Daniel Set Upon His Heart

The book of Daniel is famous for a fiery furnace, a den of lions, and visions of beasts and kingdoms. Yet it opens with none of these. It opens in a dining hall.

Daniel and his friends were young men of Judah, taken to Babylon to be trained for the king’s service. They were given new names, a new language, and a place at the king’s own table: “a daily portion, day by day, of the king’s food, and of the wine of his drinking” (Daniel 1:5).

Daniel 1:8 And Daniel set upon his heart that he would not defile himself with the king's food, nor with the wine of his drinking; and he sought from the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.

Before the furnace, before the lions, and before any vision, the first thing Daniel “set upon his heart” was this: he would not defile himself with the king’s food.

Why the Food Defiled

People often explain his choice as a matter of health, or simplicity, or a vow of some kind. But Daniel’s own word is “defile.” The Hebrew is gaal גָּאַל gaw-al', to stain or to pollute, and food can defile a man only if God has said that it does. The Torah names the ways.

The first is the flesh of an animal God did not call food (Leviticus 11). The second is blood, for the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and it may not be eaten (Leviticus 17). The third is what had been offered to other gods, and Moses warned Israel about that very table:

Exodus 34:15 Lest you cut a covenant (berit בְּרִית ber-eeth') with the inhabitant of the land, and they go whoring after their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and one call you, and you eat of his sacrifice;

The wine of the nations, too, was the wine poured out to their gods:

Deuteronomy 32:38 who ate the fat of their sacrifices, who drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you; let them be a hiding place over you.

The king of Babylon’s table served all three: meat from animals the Torah does not call food, meat with its blood, and meat and wine first offered to the gods of Babylon. That is why Daniel said “defile.” He was keeping the Torah’s purity laws in a foreign land, with no one but God to require it of him.

So he asked for something else:

Daniel 1:12 "Test now your servants ten days; and let them give us from the vegetables, that we may eat, and water, that we may drink.

Daniel 1:15 And at the end of ten days their appearance was seen as good, and they were fatter in flesh (basar בָּשָׂר baw-sawr') than all the youths who ate the king's food.

Daniel 1:17 And these youths, the four of them, God gave them knowledge and skill in all writing and wisdom; and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.

Daniel did not eat vegetables because vegetables are holy. He ate vegetables because in Babylon that was the only way to keep the Torah, and God honored his obedience with health and with “knowledge and skill in all writing and wisdom.”

How Seriously They Took It

Some still say that it was only food, perhaps a matter of taste. The rest of the book answers them. When Nebuchadnezzar set up his image of gold, Daniel’s three friends had only to bow once.

Daniel 3:16-18 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego answered and said to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and from your hand, O king, He will deliver. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, nor do homage to the image of gold which you have set up."

They chose the furnace over a single bow. Years later Daniel chose the lions over thirty days without prayer:

Daniel 6:11 And Daniel, when he knew that the writing was signed, went into his house; now his windows were open in his upper chamber toward Jerusalem; and three times in the day he knelt upon his knees, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, just as he had done before this.

(YLV Daniel 6:11, Masoretic verse order) With his windows open “toward Jerusalem,” he prayed three times a day, “just as he had done before this.”

Men who would rather burn than bow once to an idol did not refuse the king’s meat over a matter of taste. They refused it for the same reason they refused to bow: the Torah. Long afterward, Eleazar, ninety years old, chose death rather than open his mouth to eat pork (2 Maccabees 6). That was in the years before the temple was cleansed, the cleansing remembered at Hanukkah, the feast at which Yeshua walked in the temple (John 10:22-23). And Isaiah, as Chapter 28 showed, names those who offer “swine’s blood” and “eat the flesh (basar) of swine” among those who “shall come to an end” (Isaiah 66:3, 17). To say that Daniel refused the king’s food for the Torah’s sake is therefore not a guess. It is plain common sense about people who would sooner die than disobey.

The church in Korea knows this from its own history. Under Japanese rule, from the late 1930s, Christians were ordered to bow at Shinto shrines. They were told that it was not worship at all, only a national ceremony, and in 1938, under heavy police pressure, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church voted to accept shrine worship as exactly that. Some pastors refused. Pastor Ju Gi-cheol of Pyongyang would not bow; he was imprisoned and tortured again and again, and he died in prison in April 1944. Many others went to prison with him.

They understood what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego understood: calling a bow a ceremony does not change what a bow is. And Daniel understood the same about one meal from an idol’s table.

The Fast That Was Not a Diet

Many Christians today keep what they call the Daniel fast, twenty-one days of fruit, vegetables, and grains. It comes from chapter 10:

Daniel 10:2-3 In those days I Daniel was mourning three weeks of days. Pleasant bread I did not eat, and flesh (basar) and wine did not come into my mouth, and I did not anoint myself at all, until the fulfilling of three weeks of days.

The first line sets the scene: “I Daniel was mourning three weeks of days.” Daniel was an old man, grieving and seeking God for three weeks, and he was not following a diet plan.

The point of Daniel’s life is not a few weeks of vegetables. It is a man trained from his youth to obey the Torah in his body, every day and at every meal, until he was old. Twenty-one careful days, followed by the rest of the year spent eating what God said is not food, is not Daniel’s fast. Isaiah tells what fast God chooses (Isaiah 58:6-7), and Yeshua warned about religious effort cut loose from His Father’s will:

Matthew 7:21-23 Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of the heavens, but the one who does the thelema θέλημα thel'-ay-mah(will) of My Father who is in the heavens. Many will say to Me on that day: 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demon(individual evil spirits to be expelled)s, and in Your name perform many dynamis δύναμις doo'-nam-is(miracles, power)?' And then I will declare to them: 'I never knew you — depart from Me, you who work the anomia ἀνομία an-om-ee'-ah(Torah-lessness).'

They prophesied, cast out demons, and did many dynamis(miracles, power) in His name, and still He said, “depart from Me, you who work the anomia(Torah-lessness).” Spiritual activity is not the same as obedience. Daniel’s foundation was not a fast but the Torah, obeyed in the body.

Why the Table Comes First

The book begins with food because appetite is the most constant desire a person has; it comes three times a day and never takes a holiday. A piano student does not begin with a concert. She begins with scales, every morning, until her fingers obey without arguing, and when the concert comes years later, it is the scales that carry her through it.

The table was Daniel’s scales. John names the desires that rule the world:

1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world — the epithymia ἐπιθυμία ep-ee-thoo-mee'-ah(lust, desire, strong craving) of the sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh) and the epithymia(lust, desire, strong craving) of the eyes and the arrogance of life — is not from the Father but is from the world.

Daniel met each of these in turn. In chapter 1 he said no to his appetite. In chapter 5 the king offered him a purple robe, a gold chain, and the third place in the kingdom, and Daniel answered:

Daniel 5:17 Then Daniel answered and said before the king, "Let your gifts be to yourself, and give your rewards to another; nevertheless I will read the writing to the king, and make known to him the interpretation.

In chapter 6 he kept praying toward Jerusalem with the lions waiting. Appetite came first, then riches and honor, then power and the fear of death, and each obedience trained him for the next. The simple, concrete laws of the table train a person to lay every desire down before God.

Daniel was careful at a king’s table. There is a holier table than any king’s, and Paul wrote to Corinth that some who came to it carelessly had grown weak and sick, and some had fallen asleep. What happens when someone carries uncleanness to the most holy table of all?