“Why aren’t you eating, Belteshazzar?”
“My name is Daniel. It speaks of Yahweh, the God of Israel.”
“You may continue to call yourself Daniel when you are alone, but here in King Nebuchadnezzar’s court you are known as Belteshazzar, which speaks of our god Bel. That is the god that you need to concern yourself with now that you are living in Babylon. You would do well to pay him homage for the gifts that you have been given here, including the food from the King’s table which you aren’t eating, apparently.”
Ashpenaz grabbed Daniel’s fork and stabbed a piece of pork on his plate. He lifted it in the air and examined it. Daniel watched as the bright orange grease dripped from the meat and landed in a puddle on the plate, next to potatoes that sat in the same orange and brown liquid as the meat.
“Is something wrong with this food, Belteshazzar?” Ashpenaz held the meat under Daniel’s nose. “Would you rather go hungry?”
Daniel didn’t know how to answer. He was too mesmerized by the dripping grease. It made his stomach churn like everything in Babylon had since he had arrived four days ago. Every sight in the palace made him feel sick, like he had eaten rich food, intended to be tasty and nutritious but instead, made him want to vomit. Every face he saw was covered in heavy thick make-up. Every surface he touched glittered with mirrored glass and jewels. There were so many colors around him, Daniel felt dizzy. The only thing he recognized from home were the rays of sun that landed on the palace floor. They reminded him of Yahweh who commanded the sun. Thinking of him helped ease the panic that Daniel was feeling.
Daniel swallowed hard. The bile in his mouth receded. “I am grateful for the food.” Daniel said to Ashpenaz, the chief officer who was in charge of Daniel and the other boys who had been brought to Babylon from their home in Judah. “But it is food that has been defiled. I cannot eat it.”
“Defiled? How dare you, child. You know nothing. Look around you. The walls are dripping in gold. Under your feet, thousands of precious gems went into creating this beautiful floor. See these tapestries? They are from the finest silk that any person in this world can find. You, Belteshazzar, are the luckiest little boy that I have ever met. You came here wearing a tunic of wool so rough that I gave it to the servants to use as rags. You had no gold on your fingers and sandals that exposed your toes to the sun. For Israelite nobility, you sure lived poorly. Yet you sit here and tell me that this food is defiled and you won’t eat it.”
Ashpenaz leaned into Daniel’s face. Daniel closed his eyes against Ashpenaz’s stale breath. “You will eat this food, child, or I will make your life hell.” Ashpenaz put the meat up to Daniel’s lips. The grease felt slippery against them.
Please Yahweh, help me. He prayed.
Ashpenaz pushed the fork into Daniel’s mouth. The metal clanked against his teeth. He tried to lean back but the chair wouldn’t budge.
“Ashpenaz!” A voice came from the doorway. “King wants to see you.”
Daniel’s eyes flew open. Ashpenaz dropped the fork, splattering the grease all over Daniel. “When I get back this plate better be clean.” He stormed off.
Daniel breathed a sigh of relief, looked at the empty chair next to him and began to weep into his hands. Just days ago, the chair next to him had been filled by his mother. He remembered her soft palm in his while they thanked Yahweh for their food.
His mother smiled as she lifted her head from the prayer. “You are growing up.” She had said to him and she tilted his face toward her. “I think I see a shadow of a man on your upper lip.” She rubbed her thumb on the fine dark hairs that had begun growing there. He gently pulled away.
He had noticed the hair she mentioned, but was too embarrassed to admit it. He realized he was beginning to look for spaces in the house that she did not occupy. Places where he could be alone to transform into manhood, where he could molt his childishness in private, shed it like the layers of snake skin he often found along the path to the temple. Now he wished he had never wanted to be alone, that he had stolen every hour with her. He didn’t know where she was or even if she was alive.
The siege had taken place in the middle of the night. He was asleep in his bed miles from Babylon. He had woken to the sounds of his mother crying and his father yelling as calloused hands bound him and carried him out of the house. He remembered hearing horses, and tasting a bitter liquid on his tongue.
He woke in Babylon, in the nightmarish palace of King Nebuchadnezzar.
“Alchemy, sorcery and astrology will be taught in the morning.” Ashpenaz told the boys when they had first arrived. “Language and mythology in the afternoon. You are to eat from the King’s table, a great honor. After three years of rigorous study, you will be tested by the King himself who will decide the wisest and most acclimated among you. Then you will be promoted to great heights.”
There were ten boys in all. Four of them were from Judah and six from other nations that the Babylonians had conquered. They all had similar stories, they were all from families of power and prestige. They had all been bound with ropes on their ankles.
Daniel looked down to his ankles where the ropes had been. There were no scars. Seems that whoever had taken him was careful about that. He didn’t actually recognize his ankles or his feet. Instead of being covered in dust from the streets of Judah, they were covered in purple satin slippers. They had been excessively bathed, rubbed with lotion and perfumed. His toenails were even sculpted and covered with oil. The bile rose in his mouth again.
Babylon. Worlds away from Israel.
The pork slid around in the pool of grease as if it were on wheels. Daniel knew he couldn’t eat it. He wouldn’t eat it. Maybe this would be the way that he would remember Yahweh in a city of Baals. Maybe this would be the way that he would worship.
Resolve slowly began to build in Daniel, like bricks being laid, one on top of the other. After each brick, he felt stronger, more assured. He lifted his head and wiped away the tear stains on his cheeks.
The steps of Ashpenaz echoed in the mirrored hallway.
“Where were we?” Ashpenaz stormed in and right to Daniel’s plate. His shoulders curled up near his ears. He hunched over like a rabid dog.
“I’d like to eat.” Daniel said. “I am hungry.”
“Great. Eat.”
“But not this food. I’d like to eat food that hasn’t been at the King’s table. I’d like water and vegetables instead.” They had taken him away from his hometown, taken his clothes and his name but they couldn’t make him eat.
“That’s impossible, child. Let me explain something to you. If you don’t put any weight on that skinny frame, then the King isn’t going to punish you, he’s going to come after me, which he just made especially clear. The answer is no, Belteshazzar, no, you cannot eat vegetables instead of choice cuts of meat. You cannot drink water instead of the finest wine in the world. You’re the silliest boy I’ve ever met, that makes no sense. Why would you even want to do that?”
“I will gain weight.” Daniel said. “I will eat vegetables and drink water and still gain the same amount of weight that all of the other boys here do. You watch me. The God of Israel is Yahweh and he is in control of all things. He has shown me favor and he will again.”
“Yes Yahweh. You have told me of him, again and again. Yahweh this and that. How can he be so great when you are now an exile?” Ashpenaz pulled a long gold chain out of the front of his robe. “What does this Yahweh even look like?”
Ashpenaz rubbed a medallion on the chain. It held the image of the god Marduk who was extravagantly dressed, his dragon lying at his feet. The image hung on practically every wall in the palace.
Next to the medallion, hung a small round locket.
“I do not know what his face looks like,” Daniel said. “He is not a contrived image, like your gods.”
“How dare you!” Ashpenaz clutched his chain and pulled his chair back almost toppling it over. “You insult our food. You insult our gods. You are one step away from working in the rock pits. You better watch your tongue, Belteshazzar.”
“That locket on your chain.” Daniel said quietly. “You have a child of your own, don’t you?”
Daniel thought of his mother and her heart shaped face and soft eyes. She wore a gold chain and on it, a locket. In it was scripture and a small piece of umbilical cord. Throughout the day, Daniel would watch his mother hold the locket absentmindedly, while she talked, sat, stirred a pot. The locket on Ashpenaz’s chain was almost identical.
Ashpenaz clenched and unclenched his fists. He towered over Daniel.
“Don’t speak of my child.”
“Did you lose that child?”
“What makes you think he died?”
“Your locket. I lost a brother. He died at birth. My mom wore one just like it to remember him.”
For an instant, Ashpenaz’s face softened.
“Your mother,” he said, “must have been a smart woman.”
Ashpenaz slowly took off the necklace and handed it to Daniel. Daniel fumbled with it. His mother had never given him hers to open.
“Is a smart woman,” Daniel said. “She is still alive. I just know it.”
Ashpenaz put his hand on Daniel’s shoulder and then removed it.
“Can’t get it open with your bony fingers, huh?”
He took it from Daniel and opened it in one quick motion. It held a lock of hair the color of wheat at sunset and it curled around itself.
It looked just like Daniel’s hair.
Ashpenaz met Daniel’s eyes then he looked away. But Daniel saw the pain. He realized looking at him must’ve been hard for Ashpenaz.
“I bet you were a good father.” Daniel said.
“You know nothing about fatherhood. Don’t speak of it like you do.” Ashpenaz put the chain around his neck and slid it underneath his robe. He rose from the table. “I’ll give you ten days of eating vegetables. If your Yahweh makes you as healthy as the other boys, then praise Yahweh and you may continue eating what you like.” He turned to walk out of the room. “Oh and Daniel, If you mention my son to anyone, I’ll send you to the rock pits.”
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God gave Daniel favor before Ashpenaz and King Nebuchadnezzar. Consider reading Daniel 1 to find out just how God was faithful to Daniel.
Great read!!
As a mother myself, the thought of my young teen son held captive in a foreign land makes my heart sick. I've read Daniel in the past, but never thought of his mother or the fear that must have welled up within both of them. I had a locket similar to hers. I could even feel mine as I read the author's description of it. I love how the author took me within the walls of that palace and showed me the cold, yet broken heart of Ashpenaz. Once again, this author weaves scripture with fiction in a way that beckons you into the Bible.