Daniel 1:4

children youths (R.V.).

blemish here of physical imperfection, as Leviticus 21:17-18, &c.

well favoured An archaistic English expression for good-looking: so Genesis 29:17; Genesis 39:6; Genesis 41:2 al.As Mr Wright (Bible Word-Book, s. v. Favour) shews, -favour" in old English meant face[179], so that -well favoured" means having a handsome face. The Heb. (lit. good in looks) is the same as in Genesis 24:16; Genesis 26:7. An Oriental monarch would attach importance to the personal appearance of his attendants.

[179] Bacon, Essays, xxvii. p. 113, -As S. James saith, they are as men, that looke sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own shape, and favour"; Cymbeline, Daniel 1:5, 93, -His favouris familiar to me."

intelligent in all wisdom, and knowing knowledge, and understanding science i.e. men of sagacity and intelligence, the combination of synonyms merely serving to emphasize the idea. -Cunning" (i.e. kenning) in A.V., R.V., is simply an archaism for knowing, skilful, though the word is used generally where the reference is to some kind of technical knowledge (Genesis 25:27; Exodus 38:23 [where, for -cunning workman," read -designer"]; 1 Samuel 16:16; 1 Chronicles 25:7 [not R.V.]; 2 Chronicles 2:7; 2 Chronicles 2:13-14; Jeremiah 9:17; Jeremiah 10:9 al.). The modern associations of the word prevent it, however, from being now a good rendering of the Hebrew.

science In the Heb. a (late) synonym of -knowledge" (as it is rendered Daniel 1:17; 2 Chronicles 1:10-12), and derived from the same root: the word is not to be understood here in a technical sense, but simply as a Latinism for -knowledge," used in default of any more colourless synonym.

ability Properly, power; i.e. capacity, both physical and mental.

to stand to take their place with a suggestion of the idea of serving, which, with -before" (see on Daniel 1:5), the word regularly denotes.

learning literature: lit. book(s), writing(s), cf. Isaiah 29:11-12.

and the tongue of the Chaldeans -Chaldeans" is used here, not in the ethnic sense, which the word has in other books of the O. T., but to denote the learned class among the Babylonians, i.e. the priests, a large part of whose functions consisted in the study and practice of magic, divination, and astrology, and in whose hands there was an extensive traditional lore relating to these subjects (see more fully below, p. 12 ff.). The word has the same sense elsewhere in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 2:2; Daniel 2:4-5; Daniel 2:10; Daniel 3:8 (prob.), Daniel 4:7; Daniel 5:7; Daniel 5:11). The literature on the subjects named is what is referred to in the present verse. The -tongue of the Chaldeans" would be Babylonian, a Semitic language, but very different from Hebrew, so that it would have to be specially studied by a Jew. Many of the magical texts preserved in the cuneiform script are also written in the non-Semitic Sumerian (or -Accadian"); but it is hardly likely that the distinction between these two languages was present to the author.