MewCentury 3ible Daniel Scttioo ^-7 THE NEW-CENTURY BIBLE Noiu Complete GENESIS, by the Rev. Prof. W. H. Bennett, Litt.D., D.D. EXODUS, by the Rev. Prof. W. H. Bennett, Litt.D.. D.D. LEVITICUS AND NUMBERS, by the Rev. Prof. A. R. S. Kennedv, M.A., D.D. DEUTERONOMY and JOSHUA, by the Rev. Prof. H. WiiEEi-ER Robinson, M.A. JUDGES AND RUTH, by the Rev. Principal G. W. Thatcher, M.A., B.D. I AND II SAMUEL, by the Rev. Prof. A. R. S. Kennedy, M.A., D.D. I AND II KINGS, by the Rev. Principal Skinner, D.D. I AND II CHRONICLES, by the Rev. W. Harvey-Jellie. M.A., B.D. EZRA, NEHEMIAH, AND ESTHER, by the Rev. Prof. T. WiTTON Davies, B.A., Ph.D., D.D. JOB, by Prof. A. S. PeAke, M.A., D.D. PSALMS (Vol. I) I TO LXXII, by the Rev. Prof. Davison, M.A., D.D. PSALMS (Vol. II) LXXII I TO END, by the Rev. Prof. T. Witton Davies, B.A., Ph.D., D.D. PROVERBS, ECCLESIASTES, and SONG OF SOLOMON, by the Rev. G. CURRIE Martin, M.A., B.D. ISAIAH I-XXXIX, by the Rev. Prof. OwEN C. Whitehouse, M.A., D.D. IS.\IAH XL-LXVI, by the Rev. Prof. Owen C. Whitehouse, M.A., D.D. JEREMIAH (Vol. I), by Prof. A. S. Peake, M.A., D.D. JEREMIAH (Vol. II), AND LAMENTATIONS, by Prof. A. S. Peake, M.A., D.D. EZEKIEL, by the Rev. Prof. W. F. LOFTHOUSE, M.A. DANIEL, by the Rev. Prof. R. H. Charles, D.D. MINOR PROPHETS : Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, by the Rev. R. F. Horton, M.A., D.D. MINOR PROPHETS: Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, ZechARIAH, Malachi, by the Rev. Canon Driver, Litt.D., D.D. MATTHEW, by the Rev. Prof. W. F. Slater, M.A. MARK, by the late Principal Salmond, D.D. LUKE, by Principal W. F. Adeney, M.A., D.D. JOHN, by the Rev. J. A. McClymont, D.D. ACTS, by the Rev. Prof. J. Vernon Bartlet, M.A., D.D. ROM.WS, by the Rev. Principal A. E. Garvie, M.A., D.D. I AND II CORINTHIANS, by Prof. J. Massie, M.A., D.D. EPHESIANS, COLOSSIANS, PHILEMON, PHILIPPIANS, by the Rev. G. CURRIE Martin, M.A., B.D. I AND II THESSALONIANS, GALATIANS, by Principal W. F. Adeney, M.A., D.D. * THE PASTORAL EPISTLES, by the Rev. R. F. Horton, M.A., D.D. HEBREWS, by Prof. A. S. Peake, M.A., D.D. THE GENERAL EPISTLES, by the Rev. Prof. W. H. Bennett, Litt.D., D.D. REVELATION, bv the Rev. Prof. C. Anderson Scott, M..\., B.D. THE NEW-CENTURY BIBLE DANIEL 34 Ihe Xdininn?A Geo^-OTiTxifftl Iiiitatnte T.C.&E.C CopTriglit - JaJmBartboLa m eir & Co- Ediiibur^li. Vf/ General Editor : Principal Walter F. Adeney, M.A., D.D. tH (f ooft of ©anief INTRODUCTION REVISED VERSION WITH NOTES INDEX AND MAP / EDITED BY R. H. CHARLES, D.Litt., D.D. fellow of merton collegh fellow of the BRITISH ACADEMY NEW YORK: HENRY FROWDE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, AMERICAN BRANCH EDINBURGH : T. C. & E. C. JACK The Revtsed Version is printed by permission of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge CONTENTS PAGE Introduction : § I. Historical antecedents of Book of Daniel : its pseudonymous character : originally unilingual, but subsequently bilingual; its various ver- sions ....... ix-xiii § 2. Points in common between Prophecy and Apocalyptic ...... xiii, xiv § 3. Why did Apocalyptic become Pseudonymous in Judaism? xiv-xvi § 4. The Ethical Character of Apocalyptic . xvi-xix § 5. Problems connected with the bilingual character of the Book of Daniel. Written originally as a whole in Aramaic .... xix-xxvi § 6. The Versions xxvi-xxxi § 7. All Authorities go back to a Glossed Text xxxi, xxxii § 8. Textual Authorities of the Book of Daniel and their Relations represented in a Genealogical Table ..... xxxii, xxxiii § 9. Date of the Book .... xxxiii-xxxvii § 10. Chronological Tables .... xxxvii-xli § II. Theology xli-xliii § 12. Bibliography xliii-xlv Revised Version and Commentary . . . 1-144 Index . 145-152 MAP Syria, Assyria, Babylonia, &c. THE BOOK OF DANIEL INTRODUCTION § I. Historical antecedents of Book of Daniel : ITS pseudonymous character : originally unilingual, but subsequently bilingual : its various versions. In the dosing years of the Syrian domination of Palestine, Antiochus Epiphanes sat on the throne of Syria. With his struggles with Egypt and other powers we are not here concerned, but only with his dealings with the Jews. His ambition was to hellenize the various provinces and peoples in his great Empire. In this aim he met with little opposition except in Judea, and even there he secured without difficulty the support of the hellenizing High Priests. Thus the High Priest Jason, a creature of Antiochus, who had superseded his brother, the faithful High Priest Onias III, set up a Greek gymnasium in Jerusalem, to join in the games of which the very priests abbreviated the sacred services of the Temple. Through his agency also contributions were sent for the celebration of the festival of Heracles at Tyre. Jason was succeeded by Menelaus, who had secured the High Priesthood by the promise of a huge sum of money to Antiochus, a sum which he was unable to raise save through plunder of the Temple treasury. For rebuking this treacherous act, Onias III, referred to above, paid for his fidelity with his life. In 170 B.C., while Antiochus was warring in Egypt, the rumour that he had fallen encouraged the exiled Jason to make an attempt to recover the High Priesthood, This attempt led to much bloodshed in Jerusalem, and Antiochus on his return treated the Jews with the utmost severity. Multitudes of men, women, and children were put to the sword, and thousands were sold into slavery. This B X THE BOOK OF DANIEL visit of Antiochus closed with his seizure of the last treasures of the Temple. Thus the Jews suffered from without as well as from within, but the cup of their sorrow was not yet full. Two years later Antiochus marched with a vast force into Egypt with the intention of making the kingdom of the Ptolemies a province of his own Empire. But when his plans seemed on the eve of fulfil- ment he was met by envoys from Rome, who required him, on the penalty of joining issue with the Republic itself, to withdraw at once from Egypt. Enraged and embittered Antiochus turned homeward, resolved now to devote all his power to the hellenization of Judea. With this object in view he forbade the observance of the Sabbath and the practice of the rite of circumcision. The sacrifices of the Temple were done away with, and every form of Jewish worship and ceremonial. The sacred books were destroyed, and the Temple dismantled and laid waste. The walls of the city were overthrown, and a fortress erected commanding the Temple enclosure. But the culminating horror of this awful time was yet to come. On the 15th of December, 168 B.C., a heathen altar was planted on the site of the great altar of burnt offering, in honour of Olympian Zeus. On the 25th of the same month the profanation of the sacred precincts was consummated by the sacrifice of swine on the altar. Furthermore, every city and village was required to build temples and raise idolatrous altars on which swine were to be sacrificed daily. At last the anguish of the faithful Jews became unen- durable and an insurrection burst forth at Modein, under the leadership of Mattathias and his five stalwart sons. All that were zealous for the Law and the Covenant speedily joined them, and amongst these notably the Hasidim, or the league of the pious ones. This small body of Jews met with many marvellous successes. Notwith- standing, in the face of the vast forces of Syria, the Jews could repose no hope in their own powers. If they were INTRODUCTION xi to succeed it could not be in reliance on the arm of flesh. Now it was just at this crisis, this hour of mingled hope and despair, that the Book of Daniel * appeared with its sword-edge utterance, its piercing exhortation to endure in face of the despot, and its promise, full of Divine joy, of near and full salvation. No dew of heaven could fall with more refreshing coolness on the parched ground, no spark from above alight with a more kindling power on the surface so long heated with a hidden glow. With winged brevity the book gives a complete survey of the history of the kingdom of God upon earth, showing the relations which it had hitherto sustained in Israel to the successive great heathen empires of the Chaldaeans, Medo- Persians, and Greeks — in a word, towards the heathenism which ruled the world ; and with the finest perception it describes the nature and individual career of Antiochus Epiphanes and his immediate predecessors so far as was possible in view of the great events which had just occurred. Rarely does it happen that a book appears as this did, in the very crisis of the times, and in a form most suited to such an age, artificially reserved, close and severe, and yet shedding so clear a light through obscurity, and so marvellously captivating. It was natural that it should soon achieve a success entirely corresponding with its inner truth and glory. And so, for the last time in the literature of the Old Testament, we have in this book an example of a work which, having sprung from the deepest necessities of the noblest impulses of the age, can render to that age the purest service ; and which by the development of events immediately after, receives with such power the stamp of Divine witness that it subse- quently attains imperishable sanctity ^' The pseudonymous character of this book has been a source of great trouble to many, but to the student who is acquainted with the facts of the time, it is obvious that, * Ewald, V. 305 (translated by Stanley). B 2 xii THE BOOK OF DANIEL if the book were to realize the end it aimed at, it could not have been otherwise than pseudonymous. Owing to the Law having achieved an absolute and exclusive supremacy, the calling of the prophet had ceased to exist, and there was no room for a religious teacher, except in so far as he was a mere exponent of the Law. From this it followed that all real advances to a higher theology could appear only in works of a pseudonymous character. Accordingly, when a man of God felt that he had a message to deliver to his people, he was obliged to cast it in this form. And thus it was that the brilliant visionary to whom we owe the Book of Daniel issued under the name of an ancient worthy this book of transcendent worth not only to his own, but to all after ages (cf. § 3). It has taught to mankind many imperishable lessons, and of these there is none nobler than the confession of the three youths, * There is a God, whom we serve, who is able to deliver us , . . and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O King : but if not ... we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up ' (iii. 17, 18). The Book of Daniel was most probably written in Aramaic, and parts of it subsequently translated into Hebrew (cf. § 5). In these cases the Aramaic original was superseded by the Hebrew. At a very early stage of its history glosses were introduced into the text (cf. § 7). Not long after the book assumed a bilingual character and was glossed, it was translated, possibly about 145 B. C, into Greek. This Greek Version, known as the Septuagint, has been preserved to us in a single Greek MS. of the eleventh century, but happily it was translated into Syriac about the year A. D. 617. In the meantime, probably in the first century B. c, a second Greek translation was made from the bilingual text under the guidance of the older translation. But by this time the bihngual text had undergone severe disloca- tions in chapters iv-vi. Accordingly, since all versions save the oldest LXX Version are derived from this later INTRODUCTION xiii form of the bilingual text, they all attest the same disloca- tions in these chapters. But to return : this second Greek Version has not survived independently but only in quo- tations of the first century and the early decades of the second century A. D., and in the version of Theodotion: of which it appears to have formed the basis (cf. § 6). The Version of Theodotion, which belongs to the second century A. D., approximates closely to the Massoretic text, but implies in many passages a purer form of the Semitic text. The Peshitto and Vulgate Versions were made from a still later form of the Semitic text than that used by Theodotion *. § 2. Points in common between Prophecy and Apocalyptic ^ The forms of the prophetic experiences as beheld by the inner eye, or heard by the inner ear, as well as their literary expression, must take their character largely from the spiritual and literary standards of the time. This psychical experience of the prophet was generally one of sight or of sound ; that is, in the psychical state he either saw certain things or heard certain things. Now the things so seen or heard he could grasp only so far as his psychical powers and the spiritual development behind him enabled him to do so ; that is, in the case of a heavenly vision he could at the best only partially apprehend its significance. To the things seen he perforce attached the symbols more or less transformed that these naturally evoked in his mind, symbols that he owed to his own waking experience or the tradition of the past ; and the sounds he heard naturally ^ In this Introduction many critical questions are perforce inadequately dealt with, since a fuller treatment would necessi- tate the employment of Semitic on a large scale. The present editor hopes to edit a fuller commentary later. 2 In the above section I have only mentioned a few of the characteristics common to Prophecy and Apocalyptic. For a detailed comparison sec the second edition of my £"sc/m/o/o^^, 1913, in loc. xiv THE BOOK OF DANIEL clothed themselves in the literary forms with which his memory was stored. And yet, however successful the prophet might be in setting forth his visionary experiences, he laboured, as we have pointed out, under a double disadvantage. His powers of spiritual perception were generally unequal to the task of apprehending the full meaning of the heavenly vision, and his powers of expression were frequently unable to set forth the things he had apprehended. Now these visions and trances belong both to prophecy and apocalyptic. Furthermore, just as the prophet came not unfrequently to use the words, ' Thus saith the Lord,' even when there was no actual psychical experience in which he heard a voice, but when he wished to set forth the will of God which he had reached by other means, so the term * vision ' came to have a like conventional use both in prophecy and apocalyptic. It is of special importance to remember this in connexion with chapter xi, which of course is not to be taken as a literal vision. The Seer is attempting to represent the course of events sub specie aeternitatis. A like attempt on a larger scale will be found by the reader in i Enoch Ixxxix-xc. § 3. Why did Apocalyptic become pseudonymous IN Judaism? The fact of a religious teacher issuing his work under the name of another has been a source of profound difficulty to most biblical students in the past and to a large section at present. If the book is really pseudonymous, the representatives of these students would categorically declare that the book is a forgery. It must be confessed that the grounds which scholars have in the past adduced for the use of pseudonymity by Jewish teachers have quite failed to justify themselves at the bar of the ordinary conscience. It is of no avail to state that such writers were wholly devoid of literary ambition and were only concerned that INTRODUCTION xv their teaching should be accepted. No more will it avail to argue that they were merely making use of a literary form that was common throughout antiquity. If they pursued the same lofty and religious aims as the older prophets, as unquestionably they did, how is it that they came not forward with their message in their own persons? That they did not do so is certainly not that they feared the fate that befell so many of the prophets and that would assuredly have befallen them (cf. Zech. xiii. 3 sqq.). The religious leaders of the Maccabean period had no such fear of death ; they were only too ready for martyrdom as we know from actual history. The real grounds, therefore, for pseudonymity must be found else- where. Into these, which I have discussed at some length in the second edition of my Eschatology^ I cannot enter here. I will, however, for the sake of the reader, summarize my results. ^ From the time of Ezra onwards, the Law made steady ' progress towards a position of supremacy in Judaism. And just in proportion as it achieved such supremacy, every other form of religious activity fell into the back- ground. This held true even of the priesthood, which in due course became subordinate to the teachers of the Law. But in an infinitely higher degree was it true of prophecy. When once the Law had established an unquestioned autocracy, the prophets were practically reduced to the position of being merely its exponents, and prophecy, assuming a literary character, might bear its author's name or might be anonymous. When a book of prophecy brought disclosures beyond or in conflict with the letter of the Law, it could hardly attain to a place in the Canon. This was the case as we know with Ezekiel, which narrowly escaped being declared apocryphal by Jewish scholars (Shabb. 13 (^, Men. 45 a) as late as the first century of the Christian era. The next claim made by the Law was that it was all-sufficient for time and eternity, alike as an intellectual creed, a liturgical system, and a practical guide xvi THE- BOOK OF DANIEL in ethics and religion. Thus theoretically and practically no room was left for new light and inspiration or any fresh and further disclosure of God's will ; in short, no room for the true prophet— only for the moralist, the casuist, or the preacher. How then from the third century b. C. onward was the man to act who felt himself charged with a real message of God to his day and generation ? The tyranny of the Law, and the petrified orthodoxies of his time, compelled him to resort to pseudonymity. And if these grounds had in themselves been insufficient for the adop- tion of pseudonymity, there was the further ground — the formation of the Canon. When once the prophetic Canon was closed, no book of a prophetic character could gain canonization as such, nor could it gain a place among the sacred writings at all unless its date was believed to be as early as the time of Ezra. On this ground again the prophetic type of man was forced to resort to pseudo- nymity to obtain a hearing, and so to issue his work under the name of one of Israel's ancient worthies of a date earlier than Ezra or at all events contemporary , with him. i^ § 4. The Ethical Character of Apocalyptic. Prophecy has always been recognized as the greatest ethical force in the ancient world. Such also was apoca- lyptic in its time, and yet an attempt has recently been made by advanced liberals to differentiate prophecy and apocalyptic on the ground that apocalyptic and ethics are distinct, and that ethics are the kernel and apocalyptic the husk which Christianity shed when it ceased to need it. How any scholar who was really acquainted with the texts could make such a statement I cannot understand. Apocalyptic was essentially ethical. To use the mixed metaphor of St. Paul, it was rooted and grounded in ethics, and that an ethics based on the essential righteous- ness of God. In every crisis of the world's history, when the good cause was overthrown and the bad triumphant, INTRODUCTION xrii its insistent demand was ever : ' Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? ' and its uncompromising optimism, its unconquerable faith under the most overwhelming disasters was : * God reigns, and righteousness shall ultimately prevail.' The words of a modern poet would in some degree represent the mental attitude of the apoca- lyptist, in his outlook on the apparent triumph of evil over good, of falsehood over truth : 'Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness twixt old systems and the Word ; Truth for ever on the scaffold, wrong for ever on the throne : Yet that scaffold sways the future and behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow keeping watch above His own.' The ethical element is the fundamental element in the chief books of this literature. What else but an inex- pugnable sense of truth and duty to truth inspire the refusal of the three children in Daniel to fall down and worship the image that the king had set up ? When the king demands : ' Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands ? ' mark the splendid heroism of their reply : * There is a God whom we serve who is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thy hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy g^ods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up ' (iii. 17 sq.)- Now let us turn to the apocalyptic books outside the Canon. What an expressive ethical statement is that in Jubilees (xxi. 22) addressed to Israel ! 'Beware lest thou walk in their ways And tread in their paths. xviii THE BOOK OF DANIEL And sin a sin unto death against the Most High, And so He deliver thee back again into the grip of thy transgression.' Or, turning to a different theme, let us hear what the Testaments of the XII Patriarchs say of the faithful doer of the word of God. ' Every man that knoweth the law of the Lord shall be honoured, And shall not be a stranger whithersoever he goeth . . . For though there be a leading into captivity, And cities and lands be destroyed, And gold and silver and every possession perish, The wisdom of the wise can nought take away, Save the blindness of ungodliness, Or the callousness that comes of sin. Even among his enemies shall wisdom be a glory to him, And in a strange country a fatherland, And in the midst of foes shall prove a friend.' (T. Levi, xiii. 3, 7-8.) Or again, in 2 Enoch (Ixiii. 2-3) : *As one year is more honourable than another, so is one man more honourable than another. This man on account of having possessions, that man on account of the wisdom of the heart, another on account of understanding, another on account of purity, another on account of strength . . . but let it be heard everywhere ; there is none greater than he that feareth God.* Or again, when the apocalyptist says of the unceasing service of an order of heavenly beings: 'They rest not day nor night ; for unto them thanksgiving is rest.' There are numberless other passages showing the moral depth and inwardness of this literature. What nobler advice could the best ethical Christian teacher give to a defeated rival than this : ' If a man is prospered beyond you, do not be vexed, but even have recourse unto prayer on his behalf, that he may be prospered to the full ' INTRODUCTION xit (T. Gad. vii. i) ? Or again : * If any man seeketh to do evil unto you, do him a good turn, and pray for him, and so from all evil ye shall be redeemed of the Lord ' (T. Jos. xviii. 2). Or again : * The holy man is merciful to him that revileth him, and holdeth his peace ' (T. Bunj. v. 4). Now it would be possible to fill many pages in setting forth the teaching of apocalyptic on such ethical subjects as conscience, courage, endurance, longsufifering, justice,truth- fulness, temperance, singleness of heart, deceit, calumny, folly ; on religious themes of an ethical character as love, faith, works, forgiveness, compassion, humility, reverence, covetousness, lust ; or on metaphysical themes influencing ethics, as foreknowledge, freedom, determinism, heredity, individualism, universalism ; but we have established our thesis sufficiently for our present purpose ^ The ethical teaching on these subjects in apocalyptic is a vast advance on that of the O.T., and forms the indispensable link which in this respect connects the OT. with the N.T. § 5. Problems connected with the bilingual CHARACTER OF THE BOOK OF DaNIEL. WRITTEN ORIGINALLY AS A WHOLE IN ARAMAIC. I shall begin with a short statement of the facts. This statement will be followed by a brief sketch of the various theories which have been offered for the solution of these problems. It is possible, indeed, that none of the theories advanced is in itself adequate, and that it may be necessary to invoke the joint aid of two or more of them. For as the problem is complex it is possible that the solution will be likewise complex. I. The first notable difficulty in the Book of Daniel is connected with its use of two languages. Thus chapters i. l-ii. 4 a and viii-xii are written in Hebrew, and ii. ^b ' This section is reprinted from my Eschaiology"^, 1913? 190- 193. See Maldwyn Hughes, The Ethics of Jewish Apocryphal Literature. XX THE BOOK OF DANIEL (from 'O king')-vii. 26 in Aramaic. The difficulties occasioned by this diversity of language are somewhat accentuated by the fact that in the first six chapters Daniel is spoken of in the third person, whereas in the latter six he is represented as speaking in the first. The main difficulty, however, is connected with the change of language, to which there is no corresponding change of subject-matter. A like change of language is found in Ezra iv. 8-vi. 18, vii. 12-26, but there this change can be explained from the subject-matter. How then is the change of language in Daniel to be explained ? Are we to explain it as due to diversity of authorship or origin, in the case of the sections in ques- tion, and thus assume that these sections were originally written in the language in which they have been trans- mitted to us ? or, rejecting this hypothesis and assuming the literary unity of the book, are we to believe that this present difference of language is not original, but that the book was first written in Hebrew, and that the loss of certain chapters of the Hebrew original was subsequently made good from the Aramaic translation ? or conversely, that the book was first written in Aramaic and subse- quently translated into Hebrew, and that the Hebrew translation was in part destroyed and the missing portions supplied from the Aramaic original ? or, finally, that the present Hebrew renderings of chapters i. i, ii. 4 a, viii- xii were deliberately substituted for their Aramaic origi- nals in order to gain an entrance for the book into the canon of the Holy Scriptures ; for Hebrew, of course, was regarded as the sacred language. H. The second notable difficulty connected with Daniel centres in the wide divergence between the two Greek Versions, the Versions of the LXX and Theodotion. Where this divergence appears, which is the most trust- worthy ? Here also full consideration must be given to the theory that, whereas Theodotion's Version is based directly on the text practically as it stands in the Bible, INTRODUCTION xxi that of the LXX is said by two recent scholars to have been made from a Hebrew original throughout. In the present connexion we can only enumerate the theories that have been advanced to explain the diversity of language in the text of Daniel. I. Some scholars (Kliefoth, Dan, p. 44 ; Keil, Dan. p. 14) were of opinion that Aramaic was the vernacular of Babylonia, and was accordingly used in the sections relating to that country. But this theory cannot for a moment be sustained. The cuneiform inscriptions prove that the language of Assyria and Babylonia was indeed Semitic, but a Semitic language distinct from Biblical Aramaic. The latest connected inscription of this nature is that of Antiochus Soter 280-260 B. C. Gutbrod (see Prince's Book of Daniel^ p. ll note) is of opinion that this Semitic language of Assyria was spoken until Hellenic times. As a language of the learned it may have survived till the second century B. c. In connexion with this theory we may notice the popular but now discredited fallacy, that the Jews forgot their Hebrew in Babylonia and spoke ' Chaldee ' on their return to Palestine— a discredited fallacy we repeat ; for we know from Nehemiah that Hebrew was the nominal language of the Jews in Jeru- salem in 430 B. c. (Neh. xiii. 24). Biblical Aramaic, misnamed * Chaldee,* was not brought across the Syrian desert by the Jews, but they * acquired gradually ' the use of it ' from their neighbours in and about Palestine' (Driver, Dan, p. lix) after their return from the captivityi^. II. Other scholars seek to explain diversity oj language by diversity of origin. Thus this theory finds its starting- point and justification in the various attempts that have been made to anEilyse Daniel into different independent elements. ^ See Wright, Comparative Grammar^ 1890, p. 16; Kautzsch, Gramm. dts Bibl. Aram., §§ i, a, 6. xxii THE BOOK OF DANIEL One of the most reasonable theories offered under this head is that of Meinhold (in Strack-Zockler's Ktirzgef. Komfne?itar, 1889). According to Meinhold chapters ii. 4 ^-vi were a piece of narrative written in Aramaic about 300 B.C. about Daniel and his history. These chapters a writer of the Maccabean age accommodated to the needs of his own time, and having prefixed i-ii. 4 « as an intro- duction to ii. 4 ^-vii, he supplemented these with chapters viii-xii, containing visions of his own composition with special references to the persecutions of Antiochus, and issued the whole as a bilingual work. Another form of this theory is that enunciated by Dalman {Die Worie Jesti, p. II, 1898), Dalman supposes that i-vi and vi-xii existed independently. The former was written in Ara- maic, giving an account of Daniel's experiences and those of his companions at the court of Babylon. For a work in which visions were interpreted to the kings of Babylon, Aramaic, which was the li7igita franca of the whole East at that time, was naturally considered suitable. The second part of the book, vii-xii, was written in Hebrew, as it recounts Daniel's own visions with their interpreta- tion by an angel, who of course would use only the sacred language. The redactor then took the two works in hand, and translated i-ii. 4 a into Hebrew and vii into Aramaic, and compressed into one whole the two halves which were distinguished by their contents. in. The third theory is that which commands the assent of Driver, Behrmann, and Kamphausen, though it is to be observed that Driver with his usual caution and judgement does not absolutely commit himself to it, but only terms it as * relatively the best ' among the explana- tions offered. According to Kamphausen {Encyc. Bibl. I. 1005) 'the author has introduced the Chaldeans as speaking the language which he believed to be custojuary luith them : afterwards he continues to use the same language on account of its greater convenience both for himself and for his original readers, both in the narrative INTRODUCTION xxiii portions and in the following (seventh) chapter, the piece in companionship to chapter ii ; for the last three visions '{viii, ix, x-xii) a return to Hebrew was suggested by the consideration that this had from of old been the usual sacred language for prophetic subjects.' According to Behrmann, the Chaldeans, that is the learned priestly class among the Babylonians, are introduced as speaking Aramaic in ii. 4 a in order to give a local colouring. The Aramaic of our text, it is true, is Western Aramaic, but the distinction between Western and Eastern Aramaic does not, Behrmann says, come here under consideration. But in i. 4 it is said that clever and chosen Jewish youths required three years to learn the literature and tongue of the Chaldeans. The tongue of this language could hardly therefore be a form of Aramaic, but rather Babylonian, a Semitic language very different from the Hebrew, or it might be even the non-Semitic Sumerian preserved in many of the marginal texts in the cuneiform script. That Babylonian was an unknown language is stated in Jer. v. 1 5. If, therefore, we may presume that our author was familiar with his Jeremiah, and if, as Lenormant informs us, he had ' an excellent knowledge of Eastern usages,* we may reasonably conclude, first, that he does not con- found Babylonian and Aramaic, and, secondly, that he would be very unlikely to represent the Chaldeans as speaking a language which according to this theory was familiar both to Jew and Chaldean. The words ' in Aramaic' in ii. 4 are therefore with Oppert, Lenormant, Nestle, Prince, and Marti to be rejected as an interpola- tion. Dr. Driver holds that this excision is probably right. On the above grounds, therefore, we are inclined at present to conclude that the change of language in Daniel did not originate with its author. From considerations of a different nature we had previously shown that it was impossible that this change could be explained by diversity of origin. xxvi THE BOOK OF DANIEL deliberately undertaken with a view to its inclusion in the Canon. This view seems to accord best with the facts of the case, but it requires to be substantiated by a much larger body of evidence than has yet been adduced. § 6. The Versions. The chief versions of the Book of Daniel are : (a) the two Greek versions, i.e. the LXX and Theodotion, the two Syriac versions ; (d) the Peshitto ; (c) that of Paul of Telia ; and {d) the Vulgate. (a) The Greek Versions. These two versions are of great value for the reconstruction of the Text, notably the former. As we are aware, the LXX unhappily is preserved only in one very corrupt MS., i.e. the Codex Chisianus, attributed by some experts to the ninth and by others to the eleventh century. This MS. once belonged to Pope Alexander VII, a member of the Chigi family. It was not till more than a century after his death that the editio princeps of this MS. was published at Rome in 1772. Many editions have subsequently appeared, the most recent of which is that of Dr. Swete, who, to the great convenience of scholars, prints the versions of the LXX and Theodotion on opposite pages, and appends at the foot of the LXX version the variants from the Syriac version of Paul of Telia. This last version is of no slight interest. It was made by Paul, bishop of Telia, in the years 616-617 from a hexaplar text. Thus it attests the condition of the LXX text as it existed at the beginning of the seventh century. As regards the date of the LXX version of Daniel, it is probable that it was made in the latter half of the second century B. C. circa 145. The date and relations of Theodotion's version of Daniel are far from easy to determine. According to Irenaeus, Theodotion was an Ephesian, but according to INTRODUCTION xxvii Epiphanius, a native of Pontus and a disciple of Marcion, before he adopted Judaism, whilejeromereportsthathewas probably a Jew who had espoused Ebionitic Christianity. Epiphanius assigns the period of his activity to AureHus Commodus. As this Commodus reigned from i8o to 192 A. D. and as Marcion flourished about 150, the version of Theodotion, if we may trust Epiphanius, was written towards the close of the second century A. D. The Paschal Chronicle follows Epiphanius and ascribes the work of Theodotion to the year 184 A.D. The above date is very doubtful, and is in all probability two or more decades too late. But even if we could establish as early a date as 150, it would not materially lessen the difficulties which embarrass the relations of this version with that of the LXX. For we find that a great variety of readings which are peculiar to Theo- dotion as against the LXX are found already in quota- tions from Daniel in the first century of the Christian Era. Before entering, however, on this large question, we should observe that prior to Jerome's time^ the Church discarded the use of the LXX version of Daniel in favour of that of Theodotion. How this came about Jerome could not tell. The way for such radical action had already been prepared by the action of Origen, whose citations from Daniel, as Dr. Gwynn writes {Diet, of Christian Biography,, iv. 974), 'agree almost verbatim with the text of Theodotion now current,' a fact that accords well with the announcement made by Origen, in the ninth volume of his lost St?oviata, that he intended to use this version. (Jerome on Dan. iv. 6.) But Theodotion's version was used by several of the Fathers before Origen's time. Clement of Alexandria used Theodotion with occasional readings from the LXX {Paed. ii. 8 ; iii. 3). ^ Praef. in Dan. ' Danielem prophetam iuxta LXX inter- pretes ecclesiae non legunt, utentes Theodotionis editione ' (cf. Contra, Ruff. ii. 33), C 9 xxviii THE BOOK OF DANIEL In North Africa Tertullian's [ob. 240) references to Daniel are based mainly on the LXX version, though in a few cases he cites Daniel according to Theodotion. His contemporary Cyprian {ob. 258), Burkitt states, took his citations from the Old Latin translation of Daniel according to the LXX, which was already corrected according to Theodotion's version. At an earlier date Hippolytiis, the pupil of Irenaeus, adopted this version in his Commentary on Daniel about A.D. 202 ^ Hippolytus was here following in the footsteps of his master Irenaeus, who was the first among the Fathers to quote Daniel ix. 24-7 as a Messianic prophecy according to Theo- dotion's version. We have thus far only mentioned writers who lived subsequently to the date usually assigned to Theodotion. But the Theodotion type of text was clearly familiar to writers of an earlier date. Thus in Hermas there is one undoubted reference ( Vis. iv. 2. 4) to Theodotion's ver- sion of Dan. vi. 22 and possibly two others {Mand. xii. 4. I — Dan. V. 6, vii. 28, iii. 19; Vis. i. i. 3 — Dan. ix. 20). But the existence of Theodotion readings before the time of Theodotion is still more clearly established by the long extract Justin Martyr {ob. circa 165) gives in his Dial, c, Tryph. xxxi from Dan. vii. This extract, while fundamentally in agreement with the LXX, presents us with five distinctively Theodotion words and phrases, and at least as many readings peculiar to the LXX. That this combination of the two distinct types is not due to pure eclecticism or defective remembrance on the part of Justin has been shown by Burkitt {Old Lati?i and Itala^ pp. 223 ff. a\ since we find the same admixture in the Latin version in Tertullian's reproduction of the same passage. But earlier still, Clement of Rome (i Cor. xxxiv. 6, circa A.D. 96) shows acquaintance {iKf^nov^yow — LXX edepdirevov) with Theodotion in a citation from the ^ See Bratke, Das neu entdeckte 4. Buck des Dan.-Comm. von Hippolyt., Bonn, 1891. INTRODUCTION xxix passage of Daniel just referred to, and Barnabas {Ep. iv. 5) recalls Theodotion's rendering of Dan. vii. 24 more closely than that of the LXX. But still more memorable is the attestation given by certain passages of the N.T. to the existence of a contem- porary Theodotion text. Thus Rev. ix. 20 follows Theo- dotion's rendering of Dan. v. 23, and the dependence seems clear of xix. 6, on Theodotion's rendering of Dan. x. 6, since the LXX has here a different phrase. A consider- able amount of strong evidence in the same direction could be advanced from the N.T.,and from the evidence taken as a whole it is reasonable to conclude that there were two pre-Christian Greek versions of the Book of Daniel, one of which was the LXX and the other a revised LXX. For the existence of two such versions we have a partial analogy in the two Books of Esdras in the LXX. A further and better analogy to the existence of two different versions of the Book of Daniel, which in fact represent in a minor degree two recensions of that book, may be found in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, of which there are two distinct Greek versions, one of which is represented by three MSS. and the other by six. If the scope of this work admitted of it, we should now have to inquire : did these two versions go back to different Semitic originals, or did the notable variations between these two versions arise within the Greek itself? But though we cannot advance here the detailed evidence of the Semitic text and of the Greek versions, we can state the conclusions arrived at from the above evidence. These are, that if the Semitic text in its present form is as old as the Christian era, or even as ancient as loo B.C., then there existed side by side with it another form of the Semitic text, of which the LXX version in the Chigi MS. presents us with a valuable, though corrupt rendering. It is possible to prove that the vast majority of the cor- ruptions in this version can be traced to a Semitic back- ground. XXX THE BOOK OF DANIEL This statement holds in regard to chapters i-iii, vii-xii, and its cogency has been recognized to a considerable extent by all the foremost scholars. But with regard to chapters iv-vi the case is different. Here the foremost scholars have in most cases relinquished the study of these chapters in despair. Thus Bevan writes on p. 46 : * In chapters iii-vi . . . the original thread of the narrative is often lost in a chaos of accretions, alterations, and displacements.' This same view is practically set forth by Behrmann on pages XXX sq. of the introduction to his edition. Bludau {Alexandrinische Uebersetziing des Buches Daniel^ p. 154, 1897) states as his opinion, after a critical investigation of the LXX, that chapters iv-vi are to be named 'a re- vision rather than a translation ', and that this verdict [is quoted with approval by Marti in his edition, p. xix. But with the above conclusions the present writer cannot agree. A long sustained and minute study of the text and versions has led him to conclude that it is just in these chapters that the LXX makes its greatest con- tribution to the reconstruction of the original text, par- ticularly in chapter iv. The bulk of the evidence for this conclusion cannot of course be given here, but some of the grounds are enumerated in the short introduction to chapters iv-vi, p. 37-39. b. The Peshitto Version belongs to the same type of versions as Theodotion, and therefore agrees for the most part with the Massoretic text. Of course it diverges at times from all known authorities, and in one case may single-handed represent the original, i.e. xi. 41. c. The Syriac Version of Paul 0/ Telia. This slavishly literal rendering of Origen's Hexaplaric text was made at Alexandria in the years 616-617 by Paul of Telia. It is preserved in an eighth-century MS., and was published by Bugati in 1788. This Syriac version is of great value in the correction of the Codex Chisianus. In fact, in many instances it attests an older and purer form of the INTRODUCTION xxxi LXX text. It retains the critical signs introduced by Origen into the text, i.e. the asterisk, the obelus, and the metobelus, which have as a rule been omitted or dis- placed in the Codex Chisianus. d. The Vulgate Version. This version was made in the years 319-405. It is most closely related to the Massoretic text and to Theodotion. Sometimes it agrees with the Massoretic against Theodotion, and sometimes conversely, whilst in others it seems to take an independent line. § 7. All Authorities go back to a Glossed Text. Though a comparison of the versions of the Semitic text enables us to excise certain phrases as intrusions in the text, there remains a number of passages which have the support of all the authorities, but which a study of the context forces us to recognize as interpolations. It will be sufficient here to give a list of these passages, which are dealt with as they occur in the Commentary. Some of the passages branded as glosses or additions in the list which follows are, it is true, omitted by one or more of the versions, but a considerable number are attested by all the authorities. The evidence will be found in the notes on the respective passages. Additions and Glosses in Daniel. i. 2. ' to the house of his God ' — a gloss on ' the treasure house of his God ' in next clause. 20-21. An addition. ii. 4. * in Aramaic '—a gloss or a corruption of * saying.' 40. 'and as iron that crusheth all these.' A late gloss. Theod. Pesh. and Vulg. omit. iii. 23. An otiose repetition of 21 b. iv. The order of the Aramaic and of all the versions except the LXX is here secondary. Verses 6-9, a gloss (om. by the LXX). xxxii THE BOOK OF DANIEL lo b-i2. Two dittographs, 'And the height . . . great' ' And in it was meat for all ' 36. 'mine understanding returned to me' — an intru- sion, being a repetition from ver. 34. V. II. 'the king (I say) thy father' — an intrusion, vi. 4. ' neither was any error ... in him.' A dittograph. LXX and Theod. omit. 7. ' or man ' — rightly omitted by LXX. 12. ' or man '—rightly omitted by LXX. 15. Theod. omits 'assembled together unto the king and ' — LXX omits clause — and transposes this verse before 13. vii. I. 'told the sum of the matters. Daniel spake and said ' —(a gloss ?). 5. ' another ... a second ' — one word a gloss. II. 'I beheld' — a gloss. 1 7. * which are four ' — a gloss, viii. 21. ' [rough] he-goat.' 24. * but not by his own power '—repeated from ver. 22. ix. 4-19. An addition to the text found in all the authorities. X. 4. ' which is Hiddekel '—an addition. 8. ' I retained no strength ' — an addition. 9. ' with my face '— LXX and Pesh. omit. 2i-xi. 2. Primitive dislocation with corruption of the text and glosses, xii. II, 12. Glosses. § 8. Textual Authorities of the Rook of Daniel AND their Relations represented in a Genea- logical Table. We are now in a position to represent provisionally the affinities of the lost and existing textual authorities of the Book of Daniel. INTRODUCTION XXXUl Aramaic (?) Archetype of the Book of Daniel, 165 b. c. Glossed Text in Hebrew and Aramaic. Semitic Text with dislocation of order in Chapters IV-VI, (xst cent. B.C.). Semitic Text in and cent, a.d LXX, circ. 145 B.C.* Vulgate, 4th cent. A.D. Revised LXX, circ. A.D. I. Peshitto, 2nd cent. a.d. Version of Theodotion, circ. A.D. 160. Massoretic Text, circ. A.D. 700. Tetraplaric Text, circ. A.D. 220. I ! Chigi MS., Syr. Version of nth cent. Paul of Telia, A.D. A.D. 616-617. § 9. Date of the Book. As a result of modern research it is now generally agreed amongst scholars that the Book of Daniel was written in or shortly before 165 B.C. The chief reasons for these conclusions are as follows : — ' This date is of course hypothetical It is a conclusion from the fact that the Hellenistic Jew who wrote tlie 3rd Book of the Sibyllines (circ. 140 B.c.i refers to the ten horns in Daniel. xxxiv THE BOOK OF DANIEL I. There is no evidence in Jewish literature writtefi before 190 B.C. of the existence of the Book of Daniel. 1. The position of the book amongst the Hagiograplia and not amongst the Prophetical works indicates that the Book of Daniel was introduced into the Jewish Canon after the collection of the Prophets had been closed, and this was done apparently not earlier than the third century B.C. The Jewish Canon consists of three divisions: first the Law or Pentateuch, the first formal collection of Jewish sacred books ; secondly the Prophets, consisting of the historical books, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and the Prophets properly so called, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve Minor Prophets. The exclusion of Daniel from this second division is sufficient to prove that the book did not exist when the Canon of the Prophets was completed *. It is to be observed also that even in the Hagiographa Daniel is enumerated near the end after Esther. 2. The silence of Jesus the son of Sirach (^.190 B.C.) touching Daniel may prove that Daniel was unknown to him. This writer, in his list of Israel's worthies, chapters xliv-1, mentions Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve Minor Prophets collectively, but says not a word of Daniel. If Daniel had been known to him, with his roll of achievements unparalleled in the O. T., the writer could hardly have said, as in xlix. 15, that no one had ever been born like unto Joseph. 3. The oldest testimofiies to the existence of Daniel belong to the years 140-107 B.c.^ ' Daniel's use of the phrase '■the books' in ix. 2 seems to indicate that the prophetic canon was already closed. 2 In the oldest section of i Enoch, i.e. in xiv. 18, 19, 22, xxi. 5, there are phrases which are found in Daniel vii. 9, 10, 16. These may be absolutely independent of each other, or they maj' spring from a common source. The same no doubt holds true of I Enoch Ixxxix. 40 compared with Daniel xi. 16, 41. INTRODUCTION xxxv Sibylline s. In the third book of the Sibyllines, 388-400 {c. 140 B.C.), there is a manifest reference to Epiphanes and the ten horns in Daniel vii. 7, 20, 24. Testaments of the XII Patriai'chs. In this work, which was written probably 109-107 B.C., there are several indu- bitable references to the text of Daniel. See my edition, p. 238. In I Maccabees {c. 100 B.C.), chapter ii. 59, 60, the words assigned to the dying priest Mattathias make mention of the miraculous deliverance of Daniel and his three companions. Thus from external testimony we conclude that the Book of Daniel was written between 190-140 B.C. The rest of the evidence as to the date rests on internal grounds. II. First, the writer's ijtaccurate acquaintance with the events of the exile and the immediately subsequent history J secondly , his very accurate knoiuledge of the third century B.C. and the first thirty-three years of the second century B.C., for which he is accepted by historical critics as a first-class authority; and thirdly, the vague generalities which ??iark the tran- sition of the nan'ative as it passes from the region of history into that of prophecy about the years 167-165 B.C. These facts can hardly be explained unless on the ass7cmptio?i that the book was written belwten the years 167-165 B.C. The above facts are manifest to eveiy unbiased student of the work, and the proofs of these statements will be found in the Commentary in connexion with the passages concerned. It follows as a matter of course that the author should have a more accurate acquaintance with the history of his own time than with that of preceding centuries. If the book were written at the time of the exile the most accurate part of the book would be that which dealt with events from the time of Nebuchadnezzar to that of Cyrus, but this is just the part of the book which is least historical. The most important inaccuracies are as follows : — xxxvi THE BOOK OF DANIEL (a) The transportation of Jehoiachim in the third year of his reign : see note on i. 2. (d) The use of the term Chaldeans, not in its ethnic sense, but as denoting a learned class amongst the Baby- lonians : see note on i. 4. (c) The assumption that the court language at Babylon was Aramaic : see note on ii. 4 ; but the text here may not be original. (^) The designation of Nebuchadnezzar as ' the king of kings ' : see note on ii. 37. (e) The use of the term * satraps ' : see note on iii. 2. (/) The seven years' insanity of Nebuchadnezzar : see introduction to chapter iv, p. 38. (g) The representation of Belshazzar as son and suc- cessor of Nebuchadnezzar : see introduction to chapter v, pp. 48 sqq. (A) The Median Empire of Darius, who is said to have been the sole and independent ruler of Babylon before Cyrus : see note on v. 31. From the above facts it follows that our author had a very inaccurate knowledge of the history of the Babylonian period as it appears in the Cuneiform records, and that for his knowledge of this period he was indebted to con- temporary tradition in which the events of Babylonian history often appear in a distorted form. Of the Persian period his knowledge appears to be scant if not also un- trustworthy : see note on xi. 2. But when we come down to the Greek period, the case is wholly different and our author becomes here an actual historical source. This holds specially with the sections that deal with the Egyptian campaigns of Antiochus (xi. 25-39) and his persecution of the Jews. His repre- sentation of Antiochus, who became to aftertimes the pro- totype of the Antichrist, is of extreme value ; he recounts the desecration of the altar of burnt offering (Dec. 15, 168 B.C. : he refers to the Maccabean revolt and, as he designates it 'a little help,' xi. 34, he is acquainted with INTRODUCTION xxxvii the first Maccabean victories. He predicts the impending death of Antiochus Epiphanes, but with details as to place which conflicted with actual facts (see note on xi. 45). The rededication of the Sanctuary, Dec. 25, 165 B.C., was to him still in the future (see note on viii. 14). The limits of the date are therefore easy to determine. The book must, therefore, have been written before 165 B.C. and after 167 B. c. ; for we cannot ascribe the victories of Judas Maccabaeus over Apollonius and Seron to a later date. These victories at all events must be in the back- ground according to chapter xi. 34 ^ § 10. Chronological Tables I. Neo- Baby Ionian Kings and Notable Events. B.C. Nabopolassar — at first a viceroy of Babylon under the sons and successors of Assur-bani-pal, but subsequently the king and independent ruler of Babylon on the destruction of the Assyrian empire by the Medes .... 625-605 Nebuchadnezzar, as crown prince, defeats the Egyptian forces at Carchemish (Jer. xlvi. 2) on the Euphrates and recovers all Western Asia . 605 Nebuchadnezzar — king of the Chaldaeans (see note on this term, p. 7) and of Babylon . . 604-561 Amel-Marduk, i.e. Evil-Merodach (2 Kings xxv. 27 sqq.), son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar 561-559 ' Other facts point in the direction of a late date. An exilic date for the book is excluded by its use of many words derived from the Persian, these are referred to in notes on i- 3. 5. ii- 5, 6, 9, 18, iii. 2, 21, 24, xi. 7, xi. 45. But, furthermore, there are three words borrowed from the Greek, see note on iii. 5. It is only natural to assume that these did not obtain currency in the East till after the time of Alexander the Great, Finally, the fact, that our author was acquainted with the Book of Jeremiah and 2 Chron. xxxvi, see note on i. i, postulates a date not earlier than the third century B.C., while the eschatology demands a still later period. XXXVlll THE BOOK OF DANIEL B.C. Nergal-Sharezer (Neriglissar), having assassinated his brother-in-law Amel-Marduk, reigned 559-556 Labashi-Marduk, son of Nergal-Sharezer, reigned only nine months, being murdered by his nobles 55^-555 Nabuna'id, the last king of the Chaldaeans, who was not a descendant of Nebuchadnezzar, but the son of Nabu-balatsu-ikbi, seized the throne and became king 555*538 Cyrus, king of Anshan (558), overthrows the Median empire (550), becomes king of Persia circa 547, takes Nabuna'id, and makes himself master of Babylon, over which Belshazzar, son of Nabuna'id, had been governor (?) Cyrus thus becomes king of Babylon Cambyses, his son, becomes king . Conquers Egypt (which remains a Persia till 332) Darius I, Hystaspis, king of Persia Xerxes (=Ahasuerus in O.T.) Artaxerxes Darius II, Nothus . Artaxerxes II, Mnemon . 538 538-529 • • .529 province of Artaxerxes III, Ochus . Darius III, Codomanus . Conquered by Alexander II. The earlier Seleucidae. The Empire of the Seleucidae over Syria Babylon founded by Seleucus I, Nicator Antiochus I, Soter . Antiochus II, Theos Seleucus II, Callinicus . Seleucus III, Ceraunus . Antiochus III, the Great Seleucus IV, Philopator . Antiochus IV, Epiphanes • 525 521-486 485-465 465-425 423-404 404-359 359-338 336-331 . 331 and 312-280 279-261 261-246 246-226 226-223 222-187 186-176 X75-164 INTRODUCTION XXXIX III. The earlier Ptolemies. B.C. Ptolemy I, Soter, became ruler of Egypt . 322-285 Ptolemy II, Philadelphus .... 285-247 Ptolemy III, Euergetes I . . . . 247-222 Ptolemy IV, Philopator 222-205 Ptolemy V, Epiphanes 205-182 Ptolemy [VI], Eupator 182 Ptolemy VI [VII], Philometor, sole king . 182-170 Ptolemy Philometor \ . . ... .^^ r^. Ptolemy VII, Euergetes II ( ■'e-gmng conjomtly 17^164 Ptolemy Philometor, sole king . . . 164-146 IV. Events in Jewish history from the time of Jehoiakim to the death of Antiochtis Epiphanes. Jehoiakim rebels against Nebuchadnezzar. Judea laid waste by the inroads of hostile nations including the Chaldaeans (2 Kings xxiv. 1-4). [According to 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6, 7 Nebuchad- nezzar himself invades Judea, and carries off Jehoiakim and some of the vessels of the Temple to Babylon — a tradition thus existed '^ as early as 300 B.C. which in part forms the basis of Dan. i. i, 2] Jehoiakim carried captive to Babylon with all the sacred vessels of the Temple .... Captivity of Zedekiah and destruction of Jerusalem First return of exiles under Cyrus .... Second return with Ezra ..... Conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great Struggle between Ptolemy I and Antigonus over the possession of Palestine, which results in Palestine becoming a province of Egypt for nearly 100 years The marriage of Antiochus II with Berenice, the daughter of Ptolemy II (Dan. xi. 6) B.C. 602 597 586 538 458 332 301 248 xl THE BOOK OF DANIEL Fresh wars between Ptolemy III and Seleucus II B.C. (Dan. xi. 7 sqq.) 246 Antiochus III makes himself master of Palestine but is forced to retire from it through his defeat at Raphia by Ptolemy IV . . 217 Conquest of Palestine by Antiochus 111 . . . 202 Despite the attempts of Egypt (200 B. c.) this con- quest maintained (Dan. xi. 13 sqq.). . . 198 Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus III, married to Ptolemy V (Dan. xi. 17) 197 Seleucus IV, acting on information given by Simon, who was at strife with the H igh Priest Onias III, attempts to make himself master of the Temple treasures through his chief minister Heliodorus (Dan. xi. 20) 176 Accession of Antiochus IV to the throne of Syria (Dan. vii. 8, 11, 20, viii. 9, 23, xi. 21) . . 176 The High Priest, Onias III, leader of the Chasidim, deposed by Antiochus, and his brother Jason, the leader of the hellenizing Jews, appointed in his stead 175 Jason deposed in favour of Menelaus and Onias III murdered at the instigation of the latter (Dan. ix. 26, xi. 22, I Enoch xc. 8, 2 Mace. iv. 33-5) . 171 Antiochus IV invades Egypt in a campaign, the first stage of which ended with the victory near Pelusium, and the second with the con- quest of Egypt (Dan. xi. 25-7, I Mace. i. 16- 19). Jason having in the meantime reinstated himself in Jerusalem by force, Antiochus on his return from Egypt expels him, plunders the Temple, and massacres many Jews (Dan. viii. 9^-10, xi. 28, I Mace. i. 21-28) . . . 170 Antiochus, making his second expedition against Egypt, obliged to retire before the Roman legate Popilius Laenas,and to give up his claims on the country 169 INTRODUCTION xli Jerusalem taken by surprise by Apollonius on the B. C. Sabbath day, many Jews slaughtered or driven into exile, and a Syrian garrison established in the citadel. The complete suppression of the Jewish religion ordered by Antiochus. The observance of the Sabbath and circumcision forbidden. Books of the Law burnt, the daily sacrifice abolished, and a heathen altar, i.e. ' The Abomination of Desolation,' set up in the Temple on the 15th of Chisleu (December) 168 (Dan. vii. 21, 24^, 25, viii. il, 12, 13^, 24, 25, ix. 26^ 27a, xi. 30^-35, xii. i, 7, il) . 169-168 The revolt of the Jews against Antiochus under Mattathias and his sons (Dan. xi. 37, I Enoch xc. 9 sqq., I Mace, ii) 167 The death of Mattathias. Judas his son defeats and slays the Syrian generals Apollonius and Seron (l Mace. iii. 1-24), and subsequently routs Gorgias at Emmaus (I Mace. iii. 25-iv. 27), and Lysias at Beth-Zur (i Mace. iv. 28-35) • 166-165 Recovery of Jerusalem, with the exception of the citadel. The cleansing and rededication of the Temple on the 25ih of Chisleu, three years and ten days after its desecration. Successful inva- sion of Edomites, Ammonites, Philistines, and other Gentile nations (i Mace, v) . . . 165 Antiochus, owing to lack of money, attempts to pillage a temple in Elymais in Persia, but is beaten off by the inhabitants of the town, and soon afterwards dies at Taboe in that same country (Dan. vii. 11, 26, viii. 14^ 25, ix. 26^, 27^ xi. 45^, xii. 7, II, 12) ... .164 § II. Theology. Although this book is the forerunner and herald of most subsequent apocalyptic developments, it is not by any means the earliest. Its outlook, moreover, is in the D xlii THE BOOK OF DANIEL main contined to this world. Its hopes are directed, not to the after-world, with its retributions for the indivi- dual, but to the setting up of a world-empire of Israel which is to displace the heathen, to a Messianic kingdom on earth. Accordingly, it extends neither promise nor threatening to the individual as such^ but only to those individuals who have in an extraordinary degree helped or hindered the advent of this kingdom. To the former, the martyrs, the great saints, and teachers (xii. 2^ it holds forth the blessedness of a resurrection to life ; to the latter, the Jewish apostate, it proclaims a resurrection to shame and everlasting contempt, i.e. to Gehenna. As for the majority of the nation, who are neither over-much righteous nor over-much wicked, their lot is of no concern to the kingdom, and Sheol remains their eternal abode. Sheol, which is called the land of dust ixii. 2), retains its O.T. heathen character as a non-moral region. It thus possesses a peculiar character in our author. It is the inter7}iediate abode of the very good and of the very bad in Israel, and the eterttal abode of the rest of Israel and of all the Gentiles. The eschatological outlook of the individual is very imperfectly conceived, or at all events very imperfectly delineated. For we might ask, are the risen righteous to live for ever in the Messianic kingdom ? The supernatural character of the kingdom would point to this (cf. vii. 17, 18), and yet the description in vii. 17, where the continued existence of * the peoples, nations, and languages' as subject to this kingdom is difficult to reconcile with the immortality of the individual righteous upon the earth, though it is quite reconcilable with the eternity of the Messianic kingdom. We have, however, overlooked the manner in which the kingdom is to be introduced. It is to be catastrophic. When evil reaches its culmination, and the need of the saints is greatest (vii. 21, 22, xii. i), when the Antichrist in the person of Antiochus Epiphanes is warring down the saints, God Himself will intervene, and the throne of INTRODUCTION xliii judgement be set up (vii. 9}, and the world powers over- thrown (vii. II, 12), and the kingdom of the saints shall be set up, which shall break in pieces and consume all the kingdoms of the world and make them subject (ii. 44), and all the surviving nations shall serve them. It is to this kingdom that the righteous, of whom we have already spoken, shall rise. The writer of this book uses the be)ief in the angelic patrons of the nations to explain the national reverses, and likewise the delay in the establishment of the Mes- sianic kingdom. Persia has its angelic guardian (x. 13, 20), and likewise Greece (x. 20), while the patron angel of Israel is Michael (x. 21, xii. i). The writer's use of this conception implies that the real successes and reverses of Israel are already achieved in heaven according to the varying fortunes of the angelic encounters. It is difficult to reconcile this conception with that of the triumphant kingdom of the saints and the final judgement executed by God in chapter vii. 26. Attention might be called to the following points : The trequent condemnation of idolatry in chapters iii and v, the rules as to clean and unclean food (i. 8-16), the giving of alms and good works (iv. 27), the Bath-Kol (iv. 31), or voice from heaven (iv. 28), the three hours of prayer (vi. lo). § 12. Bibliography. During the first eighteen centuries of the Christian era the authenticity and integrity of the Book of Daniel were assumed as a matter of course, except in the twelfth Book of Porphyry's Treatise against the Christians (KaTaXpia-Tiafiov). Porphyry was a neo-l'latonic philosopher, and lived about the years A.D. 233-304. One division of this work was intended to prove that the Book of Daniel was written by a Palestinian Jew in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. He pointed out that the prophecies of Daniel are a correct record of events till the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, but from that date onwards they were simply guesses. This D a xliv THE BOOK OF DANIEL theory of Porphyry was in the opinion of his contemporaries and of subsequent generations so successfully refuted by the counter-treatises of Jerome, Methodius, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Apollinaris, that it was not fully revived till the nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century Sir Isaac Newton in a work on Daniel and Revelation expressly states that to reject Daniel's prophecies ' is to reject the Christian religion.' It is true, however, that Collins {The Scheme of Literal Prophecy consideted, 1726) argued for the Maccabean date of the book, but apparently for the time without 'result. The first serious work to do justice to the historical problems of the book was that of Bertholdt {Datneliieu ubersetzt tmd e?'kiarf ) . His hypothesis, however, ofseveral distinct authors drew upon him the adverse criticism of Gesenius, Bleek, and DeWette, who, however, accepted the Maccabean date. Since the time of the last-mentioned works practically all the foremost scholars have maintained the unity of the work, and at the same time its Maccabean date. The upholders, of course, of ecclesiastical tradition laboured hard to maintain the asserted early date of the work. The chief writers of this class during the nineteenth century were Hengstenberg, Havernick, Auber- len, and in our own country Pusey. These and subse- quent scholars, not only of this school but of their oppo- nents, laboured under a complete misapprehension of the nature of the Apocalyptic. This appears in all their works, as the following passage from Pusey typical of the orthodox school amply proves : ' The Book of Daniel . . . is either divine or an imposture. To write any book under the name of another, and to give it out to be his, is, in any case, a forgery, dishonest in itself, and destruc- tive of all trustworthiness. But the case as to the Book of Daniel, if it were not his, would go far even beyond this. The writer, were he not Daniel, must have lied on a most frightful scale, ascribing to God prophecies which INTRODUCTION xlv were never uttered. ... In a word, the whole book would be one lie in the name of God.' See § 3. But the ultra standpoint of Pusey was not maintained by all the so-called defenders of Daniel, and a whole series of writers adopted an intermediate course, and sought to reconcile the statements of the text with the results of historical criticism. The latest representative of this school has been C. H. H. Wright. The chief Commentaries for the last sixty years have been : F. Hitzig (in the Kgf. Handb.), 1850 ; H. Ewald in Die Proph. des AB.s"^ (1886), iii. 298 ff. (in transl. , v.i 52 ff.); E. B. Pusey, Daniel the Prophet^, 1869; Keil, 1869; O. Zockler, 1869 ; Fuller in the Speaker's Commentary y 1876; Meinhold, 1889; Bevan, 1892 (very original); Behrmann, 1894; Farrar {Expositor's Bibie), 1895; Prince, 1899; Driver {Cambridge Bible), 1900 (very learned) ; Marti, 1901 ; Jahn, Das Buck Daniel nachder Septuaginta hergestellt, 1904 — a suggestive but very extravagant work ; C. H. H. Wright, Daniel audits Critics and Daniel and his Prophecies, 1906. Special treatises and articles : Cornill, ' Die siebzig Jahrwochen Daniels' in Theol. Stud. u. Skizzen, 1889; Kamphausen, Das Bitch Daniel und die neuere Ge- schichtsforschung, 1893 ; Von Gall, Die Einheitlichkeit des Buches Daniely 1895. The Versions : Bludau, Die Alexandrinische Uber- setzung des Buches Daniel und ihr Verhdltniss zwn Massorethischefi Text, 1 897. This is a valuable contribu- tion. A very much slighter work with a few good sugges- tions is Riessler^s Das Buch Daniel, 1899 Besides the above works the reader will find valuable material in the O. T. introductions of Driver, Cornill, Konig, &c. A very full bibliography covering the whole field is to be found in C. H. H. Wright, Daniel and its Critics, pp. xviii-xxxvii. THE BOOK OF DANIEL REVISED VERSION WITH ANNOTATIONS 4 DANIEL 1. 3 a salem, and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of chadnezzar, did not die till the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jer. xxv. 1, xlvi. a), the title here is used proleptically. 2. This verse is in part interpolated. The contextual evidence is against tlie originality of the phrase (i) 'to the house of his god ' (see note inloc), or rather against that of (2) ' to the house of his god and the vessels.' The Syro-hexaplaric Syriac marks the latter as an addition : the Chigi MS. might be quoted in favour of either view, but really supports Syr.**. Hence the textual evi- dence here supports the contextual evidence. But accordingly as we accept (i) or (3) the resulting form of the text will vary considerably. Let us with Marti (and Driver) consider (i) first. (i) If only the words * to the house of his god' are interpolated then the text is defective, for the last clause, which should be trans- lated 'and as for the vessels he brought (them) into the treasure house of his god,' implies that the text originally contained a refer- ence to the captives (some of whom are actually specified in vcr. 3) and the booty carried off by Nebuchadnezzar. Hence the verse should be rendered as follows, the clause in brackets being of course a purely hypothetical restoration (by Ewald; : ' And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand {and the noblest of the land) and part of the vessels of the house of God ; and he carried them into the land of Shinar. And as for the vessels he brought (them) into the treasure house of his god.' The last clause of this verse tells what the king did with the vessels of the Temple: the next two verses give the king's commands with regard to some of the noblest of the captives. (a) If the larger phrase is an interpolation the problem is less complex. We should then translate: 'And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, and part of the vessels of the house of God ; and he carried them into the land of Shinar, ^and) he brought them into the treasure house of his god.' In this case the writer concerns himself wholly with the overthrow of the king and the deportation of the sacred vessels to Babylon, as I Esdras i. 40, 41, 45, 54, ii. 10, vi. 18, a6, a Chron. xxxvi. 7, although other captives and booty must have been taken. These parallel accounts undoubtedly support this shorter form of the text. tli« Lord, i. e. Adonai. This designation of God is used only here and in ch. ix. 3 (note). with part of tlia vessels. Nebuchadnezzar raided the Temple three times : first in Jehoiakim's reign, when he took part of the vessels (a Cliron. xxxvi. 7"^, as in our text ; secondly, in Jehoiachin's reign (a Chron. xxxvi. 10); and finally in Zedekiah's DANIEL 1. a JJ the house of God ; and he carried them into the land of Shinar to the house of his god : and he brought the reign (ibid, xxxvi. 18-19). In a Kings xxiv. sq. there is no mention of the king taking the sacred vessels of the Temple in Jehoiakim's reign, though his plundering of the Temple and Jeru- salem in Jehoiachin's reign is recounted at length in xxiv. ia-i6. the house of God. This is the usual name for the Temple in post-exilic writers, but it is once applied to the sanctuary in Shiloh (Judg. xviii. 31). In the earlier books the expression * house of Yahweh ' was always used. Our text avoids the use of this divine name, as do other late books. carried them. If we retain the words 'the vessels' in the following clause, the pronoun here must embrace not onlj' the vessels, but the captives and all the booty taken by Nebuchad- nezzar. If we refer it only to the Temple vessels we cannot explain the words * the vessels ' in the next clause. Instead of 'the vessels ' we should have expected only 'them.* Moreover, these words are placed in the most emphatic position in the clause, ' and as for the vessels he brought, &c.' If, then, the words ' the vessels ' are original and in their original position, this clearly implied that something other than vessels, i.e. captives. &c., was dealt with in the preceding clause. But, if with Syr." and the LXX we reject them, then the pronoun refers only to the sacred vessels. into the land of Bhinar. Shinar, or rather Shin'ar, is mentioned eight times : Gen. x. 10, xi. a, xiv. i, 9, Joshua vii. 21, Isa. xi. II, Zech. v. 11, Dan. i. a, and stands for Babylon in the O.T. It has not, however, been found in the Inscriptions. Various attempts at its identification will be found in the Bible Dictionaries. The word is an archaism. In the LXX the words ' to Babylon ' are inserted. They may be an explanatory gloss (?). In exilic times and later writers spoke of Babylonia as ' the land of Babylon,' Jer. li. 29, or 'the land of the Chaldeans,' Ezek. xii. 13. The LXX here reads ' to Babylon, to the land of Shinar,' and Syr.^ ' to Babylon.' [to the house of his ifod.] This phrase was omitted in the LXX, as is clear from the evidence of the LXX and the Syr.**. The context also is against its genuineness, as Marti and Driver recognize, though the latter admits it to be possible. The captives and the booty in general were not placed in the heathen temple. Marti takes the phrase to be a gloss on the words 'the treasure house of his god ' in the next clause, which was subsequently transposed wrongly into its present position. See note on * the treasure house of his god.* and he brought the vessels. Read ' and as for the vessels 6 DANIEL 1. 3,4 3 vessels into the treasure house of his god. And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring in certain of the children of Israel, even of 4 the seed royal and of the nobles ; youths in whom was he brought (them) ' — that is, if we follow the Massoretic text. But it is best to read with the LXX: 'and he set them up' {kuI anT]pfi(raTo avTo). The Greek verb in the LXX occurs three times in I Esdras i. 41, ii. 10, vi. 18 in this very same connexion. The parallel passages in the O.T, to these passages are respectively 2 Chron. xxxvi. 7, Ezra i. 7, v. 14. into the treasure house of his g'od. The statement in our text is confirmed by Ezra i. 7, v. 14, i Esdras i. 41, ii. ib, vi. 18 : but the Oxford Hebrew Lexicon states that in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 7 hekal is to be rendered * palace ' and not * temple.' But the LXX renders it naos ( = ' temple '), and carries with it the entire tradi- tion connected with the question. 3-5. Nebuchadnezzar commands Ashpenaz to have educated for the king's service certain youths; of the Jewish captivity, belong- ing both to the royal family and the nobility. 3. spake unto, rather * commanded,' as in ver. 18, The Hebrew word is Hterally * said.' Ashpenaz. So also Theodotion, In Jos. Anf, x. 10. 2 the name appears as ' Aschanes' ('Ao'xaj'T^s). No explanation of this name has yet been given by Ass3'riologists. It is probably corrupt. The LXX gives ' Abiesdri ' {'AfiitaSpi). The d is here parasitic, as in ' Esdras.' Hence ' Abiezer,' which is preserved in Syr.*^, is the form presupposed by the LXX. master of his eunuchs. The expression rab san'sim here instead of say sarisitn, 'prince of the eunuchs,' as in verses 7, 11, is characteristic of later Hebrew. Eunuchs were employed in Oriental courts as the chief officers of the king. But the word saris does not always mean eunuch. We might compare the title 'Rabsaris' in a Kings xviii. 17. children of Israel. We should probably with the LXX read * children of the princes of Israel.' Theod. presupposes a text that is a corruption of the original of the LXX. even of the seed royal. This rendering 'even of the seed royal ' implies that both the members of the royal family and the nobles were Israelites, which seems right. nobles. The Hebrew parfniint, found elsewhere in the O.T. in Esther i. 3, vi. 9, is probably a Persian loan-word : cf. /ratama ^ 'first' : and the Sanskrit prathavna. rrpoJTos is akin philologically to these words. DANIEL 1. 5 7 no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability to stand in the king's palace; and that he should teach them the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. And the king appointed for 5 4. no blemish. The perfection here asserted is physical, as in Lev. xxi. 17. Such perfection could not belong to eunuchs. cunning'. This is simply an archaism for ' knowing.' science. The word madda' is borrowed from the Aramaic, but is found also in Chronicles and Ecclesiastes. learning*. Render ' literature,' as also in i. 17. The Hebrew is sepher. Both Greek versions render ypafifxaTa. the tongue of the Chaldaeans. The term 'Chaldaeans' (^Hebrew, Kasdim : Greek XaXSaioi) has two meanings in Daniel. 1°. // has an ethnic significonce in v. 30, ix. i. The Chaldaeans are frequently referred to in the Inscriptions from the ninth century onwards. They lived originally to the SE. of Babylonia proper in the land of Kaldu, bordering on the Persian Gulf Strabo xvi. i. 6\ Being a vigorous nation they pressed steadily inland into Bab3'lonia, and despite their repeated defeats by the Assyrians they so far gained the upper hand as to make a tem- porary- conquest of Babylon under Merodach-baladan in 721. For the next hundred years the Chaldaeans and Assyrians were constantly at war and it was not till the reign of Nabopolassar 1,625-605), the father of Nebuchadnezzar, that the Chaldaean dynasty was firmly established in Babylon. This dynasty held the throne till the conquest of Babylon under Cyrus in 538 B. c. For this ethnic use of the term compare Isa. xliii. 14, xlviii. 14, 20, Jer. xxi. 9, Ezek. xxiii. 14, 15, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 17. 2°. // denotes a caste of wise men in i. 4, ii. 2, 4, 5, 10, iv. 7, V. 7, II, and probably in iii. 8. As the Chaldaean became syno- nymous ethnically with the Babylonian from the time of Nabo- polassar, so after the Persian conquest the term began to be a designation of the Babylonian literati and a synonym for soothsayer, magician, astronomer, and astrologer. Of this meaning of the word there is not a trace in the Inscriptions : it is first found in Herod, i. 181, 183 (fifth century B. c). In Strabo xvi. I. 6 (first century e.g.) the Chaldaeans are mentioned in both meanings of the term : first as a tribe living in the ancient home of the race on the Persian Gulf, and secondly as a class of learned men who lived in a certain quarter reserved for them in Babylon and devoted themselves to the study of astronomy. A fuller account is given in Diodorus Siculus ii. 29, which describes them as priests, wise men, diviners, astrologers, and magicians. But S DANIEL 1. 6, 7 them a daily portion of the king's « meat, and of the wine which he drank, and that they should be nourished three years ; that at the end thereof they might stand before 6 the king. Now among these were, of the children of 7 Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. And * Or, dainties though this meaning of the term Chaldaean was comparatively late in origin, the practice of divination and astrology, such as our text refers to the Chaldaeans, belongs to the earliest antiquit}'. That the study of dreams and their interpretation had been elaborated as early as 3000 b. c. has been shown by King {Hist, oj Sumer and Akkad, 1910, pp. 124, 266). In 2800 b.c. divination by oil was practised, and the observation of omens in the later Sumerian period. * The texts relating to soothsaying and exor- cism are so exceedingly numerous as to form the chief component of the whole Babylonian religious literature ' (Zimmern in Hastings, DRE., ii. 316). Thus the Chaldaean wise men of Babylon simply took over the functions of the priestly soothsayers, diviners, and astrologers which had been practised in Babylonia from prehistoric times. On the names given to the various members of this caste see the note on ii. 2. 5. a daily portion of the kiug''s meat (or 'dainties'). A yearly portion is mentioned in 1 Kings x. 25, 2 Chron. ix. 24. The word rendered 'dainties' is a Persian loan-word, patibaga, signi- fying 'portion,' 'offering,' from the Ssinskrit praii-bhdga. This word was transliterated into Greek as Tror/iSa^ty, which, according to a fragment of Dinon's Persica (c. 340 B.C.), preserved in Athenaeus xi. 503, consisted of a meal of barley or wheaten cakes and wine. three years. According to Plato, A/k. i. § 37, the education of the chosen youths under the royal teachers began at the age of fourteen. For the previous seven years they had been trained to ride and hunt. At the age of seventeen they entered the king's service (Xen. Cyr. i. 2% they luigrht stand before the king, i. e. serve him. Cf. ver. 19, Deut. i. 38, &c. But the text of the LXX seems pre- ferable : ' that he might present them before the king.' Not until they had been approved by the king were they admitted to his service. 6-7. These verses introduce the four young nobles of the tribe of Judah with whom the following narratives are mainlj' concerned. 6. Daniel. Three other Daniels are mentioned in the OT. : DANIEL 1. 8 9 the prince of the eunuchs gave names unto them : unto Daniel he gave the ?iame of Belteshazzar ; and to Ha- naniah, broken. 43 And whereas thou sawest the iron mixed with » miry clay, they shall mingle themselves cwith the seed of men ; but they shall not cleave one to another, even 44 as iron doth not mingle with clay. And in the days * Or, earthenware '' Or, brittle '^ Or, by 40. The Macedonian empire. Tiiis kingdom is symbolized b3' iron in reference to its power under its founder Alexander. Its division into several kingdoms and the relative strength and weakness of these are symbolized by the mingling of iron and clay. forasxnucli as iron breaketh in pieces . . . shall it break in pieces and crush. There can hardly be a question as to the text here being corrupt. First of all the clause * and as iron that crusheth all these' is to be removed as a disturbing gloss. It is not found in Theod., Vulg , and the Peshitto. Next a comparison of the LXX here, which ends with the words 'all the earth,' with vii. 23 makes it highly probable that these words are original. For the details of the following restoration the reader is referred to the present Editor's larger Commentar}'. The reconstructed text would read: 'And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron : for as iron breaketh in pieces and shattereth all things, so shall it break in pieces and crush the whole earth.' 41. and toes. Omitted by the LXX. a divided kingdom. These words refer to the dismember- ment of Alexander's kingdom among the Diadochi. See xi. 5 note. 43. This verse refers to the marriages between the Seleucidae (i. e. the iron) and the Ptolemies (i. e. the clay). Cf. xi. 6, 17, 44. in the days : i. e. of the Seleucidae, more particularly of Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 b. c.) during whose reign the advent of the kingdom was expected by our author. DANIEL 2. 45, 46 27 of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people ; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that a stone 45 was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold ; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter : and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure. Then the 46 nor ... to another people. The kingdom is to belong to the Jews for evermore. 45. the iron, the brass, the clay. Read : 'the clay, the iron, the brass.' See note on ver. 35. a g'reat God. The R.V. wrongly renders ' the great God.' Our author is here addressing a heathen king and speaks from his standpoint. the dream is certain. Daniel concludes with a solemn affirmation of the truth of the dream and its interpretation after the manner of Apocalypses. Cf. viii. 26, xi. 2, xii. 7, Rev. xix. 9, xxi. 5, xxii. 6. 46-9. The king recognizes the superiority of the Jewish religion, bestows high honours on Daniel, and exalts his three companions at Daniel's request. 46. That the homage rendered to Daniel by the king was not simply such as was paid to Haman in Esther iii. 2 is clear from the command *to offer an oblation and sweet odours' to Daniel. As Bevan well remarks, * Nebuchadnezzar at the feet of Daniel represents the Gentile power humbled before Israel (cf Isa. xlix. 23, Ix. 14).' We have a good parallel in the legendary account of Josephus (Ani. xi. 8. 5), according to which Alexander the Great prostrated himself before the Jewish high priest, and justified himself in so doing in the words: ' I do not adore him, but that God who hath honoured him with His high priesthood.' Jerome writes : * Non tam Danielem quam in Daniele adorat Deum, qui mysteria revelavit ' (BehrmannX The words 'bowed down to' are ambiguous in themselves ; but, as we have already observed, the close of the verse represents Daniel as accepting divine honours in contrast to the action of the Apostles in Acts xiv. 13-18. And yet the king's homage though ostensibly offered to Daniel was in reality paid to Daniel's God, as ver. 47 declares. 28 DANIEL 2. 47-49 king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an obla- 47 tion and sweet odours unto him. The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth your God is the God of gods, and the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, 48 seeing thou hast been able to reveal this secret. Then the king made Daniel great, and gave him many great gifts, and made him to rule over the whole province of Babylon, and to be chief governor over all the wise men 49 of Babylon. And Daniel requested of the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, over the affairs of the province of Babylon : but Daniel was * in the gate of the king. * Or, at the king's court fell upon Ms face. ' A mark of respect — whether to God, as Gen. xvii. 3, or to man, 2 Sam. ix. 6, xiv. 4.' — Driver. worshipped Daniel. The word used here for worship is used in iii. 5, 6, 7, 10, 1 1, 15, 18, &c. But, as Driver points out, it is used in the Targums *of obeisance done to a human superior (as 2 Sam. xiv. 33, xviii. 21,28, xxiv. 20); so that it does not necessarily imply the payment of divine honour.' sweet odours: lit. 'quietings,' ' soothings.' — Theod. cuwSm?. Only here and in Ezra vi. 10 is it found used absolutely instead of the usual sacrificial expression 'odour of a sweet smell' = 6afir)v (vojSins, as in Gen. viii. 21, Lev. i. 9, 13, &c. 47. the God of gods, and the Lord of kings. This is the text implied by the LXX but not quite by the Massoretic, which should rather be rendered as in the A,V. * a God of gods and Lord of kings,' or ' a God over gods and Lord over kings ' (see Kautzsch, Grammatik d. Bibl. Aram., p. 146). The Targum on Ps. cxxxvi. a gives the equivalent of the LXX here. This indefinite title recurs in xi. 36, which may be contrasted with the definite title in Deut. X. 17. 48. chief governor : lit. * the chief of the deputies.' The word 'deputy,' i.e. segan, recurs in iii. 2, 3, 27, vi. 6. It is found also in the Hebrew in the form 5a^«« — both forms being borrowed from the Assyrian. 49. This verse serves to introduce ch. iii. was in the gate of the king, i.e. remained at court. Cf. Esther ii. 19, 21. DANIEL 3. I, 2 29 Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, 3 whose height was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits : he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. Then Nebuchadnezzar the 3 king sent to gather together the satraps, the deputies, iii. The object of this chapter is to encourage the Jews not to acknowledge in any way any heathen reh'gion, but to hold fast at all costs to their own, the truth of which has been established in chap, ii, and to prefer death to apostasy. In such circumstances their confession and action were to be those of the three youths : * There is a God, whom we serve, who is able to deliver us . . . and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king: but if not. . .we will not serve thy gods' (17-18). 1. The LXX, Theod., and the Pesh. begin this verse with the words ' In the eighteenth year ' (i.e. of Nebuchadnezzar). This would be the year before Jerusalem was taken (2 Kings xxv. 8). As this date recurs in the LXX at the beginning of chap, iv, and as they can hardly follow thus upon each other, Jahn suggests that these two chapters originally formed part of independent writings. an image of gold . . . threescore cubits. The image was not necessarily of solid gold. The golden altar in Exod. xxxix. 38 was merely covered with gold (Exod. xxx. 3). Such colossal statues were rather affected amongst Orientals. Herodotus (i. 183) speaks of a great golden statue of Zeus in the temple of Belus in Babylon, and Nestle {Marginalia, p. 35) reminds us of the mention in Ammianus Marcellinus of a colossal golden statue erected by Antiochus Epiphanes in the temple of Daphne at Antioch. plain of Dura. Though three localities are mentioned in the tablets bearing the name Duru (Delitzsch, Paradies,p. 216), and several Babylonian cities had names compounded with Dur, the plain of Dura has not been identified. Driver calls attention to Oppert's suggestion that one of the many mounds — called Mounds of Dura — near to a small river called the Dura, which falls into the Euphrates about six miles below Babylon, may have formed the pedestal of a colossal image. 2. satraps. The form in the Old Persian is khshatra-pawan, * warden of the realm,' of which the Aramaic 'ahashdarpan and the Greek aaTpdTrrjs are corruptions. The title is a Persian one (cf. Ezra viii. 36, Esther iii. 12, &c.) and not a Babylonian, and is accordingly an anachronism here. deputies. See ii. 48. F 2 3© DANIELS. 3-5 and the governors, the »* judges, the treasurers, the coun- sellors, the ^ sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchad- 3 nezzar the king had set up. Then the satraps, the deputies, and the governors, the * judges, the treasurers, the counsellors, the ^sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, were gathered together unto the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up ; and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar 4 had set up. Then the herald cried aloud, To you it is 5 commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, * Or, chief soothsayers ^ Or, lawyers gfovernors. Aramaic pehah, from the Assyrian paj}dti. The word is of frequent occurrence also in Hebrew, especially in the post-Exilic books. judges. Aramaic ^ adargdzar, a Persian loan-word = andarza- ghar, 'counsellor.' But E. Meyer thinks it means 'general in chief.' The marginal reading of R.V. * chief soothsayer," implies a different derivation. treasurer. Aram, g^dabar. This word is taken by some scholars to be a secondary form of gizbar, 'treasurer' (Ezra i. 8, vii. 2i). According to Graetz it is a scribal error for hadddbar, which occurs in vss. 24 (see note), 27, iv. 36, vi. 7. counsellors. Aram, d^thabar, from the Old Persian ddtabara, from ddt, * law' and bar = ' law bearer.' This word has, as Driver observes, been found recently by Hilprecht in the Nippur inscrip- tions of the time of Artaxerxes I and Darius II. sheriflfs. Aram, tiphtdyd. According to Andreas this should be corrected into denpetayye = Middle Persian denpet, ' chief reli- gious official,' If this is right, the above rendering must be corrected. Behrmann compares the Old Persian word adipati, * chief official.' The marginal reading in R.V. 'lawyers' is based on the very improbable view that it is connected with qftd, 'to advise,' of which mufti is the participle, 4. peoples, nations, and languagres. Cf. 7, 29, iv. i, v. 19. vi. 25, vii. 14 : Rev, v, 9, vii. 9, &c. 5. cornet, lit. ' horn.' The word keren is used here and in 7, 10, 15, and in Syriac in the same sense as the Hebrew shophar. flute. Aram, mashrokitha, from sh/rak, 'to hiss.' DANIEL 3. 6-8 3r Sackbut, psaltery, » dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebu- chadnezzar the king hath set up : and whoso falleth not 6 down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. Therefore at that 7 time, when all the peoples heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of music, all the peoples, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. Wherefore at that time certain 8 Chaldeans came near, and brought accusation against * Or, bagpipe harp. Aram, kith'ros (or kitharis according to Kamphausen) is the Greek KiOapis. sackbut. Aram, sabb^ka, which is identical with the Greek ffan^vKT], though whether the borrowing was done by the Greeks or by the Semites is uncertain. The sackbut was a triangular four-stringed instrument. Athenaeus ^iv. 175 d) states that it was a Syrian invention. psaltery. Aram, psanierin, i. e. ipaKTfjpiov : also in 7, to, 15. This ' was a stringed instrument, of triangular sl)ape, like an inverted A. It differed from the ciihara (as Augustine repeatedly states) in having the sounding-board above the strings, which were played with a plectrum and struck downwards' (Driver). dulcimer. In marg. 'bagpipe.' Aram, sumponydh, i.e. the Greek avpLcpcuvia. This instrument is mentioned again in 10 but omitted in 7. * It was probably a goat-skin bag with two reed pipes, the one used as a mouthpiece to fill the bag, . . , and the other employed as a chanter-flute with finger holes' (Encyc. Bib. III. 3230), Bevan (p. 41' has observed that the avficpcvvia. as the name of an instrument, is peculiar to late Greek and that it is specially mentioned by Polybius xxvi. p. 1151, ed. Hultsch' as a favourite instrument of Antiochus Epiphanes, while Nestle has adduced another passage from Polybius xxxi. 4), which states that the king used to dance to the sound of the bagpipe (rfji avfjxpcuviai irpOKaKovfitvijs . . . aipxfiTo). 8-12. The three Jewish youths accnsed of not falling down before the image. 8. brought accusation. The phrase in the original is peculiar : it literally means : * ate the pieces of.' It means : 'to denounce' and then * to slander.' It was in use throughout the entire Semitic 32 DANIEL 3. 9-14 9 the Jews. They answered and said to Nebuchadnezzar 10 the king, O king, Hve for ever. Thou, O king, hast made a decree, that every man that shall hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the 11 golden image : and whoso falleth not down and wor- shippeth, shall be cast into the midst of a burning fiery 12 furnace. There are certain Jews whom thou hast ap- pointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego ; these men, O king, have not regarded thee : they serve not thy gods, nor 13 worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Then they 14 brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar answered and said unto them. Is it of purpose, O Sha- drach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, that ye serve not my world; for it is found in the Tel-el-Amarna letters : in the Syriac, where ''dkhel karzd (i. e. * eater of pieces ') is the rendering of V ^id0o\o5, and in the Koran. 12. have not reg-arded thee. The Aramaic here is peculiar. If the meaning universally assigned to it by scholars is right, then to /Vw must be given a signification, i.e. 'deference,' 'respect,' which it bears only here and in vi. 13. But if we turn to the Greek versions and the Vulgate we find that they presuppose a different text, i. e. 'they have not hearkened to thy command.' For the detailed criticism of this passage and of vi. 13, and the reconstruction of the text, see my larger Commentary. thy gods. We should, with Q^ri, read 'thy god,' as in 14, 18, iv. 8. 14. Is it of purpose? To obtain this sense we must suppose w^^rr to be a Hebraism equivalent to rm^ (Num. xxxv. 20, 22) = 'iying in wait,' which is derived from the rare root m:? (see Lexicon). The initial n would then be the interrogative. But it is better with Bevan, Behrmann, and Driver to take it as a corruption of xr.sn = ' is it true ? ' This word is already found in ii. 5, 8. C(. Theod. ft dK-qdivs. my god. So the Erfurter MS. Cf. iv. 8. Other MSS. 'my gods.' DANIEL 3. 15-17 33 god, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the iound 15 of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made, ivell-. but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burn- ing fiery furnace ; and who is that god that shall deliver you out of my hands ? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- 16 nego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, '"^ we have no need to answer thee in this matter. ^ If it 17 be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from * Or^ we are not careful ^ Or, Behold., our God ^c. Or, If our God whom we serve be able to deliver us, he will deliver us from . . . and out of thine hand, O king 15. well. For like aposiopeses after conditional sentences cf. Exod. xxxii. 32, Judges ix. i6sqq. who is that god ? Rather ' what god ? ' or ' is there any god?' See Kautzsch, Graiitm., p. 155. 16. we have no need to answer, &c. The three youths refuse to discuss a question which must be left to God Himself. 17. If it be so . . . to deliver us. The king has asked : ' Is there any god who can deliver you ? ' To this question this verse should supply the answer, but in such a way as to harmonize witli ver. 16 where the youths have refused to debate the question. Hence ver. 17 should explain ver. 16 while answering ver. 15, and hence further, we should expect ver. 17 to begin with * for ' or some sucli word. * We have no need to discuss this matter ; for the God whom we serve either will or will not save us.' Deeds not words will answer the question. If this is the meaning of the context, it is clear that the words 'if it be so' cannot be right, and that it is the true sense is confirmed by the four versions, LXX, Theod., Pesh., Vulg., all of which begin ver. 17 with ' for.' But almost all modern scholars (and R.V. in marg.), following the Massoretic punctuation, give a different rendering of ver. 17 : * If our God, whom we serve, be able to deliver us, He will deliver us,' &c. Against this form of the text there are, I think, two objections. 1°. It can hardly be that such strong champions of their God would for a moment admit that He was unable to deliver them, and that to a heathen king. They could admit the 34 DANIEL 3. .8-21 the burning fiery furnace ; and he will deliver us out 18 of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship 19 the golden image which thou hast set up. Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- nego : therefore he spake, and commanded that they should heat the furnace seven times more than it was 30 wont to be heated. And he commanded certain mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and to cast them into the burning fiery 21 furnace. Then these men were bound in their hosen, their '^tunics, and their mantles, and their other garments, * Or, turbans possibility of His not saving them, but not His inabilitj' to save. 2°. If we may reason from other passages, when Uthai forms one idea with a participle, they should not be separated by any intervening words as they are in this passage. If this conclusion is just, then the above translation is inadmissible. Further, from i", it follows that even if it were admissible, it is inappropriate. We must, therefore, fall back on the versions for the original text. These (see my larger Commentary) clearly require the following : ' For there is a God, whom we serve, who is able to deliver us.' This forms a fitting answer to the king's question : ' Is there any God who can deliver you 1 ' They answer first that there is such a God, and that it is the God whom they serve. 18. But if not: i.e. 'but if He will not deliver us.' tliy gods. Read ' thy god ' as in iv. 8. Bel was the special patron deity of the king. 19-27. The deliverance of the three youths front the burning fiery furnace. 19. full of. Render ' filled with.' 21. hosen . . . tunics . . . mautles. Better render ' mantles . . . trousers . . . hats.' For a discussion of these words see Driver : for the evidence of the versions which is very confused see my larger Commentar3\ hosen: sarbal rather means 'mantle.' Such is its meaning in the Talmud. tunics : patiish rather means ' trousers.' Theod. gives -mpi- KVijfitaiy the LXX rd vnobrjfiaTa avrwv. DANIEL 3. 33-26 35 aiid were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Therefore because the king's commandment was urgent, 22 and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- nego. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and 33 Abed-nego, fell down bound into the midst of the burn- ing fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was 24 astonied, and rose up in haste : he spake and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire ? They answered and said unto the king. True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, 25 I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt ; and the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the gods. Then Nebuchadnezzar came 26 mantles. Rather : ' hats.' The LXX gives napas, Theod. Tiapais. In post-Biblical Hebrew karbal denotes a covering for the head. 23. This verse is an otiose repetition of 21''. It is omitted by the LXX. If it is original, it should probably be read after 22, omitting the words : ' these three men . . . Abed-nego.' On the other hand, some clauses seem to have been lost in the Aramaic, which would explain Nebuchadnezzar's astonishment. Accordingly von Gall, Bludau, and Rothstein have suggested that verses 46-50, 24, as they appear in the Greek addition in LXX and Theod., stood originally in the Semitic. After v. 23 the LXX and Theod. add a passage of 67 verses, i. e. 24-90 ; vv. 24-45 the prayer of Azarias : a descriptive passage 46-50 telling of the destruction of the executioners, the descent of the angel, the doxology uttered by the three j'ouths 52-6, and the hymn known as the Benedict te 57-90. That something is lost seems quite clear. The lost passage on which 46-50, 24 are based dealt with what the king saw : i. e. an angel ('the fourth is like a son of the gods,' ver. 25 : ' His angel,' ver. 28) descending into the furnace : the three youths set free from their bonds and walking unhurt in the furnace. 24. astonied. Rather 'startled" or 'alarmed.' counsellors. Aram, haddaherin is peculiar to Daniel, ver. 27. iv. 36, vi. 7. The etymology is uncertain. 25. loose. The fire had merely destroyed their bonds. a son of the gods : i. e. an angel. Cf. Gen. vi, 2, Job i. 6. 36 DANIEL 3. 27-29 near to the * mouth of the burning fiery furnace : he spake and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, ye servants of the Most High God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came 37 forth out of the midst of the fire. And the satraps, the deputies, and the governors, and the king's counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, that the fire had no power upon their bodies, nor was the hair of their head singed, neither were their hosen changed, nor 28 had the smell of fire passed on them. Nebuchadnezzar spake and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Me- shach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king's word, and have yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except 29 their own God. Therefore I make a decree, that every people, nation, and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- nego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill : because there is no other god that * Aram. door. 26. Most Higrh God. Cf. iv. 2, v. i8, 21. The title ' Most High' is found in iv. 17, 24, 25, 32, 34, vii. 25. This title was used by Jews and also by heathen speakers ; cf. Isa. xiv, 14, Tob. i. 13, I Esdras ii. 3, vi. 31, Mark v. 7, Acts xvi. 17. It is very frequent in i Enoch, Test. Twelve Patriarchs, Jubilees, Ass. Moses. 27. The gradation is obvious : the hair is not singed, the flowing mantles not hurt, and even the smell of fire had not passed on them. hosen. Rather 'mantles,' Cf. ver. 21. 28. Doxology of the king. 29. His decree of toleration. I make a decree. Cf. iv. 6, Ezra iv. 19, 21, &c people, nation, and languagre. Cf. ver. 4, 7. out in pieces . . . dunghill. See ii. 5, note. DANIEL 3. 30—4. I 37 is able to deliver after this sort. Then the king promoted 30 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, in the province of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all the peoples, nations, 4 iv. There are two forms of this chapter. In the Masso- retic text, which is followed by Theodotion, the Vulgate, and the Peshitto, the entire narrative is given in the form of an edict or letter of Nebuchadnezzar to all his subjects. It begins with a greeting to 'all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth,' and proceeds to state the king's desire to make known to ihem the signs and wonders that the Most High had wrought upon him (1-3). He then recounts a dream which troubled him, and tells how he summoned the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and soothsaj'ers to make known its interpretation (4-6), and that when they failed^ Daniel was brought before him 7-8). To him the king set forth his dream (9-18), which Daniel forthwith inter- preted (19-27). Within a year the dream was fulfilled, and the king driven forth to live with the beasts of the field (28-33). At the end of seven times the king's reason returned unto him, and he was restored unto his kingdom, and so he praised and honoured and extolled the God of heaven (34-37). Turning now to the LXX we observe first of all that there is nothing in it corresponding to the first three verses in the Masso retic, which transform the next thirty-four verses into an edict. This chapter begins simply, in the LXX, with the words : 'And in the eighteenth year of his reign Nebuchadnezzar said : I Nebu- chadnezzar was at rest in mine house ' : then follows in the same narrative form the next thirty-three verses. At their close comes the edict as a result of the king's spiritual and psychical experiences, in which are embodied verj' many of the phrases in iv. 1-3. A close study of the texts and versions has forced me to con- clude that the older order of the text is preserved in the LXX and not in the Aramaic. The complete evidence for this conclusion will be found in my larger Commentary. Here I will shortly indicate a few of the chief grounds without going into details. 1°. The LXX in chap, iv follows the analogy of the preceding chapter, which first gives an account of Nebuchadnezzar's experi- ences in relation to the three Hebrew children, and then appends, as their natural sequel, the king's edict against idolatry at the close of the chapter. The analogy of chap, iii, therefore, supports the general form into which the matter is cast in chapter iv. 2°, But not only is the order in the LXX the more reasonable and confirmed by the analogy of chapter iii. but traces still sur- vive in the Massoretic which show that it is a secondary form 38 DANIEL 4. i and languages, that dwell in all the earth ; peace be or recast of a text which observed tlie same order as the LXX, that is, a narrative of thirty-four verses followed by a royal edict; for in verses 19, 28-33 the narrative form prevails in which the king is spoken of in the third person. The redactor has here forgotten to transform these features of the narrative form into that of the edict form. Plenty of analogies for such acts of editorial carelessness exist elsewhere. 3°. The LXX shows its superior text in omitting verses 6-9, which recount the king's summons of all the wise men to inter- pret his dream, and their failure to do so, and then finallj' the appearance of Daniel, to whom the king narrates his dream. The LXX, on the other hand, by omitting all mention of the wise men and representing the king as at once sending for Daniel in verse 18, puts the action of the king in a reasonable light. For considering the knowledge which the king had gained of Daniel's powers as an interpreter of dreams, and Daniel's subsequent high position in the court, it seems unnatural that he should be sum- moned last of all. Here again the order of the LXX seems more original. But this is not all. A comparison of these four verses \'\v. 6-g with ii. 2-7 tends to show that the former are secondary to the latter. In chapter ii the king requires the wise men to tell him both the dream and its interpretation, since the king had forgotten his dream. But though in this chapter, according to ver. 7, the king remembered his dream, for in vv. 10-17 he recounts it at length, yet in ver. g, if the text is trustworthy, the king requires Daniel to tell him his dream and its interpretation. If the text is correctly transmitted the passage is secondary. If the passage is original it must be emended. The source of the historical statements in this chapter. It is now generally agreed that there is nothing to be found in the inscriptions or in ancient history relating to Nebuchadnezzar's insanit}'. On the other hand, it is no less certain that the author of this chapter was following a popular tradition, another form of which is preserved by Eusebius {Praep. Evang. ix. 41) from the Ass\'rian history of Abydenus, who lived about a.d. 200'. 'This also have I found concerning Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Abydenus On the Assyrians. Megasthenes (floruit circa 300 b.c.) relates that Nebu- chadrezzar became mightier than Herakles and made war upon Libya and Iberia ; having conquered these countries he trans, ported some of their inhabitants to the eastern shores of the sea. Afterwards, as the Chaldaean story goes, when he had ascended the roof of his palace, he was inspired by some god or other and ' The following passage is taken from Bevan, p. 87 sq. DANIEL 4. a 39 multiplied unto you. It hath seemed good unto me to 2 cried aloud, " O men of Babylon, lo I, Nebuchadrezzar, announce to you the future calamity, which neither Bel my ancestor nor our queen, Beltis, can persuade the Fates to avert. There shall come a Persian, a mule, who shall have your own gods as his allies, and he shall make you slaves. Moreover, he who shall lielp to bring this about shall be (the son) of a Median woman, ^ the boast of the Assyrians. Would that, before his countrymen perish, some whirlpool or flood might seize him and destroy him utterly ! or else that he might betake himself to some other place, and might be driven through the desert, where is no city nor track of men, where wild beasts seek their food and birds fly hither and thither, would that among rocks and mountain clefts he might wander alone ! And as for me, may I. before he imagines this, meet some happier end ! " When he had thus prophesied he suddenly vanished.' This is clearly a popular legend of Babylonian origin referring to the overthrow of the Babylonian empire by Cyrus ' the mule,' and the part borne therein by the son of the Median woman, i.e. by Nabunaid, the last of the Babylonian kings. Bevan points out that the resemblances between the narrative in Daniel and in Abydenus cannot be accidental. In both King Nebuchadnezzar is on the roof of his palace : in both a divine voice makes itself heard (in the former work to the king, in the latter through him) : and, finally, the doom pronounced in both is similar though its object diflfers. But neither form of the story is borrowed from the other, though that of Abydenus is more primitive, while that in Daniel has been transformed to serve a didactic aim. The object of chapter iv is not, as that of iii is in part, to admonish the Jews against idolatry, but to .show the sheer help- lessness of the heathen powers over against the true God. However irresistible the power of Antiochus might seem to the Jews, our author teaches through the lips of the great King of Babylon, that the mightiest monarch who resists the will of God has no more power than the meanest of mankind, and can in one moment be reduced, not merely to the position of the latter, but even to that of the brute. The obvious lesson involved is that the Jews are not to fear the power of Antiochus Epiphanes ; for that God rules, and that nothing can fall out but what He permits. As the pride of Nebuchadnezzar was humbled, so would be that of the Syrian king. iv. 1. peace "be multiplied unto you. Cf. vi.25, i Pet. i. 2, a Pet. i. 2. In Ezra v. 7 we have the formula ' all peace.' ^ So emtnded by Von Gutschmidt. 4o DANIEL 4. 3-7 shew the signs and wonders that the Most High God 3 hath wrought toward me. How great are his signs ! and how mighty are his wonders ! his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from genera- tion to generation. 4 I Nebuchadnezzar was at rest in mine house, and 5 flourishing in my palace. I saw a dream which made me afraid ; and the ^ thoughts upon my bed and the 6 visions of my head troubled me. Therefore made I a decree to bring in all the wise men of Babylon before me, that they might make known unto rne the inter- 7 pretation of the dream. Then came in the magicians * Or, irnaginaiions 2. sig'ns and wonders. Cf. Deut. iv. 34, Isa. viii. 18 ; arj/iua Kai Tfpara in the N.T. as in Mark xiii. 22, Rom. xv. 19. Most High God. See iii. 26. 3. This verse is a stanza of four lines — How great are his signs ! And how mighty are his wonders ! &c. his kingdom . . . generation. A variant of the doxology in Ps. cxlv. 13. Cf. vii. 14^*, 18''. 4-9. The king's alarm over his dream which none of the wise men could interpret. The LXX omits 6-9. See Introd. to chapter above. 4. flourishing. This word, which is properly used of a tree, was possibly suggested by Ps. xcii. 13, 14, where, as here, it is used figuratively of persons. It is used indifferently of the prosperity of the righteous, Ps. Iii. 8, or of the wicked, Ps. xxxvii. 35. 5. thoughts. The word harhorittf thoughts ' or 'imaginations,' is found here only in the O.T. In the Targums and the Talmud it is used specially of evil thoughts. visions of my head. Cf. ii. 28. troubled. Rather * alarmed.' This word is of frequent occurrence in our text. 6. Here, as in ii. 2, the wise men are summoned. 7. On these classes see note on ii. 2. In 6-7 the same ideas as in ii. 2 are repeated with a modification. The king here tells his dream : cf. verses 10, 13. DANIEL 4. 8, 9 41 the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers : and I told the dream before them ; but they did not make known unto me the interpretation thereof. But 8 at the last Daniel came in before me, whose name was Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god, and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods: and I told the dream before him, sayings O Belteshazzar, master of the 9 magicians, because I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in thee, and no secret troubleth thee, tell me the visions of my dream that I have seen, and the inter- 8. But at the last. This rendering is very doubtful, but so is the text, though Marti accepts it. Theod. and the Syriac simply give ' until.' Michaelis and Bevan change the point and render ' and yet another,' Behrmann : 'and (so it was) till another.' the name of my god : i.e. Bel. See note on i. 7. in whom is the spirit, &c. Imitated from Gen. xli., 38 'a man in whom the spirit of God is.' Cf. verses 9, 18, v. 14. the holy gfods. The king speaks as an idolater. Contrast Joshua xxiv. 19. This expression was probably in common use in Syria since it occurs in the inscription of Eshmunazar, king of Sidon of the third or fourth cent. B.C. and I told the dream before him. It is not improbable that the word 'dream' is here an intrusion, seeing that it is omitted by Theod. (all MSS. excepting A). In that case we should render * and I said before him ' This reading would remove the glaring inconsistency that otherwise arises between this verse and the next, where the king requires Daniel to tell him the dream, which, according to the present Massoretic text, the king has just told Daniel. By so reading we are relieved from the necessity of supplying ' saying,' as in the R.V. 9. master of the maeficians. Cf. ii. 48. no secret troubleth thee. Cf. Ezek. xxviii. 3. tell me the visions of my dream . . « and the interpreta- tion thereof. This is a peculiar statement seeing that the king himself tells his dream in the next verse. Theod. inserts aKovaov before the first clause ; then we have : 'Hear then the visions, &c. and tell me its interpretation.' Behrmann takes the expression as a hendiadys, i.e. 'the interpretation of my dream visions,' while Giesebrecht, by an emendation of the word for visions, arrives at the following rendering : ' I will recount my dream and do thou tell me its interpretation.' 42 DANIEL 4. 10-13 10 pretation thereof. Thus were the visions of my head upon my bed: I saw, and behold a tree in the midst 11 of the earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the 12 earth. The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all : the beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt 13 in the branches thereof, and all flesh was fed of it. I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and, behold, 10-17. In this dream of the king the imagery is clearly borrowed to a considerable extent from Ezek. xxxi. 3-14, where the glory of the Assyrian is h'kened to that of a cedar in Lebanon, in the boughs of which all the fowls of heaven made their nests and under the branches of which all the beasts of the field brought forth their young, and under the shadow of which dwelt all great nations. This great tree, like that in the king's vision, was suddenly destroyed. Behrmann and Driver compare the dream of Xerxes recorded in Herod, vii. 19, in which he saw himself crowned with a shoot of an olive tree, the boughs of which cover the whole earth. lO^-lQ. These verses form, as Marti has recognized, two strophes of four lines each. But two dittographs call for excision, which become obvious on the arrangement of the passage in verse : ' I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, [And the height thereof was great] : The tree was grown and had become strong, And the height thereof reached unto heaven, And the sight thereof to the end of all the earth. The leaves thereof were fair and the fruit thereof much, [And in it was meat for all] The beasts of the field had shadow under it. And the fowls of heaven dwelt in the branches thereof, And all flesh was fed by it.' Here line 2 of the first stanza is a dittograph of line 4, and line a of the second stanza is a dittograph of line 5, borrowed from ver. 21. But it is just as possible that this line is original in both these verses, and that line 5 in ver. 12 is an intrusion. 12. the beasts of the field . . . the fowls. Cf. Ezek. xxxi. 6. DANIEL 4. 14-17 43 a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven. He cried aloud, and said thus, Hew down the tree, and 14 cut off his branches, shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit : let the beasts get away from under it, and the fowls from his branches. Nevertheless leave the stump 15 of his roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field ; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth : let his heart be changed 16 from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him ; and let seven times pass over him. The sentence is by 17 the decree of the watchers, and the ^ demand by the word * Or, tnaiter 13. a watcher. Cf. 17, 23. This word 'ir is rendered €7^17- 7o/)osinTheod. The term is of frequent occurrence in i Enoch, where it designates two classes i" the archangels : 2° the fallen angels. See I Enoch i. 5, note, Jubilees iv. 22, viii. 3. x. 5, 2 Enoch xviii. i. It is used in the sense of * angel ' also in S3'riac. This term recalls the word shonicrim, ' watchmen,' used in Isa. Ixii. 6. These 'watchmen ' are not prophets, but heavenly beings commissioned by God to put Him in remembrance of the walls of Zion. an holy one. This designation denoting an angel— cf. viii. 13, Job V. I, XV. 15, Ps. Ixxxix. 5, 7, Zech. xiv. 5 — is very frequent in I Enoch, where see note on i. 9. 14. The words of the watcher form a stanza of four lines. 15. The hope of a restoration is indicated through the stump being left in the ground. It is secured by a band of iron and brass to prevent its removal (Marti). This verse likewise forms a stanza of four lines. In it the change is made from the symbol to the thing symbolized. 16-17. These two verses form three stanzas of three lines each. 16. This verse is to be understood of the king only. The heart here denotes, of course, ' the intellect.' Cf. ii. 28'', note. A * heartless ' man, according to the Hebrews, was a foolish man, Cf. Jer. V. 21. seven times : i. e. seven years as in LXX and Joseph. Ant. X. ID. 6. Cf vii. 25, xii. 7, Rev. xii. 14. 17. the decree of the watchers. In ver. 24 it is said to be •the decree of the Most High.' In the O.T. the angels form G 44 DANIEL 4. iR-20 of the holy ones : to the intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over 18 it the lowest of men. This dream I king Nebuchad- nezzar have seen : and thou, O Belteshazzar, declare the interpretation, forasmuch as all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to make known unto me the interpretation; but thou art able, for the spirit of the holy gods is in thee. 19 Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was astonied for a while, and his thoughts troubled him. The king answered and said, Belteshazzar, let not the dream, or the interpretation, trouble thee. Belteshazzar answered and said, My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine adver- 20 saries. The tree that thou sawest, which grew, and was a kind of heavenly council (cf. Ps. Ixxxix. 5, 7, Job i. 6, 12, ii. I, 6). This idea was carried in later Judaism to extravagant and even blasphemous lengths, which not only represents God as doing nothing without consulting this council (so Sanh. 38**, quoting this passage of Daniel), but also states that, when God intended to make Hezekiah the Messiah, this council successfully opposed His intention (Sanh. 94*'. In Sanh. qS** it is said that, when God wished to admit the descendants of Nebuchad- nezzar into the Jewish Community, the angels of service would not suffer it. the demand by the word of the holy ones. Rather 'the word of the holy ones is the matter in question.' 18. the spirit, &c. Cf. ver. 8. 19. for a while. The Aram, k^sha'a stands in Onkelos, Num. xvi. 21, for k^rega' : cf. also Exod. xxxiii. 5 (^Onk.\ It may mean, therefore, ' for a moment.' In later times it came to mean an hour. The king* answered . . . trouble thee. This clause is omitted by the LXX and Theod. to thine adversaries. Cf Ovid, Fasti iii. 494 * hostibus eveniat.' 20-21. Repeated with remarkable effect from 11 -12. The verse form is here preserved. DANIEL 4. 21-27 45 strong, whose height reached unto the heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth ; whose leaves were fair, and 21 the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all ; under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and upon whose branches the fowls of the heaven had their habitation : it is thou, O king, that art grown and become strong : 22 for thy greatness is grown, and reacheth unto heaven, and thy dominion to the end of the earth. And whereas 23 the king saw a watcher and an holy one coming down from heaven, and saying. Hew down the tree, and destroy it ; nevertheless leave the stump of the roots thereof in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field ; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts of the field, till seven times pass over him ; this is the inter- 24 pretation, O king, and it is the decree of the Most High, which is come upon my lord the king : that thou shalt be 25 driven from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and thou shalt be made to eat grass as oxen, and shalt be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee ; till thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. And whereas they commanded -^6 to leave the stump of the tree roots ; thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule. Wherefore, O king, let my counsel 27 23. Cf. 13-16. 26. And whereas they commanded to leave. Better with the LXX and Theod. read 'and whereas they commanded (or "it was commanded") : Leave.' The analogy of ver. 23 where tlie direct command is preserved, supports this restoration of the text. the heavens. This term here designates 1°. the inhabitants of the heavens, i. e. the watchers who had shared in the decree (yer. 17, so Behrmann and Marti^, or 20. it is with Bevan and G2 46 DANIEL 4. 38-30 be acceptable unto thee, and «• break off thy sins by right- eousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor ; if there may be ^ a lengthening of thy tranquillity. All this came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of twelve months he was walking c in the royal palace of Babylon. The king spake and said, Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my * Or, redeem ^ Or, as otherwise read, an healing of thine error '^ Aram. upon. Driver to be taken as an expression of reverence for God — a meaning which is not elsewhere found in the O.T. In this sense it is found in i Mace. iii. 18, 19, iv. 10, &c., and in the Pirke Aboth iv. 7, 17. 27. The dream is a prediction, but the threatened evil can be surmounted by repentance. 27. break off, or ' redeem,' as in margin R.V. This meaning is found in the kindred root paraJc in Hebrew in Ps. cxxxvi. 24, Lam. v. 8. The counsel here tendered agrees with the Jewish teaching in Sir. iii. 30, 31, Tob. iv. 7-11, and the Pirke Aboth iv. 15 * He who performs one precept has gotten to himself an advocate and he who commits one transgression has gotten to himself one accuser.' Rabbi Aqiba said (Baba Bathra 10^) that God left the feeding of the poor to the faithful in order that the latter might be saved from the judgement of hell thereby. The teaching of the Pirke Aboth was repeated by R. Eleazar b. Jose — a pupil of Rabbi Aqiba (Baba Bathra 10*). rig'hteoiisness. This expression denotes here 'good works,' and at this date almsgiving was the chief of these. Even SiKaioavvTj came to mean ' almsgiving,' as we see from Matt. vi. i, where the true text is 'righteousness,' and 'alms,' the right interpretation, has made its way into a great number of the later MSS. As the chief Hebrew virtue, ' righteousness,' was in the course of time degraded into the mere act of almsgiving, so the chief Christian grace, namely djairTjj caritas, ' charity,' incurred the same fate. a lengrthening* of thy tranquillity. By a slightly different punctuation of the two words in the text, Ewald arrived at the following rendering which is that ot the margin in the R.V., 'an healing of thy error.' 28-33. The fulfilment of the dreams. 30. the royal dwelling place. Rather 'a royal dwelline: place,* DANIEL 4.31-35 47 majesty ? ^Vhile the word was in the king's mouth, there 3» fell a voice from heaven, sayings O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken : the kingdom is departed from thee. And thou shalt be driven from men, and thy dwelling 32 shall be with the beasts of the field ; thou shalt be made to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee; until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the king- dom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. The 33 same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar : and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven,, till his hair was grown like edi^QS^ feathers, and his nails like birds' claws. And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar 34 lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever ; for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom from generation to generation : and all the inhabitants 35 of the earth are reputed as nothing : and he doeth accord- ing to his will in the army of heaven, and among the 31. fell a voice from heaven. This voice, called by the later Jews a Bath-kol 'daughter of a voice,' is referred to in the Test. Levi xviii. 6 (see note). Test. Jud. xxiv. 2, Matt. iii. 17, Mark i. 11, Luke iii. 22. In the case of the Bath-kol a voice was heard but nothing seen. See Weber, y»fl^. Tlieol., 194 sq., Jew. Encyc.^ ii. 588-592. 34. the days, i.e. the seven 'times' of verses 16, 23, 25. 32, lifted up imne eyes unto heaven. Bevan draws attention to the interesting parallel in the Bacc/iae of Euripides (1265 sqq.), where Agave in her madness looks up to heaven and has her reason restored. See also Susanna, ver. 9. him that liveth for ever. Cf. xii. 7, Sir. xviii, i, i Enoch v. i his kingdom, &c. Cf. ver. 3. 35. This verse forms a stanza of four lines. are reputed as nothing. Rather ' are as persons of no account' (Bevan). the army of heaven. This is the Aramaic equivalent of the 4S DANIEL 4. 36, 37—5. i inhabitants of the earth : and none can ^ stay his hand, 36 or say unto him, What doest thou ? At the same time mine understanding returned unto me ; and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and brightness returned unto me ; and my counsellors and my lords sought unto me ; and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent 37 greatness was added unto me. Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven ; for all his works are truth, and his ways judgement : and those that walk in pride he is able to abase. 5 Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand * Aram. sU-ike. Hebrew ' host of heaven ' — a phrase which embraces all the superhuman powers and is used sometimes of the angels and sometimes of the stars. stay his hand, lit. 'strike his hand.' This expression is found in tlie Targ. of Eccles. viii. 4'', and in the Mishna and later Jewish literature. What doest thou ? Cf. Isa. xlv. 9. 36. mine understanding returned unto me. This claus? seems an intrusion; for it has already occurred two verses earlier, where it is said: 'Mine understanding returned unto me and I blessed, &c.' There it comes in rightly. By the recovery of his reason the king is enabled and desirous to praise God, and thus he does in verses 34-35. On this confession follows his restora- tion to his kingdom. Hence it seems best to omit it here. majesty. The corresponding Hebrew word is used of the majesty of God or of a king. counsellors. See iii. 24, 27. 37. This verse sums up the teaching of the entire chapter. V. The Historical Difficulties of this Chapter. This chapter deals with events about which two very different accounts are given. The first and trustworthy account (i°) is to be found in the inscriptions and comes probably from the hand of a contemporary historian or annalist : the second (2") is that which is recorded by Herodotus and Xenophon, with which in some of its most salient features the story in our text agrees. 1°. The main facts recorded in the inscriptions can be given in a few words. Cyrus, who became king of Anshan in 549 and DANIEL 5. I 49 of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. was called ' king of Persia ' in 546 or earlier, in the year 538 attacked Babj'lon. He overthrew the army of Nabuna'id at Opis (Babylonian Upe) on the Tigris in Tishri ( — October)^, captured Sippar on the Euphrates on Tishri 14, and on the i6th his general Gubaru entered Babylon without striking a blow, and took Nabu- na'id 2 prisoner. On Marchesvan 3 (= Oct. 27 Cyrus made his entry into Babylon, and on the nth (-Nov. 4) Gubaru slew the king's son in a night assault. Further, in inscriptions of the first twelve years of Nabuna'id's reign Belsarusur ( = ' Bel protect the king'), 'the king's son,' is several times mentioned. Later only the king's son is mentioned without the proper name. AVhether the king's son mentioned in the later years is Belsarusur [i. e. Belshazzar of our author) is not quite certain. 2". Herodotus (i. 188 : cf. i. 74, 77), who names the last king Labynetus (Aa/3i;i'77Toj = Nabuna'id), appears to have regarded him as the son of Nebuchadnezzar (see KAT.,p, 288). He represents (I. 191) Cyrus as diverting the waters of the Euphrates and enter- ing Babylon by the river bed, while the inhabitants were cele- brating a festival. In Xenophon's Cyropaedia (vii. 15-31) a similar account is given, though here the city is surprised by Gobryas and Gadates. Now if we compare the account in our text with i'' and 2" it is clear at a glance that it agrees most with 2". With i" it has practically nothing in common but the name Belshazzar 2. For while our text represents Belshazzar as the son of Nebuchadnezzar and actual king, for several years, of Babylon, the inscriptions make him to be the son of Nabuna'id * and never to be king. * So with Meyer, ZATW., 1S9S, p. 340sq.,\ve must read for July, since September has already been reached two lines earlier. '^ According to Berosus TJoseph. c. Apion. i. 20), whose account agrees more with the inscriptions than with Herodotus. ^ Observe the contrasting statements. In the inscriptions Bel- shazzar is only the king's son, making a desperate resistance in some fastness of the city, after the city as a whole had been surrendered and Nabuna'id taken prisoner. In a night attack shortly after Cyrus's arrival this fastness was stormed and Belshazzar slain. But in our text Nabuna'id is not mentioned and Belshazzar is king. There is nothing to suggest that the greater part of the city is in the jiands of the enemy. On the contrary Belshazzar makes a great feast, sum- mons to it a thousand of his lords, calls for the services of the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers, and institutes Daniel as a ruler of one-third of the kingdom. * Nabuna'id was no relation of Nebuchadnezzar, according to the 50 DANIEL 5. a 2 Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to Further, whereas our text represents Babylon as being captured by force, the inscriptions state that it was surrendered peaceably to the general of Cyrus. On the other hand our text agrees with the tradition recorded both in Herodotus and Xenophon that Babylon was taken in the night, zvhile the inhabitants were celebrating a/east'^. Further, if as it appears, Herodotus believed Labynetus (i.e. Nabuna'id) to have been a son of Nebuchadnezzar, we have here an approximation to the statement in our text that Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar. It is strange that the author of our text should have represented Belshazzar (in v. 2) as the son of Nebuchadnezzar ''', seeing that in a Kings xxv. 27, Jer. Hi. 31 the actual son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar i. e. Evilmerodach , = Amel Marduk in the in- scriptions is mentioned. The Purpose. From the above brief statement it follows that our author accepted the current popular account of the fall of Bab3'lon, not concerning himself with its historicity, and recast it to suit his own didactic purpose. These materials which referred to a king or prince of Babylon our author has used with a view to the present crisis. If Belshazzar was overthrown, in part at all events, for his profanation of the vessels brought to Bab3'lon from the Temple, what would befall the king who (like Antiochus Epiphanes) offered heathen sacrifices on the very altar of God in the Temple ? 1-4. Belshazzar'' s feast , and his profanation of the Temple vessels. 1. Belshazzar: i.e. Bel-sar-nsiir, 'Bel protect the king.' Cf. Nergal-sharezer (Jer. xxxix. 3, i.e. Nergal-Sar-usur, • Nergal protect the king!' In the LXX and Theod. this name and Belteshazzar (i. 7) are represented by one and the same word BaXraadp. the king. In none of the inscriptions does Belshazzar appear as king but only as the king's son, though it is a matter of statement of Abydenus in Eus. Praep. Ev. ix. 41. 3 npoarjKovTaoi ovSev). In a Babylonian inscription he states his position thus: ' Nabuna'id, king of Babylon, the chosen of Nebo and Marduk, the son of Nabu-balatsu-ikbi, the wise prince am 1.' ^ This idea in the popular account may have arisen from a miscon- ception of the joy with which the Babylonians received Cyrus, as Marti suggests.. ^ In Joseph {Ant. x. 11. 2) Baltasar is represented as succeeding Labosordachus (i.e. Labashi Marduk, son of Nergal-§ar-usur''i and identified with Nabuna^id. DANIEL 5. 3, 4 51 bring the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem ; that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, might drink therein. Then they brought 3 the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem ; and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, 4 and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. inference and not of demonstration that in the inscriptions the king's son who was slain after the taking of Babylon was Bel- shazzar. drank wine before. It was usual for oriental kings to feast either alone or with a few persons (Athenaeus iv. 145). Hence the present feast seems to have been against the etiquette of the time. On tlie other hand the Babylonians according to Curtius (v. i) had a reputation for debauchery. See also note on next verse. 2. golden and silver vessels. See i. 2 note. his father. If we compare this statement with its reitera- tion in II, 13, 22 we cannot escape inferring that our author took Bclshazzar to be a son of Nebuchadnezzar. Of course there is just the possibility that Nabuna'id — Belshazzar's father — married a daughterof Nebuchadnezzar with a view to strengthen his position. In that case Belshazzar would have been a grandson of Nebuchad- nezzar, and, as we know from O. T. usage, the word ' father ' could be used in the sense of grandfather (Gen. xxviii. 13, xxxii. 9), or great-grandfather (i Kings xv. ir, Num. xviii. 1,2). But if Nabuna'id did marry a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar we should liave expected some reference to this alliance in the inscriptions. See Introd. to this chapter, note*. his wives and his concubines. Cf. Cant. vi. 8. According to Herod, v. 18, it was the custom for women to appear at feasts among the Persians. Cf. also Xenophon, Cyr. v. ii. 28, Curtius V. I, 38. 3. the g-olden vessels. Read * the golden and the silver vessels,' with Theod. and the Peshitto. Cf. ver. 2. 4. After the words ' they . . . praised the gods of gold, and of silver . . . and of stone,' the LXX adds ' but the eternal God they praised not who hath power over their spirit.' The contrast between the idols made with hands and the eternal God from whom all life comes is full of force, and probably original, and the 52 DANIEL 5. 5-7 5 In the same hour came forth the fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace : and the king saw the 6 part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's "■ counte- nance was changed in him, and his thoughts troubled him ; and the joints of his loins were loosed, and his 7 knees smote one against another. The king cried aloud * Aram, brightness. internal evidence and that of the I. XX is confirmed by the fact that the two statements are found together in ver. 23 in the Massoretic and all the Versions. 5-12. The marvellous writing on the wall, and the alarm of the king and his guests. 5. part of the hand. Rather 'palm of the hand.' The text seems, as Bevan points out, to imply that the hand appeared above the couch where the king was reclining. 6. was changed in him. Both the text and the translation are wrong. For shenohi read sheno 'dlohi or shanain 'diohi, with Bevan. The sense will be the same in either case : ' his countenance was changed for him,' or ^upon him.' We have then the same idiom that is found in vi. 18. In fact it is not necessary to translate the prepositional phrase in English. loins. The loins were the seat of strength : of. Deut. xxxiii. ri, Ps. Ixix. 23. 7-8. There is something wrong about the text here. As it stands the wise men appear twice on no intelligible grounds before the king. Thus in ver. 7 the king addresses them as already present, and tells them the gifts that he would give to the successful interpreter of the mysterious writing. But ver. 8 begins as though no such event had taken place, and reads ' Then came in all the king's wise men.' In the LXX this awkwardness is avoided. According to it the king first of all summoned the wise men to interpret the writing. These came in in due course, but were unable to interpret the writing Then the king issued a proclamation setting forth the rewards that would be conferred on the man, whoever he might be, who made known the writing to the king. The wise men are not summoned ; for the invitation is now general. The wise men again enter to try their skill, but again fail. It is obvious that we have here in the LXX a rational order of events. It is moreover supported by Josephus. For a detailed study of the question I must refer to my larger Commentary. DANIEL 6. 8-10 53 to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. The king spake and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and shew me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with purple, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall * be the third ruler in the kingdom. Then came 8 in all the king's wise men : but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation. Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his 9 countenance was changed in him, and his lords were perplexed. Now the queen by reason of the words of 10 * Or, rule as one of three 7. enchanters, &c. See note on ii. 2. purple. The successful wise man was to be clothed with purple — a privilege which gave him a royal dignity among the Persians, Esther viii. 15, and the right of being called the king's friend (i Mace. x. 20, 6a, 64, xi. 58, &c.\ chain of g-old. Cf. the gift of Pharaoh to Joseph (Gen. xli. 42) ; of Cambyses to the Ethiopians in Herod, iii, 20 ; and of the younger C3TUS to Syennesis (Xen. Anab. i. 2. 27). According to the last writer iCyr. xiii. 5. 18) such chains could only be worn when presented by the king. Thus they formed a kind of order. shall be the third ruler. This translation is inaccurate, as also in 16, 29. The word here translated * third' is not found elsewhere as the ordinal. The proper word is telithai. Driver takes it to be connected with ' tilta or iulta, which both in the Targums and in the S^'riac denotes a third part. . . . Hence the literal rendering appears to be " shall rule as a third part in the kingdom " . . . " rule as one of three '" '— i. e. one of the three chief ministers. Cf. quotation from Esdras below. He quotes the LXX here in support of this rendering : hcQi]airai avrw k^ovaia tuv rpiTuv fifpovs Tiyy liaaiXelas. Marti adducing i Esdras iii. 9 ot Tpds ficyiffTcives t^s IlfpcriSos) suggests that we should read taliat — trmmvir. Wright takes this to mean that the place offered was to be third after Nabuna'id and Belshazzar, but this explanation requires us to suppose that Nebuchadnezzar was not the father but the grandfather of Belshazzar. 10. According to the LXX (ver. 9) the king summoned the queen. the queen. That this queen was the queen mother is to be inferred from the facts, first that she is not included among the 54 DANIEL 6. n, la the king and his lords came into the banquet house : the queen spake and said, O king, live for ever ; let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed : there is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods ; and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him : and the king Nebuchad- nezzar thy father, a-the king, 7 sav, thy father, made him master of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and soothsayers ; forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and know- ledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of dark sentences, and dissolving of doubts, * Or, thy father, O king wives of the king (ver. 2;, and secondly that she speaks apparently from personal knowledge of the events of Nebuchadnezzar's reign (ver. ii}. In Israel and Judah the queen-mother enjoyed great influence : see i Kings xv. 13, 2 Kings x. 13, xxiv. 12 : Herodotus mentions in this respect Amestris fix. 109), and also Nitokris the wife of Nebuchadnezzar (i. 185-188), who was notable for her cleverness and wisdom. O king, live for ever. Cf. ii. 4. 11. in whom is the spirit. See iv. 8 note. wisdom, like . . , the gods. Cf. 2 Sam. xiv. 20. the king, I say, thy father. These words, if otherwise the present form of the text is correct, are an intrusion. Theod. omits them. made him master of the magicians. See ii. 48. 12. interpreting . . . dissolving. These two words are participles in the text, but by a. change of punctuation can be transformed into infinitives, i.e. nouns, as the R.V. has done with- out, however, giving notice to that effect in the margin. We should, further, with Marti, either insert an * and * before ' inter- preting' or an * in ' : thus 'understanding in the interpreting of dreams,' &c. shewing of dark sentences. The Hebrew form of this Aramaic phrase to be found in Judges xiv. 14, 15, 19. The R.V. rendering is obscure. Better * declaring of riddles' or ^ of what is hidden.' The Hebrew synonym (which is also etymologically the same) means 'hard questions' in 1 Kings x. i, 'problem ' or 'enigma' in Ps. xlix. 4. DANIEL 5. 13-17 55 were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will shew the interpretation. Then was Daniel brought in before the king. The 13 king spake and said unto Daniel, Art thou that Daniel, which art of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king my father brought out of Judah ? I have heard 14 of thee, that the spirit of the gods is in thee, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom is found in thee. And now the wise men, the enchanters, have been 15 brought in before me, that they should read this writing, and make known unto me the interpretation thereof: but they could not shew the interpretation of the thing. But I have heard of thee, that thou canst give interpreta- 16 tions, and dissolve doubts : now if thou canst read the writing, and make known to me the interpretation thereof, thou shalt be clothed with purple, and have a chain of gold about thy neck, and shalt ^ be the third ruler in the kingdom. Then Daniel answered and said 17 * Or, rule as one 0/ three dissolving' of doubts. This rendering is wrong. Bevan has rightly taken the noun to mean ' magic knots,' although unaware of the parallel in i Enoch viii. 3 where we have the Greek equivalent, i. e. eTraoibuv Xvr-qpiov ' the resolving of enchant- ments.' In I Enoch xcv. 4 we have * anathemas which cannot be reversed.' Theodotion's rendering of our text confirms this view, \voJv avvSeafxovs. 13-17. Darnel comes before the king. 13. Art thou that Daniel? We should, as the pronoun is emphatic, render 'art thou Daniel?' The 'that' is a mistrans- lation. captivity. Better ' exile.' Cf. ii. 25, vi. 13. 16. dissolve doubts. Read 'resolve knots.' See ver. 12. shalt be the third ruler. See on ver. 7. 17-24. Before interpreting the v^rriting Daniel reminds the king of the pride of Nebuchadnezzar his father ; that, notwith- 56 DANIEL 5. 18-22 before the king, Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another ; nevertheless I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to him the interpreta- 18 tion. O thou king, the Most High God gave Nebuchad- nezzar thy father the kingdom, and greatness, and glory, 19 and majesty : and because of the greatness that he gave him, all the peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him : whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive ; and whom he would he 20 raised up, and whom he would he put down. But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened that he dealt proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, 21 and they took his glory from him: and he was driven from the sons of men ; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses ; he was fed with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven : until he knew that the Most High God ruleth in the kingdom of men, and that he setteth up 2 2 over it whomsoever he will. And thou his son, O standing the warning of his fate, he too has been uplifted by pride and has challenged the power of the God of heaven by his pro- fanation of the sacred vessels of the Temple. 17. Let thy gifts be to thyself. . . another. These words, which conflict with ver. 29, are omitted by the LXX. 18. the king-dom, &c. Cf. iv. 36. 19. whom he wonld he slew, &c. Cf. i Sam. ii. 7, Ps. Ixxv. 7, Sir. vii. 11, Tob. iv. 19. 20. his gflory. The Massoretic reads ' (his^i glory.' We should probably, with the Peshitto, read 'his glory.' Tiie R.V. wrongly represents the * his ' as in the text. 21. This verse summarizes statements made in iv. 25, 32, 33. the wild asses. These animals are here named specially because they are the wildest and shyest of creatures (Job xxxix. 5-8). The king was to avoid all contact with mankind as much as they. But there is something to be said for the reading of the solitary MS. which gives 'adarayya^' flocks' instead of 'aradayya ' wild asses.' Cf. iv. 15, 25. There is no special need here for intensifying this feature of the punishment. DANIEL 5. 23-26 57 Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this ; but hast lifted up thyself against the 33 Lord of heaven ; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy wives and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them ; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified : then was the part 24 of the hand sent from before him, and this writing was inscribed. And this is the writing that was inscribed, 25 '^ MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This IS the interpre- 26 * That is, Numbered, numbered, weighed, and divisions. 23. of silver, and gold. Read, with Theod., 'of gold and of silver.' which see not, &c. The unreasonableness of idolatry is here as often elsewhere dwelt on : cf. Deut. iv. 28, Isa. xliv. 9, Ps. cxv. 5, 6, cxxxv. 16, Rev. ix. 20. The Epistle of Jeremy has this subject for its theme. thy breath. Cf. Acts xvii. 25. and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not g^lorilied. AH the varied activities of life are alike dependent on Him. Theod. connects the preposition and suffix differently : * and all thy ways. Him thou hast not glorified.' 24. part of the hand. Read ' palm of the hand.' 25-28. The writing and its interpretation. 25. This verse has been variously interpreted, but no interpreta- tion seems as yet definitive, i". The usual one is that Mene, inene, tekel, upharsin, means 'Counted, counted, weighed and pieces.' Against this it is to be observed that tekel and p^res cannot mean 'weighed' and 'divided,' as the interpretation in verses 27, 28 demands. These words in their present form are substantives. Further the explanation in 26-28 takes no account of the repeti- tion of mene SLud simply replaces upharsin hy pe res. From these facts it is inferred that no very close connexion exists between the inscription and its interpretation, and that, as Bevan has suggested, the words themselves were not arbitrarily invented by the author but borrowed from some other source. In that source they must have already stood in some relation to the events in the text, else our author would hardly have used them in his 58 DANIEL 5. 36 tation of the thing : mene ; God hath numbered thy account, since the interpretation in 26-28 is a real tour deforce^ resorted to in order to give them a meaning in regard to the present crisis, a". Owing to these difficulties many modern scholars, including Noldeke, Bevan, Driver, and Marti, have accepted the explanation put forward by Clermont-Ganneau {Journal Ast'aiique, ' Mane, Thecal, Phares,' 1886), who points out that this inscription consists simply of the names of three weights. Thus w/«^'is the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew mdneh, which was borrowed by the Greeks and written fiva, Latin, ntina. T^kel is the Aramaic form of the Hebrew shekel. Parsin is the plural oi pifres in ver. 28. The peras in the Mishnah and other Jewish writings is the desig- nation for half a mina. Thus the inscription is — a mina^ a mina, a shekel and half a mina. The strange order of the coins in this inscription has led to the suggestion that the mina— the greatest weight — refers to the great king Nebuchadnezzar, the shekel ( — one-sixtieth of a mina), to Belshazzar, and the two half- minas to the kingdoms of the Medes and Persians arising out of Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom. In this view the words formed a current saying which described in a humorous way the history of Babylon and its overthrow. Finally Haupt and Prince remark that the first mene is to be taken as a participle = * counted '. Thus we should have ' it was counted, a mina, a shekel and two half-minas.' 3". Still another explanation is offered by Winckler in KAT., 341. According to Winckler it is obvious that in the text, 'a mina, a mina, a shekel and half a mina,' the word 'shekel' is an interpolation. We have then aj minas which represent 2^ years, on the expiration of which Cambyses, who is the Belshazzar that desecrates the Temple vessels, shall die. According to Winckler the chief incidents attributed to Belshazzar were origin- ally recounted in connexion with Cambyses. For 2] years more — such is the real meaning of ' a time, times and half a time' in vii. 25, xii. 7 — worship in the Temple was suspended. These fractions originated in the method of reckoning time by lustres or periods of five years, which in a subsequent redaction of the book was displaced b}' the later method of reckoning by weeks of years. See KAT., 284 sq. 4". Not improbably the text itself is wrong, and the Versions are right, i. e. mane, tekel, pares. Thus, according toTheod.and the Vul- gate in V. 25, according to LXX in the title to the chapter, the inscription was written : mane, tekel, pares. The reading of the Massoretic {upharsin, i.e. « ' and,^ parsin 'half minas' or' Persians') would then be explained as an explanatory marginal gloss^ which DANIEL 5. 27-31 59 kingdom, and brought it to an end. tekel; thou art 27 weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. " peres ; 28 thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. Then commanded Belshazzar, and they 29 clothed Daniel with purple, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made proclamation concerning him, that he should ^be the third ruler in the kingdom. In 30 that night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain. And 3' Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old. * That is, Divided ^ Or, rule as one of three simply meant 'Persians,' which subsequently displaced the original peres or rsiihtr pares (as in Versions). Moreover the interpretation in 26-28 presupposes this to be the inscription, and likewise the account of Josephus, .^w/". x. 11.3. The three words would then refer to Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and the Persians, and the relative merits of the first two exhibited by the comparison of the mina and shekel. Each word had thus a double signification. Mane (so Versions, though it should be read mand) would mean * mina,' but would suggest nicne, ' numbered ' : hence the days of Belshazzar are numbered; iekei means 'shekel,' but points to tekel ' weighed ' — hence ' thou art weighed,' &c. ; pares (i. e. paras) means 'Persian' and suggests peres (= divided): 'thy kingdom is divided and given to the Persians.* Perhaps it would be better to take pares in the Versions as a mistake for peras = ' half a mina.' The inscription would then run : mane, tekel, peras, i. e, ' mina, shekel, half a mina,' where peras (= ' half a mina') would be a comment on Belshazzar as a worthless son of a great father, and would likewise suggest paras ' the Persians.' 29. the third rtiler. See note on 7. 31. Darius the Mede. Our author clearly believed (i) that Darius was the sole and independent sovereign of the Babylonian Empire, and (2) that his reign intervened between the Babylonian and Persian dynasties. 1". Darius is not conceived as a vassal king, but as an inde- pendent sovereign ; for he enjo} s the title of king (vi. 3, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, &c.) : as sole ruler divides the vast empire into 120 satra- pies (vi. i^, and as absolute despot sentences all the rulers of these satrapies to death by a single decree (vi. 24). When he dies he is succeeded by Cyrus the Persian (vi. 28). That our text, therefore, regards Darius the Mede as the sole and absolute king of the H 6o DANIEL 6. i 6 It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty satraps, which should be through- Babylonian empire cannot be questioned. In this respect, there- fore, even if it were proved that Cyrus made Gobryas his general king of Babylon and gave him the name of Darius, it would be impossible to reconcile the conception of Darius in our text with that of a vassal king such as this Gobryas. a". According to our author a Median king reigned between the Babylonian and Persian sovereignties. This is the natural meaning of vi. 28 (cf. ix. i, 2, xi. i with x. i). But (a) this view is against Isa. xl-xlviii (post -exilic'',, where Cyrus is repre- sented as having been God's agent in overthrowing Babylon, and becoming its king. No Median dynasty intervenes. In Ezra v. 13 he is called ' king of Babylon,' though elsewhere more frequently ' king of the Persians,' aChron. xxxvi. 22, Ezra i. i. &c. {b i Neither Berosus nor any ancient writer knows anything of a Median sovereignty after the fall of Babylon, (c) In the annals of Nabuna'id and the Cyrus cylinder Cyrus is the immediate successor of Nabuna'id on the throne of Babylon. In short, no room can be found in the sacred records for Cyrus in the reign of Darius, and none for Darius in the reign of C3'rus in the secular records, so far as our present knowledge goes. The idea that a Median king ruled over the world after the overthrow of the Babylonian kingdom is probably to be traced, as Bevan has suggested, to two facts. The first of them is that it was known that a Median empire had existed before the Persians had established their supremacy. The second is to be traced to our author's study of O.T. prophecy, where it was foretold that the Medes would conquer Babylon : Isa. xiii. 17, Jer. li. 11, 28. That these prophecies had been fulfilled in default of any know- ledge to the contrary was a natural supposition on the part of our author. received tlxe king>doin : i. e. from God. Cf. 28, ' given to the Medes and Persians.' vi. In iii. 1-30 the aim of our author was to direct his people how to act in their relations to a heathen religion and to admonish them not to acknowledge or share in its worship, but rather to prefer death to apostasy. In this chapter it is his aim to enforce the duty of observing their own religion. And since during the exile this observance could not extend beyond acts of private and personal worship, it is just this side of the Jewish religion that has to be brought forward here, and it is the necessity of emphasizing this side that obliged our author to introduce certain unlikely or incredible features into his story, such as the king's issuing such DANIEL 6. 2-6 6i out the whole kingdom ; and over them three presidents, 2 of whom Daniel was one ; that these satraps might give account unto them, and that the king should have no damage. Then this Daniel was distinguished above the 3 presidents and the satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him ; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm. Then the presidents and the satraps sought 4 to find occasion against Daniel as touching the kingdom ; but they could find none occasion nor fault ; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him. Then said these men, We shall not 5 find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God. Then these 6 a preposterous edict as that in the text and his failure to consult the chiefest and wisest of his great officers before issuing such an edict. These and other such features, however, appear no longer unreasonable when they serve to manifest Daniel's faithful observ- ance of his religion in private. By such a story or parable our author sought to encourage his countrymen, who under the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes were precluded in the main from all acts of public worship, to be true and hold fast to the life of private devotion, even as Daniel had done. 1-2. Darius appoints 120 satraps with three presidents, of whom Daniel was chief. 1. an hundred and twenty satraps. On 'satraps' see iii. 2. According to Herodotus iii. Sgsqq., the kingdom was divided into 20 satrapies, and this was first done under Darius H vsLaspis. In Esther i. i, viii. 9, i Esdras iii. 2, Add. to Esther ii. i, v. i there were 127 provinces. Tiie number in our text may have been suggested thereby. 2. presidents. The Aram, word, which is found also in the Targums, is said to be from the Persian sarak ' chief from sar ' head.' 3. excellent spirit was in him. Cf. v. 12. 4. as touching the kingdom, i. e. in his administration of his official duties in contrast to his observance of his religious duties (ver. 5). neither was there any error ... in him. This clause should be exercised as a dittograph. The LXX and Theod. omit. 6. law. The same dath is here used for law as in ii. 9, 13, 15, H 2 62 DANIEL 6. 7 presidents and satraps » assembled together to the king, 7 and said thus unto him, King Darius, Hve for ever. All the presidents of the kingdom, the deputies and the satraps, the counsellors and the governors, have consulted together ^to establish a royal statute, and to make a strong * Or, came tttmultuously (and so in vv. ir, 15) ^ Or, that the king should establish a statute, and make &c. vi. 8, 12, 15. Here, as in Ezra vii. 12, 14 sq., it denotes the Jewish law. 6. assembled tog-ether : Aram, hargtshu, R.V. marg. 'came tumultuousl}'.' The best modern scholars support the latter rendering — adducing the Aramaic of the Targums on Ruth i. 9, Ps. xlvi. 6, and the Hebrew in Ps, ii. i. This word occurs again in vi. 11, 15. But the translation 'came tumultuously ' is not suitable to the context either in vi. 6 or in vi. 11. In the former verse, where the presidents and satraps are approaching the king with a view to securing a favour, such a manner of approach would be unseemly. They wish to secure the king's assent to a law which they are secretly directing against Daniel. Here the LXX renders TrpuarjXOoaav, which elsewhere in this book is always a rendering of keribu as it is also in Thcodotion. The Peshitto actually gives this Aramaic word. Hence it is not at all improbable that keribu stood originally in the text, and that we should render : ' Then these presidents . . . drew near to the king.' Now turning to vi. ii we observe how hopelessly unsuitable the words ' came thronging ' or ' tumultuously ' are in such a con- nexion. The presidents and other great officers of the king have succeeded in getting a law enacted against Daniel. Their next object is to detect Daniel in the act of breaking this law. What writer would in such a case represent them as ' flocking tumul- tuously ' to Daniel's house. Here again the Versions come to our aid. The LXX, Theodotion, the Peshitto, and Vulgate give the rendering 'kept watch' or ' spied upon.' Now this meaning of hargishu is actually found in the Jerusalem Targum of E.xod. ii. 3 and in Hebrew in the Mishna of the Jerusalem Talmud. Hence we should without hesitation render : ' Then these men kept watch upon and found Daniel praying.' On vi. 15 see note. *7. All the presidents. Is this misrepresentation made delibe- rately in order to lead the king to believe that Daniel had taken part in this appeal to the king? the deputies and the satraps, &c. See note on iii. a. to establish a royal statute. The R.V. margin here is best 'that the king should establish a statute.' The officers of the DANIEL G. 8-10 63 interdict, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the S interdict, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which ^altereth not. Wherefore king Darius signed the writing 9 and the interdict. And when Daniel knew that the 10 writing was signed, he went into his house ; (now his windows were open in his chamber toward Jerusalem ;) and he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and * Aram, passeth not aivay. king could not do so themselves : the king does so in vi. 9. The difficulty is due to the subject of the infinitive being placed at the end of the clause. or man. These words are omitted by the LXX and appar- ently rightly. For that no man should be allowed for thirty daj^s to make a single request of any of his neighbours is too extravagant to be taken seriously. The text is concerned only with prayer directed to a god. This is clear from ver, 8, where Daniel's enemies admit that they can find no occasion against him save in the law of his God. save of thee, O king-. For thirty days the king would be honoured as a god. den of lions. The Assyrian and Persian kings kept lions in enclosures for hunting purposes, 8. which altereth not. Cf. Esther i. 19, viii. 8. 10. now his windows, &c. More literally : ' now he had in his chamber windows opening.' windows. These were of the nature of lattices : cf. Prov.vii. 6. his chamber. Aram, 'illitheh : cf. the Greek virtpcLov. The chamber was an apartment raised on the flat roof of the house : cf. Acts X. 9 km TO baifxa. Such a chamber was specially used for prayer, mourning, and acts of devotion : cf. Isa. xxii. i, Ps. cii. 7, Acts X. 9, Judith viii. 5 It was such a chamber that was built on the roof for Elisha by the Shunammite, 2 Kings iv. 10. toward Jerusalem. The custom of turning to the east became usual, no doubt, from the Exile onwards. Cf. Tob. iii. 11, I Esdras iv, 58, Berakli. iv. 5, 6, Authority for turning to Jerusalem was to be found in i Kings viii. 44, towards the Temple in viii. 35, 48, Cf. Ezek. viii, 16 sqq., Ps. v. 7, xxviii. 2. Uiree times a day. Cf. Ps. Iv. 17, 2 Enoch li. 4. These 64 DANIEL 6. 11-13 prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did afore- 11 time. Then these men assembled together, and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God. 12 Then they came near, and spake before the king con- cerning the king's interdict ; Hast thou not signed an interdict, that every man that shall make petition unto any god or man within thirty days, save unto thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered and said, The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which «^altereth not. 13 Then answered they and said before the king, That Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah, ^ Aram, passetit not aivay. three liours were at the time of the morning burnt-offering, in the afternoon when the evening meal was offered— the ninth hour: cf. ix. 21, Ezra ix. 5, Judith ix. i, Acts iii. i, x. 30. and at sunset ; Berakh. iii. 3, iv. i. before his God. As Dalman {The Words of Jesus, 209-13) points out, it was the practice of the later Jews to speak, pray, or confess before God rather than to Him. Likewise a man was said to blaspheme or sin before God, i.e. against Him. This was due to their sense of reverence. And as divine honours were in part paid to oriental monarchs this usage was extended to them. Thus men spoke not to the king but before him. Cf. ii. 9, 10, 11, 27, 36, V. 17. In vi. 22 Daniel affirms that he has done no wrong before the king. But the above usage was carried still further, and actions were said to have been done or left undone before God, when the actions in question were those which God Himself either did or did not do. Thus in Luke xii. 6, the words 'not one of them is forgotten in the sight of God ' means God does not forget one of them. Even volition might not be directly predicated of God : in Malt xviii. 14 the text, literallj' rendered, is : 'it is not a thing willed before {OfXrjfxa (finpoaOfv) your Father which is in heaven.' That is, God does not will that. Or again in Matt. xi. 26 ' so it was well-pleasing in thy sight.' 11. assembled togfether. Read 'kept watch on' or 'spied upon.' See note on ver. 6. 12. or man. We should omit these words as in ver. 7 (see note) with the LXX. DANIEL 6. 14-18 65 regardeth not thee, O king, nor the interdict that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day. Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore 14 displeased, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him : and he laboured till the going down of the sun to rescue him. Then these men assembled together unto the king, 15 and said unto the king, Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians, that no interdict nor statute which the king establisheth may be changed. Then the ^6 king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions. Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee. And a stone was brought, and laid upon 17 the mouth of the den ; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; ^ that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king 18 went to his palace, and passed the night fasting : neither were ^' instruments of music brought before him : and his * Or, that there might he no change of purpose "^ Or, dancing girls 13. reg-ardeth not thee. Read ' obeyeth not thee' as in iii. 12 (see note). maketh Ms petition. Add with the LXX and Theod. * to his God.' Cf. verses 10. ir. 15. This verse comes in here awkwardly. In the preceding verse the text presupposes Daniel's adversaries as present before the king. What then is to be made of this verse which begins : 'Then these men assembled together'? Something seems wrong. We might perhaps with Theodotion omit the words 'assembled together unto the king and '. This certainly removes the difficulty. But the order and possibly the form of the text in the LXX are probably to be preferred, which omits the above clause and trans- fers this verse before ver. 13. The text of the LXX, which diverges greatly here, is in part supported by the account in Josephus. See my larger Commentary for details. 17. his own signet. Seals were used throughout the ancient world. See Art. 'Ring' in the Encvc. Bib. and 'Seal' in Hastings' BD. 18. instruments of mxisic. The real meaning of the word 66 DANIEL 6. 19-24 19 sleep fled from him. Then the king arose very early in the morning, and went in haste unto the den of lions. 20 And when he came nearunto the den to Daniel, he cried with a lamentable voice : the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from 21 the lions? Then said Daniel unto the king, O king, live 33 for ever. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, and they have not hurt me : forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also 33 before thee, O king, have I done no hurt. Then was the king exceeding glad, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he had trusted in his God. 24 And the king commanded, and they brought those men which had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives ; and the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in pieces, or ever they came at the bottom of the den. dahawan is unknown. Theodotion and the Peshitto render it ' foods,' Ibn Ezra ' stringed instruments,' Saadi, * dancing girls.' It is perhaps best, with Marti and Prince, to regard dachawan as corrupt for I'henan = 'concubines' (v. 2, 3, 23V But it is possible that the text is here simply corrupt, and that for 'ji-jn n"? pm we should with the LXX and Josephus read "jS'n '"^V mn 'ii = ' he grieved about Daniel.' Dahawan would then be a vox nihili. 20. the living- God. Cf. Deut. v. 26, Joshua iii. lo, &c. 22. before thee. See note on ver. 10. 24. accused. See iii. 8, note. had the mastsry of them, or ' fell upon them," as in the Targums on 2 Sam. i. 15, and in the corresponding Hebrew in Esther ix. i according to many scholars. or ever: a reduplicated form of ' ere' = ' before.' DANIEL 6. 25-28-7. I 67 Then king Darius wrote unto all the peoples, nations, 25 and languages, that dwell in all the earth ; Peace be multiplied unto you. I make a decree, that in all the 26 dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel : for he is the living God, and stedfast for ever, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be even unto the end : he delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs and 27 wonders in heaven and in earth ; who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions. So this Daniel 28 prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian. In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel 7 25-28. The edict of the king. This edict is composed almost wholly of turns and phrases found in the earlier chapters, and the essential thought of the historical section of the book is here set forth in metrical form. 25. Cf. iv. I. 26. I make a decree. So iii. 29. tremble and fear. This phrase has been used in reference to Nebuchadnezzar iri v. 19. 26'*-27. The text should probably be arranged as follows : * For he is the living God, And he abideth for ever : And his kingdom is one that cannot be destroyed, And his dominion is everlasting : He delivereth and rescueth, And worketh signs and wonders In heaven and in earth, Who hath delivered Daniel From the power of the lions.' 26. his king'dom, &c. Cf. ii. 44, iv. 3, 34 b, vii. 14, 27. 27. delivereth and rescueth. Cf iii, 28, 29. sigTis and wonders. Cf. iv. 2, 3. from the power. This general expression recalls llic more definite one in i Sam. xvii. 37 'from the claws of the lion.' VII-XII. The Visions of Daniel. vii. The vision in this chapter is parallel with that in chapter ii. 68 DANIEL 7. i » had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed : * Aram. saw. The four world kingdoms followed by a fifth— that of the Saints — are the subject of both, the four kingdoms being symbolized by the four parts of the great image in ii and the four beasts in vii. Three questions call for consideration. These are i°. The four world empires. 2". The ten horns. 3". The three horns plucked up. The Four World Empires. Only two interpretations that gained the suffrages of the centuries immediately following the publication of Daniel have any claims to consideration here. 1°. The first, of which only a few, but undubitable, traces survive, identified the fourth kingdom with the Greek empire, the other, which is attested in the first century of the Christian era, but probably originated earlier, identified it with the Roman empire. It goes without saying that, if the latter had been first in the field, the former could never have gained a hearing after the close of the second century B.C. ; for then the Roman and not the Greek empire was all powerful in the East. This first inter- pretation, which is also the true one, passed out of currency just because history had failed to confirm it. In this, as in other instances of unfulfilled prophecy, the faithful applied themselves anew to the study of the prophecy in question, and so a fresh interpretation of the four kingdoms was issued, which discovered in the fourth kingdom the empire of Rome. Since this is a simple statement of historical fact, it will be unnecessary to enter here on the vagaries of mediaeval and modern hermeneutics on this chapter. It will be sufficient to give briefly the evidence for the above statements. (a) According to the older and true interpretation the four kingdoms were (i) the Babylonian, (2) the Median, (3) the Persian, (4) the Greek or Macedonian. The identification of the Selucidae or Greek rulers of Syria with the fourth kingdom first appears, though in a veiled form, as befits the character of the work, in the Sibylline Oracles, iii. 388-400. This portion of the book, which was written not later than 140 b.c, refers to the ten horns of our text. 388 * One day there shall come unexpectedly to Asia's wealthy land A man clad with a purple cloak upon his shoulders, Savage, a stranger to justice, fiery ; for he hath exalted himself Even against the thunder, a mortal as he is. And all Asia shall have an evil yoke, And the drenched earth shall drink large draughts of blood. DANIEL 7. r 69 then he wrote the dream and told the sum of the matters. But even so Hades shall attend him utterly destroyed. By the race of those whose family he wishes to destroy 395 By them shall his own family be destroyed. Yet after leaving one root, which the Destroyer shall cut off From among ten horns, he shall put forth a side shoot. He shall cut down the warrior parent of the purple race, And fhe himself at the hand of his grandsons shall perish in a like fate of warf : 400 And then a parasite horn shall have dominion.' (Translated by Lanchester in Charles' Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha^ ii. 385-86.) In these verses we have the interpretation put on the ten horns of the fourth kingdom. It may not, it is true, agree exactly with any modern identification of the ten 'horns' or kings, but it is at one with them in regarding the ' horns ' as kings of the Greek empire. In the Sibj'llines 'the man clad with a purple cloak' is Antiochus Epiphanes. The race, which Antiochus Epiphanes wished to destroy, was that of his brother Seleucus IV, Philopator. But the son of the latter, Demetrius I (162-150 B.C.), shall put to death the 'one root' which Antiochus left, i.e. Antiochus V, Eupator (164-162 B.C.), or, in the words of the Sibyl, 'shall cut (him) off from among ten horns.' Demetrius I was in turn slain by ' the side shoot,' i. e. Alexander Balas, who claimed to be a son of Antiochus Epiphanes, and reigned from 150 to 146 B.C. He was slain by Demetrius II and Ptolemy VI, Philometor (i Mace, xi. 1-19), and not by the former and Antiochus VII as the Sib3'llines state. The parasite horn is Trypho, who had his ward Antiochus VI removed and reigned in his stead from 142 to 137 B.C. The text of the Sibyllines is not free from corruption. Again, 4 Ezra xii. 10-12 (a.d. 80-120), which interprets the fourth kingdom of the Roman empire, quite clearly states that this interpretation is not the interpretation which the angel gave to Daniel, i.e. that which identified the Greek empire with the fourth kingdom, and which till Rome became mistress of the East had been the accepted one. The passage in Ezra runs: xii. 10 'And he said unto me: This is the interpretation of the vision which thou hast seen, 11. The Eagle whom thou sawest come up from the sea is the fourth kingdom, which appeared in vision to thy brother Daniel, 12. But it was not interpreted unto him as I now interpret it unto thee or have interpreted it.' This interpretation was still prevalent in the third century a.d. ; for it was recognized by Porph3'r3' a.d. 233-304), and in the fourth by Ephrem Syrus (a.d. 300-350). Median empire. 70 DANIEL 7. 2 2 Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, According, therefore, to the authentic interpretation of Dan. ii, vii, and viii the symbols are to be identified as follows : Chap. ii. The vii. The four beasts. ) -d u 1 _j . •_ „ Babylonian great image. femnire The golden head = Lion with Eagle's wings. j " Silverbreastand = Bear with three ribs in its mouth" arms ( = first and shorter horn of ram in viii). Brass belly and = Leopard with four wings (--) p thighs. second and higher horn of ram L ^ ...V ^ f empire, in viii). I *^ Iron legs, feet = Beast with iron teeth and ten horns \ and toes, part- among which arose a little horn [ ^ , ly iron, partly (= goat with one horn followed ^ . clay. by four horns out of which arose " a little horn in viii). / {b) The second interpretation, which arose on the failure of the first and identified the Roman empire with the fourth kingdom, is found in the N. T. In Rev. xiii the first monster, which emerges from the sea with seven heads and ten horns, is the Roman empire. Again, in the ' Little Apocalypse' in Mark xiii ( = Matt, xxiv = Luke xxi), the author of this Apocalypse clearly regarded Dan. ix. 27, xi. 31, xii. 11 as referring to the Roman empire (see Mark xiii. 14). If we turn from the N.T. to early Jewish and Christian litera- ture, we are justified in supposing that the author of the Assump- tion of Moses (a.d. 7-3O; interpreted the fourth kingdom of Rome ; for in viii-ix of this work there is an account of the calamities endured under Antiochus Epiphanes. That is in the past so far as the writer is concerned. Then as regards the future, he predicts the overthrow of Rome by Israel, ix. 8. ' Then thou, O Israel, shalt be happy And thou shalt mount on the necks and wings of the Eagle And they shall be endedf:' where the last two lines should probably be read as : 'And thou shalt go up against the Eagle And its necks and wings shall be destroyed.' But, however this may be, there can be no doubt as to the passage in 4 Ezra xii. 11-12 {c. a.d. 120) where the writer clearly implies that the angel in Dan. vii. 17-19, 23 sqq. mis- interpreted Daniel's vision by identifying the Greek empire with the fourth beast. The same view is to be found in Ep. Barn. iv. 4-5 {c. A.D. 100-120), and in Hippolytus (c, a.d. 220), and in the Talmud —Aboda Zara r^ DANIEL 7. 2 71 behold, the four winds of the heaven brake forth upon Some modern scholars have advocated this view, but it is wholly untenable. The former view is now accepted practically by the whole world of scholarship. 2*^. the ten horns. The ' ten horns ' represent ten kings (cf. ver. 24), and not ten kingdoms as in viii. 8, where the ^ four horns ' stand for four kingdoms. Now, since after these ten horns there arises another horn, the 'little horn,' and since this little horn is Antiochus Epiphanes, it follows that the ten preceding horns are kings. But owing to the paucity of our information it has not yet been determined definitely who these ten kings are. They have been taken to represent the successors of Alexander by many scholars ; and so we have (i) Seleucus I, Nicator (312-280 B.C.) : (2) Antiochus I, Soter (279-261) : (3' Antiochus II, Theos (261-246) : (4) Seleucus II, Callinicus (246-226) : (5) Seleucus III, Ceraunus ^226-223 : ^6 Antiochus III, the Great (222 187) : (7) Seleucus IV, Philopator ^186-176): (8) Heliodorus : (9, Plolemy VII, Philometor (182-146): (10) Demetrius I, Soter. These last ihree had all stood in the way of Antiochus Epiphanes and had either directly or indirectly suffered at his hands in his efforts to secure the throne and establish his power. But as Hitzig, Kuenen, Bevan, and others urge, the list should begin with Alexander, since the fourth beast represents the Greek supremacy. Hence they begin the list with Alexander the Great and reckon the last three as (8) Seleucus IV, Philopator : (9) Heliodorus : (10) Demetrius I, Soter. 3°. the three horns plucked up. Of the ten horns three were to be 'plucked up' (ver. 8), overthrown (ver. 26), or 'put down ' (ver. 24^, by the eleventh horn, i. e. Antiochus Epiphanes. These were most probably the last three in the list of ten just given. Antiochus Epiphanes would appear to the Jews, as may be inferred from our text, to have instigated the removal of Seleucus Philometor by Heliodorus. The latter, we know, he crushed through the help of his friends Attains and Eumenes of Pergamum. The grounds are less cogent with regard to Demetiius Soter. It is true that he was the rightful heir of the kingdom, but he was kept out of his inheritance by Antiochus. He could hardly, therefore, be said to have reigned before Antiochus or to have been slain by him. On these grounds, it has been objected that Demetrius Soter cannot be rightly included in the above list. Instead of Demetrius Soter as the tenth king it has been suggested by von Gutschmidt that the last of the three horns was not this Demetrius but a brother of his, who was executed by the orders of Antiochus according to John of Antioch (Muller, Frag. Hist. Grace., iv. 558, quoted by Bevan). If we accept this suggestion the last three princes satisfy fairly the conditions of the problem. 7a DANIEL 7. 3, 4 3 the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the 4 sea, diverse one from another. The first was hke a Hon, vii. 1. In the first year of Belshazzar. The historical narra- tives are now at an end and a series of visions begins herewith. The first of these goes back to a date earlier than that of chap. v. had. Literally ' saw ' as in marg. then he wrote the dream. From ver. a onwards through- out the book Daniel speaks in the first person unless in x. i. told the snm of the matters. . . . spake and said. These words may be a gloss. They are omitted by Theodotion : their omission restores the text to order. From the preceding words we learn that Daniel wrote down his visions. We are therefore to regard what follows as a transcript of the original account of his visions. But the words told . . . said represent Daniel as Hot only writing an account of his visions but also as subsequently recounting them orally. The LXX omits with Theodotion saving the clause ' the sum of the matters.' Instead, therefore, of 'he wrote . . . and said ' we should probably read : ' he wrote the dream (and) the sum of matters,' i.e. a summary account of the vision. 2-8. The /our beasts. 2. in my vision by night. The LXX, Theod. and Pesh. read as in vii. 7, 13 'in the visions of the night.' four winds of the heaven. Cf. viii. 8, xi. 4, Zech. ii. 6, vi. 5. brake forth upon the great sea. So the R.V., but this would naturally require b? or a before sea instead of *f. Hence Ldv}' and Bevan suggest that the verb should be taken transitively as in the Targums : ' stirred up the great sea.' the great sea. This is usually the Mediterranean (Joshua ix. i). But not improbably it has a mythological meaning here : cf. Isa. li. 10, Ps. Ixxiv. 13 sq. as Marti suggests. 3. oame up from the sea. Cf. Rev. xiii. i, Ezra xi. i, xiii. 3. 4. Babylon is compared here to a lion in regard to its might (cf. Jer. xlix. 19, 1. 17), and to an eagle because of its swiftness (cf. Jer. xlix. 22, Hab. i. 8). Its distinguishing characteristics belong naturally to the animal world. But after a time these animal characteristics disappear, and the Babylonian kingdom becomes so to speak humanized in the person of its head, i.e. Nebuchadnezzar ; for there is obviousl}' an allusion here to the experiences in chap, iv, Nebuchadnezzar being here, as in ii. 38, identified with the kingdom of Babylon. The beast's heart (iv. 16) was removed from him and his understanding restored (iv. 34, 36), so here the creature that represents Babylon receives the heart (i.e. the intelligence) of a man, and like him is made to stand upon its feet. DANIEL 7. 5-7 73 and had eagle's wings : I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made to stand upon two feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it. And behold another beast, a 5 second, like to a bear, and ^it was raised up on one side, and three ribs were in his mouth between his teeth : and they said thus unto it. Arise, devour much flesh. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which 6 had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl ; the beast had also four heads ; and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth 7 beast, terrible and ^powerful, and strong exceedingly; * Or, as otherwise read, it raised up one dominion ^ Or, dreadful It must be confessed that the above explanation is rather forced, but this is owing to the combination of two really incongruous sets of ideas, 5. The Median Empire appears in the form of a bear. As the bear is inferior in strength to the lion, so the Median Empire was inferior to that of Babylon (ii. 39). another ... a second. One or other of these two words is a gloss. The former is omitted by Theod. and the Pesh. : the latter by the LXX and the Vulgate. The text in verse 6 supports the LXX and Vulgate. it was raised np on one side. So some MSS., LXX, and Theod. The Massoretic reads 'it had raised up one side.' The difference is immaterial so far as the meaning goes, which is far from obvious. Perhaps the words point to its inferiority in respect to the first kingdom (ii. 39). three ribs were in his mouth. These words may point to the ravenous nature of the beast — an idea suggested (Bevan) by those passages of the prophets in which the Medes are summoned to ravage Babylon (Isa. xiii. 17, Jer. Ii. ir, 28). they said. Simply an Aramaism equivalent to * it was said.' 6. upon the back of it. Rather * on its sides.' The four wings are regarded as indicating the might of the Persian Empire as extending to the four quarters of the earth, and the four heads as symbolizing the four Persian kings (xi. a). 7-8. The fourth beast, i.e. the Gretk Empire. 74 DANIEL 7. f?, 9 and it had great iron teeth : it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet : and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it ; and 8 it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots : and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the 9 eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things. I be- 7. it was diverse from all, &c. These words give the impres- sion created in the oriental mind by the conquests of Alexander. While the preceding empires had left local customs untouched, the Greek Empire overthrew the older civilization and transformed it radically. It did its task with thoroughness : * it devoured and brake in pieces, and crushed the residue with its feet.' it had ten horns. These are ten kings — most probably successors of Alexander on the throne of Antioch. See Introd. to this chapter. For the horn used as a symbol of a king, cf. verse 24, viii. 5, 8% 9, 21, I Enoch xc. 9, or a dynasty of kings viii. 3, 6, 7, 8^ 20, 22. 8. another horn, a little one. Cf. viii. 9. The * little horn ' is Antiochus Epiphanes. He was 'little* to begin with, but soon achieved such power that three of the first horns were overthrown by him. Antiochus was not the lawful heir (xi. 21). three of the first horns. These were most probably i^. Seleucus IV (Philopator\ who was murdered by his minister Heliodorus ; 2°. Heliodorus, who soon after his usurpation was overthrown by Attains and Eumenesof Pergamum ; 3'*. Demetrius I (Soter), who was the son and lawful heir of Seleucus IV (Philo- pator). But see Introd. to this chapter. eyes like the eyes of a man. These imply the faculty of keen observation and therefore of intelligence. Cf. viii. 23. a mouth speaking" g'reat thingfs. Cf. Ps. xii. 3, ' the tongue that speaketh great things,' Obad. 12, Rev. xiii. 5. These words are very suitable to Antiochus Epiphanes, who was to 'speak marvellous things against the God of gods' (xi. 36). Cf. i Mace, i. 24, where it is said that after robbing the Temple of all its treasures he 'spake very presumptuously.' His conduct is de- scribed in analogous terms in 2 Mace. v. 17, 21. and he made war with the saints. These words should be added to verse 8, with the LXX. This forms the crowning sin of the little horn, and the context requires it. Besides it is found in the like contexts in verses 21, 25. On the violent measures taken by Antiochus Epiphanes against the Jews, cf. 25, viii. 10-14, 24-25. DANIEL 7. 9 75 held till thrones were " placed, and one that was ancient * Or. cast down 9-14. Divine judgement of the heathen poivers. As in 1-8 Daniel saw on the earth in a vision of the first year of Belshazzar the four kingdoms that would successively hold the world in thrall, so here at their close his vision is carried from earth to heaven and he learns in the final judgement of God the right explanation of the course of the world's empires and their history. At this judgement which he foresees in his vision the thrones were set for the heavenly powers, the assessors of the Judge, and the Almighty Himself appeared seated on a throne of fire and encompassed with myriads of angelic beings. The books were opened, and the fourth beast was slain because of the horn that spoke great things, and the other three beasts had their dominion taken away. Then there came in the clouds of heaven a being like a son of man, and to him was given an everlasting dominion and a kingdom that should not pass away. 9-10. We have here two stanzas of three lines each. 9. thrones were placed: i.e. for the angelic assessors. On the expression cf. Ps. cxxii. 5, ' thrones for judgement.' Here, as in iv. 17, the heavenly powers take part with God in the judgement. one that was ancient of days : lit. 'one aged in days.' This means simply an aged being. The same expression, as Driver points out, occurs in the Syriac version of Wisdom ii. 10 for ' an old man ' and in Sir. xxv. 4 for ' elders.' The Hebrew equivalent occurs in Gen. xxiv. i. Marti compares it with the expressions ' the first and the last,' Isa. xliv. 6, 'He that sitteth (enthroned) of old,' Ps. Iv. 19, and 'the Eternal One,' i Bar. iv. 10, 14, 20. But there is no element of eternity in the phrase in our text. Hence it is an extraordinary expression to apply to God, and accordingly if we take into account the fact that throughout this and all other Jewish apocalypses every reference to or description of God is couched in terms of the utmost reverence, we must find it difficult to accept the phrase as original in its present form. If this is so it is not improbable that instead of ' one aged in days' the text originally read 'one like an aged being' or ' man.' This would be the true apocalyptic form of expression, resembling that in Ezek. i. 26, where the exceeding reverence of the seer's words should be observed. I, therefore, suggest that K^^'attik yomin = 'one like an aged being' was an apocal^'ptic designation of God in Aramaic. When this designation was once accepted, the next stage in its development would be possible, i. e. to drop the comparative particle and therewith the apocalyptic form of the expression and transform the indefinite expression into a definite : i. e. instead of I 76 DANIEL 7. lo of days did sit : his raiment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery 10 flames, and the wheels thereof burning fire. A fiery * like an aged being ' we should have * the aged being ' (vii. 13, 2a). We have an exactly similar development in the case of 'like a son of man ' (Dan. vii. 13) and 'the Son of Man ' (i Enoch xlvi. a, &c.). The latter expression has no meaning apart from its development out of 'like a son of man.' The phrase 'an aged being' denotes simply, as above said, an old man. But the apocalyptic phrase 'like an aged being' affirms at once a likeness and an unlikeness. The likeness consists in the dignified appearance of an aged man, the unlikeness in the fact that the Being so described is not a human but a supernatural being. In apocalyptic visions, where men or nations are symbolized by animals, supernatural beings are symbolized by men. his raiment was white as snow. The Massoretic punctua- tion requires ' his raiment was as white snow.' the hair of his head like pure wool. The suggestion of the context is that the hair was white. Hence unless we assume that wool is white, which of course it sometimes is, the comparison is not a good one. The LXX has here ' the hair of his head was spotless as white wool.' This reading has the support of 1 Enoch xlvi. I, Rev. i. 14. See detailed criticism in my larger Com- mentary. his throne was flery flames, &c. We might compare i Enoch xiv. i8-2a with verses 9-10 of our text. * And I looked and saw therein a lofty throne : Its appearance was as crystal, And the wheels thereof as the shining sun, And there was the vision of cherubim. 19 And from underneath the throne came streams of flaming fire So that I could not look thereon. 20 And the Great Glory sat thereon And His raiment shone more brightly than the sun, And was whiter than any snow . . . 22 The flaming fire was round about Him, And a great fire stood before Him, And none around could draw nigh Him. Ten thousand times ten thousand (stood) before Him, Yet He needed no counsellor.' the wheels thereof burning' fire. Cf. i Enoch xiv. 18 quoted above, Ezek. i. 15 sqq. 10. A flery stream . . . came forth f^om before him. Cf. Ps. DANIEL 7. ri-13 77 stream issued and came forth from before him : thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him : the judgement was set, and the books were opened. I beheld at that time n because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake ; I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and he was given ^ to be burned with fire. And as for the rest of the beasts, their dominion 12 was taken away : yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. I saw in the night visions, and, 13 * Aram, to the burning of fire. xcvii. 3, 'a fire goeth before Him,' also 1. 3. On 'from before' see note on vi. 10. thousand thousands, &c. Cf. Deut. xxxiii. 2, i Enoch i. 9, xiv. 22, xl. I, Ixxi. 8, 13, Jude 14, 15. stood before: i.e. were in attendance. the judgement was set. * The judgement nere ^ those who judge, just as in Jer. xxiii. 18, Ps. Ixxxix. 7 'council' (i. e. sod)^ •those who deliberate' (Bevan). the books were opened. Cf. Exod. xxxii. 32 sq. , Ps. Ixix. 28, Isa. iv. 3, I Enoch xlvii. 3 (where see full note on this subject), Jubilees xxx. 20 sqq., Luke x. 20, Hebrews xii. 23, Rev. iii. 5, XX, 12. 11. The fourth beast is destroyed once and for all, because of the blasphemies of Antiochus Epiphanes (ver. 8) ; for then the guilt had become full (viii. 23). I beheld 2*^. This repetition is uncalled for. It is probably a gloss, for it is omitted by Theod. and also by the LXX as we learn from the Hexaplaric Syriac. he was given to be burned with fire. This is the final place of punishment — a place of fire as i Enoch x. 6, xviii. 11, xxi. 7-10, where the fallen angels were cast. These passages are older than our text. In xc. 24-27, which may have been written contemporaneously with our text, the same place of torment is referred to. 12. The three remaining beasts are not destroyed forthwith as the fourth beast. These heathen powers survive the loss of their dominion, as nations, not as kingdoms. In chapter ii the four kingdoms are destroyed simultaneously. 13-14. These verses form a stanza of six lines. Verse 13 consists of a distich of two double lines, verse 14 is a tetrastich : I 2 78 DANIEL 7. 14 behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man, and he came even to the ancient of 14 days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him : his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. ' And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him : His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, And his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.' came with the clouds of heaven. See following note. Cf. Mark xiii. 26, xiv. 62, Rev. i. 7, xiv. 14, 15, 16. Owing to this verse the Messiah was sometimes designated ' the Cloud Man.' like unto a son of man. In apocalyptic visions, where men are symbolized by beasts, angels and supernatural beings are symbolized by men. This symbolism will be found on a large scale in i Enoch Ixxxix-xc. If, therefore, the expression is to be taken strictly, it undoubtedly suggests a supernatural being, or a body of such beings. Since the beings thus referred to are, according to the interpretation of the angel, the people of the saints of the Most High (verses 18, 22, 27), we are to infer that the faithful remnant of Israel are to be transformed into heavenly or supernatural beings, as in i Enoch xc. 38 (i6r b. c), and in later apocalypses, which expect an everlasting kingdom upon earth. That this is the meaning of the words is clear from the clause that follows, 'came with the clouds of heaven.' This clause undoubtedly implies superhuman authority and state. How this passage gave risesubsequently to the Messianic designa- tion can readilj' be understood from what precedes. The writer of the Parables of Enoch (i Enoch xxxvii-Ixxi) was the first student of Daniel vii, so far as existing literature goes, to interpret * one like a son of man ' in this passage as relating to an individual. The moment he did so, he rose to the conception of a superhuman Messiah, while following the natural method of interpreting the vision. the ancient of days. See verse 9, note. they brought him. This expression in Aramaic is simply equivalent to the passive : ' he was brought,' as in verse 5. DANIEL 7. 15-18 79 As for me Daniel, my spirit was grieved in the midst 15 of '^my body, and tiie visions of my head troubled me. I came near unto one of them that stood by, and asked [6 him the truth concerning all this. So he told me, and made me know the interpretation of the things. These 17 great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High ig * Aram, the sheath. 15-28. The interpretation of the vision. 15. in the midst of my body: lit. 'in the midst of the (or "its") sheath.' The original n;i: ui is generally regarded as corrupt for r^y^ p2, ' on account of these things.' The LXX reads kv rovTois, which supports the above restoration. 16. one of them that stood by. This is taken to mean one of the angels in attendance on God (ver. 13). This angel gives at first a short and summary answer (17-18), and afterwards a full interpretation in answer to Daniel's request for further information. In the visions of the earlier prophets God Himself spake to the prophet (Amos vii, viii, Isa. vi, Jer. i, &c.), but in Zech. i. 7-vi. 8, Daniel, i Enoch, Test, xii Patriarchs, Jubilees, 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra, the part of the interpreter is discharged by an angel. In Ezek. xl-xlviii we have a combination of both methods, and this section accordingly marks the period of transition from one method to the other. 17-18. The angel's reply forms a tetrastich. 17. These great beasts, which are four, &c. The words 'which are four ' are omitted by the LXX. They are certainly unneces- sary ; for the seer knows perfectly well the number of the king- doms. But further the words 'shall arise out of the earth' are certainly corrupt. According to vii. 3 they arise out of the sea : cf. Rev. xiii. i, 4 Ezra xi. i. By a careful stud}' of the LXX and Thcod. we arrive at the following text : * these great beasts are four kingdoms, which shall be destroyed from the earth.' See my larger Commentary. kings. The word here stands for ' kingdoms.' 18. the saints . . . shall receive the king'dom : i. e. from God. Cf. verse 27. Though the phrase ' kingdom of God ' is not found in Daniel, yet we have here substantially the thought for which it stands. Furthermore the thought here is not ' the divine sovereignty' — the meaning now all but universally given to this phrase 'kingdom of God' in the N.T. and in Rabbinic writings, but 'a divinely organized community.' This is clear also from verse 14. 8o DANIEL 7. 19-2 a shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for 19 ever, even for ever and ever. Then I desired to know the truth concerning the fourth beast, which was diverse from all of them, exceeding terrible, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass ; which devoured, brake in 20 pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet ; and con- cerning the ten horns that were on his head, and the other horn which came up, and before which three fell ; even that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. 21 I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, 22 and prevailed against them; until the ancient of days came, and judgement was given ^to the saints of the * Ot.for Since the term for ' saints ' (kaddishin) here is used specially of angels in iv. 13 and not that used universally in the Psalms {hasid), it is clear that the author expressly chose this term in order to indicate the heavenly origin of the kingdom and its members as opposed to that of the gentile powers. 'The saints of the Most High' (22% 25, 27) are spoken of simply as * saints' in 21, 22^. And as being heavenly in its origin it is likewise of everlasting duration. In verse 14 the sovereignty of the saints is described in terms that are elsewhere used of the sovereignty of God Himself : cf- iv. 3, 34, VI. 26. 19-22. DanieVs request for further information. 19. Cf. verses 7-8. nails of brass: not mentioned before. 20. even that horn that had eyes : rather • and as regards that horn, it had eyes and a mouth,' &c. look (or 'appearance') was more stout, &c. The small horn (ver. 8) grew quickly to a great size (viii. 9',. fli-a2. A recapitulation of 8-12, 13-14. The only addition is the clause * and prevailed against them ' ; for on verse 8 it has been shown that the clause ' and it made war with the saints ' belonged originally to the text of that verse. 21. prevailed against them : till the intervention of the Most High. Cf. next verse. 22. the ancient of days: here the apocalyptic form of the expression (see verse 9") is dropped as in verse 13. judgfement was g'iven to (or rather ' for '^ the saints. The DANIEL 7. 23-25 81 Most High ; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom. Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be 23 a fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all the kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall «• tread it down, and break it in pieces. And as for 24 the ten horns, out of this kingdom shall ten kings arise : and another shall arise after them ; and he shall be diverse from the former, and he shall put down three kings. And he shall speak words against the Most High, and 25 shall wear out the saints of the Most High : and he shall think to change the times and the law ; and they shall * Or, thresh it saints do not judge, but God alone is Judge. Ewald, followed by most scholars, has restored n^td'^iti nrr before :i-i\ Hence we should read ' the judgement (was set and dominion) was given to the saints.' Cf. vii. lo^ 14, 26, 27. the time came : i. e. the time fixed by God as the limit of the heathen rule. Cf. Luke xxi. 8 o Kaipds rjyyiicfv. 23-27. The fuller answer of the angel in metrical form. Verse 23 forms a tetrastich with an initial long line. *The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom upon earth, Which shall be diverse from all the kingdoms, And shall devour the whole earth,' &c. Verse 24 forms also a tetrastich of which the words ' the ten horns ' form the title. Verse 25 is also a tetrastich. See in he. Verse 26 is a tristich, while verse 27 seems to be composed of two tristichs (Marti). 24. The ten horns are ten kings. he shall be diverse, &c. : the eleventh king shall be diverse from the ten not only in removing his three predecessors but in his blasphemies against the Most High and his persecution of the saints. 25. 'And he shall speak words against the Most High, And shall wear out the saints of the Most High : And he shall think to change the times and the law, And they shall be given,' &c. wear out (or 'away') : cf. Isa. iii. 15, i Chron. xvii. 9. the times and the law : Antiochus attempted to suppress the religious festivals of the Jews and the law : cf. i Mace. i. 44- 49. 'Times' here are set times for religious observances, like Church seasons. Sa DANIEL 7. 26-38—8. I be given into his hand until a time and times and half 26 a time. But the judgement shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto 27 the end. And the kingdom and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High : his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions 28 shall serve and obey him. ^ Here is the end of the matter. As for me Daniel, my thoughts much troubled me, and my ^ countenance was changed in me : but I kept the matter in my heart. 8 In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a * Aram. Hitherto. ^ Aram, brightness. a time and times and half a time : a ' time ' here means a year. See iv. 16 note. Hence this period during which the Jewish religion was to be suppressed was three and a half years. This was the traditional limit assigned to the kingdom of the Antichrist. Here this period begins in 168 and terminates in 165 B. c. See note on viii. 14. 26-27. At the close of the three and a half years the judgement will take place, and the kingdom of the saints be established, which embraces every country under heaven and not merely the fourth kingdom. 26. judgement shall sit: cf 10'^, 11'^, 22, they shall take away his dominion : an Aramaism for ' his dominion shall be taken away.' The R.V. should have used the passive here as they have done in verse 12. unto the end : cf. vi. a6. 27. his kingdom . . . obey him. Read 'its kingdom . . . obey it.' The pronoun refers not to God but to the saints. 28. thoughts . . . troubled me : cf. iv. 19, v. 6, 10. changed in me. Read 'changed upon me' or simply * changed.' Z kept the matter in my heart: cf, LXX iv. 25, T. Lev. vi. 2, viii. 19, Luke ii. 19. Chap. viii. The vision of the victory of the Greek over the Median and Persian Empires, and of the persecution of the Jews, and the suspension of the Temple worship by Antiochus Epiphanes. DANIEL 8. 3 83 vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first. And I saw in 2 the vision ; now it was so, that when I saw, I was in Shushan the ^ palace, which is in the province of Elam ; and I saw in the vision, and I was by the river Ulai. * Or, castle The aim of this chapter is to give fuller disclosures concerning those parts of the vision in chapter vii with which our author is mainly concerned. Although the vision is dated from the third year of Belshazzar it contains no reference to the Babylonian Empire. The two Empires of Media and Persia are represented under a single figure and dismissed in a few clauses in order the more speedily to deal with his main subject, the Empire of the Greeks. After recounting briefly the conquests of Alexander (5-8), he hastens on to relate the history of Antiochus Epiphanes, his per- secution of the Jews, and his suspension of the worship in the Temple. 1. In the tliird year. See vii. i note, at the first : i. e. previously as in vii. 2. The seer is carried in a vision to Shushan, as Ezekiel was carried to Jerusalem, Ezek. viii. 3-xi. 24, xl. 2sqq. Shushan the palace Tor R.V. marg. 'castle'). This is the regular description of Shushan in O.T. : Neh. i. i ; Esther i. 2, 5, ii. 3, 5, 8, &c. The word for ' castle ' or ' citadel,' i. e. bimh, is late Hebrew from the Assyrio-Babylonian bititi, and found elsewhere only in i Chron. xxix. i, 19, Ezra vi. 2, Neh. ii. 8, vii. 2. This citadel of Shushan, i. e. Susa, was celebrated in ancient times for its strength (Herod, v. 54\ It is distinguished from, the city in Esther iii. 15. Shushan was in later times probably the capital of Elam. The first Susa with its palace was destroyed by Assur- bani-pal (668-626 b.c). To this Susa there is no reference in the O.T. It was refounded by Darius Hystaspis (521-485 B.C.), and according to Xenophon {Cyrop. viii. 6. 22") 'was the winter residence of the Persian kings, the rest of the year being spent by them at Babylon and Ecbatana' (see Encyc. Bib. iv. 4499 sq.). It would appear, therefore, that, during the period to which our text would refer the reign of Belshazzar, there was no ' palace ' or 'citadel' at Susa, and that the city itself was in an evil con- dition, if not entirely ruined. Elam. Shushan is here said to be in Elam, but in Ezra iv. 9 it seems to be distinguished from it. the river Ulai. The word for 'river,' 'ubal, is found only here and in 3, 6. It is a phonetic variation ofyubal in Jer. xvii. 8. 84 DANIEL 8. ?,-5 3 Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns : and the two horns were high ; but one was higher than the 4 other, and the higher came up last. I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; and no beasts could stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand ; but he did according 5 to his will, and magnified himself. And as I was con- sidering, behold, an he-goat came from the west over The Ulai is the Eulaeus on which, according to Pliny ^H. N. vi. 135), Susa was situated, though Herodotus (i. i88, v. 49, 52' places it on the Choaspes. Three rivers flow from the north near Susa into the Persian Gulf: the Kerkha ( = the ancient Choaspes) ; the Abdizful (= the Coprates) which falls into the Karun (=the Pasitigris) ; and the Eulaeus, 'a large artificial canal . . ., which left the Choaspes at Pai Pul, about 20 miles N.W. of Susa, passed close by the town of Susa on the N. or N.E., and afterwards joined the Coprates ' (Driver). 3. The seer beholds, in the form of a single ram, the kingdoms of Media and Persia, the ram being a well-known symbol of might and dominion. But though these two nations can thus be repre- sented by one animal, since they are regarded as akin to each other, their diversity is brought forward. The ram has two horns : the stronger which came up later represents Persia, while the earlier and weaker stands for Media. Cf. ii. 39 for a like distinction. 4. The eastern conquests of the Achaemenidae were of no interest to the Jew, and are therefore not mentioned. according' to his will: i.e. his caprice. Cf. xi. 3, 16, 36, Esther ix. 5. mag-nified himself: there is a nuance of arrogance and insolence in the word : cf. Ps. Iv. 12, Jer. xlviii. 26. 5-7. An he-goat (= the Greek Empire) attacks the ram and overcomes it. This goat had a notable horn between its eyes, i.e. Alexander the Great (verse 21). 5. an he-g'oat. The Hebrew here reads 'the he-goat,' but the two Greek versions rightly omit the definite article. If the article were right it would represent the ' he-goat ' as well known, although appearing now for the first time in the vision. The word for he-goat is late Hebrew (cf. Ezra viii. 35, 2 Chron. xxix. 21), and probably borrowed from Aramaic. As a symbol of a chief or DANIEL 8. 6-8 85 the face of the whole earth, and a touched not the ground : and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. And 6 he came to the ram that had the two horns, which I saw standing before the river, and ran upon him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, 7 and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns ; and there was no power in the ram to stand before him : but he cast him down to the ground, and trampled upon him ; and there was none that could deliver the rani out of his hand. And the he-goat magnified himself exceedingly : and 8 when he was strong, the great horn was broken ; and instead of it there came up four notable /lorm toward •^ Heb. tione touched the ground. ruler the term ' he-goat ' is to be found in Isa. xiv. 9, xxxiv. 6, but it is the classical Hebrew word that is used there. touched not the ground: i. e. without touching the ground. To arrive at this rendering a slight change in the text (which is really translated in the margin) is needed. a notable horn: lit. ' a horn of conspicuousness.' Cf. some- what analogous expressions in 2 Sam. xxiii. 21, *a goodl3' man' (lit. 'a man of appearance'), i Chron. xi. 23. This horn is described as a 'great ' one in viii. 8, 21. This '■ notable horn ' is Alexander the Great, who crossed the Hellespont in 334 B.C., overthrew Darius Codomannus at Issus i" 333> traversed Palestine, reduced Egypt, and finally crushed Persia at Arbela in 331. After further victorious campaigns in the far East and in India, he died of fever in 323 B.C. 6-7. The complete overthrow of Persia by Alexander. 7. trampled: cf. vii. 7, 19, where however, a verb from a different Semitic root is used. 8. Death of Alexander and the division of his empire into four kingdoms. Cf. xi. 4. fonr notable horns : lit. conspicuousness of four.' This is supposed to mean ' four conspicuous ones.' Though this expres- sion differs from that in verse 5, the same meaning must perforce be attached to it. But the context hardly justifies such a meaning. According to verse 22, the four kingdoms were not ' notable.' 86 DANIEL 8. 9, 10 9 the four winds of heaven. And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the glorious 10 land. And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven ; Hence we should follow the LXX, and with Graetz and other scholars read P"nnK instead of p'^trr, i. e. ' four other ones.' The corruption could arise from verse 5. On the death of Alexander his empire became the cause of endless rivalries and wars amongst his generals, which raged for over twenty years before a final settlement was arrived at through the battle of Ipsus in 301. By this settlement Egypt was confirmed to Ptolemy in the south ; Asia Minor to Paphlagonia and Pontus to Lysimachus in the north ; Seleucus received Syria, Babylonia, and other eastern provinces, as far as the Indus in the east ; and Cassander Macedonia, and Greece in the west These four new kingdoms rose on the ruins of Alexander's empire, and are symbolized by the ' four horns.' 9-14. The ^little horn,'' i. e. Antiochus IV (Epiphanes), 175-164 B.C. Cf. I Mace. i. 10, Joseph. Ant. x. xi. 7. 9. Our author passes over without mention all the Seleucidae from 301 to 1 75 B.C. His sole concern is with Antiochus Epiphanes, whom he regarded as the last and greatest enemy of the Jews and their faith. a little horn. These words are not a rendering of the text,, which, if it is Hebrew, is literall}' 'a horn from being little.' But the text is most probably corrupt and should be emended. By omitting one letter fvvith Graetz) we arrive at the usual Hebrew for 'a little horn,' or, by a change of two letters (with Bevan), we get ' another horn a little one.' The latter is most probably right, as it has the support of vii. 8. The two Greek versions presuppose quite a different adjective. toward the south: i.e. Egypt: cf. xi, 25 sqq., i Mace, i. 16-19. toward the east : i. e. Elymais to the east of Bab3'lon, invaded by Antiochus in the last year of his life: cf. i Mace, i'i- 31, 37, vi. 1-4. toward the glorious land. Cf. xi. 16, 41. In Ezek. xx. 6, 15 Palestine is called 'the glory of all lands,' in Zech. vii. 14 'the pleasant land;' in i Enoch Ixxxix. 40 'a pleasant and glorious land.' Cf. also Jer. iii. 19. 10. As Bevan remarks, in this verse * the relation of Antiochus to the Jews is more clearly defined. Here, as in chapter xii, the heavenly character of Israel, as distinguished from the nations of the earth, is specially emphasized. The ''host of heaven" repre- DANIEL 8. 11,12 87 and some of the host and of the stars it cast down to the ground, and trampled upon them. Yea, it magnified n itself, even to the prince of the host ; and ^ it took away from him the continual hirnt offerings and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And ^the host was given 12 * Another reading is, tJie continual burnt ofifering was taken away from hitn. ^ Or, an host was given to it against the ^c. Or, an host was set over the &c. sents the people of God.' Marti, on the other hand, thinks that the casting down of ' some of . . the slars ' is a symbolical descrip- tion of Antiochus' attempt to put down all the native religions in the countries under his rule and to substitute the religion of Hellas. But in i Enoch xlvi. 7 'the stars of heaven' denote the righteous Jews. Elsewhere 'the host of heaven' in the O.T. means the stars or the celestial beings in attendance on God. See Driver in Hastings' D.B., ii. 429 sq. Our text refers to the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus and possibly to the murder of the high priest Onias HI, who is referred to more definitely in i Enoch xc. 8. 11-13. These verses form one of the most difficult passages in Daniel, owing to the corruptions in the text. It is possible by means of the Versions, especially the LXX and Theodotion, to recover the original for the most part. Without them in fact this is impossible. But the present work does not admit of the critical examination of these Versions, and accordingly we shall only make a partial use of them in dealing with the Massoretic text. 11. prince of the host: i. e. God. took away from hini. Cf. xi. 31. The Q^rt (see margin R.V.) reads 'by it the continual burnt offering was taken away.' These words refer to Antiochus' suspension of the Temple services: cf. i Mace. i. 41-54, 59, iv, 52. the contimial burnt offering. Cf. xi. 31. The word 'burnt oftering ' is not expressed here. The full expression {'dia/h tnmtd is found in Exod, xxix. 42, &c., but owing to familiar use it came to be spoken of simply as haitdtnld, ' the continual,' in later Judaism in the Mishna, as it is in Daniel, but not else- where in the O.T. the place of his sancttiary was cast down. The Temple was not destroyed by Antiochus, but it was ' laid waste ' (i Mace. i. 39), and 'trodden under foot' (op. cit. vi. 45"^, and in part over- thrown {op. cit. iv. 48). 12. Text corrupt. an host (R. V. marg.) was given over to it, &c. This is 8S DANIEL 8. 13,14 over /o it together with the continual bitrnt offering through transgression ; and it cast down truth to the 13 ground, and it did its pleasure and prospered. Then I heard a holy one speaking ; and another holy one said unto that certain one which spake, How long shall be the vision coficerni?ig the continual burnt offering, and the transgression that maketh desolate, to give both the 14 sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot ? And said to mean : an army of Israelites were given over into the power of the horn, together with the continual burnt offering, owing to the apostasy of the Hellenizing Jews. Driver renders : ' a host was appointed against the continual burnt offering with transgression,' i. e. Antiochus had recourse to violent measures and established an armed garrison in Jerusalem in order to suppress the sacred rites of the Jews. Marti and von Gall omit the initial word 'host' (wrongly claiming the support of the Greek versions for so doing), and with a change of a letter arrive at the following rendering : ' and the transgression was laid on the continual burnt offering, and truth cast to the ground, and it did and prospered.' This sense is excellent and is supported by i Mace. i. 54, 59, according to which a small altar was reared on the altar of burnt offering in the Temple, and a sacrifice (probably of swine) offered thereon (t Mace. i. 47). cast down truth : i. e. the true religion. did its pleasure and prospered. Cf. verse 24, a Chron. xxxi. 21. See note on xi. 32. 13-14, Dialogue between two angels overheard by Daniel, through which he receives information without asking any question as in Zech. i. 12. 13. The words following ' vision,' as Driver points out, must be taken in apposition as indicating the contents of the vision. Hence : ' How long shall be the vision ? the continual burnt offering, and the transgression that maketh desolate, the giving both the sanctuary and the host,' &c. There are many inherent difficulties in the text, but with the help of the Versions we arrive at the following text which meets all the difficulties : ' How long is the vision to be, while the daily burnt offering is taken away (cno added with LXX and Theod.), the transgression that maketh desolate set up, and the sanctuary and the service trodden under foot?' See note on verse la. DANIEL 8. 15 89 he said ^ unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred evenings a7id mornings ; then shall the sanctuary be b cleansed. And it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen 15 the vision, that I sought c to understand it ; and, behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man. And 16 ^ According to the ancient versions, unto him. ^ Heb. justified. "^ Heb. understanding. 14. unto me. Read with the Versions : ' unto him.' two thotisand and three hundred evenings and mornings. This peculiar method of reckoning 1,150 days is due to the fact that the seer regards the suppression of the evening and morning sacrifices as the chief outrage offered by Antiochus to religion. Accordingly he counts up the omitted sacrifices, i.e. fl.300 ^ 1,150 days. This time determination is of importance in settling the date of our author's work. It is clear from the preceding two verses that he wrote after the erection of the heathen altar on the altar of burnt offering on the 15th of Chisleu, i68 B.C., and before the dedication of the new altar on the 25th of Chisleu (= Dec), 1653.0. (see I Mace, i. 54, iv. 52 sq.) ; for the period between these two amounts only to 3 3'ears and 10 days. Now, if we reckon the year at 360, 364, or 365 days, three years and ten days will amount to 1,090, r,i02, or 1,105 days respectively, i. e. in all cases less than the predicted 1,150 days. Hence, we conclude that the book was written before the dedication of the new altar, since otherwise the period of 1,150 days would be unintelligible. This is the view also of Kuenen, Wellhausen, and Kamphausen. The 1,150 days is therefore a bona fide prediction. With this period of the suspension of the daily sacrifice we are not to confound the three and a half years (vii. 25, xii. 7), during which the entire persecution was to last. Yet see ix. 27. the sanctuary be cleansed. Better read 'justified,' as in R.V. marg. After the lapse of the above period the Jewish sanctuary will come into its rights, be vindicated. 15-18. The appearance of Gabriel. 15. as the appearance of a man. We have in ' as the appear- ance of the apocalyptic form of expression already found in Ezek. i. 13, 14, 26, 27, 28, viii. 2, &c. He is called * the man Gabriel' in ix. 21. The word used for man, geber, is evidently chosen as a play on the word ' Gabriel' ■= 'man of God.' It is worth observing here that though geber = ^vqp^ the LXX here 90 DANIEL 8. 16-18 I neard a man's voice between the batiks ^Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand '7 the vision. So he came near where I stood; and when he came, I was affrighted, and fell upon my face : but he said unto me. Understand, O son of man ; for the 1 8 vision belongeth to the time of the end. Now as he was renders the entire phrase is opaais dv$pwirov. This fact in itself (cf. the renderings in vii. 13 and viii. 16) should be sufficient to put scholars on their guard against laying too much weight on the variations in the renderings of ' Son of Man ' in i Enoch. 16. a man's voice. Since the voice so described is heard in a vision it is not improbable that the words signify ' an angelic voice ; ' for in a vision an angel is described as a man : cf. x. 5. between the banks of Ulai. Apparently we must supply the words ' the banks of.' Cf. 2. The voice was heard above the river : cf. xii, 6 sq. Gabriel. Gabriel is the first angel to be mentioned expressly by name in the O.T. In ix. 21 he explains to Daniel Jeremiah's prophecy of the seventy years. In i Enoch ix. i, xx. 7, passages which are most probably older than our text, he is one of the four and seven archangels respectively. 17. came near. The two Greek versions and the Vulg. read * came and stood near.' fell upon my face. On the appearance of angelic visitants the seer falls on his face through fear : cf. Ezek. i. 28, iii. 23, xliii. 3, Rev. i. 17. son of man. A natural designation of a human being by an angelic one : cf. Ezek. ii. i, 3, 6, &c. This designation has nothing in common with the Messianic one, ' Son of Man.' for the vision belongeth to the time of the end. Cf. verse 19. Hab. ii. 3, ' For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and it hasteth toward the end.' Gabriel bids the seer to give heed to the vision, inasmuch as it dealt with no less a crisis than the final one of the world's history. For the writer this was the age of Antiochus. Time was then to give place to the kingdom of the Eternal. In our text we have the expression ' time of the end,' viii. 17, xi. 35, 40, xii. 4, 9 (cf. 2 Bar. xxix. 8, lix. 4}, * the end,' ix. 26, xii. 13 (vii. 26), 4he appointed time of the end,' viii. 19. The O.T. expression * in the end of the days' is the oldest eschatological expression. See Volz, Jiidische Eschatologte, p. 189. 18. On hearing the voice of the angel Daniel loses conscious- ness : cf, X. 9. Not till the angel touches him is his consciousness DANIEL 8. 19-21 91 speaking with me, I fell into a deep sleep with my face toward the ground : but he touched me, and set me a upright. And he said. Behold, I will make thee know 19 what shall be in the latter time of the indignation : for it belongeth to the appointed time of the end. The ram 20 which thou sawest that had the two horns, they are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough he-goat is 21 * Or, where I had stood restored : cf. x. 10, 16, 18, i Enoch Ix. 3, 4, 4 Ezra v. 14, 15, Rev. i. 17. set me uprigfht : lit. ' made me to stand in my standing place.' The words 'in my standing place' (cf. x. 11) represent a late Hebrew idiom found only in 2 Chronicles and Nehemiah outside Daniel. The classical Hebrew would be ' in mj' place ' (i Sam. xiv. 9), or ' on my feet' (Ezek. ii. 2). 19-26. GabrieVs explanation of the vision. 19. the latter time of the indignation, or better, 'the last time,' &c. The word 'indignation' is the technical tenn for the wrath of God, which Israel and Judah had incurred, according to the teaching of the pre-exilic prophets. This wrath has manifested itself in Israel's subjection to the nations. After the exile it was expected to come to an end in the immediate future, but this consummation was ever deferred till in the time of our author the faithful did not hope for its close till the final judgement, and the advent of the kingdom of the saints. According to our author the Divine wrath was to be fully satisfied during the persecution of Antiochus (xi. 36}. On the accomplishment of the wrath of God cf. Isa. V. 25, X. 25. 20. the king's of Media and Persia : 1. e. the kingdoms as in vii. 17. 21. the rough he-goat. In the original this is an extraordinary compound expression. First comes hasjaphir^ a late Hebrew word — probably a loan-word from Aramaic (see verse 5, note), which means 'the he-goat.' Then we have haiia'ir, which is classical Hebrew for ' the he-goat,' but is rendered by ' the rough * in the R,V., which is of course a possible rendering. Perhaps it would be best, as Driver suggests, to omit the latter word ns an explanatory gloss. Otherwise we might regard hassa'ir as a corruption of ha'issifii, the text implied by the two Greek versions, Pesh., and Vulg. In either case, therefore, we should simply read ' the he-goat.' K 92 DANIEL 8. 22-34 the king of ^ Greece : and the great horn that is between 22 his eyes is the first king. And as for that which was broken, in the place whereof four stood up, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not with his power. 33 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall 24 stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not ^ by * Heb. Javan. *• Or, with his power. See verse 22. kiugf of Greece. Here melech ( = ' king ') stands for ' kingdom,' but for ' king ' in the next sentence. the first king : i. e. Alexander the Great. 22. stand up, or ' arise.' Here, as in late Hebrew (cf. viii, 23, xi. 2, 3, 4, xii. I, 3, Ezra ii. 63, Neh. viii. 5), 'dniad is used in the sense of ' arising,' ' coming on the scene,' like the early Hebrew kt'tw. out of the nation. The text, which reads 'out of a nation* should with the two Greek versions be emended into ' out of his nation.' not with his power. None of the four kingdoms (see note on verse 8) which were to arise on the division of Alexander's empire would be of like power. 23. their king'dom. The four kingdoms were to come to an end with the death of Antiochus. when the transg'ressors are come to the fall. The Versions presuppose a slightly different text : * when the measure of transgressions is come to the full.' Some interpret these words as referring to Israel's transgressions, others as referring to those of the heathen. of fierce countenance. This expression is borrowed from Deut. xxviii. 50. understandingr dark sentences (cf. v. 12). The sense, rather, is that he was skilled in ambiguous expression. The same idea is partly to be found in xi. 21, where he is said to have ' obtained the kingdom by flatteries.' 24. but not by his own power. This rendering implies that Antiochus would be strong by the permission of God. It would be better to render 'not by his power,' i. e. but by his intrigues. But Marti may be right in regarding this phrase as a repetition from verse 22. Theod. omits. DANIEL 8. 25, 26 93 his own power ; and he shall ^ destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper and do his pleasure : and he shall * destroy the mighty ones and ^ the holy people. And through 25 his policy he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand ; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and in their security shall he ^ destroy many : he shall also stand up against the prince of princes ; but he shall be broken without hand. And the vision of the evenings and 36 mornings which hath been told is true : but shut thou * Or, corrupt ^ Heb. people of the saints. shall destroy wonderfally. Bevan, followed by Marti, regards the text here as corrupt, and emends ynshttfi, * shall destroy,' mio yasiah, 'shall utter monstrous things' They com- pare xi. 36 and vii. 8, 20. 24-25. he shall destroy the mighty ones and the holy people. 25. And through his policy he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand. By a comparison of the LXX, Graetz, Bevan, Marti, and others rightly emend the above into : * He shall destroy the mighty ones (i. e. his political foes). 25. And against the holy people (i. e. his religious foes) shall his policy be directed, and he shall cause craft,' &c. 25. magnify himself in his heart. Cf. 4, 8, ir. The text could mean also ' devised great things.' in their security shall he destroy many. Antiochus will take them while off their guard. But bUlalvah can also be rendered * unawares.' The text probably refers to the treacherous attack on Jerusalem recounted in r Mace. i. 29, 30, where the Greek word i^aniva is used, which Greek word is twice in the LXX of Dan. xi. 21, 24 a rendering oi b^sahah, prince of princes : i. e. God. Cf. verse ji The princes are the angelic chiefs. Cf. xii. i, 'Michael the great prince,' also x. 20. broken without hand: i.e. by Divine intervention. Cf. ii. 34. According to Polybius xxxi. 2, Antiochus died suddenly at Tabae in Persia in 164 e.g., a few months after the rededication of the Temple, 25 Chisleu, 165. See note on xi. 45. 26. vision of the evenings, S:c. Cf. verse 14. is true. Cf. x. i, xi. 2, xii. 7, Rev. xix. 9, xxi. 5, xxii. 6. shut thou up the vision. This vision, which is placed by the seer in the third year cf Belshazzar, relates really to the time of Antiochus. It is to be * sealed,' i. e. kept secret. This com- K 2 94 DANIEL 8. 27—9. i up the vision ; for it belongeth to many days to.co7ne. 27 And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days ; then I rose up, and did the king's business : and I was astonished at the vision, «■ but none understood it. 9 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the * Or, hut there was none to make it understood mand is intended to explain how this revelation made to Daniel appeared first in the days of Antiochus. Cf. xii. 4, 9. Besides, the seer declares that only the wise of that period would be able to understand it. Cf. xii. lo. On the idea of reserving a revela- tion for a distant age cf. i Enoch i. 2, civ. 13, and contrast Rev. xxii. 10. In 4 Ezra xiv. 46 the secret books are committed to the keeping of 'the wise.' The idea of 'sealing' is found in Isa. viii. i6, but in a figurative sense. belongeth to many days to come : i. e. refers to the distant age. The same Hebrew phrase already occurs in Ezek. xii. 27. Cf. viii. 17, 19, x. 14 of our text. 27. fainted. This word, which occurs here and in ii. i and Mic. ii. 4 (where it is corrupt), is unexampled in this sense elsewhere in O.T. It is omitted by the LXX, and is manifestly a dittograph of the following word. none understood it. Since the vision was sealed up, i. e. withheld from Daniel's companions, it cannot refer to them. Since it was fully explained to Daniel according to 16, 19, it cannot be said of Daniel that he did not understand the vision. Various explanations are offered : Meinhold takes it to mean that no one perceived that Daniel had had a vision — a remark that would be superfluous after the command to seal up the vision. Marti, following Bevan, regards the phrase as defective for ' I did not understand,' and thinks that Daniel did not understand the com- mand to seal up the vision, seeing it belonged to a distant age. ix. In the closing verses of the preceding chapter Daniel is told that the vision he had just seen related not to his own time but to a distant future (viii. 26). This statement astonished Daniel (viii. 27), seeing that, like his contemporaries, he was look- ing forward to the speedy advent of the deliverance at the close of the 70 years definitely promised by Jeremiah (xxix. 10, xxv. II}. Accordingly, the seer is represented in the present chapter as engaged on this very question (ix, 1-2). If the promised deliverance belongs to the far distant future, how is Jeremiah's prophecy of the 70 years to be fulfilled ? In his bewilderment he has recourse to prayer, and asks that the right interpretation of this prophecy may be revealed to him (ix. 3). And before he had DANIEL 9. 2 95 seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans ; in the first year of his reign I Daniel a understood by the books the number of the years, whereof ceased praying (ix. 21) the angel Gabriel came to him and showed him that the 70 years were not 70 literal years but 70 weeks of years (ix. 22-24). In 24-27 a detailed interpretation of the 70 weeks of years is given. The 70 weeks are divided into three periods: 7 + 62+1. The first period, i.e. 49 years, will extend from the going forth of the word till the time of Joshua the high- priest, 586-538 B. c. During the second period of 62 weeks, i. e. 434 years, the city will be rebuilt. At the close of the last period will begin the 70th week of tribulation, when an anointed one will be cut off, religion forsaken, sacrifice and oblation cease to be offered, the abomination that maketh desolate set up, till at last the desolater is destroyed (verses 24-27). Into this chapter has been incorporated the only large inter- polation in the Book of Daniel, i.e. verses 4-19. For the grounds on which this conclusion is drawn see the notes in he. This section deals with subjects with which neither the present context nor the rest of the book is concerned. 1. Darius. See note on v. 31. son of Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus is a transliteration of the Hebrew u:Tnu:rT« — Achashwerosh (cf. Ezra iv. 6, Esther i. i sqq.), which in Greek took the form of Xerxes. Xerxes I, who reigned from 485 to 465 B.C. was the son of Darius Hystaspis (521-485 B.C.) and not the father. 2. Daniel is represented as reflecting on Jeremiah's prediction of the 70 years' exile. The author of our book was profoundly conscious that this prediction had not been fulfilled except in a very minor degree. Since, however, no such prophecy could fail, he necessarily concluded that it had been misinterpreted and therefore needed to be interpreted afresh. This new interpre- tation is given in the vision in 24-27. The probability that this reinterpretation was suggested by a comparison of Lev. xxvi. 18 sqq. (where it is said that the Israelites are to be punished seven times for their sins) and Jen xxix. 10, xxv. 11 does not invalidate the reality of the vision nor the possibility that this reinterpretation was actually received in a vision. For the mind of the seer necessarily works with materials at hand, however it may draw on other sources. understood by the books. Better render ' observed in the books.' by the books. The books here are the sacred books, i.e. the Scriptures. The phrase implies the formation of a definite col- 96 DANIEL 9. 3 the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, for the accomplishing of the desolations of Jerusalem, even 3 seventy years. And I set my face unto the Lord God, *to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and * Or, to seek after prayer If c. lection of O.T. books, but how extensive this collection was cannot be determined from the present statement. That the threefold division of the O.T., the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa, already existed in some form we know from the Preface to Sirach. the word of the Lord, i.e. *the word ofYahweh.' Since verses 4-20 did not belong originally to the text, as we shall see presently, this would be the only verse in Daniel where the divine name Yahweh would be used. Von Gall excises it on this ground and compares 23, 25 for the use of * word ' or * the word.' Marti would let it stand on the ground that the writer is using a citation from Jeremiah. came to Jeremiah . . . seventy years. Cf. Jer. xxv. 11-12, xxix. 10. 3. set my face. For the same phrase see 2 Chron. xx. 3, xxxii. 2, and compare vi. 14 of our text. Lord God. The word Adonai ( - Lord) is found also in i. 2, and frequently in ix. 4-20. to seek by prayer. The Hebrew is literally 'to seek prayer.' Cf. Zeph. ii. 3. with fasting*, i. e. as a preparation for the reception of a revelation ; cf. Exod. xxxiv. 28, Deut. ix. 9, Esth. iv. 6. In these verses we have the only considerable interpolation in Daniel, as von Gall has recognized. Some of the grounds for excising these verses as an addition are : 1". They betray the hand of an inter- polator since they are unnecessary repetitions of verses 3 and 2r. 2°. The conclusion of the chapter takes no account of the subject of the prayer, which supplicates for forgiveness and deliverance, but passes on at once to the explanation of the prophecy of Jeremiah. 3". The prayer contains clear evidence of having been written in Palestine and not in the Exile. Thus in ver. 7 it speaks of those ' that are near and that are far off in all the countries whither thou hast driven them.' Those ' that are near ' are obviously the Jews in Palestine as opposed to those ' that are far off in all the countries.' Again in ver. 16, * Because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are round about us,'' the words in italics show that the prayer was written by a resident DANIEL 9. 4-6 97 sackcloth, and ashes. And I prayed unto the Lord my 4 God, and made confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments ; we have sinned, and have dealt perversely, and have done 5 wickedly, and have rebelled, even turning aside from thy precepts and from thy judgements : neither have we 6 in Judaea. In i and 2 Baruch analogous phenomena are found. 4". The name Yahweh is found in these verses but not elsewhere in Daniel, except in ver. a, where it was inserted probabl}' by the hand that added 4-19. 5°. The pra3'er asks for the immediate advent of the kingdom. But, according to Jeremiah's prophecj', Daniel knew that his deliverance could not come for * many days to come,' viii. 26, i.e. a distant future. 6". A critical comparison of 4-19 with Neh. i. 5 sqq., ix. 6 sqq., i Baruch i. 15 sqq., shows that repeatedly the verses in Daniel agree word for word with those in the passages just mentioned, that the writers o-f these passages have not borrowed from each other but from existing liturgical forms, which each writer adapted more or less fully to his own requirements. On the above grounds, which could be added to, it is to be concluded that 4-19 is an addition to the text like the Prayer of Azariah and the Three Children, but an earlier one. 4. made confession. Cf Neh. i. 6, ix. 2, 3, where this expression occurs in like contexts. O Lord, the great and dreadful God ; . . commandments. Occurs as a whole in Neh. i. 5 and in part in Neh. ix. 32. It was clearly a current liturgical form. The ultimate source is to be found in Deut. vii. 9. The particle rendered * O ' is a strong expression of entreaty, ' Ah, now.' It is found in Neh. i. 5 in the same connexion where the R.V. renders it *I beseech thee.' love him . . . his commandments. Read ' Love thee . . . thy commandments ' with LXX, Theod., and Vulgate. Cf. the next verse. 5. have sinned . . . done wickedly. The ultimate source of these words is i Kings viii. 47. In due time they found their way into current liturgies. Thus they occur exactly as in our text in I Bar. ii. 12, and in a closely related form in Ps. cvi. 6. even turning^ aside from thy precepts. This is a miSr translation for ' and turned aside from thy commandments.' Cf. Deut. xvii. 20, Ps. cxix. 102. G. Two classes are here distinguished, the nobility embracing the kings, princes and fathers, and the people of the land. This 98 DANIEL 9. 7-9 hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, 7 and to all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of face, as at this day ; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have 8 trespassed against thee. O Lord, to us belongeth con- fusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our 9 fathers, because we have sinned against thee. To the latter phrase came in later Judaism to denote the uncultured laity. The term ' fathers ' here does not mean forefathers but leaders. hearkened unto thy servants the prophets. Cf. i Bar, i. 21. The words are a reminiscence of Jer. xxvi. 5 ; cf. vii. 25, XXV. 4, &c. to our king's, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. Cf. ver. 7. This clause is drawn from Jer. xliv. 21, where the order differs slightly. Cf. Neh. ix. 3a, 34, 1 Bar. i. 16, ii. i, for similar enumerations. 7. rig-hteousness belong'eth unto thee, but unto us con- fusion of face, as at this day. These words are exactly as they stand here in i Bar. i. 15, ii. 6. The second phrase is found in Ps. xliv. 15, Jer. vii. 19, a Chron. xxxii, 21. to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. This combination is peculiar to Jeremiah (eight times) and 2 Kings xxiii. a (■= 2 Chron. xxxiv. 30) in the O.T. outside the present passage. It appears in i Bar. i. 15. that are near, and that are far off. From Jer. xxv. 26. in {better tlian 'through') all the countries whither thou hast driven them. From Jer. xvi. 15, xxiii. 3, 8, &c. This clause is reproduced in i Bar. ii. 4, 13, 29. their trespass that they have trespassed ag'ainst thee. The word ;;;«'«/ means treachery or disloj'alty rather than * trespass.' The clause is found in Lev. xxvi. 40, Ezek. xvii. ao, xviii. 24, &C. 8-9. These two verses are expansions of the introductory clauses in ver. 7. 8. to us . . . confusion of face. Cf. ver. 7 note. to our king's, &c. Cf. ver. 6 note. DANIEL 9. 10-12 99 Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses ; ^ for we have rebelled against him ; neither have we obeyed the lo voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. Yea, all n Israel have transgressed thy law, even turning aside, that they should not obey thy voice : therefore hath the curse been poured out upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God ; for we have sinned against him. And he hath confirmed his words, which he 12 ■■ Or, though 9. forgivenesses. Cf. Neh. ix. 17 'a God of forgiveness.* 10. The various elements of this verse can be traced to Exod., Deut., and Jeremiah. Thus the clause * obeyed the voice of the Lord our God' is found in Deut. iv. 30, ix. 23, xxviii. i, 2, 15, Exod. XV. 26, xix. 5, Jer. xliv. 23, &c. For * to walk in his laws ' cf. Exod. xvi. 4, Lev. xxvi. 3, Jer. xxvi. 4, and for ' which is set before us' cf. Deut. iv. 44, Jer. ix. 13, xxvi. 4, &c. But as has already been suggested the immediate source of the words is most probably current liturgical formulae. Cf. Neh. i. 7, ix. 14, and especially i Bar. i. 18, ii. 10. A comparison of these passages with Jer. xxvi. 4 leads one to suggest that the text is defective, and that we should read : ' neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in his laws that he set before us by {his servant Moses, nor have we obeyed the words of) his servants the prophets.' The loss of the restored clause could easily be explained by hofnoioteleuton. If we do not accept the above addition, then instead of * to walk in his laws that he set before us by his servants the prophets,* we might simply read * to walk in his law that he set before us by his servant Moses.' That Moses was mentioned in this verse is most probable from ver. 11. 11. even tumingf aside. A mistranslation for ' and have turned aside.' Cf. ver. 5. tlie curse . . . and the oath. Cf. Num. v. 21, Neh. x. 29. the curse . . . that is written in the law of Moses. Cf. Deut. xxix. 20, * All the curse that is written in this book shall lie upon him.' Cf. i Bar. i. 20. poured out. This expression is used of anger in Jer. xlii. 18, xliv. 6, 2 Chron. xii. 7, xxxiv. 25, &c. 12. Cf. I Bar. ii. i, 2. hath confirmed his words. The clause is found also in Neh. ix. 8 and i Bar. ii. i, 24. loo DANIEL 9. 13-15 spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil : for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon 13 Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us : yet have we not intreated the favour of the Lord our God, that we should turn from our 14 iniquities, and ^have discernment in thy truth. Therefore hath the Lord watched over the evil, and brought it upon us : for the Lord our God is righteous in all his works 15 which he doeth, and we have not obeyed his voice. And now, O Lord our God, that hast brought thy people forth * Or, deal wisely judg'es. A general term for rulers as in Ps. ii. 10, but in the parallel passage in i Bar. ii. i the term is used of the Judges in Israel that preceded the Kings. for under the whole heaven hath not been done, &c. For an expanded form of this expression cf. 1 Bar. ii, 2. For like expressions cf. Exod. ix. 18, x. 6, xi. 6. 13. As it is written, &c. Cf. Deut. xxviii. 15, xxx. i, I Bar. ii. 7. have . . . not intreated the favour, &c. Cf. i Bar. ii. 8. The phrase is a familiar O.T. one. Cf. Jer. xxvi. 19, Exod. xxxii. II. 14. Cf. I Bar. ii. 9-10. watched over the evil. Cf, Jer. i. la, where the same construction occurs, and cf. xliv. 27, * I watch over them for evil.' Our text means that God is vigilant in bringing about his threatened evil. Qod is rig-hteous. Cf. Jer. xii. i, Ezra ix. 15, and on these and the following words cf. Neh. ix. 33, r Bar. ii. 9-10. 15-19. Prayer for deliverance. 15. This verse is made up of clauses borrowed ultimately from Jer. xxxii. 20, 21. The first clause is from ver. 21, and the second from ver. 20. i Bar. ii. 11 reproduces more literally the same passage of Jeremiah, but observes the same order in the clauses as in our text, and similarly, but less literally, Neh. ix, 10. This fact can be best explained by assuming an intermediate common source for Nehemiah, Daniel, and i Baruch. brong-ht thy people forth . . . hand. Cf. Deut. vi. 21, ix. 26. Jer. xxxii. ai. DANIEL 9. 16, 17 101 out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and hast gotten thee renown, as at this day ; we have sinned, we have done wickedly. O Lord, according to all thy » right- 16 eousness, let thine anger and thy fury, I pray thee, be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain : because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are round about us. Now therefore, O our God, hearken unto 17 the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thysanctuary that is desolate, for the * Heb. righteousnesses. Efotten thee renown. Cf. Isa. Ixiii. 12, 14 and the passages referred to in Jer. and Neh. above. 16. thy rig-hteousness (marg.), i. e. acts or deeds of righteous- ness as Judges v. 11, i Sam. xii. 7. let thine ang^er , , . he turned away. Cf. Num. xxv. 4, I Bar. ii. [3. thy holy mountain. Cf. Isa. ii. 2 sq., Ps. ii. 6, xv. i. iniquities of our fathers. Cf. Neh. ix. a, i Bar. iii. 5, 7, 8. The phrase is found in the earlier books, Lev. xxvi. 39, Jer. xi. 10. a reproach to all that are round about us. Cf. Ps. xliv. 13, Ixxix. 4. These words are spoken from the standpoint of a Jew resident in Judea ; see note above on 4-19. The taunts came from their heathen neighbours tlie Edomites, Ammonites, and others. It is worth remarking that in i Par. ii. 4, iii. 8, this phrase is appHed by the Jews in Palestine to the Jews in exile. 17. hearken unto the prayer. Cf. Neh. i. 6, i Kings viii. 28, hearken unto the prayer . . . supplications. Cf. i Bar. ii. 14. cause thy face to shine. Cf. Num. vi. 25, Ps. Ixxx. 19. This petition is the counterpart of * let thine anger ... be turned away ' in the preceding verse. desolate. The word shametn is used of Mount Zion in Lam. V. 18, and recalls shotnem in viii. 13. Cf. ix. 27, xi. 31, xii. II. for the Lord's sake. This abrupt transition to the third person in the midst of a series of petitions in the second is very harsh, and suggests a corruption in the text, and the evidence of the ancient versions turns this probability into a practical cer- tainty. Accordingly we should cither with the LXX 'iviK^v tuv I02 DANIEL 9. 18-20 18 Lord's sake. O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name : for we do not ^ present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but 1 9 for thy great mercies. O Lord, hear ; O Lord, forgive ; O Lord, hearken and do ; defer not ; for thine own sake, my God, because thy city and thy people are called by thy name. 20 And whiles I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my * Heb. cause to /all. See Jer. xxxvi. 7. SovXcuv (Tov, hiaiTora read * for thy servant's sake, O Lord ' (com- paring Isa. Ixiii. 17 — * return for thy servant's sake '), or with Theod. and the Vulgate ' for thine own sake, O Lord.' This latter, which recurs in ver. 19, has probably the support of 1 Bar. ii. 14. 18. O my God . . . "behold. These clauses are borrowed literal!}' from 2 Kings xix. 16 ( = Isa. xxxvii. 17) save that instead of 'O m^' God' the source has *0 Lord' (i.e. mn>). The same words from 2 Kings are repeated in i Bar. ii. 16, 17, but there the divine title Yahweh is preserved. But not improbably we should read ' O Lord ' in our text also, since the LXX attests it desolations. Cf. Isa. Ixi. 4. the city which is called by thy uauie. The Hebrew is literally : * over which thy name is called.' This phrase recurs in the next verse. Cf. Deut. xxviii. 10, 2 Sam. xii. 28, Isa. iv. i, Amos ix. 12, Jer. vii. 10. There is a parallel to our text in I Bar. ii. 15, 26. present our supplications "before thee — lit. ' cause to fall . . , before thee.' This expression is found only in Jeremiah in the O.T. Cf. xxxviii. 26, xlii. 2, 9, xxxvi. 7. "With ' do not pre- sent . . . our righteousness' compare the close parallel in i Bar. ii. 19. 19. hear , . . forgive. A reminiscence of i Kings viii. 30, 34, 36, &c. 20. This verse serves to connect 4-19 with the context. On ver. 3, ver. 21 followed immediately. In 20 we have a summary of the added prayer. It is composed of phrases which have alreadj' occurred in 4-19. Thus for Spraying and confessing' cf. ver. 4 ; for * presenting my supplication ' cf. ver. 18 ; * for the holy mountain of my God' cf. ver. 16. DANIEL 9. 2 1-23 103 supplication before the Lord my God for the holy moun- tain of my God ; yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, the ai man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the begin- ning, * being caused to fly swiftly, ^ touched me about the time of the evening oblation. And he f' instructed me, 22 and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to make thee skilful of understanding. At the begin- 23 ning of thy supplications the commandment went forth, * Or, being sore wearied ^ Or, came near unto nte '^ Or, made me to understand 21. Resumption of the original text. Gabriel. See viii. 16. being caused to fly swiftly. In the margin we have the alternative rendering 'being sore wearied' (lit. 'being wearied by weariness'). The divergence of rendering is due to the possibility of deriving the participle from different verbs — nir 'to fly' or F1S" *to be weary.' But the cognate noun (F^i" —'weariness') which accompanies it is susceptible of only one sense. Hence the rendering in the text appears to be unjustified. The versions are in favour of the idea of flying. Thus the LXX has to-xh n should with von Gall and Marti be emended into rrib' = ' her son.' he that strengthened her. Better ' he that got possession of her,* i.e. her husband. 7-9. Ptolemy III {Euergetes 7), 247-222 B.C., and Sehucus II, Ca/linicus, 246-226 B.C. Ptolemy III, with a view to avenging the murder of his sister Berenice, invaded the northern kingdom, seized Seleucia, the port of Antioch, and overran the greater part of Syria and Babylonia, and returned to Eg\'pt with an immense booty. Two years later Seleucus Callinicus invaded Egypt but sustained an overwhelming defeat and returned with only a hand- ful of his troops (240 b.c). 7. one, i.e. Ptolemy III, brother of Berenice. shall come unto the army, i.e. take the command of his forces against Syria. But this is unlikely. We should expect rather ' shall come with an army ' as in ver. 13. Better, as in the margin, render : ' shall march against the (Syrian) army.' 8. According to Jerome Ptolemy brought back to Egypt the statues of the Egyptian gods carried off by Cambyses 280 years 122 DANIEL 11. 9-ir into Egypt ; and he shall ^ refrain some years from the king 9 of the north. And he shall come into the realm of the king 10 of the south, but he shall return into his own land. And his sons shall war, and shall assemble a multitude of great forces, b which shall come on, and overflow, and pass through : and ^ they shall return and war, even to his 11 fortress. And the king of the south shall be moved with choler, and shall come forth and fight with him, even with the king of the north : and he shall set forth a great multi- ' Or, cotttmue more years than ifc. ^ Or, and he *= Or, he earlier. On this ground his subjects conferred on him the title Euergetes. refrain . . . from, i.e. from attacking. Cf. Gen. xxix. 35, 2 Kings iv. 6. But some scholars support the rendering in the margin, 9. See note on 7-9. 10-12. The next ten verses deal mainly with the times of Antiochus III the Great. When Seleucus Callinicus died, his elder son, Seleucus Ceraunos, became king, but after a reign of three years (226-223 b. c. ) was murdered during a campaign in Asia Minor. He was succeeded by Antiochus III the Great, 223-187 B.C. Antiochus, soon after his accession, attacked Palestine, then subject to Egypt, and in the course of two campaigns conquered the greater part of it. But in 217 b. c. Ptolemy met Antiochus at Raphia and defeated him with great loss. Palestine was then reannexed to the empire of the Ptolemies. 10. Ms sons shall war, i. e. Seleucus Ceraunos and An- tiochus III. shall come on. Thirteen MSS. and the LXX give the reading 'shall attack him,' i.e. the king of Egypt. overflow, and pass through. From Isa. viii. 8. shall return. Either into winter quarters in Ptolemais, or, after wintering in Ptolemais, to the campaign against Ptolemy in 217 B.C. his fortress. Probably Gaza, the strongest fortress of Pales- tine on the south. Driver calls attention to the play on Gaza (nt;) in the word for fortress (mro). 11. he shall set forth a great multitude, <&c. These words are taken in two ways. ' He (Antiochus, shall raise a great multitude and it shall be given into his (Ptolemy's) hands.' This DANIEL 11. 1.-14 123 tilde, and ihe multitude shall be given into his hand. And 12 the multitude shall « be lifted up, and his heart shall be exalted : and he shall cast down tens of thousands, but he shall not prevail. And the king of the north shall 13 return, and shall set forth a multitude greater than the former ; and he shall come on at the end of the times, even ^^years, with a great army and with much substance. iVnd in those times there shall many stand up against the 14 king of the south : also the children of the violent among •' Or, be carried aivay ^ Or, for is the preferable rendering. The other is: 'he (Ptolemy) shall raise a great multitude and the multitude shall be put under his command.' 12. And the multitude shall he carried away (marg.), that is, the army of Antiochus. Another possible rendering is that in the text : 'And the multitude shall be lifted up' or 'lift itself up' to attack. In this latter case the army would be that of Ptolemy. But the former rendering is to be followed. his heart, i.e. Ptolemy's. This circumstantial clause can also be referred to Ptolemy's army: 'its courage being raised.' shall cast down, &c., i.e. at Raphia. shall not prevail. Ptolem^^ after his victory at Raphia, recovered Coele S3'ria, but failed to follow up his success. Owing to his effeminate and dissolute character, favourable terms were granted to Antiochus. 1316. In 205 B.C., twelve years after the battle of Raphia, referred to in the preceding verses, Ptolemy Philopator died, leaving only one son, aged five years, who succeeded his father as Ptolemy Epiphanes, 205-181 b.c. Antiochus seized on this opportunity of attacking Egypt and formed a league with Philip of Macedon for this purpose. After varying fortunes Scopas, the general of Ptolemy, recovered possession of Judaea in 200 B.C., but two years later was utterly ciushed at Paneas (Caesarea Philippi), and forced to take refuge in Sidon, where he was besieged and taken captive. 13. shall return, and shall set forth. Better: 'shall again raise.' shall come on. As in ver. 10 we should, perhaps, with the LXX read 'shall attack him.' 14. shall many stand, &c., i.e. Antiochus, Philip of Macedon, and the many insurgents throughout the provinces of Egypt. the children of the violent among* thy people, &'c. Schlatter M 124 DANIEL 11. 15-17 thy people shall lift themselves up to establish the vision ; 15 but they shall fall. So the king of the north shall come, and cast up a mount, and take *a well fenced city : and the arms of the south shall not withstand, neither his chosen people, neither shall there be any strength to 16 withstand. But he that cometh against him shall do according to his own will, and none shall stand before him : and he shall stand in the glorious land, and in his 17 hand shall be destruction. And he shall set his face to * Or, the fenced cities {ZATIV,, 1894, 145- 151) is most probably right, as Marti points out, in identifying the ' violent among the people ' with the Tobiadae and their followers. Ptolemy alienated the affections of the Jews by supporting Joseph, the head of this family, by a garrison in Jerusalem. This family got hold of the high-priest- hood and robbed the nation by their endless taxation and exactions. Without intending it they contributed by their conduct *to establish the vision,' i. e. to bring about the end foretold, and to compass their own destruction. 15^. shall . . . cast up a mount (i.e. a mound) and take a well fenced city. This is Sidon, where Scopas with 100,000 men had taken refuge, and which Antiochus captured. a well fenced city. Theod., the Pesh., and Vulg. read * well fenced cities.' i5''-i6. Complete overthrow of the Egyptian suzerainty over Syria. 15*'. neither his chosen people ... to withstand. Better ' neither shall his chosen people have any strength to withstand.* This involves the omission of a vav, but the same sense is attain- able without any change. 16. But he (Antiochus) that cometh against him Ptolemy), stand in the glorious land, i.e. in Palestine. See note on viii. 9, and in his hand shall be destruction directed either against the Jews or the Egyptian garrisons in Palestine. If for nb^") we read n^p^ the text runs ' with all of it in his hand.' 17. he shall set his face, i. e. design, make it his aim ; cf. Gen. xxxi. 21, a Kings xii. 17. to come with the Btrenfifth, &c. This means that Antiochus will march his entire forces against Ptolemy. DANIEL 11. iS 125 come with the strength of his whole kingdom, ^ and ^' up- right ones with him ; and he shall do /lis pleasure : and he shall give him the daughter of women, ^ to corrupt her ; but dshe shall not stand, neither be for him. After this i' shall he turn his face unto the ® isles, and shall take * According to the ancient versions, and shall make equitable conditions with him: and he shall give ^c. ** Or, equitable conditions *^ Or, to destroy it ^ Or, // •= Or, coastlands and shall make eciuitable conditions (or better ' an agree- ment' ; cf. ver. 6) with him (marg.). So, in accordance with the LXX, Theod., and the Vulg., we should emend nuri-i "iDi"" D'ld (='and upright ones with him, and he shall do') unto DnM"Di nfr' I'D?. shall gfive him the daughter of women. When Antiochus was obliged to abandon his designs on Egypt owing to the inter- vention of Rome, he made an alliance with Ptolemy and gave him his daughter Cleopatra in marriage, with the provinces of Coelc Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine as a dowry. This marriage was carried out in 194-193 b.c. to destroy it (marg.), i.e. Egypt. The real motive of Antiochus in giving his daughter to Ptolemy was to gain a footing in Egypt which he could turn to his own purposes when occasion arose. The rendering in the text 'to corrupt her,' i.e. to bring about her ruin, gives no tolerable sense ; for Cleopatra adopted the cause of her husband, advised him to maintain his alliance with Rome and lived happily in Egypt. but it (marg.) shall not stand, neither he for him. This is the later Hebrew form of the clauses in Isa. vii. 7, xiv. 24, where cip is used. lO? is used in this sense here and in Esther iii. 4, Eccles. ii. 9. The plan of Antiochus will not succeed. 18. The historical facts behind this verse are shortly as follows. In 197 B.C. Antiochus made an expedition into Asia Minor. This expedition was attended with great success and most of the cities made their submission to him. In the same year he made himself master of the Thracian Chersonese, and in 192 effected a landing in Greece. But here his successes came to an end. In 191 his forces were routed by the Romans at Thermopylae, and in the following year he sustained such an overwhelming defeat at Magnesia that he had to submit to the most humiliating conditions dictated by the conqueror. turn his face, i.e. towards the West, to the islands and coastlands of the Mediterranean. M 2 126 DANIEL 11. 19-2T many : but a "^ prince shall cause the reproach offered by him to cease ; yea, moreover, he shall cause his reproach 19 to turn upon him. Then he shall turn his face toward the fortresses of his own land : but he shall stumble and 20 fall, and shall not be found. Then shall stand up in his ^^ place one that shall cause an exactor to pass through the glory of the kingdom : but within few days he shall be 21 c destroyed, neither in anger, nor in battle. And in his * Or, captain ** Or, office *^ Heb. broken. a prince. Lucius Cornelius Scipio, the Roman general at the battle of Magnesia. tlie reproach offered by him, i.e. the defiant attitude taken by Antiochus towards the Romans. Antiochus offered hospitality to Hannibal and told the Romans that they had no more business with his doings in the East than he had with theirs in the West. yea, moreover. This rendering cannot be defended. The text is corrupt, and needs to be emended. cause his reproach, &c., i. e. at Magnesia. 19. In order to raise the vast fine imposed on him Antiochus retired to the fortresses of the East. After plundering the temple of Bel in Elymais he and his followers were set upon by the inhabitants of the place and slain 187 e.g. 20. Seleucus IV, Philopaior, 187-175 B.C. This king impressed himself on the memories of the Jews by his attempt to rob the Temple through the agency of Heliodorus. The full account is given in 2 Mace. iii. 1-40. glory of the kingdom. Cf. ver. 16. Babylon is designated 'the glory of kingdoms ' in Isa. xiii. 19. shall be destroyed. Seleucus is the first of the three horns mentioned in vii. 8 of our text. Appian speaks of his death as due to a conspiracy headed by Heliodorus. 21-45. Antiochus IV, Epiphanes, 175-164 B.C. This Antiochus was the son of Antiochus the Great and the brother of the late king. For fourteen years he had been a hostage at Rome in accordance with the treaty concluded by the Romans with his father. At the request of Seleucus IV the Romans released Antiochus and took in his stead Demetrius the son of Seleucus. While Antiochus was on his waj' home, Seleucus was murdered by Heliodorus. By the help of Eumenes, king of Pergamum, and Attains, Antiochus seized the throne, which legitimately belonged to his nephew Demetrius. DANIEL 11. 22, 23 127 * place shall stand up a contemptible person, to whom they had not given the honour of the kingdom : but he shall come in time of security, and shall obtain the kingdom by flatteries. And with the arms of a flood 22 shall they be swept away from before him, and shall be broken ; yea, also the prince of ^ the covenant. And after 25 the league made with him he shall work deceitfully : for he shall come up, and shall become strong, with a small * Or, office '' Or, his covenant 21. a contemptible person. Cf. vii. 8 where he is called ' the httlc horn.' The term here may be applied to him in derision of the title he assumed, Epiphanes (i. e. ©cos fmc{>avr]s) * God manifest.' to whom they had not given, &c. He was not the legitimate heir. See note above. in time of security. Cf. 24, viii. 25. by flatteries. After his accession, as we learn from a recently discovered inscription, Antiochus made himself so popular that the people of Antioch recorded a vote of thanks to Eumenes and Attalus for their share in procuring his accession to the throne. 22-24. Events in Syria during the years 175-170 B.C. 22. with the arms of a flood, &c. Rather < the arms of the flood.' But as Bevan remarks this ' would be a singularly in- appropriate designation for the armies defeated by Antiochus.' Hence for fl^pri he reads f^t^rr, and thus instead of * with the arms of a flood . . . before him ' wc have ' forces (i. e. of Heliodorus and other domestic enemies of Antiochus) shall be utterly over- whelmed before him.' the prince of the covenant, i. e. the Jewish high-priest Onias III, who was removed from his office by Antiochus in T75 B.C. and was murdered at Antioch in 171. See note on ix, 26. 23. Antiochus outwitted all his friends and confederates. shall come up. This is taken to mean ' shall rise to power,' but there is no parallel for such a use. In fact the present text is unsatisfactory. The LXX presupposes quite a different text and Theod. renders the next verb (ci^r) by vntpiaxvcrei avrovs. If the latter is right we should add cn^'jr after ci'r, which word could go then excellently with both verbs ; ' shall be superior to and stronger than they.' with a small people. Apparently the partisans of Antiochus. 128 DANIEL 11. 24, 25 24 people. In time of security shall he come even upon the fattest places of the province ; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers ; he shall scatter among them prey, and spoil, and sub- stance : yea, he shall devise his devices against the strong 25 holds, even for a time. And he shall stir up his power 24. In time of security shall he come even. The vav translated * even ' here should, perhaps, with Theod. be transposed to the beginning of the verse: 'and in time of security he shall come.' come even upon the fattest places of the province, lit. ' of a province.' What the reference is is not clear. It is generally explained of Galilee or Lower Egypt, but, as Bevan objects, to describe either 'as "the fattest parts of a province" would be a strange figure of speech.' He proposes, therefore, to render : ' assail the mightiest men of each) province.' Cf. Isa, x. 16, Ps. Ixxviii. 31 for this use of '20^"0. The general sense agrees with viii. 25 *in (their) securit3' he shall destro3' many' and viii. 24 *he shall destroy' the mighty ones.' By his intrigues Antiochus would remove his chief opponents in each province. he shall do that which his fathers have not done . . . fathers' fathers. If these words stand alone they may refer to Antiochus' attempts to Helienize his subjects and put down all religions but his own. But if they refer to what follows they may be explained of Antiochus' prodigal generosity. Cf. i Mace. iii. 30, 'the gifts which he used to give aforetime with a liberal hand, and he abounded above all the kings which were before him.' This characteristic is marked by Livy xli. 20 'regius erat animus in urbium donis et deorum cultu.' Then follows a list of his acts of munificence. among' them, i.e. his adherents. For this vague use of the plural compare ver. 7. prey, and spoil, and substance. Cf. i Mace. i. 19 ' he took the spoils of Egj'pt.' devise his devices agfainst the strong* holds, i. e. of Egypt, such as Pelusium — ' the Gate of Egypt,' Livj' xlv. 1 1. Cf. i Mace, i. 19, * got possession of his strong cities in the land of Egypt.' But Antiochus' projects were not limited to the conquest of indi- vidual cities. He wished to be king of Egypt (i Mace. i. 16). for a time. Cf. verses 27, 35. 25-28. 170 B.C. Antiochus' first Egyption campaign in which he defeated Ptolemy Philomctor near Mount Casius, captured DANIEL 11. 26 129 and his courage against the king of the south with a great army ; and the king of the south shall war in battle with an exceeding great and mighty army : but he shall not stand, for they shall devise devices against him. Yea, 26 they that eat of his ^ meat shall ^ destroy him, and his army shall overflow : and many shall fall down slain. * Or, dainties ^ Heb. break, Pelusium, the key of Egypt, and with Ptolemy in his suite proceeded to Memphis. Pretending to act in the interests of the latter, Antiochus made himself master of Egypt. In the meantime the Alexandrians had made Ptolemy's brother king under the title Ptolemy Physcon. Antiochus next besieged Alexandria, but after many ineffectual efforts to capture it withdrew to Syria on the approach of three Roman envoys who had been appointed by the Senate to put an end to the war. On his return Antiochus plundered the Temple in Jerusalem : i Mace. i. 20-34, a Mace. V. 11-21. We have thus adopted the view of Wellhausen {Israel, und Jiid. Gesch}^ 1897. P« 246 «.) who maintains that Antiochus made only two Egyptian campaigns, the third, that of xi. 40, 41, being an unfulfilled prophecy. So also Mahaffy {Empire of the Ptolemies, p. 494 sq. who contends that what are commonly regarded as two distinct campaigns of 170 and 169 b. c. are in reality two stages in one and the same campaign. Driver favours this view but points out that since the persecuting edict belongs to the year 168 b.c, Antiochus' attacl^ on Jerusalem must have taken place in 170 b. c. owing to i Mace. i. 20, 29, 54. 25. king- of the south, i. e. Ptolemy VI, Philometor. with a great army. On Antiochus' army cf. i Mace. i. 17. he shall not stand, for they shall devise, &c. Ptolemy Philometor could not maintain the contest owing to the treachery of his followers. Antiochus defeated him near Pelusium and got possession of the border fortress of Pelusium by dishonourable means (Polyb. xxviii. 7, 16). 26. they that eat, <5:c. Possibly Eulaeus and Lenaeus whose ill-omened advice Jed to Ptolemy's attempt to reconquer Syria. Ptolemy fell under their influence after the death of his mother Cleopatra in 174 b.c. shall overflow. For n^ir* we should (cf. ver. 22 read F)t2^ _ < shall be swept away,' i. e. Ptolemy's army. The text would have to refer to that of Antiochus. many shall fall down slain. Cf. i Mace. i. 18, 'and man}' 130 DANIEL 11. 27-30 27 And as for both these kings, their hearts shall be to do mischief, and they shall speak lies at one table : but it shall not prosper ; for yet the end sliall be at the time 28 appointed. Then shall he return into his land with great substance ; and his heart shall he against the holy cove- nant ; and he shall do his pleasure^ and return to his own 29 land. At the time ap[)ointed he shall return, and come into the south; but it shall not be in the latter time as it 30 was in the former. For ships of Kittim shall come against fell down wounded to death,' which words are used of the hanie events. 27. their hearts shall be to do mischief, and they shall speak lies at oae table. When Antiochus conquered Ptolemy Philometor the Alexandrians raised his brother, under the title Plolemy Physcon, to the throne. Antiochus thereupon took Philometor under his protection, Antiochus on the one side pro- fessing that he did so solely in the interest of Philometor, and Philometor, on the other hand, professing that he believed in his uncle's disinterestedness. it shall not prosper, i. e. the subjugation of Egypt, which shall not take place until * the time appointed.' See ver. 43. But * the end ' in the text may refer not to this matter but to Antiochus' death. 28. Antiochus' attack on Jerusalem at the close of his first Egyptian campaign. with great substance, i.e. 'the spoils of Egypt ' (i Mace, i. 19). the holy covenant, i. e. the Jewish religion ; cf. ix. 27, note. 29-39. Antiochus^ second Egyptian Campaign 168 b. c. and his persecution of the Jews. This campaign was directed against the two brothers— Ptolemy Philometor and Ptolemy Physcon — who were now reconciled. 29. At the time appointed, i.e. in the counsels of God. Cf. ver. 27. it shall not be in the latter time, &c. That is, this campaign shall have a very different issue from the former. On the Hebrew idiom cf. Josh. xiv. 11, i Sam. xxx. 24. 30. ships of Kittim. Cf. Num. xxiv. 24. Originally the word Kittim denoted a town in C^-jirus, then generally the inhabi- tants of Cyprus (Gen. x. 4, Isa. xxiii. i, 12). Later it was used of the isles and coasts of the Mediterranean. Thus in the Rook of DANIEL 11. 31 131 him ; therefore he shall be grieved, and shall return, and have indignation against the holy covenant, and shall do his pleasure : he shall even return, and have regard unto them that forsake the holy covenant. And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall profane the sanctuary, even the fortress, and shall take away the continual burnt offer'uv^^ and they shall set up the abomination that Jubilees and in i Mace, it means the Macedonians, while in our text it clearly designates the Romans, The allusion here is to C. Popiiius Laenas and his fellow envoys, who summarily required Antiochus to leave Egypt. therefore he shall be grieved. Better ' and he shall be cowed ' — cf. Ps. cix. r6, Ezek. xiii. 2a, or perhaps with Belirmann ' and they shall threaten him ' (lit. ' he shall be threatened ' ;. This latter sense is found in Syriac, and the LXX and Vulg. support this rendering. he shall even return. Translate 'and he shall return,' i. e. to Antioch. regard imto them that forsake the holy covenant. On his return to Antioch, Antiochus kept up communication with the apostate Jews. These, under the leadership of Jason, the renegade high-priest, strove to hellenize the nation. See i Mace. i. 11- 15, 2 Mace. iv. 7-17, Assumption of Moses viii. r-5. 31. arms shall stand on his part. Rather 'armies — i.e. troops, cf, 15, 22 — (sent) from him shall stand up.' On the forces brought by the chief collector of Antiochus named, according to 2 Mace. v. 24, Apollonius, see i Mace. i. 29, they shall profane the sanctuary, even the fortress. The Temple at this period had fortifications— hence called the stronghold — as we may infer from their being afterwards rebuilt, according to i Mace. iv. 60, vi, 7. shall take away the contintial burnt offering. A similar statement is found in viii. 11. they shall set up the abomination that maketh desolate, i. e, the heathen aUar that was built on the altar of burnt offering. This was done according to i Mace, i. 54, on the 15th day of Chisleu (December), and on the 25th day of the same month according to i. 59, they offered heathen sacrifices on this altar which had been built on the altar of God, With regard to the peculiar expression 'abomination that maketh desolate ' (cp.:rp yjr^p ix. 37, xi. 3T, co-r y^pc viii. 13, xii. 11 (vrc)). Nestle, ZATW.. 1884, P« 248? suggests that this Hebrewphrase was a Jewish carica- 132 DANIEL 11. 32, 33 32 maketh desolate. And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he * pervert by flatteries : but the people that know their God shall be strong, and do 33 exploits. And ^ they that be wise among the people shall instruct many : yet they shall fall by the sword and * Heb. make profane. ^ Or, the teachers of the people ture of D'QiC ^1 * Lord of heaven ', a title occurring in Phoenician and with the necessary change of the final consonant, in Aramaic inscriptions. This phrase, which appears in i Mace. i. 54 as ^ZiXvy^a ipTjtiwafojs, was first applied to the heathen altar and then probably to the image of Olympian Zeus beside it. For according to Taanith iv. 6 ("iyrry c'^i* Torn) a statue of Zeus was set up. For Douro we should read Dt2u.''rT. 32. such as do wickedly a^fainst the covenant* For this use of the verb cf. ix. 5, xii. 10. These are in this view the apostates mentioned in ver. 30. But there is much to be said for Bevan's view that the words should be translated * those who bring guilt upon the covenanted people,' as opposed to the phrase in xii. 3 • they that turn many to righteousness.' This translation is supported by the rendering adopted in R.V. of the verb in this sentence. See next note. shall he pervert. The Revisers here follow practically the sense that this Semitic root has in Syriac, i.e. Gentile, Pagan, Apostate. If this is right, it substantiates the meaning given to the preceding clause by Bevan. For the writer would not speak of apostatizing the apostates. hy flatteries. Cf. i Mace. ii. 18. the people that know their Ood shall be strong, i. e. stead- fast. Cf. I Mace. i. 62. *■ Many in Israel were fully resolved and confirmed in themselves . . . that they might not profane the holy covenant: and they died.' and do exploits, better render simply ' do,' in the sense of acting with effect. This absolute use of the Hebrew verb has occurred already viii. 12, 24, ix. 19, xi. 28, 30. This meaning is found occasionally in the O.T., a Chron. xxxi. 21, Jer. xiv. 7, Ezck. XX. 9. 33. they that be wise. These are not the teachers, but the pious. They are strongly opposed to the Hcllenizing party, and themselves constitute the Hasidacans referred to in r Mace. ii. 42, vii. 13, 2 Mace. xiv. 6. Around them gathered the entire religious force of the nation. On this party see i Enoch xc. 6-9. shall instruct many, i.e. by their example and loj^alty. yet they shall fall by the sword, &c. These persecutions DANIEL 11. 34, ?.5 133 by flame, by captivity and by spoil, many days. Now 34 when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help : but many shall join themselves unto them with flatteries. And some of ^ them that be wise shall fall, to 35 refine them, and to purify, and to make them white, even •^ Or, ihe teachers referred to later in Heb. xi. 36-38 are describee' more fully in I Mace. i. 57, 60, 61, 63, ii. 31-38, iii. 41, v. 13, 2 Mace. vi. 10, 11, 18-31, vii. 34. a little help. The help here referred to is that of the Maccabees. The rising of Mattathias and his sons assisted by the faithful in ever growing numbers, and their early victories, are described in i Mace. ii. 42 48, iii. 11, 12, 23-26, iv. 12-15, t>"t to our author the greatest victories won by the arm of man are only * a little help.' He looks for deliverance not from this source, but from the Lord. many shall join themselves unto them with flatteries. These words are taken to indicate that many joined the national cause from sheer terror, because of the ruthless severities practised by Judas and his party. .See i Mace. ii. 44. iii. 5, 8, vi. 19, 21, 24, vii. 6, 7, 24-32. But the context, as the following verses show, is against the idea, that the Maccabees have as yet attained much pKJwer. In ver. 35 it speaks only of martyrdoms on the part of the faithful, and in ver. 36 only of Antiochus' success during the time allotted to him. It would not, therefore, be natural to paj' court to a cause still struggling for a very doubtful victorj'. Accordingly I offer the following suggestion, based on the corrupt but illuminating text of the LXX. The details cannot be given here, but the restored text would run 'and there shall join them many in the city and many in their several homesteads, i.e. the country.' 35. some of them that be wise shall fall, i. e. some of the leaders of the faithful shall suffer martyrdom or fall in the struggle. This phrase rendered ' the wise ' (cf. xi. 33, xii. 3, 10' could just as well be rendered ' the teachers,' i.e. those that maUe wise.as in ix. 22, and possibly in xii. 3. Where the text reads 'shall fall' the LXX reads 'shall be wise' — a reading which presupposes ^asMw (i'tdc') instead o( yikkasWIu (V'x'D')' to refine them, rather, it is to be rendered * to refine amongst them,' i.e. amongst the people at large, so Bevan and Driver. But turning aside from the text %ve observe that the Versions presuppose not active but middle or passive verbs, and in support 134 DANIEL 11. 36, ?,? to the time of tlic end : because it is yet for the time :,G appointed. And the king sliall do according to his will ; and he «hall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods : and he shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished; for that which is determined shall be done. 37 Neither shall he regard the gods of his fathers, nor the of the text presupposed by them, it is noteworthy that the same three verbs recur in xii. 10 in the passive. Into the details of this critical question I cannot enter here, but it is possible that the LXX is right, 'Some of the wise shall be wise with a view to their being refined and purified and made white.' Cf. xii. 10. for the time appointed. Cf. ver. 27. 36-39. These verses furnish a characterization of Antiochus, his presumptuousness and impiety, and show how he set at naught the various national religions, in order to establish the cult of his own god. 36. accordingf to his will. This phrase has been used in viii. 4 of the Persian Empire, in xi. 3 of Alexander, and in xi. 16 again of Antiochus. magnify liimself. On this phrase cf. ver. 37 and Isa. x. 15. above every g"od. On the later coins of Antioch there was the inscription BASIAEHS ANTIOXOT ©EOT Eni*AN0Y2 ^- ' of King Antiochus, God manifest,' and still later to the above he added NIKH*OPOY = * bearer of victory,' a distinctive epithet of the Olympian Zeus. See Driver ui loc. Such an assumption of the divine names and dignity naturally caused him to be regarded by the Jews as a monster of impiety. speak marvellons thing's against the God of gods,' i. c. unspeakable impieties (cf. vii. 8, 25) against the God of Israel, cf. ii. 47. till the indignation be accomplished. Cf. viii. 19 ; and Isa. X. 25 from which latter passage the words are borrowed. that which is determined shall be done, i. c. the divine will must be carried out. The phrase as in ix. 27 is drawn from Isa. X. 23. 37. Neither shall he regard the gods of his fathers. The efforts of Antiochus to bring about uniformity in religion and custom throusrhout his empire (cf. i Mace. i. 4i\ and his supreme devotion to the Olympian Zeus led Iiim to discredit the local deities, even those whom his fathers had worshipped. Amongst these was the Greek Apollo, whose form, represented on the coins of his fathers, and on his own coins at the beginning of his DANIEL 11. 3?, .^9 ^35 desire of women, nor regard any god : for he shall magnify himself above all. But in his " place shall he honour the 38 god of fortresses : and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things. And he shall deal with the 39 strongest fortresses by the help of a strange god ; ^ whoso- * Or, q^^cc ^' Or, whom lie shall acknowledge and increase ivith glory or, shall increase glory reign was subsequently wholly displaced by that of the Olympian Zeus. nor the desire of women. Probably the Phoenician deity Tammuz, the equivalent of the Greek Adonis whose cult had been popular in Sj'ria for centuries, especially among women (Ezek, viii. 14). Cf. Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 446 ff. Thammuz came next behind Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer's day ; "While smooth Adonis from his native rock Ran purple to the sea — supposed with blood Of Thammuz, yearlj' wounded : the love tale Infected Sion's daughters with like heat. nor regurd any god. According to Polj'bius Antiochus had plundered most temples within his reach, xxxi. 4, and his death was due, as we know, to an unsuccessful attempt to rifle a temple in Persia, See i Mace. vi. i, 4. 38. the god of fortresses. This is apparently Jupiter Capitolinus, to whom Antiochus had erected a magnificent temple in Antioch, and to whose temple he had sent golden sacred vessels of great worth. Livy, Book xli. 20 ; also xlii. 6. His fathers had recognized Zeus Olympius, it is true. 39. he shall deal with the strongest fortresses by the help of a strange god. This apparently means that he will conquer them by his help, but this sense is unsatisfactory, and the Hebrew questionable. Hence Hitzig, Bevan and others change D? into US and render 'he shall procure for the strong fortress the people of a strange god.' The reference would here be to the heathen colonists and soldiers settled by Antiochus in the fortified cities of Judea and in Jerusalem, i Mace. i. 33, iii. 36. 45. With the phrase 'people of a strange god' cf. Num. xxi, 29. and for this 136 DANIEL 11. 40 ever acknowledgeth hhn he will increase with glory : and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide 40 the land for a price. And at the time of the end shall the use of the Hebrew verb and preposition cf. 2 Sam. xv. i, 1 Kings i- 5. whosoever acknowledg'eth him he will increase with gflory, i. e. whosoever approveth of Antiochus' policy. The text might also be rendered as in the margin, or again as follows '■ he whom he recognizes he shall increase with glory.' cause thenx to rule over many, &c. Rather ' the many.' The appointment of apostates to supreme offices was one of Antiochus' methods of government, cf. i Mace. ix. 25. * And Bacchides chose out the ungodly men and made them lords of the country.' The chief offices were sold for a price, cf. 2 Mace. iv. 8-10, 24. 40-45. Transition frotn history to prophecy. Three different interpretations have been given to these verses. 1°. They have been regarded as a recapitulation, and as giving a brief sketch of the course of events, from about 171 B.C. to the death of Antiochus. But the introductory words, * At the time of the end,' excludes the assumption that we have here a recapitulation. The present belongs to the time of the writer. The persecutions described in ver. 35 are to last • to the time of the end.* That time has now come. 2°. They have been taken as relating to historical events, after those already mentioned, i. e. after the year 168 B. c. But our historical authorities know nothing of an expedition against Egypt after this date. The chief events of his reign in 167 u.c. are his institution at Daphne of the great series of games, and his reception of the envoy of the Roman Senate, whose suspicions he succeeded in placating. In the following year, 166 b. c, he started on an expedition in the course of which he perished. It is true that Porphyry, according to Jerome, does speak of another expedition to Egypt, but the incidents recorded by Porphyry, apart from one or two details, could all have been drawn from the text of Daniel, and the mention of Antiochus pitching his tent at Apedno, is due evidently to a misunder- standing of a Hebrew word in Daniel xi. 45. 3°. Hence the third hypothesis alone is tenable that this passage is not a description of the past, but a forecast of the future. As Driver writes, ' the author draws here an imaginative picture of the end of the tyrant king, similar to the ideal one of the ruin of Sennacherib in Isa. x. 28-32 : he depicts him as successful where he had previously failed, viz. in Egypt ; while reaping the spoils of his victories, he is called away by rumours from a distance ; and then, just after he has set out on a further career of conquest and DANIEL 11. 41-43 137 king of the south '^ contend with him : and the king of the north shall come against him Hkea whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships ; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass through. He shall enter also into the glorious land, and 4^ many countries shall be overthrown : but these shall be delivered out of his hand, Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon. He shall stretch forth 42 his hand also upon the countries : and the land of Egyj)t shall not escape. But he shall have power over the 43 treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious * Heb. push a/, plunder, as he is approaching with sinister purpose the Holy City, he meets his doom.' 40. at the time of the end. The period spoken of in ver. 35 has now come to a close. the kinsTof the south, i.e. Ptolemy Philometor. contend with. Literally ' butt at.' The same verb as in viii. 4. come . . , like a whirlwind, i. e. Antiochus will come against Ptolemy like a whirlwind. For this use of the verb cf. Hab. iii. 14. overflow and pass through. This phrase has alread}' occurred in ver. 10. 41. the g'lorious land. See ver. 16. many countries shall be overthrown. Rnbboih, i.e. many (fern.), we should clearly read tibboth — myriads, cf. xi. 12, with de Wette, Bevan, Behrmann, and others. Hence we render * myriads shall be overthrown.' but these shall be delivered — Edom, Moab, Ammon, the nations hostile to the Jews even at this period. Cf, i Mace. iv. 6r, V. 3-8. the chief of the children. Instead of nnr-Ni we should with the Pesh. and Gesenius-Biihl read nntMD = the remnant. Thus we should have 'the remnant of the children of Ammon.' 42. 43. Conquest 0/ Egypt. 42. stretch forth his hand, i. e. seize. Cf. Esther viii. 7. shall not escape. For this phrase cf. Gen. xxxii. 8. 43. This verse is at variance with what we know independently, regarding Antiochus' financial position at this time. He was in the greatest pecuniary straits. 138 DANIEL 11. 41, 45—12. T things of Egypt : and the Libyans and the Ethiopians 44 shall be at his steps. But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him : and he shall go forth with great fury to destroy and ^ utterly to make away many. 45 And he shall plant the tents of his palace ^^ between the sea and the glorious holy mountain ; yet he shall come to 12 his end, and none shall help him. And at that time shall * Heb. fo devote many. ^ Or, between the seas at the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps, i. e. follow him. These nations lived to the west and south of Egypt respectively. Hence Egypt is represented as beset on all sides. 44. tidinffs out of the east. The same Hebrew word is used for tidings which made Sennacherib retire (Isa. xxxvii. 7). he shall go forth, i. e. from Egypt. to destroy and utterly to make away. Literally 'to destroy and to ban.' The LXX here is corrupt. But the corruption points to the original order as being ' to ban and to destroy,' and in this order these two verbs are found in a Chron. xx. 23. 45. shall plant. The verb y^: is used here only in the O.T. in this sense instead of rrc:. It is very Ir*-^ Hebrew. the tents of his palace. The word for palace {appedeii) which is found here only in the O.T. but occurs frequently in Syriac, is derived from the Persian apadana. This word was misunderstood by Porphyry as being the name of a place. between the sea and the holy motintain. Our text implies that Antiochus died in Palestine between the Mediterranean and Mount Zion, whereas he actually died at Tabae in Persia, 164 b.c. It was a reasonable expectation on the part of the Jews, that their greatest persecutor should fall amid the scenes of his greatest crimes. According to viii. 25 he was to perish ' broken without hand.' Moreover, the old eschatological expectations of the prophets fixed on the neighbourhood of Jerusalem (Ezek. xxxviii-xxxix, Joel iii. 2,Zech. xiv. 2 sqq,, i Enoch xc. 13-19) as the scene of the conflict between the saints and the hostile heathen powers or of the judgement of the latter by God. xii. 1-3. These three verses form the close of the revelation of the angel, and belong to what precedes. In fact xi. 40-45 and xii. 1-3 form a unity, being a description of the last times of all, i.e. the destruction of the great heathen power, xi. 40-45, followed by tumults and trouble throughout the world, out of which, however, the faithful shall be saved. Then follows the resurrection of the DANTEL 12. 2 139 Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people : and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time : and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And pre-eminently righteous, and of the apostates in Israel, and the age of everlasting blessedness. 1. At that time, i.e. the period of the overthrow ofAntiochus. Michael. . . the gfreat prince. See x. 13, 21. which standeth for the children of thy people, i.e. * pro- tects.' Cf.Estherviii.il. a time of trouble, such as never was, &c. This phrase is the standard description of the last times. Cf. i Mace. ix. 27, Ass. Moses viii. i, Mark xiii. 19, Matt. xxiv. 21, Rev. xvi. 18. So far as the phrase itself goes, it occurs in a non-technical sense in Exod. ix. 18,24. The phrase 'time of trouble ' has already occurred in Jer. xxx. 7. It refers here, of course, to the gathering of all the Gentile powers against Jerusalem. Amongst these were probably the Libyans and Ethiopians, mentioned in xi. 43. thy people, i.e. the true Israel. written in the hook, i.e. of life. The book of life as a register of the actual citizens of the theocratic community on earth. This expression was originally confined to temporal bless- ings and to the living only in connexion with these. But in the present passage the idea has been transformed through the in- fluence of the new conception of the kingdom and distinctly refers to an immortality of blessedness. This book has thus become a register of the citizens of the coming kingdom of God whether living or departed. For a full account of this and parallel phrases see my edition of i Enoch xlvii. 3. 2. In Ps. xlix and Ixxiii there are probably the first intimations of the individual immortality of righteous souls. In the very late section, Isa. xxvi. 1-19, there is probably the first account of the resurrection of the righteous. The righteous, of courseware Israelites and they are raised to share in the blessedness of the Messianic kingdom. In Judaism the resurrection in its original form was the prerogative of the righteous, but in our text this characteristic has been abandoned, and both the preeminently righteous and the pre-eminently wicked have part in the resurrection. The con- ception of the resurrection has thus declined in our text into a mere veliicle for bringing certain classes of the righteous and the wicked to their deserts, I40 DANIEL 12. 3 many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and 3 everlasting ^ contempt. And i> they that be wise shall * Or, abhorrence ''Or, the teachers many. It is to be observed that it is not said that all Israel, but many in Israel shall be raised from the dead. These • many ' fall into two classes, the pre-eminently righteous, amongst whom are undoubtedly included the martyrs and confessors, and the pre- eminently wicked or the apostates. This is almost exactly what we find in i Enoch xxii, where, however, the idea of Sheol is in a higher state of development than that in our text. sleep. Used of death as in Jer. li. 39, 57. It was one of the commonest synonyms for death. sleep in the dust. This expression as well as the following word awake is found in the great resurrection passage in Isa. xxvi. 19. in the dust of the earth. This rendering, though it has the support of some of the Versions, is not a translation of the text, which literally translated is ' in the land of dust.' Bevan thinks that we should expect a transposition of the words in the original. Marti explains 'the dust' as defining the term 'earth,' i.e. earth which is dust. Driver renders * the dusty earth,' which comes to the same thing; but these are unsatisfactory. 'Aphar, i.e. dust, can be used as a synonym of Sheol, cf. Job xvii. 16, xx. 11, xxi. 26, Ps. XXX. 9. Hence we should simply render the text as it stands, ' In the land of dust.' The Babylonian Hades, which is the same as that of the ancient Hebrews, is described in the Descent of Ishtar, as ' the dark house . . . the house from which he who enters never emerges . . . where dust is their nourishment, clay their food.' shall awake. Isa. xxvi. 19, where the same verb is used in the same sense. everlasting* life. Here only in the O.T., but of frequent occurrence in Apocalyptic literature, in the Targums, the Talmuds, and other Jewish writings. It is found in i Enoch xv. 4, 6 which is older than the present text. shame (and) everlasting* contempt. The copula is not found in the text, but it is probably right, as it is found in the two Greek versions and in the Syriac. The word * contempt ' is found only once besides in the O. T., i.e. in Isa. Ixvi. 24, * They shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.' 3. This verse refers to the teachers and leaders of the faithful. Amongst these would naturally be the martyrs and confessors of Judaism, who with the teachers would be distinguished from the rest of the faithful Israelites. Cf. i Enoch civ. 2. DANIEL 12. 4, 5 T4t shine as the brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and 4 seal the book, even to the time of the end : many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. Then I Daniel looked, and, behold, there stood other 5 two, the one on the brink of the river on this side, and * Be hopeful ; for aforetime ye were put to shame through ill and affliction ; But now ye shall shine as the lights of heaven, Ye shall shine and ye shall be seen, And the portals of heaven shall be opened to you.' Cf. also 4 Ezra vii. 97. they that be wise. Cf. xi. 33, 35. the brightness of the firmament. Cf. Exod. xxiv. 10. turn many to rig-hteousness. Cf. Pirke Aboth v. 26, ' Who- soever makes the many righteous, sin prevails not over him, and whosoever makes the many to sin they grant him not the faculty to repent.' This passage is clearly dependent on our text. 4. The augePs last cotnniission to Daniel. shut up the words, and seal. The book was to be concealed and sealed. With the former injunction cf. viii. 26. to the time of the end. The entire book, as it is said in viii. 17, 26, belongs to the time of Antiochus' persecution, when the seals should be removed and the book understood. Contrast Rev. xxii. 10. many shall run to and fro. These words are generally taken to mean, shall run to and fro in the book, i. e. shall diligently study it, but, as Behrmann points out, the word would not naturally mean an earnest study of the book, but a superficial reading of it. The LXX here points to what was the true and original meaning. The text both of this clause and the next is very corrupt. I cannot do more here than add a translation ot what appears to be the original text, reconstructed from the basis of the Versions. Hence instead of ' many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased ' read ' and many shall apostatize and evils shall be multiplied upon the earth.' 5-7. Vision of the two angels, one of whom states the duration of the troubles just foretold. other two, i. e. in addition to the being who appeared to Daniel in x. 5, clothed in linen, and who had imparted to him the revelation in x. 11-14, 19 — xii» 4- N 2 142 DANIEL 12. 6, 7 6 the other on the brink of the river on that side. And one said to the man clothed in linen, which was above the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of 7 these wonders ? And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, andfjware by him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when they have made an end of break- ing in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things the river (ye^or). The word used here is elsewhere in the O.T. the usual designation for the Nile. It is the same river that is mentioned in x. 4, which, as we saw in the note on that passage, is most probably the Euphrates. 6. And one said to the man. Cf. viii. 13. the man clothed in linen: the same being as is described in X. 5, 6. these wonders, i.e. the things prophesied in xi. 31-36, xii, I. 7. he held up his rigrht hand and his left hand nnto heaven, and he sware. The lifting up of the hand and swearing is mentioned in Gen. xiv. 22, Exod. vi. 8, Deut. xxxii. 40. Here both hands are lifted up by the angel in the case of this most solemn oath. him that liveth for ever. This was a familiar phrase of the time, see note on iv. 34 where it has already occurred. for a time, times, and an half, i.e. three years and a half. Whether this period began with the mission of Apollonius or with the erection of the heathen altar is doubtful. In any case it defines the limit of the reign of the Antichrist ; see notes on vii. 25 and viii. 14. and when they have made an end of breakingf in pieces the power of the holy people, all these thingfs shall be finished. We have here a fresh time determination, and it is entirely vague, and apparently has no connexion whatever with the definite time determination just given. The angel has just declared with a most solemn oath that all will come to an end in three years and a half. He could not have followed this definite statement by one so entirely vague, and not even true to fact. F'or the power of the holy people was not w^holly broken in pieces. The fact that the Versions take different directions, shows that the present Hebrew text is secondary. The way out of this impasse is suggested by the LXX, which requires us to transpose two of the Hebrew words, as Bevan has recognized. When this is done and DANIEL 12. s-io 143 shall be finished. And I heard, but I understood not : S then said I, O my lord, what shall be the " issue of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the 9 words are shut up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall purify themselves, and make themselves lo white, and be refined j but the wicked shall do wickedly ; and none of the wicked shall luiderstand : but '' they that ' Or, latter Old ^ Or, the teachers a slight change made in the pointing, we arrive at the followiiij:^ excellent text. *And when the power of the shatter, r of the holy people should be finished all these things should be finished.' 'The shatterer of the holy peoi)lc * is of course Antiochus. The angel proclaims with the most solemn oath that this oppressor is the last of all the oppressors. 8. Daniel, as living at the time of Cyrus, is represented as not understanding this time determination, and as therefore seeking more explicit information. To the readers of the book in the time of Antiochus the meaning of ver. 7 was of course quite clear. This is the usual interpretation of these words, but it must be confessed that it is not quite satisfactory that Daniel should again ask 'what is the end of these things?' when he has already' been told it repeatedly. The LXX suggests a better text. what shall "be the issue of these thing^s? The word rendered ' issue ' is better rendered in the margin ' latter end,' and is in fact a synonym for the word translated 'end' in ver. 6 and ver. 9. In rendering the word 'issue' the Revisers attempted to extract some meaning from a bad text. 9. The angel refuses to give any further explanation of the things belonging to the end. They are not for the prophet but for the readers of the distant future. The same view of prophecy is expressed in i Pet. i. ro-12. 10. This verse repeats for the most part what has been said in xi. 35, as to the time of the end being a period of trial and probation. As this trial will refine and purify the faithful it will only deepen and confirm the wicked in their wickedness. none of the wicked shall understand, but they that he wise shall understand. The wicked act blindly, but the wise have understanding in the ways of the Lord. On the other hand, it is quite possible that the words refer to the understanding or the lack of understanding of the words of the prophets, and particularly of the words of this prophet. 144 DANIEL 12. 11-13 1 1 be wise shall understand. And from the time that the continual bur?it offering shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be 12 a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and comcth to the thousand three hundred. 13 and five and thirty days. But go thou thy way till the end be : for thou shalt rest, and shalt stand in thy lot, at the end of the days. ri, 12. In verse 9 the angel clg.irly refused to give Daniel an}' further information on the period yet to elapse before the coming of the kingdom. And j'et we find in these two verses two new and di/Terent reckonings given which are in conflict with the one already furnished in viii. 14. In viii. 14 it is stated that 1,150 days should elapse, from the doing away with the continual burnt offering, till the cleansing of the sanctuary. These two new reckonings start from the same date, i.e. from the removal of the continual burnt offering. Cf. viii. 14, ix. 27, xi. 31. Both verses are, I think, without doubt to be taken with Gunkel and Marti as glosses, that were added successively with a view to bringing the text into accord with history by adjourning the date of the fulfil- ment of the prophecy. As such, these glosses, therefore, must have originated at the time. The period mentioned in ver. ii. i.e. 1,290 da3's, is easy to explain. It obviously defines the dura- tion of the 32 3'ears. If we insert in the 3^ j'ears (-^42 months = 1,260 days. Cf. Rev. xi. 3, xii. 6) an intercalary month, we have 43 months in the 3I years, and if we take these as consisting of 30 da3's each, we arrive at the number 1,290. How 1,335 is to be explained otherwise than on the ground of practical necessit}-, I do not see. It amounts to 45 days, or i^ months more than 1,290 days. 11. The abomination that maketh desolate. Cf. viii. 13, ix. 37, xi. 31. 13. The book closes with a word of comfort to Daniel. thou Shalt rest, i.e. in the grave. Isa. Ivii. 2. Shalt stand, i.e. 'shalt arise,' though the meaning of resurrection, apparently attached to the word here, is not found elsewhere. in thy lot. The seer, as belonging to the pre-eminently faithful, shall one day rise to share in the blessedness announced by him. end of the days. Cf. x. 14 where the phrase, though different in the Hebrew, has practicallj' the same meaning. INDEX Abednego, 9, 28, 32-7. Abiesdri, 1 1 n. Abomination. See Desolate. Abydenus {On the Assyrians), 38 n. Additions in Daniel, xxxi, xxxii. Adonai, Lord, 4 n., 96 n. Adonis, 'the desire of women,' 135". Ahasuerus, 94. Alexander's conquests. 74 n., 85 (*a notable horn '). Altar, heathen, set up by An- tiochus in Temple, x, 88 n., 89 n., no n., 131 n. Ammon, 137. Ancient of days = an aged being, 75 ; an apocalyptic form of expression, 75 n. Angelic patrons of the nations. 115 n. ; explain delay in coming of Messianic kingdom, xliii. See Michael, Prince. Angels, a heavenly council ;^heaven's), 43 n. ; army of heaven, 47 n. ; holy one, 43 n., 88 ; watcher, 43 n., 45. Angelus interpres, 79 n. Antichrist, AntiochusEpiphanes the prototype of, xlii. Antiochus II, 120 n. Antiochus III, the Great, 122 sq. n.; conquest of Cherso- nese, defeated at Thermo- pylae and Magnesia, 125 n. Antiochus Epiphanes, ix, x, xi, xxxvi, xxxvii, xlii, xliii, 50 n,, 69 sq. nn,, 71 n. ; * a little horn,' 74 n., 86 n. ; assumes divine titles, 134 n. ; attacks holy people, 93 ; attacks Jerusalem, ix, x, 130 n. ; conquests, ia8, 129 ; descrip- tion of, 92, 126 sq. notes ; devotion to Olympian Zeus, 134 n. ; diverse from his pre- decessors, 81 n. ', end of 'between the sea and the holy mountain,' 138; but actually died at Tabae in Persia, 138 n. ; generosity of, ia8 n. ; in Egypt, 128 n. ; persecutes Jews, 80, 81, &c, ; profanes sanctuary, 131 n. ; suspends temple worship, 82-3 n. Apedno, 136 n. Apocalypse, the Little, in Mark xiii, 70 n. Apocalyptic and Prophecy, xiii. Apocalyptic, ethical character of, xvi ; pseudonymous in Judaism, xiv, xvi. A pocalj'ptic forms of expression . See Ancient of Days, Ap- pearance of a Man, Son of Man. Apostates, Jewish, 131 n., 132. Appearance of a man : an apo- calyptic form of expression for an angel Gabriel , 89 n. Aramaic of Daniel, not the ver- nacular of Babylonia,xxi, 17 n. Aramaic original of Daniel, xii, xix-xxvi, 16 n. Aramaic of Ezra, xx, xxv. Arioch, 19 n., 20, 22. Ashpenaz, 6. Assumption of Moses, 70 n. Azariah, 8, 9, 11, 12, 20; prayer of, 35 n. Azda = sure, certain, 17 n. 146 DANIEL Babylon, 19, ao, 2a, 28, 29, 37, 40, 46. Babylonian Empire, 25, 70, 72 n. Bagpipe (R.V. marg. for • Dul- cimer', 31 n. Barnabas, Epistle of, 70 n. Baruch, First Book of, 97 sq. notes. Bath-Kol, xliii, 47 n. Bear - Median Empire. 73 n. Beast, the Fourth, burned with fire. i. e. cast into final place of punishment, 77 n. Beasts, the four •= four king- doms, 70 n. Belsarusur, 49 n. Belshazzar, 48 sqq., 50, 53, 57, 59, 67, 8a. Belteshazzar, 9, 23, 41,44, 11 r. Benedicite, the hymn, 35 n. Berenice, wife of Antiochus II, 120 n. Berosus, 3 n. Bibliography, xliii-xlv. Book, written in, 139. Book of life, 139 n. Books, opened, 77 n. Books, the, i. e. Scripture, 95, 96 n. Break off (or ' Redeem,' i. e. = Heb. parak;, 46 n. Canon, Jewish, divisions of, xxxiv ; formation of, xv, xvi. Captain of the king's guard, 20 n. Chain of gold, 53 n. Chaldaean king, 59. Chaldaeans, 7, 15, 16, 17, 19, 31 » 53' 54» 95 ; a tribe, con- quered Babylonia, 7 n. ; a caste of wise men, 7 n., 15 n. Chaldee, a misnomer for the Aramaic of Daniel, xxi. Children, The Three, 35 n. Chronology : Babylonian, xxxvii,xxxviii. Jewish, xxxix-xli ; of Seleu- cidae, xxxviii-xli; of Ptole- mies, xxxix, xl ; errors in, 3 n., i3n., 107 n., irS n. Clean and unclean, rules of, xliii, 9, ion. Clouds of heaven, 78 n. Commentaries, xlv. Consummation, no. Continual burnt oflcriug, 87 n. ; taken away by Antiochus, 87 n., 88, no, 144. Cornet, 30 n. Counsellors ,30 n.(-haddab6rin), 35 n-, 48. 62. Covenant, he shall make firm. (See proposed emendations , 109 n.; them thai forsake, 131 n. ; such as do wickedly against, 132 n. Curse . . . and the oath, written in the law of Moses, 99 n. Cyrus, 13 n., 48 sqq. n., 67, t 1 1 ; king of Persia, inn. ; takes Babylon, 49 n. Daniel, 8-13. 19-23. 28,41. 44, 55' 59-6r, 63 7, 70, 79, 82. 83, 89,94, 95. io3> iii» 113- 114, 141, 143. Daniel, Book of, Additions and Glosses in, xxxijXxxii; among Hagiographa in Massoretic, xxxiv ; antecedents, histori- cal, of, ix-xi ; authorities, textual, xxxii-xxxiii. See also, Versions. Bibliography, xliii-xlv ; Character, pseu- donymous, xi-xii, xiv-xvi ; Date, xxxiii-xxxvii ; Lan- guage, original, xii, xix-xxvi; Publication, occasion of, xi ; Success, xi ; Theology, xli ; Versions, xxvi, xxxi. Daniel, homage paid to. See Homage. Darius, 59, 60, 62, 63. 67, 94, 1 18. INDEX 147 Darius the Mede ,?«Gubarif . 59-6011. Darins, * son of Ahasucius,' 94, 95". Date, Scr Daniel. Days, a tliousand two Jiundrcd and ninc'l3', 144 n. ; a thousand three hundred and five and thirlN', 144 n. See Ancient, Latter. Demetrius, an Egyptian Jew, error in chronology', 107 n. Deputy'. 28 n., 29, 30. 36, 62. Desolate. 88 ; abomination, that niaketh, 88n.. iion., i3rn., 144. Determiners ^R.V. soothsayers), 16 n., 23. 41, 53, 54. Dissolving of doubts, 55 n. See Resolving. Dulcimer, 31 n. Dura, plain of, 29 n. Dust of the earth = Sheol,i4on, Edom, 137. Egypt, loi, 122, 137, 138. Elam. province of, 83. Empires, the four, 25. 26 n. ; = four parts of image, 25 ; «=four beasts, 68 sq., i72sq., notes. Enchanters, 13, 15 n., 19, 23, 41, 53; 54, 55- End, of the times ;^so read for 'troublous times'), 107 n.; time of, the, 90 n., 134, 136, 143 n., 144 n. See Consum- mation, Latter Days. Enoch, First Book of, 75-9, notes. Enoch, Second Book of, xviii Ephrem Syrus, 69 n. Eternity. See Immortality. Ethical character of Apoca- lyptic. See Apocalyptic. Ethiopians, 138, Eunuchs, 6n. Eusebius, 38 n. Evening oblation, time of, 103. Evenings and mornings, two thousand and three hundred, 89 n. ; vision of. 93 n. Ezekiel, xv. Ezra, Fourth Book ot, 69 n. Fasting as a preparation for a revelation, 96 n.; practice of, 112 n., 115 n. Fathers «= leaders, 98 n. Flood w war , 108 n. Flute, 30 n. Forgivenesses, 99. Gabriel, 9011.. 103. Gehenna, Resurrection of Jew- ish apostates to, xlii. Glosses in Daniel, xxxi, xxxii. God, names of: Adonai, 4 n. ; Yahweh,96n.; 'prince of the host,' 8711.; prince of princes, 93 n. ; God of gods and Lord of kings, 28n. ; God of heaven, 20 n., 21, 25, 27 ; Great and dreadful God, &c., 96 ; Lord God,96;Lordmy ('ourGod'). 97, 99, loi, 102 ; Most High God, 36 n., 40, 56; Most High, 44? 45, 47? 81. God, 'before God,' 6411.; house of, see Temple. God, a strange, 135 n. ; of for- tresses = Jupiter Capitoli- nus (?), 135 n. Gods, the holy, 41 n. Governors. 3on. Greece, 92, 117, 118. Greek ; or Macedonian) Empire, 26n.; the fourth empire, 70 n., 73-4, 84 n. Greek. See Versions. Gubaru, 49 n. Haddabgrin, 35 n. Hagiographa, Daniel placed 148 DANIEL among, in Jewish Canon, xxxiv. Hananiah, 8, 9, 11, la, 20. Harp, 31 n. Hasidim, x. Heathen, powerlessness of, against God, enforced in ch. iv, 39 n. Heathen empires, xi ; how re- lated to Israel, xi. Heaven, army of ( = angels), 47 n. ; host of ( -^ the people of God}, 86-7 n. Heavens = God, 46 n.; or heavenly powers, i, c. angels, 45 n- Heavenly council of God, 43 n. See Angels. Hebrew, not original language of Daniel, xxv. He-goat = Greek Empire, 84 n., 91 ; = Greece, 92. Hellenizing policy. See An- tiochus, High-priests. Heracles, festival of, at Tyre, ix. Herodotus' account of capture of Babylon, 49 n. Hiddekel, river, 112 n. (agloss\ High Priests, ix ; Hellenizing policy of, ix. Historical difficulties in ch. v, 48-50 n.; errors, ii8n.,i38n.; statements in ch. iv. See Sources. History, transition from to prophecy, in account of An- tiochus Epiphanes, 136 n. Holy people, i. e. Israel, 93, 142 ; * Shatterer of = Antio- chus, 143. Homage paid to Daniel, 27 n. Horn, a little = Antiochus Epi- phanes, 74 n., 86 n. ; a notable = Alexander the Great, 85 n. ; four notable (rather ' four other') horns = the four king- doms of the Diadochi, 85- 6n.; symbol of king, 74 n.; of dynasty, 74 n. Horns, the ten, 71 n.; the three plucked up, 71 n.; Seleucus IV, Heliodorus, and Deme- trius I, 74 n. Hosen, 34 n. Host, read ' service,' 88 n. Host, see Heaven. ' An host was given over to it,' 87 n. House of God = Temple, 5 n. Hymn, of Daniel, ai n. Idolatry condemned, xliii ; op- position to enforced, in ch. iii, 29 n. Immortality, of individual, not clearly taught in Daniel, xlii, 139 n. ; of the Messianic kingdom, xlii, 139 n. nterpretation of the Book of Daniel, xliii-xliv ; by Por- phyry, xliii. Interpretation of dreams de- manded by Nebuchadnezzar, ]6 n., 40; given by Daniel, 25, 44 ; of visions requested b}' Daniel, 79, 80, 89 ; given by angel, 79, 80, 88, 91, loi, 114 sq. Israel, 6, 98, 99, 102. Jason, high-priest, ix. Jehoiakim, 3. 4. Jeremiah, 96. Jeremiah's prophecy of the 70 years, 94 n. ; reinterpreted, 95 n. Jerusalem, 3, 51, 96, 98, loi, 106; = the city called byname of the Lord, 102 n. Jews, 32. Judah, 3, 4, 8, 22, 55, 64, 98 ; captivity of, 22, 55, 64. Judgement, Divine, on heathen INDEX 149 powers, 75 n. ; final, by God, xliii. See also Saints. Judges, 30 n. ; =■ rulers, 100 11. Kingdom. S^56, 67, 78. Peras, 59 n. Peres. See Writing. Persia, 91, iir, 115,117. 118; four kings of, Ii8n. Persian, Gyrus the, 67. Persian Empire, 25, 7on.. 73,84 n. Persians, 59, 63. 6.^, 65. Peshitto, xiii, xxx. Pirke Aboth, 1 4 in. Porphyry, 69 n. Porphj'ry's Treatise agaiust the Christians, xliii ; interpreta- tion of Daniel, xliii-xliv. Pra3'er, duty of private, 60 n.; the three hours of, 63, 64 n. ; turningto Jerusalem in, 63n.: as a preparation for a revela- tion, 96 ; in ix. 4-19 an in- terpolation, 96, 97 n. Pra3'er of Azarias, 35 n. Prince = high-priest, 108 n. Prince = angelic patron, 115 n., 117; of Persia, 115; of Israel (Michael),! 18; ofGreece,ii7. Prince of princes. See God ; of the host. See God. Princes = angelic chiefs, 93 n. Problems, bilingual. See He- brew, Aramaic. Prophecy and Apocalyptic, xiii. Sec also History. Prophet, psychical state of, xiii. Prophets, 98 ; the servants t'f God, 98, 99. Psaltery, 31 n. Pseudon3'mity,causesof, xv,xvi. Ptolemies, the, xxxlx. Ptolemy II and HI, 120 and 121 n. Ptolemy Epiphancs, 123 n. Ptolemy Philopator, 123 n. Punishment, by dismember- ment, i8n. ; by dishonouring house, 18 n. Purge away (R.V. ' make re- conciliation for' , 105 n. Purple, the roj'al dignity of wearing, 53 n. Pusey, xliv-xlv. Queen-dowager, 53 n. Ram with two horns = Empires of Media and Persia, 84 n. Raphia. battle of, 12a n. Reconciliation, to make. See Purge away. Resolving of enchantments,55n. Resurrection, onl3' of pre- eminently righteous or wicked, expected in Daniel, xiii, 139 n., 144 n. Revelation, preparations for, 96-7 n. ; include pra3'er, fasting, wearing of sackcloth and ashes. Righteousness ■■ almsgiving, 46 n. Righteousness, eternal = the true worship of God, or the eternal righteousness of the Messianic kingdom, 105 n. Roman Empire wrongly re- garded as the Fourth Empire of Daniel, 70 n. Rules as to clean and unclean food, xliii, 9, ID n. Sackbut, 31 n. Sacrifices discontinued, x. Saints, war with, 74 n., 60; judgement (rather dominion") given to, 80-1; kingdom of, 79 n. ; heavenly in origin, everlasting in duration, 80 n. INDEX 15* Sanctuary, cleansed. 89 n. ; de- stroyed, 108 n.; trodden under foot, 88 n. Satraps, 29 n. Scopas, 133 n. Seasons. See Times. Seleucidae, xxxviii, 71 n. Seleucus Ceraunus, 122 n. Seleucus II, 121 n. Seleucus IV, 126 n. Septuagint. See Versions. Seventy years, in Jeremiah's prophecy of the captivity, re- interpreted as seventy weeks of years, 104 n. Shadrach, 9, 28, 32-7. Sheol, in Daniel, a non-moral region, intermediate abode of very good and very evil i till Resurrection) ; eternal abode of rest of Israel and all Gen- tiles, xlii; -dust of the earth, or rather ' the land of dust,' 140 n. Sheriffs, 30 n. Shinar, 5. Shushan, the palace, 83 n. Sibylline Oracles, xxxiii n. ; quoted, 68, 69 n. Signs and wonders, 40 Sirach, xxxiv. Son of Man, 78 n. ; a super- natUEel being; an Apocalyptic form of expression, 78 n. Son of man = a human being (Daniel), 90 n. Soothsayers. See Determiners. Sorcerers, 16 n. Sources of historical statements in chap, iv, 38, 39 n. Stand before = serve, 8n. Steward, ii n. Symbolism of Apocalyptic vi- sions, 76 n. Syriac version of Paul of Telia, XXX. Syrian language, 16 n., 17. Tamid. 87 n. See continual. ^ Tekel. See Writing. Temple ^ House of God, place of His (God's") sanctuary, 87 n. Temple-services discontinued, X ; treasures seized by An- tiochus, X ; vessels removed to Babylon, ^, 5. Testaments of XII Patriarchs xviii, x'x. Third Ruler, 53 n. Time. See Days, Evenings. Time and times and half a lime, 82 n. Times = years, 43 n. Times and the law, i. e. the religious festivals, &c., 8x n. Times and seasons, ai n. Transgression, the, = the hea- then worship established in the Temple, 105 n. Cf. 88, 92. See Desolate. Transportation to Babylon, in Jehoiakim's third year, 3 n. Treasurers, 30 n. Treatises and Articles, xlv. Truth = the true religion, 88 n. Tunics, 34 n. Ulai, river, 83 n., 90. Upharsin. See Writing. Uphaz, ii3n. Versions of Daniel : Greek, xii, xxvi-xxx. See Septuagint, xxvi-xxx ; Theodotion ; wide divergence between LXX and Theodotion, xx ; between LXX and Massoretic in ch. iv, 37 n. ; Bibliography of, xlv. Vessels. See Temple. Visions, conventional use of term, xiv. Visions of Daniel, 67-144 ; first, 67 ; second, 82 ; third, iij. Vulgate, xiii, xxxi. 152 DANIEL Watcher. See Angels. Week = lialfol the week, 10911.; seven years, 104 n. ; the Seventh and Last (of the Seventy), 107 n. Weeks. See Seventy. Wisdom, 12 n. Wise men, a class, 15 n., 19, 20; 22, 28, 40, 44, 52, 53; classes of, 15 n. Wise, they that be, 13a n., 133, 14I: 143- Word of the Lord. 96. Writing on the wall, 52 ; its interpretation, 57-99 n. Xenophon's account of capture of Babylon, 49 n. Yahweh, 96 n. See God. Zeus, Olympian, Antiochus' de- sotion to. 134 n. Printed by Ballantynk, Hanson <5s Ca Edinburgh &> London 2/13 si o Overnight Date Due *' i Jiight R-feSWiVl r. .1 jAf«>i«fr^ IWWiilK- ^^""^ ^ iiititfitirinifl H ^J AV/ IQQR MAY ly^D ! f> New (2<2n+Mpy Q-'Adl/. HrzlciY^et/