb, mânâh, that described the king appointing their food in verse 10. The steward had been appointed to this charge, and he answered for the four young men’s daily care.

The friends’ names carry Israel’s faith into Babylon. Hananiah means “Jah has favoured”, Mishael “who is what God is?”, and Azariah “Jah has helped”. Verse 11 names all four because Daniel speaks for them all, and they will share the test and its result. The verb behind “said”, ʼâmar, is the everyday word to say, tell or command, and the courage of the moment lies in what Daniel goes on to say.

He asks, “Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days.” The verb nâçâh means to test or try. He calls the four “thy servants”, using ʻebed, the ordinary word for a servant or bondman, and with “I beseech thee” he speaks humbly to the steward. He asks for zêrôaʻ, “pulse”, which means something sown, a vegetable eaten as food, and for mayim, water, to drink (shâthâh). The verb ʼâkal, “to eat”, is the plain word for eating. Daniel asks for plain food from the field and plain water in place of the dainties and wine of the king.

Then he names the measure: “Then let our countenances be looked upon before thee.” Marʼeh, “countenance”, is a view or an appearance, the way a person looks, from the face to the whole bearing. The steward will compare them with the young men “that eat of the portion of the king’s meat”, and “as thou seest, deal with thy servants”. The verb for “deal” is the broad word to do or make. Daniel leaves the judgment in Melzar’s hands and trusts God with the outcome.

“So he consented to them in this matter.” The verb shâmaʻ means to hear with understanding, often with the sense of heeding, so the steward listened and agreed. Dâbâr, “matter”, means a word and also a matter or thing, here the proposal itself. “And proved them ten days” uses nâçâh, the same verb as Daniel’s “Prove” in verse 12, and the steward does just what Daniel asked.

“And at the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king’s meat.” Ṭôwb, “fairer”, is the broad word for good, and of a person’s looks it means healthy and pleasing to see. Bârîyʼ, “fatter”, means fatted or plump, well fed and firm, and bâsâr is flesh. In that day a full face and body were a sign of health and good living. The official’s fear in verse 10 is answered exactly, because the four look better than every young man at the king’s table.

The change came in only ten days, after the plain food that was expected to weaken them, and coming after verse 9 we rightly see in it God’s blessing on their faithfulness. His care reached their bodies as well as their standing at court, and the simple food from the field outdid the king’s table. God honours those who honour him (1 Samuel 2:30).

“Thus Melzar took away the portion of their meat, and the wine that they should drink; and gave them pulse.” Nâsâʼ means to lift or carry away. The steward removes the king’s food and wine from their allowance and gives them pulse, and the test becomes their way of life from then on. The verb “gave” is nâthan, the same verb used in verse 9 for God bringing Daniel into favour and in verse 12 for “let them give us pulse”. God gave the favour, and so the steward gave the food Daniel had asked for.

The chapter goes on to say that God gave the four knowledge and wisdom, and that the king found them ten times better than all his wise men (Daniel 1:17–20). Scripture speaks often of this faithfulness of God: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6). “Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart” (Psalm 37:3–4). “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD” (Psalm 37:23), and Jesus promises that those who seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness will have all these things added to them (Matthew 6:33).

What Daniel did over food prepares the way for everything that follows in Daniel 1 and in the book. The same wisdom shows when he interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Daniel 2), the same faithfulness when his friends refuse to bow to the king’s image and are thrown into the fiery furnace (Daniel 3), and the same steadfast heart when Daniel himself keeps praying and is cast into the lions’ den (Daniel 6). In each place God honours his servants and shows his power over the empires of men. The courage of those later chapters began at a table in Babylon, with a young man who had settled the matter in his heart.

Daniel’s resolve points us to Jesus, who kept himself pure in every way. He was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). In the wilderness the devil tempted him to turn stones into bread and offered him the kingdoms of the world, and Jesus answered, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:1–11). He was obedient to his Father even to death on the cross (Philippians 2:8), and he is the Holy One of God (Mark 1:24).

Daniel kept himself from defilement, and Christ, who knew no sin, was made sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). He loved the church and gave himself for it, to cleanse it and present it to himself without spot or wrinkle (Ephesians 5:25–27), and in him God chose us to be holy and blameless before him (Ephesians 1:4).

The favour God gave Daniel with a Babylonian official points to the favour that rests on the Son, in whom the Father is well pleased (Matthew 3:17). In him we are accepted in the beloved (Ephesians 1:6), we have access by faith into God’s grace (Romans 5:2), and we are made children of God (John 1:12). Daniel was sustained by pulse and water, and Jesus is the bread of life (John 6:35) who gives living water (John 4:10–14). The fear that gripped the chief official is answered in Christ, who delivers his people from the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14–15) and rescues us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10), for our life is hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3).

This passage gives us a young man far from home who decided what he would do before the pressure came, and who carried out that decision with courtesy toward the people over him. It shows a God who is as present in Babylon as in Jerusalem, who gives kindness and tender love in the heart of a foreign official, and who honours those who honour him. The faithfulness asked of Daniel was in an ordinary matter of food and drink, and God was pleased to meet him there and to make his obedience plain to everyone who looked at his face. Daniel’s way of a settled heart and a gracious request is open to every believer whose faithfulness sets them at odds with the world around them, and the God who saw Daniel through is the same God today.