There they refused to take food and wine from the king and were given knowledge and insight into dreams and visions by God, and at the end of their training they proved ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in the kingdom.

[10] Chapters 2–7 are in the form of a chiasmus, a poetic structure in which the main point or message of a passage is placed in the centre and framed by further repetitions on either side:[11] Daniel 1 serves as an introduction to the book, showing how God continues to move throughout history when men seem to have failed (i.e., how God stands for his people when they are in a foreign land and subject to an alien power).

[11] The Book of Daniel is an apocalypse, a literary genre in which a heavenly reality is revealed to a human recipient; such works are characterized by visions, symbolism, an angelic interpreter, and an emphasis on end-time events.

The book is also an eschatology, meaning a divine revelation concerning the end of the present age, a moment in which God will intervene in history to usher in the final kingdom.

The explanation perhaps most commonly found is that Daniel and his friends wished to avoid breaking the Jewish religious laws regarding ritual slaughter (the kosher laws);[18] alternatively, they may have wished to avoid meat and wine as these, unlike vegetables and water, were regularly used in offerings to gods (in this case, the gods of Babylon).

In either case, the theological point being made is that the Jewish youths are remaining loyal to the God of Israel while still serving the foreign king.

[20] This circle are identified later in the book, in chapters 11 and 12, as the maskilim, "the wise", teachers who will "give understanding" and "lead many to righteousness," despite the suffering they will endure in the end-time of persecution.