Daniel 10:3

I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) Pleasant bread—i.e., delicate food. Abstaining from this as well as from the use of oil (comp. 2Samuel 12:20; Amos 6:6) were the outward signs of Daniel’s grief.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:1-9. This chapter relates the beginning of Daniel's last vision, which is continued to the end of the book. The time would be long before all would be accomplished; and much of it is not yet fulfilled. Christ appeared to Daniel in a glorious form, and it should engage us to think highly and honourably of him. Let us admire his condescension for us and our salvation. There remained no strength in Daniel. The greatest and best of men cannot bear the full discoveries of the Divine glory; for no man can see it, and live; but glorified saints see Christ as he is, and can bear the sight. How dreadful soever Christ may appear to those under convictions of sin, there is enough in his word to quiet their spirits.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I ate no pleasant bread - Margin, "bread of desires." So the Hebrew. The meaning is, that he abstained from ordinary food, and partook of that only which was coarse and disagreeable.

Neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth - That is, he lived on bread or vegetables. It is not to be inferred from this that Daniel ordinarily made use of wine, for it would seem from Daniel 1:that that was not his custom. What would appear from this passage would be, that he practiced on this occasion the most rigid abstinence.

Neither did I anoint myself - The use of unguents was common in the East (see the notes at Matthew 6:17), and Daniel here says that he abstained during these three weeks from what he ordinarily observed as promoting his personal comfort. He gave himself up to a course of life which would be expressive of deep grief. Nature prompts to this when the mind is overwhelmed with sorrow. Not only do we become indifferent to our food, but it requires an effort not to be indifferent to our dress, and to our personal appearance.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. no pleasant bread—"unleavened bread, even the bread of affliction" (De 16:3).

anoint—The Persians largely used unguents.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Fasting and feasting are very inconsistent; Daniel at other times lived magnificently, according to the dignity of his place, he had the best bread, flesh, wine, and anointing after the manner of the East, all which he laid aside, that by austerity he might afflict his body, and quicken his soul suitably to the time of Jacob’s trouble and to a true fasting frame.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I ate no pleasant bread,.... Or, "bread of desires" (d); such as was made of the finest of the wheat, and was eaten in the courts of princes where Daniel was: according to some Jewish Rabbins in Ben Melech, hot bread is meant; but in general it means the best of bread, such as had good qualities to make it desirable; and this Daniel refrained from, while he was humbling and afflicting himself on this sorrowful occasion, but ate coarse bread, black and grainy:

neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth; not delicate meat, as of fish, fowl, deer, and the like, as Saadiah observes; but contented himself with meaner fare; nor did he drink generous wine, as he had used to do, living in a king's court, and which his old age made necessary for him, since he could come at it; but he abstained from it, and other lawful pleasures of nature, the more to give himself up to acts of devotion and contemplation:

neither did I anoint myself at all, until three whole weeks were fulfilled; which was wont to be frequently done by the Jews, especially at feasts; and by the Persians every day, among whom he now was; but this he refrained from, as was usual in times of fasting and humiliation; see Matthew 6:17.

(d) "panem desideriorum", Pagninus, Montanus; "desiderabilium", Junius & Tremellius; "desiderabilem", V. L. Vatablus, Piscator.

Geneva Study Bible

I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. pleasant bread] lit. bread of desirablenesses (Daniel 9:23). Daniel did not fast absolutely; he only abstained from ‘pleasant’ food. Flesh and wine would, in the East, not be indulged in except at a festivity, or on other special occasions (e.g. Genesis 27:25, 1 Samuel 25:11 [where LXX. followed by many moderns, has wine for water]; Isaiah 22:13).

neither did I anoint myself at all] The practice of anointing the body with oil or other unguents was common among the Jews, as among other ancient nations: it soothed and refreshed the skin, and was a protection against heat. It was customary after washing, especially in anticipation of a visit, a feast, &c. (Ruth 3:3); and so to be anointed was a mark of contentment and joy (Isaiah 61:3, Ecclesiastes 9:8; cf. Matthew 6:17), while, conversely, during mourning it was usual not to anoint oneself (2 Samuel 14:2; cf. 2 Samuel 12:20).

three whole weeks] The same expression which in Daniel 10:2 is rendered full weeks.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled. The versions are in perfect agreement with the Massoretic text. Pleasant bread; "bread of desires" is the rendering of the Septuagint and of Theodotion; the word is the same in Hebrew and Greek as that applied to Daniel. Neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth. This shows that the practice adopted by Daniel and his fellows during their training was not regarded by Daniel, at least as incumbent on him after he could regulate his own affairs. His ordinary habit was to eat flesh and to drink wine; but during these weeks of fast, he denied himself these dainties. Neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled. The pleasure of anointing the body with oil was highly esteemed among the ancients. It is impossible to fail to recognize, in this passage, the origin of the Essenian discipline. The Essenes abstained, from flesh, from wine, and from anointing themselves. Daniel thus abstained, as a sign of sorrow for the sin of his people; they made this fast a perpetual discipline. They waited for the salvation of Israel, and endeavoured, by fasting, to hasten the coming of the Lord. The converse of this, that Daniel's fast is derived from the Essene discipline, is not to be thought cf. It is a sign of a later development, when such practices of self-denial, from being the incidents of a life which occur on special occasions, become its rule. As early as B.C. 106 an Essene is mentioned teaching in the temple, and mentioned with no evidence that his sect was a thing of recent origin. The limits are narrow between the critical date of Daniel and this date that within them so prominent a sect as the Essenes should spring up. Daniel 10:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Daniel 10:2, Daniel 10:3 introduce the following revelation by a statement of the occasion of it. ההם בּימים refers back to the date named in Daniel 10:1. The ימים after שׁבעים does not serve to designate the three weeks as common day-weeks, in contrast to the שׁבעים of Daniel 9:24., but is an accusative subordinated to the definition of time which expresses the idea of continuance: three weeks long, or three whole weeks, as Genesis 41:1; cf. Gesen. Gramm. 118, 3. For three weeks Daniel mourned and fasted, i.e., abstained from the usual food. חמות לחם, precious food, delicacies; but Hv., v. Leng., Maur., Hitz., and Kran. interpret it of leavened bread, so called in contrast to the unleavened paschal bread, the bread of affliction (Deuteronomy 16:3). But this contrast is not well founded, for the מצּות (unleavened cakes) of the passover was not (notwithstanding Deuteronomy 16:3) bread of sorrow, but pure, holy bread, which Daniel did not eat, in opposition to the law, for three weeks. לחם is not to be limited to bread in its narrower sense, but denotes food generally. Flesh and wine are festival food, Isaiah 22:13; Genesis 27:25, which is not had every day. The anointing with oil was the sign of joy and of a joyous frame of mind, as with guests at a banquet, Amos 6:6, and was intermitted in the time of sorrow; cf. 2 Samuel 14:2. Fasting, as an abstaining from the better sustenance of common life, was the outward sign of sorrow of soul.

According to Daniel 10:4, Daniel mourned and fasted in the first month of the year, the month in the middle of which the paschal feast was kept, in which Israel celebrated their deliverance from their state of slavery in Egypt and their advancement to be the people of God, and were joyful before their God. On the 24th day of this month occurred the Theophany (Daniel 10:4.), with which, however, his fasting came to an end. According to this, it appears that he fasted from the third to the twenty-third of the month Nisan; thus it began immediately after the feast of the new moon, which was kept for two days (cf. 1 Samuel 20:18., 27, 34 with 6:29; Daniel 2:19). Thus Hv. and Hitzig conclude; while v. Leng. and Maurer argue, from Daniel 10:13, that between the time of fasting and the appearance of the angel an interval elapsed, consequently that Daniel fasted from the first to the twenty-first of the month Nisan. But from Daniel 10:13 nothing further follows than that the angel was detained twenty-one days; so that the question as to the beginning and the end of the fast is not certainly answered from the text, and, as being irrelevant to the matter, it can remain undecided. More important is the question as to the cause of such long-continued great sorrow, which is not answered by the remark that he was thus prepared for receiving a divine revelation. According to Daniel 10:12, Daniel sought הבּין, i.e., understanding as to the state of the matter, or regarding the future of his people, which filled him with concern. The word about the restoration of Jerusalem which he had received through the angel Gabriel in the first year of Darius (Daniel 9) had come to pass since that revelation in the first year of Cyrus, but had had only little effect on the religious lukewarmness of the majority of the people. Of the whole people only a very small portion had returned to the land of their fathers, and had begun, after restoring the altar of burnt-offering, to build the house of God in Jerusalem. But while the foundation of the new temple was laid, there mingled with the joyful shoutings of the people also the loud wailings of the old men who had seen the former temple in its glory, when they beheld this building undertaken amid circumstances so depressing and sorrowful (Ezra 3:1-13). In addition to this, the Samaritans immediately, when the Jewish rulers refused for conscience sake to permit them to take part with them in the building, sought, by means of influences used at the Persian court, to prevent the carrying on of the building (Ezra 4:1-5). This sad state of matters could not but, at the beginning of the new year, fill the heart of Daniel with deep sorrow, and move him at the return of the time of the passover to mourn in fasting and prayer over the delay of the salvation promised to his people, and to supplicate in behalf of Israel the pardon of their sins, and their deliverance out of the hand of their enemies. Therefore he mourned and fasted before and during the paschal days for three weeks, until on the twenty-fourth day of the month he received a revelation from God.