Unconditional loyalty is ultimately the uniting subject of the book of Daniel. Verses five through nine in the first chapter of the book depict the forceful re-education of human beings by other human beings. The absolute disregard for the exile's original values and principles as rational creatures brought the king to impose new names and diets upon them. And yet during the lonely time of exile, their unalterable minds creates hope that illustrates the durable bond between the honored god and the exiles. It is hope and denial to abandon native ideologies that ultimately marks loyalty as a recurring matter in the book of Daniel.
Through out the book of Daniel, the idea that one will eventually "enter the king's service" is implemented and persuaded from every angle; however, the king does not welcome the unintelligent and the ignorant at his service. By the process re-educating, It is the drive to maintain previous beliefs that the king wishes to eliminate among all who have newly arrived to introduce and enforce the existing rules. Everything the king grants Daniel and his colleagues seems as if planned to belittle the individual and destroy his vulnerable ties to life as known in the past; from assigning babylonian names which replaced the previous names that marked their unique identity before god(1:7) to entirely altering their diet to something forbidden to consume in their past standards (1:5.) By placing the exiles in situation that only escaping their values seemed ideal, the king created a natural desire to conform to what they were newly introduced to for survival and god created a test to evaluate their strength. After the exiles were offered "the daily rations to them from the king's food(1:5)," Daniel denies to consume the food and even bluntly expresses that he wishes not be "defiled" with the new diet that was presented. Instead of refusing the meal, He chooses to use the word defile referring to the action of staining his purity which reveals the extent of the impact of the meal.
