Daniel 1:18-20 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Now at the end of the days that the king had said he should bring them in At the end of three years, see Daniel 1:5, the prince of the eunuchs brought them in According to the king's command. And the king communed with them To try their proficiency. This shows the king's ability and judgment, without which he could not have discerned their fitness for his service, and their excellence above others. He examined all candidates that applied, and preferred those that outstripped the rest. Therefore stood they before the king They were in continual attendance in the king's court. The same expression is used of Elijah and Jeremiah, as God's servants and messengers, 1 Kings 17:1; Jeremiah 15:19. And the Levites are said to stand before the congregation to minister to them, Numbers 16:9. And in all matters of wisdom and understanding In a general knowledge of things; that the king inquired of them This is a further confirmation of the king's noble endowments, and of his great care to choose only proper persons to be in offices of trust, namely, persons well qualified to serve him in the great affairs of the kingdom. He found them ten times better, &c. Hebrew, עשׂר ידית, ten hands above, all the magicians and astrologers that were in his realm The words may be understood of those that employed themselves in the lawful search of natural causes and effects, and of the regular motions of the heavenly bodies. For, inasmuch as Daniel made intercession to the captain of the guard, that the wise men of Babylon might not be slain, Daniel 2:24, we cannot suppose that all of them were such as studied unlawful arts and sciences, especially as he himself was afterward made master, or head, over them. These names are evidently to be taken in a good sense, as the magi, Matthew 2:1; and the astrologers were then nearly, if not altogether, the same as astronomers with us. In short, the words seem to comprehend those persons in general, that were distinguished in the several kinds of learning cultivated among the Chaldees. It cannot, therefore, be collected from these words, that Daniel applied himself to the study of what are called magic arts, but to the sciences of the Chaldees; in the same manner as Moses had, long before, applied himself to the study of the wisdom of Egypt. And in giving Nebuchadnezzar proof that Daniel excelled all the wise men in his realm in these branches of knowledge and wisdom, God poured contempt on the pride of the Chaldeans, and put honour on the low estate of his people.