[235] The name Daniel occurs among Ezra's contemporaries in Ezra viii. 2; Neh. x. 7, and the other names in Neh. viii. 4, x. 3, 24; 1 Esdras ix. 44.
[236] _Balatsu-utsur._ The name in this form had nothing to do with Bel, as the writer of Daniel seems to have supposed (Dan. iv. 5), nor yet with Beltis, the wife of Bel. See _supra_, p. 47. Comp. the names Nabusarutsur, Sinsarutsur, Assursarutsur. Also comp. _Inscr. Semit._, ii. 38, etc. Pseudo-Epiphanius says that Nebuchadrezzar meant Daniel to be co-heir with his son Belshazzar.
[237] F. Delitzsch calls Meshach _vox hybrida_. Neither "Shadrach" nor "Meshach" occurs on the monuments. "That the imposition of names is a symbol of mastership over slaves is plain" (S. Chrys., _Opp._, iii. 21; Pusey, p. 16). Comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 34 (Egyptians); xxiv. 17 (Babylonians); Ezra v. 14, Esther ii. 7 (Persians).
[238] Comp. Obadiah, Abdiel, Abdallah, etc. Schrader says, p. 429: "The supposition that Nebo was altered to Nego, out of a contumelious desire (which Jews often displayed) to alter, avoid, and insult the names of idols, is out of place, since the other names are not altered."
[239] Jos., _Antt._, XII. v. 1; Derenbourg, _Palestine_, p. 34; Ewald, _Hist._, v. 294 (E. Tr.); Munk, _Palestine_, p. 495, etc.
[240] See Ewald, _Gesch. Isr._, vi. 654. "They shall eat unclean things in Assyria" (Hosea ix. 3). "The children of Israel shall eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles" (Ezek. iv. 13, 14).
[241] 1 Macc. i. 62, 63.
[242] 2 Macc. vi. 18-31. Comp. the LXX. addition to Esther iv. 14, v. 4, where she is made to plead before God that she had not tasted of the table of Haman or of the king's banquet. So Judith takes "clean" bread with her into the camp of Holofernes (Judith x. 5), and Judas and his followers live on herbs in the desert (2 Macc. v. 27). The _Mishnah_ even forbids to take the bread, oil, or milk of the heathen.
[243] _Prophets of the O. T._, p. 184 (E. Tr.).
[244] Mr. Bevan says that the verb for "defile" (גאל), as a ritual term for the idea of ceremonial uncleanness, is post-exilic; the Pentateuch and Ezekiel used טמא (_Comment._, p. 61). The idea intended is that the three boys avoided meat which might have been killed with the blood and offered to idols, and therefore was not _Kashar_ (Exod. xxxiv. 15).
[245] Jos., _Vit._, iii. Comp. Isa. lii. 11.
[246] Mark vii. 19 (according to the true reading and translation).
[247] Acts x. 14.
[248] 1 Cor. xi. 25. This rigorism was specially valued by the Essenes and Therapeutæ. See Derenbourg, _Palestine_, note, vi.
[249] Plato, _Alcib._, i. 37; Xen., _Cyrop._, i. 2. Youths entered the king's service at the age of seventeen.
[250] Lit. "sadder." LXX., σκυθρωποί.
[251] LXX., κινδυνεύσω τῷ ἰδίῳ τραχήλῳ.
[252] Perhaps the Assyrian _matstsara_, "guardian" (Delitzsch). There are various other guesses (Behrmann, p. 5).
[253] Heb., זֵרֹעִים; LXX., σπέρματα; Vulg., _legumina_. Abn Ezra took the word to mean "rice." Comp. Deut. xii. 15, 16; 1 Sam. xvii. 17, 18. Comp. Josephus (_Vit._, iii.), who tells us how the Jewish priests, prisoners in Rome, fed on σύκοις καὶ καρύοις.
[254] Ewald, _Antiquities_, p. 131 f.
[255] Pusey (p. 17) quotes from Chardin's notes in Harmer (_Obs._, lix.): "I have remarked that the countenance of the Kechicks (monks) are, in fact, more rosy and smooth than those of others, and that those who fast much are, notwithstanding, very beautiful, sparkling with health, with a clear and lively countenance."
[256] The _Chartummîm_ are like the Egyptian ἱερογραμματεῖς. It is difficult to conceive that there was less chance of pollution in being elaborately trained in heathen magic and dream-interpretation than in eating Babylonian food. But this was, so to speak, _extra fabulam_. It did not enter into the writer's scheme of moral edification. If, however, the story is meant to imply that these youths accepted the heathen training, though (as we know from tablets and inscriptions) the incantations, etc., in which it abounded were intimately connected with idolatry, and were entirely unharmed by it, this may indicate that the writer did not disapprove of the "Greek training" which Antiochus tried to introduce, so far as it merely involved an acquaintance with Greek learning and literature. This is the view of Grätz. If so, the writer belonged to the more liberal Jewish school which did not object to a study of the _Chokmath Javanîth_, or "Wisdom of Javan" (Derenbourg, _Palestine_, p. 361).