Thus, at the end, when Nebuchadnezzar evaluated Daniel and his friends as the top of their class, he would have taken credit through his education and his diet for their intelligence and their looks. However, Daniel and his friends knew (as does the reader) that they were good-looking in the Babylonian sense not because of their royally mandated diet but in spite of it. God made them pleasingly plump, not the rich food and wine of the king’s table. Though Nebuchadnezzar thinks he is in control, we