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Daniel 1
Among these captives was Daniel—a man destined, in the providence of God, to take a prominent part in the affairs of Babylon, and thereby to acquire an influence which enabled him to be of much service to the Jews in their state of exile. He was quite a youth when sent into captivity, but he rose early to distinction, and lived to see the ending of that seventy years of exile which he had been one of the first to taste.
He had been carefully brought up; and young as he was, his heart was imbued with that reverence for the law, with those high principles, and with that deep sense of his duty to God, which carried him not safely only, but victoriously through the temptations of a luxurious court, and the perils of high station.
On the arrival of the exiles at Babylon, the comeliest, and cleverest of the youths were set apart, with a view to their receiving such education and training in the palace, under the chief of the eunuchs, in the learning and tongue of the Chaldeans, as might qualify them for future employment in the service of the court or the state. It is curious to find thus early a practice which, until within these few years, might still be seen in active and well-organized operation at the Ottoman Porte. The parallel is indeed so exact, that there is not a single point which might not receive illustration from that source. The time is still within living memory, when the pages of the seraglio, the officers of the court, as well as the greater part of the high functionaries of state and governors of provinces, were originally boys of Christian parentage, who had been taken captive in war, or bought or stolen in time of peace. The finest and most capable of these were sent to the palace, and placed under the charge of the chief of the white eunuchs. These lads were brought up in the religion of their masters; and in a school within the palace they received such complete instruction in Turkish learning and science as it was the lot of few others to obtain. Much pains were taken to teach them to speak the Turkish language (to them a foreign one) with the greatest purity, as spoken at court. They were clad neatly, and well but temperately dieted. They slept in large dormitories, where there were long rows of beds. Each had a separate couch, and between every third or fourth bed lay a white eunuch, who kept a watchful eye upon the conduct of the lads near him, and reported his observations to his chief.
When they had reached a proper age, the lads were instructed in military exercises, and it was an aim to render them active, brave, and laborious. Every one was also, according to the custom of the country, taught some handicraft employment, to serve him as a resource in any time of need.
Their education being completed, those who had shown most capacity were employed about the person of the sovereign, and the rest were assigned to the various offices of the extensive establishment to which they belonged. In due time these able or successful youths got advanced to high court offices, which gave them immediate access to the royal person—an advantage which soon paved the way to their going out on military commands, or to take the government of provinces. It has not rarely happened, that favored court officers have at once stepped into the highest offices of the state, without having been previously abroad in the world as pashas or military commanders.
Now, if the reader examines the chapter before him, he will perceive how much this agrees with the usage of the ancient Babylonian court.
Daniel was one of the Jewish youths chosen to be thus taken into the royal palace of Babylon. Three others are named on account of what subsequently happened to them, and because they were friends of Daniel, and shared his principles and views. These were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. It was, however, the custom to give Chaldean names to the foreign youths thus admitted to the palace, and thus Daniel acquired the sonorous but heathenish name of Belteshazzar, while the others became Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The very same was done by the Turks to the youths of whom we have just spoken—their original names having been speedily exchanged for such as the Turkish Moslems delight in. Names are almost always changed with a change of religion, but as nothing of the kind took place in the case before us, we must regard it as sufficiently explained by the general practice of changing the native names of foreign slaves—a practice which is as well illustrated by the existing usage in regard to the names of negro slaves, as by any other example that might be adduced. We have an instance similar to the present in the case of Joseph, showing that, the practice was also Egyptian, and extremely ancient. It seems uncertain whether the Babylonians had any particular ideas as to the names they gave in such cases. As in the case of those taken into the palace with a view to the public service, it must have been desired to obliterate the most conspicuous mark of foreign origin, the names were probably (as among the Turks) such as were in use among themselves. No such names, indeed, occur among those of native Babylonians that we possess, but these are too few to supply any evidence. That of Daniel himself, indeed—Belteshazzar—resembles that of a subsequent king of Babylon. But it is a syllable longer; and from the meaning of these names, as well as from their fulness of sound, they have no marks of that triviality by which it is now more usually sought to mark the servile condition. The Athenians, in particular, are reported to have been very careful that the names they gave to their slaves should not be names accounted dignified or respectable. They commonly gave them short names, seldom of more than two syllables—probably that they might be the more easily and quickly pronounced, when those to whom they belonged were called by their masters. In modern practice, however, it is curious that in the American slave states such “respectable and dignified” names as Caesar, Pompey, etc., are given to slaves, and become, in the estimation of the general American public, so debased by that servile use, that although they ransack not only sacred, but Greek and Roman history, for distinctive and unusual Christian names, they carefully avoid those which they have thus appropriated to slaves. We give the same names to our dogs, in both ways an indignity being inflicted upon illustrious names, little contemplated by those who made those names immortal.