Daniel and the King's Table

The plates arrive, piled high. Rich meat, fine bread, wine from the king's own cellar. Around the table, young men from far away reach out and begin to eat. One of them folds his hands, and quietly says no.

In the third year of King Jehoiakim of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. The book of Daniel says the Lord gave Jehoiakim into his hand. Nebuchadnezzar carried off some of the holy vessels from God's temple and put them in the treasure house of his own god. And he carried off something else too. Young people. The brightest and best of Judah's leading families, marched hundreds of miles to a city of great walls and towering temples, to serve a foreign king.

The king told Ashpenaz, the chief of his officials, to choose young men with no physical flaw, good-looking, wise, quick to learn, fit to serve in the palace. They would study the language and writings of the Chaldeans for three years. Four of them were from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. And the first thing Babylon did was change their names. Daniel became Belteshazzar. Hananiah became Shadrach, Mishael became Meshach, and Azariah became Abednego. New names, new language, new home. Babylon was making them Babylonian. And every day, the king ordered that they be served from his own table: his food and his wine.

“But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king's food, or with the wine he drank.” The Bible doesn't explain exactly why, and readers have suggested different reasons: God's food laws, food offered to Babylon's gods, or a refusal to depend completely on the king. What is clear is that Daniel drew a line. And notice how he did it. He didn't make a scene. He asked permission. God had given Daniel favour and compassion in the eyes of Ashpenaz. But the official was afraid. “If the king sees you looking worse than the other young men your age, he'll have my head.”

So Daniel went to the guard who looked after the four of them, and offered a deal. “Please test your servants for ten days. Give us vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare us with the young men who eat the king's food, and decide what to do.” The guard agreed. Ten days passed. And at the end of the ten days, Daniel and his friends looked healthier and better nourished than all the others. So the guard took away the king's food and wine and kept giving them vegetables.

God gave these four young men knowledge and skill in all kinds of learning and wisdom. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of every kind. At the end of three years they were brought before Nebuchadnezzar himself. The king talked with them, and among all the trainees none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. Whenever he asked them a question of wisdom, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his kingdom. And Daniel stayed in royal service right through to the first year of King Cyrus, when Babylon itself was gone.

The king's table was real. Archaeologists working in Babylon found clay tablets from Nebuchadnezzar's reign listing rations of oil handed out from the royal stores to foreigners living at the palace. Among the names is Ya'ukin, king of the land of Judah, and his sons. That is Jehoiachin, a king of Judah taken to Babylon a few years after Daniel. Captives of high rank really were fed by the king of Babylon.

Daniel and the king's table. You'll find it in Daniel chapter 1. Daniel couldn't choose his city, his teachers or even his name. But he could choose whom he belonged to. And he did it with courage and courtesy, and God honoured him. So here's the question to carry with you. In a world that wants to reshape you, what is one line you've decided you will not cross?