Ḥazon le-mo‘ed (Vision for an Appointed Time): On Daniel

The king assigned them portions of food and wine, each day on its day, from the king’s food and wine. They were to raise [the boys] three years; afterwards some of them would stand before the king (Daniel 1:5).

It says that the king, at his meals, would prepare some items for them that can be procured only at a given time, to the exclusion of other times—[he would obtain these] on the day when it is right to collect them. For example, certain plants are not available at one time; he would harvest them when they were available, and, moreover, not just at the time when they were available, but specifically at the time and day when it was most appropriate to harvest the specific item, just as physicians’ instructions indicate the time and day when it is right to harvest various medicinal items. Therefore, it says: The king assigned for them portions of food and wine, each day on its day; that is, he would prepare each item that was available on the specific day, by collecting it on its unique, known day. Therefore, it says: each day on its day.

Alternatively, it means that all the items he would feed them were fresh on that day, lush and supple. For example, what he would feed them during the day he would not harvest early, not even on the night before; for when something is a few hours old, especially something cooked, the physicians’ instructions are that it will not be beneficial, but detrimental, and moreover, it will not be tasty. Therefore, the verse says about the portions of each day that the king would designate and prepare it on its day. But because there are also items that are not fit to eat on the day when they are prepared, but only after some hours have passed—both according to the doctors, and for concerns of taste—therefore, the text says from the king’s food [pat bag; meaning bread and cooked meat] and his wine; that is, he would feed them everything on its very day, except the bread, which the text indicates as pat, and the cooked meat, which it indicates as bag, as the sage Abraham Ibn Ezra wrote. This is what the text means when it says from the king’s pat bag and his wine. It says the king’s, to indicate that even though they had been prepared on that very day,¹ they were of the very type of meat and bread that were served on the king’s table.

Alternatively, the portion of each day on its day means that he would not feed them the meat and wine on the day of their preparation, because bread that has just come out of the stove or the oven, although tasty, is not as healthy a food as day-old bread, according to the physicians; and similarly, meat that has just been slaughtered is as tough as cedar wood for the first day, but not if it is left to sit for a day or two, as is well known. Therefore, the text says that the king prepared them the portion of each day on its day [be-yomo]. The particle be—which is prefixed to the word be-yomo—means “with,” for it occasionally means this, as is well known, and thus the text signifies that he prepared the portion of each day for them along with its natural day, which it had been left to wait; for the word day, with no further specification, indicates twenty-four hours, as is well known. And it says from the king’s food [pat bag] and his wine, to indicate that this was specifically regarding the bread, meat, and mulled wines of the king himself; this is why it says: from the king’s food [pat bag] and his wine, as we have explained.

Alternatively, the text’s meaning accords with the custom current today at banquets in the royal palace, which the king hosts for his ministers and servants: the first people to eat are the highest-ranking people in the kingdom, who interact with the king; then the lower-ranking ministers eat the leftovers. This is well known to people who spend time in kings’ courts. Similarly, the food that the king leaves is eaten by his attendants, the servants who take care of his wishes. This was also so for this king; he apportioned all the food that they needed from the king’s food—the leftovers from his table and his wine; they would bring this to them.

The sage Pliny writes that a person attains half their height when they are three years old.² These children were certainly older than three, and the king wanted them to reach their complete height, which is double their height at age three; therefore, the text says: to raise them three years, that is, by means of the king’s food and his wine, they would grow and reach the end of their period of growth, growing to the measurement of the first three years, and thus reaching double that height—he wanted them to grow the same amount that they had grown in their first three years. Therefore, the texts say to raise them three years, that is, the measurement of the first three years, which is half the ultimate height.

Now, some children reach this height quickly, by age fourteen, and others take until age twenty-one, as noted by the above-mentioned sage Pliny. Therefore, the text says: and some of them would stand before the king, for it is impossible for them all to grow to their full height in just a few years, for this is known to happen only occasionally, to one person in a city and two people in a great clan, and therefore the text says: some of them, that is, the subset of children who can attain double the measurement of the first three years in just a few years—these would stand before the king, to serve them; for the others would be old,³ and not worthy of standing in the king’s palace. This is the correct meaning of and some of them would stand before the king.

Other work by de Valerio: Yad ha-melekh (1586).