amount of food and wine from the king’s table. The author of Daniel may have been thinking of 2 Kings 25:29–30 and Jeremiah 52:33–34, where it is recorded that the Babylonian king Evil-Merodach (Amel-Marduk) released King Jehoiachin from prison and allowed him to eat daily at the royal table. (Kings and Jeremiah use a different word for “food” [NIV “allowance”], but they use the same expression for “daily” [NIV “regular/ regularly”].) Of course, Daniel and his friends did not eat at the king’s table,