Daniel 1:8 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Daniel 1:8

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We then come to this pivotal verse, and one of the great ‘buts’ of the Bible: ‘But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat’. Up to this point, you can only imagine what this must have meant to these four young men, let alone the other Israelite youngsters (however many there may have been of them). At first they were filled with horror: to be seized at so young an age, to be carried away from Jerusalem where they had all of them, we assume, been born and brought up; taken from their well-off families, noble families, people with some destiny even in the fabric of the society of Israel; and then to just be transported into the land of the enemy, the overlord nation, the all-dominant Chaldean Empire. For this to happen was a terrifying experience, with many ups and downs. Then to find when you are there that you have been selected for a very grand purpose. You are going to be conditioned; you are going to be changed; you are going to be prepared one day to be a high official; you are going to have a really intensive course of training. Perhaps if you were not faithful to Jehovah, you could brighten up and think, ‘My fortunes have changed. I'm going to have luxury and influence and position. I’m not going to die. I'm going to serve the greatest emperor on earth. I am going to be able to do what I like and indulge myself, as long as I'm obedient to the emperor. Here we are in the school attached to the royal court, the college, and we’ve got this tremendous food to eat, the king’s meat, the king's table, great luxury and pomp and extravagance. Things have turned out well. I can forget my home. I can forget Israel.’ You could think like that. If you were a worldly-minded youngster, you could think something quite tremendous had opened up for you. Yes, it was a bit of a struggle – learning Chaldean, and ancient Babylonian too, because we read on that they were going to have to be conversant with Babylonian literature; there would be quite a course of training – but they might possibly conclude, ‘My life has just gone up. I'm going to be really significant.’ In the light of that, we imagine that they talked to each other; they encouraged and comforted each other considerably.‘But Daniel’ – and this is a great sentiment – ‘purposed in his heart.’ He had made an inner vow that no matter what happened, he would not be unfaithful to the commandments of Jehovah. The way it’s expressed – although it's put very modestly – reading between the lines, you rather get the impression that at first only Daniel was of this mind. The other three are not included in this. It seems to be only Daniel. But as you go down through the verses ‘us’ comes into the narrative and the others seem to come on board and fall in step with Daniel, and that's often the case. One person has a wholly earnest, sincere, deep resolution, and others will be challenged and join and make it their resolution also. Maybe the other Israelite youngsters didn't do this, but three went with Daniel certainly and joined in the same determination. He has conviction and courage at his young age. He took a great risk. Punishments were terrible in that court, vicious. He was in danger of at least losing his privileges and foregoing the feasts, and perhaps much more. He could be executed or sent among the slaves. All kinds of things could happen to him to humiliate him and debase him. But he purposed in his heart that, no matter what it would cost, he would not break the commandments of the Lord, and the others came alongside him. No doubt he prays about this. As you go through the book you see he is a great man of prayer, and what happened was that God had already heard those prayers, and already provided for them. He didn’t say, ‘Can we be excused? this sort of food gives us indigestion.’ He was open: it is a matter of religious defilement. You’d expect the officials to be furious.

Application

Trials of faith are inevitable and trials are what God uses to train his people. Daniel was being made fit for the next stage of his service to God. Self-denial is essential to godliness. We have to keep a grip on ourselves in a world full of goodies that can lead us away from our love for God.

That is something we so often fail to do. We have good intentions. We are going to serve the Lord; we are going to witness; we're going to do better in the coming year than we have in the past; we are going to be much more careful about certain things and much more watchful. But Daniel went a step further. He purposed in his heart. It indicates a real commitment and dedication and determination. That is what we all need. Not just to think we will do this, and to improve on that, but to form deep inner vows. ‘I am going to honour the Lord in this objective, in that objective. Daniel made up his mind.

We need to face some hard things as believers. There has been a lie of liberalism when evangelicalism ran low at the start of the twentieth century. The primary purpose of ministry has become to nurse aches and pains, to soft-soap God’s people, rather than to encourage vigorous evangelism. One has said that there are two types of ministry: one which includes goading to action, and the other which only provides consolation. But comfort and consolation are intended for those who are suffering while attempting great things for him. A ministry which turns us all into hospital patients is a deception.

Questions

Why did Daniel choose to make a stand about not defiling himself with the king’s meat and not the other things? There were a number of things which he must have found pretty unbearable. Those names, those dreadful, dreadful names. To change, as it were, your Christian name for a pagan name, naming a god, a pagan god, each one a different one. That must have been highly objectionable and uncomfortable. You would think that that was bad enough. And then there was the indoctrination of the training program. They are going to learn Babylonian, ancient Babylonian. They were going to learn the current Chaldean vernacular. Yes, they would do maths; they would do astronomy – the Babylonians were very good at those. They would also do astrology and mythology, and they would find those subjects very undesirable, and they would be part of the brainwashing. They would have to learn the philosophy, the learning of the Chaldean. But they could reject that; they could learn it so that they would be familiar with their environment and the society they were now part of, and better equipped to serve their own kingdom, Israel, the fortunes of the Israelites, but they wouldn't be breaking the law of God by learning those things. It would be a burden to them and objectionable, yes. They would probably learn some agricultural and some architecture, perhaps also do military studies, and perhaps Chaldean law and social order, but the mythology was the worst. They would certainly have had to learn physical combat, and they may well have found that offensive. They would be involved in fencing and riding and trekking and all sorts of things, and if you've been round the British Museum, you know that the Chaldeans absolutely loved – at least the royalty did – lion hunting, and who knows what they would have been exposed to in the Royal Court, frenzied and fantastic activity. Some people find the narrative about the food a little unrealistic, especially when we come to the verse where they are going to prove a vegetarian diet for ten days. People say, would ten days make a great deal of difference to them? Well, when you think of the regime they probably followed, and the physical activity they were subjected to, as well as the intellectual side of things, yes it would make a difference. Anyway, why pick on the food? Because the law of God forbad the eating of food which had been offered to idols. And every meal in the royal palace at Babylon was a kind of devotional act, an act of worship to the gods. All the food had been offered to the gods, and would be right before their eyes, and that was transgressing a direct commandment of God. That was absolutely against the laws of Moses. So Daniel purposed in his heart, ‘No, I'm not going to eat anything which has been offered to idols.’ Of course a lot of the foods would also be foods forbidden under the laws of Israel, foods that were regarded as unclean. He could put up with some of the theoretical instruction, because he would dismiss it in his mind. He could defend himself against that even that name, but not the eating of food offered to idols.

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Introduction

Daniel 1:8 Commentary and Bible Study