God’s Word for You

Daniel 1:3-4 Time for instruction

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, August 18, 2025

3 Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the young Israelite men, both from the royal family and from the nobility, 4 young men without blemish, of good appearance and insight in all sorts of wisdom, who had knowledge, understanding, and learning, and who were competent to serve in the king’s palace. And he ordered him to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans.

This man Ashpenaz is named only here in the Scripture. His name perplexes linguists who work in Northwest Semitic languages (Aramaic, Assyrian, Hebrew, etc.); it is thought that, just as “Coniah” is an abbreviation of Jehoiachin (Jeremiah 22:24,28), his name might be an abbreviation for a more recognizably Babylonian name. His title “chief eunuch” (rab-saris) should be explained. We usually think of a eunuch (saris) as a man who was intentionally castrated in order to be trusted with the king’s harem, and who often became a trusted servant with many other duties. It was discovered in ancient times that castration does not make a man trustworthy any more than cutting off a hand makes a man stop thinking or acting like a thief. However, when a man was found to be trustworthy in a king’s service, he was often promoted to other duties, and the name “eunuch” became less a description of the man’s physical state and more a word such as our word “minister” when we talk about a cabinet minister, or “secretary,” since the third highest position in the American government is the Secretary of State. We remember that in Genesis 37:36 and 39:1, Potiphar is called a saris (eunuch) of Pharaoh, and of course he was married. So this man Ashpenaz might not have physically been a eunuch at all, but was a highly valued man in the king’s service.

The “Israelite men” did not only include men of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, but also men of Simeon and some remnant of men from Ephraim and Manasseh (2 Chronicles 15:9), as well as Asher and Zebulun (2 Chronicles 30:11), Issachar (2 Chronicles 30:18), which accounts for all but four of the tribes.

Other authors describe this same kind of indoctrination of young men into the royal service. Plato describes a similar procedure for Persian princes in his book Alcibiades:

“And when the young prince is seven years old he is put upon a horse and taken to the riding-masters, and begins to go out hunting. And at fourteen years of age he is handed over to the royal schoolmasters, as they are termed: these are four chosen men, reputed to be the best among the Persians of a certain age; and one of them is the wisest, another the justest, a third the most temperate, and a fourth the most valiant. The first instructs him in the magianism of Zoroaster, the son of Oromasus, which is the worship of the gods, and teaches him also the duties of his royal office.
  The second, who is the justest (that is, the most just), teaches him always to speak the truth.
  The third, or most temperate, forbids him to allow any pleasure to be lord over him, that he may be accustomed to be a freeman and king indeed,—lord of himself first, and not a slave.
  The most valiant trains him to be bold and fearless, telling him that if he fears he is to deem himself a slave” (Alcibiades I §37).

Also, in Xenophon’s Cyropaedea (“The Institution of Cyrus”) it is said that none of the young men are allowed to enter the service of the king (that is, after their training is completed) before they attain their 17th year.

The qualifications for these young men make sense. Their royal or noble pedigree meant that they could be accepted in the court with no objection. There was a strict class division that meant that no ordinary laborers, thought of as servants or lower, would be considered capable of the duties that would be expected of them.

“Without blemish and of good appearance” is a description of the attitude their culture had toward physical soundness and general beauty or attractiveness. We recall the point the prophet makes about Absalom, that he “was highly praised for his handsome appearance… From the top of his head to the sole of his foot there was no blemish in him” (2 Samuel 14:25).

“Insight in all sorts of wisdom,” that is, having an aptitude for learning rather than being already fully qualified. This included an aptitude for the sciences that were known to the Babylonians, such as mathematics, astronomy, geography, music, and perhaps even medicine and herbal science. Such things as animal husbandry might have been considered to be the work of farriers and blacksmiths, and therefore unbecoming the nobility. Solomon set a high benchmark: “He described plant life, from the cedar to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish” (1 Kings 4:33).

“Knowledge, understanding, and learning.” These words are not just redundant. The young mean needed to be able to do more than simply know facts or details; they needed to be able to apply that knowledge and offer it when it might be useful to the king. Therefore “knowledge” gives way to “understanding,” which is the ability to apply knowledge, and “understanding” had to be supplemented by “learning,” which is the ability to grow in knowledge and not merely to be convinced that once a certain body of information was learned that there was no more to be known.

“Competent to serve in the king’s palace” is the summary of all these qualifications. The qualification that is most obvious in Daniel is his ability to converse, read, and write in Aramaic. Unlike Ezra, who copied Aramaic records and was able to read them adequately, Daniel was able to write and compose literature in Aramaic—a talent that is really only possible for someone who begins to learn a language at a fairly young age.

All of this was taught to Daniel and his companions, as we shall see. And if we notice Plato’s four areas of instruction from “Alcibiades” without calling them Scriptural, we see Daniel’s character in these things:

(1) Divine worship and royal duties.
(2) The importance of speaking truth (and seeking justice)
(3) Self-denial; to be lord over his own body and not a slave to any pleasure.
(4) To be bold and fearless, for to fear is to be a slave.

And yet, where we truly see his sense of duty, his strict adherence to the truth, his self-denial, and his bold fearlessness, is not in his Persian instruction, but in matters of his faith in God and the coming Christ. In this sense, Daniel was a weapon already prepared for service in God’s kingdom, but tempered and sharpened at the forge of Nebuchadnezzar’s court in Babylon. The Lord God placed Daniel there to become perhaps his most far-seeing and certainly his most clearly-seeing prophet; able to speak the truth in love without fear, in any danger, and as we shall see, in virtually every danger imaginable. But before his eyes, and held up for all of us to see, is ever and always, Jesus Christ our Lord.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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