Daniel 1:4

4. These youths, who were selected to be schooled in “the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans” in the royal palace, were perfect physically, and with a pleasing presence a quality which was especially appreciated at the Babylonian court having good intellectual faculties, being quick to learn with able powers of discrimination, possessed of easy manners and the polite accomplishments essential to courtiers. Jephet Ibu Ali, the Kararite, in his comments, says that they had ability, that is, “force of patience, to stand before the king and abstain from expectorating!” The ordinary “tongue” of the Chaldeans was, of course, the Babylonian, which comes to us in the cuneiform inscriptions, although several languages, including Aramaic and Assyrian, must have been studied in the schools of this period, as is shown by the contract tables and magic formulas. The Babylonian literature was very extensive, as also the trade and political relations of the court with far distant nations. (See Introduction, III, 2.) Assurbanipal’s library, which he says was “for the instruction of my subjects,” was that of the palace school, and the students were instructed in mathematics, botany, zoology, astronomy, astrology, and the literary use of their own and various other languages, being especially drilled in the study of the ancient religious texts, which were written in a dead language (Sum-Akk.). It may be that the Sumerian, or ancient Babylonian, is meant as the particular tongue of the Chaldeans or “wise men.” These “Chaldeans” were the dominant race who in the sixth century B.C. and for centuries afterward monopolized the highest priestly and learned offices. It is not strange that the words “Chaldean” and “sorcerer” became almost synonymous terms, “for the magic art formed so large a part of the Babylonian religion that it can almost be considered its characteristic feature” (Zimmern). In later times the Chaldeans practiced necromancy of the grossest kind, and most abominable to pious Jews. The word may be used here, however, in the earlier sense, “learned men.” (See Introduction, II, 8.)