Help With Daniel 1

[jwithnell]

I started listing to a series of sermons on Daniel, and was curious about a reference made to Daniel and has fellow Jews refusing to eat "the kings food."

Now I realize there's been debate about why the food was refused. In this sermon, the food is refused because a meal was a common part of covenant making, and Daniel was refusing to enter into covenant with Nebuchadnezzar and his court. That makes a fair amount of sense except for one thing: the same passage mentions no objections to the names being changed, which was also a common part of historic, mid-eastern covenantal ceremonies.

Do y'all have any thoughts on this? I realize the passage doesn't give an explicit reason for refusing the food, and I'm not trying to get into a guessing game here, but is covenant a plausible explanation? And if so, why?

Thanks!

 

[Jack K]

Perhaps the fact that Daniel uses his Hebrew name later in the book (8:1, 9:2, 10:1-2), and that others also refer to him as "Daniel" later on, shows that there was some objection on his part to the name change even though this isn't mentioned in the chapter 1 account. In any case, the idea that eating from the king's table was in some way placing his faith in the king rather than in God seems like a solid way of interpreting the text, given all that's going on. It isn't necessary to conclude that such eating involved making a wrongful covenant with the king. It would still be misplaced faith... and sinful.

 

[Eoghan]

I think the idea was that they wanted to remain kosher?

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

J,

In Stuart Olyott's book, Dare To Stand Alone: Daniel Simply Explained, he reiterates the view taken by EJ Young, HC Leupold, and Keil:

Imagine, then, these four boys starting their re-education. They are told that instead of preparing their own food, they are to be fed from the royal table. The reason they turned down the royal food was not because of the Jewish food laws. They could at least have had the wine, for no Jewish food law ever forbade it. The reason for their refusal was that the food from the king's table had been offered to idols before it was served. Every Babylonian kingly meal began with an act of pagan worship. They were a lot more diligent about this than many Christians are about saying grace before eating. Nothing was eaten and nothing was drunk until it was dedicated to certain pagan deities. Those who ate the food were reckoned to have participated in the pagan rites. It was precisely because they refused to compromise with idolatry that the boys had a place among the godly remnant. They were certainly not going to have anything to do with it now. (p. 20)​

I have not yet consulted Calvin or Gill to see their take.

 

[jwithnell]

Thanks guys. Jack, that's a good observation about the names. Steve, your quote hints at a covenantal concern too, or at least idolatry. But might they not have had the same problem with any food -- which would be a similar concern for an idea about them wanting to remain Kosher.