Biblion Bible Commentary
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Daniel Purposed in His Heart
Daniel 1:8-13
8 But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king’s delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank. Therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. · WEB
The book's whole career of courage begins with a decision nobody could see, made about a meal — and it is proposed with courtesy, not defiance.
But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank Daniel 1:8.
The first but in the book, and it is a teenager's private resolution against an empire's hospitality. Note where the line is drawn and where it is not: not at the language, not at the literature, not at the name — at the table. Judah's holy things had already been carried into a pagan temple Daniel 1:2; here, in a matter no one would have audited, a captive declines to let the pagan table be carried into him. Food from a royal kitchen came unclean by the law's own lists and came off an altar besides, first offered to gods and only then served Leviticus 11:2–8 Exodus 34:15. To eat the king's portion was to take communion with the king's gods and to accept the king's ownership in the most literal way a body can.
Purposed in his heart is the operative phrase, and it comes before every furnace in this book. Character is settled in private and in advance, or it is not settled at all; a man who has not decided about dinner will not decide well about lions. The book will show three friends refusing an image and an old man refusing a decree, and it insists on showing this first — the small test, unwitnessed, where the habit of saying no was formed.
Therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
The manner is as instructive as the resolve. Daniel requested. He does not smuggle, lecture, or organize the other captives; he asks his supervisor, through channels — and when the answer is a frightened refusal, he goes one step down the chain with a workable alternative. The officer's fear is real and stated: why should he see your faces worse looking than the youths who are of your own age? Then you would endanger my head with the king Daniel 1:10. So the proposal answers exactly that objection: test your servants, I beg you, ten days; and let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our faces be examined Daniel 1:12–13. A short trial, a reversible one, with the officer's own criterion as the measure and the officer himself as judge — as you see, deal with your servants. Conviction that refuses to be moved, expressed in a form the other man can afford to grant.
And between the resolve and the request stands a line the narrator will not let the reader skip: now God made Daniel find kindness and compassion in the sight of the prince of the eunuchs Daniel 1:9. The courtesy worked because God was already at work in the man being asked — the same providence that had opened an Egyptian prison to a Hebrew slave Genesis 39:21.
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