Daniel 1: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon besieges Jerusalem, takes King Jehoiakim and some of the vessels from God's house, and has picked young men from Israel's royal and noble families trained for three years to serve in his palace. Daniel and three friends are among them, given Babylonian names and assigned the king's food and wine. Daniel asks to be excused from that food, and after a ten-day test on vegetables and water he and his friends look healthier than the rest. God gives the four learning and wisdom, Daniel also understands visions and dreams, and the king finds them far better than all his magicians.

Claim by Claim

1. 1:1
   • In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem.
   • Jehoiakim was king of Judah.
   • Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon.
   • Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem.
2. 1:2
   • The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into Nebuchadnezzar's hand.
   • The Lord gave part of the vessels of the house of God into Nebuchadnezzar's hand.
   • Nebuchadnezzar carried them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god.
   • Nebuchadnezzar brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.
3. 1:3
   • The king spoke to Ashpenaz.
   • Ashpenaz was the chief of the king's court officials.
   • The king ordered him to bring some of the children of Israel.
   • Those to be brought were from the royal seed and from the nobles.
4. 1:4
   • The ones to be brought were young men with no blemish in them.
   • They were to be good in appearance.
   • They were to be skilled in all wisdom.
   • They were to be knowledgeable.
   • They were to have understanding of learning.
   • They were to have the ability to stand in the king's palace.
   • They were to be taught the writing of the Chaldeans.
   • They were to be taught the tongue of the Chaldeans.
5. 1:5
   • The king appointed them a daily portion from the king's food.
   • The king appointed them a daily portion from the wine he drank.
   • They were to be raised for three years.
   • At the end of the three years they were to stand before the king.
6. 1:6
   • Among these young men were some from the children of Judah.
   • These were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
7. 1:7
   • The chief of the officials gave them names.
   • He gave Daniel the name Belteshazzar.
   • He gave Hananiah the name Shadrach.
   • He gave Mishael the name Meshach.
   • He gave Azariah the name Abednego.
8. 1:8
   • Daniel resolved in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king's food.
   • Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the wine the king drank.
   • Daniel requested of the chief of the officials that he might not defile himself.
9. 1:9
   • God gave Daniel favor and compassion before the chief of the officials.
10. 1:10
    • The chief of the officials said to Daniel that he feared his lord the king.
    • He said the king had appointed their food and their drink.
    • He asked why the king should see their faces looking worse than those of the young men of their own age.
    • He said that they would then make his head forfeit to the king.
11. 1:11
    • Daniel spoke to the overseer called Melzar.
    • The chief of the officials had appointed this overseer over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
12. 1:12
    • Daniel asked him to test his servants for ten days.
    • Daniel asked that they be given vegetables to eat.
    • Daniel asked that they be given water to drink.
13. 1:13
    • Daniel asked that their appearance be inspected before him.
    • Daniel asked that the appearance of the young men who ate the king's food also be inspected.
    • Daniel asked him to deal with his servants according to what he saw.
14. 1:14
    • He consented to them in this matter.
    • He tested them for ten days.
15. 1:15
    • At the end of ten days their appearance was better than that of all the young men who ate the king's food.
    • They were fatter in flesh than all the young men who ate the king's food.
16. 1:16
    • The overseer took away their portion of food.
    • The overseer took away the wine they were to drink.
    • The overseer gave them vegetables.
17. 1:17
    • These four young men were given knowledge by God.
    • God gave them skill in all learning and wisdom.
    • Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.
18. 1:18
    • The days the king had specified for bringing them in came to an end.
    • The chief of the officials brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar.
19. 1:19
    • The king spoke with them.
    • Among all of them none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
    • Therefore they stood before the king.
20. 1:20
    • In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in all his kingdom.
21. 1:21
    • Daniel continued until the first year of King Cyrus.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1

Judah was the small southern kingdom left after the older kingdom of Israel split in two; Jerusalem was its capital. Babylon was the dominant empire of the day, centered in what is now Iraq. Dating events by the regnal year of a king was the normal calendar of the ancient Near East: this is roughly 605 BC. Jeremiah 25:1 dates the same period to Jehoiakim's fourth year, probably because the two writers count a king's first partial year differently, one system counts it, the other starts counting from the first full year.

1:2

"Shinar" is an old-fashioned, archaic name for Babylonia, the same region as "Babylon," used here in a deliberately antique way. The "vessels" are the bowls, basins and utensils used in the Jerusalem temple's rituals. Carrying a defeated nation's sacred objects home and storing them in your own god's temple treasury was standard practice for a victorious ancient king: it displayed publicly whose god had won.

1:3

"Eunuchs" translates a Hebrew word (saris) that had come to mean a high court official generally; some such men were castrated, as was common for those with access to a royal household, but the word does not by itself say so. "The king's seed" means members of the royal family. Deporting the sons of a conquered country's leading families served two purposes: they were hostages guaranteeing good behavior at home, and they were trained into useful imperial administrators.

1:4

"Children" in the King James Version regularly means young people rather than small children; these are adolescents or young men. "No blemish" means no physical defect or disfigurement (physical perfection was a normal requirement for palace service. "Science" in 1611 English meant knowledge in general, not the natural sciences. The "Chaldeans" were originally a people of southern Babylonia who supplied Babylon's ruling dynasty; later in this book the word also names a professional class of scholars and diviners. Their "learning and tongue" means the Akkadian language written in cuneiform, along with the vast technical literature) omens, astronomy, medicine, law, that a Babylonian scribe had to master.

1:5

"Meat" in the King James Version means food of any kind, not flesh specifically. "Stand before the king" is a court idiom for entering the king's personal service as an attendant or adviser.

1:6

The names are all Hebrew and all contain a name for Israel's God: Daniel ("God is my judge"), Hananiah ("the LORD has been gracious"), Mishael ("who is what God is?"), Azariah ("the LORD has helped").

1:7

The new names replace the Hebrew god-elements with Babylonian ones: Belteshazzar is connected with Bel (a title of the god Marduk), Abednego is probably an altered form of "servant of Nabu." The meanings of Shadrach and Meshach are uncertain. Renaming a person was an assertion of ownership and authority by the one who did the renaming.

1:8

"Defile himself" refers to becoming ritually unclean under Jewish food law. The text does not say what the specific problem was, and readers have long suggested several possibilities: the meat might be from forbidden animals, or not drained of blood, or food and wine from a royal table may have been formally offered to Babylonian gods before serving. The narrative leaves the reason unstated.

1:9

"Tender love" in 1611 English means sympathy or kindly feeling. It carries no romantic sense at all.

1:10

"Worse liking" is old English for looking less well fed. "Of your sort" means of your own age group or class. "Endanger my head" is not a figure of speech: an official who let the king's orders be quietly disobeyed could be executed for it.

1:11

"Melzar" is treated in the King James Version as a personal name, but the Hebrew word carries the definite article, "the melzar", so it is more likely a job title, something like steward, guardian, or overseer of provisions. Its exact meaning is uncertain.

1:12

"Pulse" is an old English word for food grown from seed, vegetables, grains and especially beans and lentils. The Hebrew word means literally "things sown." The point of asking for it is that plant food raised no questions of ritual purity. Ten days is a short trial period, long enough to show an effect but short enough that the steward risks little.

1:13

"Countenances" means faces, and by extension general appearance or condition.

1:15

"Fairer and fatter in flesh" is not an insult: in a world where food was often short, being visibly well fleshed was the ordinary sign of health and prosperity.

1:17

In Babylon the interpretation of dreams and omens was a recognized professional discipline with its own reference literature, practiced by trained specialists attached to the court, which is why this skill matters for Daniel's career.

1:20

"Magicians" and "astrologers" translate two Hebrew words for distinct classes of Babylonian court specialists: hartummim, experts in sacred writings, dreams and ritual texts, and ashshaphim, reciters of incantations. Both were respected scholarly professions, not street fortune-tellers. "Ten times better" is an idiom meaning far better, not a measured ratio.

1:21

Cyrus, king of Persia, captured Babylon in 539 BC and in his first year as its ruler allowed deported peoples, including the Judeans, to return home. The verse therefore notes that Daniel, taken as a youth about sixty-six years earlier, was still at court when the empire that deported him fell. It does not say he died then, chapter 10 places him alive in the third year of Cyrus.