Daniel 1:1-21

Introductory. The abstinence of Daniel and his Friends from Unclean Food

Daniel is introduced as one of a band of Jews taken captive to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in the third year of Jehoiakim (Daniel 1:1). Along with three of his youthful countrymen he is chosen to be trained during three years for personal attendance on the king (Daniel 1:3). As the food and drink provided for those in this position are ceremonially unclean Daniel resolves not to partake of them. After an unsuccessful appeal to the chief official in charge, he persuades a subordinate official to give himself and his friends vegetable food and water for ten days. The results of the experiment are favourable, and the four Jewish youths continue to live on this fare during the three years of their training (Daniel 1:8). At the end of this time they are found superior to their fellow-students both physically and intellectually, and indeed wiser than all the learned men of Babylon, They are accordingly appointed to attend upon the king (Daniel 1:17). Special emphasis is laid upon Daniel's understanding of visions and dreams, and the superiority of the Jewish youths is traced, not to their heathen training but to God (Daniel 1:17). A biographical note about Daniel is added in Daniel 1:21.

Teaching.This c, emphasises the duty of abstaining from food contaminated by idolatry, or otherwise unclean, and teaches that firmness in this respect will bring its own reward from God. These lessons bore very plainly on the position of the Jews in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes (see 1Ma 1:48, 1Ma 1:62-63; 2Ma 6:18-31; 2Ma 7:1-41), and were of practical importance also in the early days of Christianity: see Romans 14; 1 Corinthians 10:20; 1 Corinthians 10:27. The wider moral as to the grandeur of fidelity to principle is one for all time.