Daniel 1:17

17. God gave these four Hebrew youths “knowledge and skill in every kind of books” (Hebrews) The Hebrews wrote their books generally upon parchment, the Egyptians upon papyrus, the Babylonians upon clay tablets. These tablets were stored by hundreds of thousands in the palace library, and so arranged as to be easily accessible to visitors and students. The princes who were to be fitted for state offices would no doubt have a special post-graduate course differing from that provided for those who were to be priests or “magicians,’’ but the preliminary training might be the same in both cases. It seems strange to many that these boys who were so scrupulous about touching heathen food (Daniel 1:8) would so eagerly grasp the heathen learning; but they might not have seen that this was necessarily connected with idolatry. They certainly are not represented as accepting the religion of Babylon with its other wisdom.

Visions and dreams Both the Babylonians and the Hebrews believed that the divine will was often revealed to man through this agency. (See Daniel 2:1; Genesis 41:15; Numbers 12:6.) No doubt the study of omens and dreams was a prominent part of the curriculum of the Babylonian schools, and there is no reason to suppose that a Hebrew youth at this era would doubt its value, although in later ages heathen learning of every kind became abominable in their eyes.