piece of humanity was found in the Hebrew youth, of some fifteen years,
whose Hebrew name ('God is my judge') expressed a truth that ruled him,
when the name was exchanged for one that invoked Bel. It took some
firmness for a captive lad, without friends or influence, to take
Daniel's stand; for the motive of his desire to be excused from taking
the fare provided can only have been religious. He was determined, in
his brave young heart, not to 'defile' himself with the king's meat. The
phrase points to the pollution incurred by eating things offered to
idols, and does not imply scrupulousness like that of Pharisaic times,
nor necessarily suggest a late date for the book. Probably there had
been some kind of religious consecration of the food to Babylonian gods,
and Daniel, in his solitary faithfulness, was carrying out the same
principles which Paul afterwards laid down for Corinthian Christians as
to partaking of things offered to idols. Similar difficulties are sure
to emerge in analogous cases, and do so, on many mission fields.

The motive here, then, is distinctly religious. Common life was so woven
in with idolatrous worship that every meal was in some sense a
sacrifice. Therefore 'Touch not, taste not, handle not,' was the
inevitable dictate for a devout heart. Daniel seems to have been the
moving spirit; but as is generally the case, he was able to infuse his
own strong convictions into his companions, and the four of them held
together in their protest. The great lesson from the incident is that
religion should regulate the smallest details of life, and that it is
not narrow over-scrupulousness, but fidelity to the highest duty, when a
man sets his foot down about any small matter, and says, 'No, I dare not
do it, little as it is, and pleasant as it might be to sense, because I
should thereby be mixed up in a practical denial of my God.' 'So did not
I, because of the fear of God' (Neh. v. 15), is a motto which will
require from many a young man abstinence from many things which it would