[237] F. Delitzsch calls Meshach _vox hybrida_. Neither "Shadrach" nor "Meshach" occurs on the monuments. "That the imposition of names is a symbol of mastership over slaves is plain" (S. Chrys., _Opp._, iii. 21; Pusey, p. 16). Comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 34 (Egyptians); xxiv. 17 (Babylonians); Ezra v. 14, Esther ii. 7 (Persians).
[238] Comp. Obadiah, Abdiel, Abdallah, etc. Schrader says, p. 429: "The supposition that Nebo was altered to Nego, out of a contumelious desire (which Jews often displayed) to alter, avoid, and insult the names of idols, is out of place, since the other names are not altered."
[239] Jos., _Antt._, XII. v. 1; Derenbourg, _Palestine_, p. 34; Ewald, _Hist._, v. 294 (E. Tr.); Munk, _Palestine_, p. 495, etc.
[240] See Ewald, _Gesch. Isr._, vi. 654. "They shall eat unclean things in Assyria" (Hosea ix. 3). "The children of Israel shall eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles" (Ezek. iv. 13, 14).
[242] 2 Macc. vi. 18-31. Comp. the LXX. addition to Esther iv. 14, v. 4, where she is made to plead before God that she had not tasted of the table of Haman or of the king's banquet. So Judith takes "clean" bread with her into the camp of Holofernes (Judith x. 5), and Judas and his followers live on herbs in the desert (2 Macc. v. 27). The _Mishnah_ even forbids to take the bread, oil, or milk of the heathen.
[243] _Prophets of the O. T._, p. 184 (E. Tr.).
[244] Mr. Bevan says that the verb for "defile" (גאל), as a ritual term for the idea of ceremonial uncleanness, is post-exilic; the Pentateuch and Ezekiel used טמא (_Comment._, p. 61). The idea intended is that the three boys avoided meat which might have been killed with the blood and offered to idols, and therefore was not _Kashar_ (Exod. xxxiv. 15).
[245] Jos., _Vit._, iii. Comp. Isa. lii. 11.
[246] Mark vii. 19 (according to the true reading and translation).
[248] 1 Cor. xi. 25. This rigorism was specially valued by the Essenes and Therapeutæ. See Derenbourg, _Palestine_, note, vi.
[249] Plato, _Alcib._, i. 37; Xen., _Cyrop._, i. 2. Youths entered the king's service at the age of seventeen.
[252] Perhaps the Assyrian _matstsara_, "guardian" (Delitzsch). There are various other guesses (Behrmann, p. 5).
[253] Heb., זֵרֹעִים; LXX., σπέρματα; Vulg., _legumina_. Abn Ezra took the word to mean "rice." Comp. Deut. xii. 15, 16; 1 Sam. xvii. 17, 18. Comp. Josephus (_Vit._, iii.), who tells us how the Jewish priests, prisoners in Rome, fed on σύκοις καὶ καρύοις.