At the start of his book Daniel tells us, “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and proceeded to lay siege to it... the king said to Ashpenaz his chief court official to bring some of the sons of Israel and of the royal offspring and of the nobles, children in whom there was no defect at all”. Daniel is among these ones. The King takes them so he can have them “stand in the palace of the king”, but will first “teach them the writing and the tongue of the Chaldeans.”
Presumably, the Hebrew children did not speak the Chaldean language, or know what the King wanted them to do in his palace. They were to be trained. The “king appointed a daily allowance from the delicacies of the king and from his drinking wine, even to nourish them for three years , that at the end of these they might stand before the king .”
So they would be trained for “three years” before being allowed before the King. “And at the end of the days that the king had said to bring them in [that is, the three years], the principal court official also proceeded to bring them in before Nebuchadnezzar. And the king began to speak with them, and out of them all no one was found like Daniel” and his companions. – Daniel chapter 1 Daniel chapter 1
We can see there were clearly “three years” of training before Daniel went before the King. So what is the problem? The issue lies in the next chapter of Daniel, which starts by saying, “And in the second year of the kingship of Nebuchadnezzar , Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams”, a dream which Daniel interpreted.
So, then, why does Daniel says “in the second year” of Nebuchadnezzar?
As we mentioned earlier, Daniel is speaking from the perspective of the Babylonian Kingship over the Jews. That is why he spoke of Jehoiakim's third year of Babylonian Kingship. Similarly, Daniel is also talking about Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian kingship over the Jews. This was the “second year” of Nebuchadnezzar being direct King over the Jewish people. Yes, it was the second year after the destruction of Jerusalem when the last Jewish King was removed from his throne.
This must be correct, for the claim of the apostates is preposterous. Daniel 2:13 Daniel 2:13 states, “And the order itself went out, and the wise men were about to be killed; and they looked for Daniel and his companions, for them to be killed.” Why was Daniel known as one of Babylon's “wise men”? Was he not a “child” who had only been in the city for a year and a few months, a boy who was still learning the Chaldean language? Did the account not say that he and his friends were “children”? ( Daniel 1:17 ) Yes! Then why do they suddenly become “wise men” and Daniel an “able-bodied man”? — Daniel 2:25
Furthermore, after Daniel successfully interpreted the King's dream, “the king made Daniel someone great, and many big gifts he gave to him, and he made him the ruler over all the jurisdictional district of Babylon and the chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon... Daniel was in the court of the king.”
So the apostates would argue that Daniel, as one of the “children” still learning the local language, had only been in the city several months before he was regarded as, not a child, but as an able-bodied man and one of the wise men of Babylon.
Also, he became ruler over the entire City, and all of this happened before Daniel had even been brought in before the King for the first time at the end of his three-year basic training. Can we really take such an idea seriously?
On the other hand, according to 607-based Biblical chronology, Daniel was taken into exile in 617 BCE, “in the seventh year” of King Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian kingship, the year Jeremiah says the first exiles were taken. ( Jeremiah 52:28 Jeremiah 52:28 ) Jeremiah does not mention any earlier exiles, so Daniel could not have been in Babylon in the second year, for that is too early. This 607 interpretation also gives Daniel more than enough time to grow out of childhood and become known as an “able-bodied man” and a well-known wise-man.
