Daniel 1:8

1:8 But Daniel made up his mind ¹  that he would not defile ²  himself with the royal delicacies or the royal wine. ³  He therefore asked the overseer of the court officials for permission not to defile himself.

Daniel 2:5

2:5 The king replied ⁴  to the wise men, “My decision is firm. ⁵  If you do not inform me of both the dream and its interpretation, you will be dismembered ⁶  and your homes reduced to rubble!

Daniel 3:10

3:10 You have issued an edict, O king, that everyone must bow down and pay homage to the golden statue when they hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, trigon, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music.

[1:8]  ¹ tn Heb “placed on his heart.”

[1:8]  ² tn Or “would not make himself ceremonially unclean”; TEV “become ritually unclean.”

[1:8]  sn Various reasons have been suggested as to why such food would defile Daniel. Perhaps it had to do with violations of Mosaic law with regard to unclean foods, or perhaps it had to do with such food having been offered to idols. Daniel’s practice in this regard is strikingly different from that of Esther, who was able successfully to conceal her Jewish identity.

[1:8]  ³ tn Heb “with the delicacies of the king and with the wine of his drinking.”

[2:5]  ⁴ tn Aram “answered and said,” a common idiom to indicate a reply, but redundant in contemporary English.

[2:5]  ⁵ tn It seems clear from what follows that Nebuchadnezzar clearly recalls the content of the dream, although obviously he does not know what to make of it. By not divulging the dream itself to the would-be interpreters, he intends to find out whether they are simply leading him on. If they can tell him the dream’s content, which he is able to verify, he then can have confidence in their interpretation, which is what eludes him. The translation “the matter is gone from me” (cf. KJV, ASV), suggesting that the king had simply forgotten the dream, is incorrect. The Aramaic word used here (אַזְדָּא, ’azda’) is probably of Persian origin; it occurs in the OT only here and in v. 8. There are two main possibilities for the meaning of the word: “the matter is promulgated by me” (see KBL 1048 s.v.) and therefore “publicly known” (cf. NRSV; F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 62-63, §189), or “the matter is irrevocable” (cf. NAB, NIV, TEV, CEV, NLT; HALOT 1808 s.v. אזד; cf. also BDB 1079 s.v.). The present translation reflects this latter option. See further E. Vogt, Lexicon linguae aramaicae, 3.

[2:5]  ⁶ tn Aram “made limbs.” Cf. 3:29.