Daniel 1:5 Commentary and Bible Study

There were to be given a share of the king’s meat, that is, precisely the same extravagant food, not literally off the king’s table. This was done to spoil them. They were to believe that there was no culture like the Chaldean culture, no place like Babylon, no king like Nebuchadnezzar. They were being trained to think of their land as an inferior place by comparison. Yet this too they resisted. Israel may not have the same finery and luxury, but it had something far more important: the worship of the one true God, and his covenant with their nation. That was not ended even though they were for the time being in exile.The training was to last three years, ‘that at the end thereof they might stand before the king’, referring to the king’s examination of them. They would be examined no doubt by their tutors, their teachers, but finally the king wanted his own impression of them. He evidently considered himself to be a shrewd judge of character, and he possibly was. Three years were considered enough to mould them into Chaldean ways, but God kept their hearts and although they were willing to serve the king, their first loyalty remained to God.