THE BOOK OF DANIEL
BY
F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S.
LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; ARCHDEACON OF WESTMINSTER
London
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCV
COMMENTARIES AND TREATISES
The chief Rabbinic Commentaries were those of Rashi († 1105);
Abn Ezra († 1167); Kimchi († 1240); Abrabanel († 1507). The Commentary which passes as that of Saadia the Gaon is said
to be spurious. His genuine Commentary only exists in manuscript.
The chief Patristic Commentary is that by St. Jerome. Fragments are preserved of other Commentaries by Origen, Hippolytus, Ephræm Syrus, Julius Africanus, Theodoret, Athanasius, Basil, Eusebius, Polychronius, etc. (Mai, Script. Vet. Nov. Coll., i.).
The Scholastic Commentary attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas is spurious.
The chief Commentaries of the Reformation period are those by:—
Luther, Auslegung d. Proph. Dan., 1530-46 (Opp. Germ., vi., ed. Walch.)
Œcolampadius, In Dan. libri duo. Basle, 1530.
Melancthon, Comm. in Dan. Wittenburg, 1543.
Calvin, Prælect. in Dan. Geneva, 1563.
Modern Commentaries are numerous; among them we may mention those by:—
Newton, Observations upon the Prophecies. London, 1733.
Bertholdt, Daniel. Erlangen, 1806-8.
Rosenmüller, Scholia. 1832.
Hävernick. 1832 and 1838.
Hengstenberg. 1831.
There are Commentaries by Von Lengerke, 1835; Maurer, 1838;
Hitzig, 1850; Ewald, 1867; Kliefoth, 1868; Keil, 1869; Kranichfeld,
1868; Kamphausen, 1868; Meinhold (Kurzgefasster Kommentar),
1889; Auberlen, 1857; Archdeacon Rose and Prof.
The latest Commentary which has appeared is that by Hauptpastor Behrmann, in the Handkommentar z. Alten Testament. Göttingen, 1894.
Discussions in the various Introductions (Einleitungen, etc.) by Bleek, De Wette, Keil, Stähelin, Reuss, Cornely, Dr. S. Davidson, Kleinert, Cornill, König, etc.
LIVES OF DANIEL
Pseudo-Epiphanius, Opera, ii. 243.
H. J. Deane, Daniel (Men of the Bible). 1892.
THERE ARE ARTICLES ON DANIEL IN
Winer's Realwörterbuch, Second Edition.
Delitzsch, in Herzog's Real-Encyclopädie.
Graf, in Schenkel's Bibel-Lexicon, i. 564.
Bishop Westcott, in Dr. W. Smith's Bible Dictionary, New Edition. 1893.
Hamburger, Real-Encyclopädie, ii., s.v. "Geheimlehre," p. 265; s.vv. "Daniel," pp. 223-225; and Heiliges Schriftthum.
TREATISES
Russel Martineau, Theological Review. 1865.
Prof. Margoliouth, The Expositor. April 1890.
Prof. J. M. Fuller, The Expositor, Third Series, vols. i., ii.
T. K. Cheyne, Encyclopædia Britannica, vi. 803.
Prof. Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the Monuments. 1894.
Prof. S. R. Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, pp. 458-483. 1891.
Prof. S. Leathes, in Book by Book, pp. 241-251.
C. von Orelli, Alttestamentliche Weissagung, p. 454. Wien, 1882.
Meinhold, Die Geschichtlichen Hagiographen (Strack and Zöckler, Kurzgefasster Kommentar, 1889).
Meinhold, Erklärung des Buches Daniels. 1889.
TREATISES OR DISCUSSIONS BY
Dr. Pusey, Daniel the Prophet. 1864.
T. R. Birks, The Later Visions of Daniel. 1846.
Ellicott, Horæ Apocalypticæ. 1844.
Tregelles, Remarks on the Prophetic Visions of Daniel. 1852.
Hilgenfeld, Die Propheten Ezra u. Daniel. 1863.
Baxmann, Stud. u. Krit., iii. 489 ff. 1863.
Desprez, Daniel. 1865.
Hofmann, Weissagung und Erfüllung, i. 276-316.
Kuenen, Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, E. Tr. 1877.
Ewald, Die Propheten des Alten Bundes, iii. 298. 1868.
Hilgenfeld, Die jüdische Apokalyptic. 1857.
Lenormant, La Divination chez les Chaldeans. 1875.
Fabre d'Envieu, Le livre du Prophète Daniel. 1888.
Hebbelyuck, De auctoritate libr. Danielis. 1887.
Köhler, Bibl. Geschichte. 1893.
INSCRIPTIONS AND MONUMENTS
Babylonian, Persian, and Median inscriptions bearing on the Book of Daniel are given by:—
Schrader, Keilinschriften und d. A. T., E. Tr., 1885-88; and in Records of the Past. See too Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum.
Sayce, The Higher Criticism, pp. 497-537.
These inscriptions have been referred to also by Cornill, Nestle, Nöldeke, Lagarde, etc.
HISTORIES AND OTHER BOOKS
Sketches and fragments of many ancient historians:—
Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicæ, ll. x., xi., xii.
The Books of Maccabees.
Prideaux, Connection of the Old and New Testaments, ed. Oxford. 1828.
Ewald, Gesch. des Volkes Israel. 1843-50.
Grätz, Gesch. der Juden, Second Edition. 1863.
Jost, Gesch. d. Judenthums und seinen Sekten, i. 90-116. Leipzig, 1857.
Herzfeld, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, ii. 416. 1863.
Van Oort, Bible for Young People, E. Tr. 1877.
Kittel, Gesch. d. Hebräer, ii. 1892.
Schürer, Gesch. d. jüdischen Volkes. Leipzig, 1890.
Jahn, Hebrew Commonwealth, E. Tr. 1828.
Droysen, Gesch. d. Hellenismus, ii. 211.
E. Meyer, Gesch. d. Alterthums, i.
SPECIAL TREATISES
Delitzsch, Messianische Weissagangen. Leipzig, 1890.
Riehm, Die Messianische Weissagung. Gotha, 1875.
Knabenbauer, Comment in Daniel. prophet., Lament., et Baruch. 1891.
Kuenen, Religion of Israel, E. Tr. 1874.
Bludau, De Alex. interpe. Danielis indole. 1891.
Nöldeke, D. Alttest. Literatur. 1868.
Fraidl, Exegese d. 70 Wochen Daniels. 1883.
Menken, Die Monarchienbild. 1887.
Kamphausen, Das Buch Daniel in die neuere Geschichtsforschung. Leipzig, 1893.
Lennep, De Zeventig Jaarweken van Daniel. Utrecht, 1888.
Dr. M. Joël, Notizen zum Buche Daniel. Breslau, 1873.
Derenbourg, Les Mots grecs dans le Livre biblique de Daniel. Mélanges Graux, 1888.
Cornill, Die Siebzig Jahrwochen Daniels. 1889.
Wolf, Die Siebzig Wochen Daniels. 1859.
Sanday, Inspiration (Bampton Lectures). 1894.
Sayce, Hibbert Lectures. 1887.
Roszmann, Die Makkabeische Erhebung.
J. F. Hoffmann, Antiochus IV. (Epiphanes). 1873.
Speaker's Commentary on Tobit, 1, 2 Maccabees, etc. 1888.
Ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν περὶ τούτων ὡς εὗρον καὶ ἀνέγνων, οὕτως ἔγραψα· εἰ δέ τις ἄλλως δοξάζειν βουλήσεται περὶ αὐτῶν ἀνέγκλητον ἐχέτω τὴν ἐτερογνωμοσύνην.—Josephus, Antt., X. ii. 7.
"Trothe is the hiest thinge a man may kepe."—Chaucer.
We propose in the following pages to examine the Book of the Prophet Daniel by the same general methods which have been adopted in other volumes of the Expositor's Bible. It may well happen that the conclusions adopted as regards its origin and its place in the Sacred Volume will not command the assent of all our readers. On the other hand, we may feel a reasonable confidence that, even if some are unable to accept the views at which we have arrived, and which we have here endeavoured to present with fairness, they will still read them with interest, as opinions which have been calmly and conscientiously formed, and to which the writer has been led by strong conviction.
All Christians will acknowledge the sacred and imperious duty of sacrificing every other consideration to the unbiassed acceptance of that which we regard as truth. Further than this our readers will find much to elucidate the Book of Daniel chapter by chapter, apart from any questions which affect its authorship or age.
But I should like to say on the threshold that,
though I am compelled to regard the Book of Daniel
as a work which, in its present form, first saw the
light in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, and though
I believe that its six magnificent opening chapters
The first question which we must consider is, "What is known about the Prophet Daniel?"
I. If we accept as historical the particulars narrated
of him in this Book, it is clear that few Jews have ever
risen to so splendid an eminence. Under four powerful
kings and conquerors, of three different nationalities
and dynasties, he held a position of high authority
among the haughtiest aristocracies of the ancient world.
At a very early age he was not only a satrap, but the
Prince and Prime Minister over all the satraps in
Babylonia and Persia; not only a Magian, but the
Head Magian, and Chief Governor over all the wise men
II. It is natural, then, that we should turn to the monuments and inscriptions of the Babylonian, Persian, and Median Empires to see if any mention can be found of so prominent a ruler. But hitherto neither has his name been discovered, nor the faintest trace of his existence.
III. If we next search other non-Biblical sources
of information, we find much respecting him in the
Apocrypha—"The Song of the Three Children," "The
Story of Susanna," and "Bel and the Dragon." But
these additions to the Canonical Books are avowedly
valueless for any historic purpose. They are romances,
in which the vehicle of fiction is used, in a manner
which at all times was popular in Jewish literature,
to teach lessons of faith and conduct by the example
of eminent sages or saints. For a full account of the Agada (also called Agadtha and Haggada),
I must refer the reader to Hamburger's Real-Encyklopädie für Bibel
und Talmud, ii. 19-27, 921-934. The first two forms of the words are
Aramaic; the third was a Hebrew form in use among the Jews in
Babylonia. The word is derived from נָגַד, "to say" or "explain."
Halacha was the rule of religious praxis, a sort of Directorium
Judaicum: Haggada was the result of free religious reflection. See
further Strack, Einl. in den Thalmud, iv. 122. Fabricius, Cod. Pseudepigr. Vet. Test., i. 1124. Jos., Antt., X. xi. 7. But Pseudo-Epiphanius (De Vit. Dan., x.)
says: Γέγονε τῶν ἐξόχων τῆς βασιλικῆς ὑπηρεσίας. So too the Midrash
on Ruth, 7. Jos., Antt., X. x. 6.
IV. In the Talmud, again, we find nothing historical.
Daniel is always mentioned as a champion against
idolatry, and his wisdom is so highly esteemed, that,
"if all the wise men of the heathen," we are told, "were
on one side, and Daniel on the other, Daniel would still
prevail." Yoma, f. 77. Berachôth, f. 31. Sanhedrin, f. 93. Midrash Rabba on Ruth, 7, etc., quoted by
Hamburger, Real-Encyclopädie, i. 225. Kiddushin, f. 72, 6; Hershon, Genesis acc. to the Talmud, p. 471. Bel and the Dragon, 33-39. It seems to be an old Midrashic
legend. It is quoted by Dorotheus and Pseudo-Epiphanius, and
referred to by some of the Fathers. Eusebius supposes another
Habakkuk and another Daniel; but "anachronisms, literary extravagances,
or legendary character are obvious on the face of such
narratives. Such faults as these, though valid against any pretensions
to the rank of authentic history, do not render the stories less effective
as pieces of Haggadic satire, or less interesting as preserving vestiges
of a cycle of popular legends relating to Daniel" (Rev. C. J. Ball,
Speaker's Commentary, on Apocrypha, ii. 350).
There is a Persian apocalypse of Daniel translated by
Merx (Archiv, i. 387), and there are a few worthless Höttinger, Hist. Orientalis, p. 92.
These references would not, however, suffice to prove
Daniel's historical existence. They might merely result
from the literal acceptance of the story narrated in the
Book. From the name "Daniel," which is by no means
a common one, and means "Judge of God," nothing can
be learnt. It is only found in three other instances.
Turning to the Old Testament itself, we have reason
for surprise both in its allusions and its silences. One
only of the sacred writers refers to Daniel, and that
is Ezekiel. In one passage (xxviii. 3) the Prince of
Tyrus is apostrophised in the words, "Behold, thou art
wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide
from thee." In the other (xiv. 14, 20) the word of the
Lord declares to the guilty city, that "though these
three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they
should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness";
"they shall deliver neither son nor daughter." No valid arguments can be adduced in favour of Winckler's suggestion
that
The last words may be regarded as a general allusion,
and therefore we may pass over the circumstance that
Daniel—who was undoubtedly a eunuch in the palace
of Babylon, and who is often pointed to as a fulfilment
of the stern prophecy of Isaiah to Hezekiah
But in other respects the allusion is surprising.
i. It was very unusual among the Jews to elevate their contemporaries to such a height of exaltation, and it is indeed startling that Ezekiel should thus place his youthful contemporary on such a pinnacle as to unite his name to those of Noah the antediluvian patriarch and the mysterious man of Uz.
ii. We might, with Theodoret, Jerome, and Kimchi,
account for the mention of Daniel's name at all in this
connection by the peculiar circumstances of his life; See Rosenmüller, Scholia, ad loc. Ezek., p. 207. Herzog, R. E., s.v.
To some critics the allusion has appeared so strange
that they have referred it to an imaginary Daniel who
had lived at the Court of Nineveh during the Assyrian Ewald, Proph. d. Alt. Bund., ii. 560; De Wette, Einleit., § 253. So Von Lengerke, Dan., xciii. ff.; Hitzig, Dan., viii. He is followed by Bunsen, Gott in der Gesch., i. 514. Reuss, Heil. Schrift., p. 570.
iii. But if we accept the Book of Daniel as literal
history, the allusion of Ezekiel becomes still more difficult
to explain; for Daniel must have been not only a
contemporary of the prophet of the Exile, but a very
youthful one. We are told—a difficulty to which we
shall subsequently allude—that Daniel was taken captive
in the third year of Jehoiakim ( Ignat., Ad Magnes, 3 (Long Revision: see Lightfoot, ii., § ii.,
p. 749). So too in Ps. Mar. ad Ignat., 3. Lightfoot thinks that this is a
transference from Solomon (l.c., p. 727). See
iv. Admitting that this pinnacle of eminence may
have been due to the peculiar splendour of Daniel's
career, it becomes the less easy to account for the
total silence respecting him in the other books of the
Old Testament—in the Prophets who were contemporaneous
with the Exile and its close, like Haggai,
Zechariah, and Malachi; and in the Books of Ezra and
Nehemiah, which give us the details of the Return. No
post-exilic prophets seem to know anything of the
Book of Daniel. See See Ezra (i. 1) does not mention the striking prophecies of the later
Isaiah (xliv. 28, xlv. 1), but refers to Jeremiah only (xxv. 12, xxix. 10). D'Herbelot, l.c.
v. If we turn to the New Testament, the name of
Daniel only occurs in the reference to "the abomination
of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet." See Elliott, Horæ Apocalypticæ, passim.
vi. In the Apocrypha Daniel is passed over in
complete silence among the lists of Hebrew heroes
enumerated by Jesus the son of Sirach. We are even
told that "neither was there a man born like unto
Joseph, a leader of his brethren, a stay of the people"
(
Unable to learn anything further respecting the professed author of the Book of Daniel, we now turn to the Book itself. In this section I shall merely give a general sketch of its main external phenomena, and shall chiefly pass in review those characteristics which, though they have been used as arguments respecting the age in which it originated, are not absolutely irreconcilable with the supposition of any date between the termination of the Exile (b.c. 536) and the death of Antiochus Epiphanes (b.c. 164).
I. First we notice the fact that there is an interchange of the first and third person. In chapters i.-vi. Daniel is mainly spoken of in the third person: in chapters vii.-xii. he speaks mainly in the first.
Kranichfeld tries to account for this by the supposition
that in chapters i.-vi. we practically have extracts
from Daniel's diaries, Kranichfeld, Das Buch Daniel, p. 4.
II. Next we observe that the Book of Daniel, like See "The term 'Chaldee' for the Aramaic of either the Bible or the
Targums is a misnomer, the use of which is only a source of confusion"
(Driver, p. 471). A single verse of Jeremiah (x. 11) is in
Aramaic: "Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods who made not
heaven and earth shall perish from the earth and from under
heaven." Perhaps Jeremiah gave the verse "to the Jews as an
answer to the heathen among whom they were" (Pusey, p. 11).
The first section (i. 1-ii. 4a) is in Hebrew. The
language changes to Aramaic after the words, "Then
spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriac" (ii. 4a); אֲרָמִית; LXX., Συριστι—i.e., in Aramaic. The word may be a gloss,
as it is in
The question at once arises why the two languages were used in the same Book.
It is easy to understand that, during the course of the seventy years' Exile, many of the Jews became practically bilingual, and would be able to write with equal facility in one language or in the other.
This circumstance, then, has no bearing on the date
of the Book. Down to the Maccabean age some books
continued to be written in Hebrew. These books must
have found readers. Hence the knowledge of Hebrew
cannot have died away so completely as has been
supposed. The notion that after the return from the Driver, p. 471; Nöldeke, Enc. Brit., xxi. 647; Wright, Grammar,
p. 16. Ad. Merx has a treatise on Cur in lib. Dan. juxta Hebr. Aramaica
sit adhibita dialectus, 1865; but his solution, "Scriptorem omnia
quæ rudioribus vulgi ingeniis apta viderentur Aramaice præposuisse"
is wholly untenable.
But it is not clear why the linguistic divisions in
the Book were adopted. Auberlen says that, after the
introduction, the section ii. 4a-vii. 28 was written in
Chaldee, because it describes the development of the
power of the world from a world-historic point of view;
and that the remainder of the Book was written in
Hebrew, because it deals with the development of the
world-powers in their relation to Israel the people of
God. Auberlen, Dan., pp. 28, 29 (E. Tr.). Einleit., § 383. Cheyne, Enc. Brit., s.v. "Daniel."
The Talmud throws no light on the question. It only says that—
i. "The men of the Great Synagogue wrote" כתבו. See Baba-Bathra, f. 15, 6: comp. Sanhedrin, f. 83, 6.
ii. "The Chaldee passages in the Book of Ezra and
the Book of Daniel defile the hands." Yaddayim, iv.; Mish., 5.
The first of these two passages is merely an assertion
that the preservation, the arrangement, and the admission
into the Canon of the books mentioned was due
to the body of scribes and priests—a very shadowy
and unhistorical body—known as the Great Synagogue. See Rau, De Synag. Magna., ii. 66 ff.; Kuenen, Over de Mannen
der Groote Synagoge, 1876; Ewald, Hist. of Israel, v. 168-170 (E. Tr.);
Westcott, s.v. "Canon" (Smith's Dict., i. 500).
The second passage sounds startling, but is nothing more than an authoritative declaration that the Chaldee sections of Daniel and Ezra are still parts of Holy Scripture, though not written in the sacred language.
It is a standing rule of the Talmudists that All
Holy Scripture defiles the hands—even the long-disputed
Books of Ecclesiastes and Canticles. Yaddayim, iii.; Mish., 5; Hershon, Treasures of the Talmud,
pp. 41-43. Hershon (l.c.) refers to Shabbath, f. 14, 1.
Perhaps nothing certain can be inferred from the philological examination either of the Hebrew or of the Chaldee portions of the Book; but they seem to indicate a date not earlier than the age of Alexander (b.c. 333). On this part of the subject there has been a great deal of rash and incompetent assertion. It involves delicate problems on which an independent and a valuable opinion can only be offered by the merest handful of living scholars, and respecting which even these scholars sometimes disagree. In deciding upon such points ordinary students can only weigh the authority and the arguments of specialists who have devoted a minute and lifelong study to the grammar and history of the Semitic languages.
I know no higher contemporary authorities on the date of Hebrew writings than the late veteran scholar F. Delitzsch and Professor Driver.
1. Nothing was more beautiful and remarkable in Professor
Delitzsch than the open-minded candour which
compelled him to the last to advance with advancing Herzog, l.c.; so too König, Einleit., § 387: "Das Hebr. der B.
Dan. ist nicht blos nachexilisch sondern auch nachchronistisch." He
instances ribbo (
So far, then, it is clear that, if the Hebrew mainly resembles that of b.c. 332, it is hardly likely that it should have been written before b.c. 536.
Professor Driver says, "The Hebrew of Daniel in all distinctive features resembles, not the Hebrew of Ezekiel, or even of Haggai and Zechariah, but that of the age subsequent to Nehemiah"—whose age forms the great turning-point in Hebrew style.
He proceeds to give a list of linguistic peculiarities
in support of this view, and other specimens of sentences
constructed, not in the style of classical Hebrew, Lit. of Old Test., pp. 473-476. Das Buch Dan., iii.
2. These views of the character of the Hebrew agree
with those of previous scholars. Bertholdt and Kirms
declare that its character differs toto genere from what
might have been expected had the Book been genuine.
Gesenius says that the language is even more corrupt
than that of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi. Professor
Driver says the Persian words presuppose a period
after the Persian Empire had been well established;
the Greek words demand, the Hebrew supports, and the
Aramaic permits a date after the conquest of Palestine
by Alexander the Great. De Wette and Ewald have See Glassius, Philol. Sacr., p. 931; Ewald, Die Proph. d. A.
Bundes, i. 48; De Wette, Einleit., § 347.
3. It is noteworthy that in this Book the name of
the great Babylonian conqueror, with whom, in the
narrative part, Daniel is thrown into such close connexion,
is invariably written in the absolutely erroneous
form which his name assumed in later centuries—Nebuchadnezzar.
A contemporary, familiar with the
Babylonian language, could not have been ignorant of
the fact that the only correct form of the name is
Nebuchadrezzar—i.e., Nebu-kudurri-utsur, "Nebo protect
the throne." Ezekiel always uses the correct form (xxvi. 7, xxix. 18, xxx. 10).
Jeremiah uses the correct form except in passages which properly
belong to the Book of Kings.
4. But the erroneous form Neduchadnezzar is not
the only one which entirely militates against the
notion of a contemporary writer. There seem to be
other mistakes about Babylonian matters into which
a person in Daniel's position could not have fallen.
Thus the name Belteshazzar seems to be connected
in the writer's mind with Bel, the favourite deity of
Nebuchadrezzar; but it can only mean Balatu-utsur,
"his life protect," which looks like a mutilation.
Abed-nego is an astonishingly corrupt form for Abed-nabu,
"the servant of Nebo." Hammelzar, Shadrach,
Meshach, Ashpenaz, are declared by Assyriologists to
5. The Aramaic of Daniel closely resembles that
of Ezra. Nöldeke calls it a Palestinian or Western
Aramaic dialect, later than that of the Book of Ezra. Nöldeke, Semit. Spr., p. 30; Driver, p. 472; König, p. 387. Driver, p. 472, and the authorities there quoted; as against
McGill and Pusey (Daniel, pp. 45 ff., 602 ff.). Dr. Pusey's is the
fullest repertory of arguments in favour of the authenticity of Daniel,
many of which have become more and more obviously untenable
as criticism advances. But he and Keil add little or nothing to what
had been ingeniously elaborated by Hengstenberg and Hävernick.
For a sketch of the peculiarities in the Aramaic see Behrmann,
Daniel, v.-x. Renan (Hist. Gén. des Langues Sém., p. 219) exaggerates
when he says, "La langue des parties chaldénnes est beaucoup plus
basse que celle des fragments chaldéens du Livre d'Esdras, et s'incline
beaucoup vers la langue du Talmud."
6. Two further philological considerations bear on the age of the Book.
i. One of these is the existence of no less than
fifteen Persian words (according to Nöldeke and
others), especially in the Aramaic part. These words, Meinhold, Beiträge, pp. 30-32; Driver, p. 470. Speaker's Commentary, vi. 246-250. New Series, iii. 124. E.g., הדם, "limb"; רז, "secret"; פתגם, "message." There are
no Persian words in Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, or Malachi; they are
found in Ezra and Esther, which were written long after the establishment
of the Persian Empire.
ii. But the linguistic evidence unfavourable to the genuineness of the Book of Daniel is far stronger than this, in the startling fact that it contains at least three Greek words. After giving the fullest consideration to all that has been urged in refutation of the conclusion, this circumstance has always been to me a strong confirmation of the view that the Book of Daniel in its present form is not older than the days of Antiochus Epiphanes.
Those three Greek words occur in the list of musical
instruments mentioned in iii. 5, 7, 10, 15. They are:
קיתרם, kitharos, κίθαρις, "harp"; פסנתרין, psanterîn, The change of n for l is not uncommon: comp. βέντιον, φίντατος, etc. The word שָׂבֽכָא, Sab'ka, also bears a suspicious resemblance
to σαμβύκη, but Athenæus says (Deipnos., iv. 173) that the instrument
was invented by the Syrians. Some have seen in kārôz (iii. 4,
"herald") the Greek κήρυξ, and in hamnîk, "chain," the Greek μανιάκης:
but these cannot be pressed.
Be it remembered that these musical instruments are
described as having (b.c. 550). Now, this is the date at
which Pisistratus was tyrant at Athens, in the days of
Pythagoras and Polycrates, before Athens became a
fixed democracy. It is just conceivable that in those
days the Babylonians might have borrowed from Greece
the word kitharis. It is true that there was some small intercourse between even
the Assyrians and Ionians (Ja-am-na-a) as far back as the days of
Sargon (b.c. 722-705); but not enough to account for such words. Sayce, Contemp. Rev., December 1878.
But what are we to say of the two other words?
Both are derivatives. Psalterion does not occur in
Greek before Aristotle (d. 322); nor sumphonia before
Plato (d. 347). In relation to music, and probably as
the name of a musical instrument, sumphonia is first Some argue that in this passage συμφωνία means "a concert" (comp.
Pusey says all he can on the other side (pp. 23-28), and has not
changed the opinion of scholars (pp. 27-33). Fabre d'Envieu (i. 101)
also desperately denies the existence of any Greek words. On the
other side see Derenbourg, Les Mots grecs dans le Livre biblique de
Daniel (Mélanges Graux, 1884).
The Unity of the Book of Daniel is now generally
admitted. No one thought of questioning it in days
before the dawn of criticism, but in 1772 Eichhorn and
Corrodi doubted the genuineness of the Book. J. D.
Michaelis endeavoured to prove that it was "a collection
of fugitive pieces," consisting of six historic
pictures, followed by four prophetic visions. Orient. u. Exeg. Bibliothek, 1772, p. 141. This view was revived
by Lagarde in the Göttingen Gel. Anzeigen, 1891. Daniel neu Übersetz. u. Erklärt., 1808; Köhler, Lehrbuch, ii. 577.
The first who suspected the unity of the Book because of the two
languages was Spinoza (Tract-historicopol, x. 130 ff.). Newton (Observations
upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse, i. 10) and
Beausobre (Remarques sur le Nouv. Test., i. 70) shared the doubt
because of the use of the first person in the prophetic (
Zöckler, in Lange's Bibelwerk, persuaded himself that the old "orthodox" views of Hengstenberg and Auberlen were right; but he could only do this by sacrificing the authenticity of parts of the Book, and assuming more than one redaction. Thus he supposes that xi. 5-39 are an interpolation by a writer in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. Similarly, Lenormant admits interpolations in the first half of the Book. But to concede this is practically to give up the Book of Daniel as it now stands.
The unity of the Book of Daniel is still admitted or
assumed by most critics. By De Wette, Schrader, Hitzig, Ewald, Gesenius, Bleek, Delitzsch,
Von Lengerke, Stähelin, Kamphausen, Wellhausen, etc. Reuss,
however, says (Heil. Schrift., p. 575), "Man könnte auf die Vorstellung kommen das Buch habe mehr als einen Verfasser"; and König thinks
that the original form of the book may have ended with chap. vii.
(Einleit., § 384).
Meinhold thinks that the Aramaic and historic sections Beiträge, 1888. See too Kranichfeld, Das Buch Daniel, p. 4. The
view is refuted by Budde, Theol. Lit. Zeitung, 1888, No. 26. The
conjecture has often occurred to critics. Thus Sir Isaac Newton,
believing that Daniel wrote the last six chapters, thought that the
six first "are a collection of historical papers written by others"
(Observations, i. 10). Einleit., p. 6. Other critics who incline to one or other modification of this view
of the two Daniels are Tholuck, d. A.T. in N.T., 1872; C. v. Orelli,
Alttest. Weissag., 1882; and Strack. Hengstenberg also points to verbal resemblances between ii. 44
and vii. 14; iv. 5 and vii. 1; ii. 31 and vii. 2; ii. 38 and vii. 17, etc.
(Genuineness of Daniel, E. Tr., pp. 186 ff.).
But it may be said in general that the authenticity
of the Book is now rarely defended by any competent
critic, except at the cost of abandoning certain sections
of it as interpolated additions; and as Mr. Bevan somewhat
caustically remarks, "the defenders of Daniel
have, during the last few years, been employed chiefly
in cutting Daniel to pieces." A Short Commentary, p. 8.
The general tone of the Book marks a new era in
the education and progress of the Jews. The lessons See Hitzig, p. xii; Auberlen, p. 41.
begin to fling their weird and sombre shadows over the page of sacred history and prophetic anticipation.
The style of the Book of Daniel is new, and has
very marked characteristics, indicating its late position
in the Canon. It is rhetorical rather than poetic.
"Totum Danielis librum," says Lowth, "e poetarum
censu excludo." Reuss says too severely, "Die Schilderungen aller dieser
Vorgänge machen keinen gewinnenden Eindruck.... Der Stil ist
unbeholfen, die Figuren grotesk, die Farben grell." He admits,
however, the suitableness of the Book for the Maccabean epoch, and
the deep impression it made (Heil. Schrift. A. T., p. 571). See iii. 2, 3, 5, 7; viii. 1, 10, 19; xi. 15, 22, 31, etc.
This evanescence of the poetic and impassioned element
separates Daniel from the Prophets, and marks On this subject see Ewald, Proph. d. A. Bundes, i. 6; Novalis,
Schriften, ii. 472; Herder, Geist der Ebr. Poesie, ii. 61; Knobel,
Prophetismus, i. 103. Even the Latin poets were called prophetæ,
"bards" (Varro, De Ling. Lat., vi. 3). Epimenides is called "a
prophet" in
"In Daniel öffnet sich eine ganz neue Welt."—Eichhorn, Einleit., iv. 472.
The author of the Book of Daniel seems naturally to
place himself on a level lower than that of the prophets
who had gone before him. He does not count himself
among the prophets; on the contrary, he puts them far
higher than himself, and refers to them as though they
belonged to the dim and distant past (ix. 2, 6). In his
prayer of penitence he confesses, "Neither have we
hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake
in Thy Name to our kings, our princes, and our
fathers"; "Neither have we obeyed the voice of the
Lord our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before
us by His servants the prophets." Not once does he
use the mighty formula "Thus saith Jehovah"—not
once does he assume, in the prophecies, a tone of high
personal authority. He shares the view of the Maccabean
age that prophecy is dead.
In Ewald, Proph. d. A. B., p. 10. Judas Maccabæus is also said to
have "restored" (ἐπισυνήγαγε) the lost (διαπεπτωκότα) sacred writings
(
By "the books" can hardly be meant anything but
some approach to a definite Canon. If so, the Book of
Daniel in its present form can only have been written
subsequently to the days of Ezra. "The account
which assigns a collection of books to Nehemiah
( Smith's Dict. of the Bible, i. 501. The daily lesson from the
Prophets was called the Haphtarah (Hamburger, Real-Encycl., ii. 334).
The whole method of Daniel differs even from that of
the later and inferior prophets of the Exile—Haggai,
Malachi, and the second Zechariah. The Book is rather
an apocalypse than a prophecy: "the eye and not the
ear is the organ to which the chief appeal is made."
Though symbolism in the form of visions is not unknown
to Ezekiel and Zechariah, yet those prophets are
far from being apocalyptic in character. On the other
hand, the grotesque and gigantic emblems of Daniel—these
animal combinations, these interventions of
dazzling angels who float in the air or over the water,
these descriptions of historical events under the veil
of material types seen in dreams—are a frequent phenomenon
in such late apocryphal writings as the Second
Book of Esdras, the Book of Enoch, and the præ-Christian
Sibylline oracles, in which talking lions and
eagles, etc., are frequent. Indeed, this style of symbolism
originated among the Jews from their contact with the
graven mysteries and colossal images of Babylonian
worship. The Babylonian Exile formed an epoch in
Lastly, among these salient phenomena of the Book
of Daniel we are compelled to notice the absence of
the predominantly moral element from its prophetic
portion. The author does not write in the tone of a
preacher of repentance, or of one whose immediate On this subject see Kuenen, The Prophets, iii. 95 ff.; Davison, On
Prophecy, pp. 34-67; Herder, Hebr. Poesie, ii. 64; De Wette, Christl.
Sittenlehre, ii. 1.
Doctrine, worship, and consolation were their proper
sphere. They were "oratores Legis, advocati patriæ."
In them prediction is wholly subordinate to moral warning
and instruction. They denounce, they inspire: they
smite to the dust with terrible invective; they uplift
once more into glowing hope. The announcement of
events yet future is the smallest part of the prophet's
office, and rather its sign than its substance. The
highest mission of an Amos or an Isaiah is not to be a
prognosticator, but to be a religious teacher. He makes
his appeals to the conscience, not to the imagination—to
the spirit, not to the sense. He deals with eternal
principles, and is almost wholly indifferent to chronological
verifications. To awaken the death-like slumber
of sin, to fan the dying embers of faithfulness, to smite
down the selfish oppressions of wealth and power, to
startle the sensual apathy of greed, were the ordinary
and the noblest aims of the greater and the minor
prophets. It was their task far rather to forth-tell than
to fore-tell; and if they announce, in general outline
and uncertain perspective, things which shall be hereafter,
it is only in subordination to high ethical purposes,
or profound spiritual lessons. So it is also in
the Revelation of St. John. But in the "prophetic"
In point of fact the Book of Daniel, even as an
apocalypse, suffers severely by comparison with that
latest canonical Apocalypse of the Beloved Disciple
which it largely influenced. It is strange that Luther,
who spoke so slightingly of the Revelation of St. John,
should have placed the Book of Daniel so high in his
estimation. It is indeed a noble book, full of glorious
lessons. Yet surely it has but little of the sublime
and mysterious beauty, little of the heart-shaking pathos,
little of the tender sweetness of consolatory power,
which fill the closing book of the New Testament. Its
imagery is far less exalted, its hope of immortality far
less distinct and unquenchable. Yet the Book of
Daniel, while it is one of the earliest, still remains one
of the greatest specimens of this form of sacred literature.
It inaugurated the new epoch of "apocalyptic"
which in later days was usually pseudepigraphic, and
sheltered itself under the names of Enoch, Noah, Moses,
Ezra, and even the heathen Sibyls. These apocalypses
are of very unequal value. "Some," as Kuenen says,
"stand comparatively high; others are far below
mediocrity." But the genus to which they belong has
its own peculiar defect. They are works of art: they
are not spontaneous; they smell of the lamp. A fruitless
and an unpractical peering into the future was
encouraged by these writings, and became predominant
in some Jewish circles. But the Book of Daniel is
incomparably superior in every possible respect to
Baruch, or the Book of Enoch, or the Second Book of
The Book is in all respects unique, a writing sui
generis; for the many imitations to which it led are but
imitations. But, as the Jewish writer Dr. Joël truly
says, the unveiling of the secret as to the real lateness
of its date and origin, so far from causing any loss in
its beauty and interest, enhance both in a remarkable
degree. It is thus seen to be the work of a brave and
gifted anonymous author about b.c. 167, who brought
his piety and his patriotism to bear on the troubled Joël, Notizen, p. 7.
No one can have studied the Book of Daniel without
seeing that, alike in the character of its
miracles and the minuteness of its supposed predictions,
it makes a more stupendous and a less substantiated
claim upon our credence than any other book of the
Bible, and a claim wholly different in character. It
has over and over again been asserted by the uncharitableness
of a merely traditional orthodoxy that inability
to accept the historic verity and genuineness of the
Book arises from secret faithlessness, and antagonism
to the admission of the supernatural. No competent
scholar will think it needful to refute such calumnies.
It suffices us to know before God that we are actuated
simply by the love of truth, by the abhorrence of anything
which in us would be a pusillanimous spirit of
falsity. We have too deep a belief in the God of the
Amen, the God of eternal and essential verity, to offer
to Him "the unclean sacrifice of a lie." An error is
not sublimated into a truth even when that lie has
acquired a quasi-consecration, from its supposed desirability
for purposes of orthodox controversy, or from
its innocent acceptance by generations of Jewish and
Christian Churchmen through long ages of uncritical
ignorance. Scholars, if they be Christians at all, can
have no possible a-priori objection to belief in the
But our belief in the Incarnation, and in the miracles of Christ, rests on evidence which, after repeated examination, is to us overwhelming. Apart from all questions of personal verification, or the Inward Witness of the Spirit, we can show that this evidence is supported, not only by the existing records, but by myriads of external and independent testimonies. The very same Spirit which makes men believe where the demonstration is decisive, compels them to refuse belief to the literal verity of unique miracles and unique predictions which come before them without any convincing evidence. The narratives and visions of this Book present difficulties on every page. They were in all probability never intended for anything but what they are—Haggadoth, which, like the parables of Christ, convey their own lessons without depending on the necessity for accordance with historic fact.
Had it been any part of the Divine will that we
should accept these stories as pure history, and these
visions as predictions of events which were not to take
place till centuries afterwards, we should have been
provided with some aids to such belief. On the contrary,
in whatever light we examine the Book of Daniel,
the evidence in its favour is weak, dubious, hypothetical,
and a priori; while the evidence against it acquires
increased intensity with every fresh aspect in which it
is examined. The Book which would make the most
And we have come to a time when it will not avail
to take refuge in such transferences of the discussions
in alteram materiam, and such purely vulgar appeals
ad invidiam, as are involved in saying, "Then the Book
must be a forgery," and "an imposture," and "a gross
lie." To assert that "to give up the Book of Daniel
is to betray the cause of Christianity," Thus Dr. Pusey says: "The Book of Daniel is especially fitted
to be a battle-field between faith and unbelief. It admits of no half-measures.
It 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 destructive of all trustworthiness.
But the case of the Book of Daniel, if it were not his, would go far
beyond even this. The writer, were he not Daniel, must have lied on
a frightful scale. In a word, the whole Book would be one lie in the
Name of God." Few would venture to use such language in these
days. It is always a perilous style to adopt, but now it has become
suicidal. It is founded on an immense and inexcusable anachronism.
It avails itself of an utterly false misuse of the words "faith" and
"unbelief," by which "faith" becomes a mere synonym for "that
which I esteem orthodox," or that which has been the current opinion
in ages of ignorance. Much truer faith may be shown by accepting
arguments founded on unbiassed evidence than by rejecting them.
And what can be more foolish than to base the great truths of the
Christian religion on special pleadings which have now come to wear
the aspect of ingenious sophistries, such as would not be allowed to
have the smallest validity in any ordinary question of literary or
historic evidence? Hengstenberg, like Pusey, says in his violent
ecclesiastical tone of autocratic infallibility that the interpretation of the Book by most eminent modern critics "will remain false so long
as the word of Christ is true—that is, for ever." This is to make "the
word of Christ" the equivalent of a mere theological blindness and
prejudice! Assertions which are utterly baseless can only be met by
assertions based on science and the love of truth. Thus when Rupprecht
says that "the modern criticism of the Book of Daniel is
unchristian, immoral, and unscientific," we can only reply with disdain,
Novimus istas ληκύθους. In the present day they are mere bluster
of impotent odium theologicum.
My own conviction has long been that in these
Ingenious attempts have been made to show that
the author of this Book evinces an intimate familiarity
with the circumstances of the Babylonian religion,
society, and history. In many cases this is the reverse
of the fact. The instances adduced in favour of any
knowledge except of the most general description are
entirely delusive. It is frivolous to maintain, with
Lenormant, that an exceptional acquaintance with
Babylonian custom was required to describe Nebuchadrezzar
as consulting diviners for the interpretation
of a dream! To say nothing of the fact that a similar
custom has prevailed in all nations and all ages from
the days of Samuel to those of Lobengula, the writer
had the prototype of Pharaoh before him, and has
evidently been influenced by the story of Joseph. See Lenormant, La Divination, p. 219. Avodah-Zarah, f. 3, 1; Sanhedrin, f. 93, 1; Pesachim, f. 118, 1;
Eiruvin, f. 53, 1.
When the instances mainly relied upon prove to be
so evidentially valueless, it would be waste of time to
follow Professor Fuller through the less important and
more imaginary proofs of accuracy which his industry
has amassed. Meanwhile the feeblest reasoner will
see that while a writer may easily be accurate in
general facts, and even in details, respecting an age
Now such mistakes there seem to be, and not a few of them, in the pages of the Book of Daniel. One or two of them can perhaps be explained away by processes which would amply suffice to show that "yes" means "no," or that "black" is a description of "white"; but each repetition of such processes leaves us more and more incredulous. If errors be treated as corruptions of the text, or as later interpolations, such arbitrary methods of treating the Book are practically an admission that, as it stands, it cannot be regarded as historical.
I. We are, for instance, met by what seems to be a remarkable error in the very first verse of the Book, which tells us that "In the third year of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar"—as in later days he was incorrectly called—"King of Babylon, unto Jerusalem, and besieged it."
It is easy to trace whence the error sprang. Its
source lies in a book which is the latest in the whole
Canon, and in many details difficult to reconcile with
the Book of Kings—a book of which the Hebrew
resembles that of Daniel—the Book of Chronicles. In
The attempts of Keil and Pusey to get over the difficulty, if they were valid, would reduce Scripture to a hopeless riddle. The reader
will see all the latest efforts in this direction in the Speaker's
Commentary and the work of Fabre d'Envieu. Even such "orthodox"
writers as Dorner, Delitzsch, and Gess, not to mention hosts of
other great critics, have long seen the desperate impossibility of
these arguments.
II. Nor are the names in this first chapter free
from difficulty. Daniel is called Belteshazzar, and the
remark of the King of Babylon—"whose name was
Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god"—certainly
suggests that the first syllable is (as the Massorets
assume) connected with the god Bel. But the name
has nothing to do with Bel. No contemporary could
have fallen into such an error; Balatsu-utsur, "protect his life." The root balâtu, "life," is common
in Assyrian names. The mistake comes from the wrong vocalisation
adopted by the Massorets (Meinhold, Beiträge, p. 27). Schrader dubiously connects it with matstsara, "guardian." Lenormant, p. 182, regards it as a corruption of Ashbenazar, "the
goddess has pruned the seed" (??); but assumed corruptions of the
text are an uncertain expedient.
III. Similar difficulties and uncertainties meet us at
every step. Thus, in the second chapter (ii. 1), the
dream of Nebuchadrezzar is fixed in the second year
IV. In ii. 2 the king summons four classes of hierophants
to disclose his dream and its interpretation.
They are the magicians (Chartummîm), the enchanters
(Ashshaphîm), the sorcerers (Mechashsh'phîm), and the
Chaldeans (Kasdîm). On these see Rob. Smith, Cambr. Journ. of Philol., No. 27, p. 125. Juv., Sat., x. 96: "Cum grege Chaldæo"; Val. Max., iii. 1; Cic., De
Div., i. 1, etc. Keilinschr., p. 429; Meinhold, p. 28.
V. Again, we find in ii. 14, "Arioch, the chief of the
executioners." Schrader precariously derives the name
from Eri-aku, "servant of the moon-god"; but, however
that may be, we already find the name as that of
a king Ellasar in
VI. In ii. 46, after the interpretation of the dream,
"the King Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and
worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer Jos., Antt., XI. viii. 5.
VII. We further ask in astonishment whether Daniel
could have accepted without indignant protest the offering
of "an oblation and sweet odours." To say that
they were only offered to God in the person of Daniel
is the idle pretence of all idolatry. They are expressly
said to be offered "to Daniel." A Herod could accept
blasphemous adulations;
VIII. In ii. 48 Nebuchadrezzar appoints Daniel, as
a reward for his wisdom, to rule over the whole province
of Babylon, and to be Rab-signîn, "chief ruler," and
to be over all the wise men (Khakamim) of Babylon.
Lenormant treats this statement as an interpolation,
because he regards it as "evidently impossible." We See
IX. The third chapter contains another story, told
in a style of wonderful stateliness and splendour, and
full of glorious lessons; but here again we encounter
linguistic and other difficulties. Thus in iii. 2, though
"all the rulers of the provinces" and officers of all
ranks are summoned to the dedication of Nebuchadrezzar's
colossus, there is not an allusion to Daniel
throughout the chapter. Four of the names of the
officers in iii. 2, 3, appear, to our surprise, to be
Persian; Namely, the words for "satraps," "governors," "counsellors," and
"judges," as well as the courtiers in iii. 24. Bleek thinks that to
enhance the stateliness of the occasion the writer introduced as many
official names as he knew. Supra, p. 23. Athen., Deipnos., iv. 175. The Persian titles in iii. 24 alone suffice to indicate that this
could not be Nebuchadrezzar's actual decree. See further, Meinhold,
pp. 30, 31. We are evidently dealing with a writer who introduces
many Persian words, with no consciousness that they could not have
been used by Babylonian kings.
X. In chap. iv. we have another monotheistic decree
of the King of Babylon, announcing to "all people,
nations, and languages" what "the high God hath
wrought towards me." It gives us a vision which
recalls The writer of Daniel was evidently acquainted with the Book
of Ezekiel. See Delitzsch in Herzog, s.v. "Daniel," and Driver,
p. 476. See iv. 16, 25-30. Preserved by Jos.: comp. Ap., I. 20. The phrase is common enough: e.g., in Jos., Antt., X. xi. 1 (comp.
c. Ap., I. 19); and a similar phrase, ἐμπεσὼν εἰς ἀῤῥωστίαν, is used of
Antiochus Epiphanes in Præp. Ev., ix. 41. Schrader (K. A. T., ii. 432) thinks that
Berossus and the Book of Daniel may both point to the same
tradition; but the Chaldee tradition quoted by the late writer
Abydenus errs likewise in only recognising two Babylonish kings
instead of four, exclusive of Belshazzar. See, too, Schrader, Jahrb.
für Prot. Theol., 1881, p. 618.
XI. When we reach the fifth chapter, we are faced by
a new king, Belshazzar, who is somewhat emphatically
called the son of Nebuchadrezzar.
History knows of no such king. Schrader, p. 434 ff.; and in Riehm, Handwörterb., ii. 163; Pinches,
in Smith's Bibl. Dict., i. 388, 2nd edn. The contraction into Belshazzar
from Bel-sar-utsur seems to show a late date. That the author of Daniel should have fallen into these errors
is the more remarkable because Evil-merodach is mentioned in
There was a Belshazzar—Bel-sar-utsur, "Bel protect
the prince"—and we possess a clay cylinder of
his father Nabunaid, the last king of Babylon, praying
the moon-god that "my son, the offspring of my heart,
might honour his godhead, and not give himself to
sin." Herod., i. 191. See Rawlinson, Herod., i. 434. Xen., Cyrop., VII. v. 3. Antt., X. xi. 2. In c. Ap., I. 20, he calls him Nabonnedus. This is now supposed to mean "grandson by marriage," by
inventing the hypothesis that Nabunaid married a daughter of
Nebuchadrezzar. But this does not accord with
Evil-merodach | circ. b.c. | 561 (Avil-marduk). |
|
Nergal-sharezer | " | 559 (Nergal-sar-utsur). | |
Lakhabbashi-marudu | " | 555 (an infant). | |
(Laborosoarchod) | |||
Nabunaid | " | 554. |
Nabunaid reigned till about b.c. 538, when Babylon was taken by Cyrus.
The conduct of Belshazzar in the great feast of this chapter is probably meant as an allusive contrast to the revels and impieties of Antiochus Epiphanes, especially in his infamous festival at the grove of Daphne.
XII. "That night," we are told, "Belshazzar, the
Chaldean king, was slain." It has always been supposed Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the Monuments, p. 527.
Snatching at the merest straws, those who try to
vindicate the accuracy of the writer—although he makes
Belshazzar a king, which he never was; and the son of
Nebuchadrezzar, which is not the case; or his grandson,
of which there is no tittle of evidence; and his
successor, whereas four kings intervened;—think that
XIII. In the sixth chapter we are again met by difficulty after difficulty.
Who, for instance, was Darius the Mede? We are told (v. 30, 31) that, on the night of his impious banquet, "Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans" was slain, "and Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old." We are also told that Daniel "prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian" (vi. 28). But this Darius is not even noticed elsewhere. Cyrus was the conqueror of Babylon, and between b.c. 538-536 there is no room or possibility for a Median ruler.
The inference which we should naturally draw from these statements in the Book of Daniel, and which all readers have drawn, was that Babylon had been conquered by the Medes, and that only after the death of a Median king did Cyrus the Persian succeed.
But historic monuments and records entirely overthrow
this supposition. Cyrus was the king of Babylon
from the day that his troops entered it without a blow.
He had conquered the Medes and suppressed their
royalty. "The numerous contract-tables of the ordinary
daily business transactions of Babylon, dated as
they are month by month, and almost day by day from
the reign of Nebuchadrezzar to that of Xerxes, prove
that between Nabonidus and Cyrus there was no intermediate
ruler." The contemporary scribes and merchants
of Babylon knew nothing of any King Belshazzar, I need not enter here upon the confusion of the Manda with the
Medes, on which see Sayce, Higher Criticism and Monuments, p. 519 ff.
And against this obvious conclusion, of what possible
avail is it for Hengstenberg to quote a late Greek
lexicographer (Harpocration, a.d. 170?), who says that
the coin "a daric" was named after a Darius earlier
than the father of Xerxes?—or for others to identify
this shadowy Darius the Mede with Astyages? Winer, Realwörterb., s.v. "Darius." So Bertholdt, Von Lengerke, Auberlen. It is decidedly rejected
by Schrader (Riehm, Handwörterb., i. 259). Even Cicero said, "Cyrus
ille a Xenophonte non ad historiæ fidem scriptus est" (Ad Quint. Fratr.,
Ep. i. 3). Niebuhr called the Cyropædia "einen elenden und läppischen
Roman" (Alt. Gesch., i. 116). He classes it with Télémaque or
Rasselas. Xenophon was probably the ultimate authority for the
statement of Josephus (Antt., X. xi. 4), which has no weight. Herodotus
and Ktesias know nothing of the existence of any Cyaxares II.,
nor does the Second Isaiah (xlv.), who evidently contemplates Cyrus
as the conqueror and the first king of Babylon. Are we to set a professed
romancer like Xenophon, and a late compiler like Josephus,
against these authorities? T. W. Pinches, in Smith's Bibl. Dict., i. 716, 2nd edn. Into this
theory are pressed the general expressions that Darius "received the
kingdom" and was "made king," which have not the least bearing
on it. They may simply mean that he became king by conquest, and
not in the ordinary course—so Rosenmüller, Hitzig, Von Lengerke,
etc.; or perhaps the words show some sense of uncertainty as to the
exact course of events. The sequence of Persian kings in Seder
Olam, 28-30, and in Rashi on This is supported by the remark that this three-months viceroy
"appointed governors in Babylon"! Herod., iii. 89; Records of the Past, viii. 88.
"Darius the Mede," says Professor Sayce, "is in fact
a reflection into the past of Darius the son of Hystaspes, See, too, Meinhold (Beiträge, p. 46), who concludes his survey
with the words, "Sprachliche wie sachliche Gründe machen es nicht
nur wahrscheinlich sondern gewiss dass an danielsche Autorschaft von
Sayce. l.c., p. 529.
The favourable view given of the character of the
imaginary Darius the Mede, and his regard for Daniel,
may have been a confusion with the Jewish reminiscences
of Darius, son of Hystaspes, who permitted the rebuilding
of the Temple under Zerubbabel. Kamphausen, p. 45.
If we look for the source of the confusion, we see it
XIV. But to make confusion worse confounded, if
these chapters were meant for history, the problematic
"Darius the Mede" is in
Now Ahasuerus (Achashverosh) is the same as Xerxes, and is the Persian name Khshyarsha; and Xerxes was the son, not the father, of Darius Hystaspis, who was a Persian, not a Mede. Before Darius Hystaspis could have been transformed into the son of his own son Xerxes, the reigns, not only of Darius, but also of Xerxes, must have long been past.
XV. There is yet another historic sign that this
Book did not originate till the Persian Empire had
long ceased to exist. In xi. 2 the writer only knows
of four kings of Persia. Sayce, l.c. The author of the Book of Daniel seems only to
have known of three kings of Persia after Cyrus (xi. 2). But five are
mentioned in the Old Testament—Cyrus, Darius, Artaxerxes, Xerxes,
and Darius III. (Codomannus,
These, then, are some of the apparent historic impossibilities by which we are confronted when we regard this Book as professed history. The doubts suggested by such seeming errors are not in the least removed by the acervation of endless conjectures. They are greatly increased by the fact that, so far from standing alone, they are intensified by other difficulties which arise under every fresh aspect under which the Book is studied. Behrmann, the latest editor, sums up his studies with the remark that "there is an almost universal agreement that the Book, in its present form and as a whole, had its origin in the Maccabean age; while there is a widening impression that in its purpose it is not an exclusive product of that period." No amount of casuistical ingenuity can long prevail to overthrow the spreading conviction that the views of Hengstenberg, Hävernick, Keil, Pusey, and their followers, have been refuted by the light of advancing knowledge—which is a light kindled for us by God Himself.
In endeavouring to see the idea and construction of
a book there is always much room for the play
of subjective considerations. Meinhold has especially
studied this subject, but we cannot be certain that his
views are more than imaginative. He thinks that
chap. ii., in which we are strongly reminded of the
story of Joseph and of Pharaoh's dreams, is intended
to set forth God as Omniscient, and chap. iii. as
Omnipotent. To these conceptions is added in chap. iv.
the insistence upon God's All-holiness. The fifth
and sixth chapters form one conception. Since the
death of Belshazzar is assigned to the night of his
banquet no edict could be ascribed to him resembling
those attributed to Nebuchadrezzar. The effect of
Daniel's character and of the Divine protection accorded
to him on the mind of Darius is expressed
in the strong edict of the latter in vi. 26, 27. This
is meant to illustrate that the All-wise, Almighty, All-holy
God is the Only Living God. The consistent and
homogeneous object of the whole historic section is to
set forth the God of the Hebrews as exalting Himself
in the midst of heathendom, and extorting submission
by mighty portents from heathen potentates. In this
the Book offers a general analogy to the section of the
history of the Israelites in Egypt narrated in
A closer glance at these chapters will show some grounds for these conclusions.
Thus, in the second chapter, the magicians and sorcerers repudiate all possibility of revealing the king's dream and its interpretation, because they are but men, and the gods have not their dwelling with mortal flesh (ii. 11); but Daniel can tell the dream because he stands near to his God, who, though He is in heaven, yet is All-wise, and revealeth secrets.
In the third chapter the destruction of the strongest soldiers of Nebuchadrezzar by fire, and the absolute deliverance of the three Jews whom they have flung into the furnace, convince Nebuchadrezzar that no god can deliver as the Almighty does, and that therefore it is blasphemy deserving of death to utter a word against Him.
In chap. iv. the supremacy of Daniel's wisdom as derived from God, the fulfilment of the threatened judgment, and the deliverance of the mighty King of Babylon from his degrading madness when he lifts up his eyes to heaven, convince Nebuchadrezzar still more deeply that God is not only a Great God, but that no other being, man or god, can even be compared to Him. He is the Only and the Eternal God, who "doeth according to His will in the army of heaven," as well as "among the inhabitants of the earth," and "none can stay His hand." This is the highest point of conviction. Nebuchadrezzar confesses that God is not only Primus inter pares, but the Irresistible God, and his own God. And after this, in the fifth chapter, Daniel can speak to Belshazzar of "the Lord of heaven" (v. 23); and as the king's Creator; and of the nothingness of gods of silver, and gold, and brass, and wood, and stone;—as though those truths had already been decisively proved. And this belief finds open expression in the decree of Darius (vi. 26, 27), which concludes the historic section.
It is another indication of this main purpose of these
histories that the plural form of the Name of God—Elohîm—does
not once occur in chaps. ii.-vi. It is used in
i. 2, 9, 17; but not again till the ninth chapter, where
it occurs twelve times; once in the tenth (x. 12); and
twice of God in the eleventh chapter (xi. 32, 37). In
the prophetic section (vii. 18, 22, 25, 27) we have
"Most High" in the plural ('elionîn); Literally, as in margin, "most high things" or "places." In iv. 5, 6; and elohîn means "gods" in the mouth of a heathen
("spirit of the holy gods"). Elohîn occurs repeatedly in chap. ix., and in x. 12, xi. 32, 37.
In the fourth and fifth chapters we have God's Holiness first brought before us, chiefly on its avenging side; and it is not till we have witnessed the proof of His Unity, Wisdom, Omnipotence, and Justice, which it is the mission of Israel to make manifest among the heathen, that all is summed up in the edict of Darius to all people, nations, and languages.
The omission of any express recognition of God's
tender compassion is due to the structure of these
chapters; for it would hardly be possible for heathen
potentates to recognise that attribute in the immediate
presence of His judgments. It is somewhat remarkable
that the name "Jehovah" is avoided. It only occurs in
As regards the religious views of the Book of Daniel
some of them at any rate are in full accordance
with the belief in the late origin of the Book to which
we are led by so many indications. The description of God as "the Ancient of Days" with garments
white as snow, and of His throne of flames on burning wheels, is
found again in the Book of Enoch, written about b.c. 141 (Enoch xiv.).
I. Thus in See
II. Still more remarkable is the special prominence
of angels. It is not God who goes forth to war
( Comp. Smend, Alttest. Relig. Gesch., p. 530. For references to angels in Old Testament see
In full accordance with late developments of Jewish
opinion angels are mentioned by special names, and
appear as Princes and Protectors of special lands. See Enoch lxxi. 17, lxviii. 10, and the six archangels Uriel,
Raphael, Reguel, Michael, Saragael, and Gabriel in Enoch xx.-xxxvi.
See Rosh Hashanah, f. 56, 1; Bereshîth Rabba, c. 48; Hamburger, i.
305-312.
III. Again, we have the fixed custom of three daily
formal prayers, uttered towards the Kibleh of Jerusalem.
This may, possibly, have begun during the Exile. It
became a normal rule for later ages. Berachôth, f. 31;
IV. Once more, for the first time in Jewish story,
we find extreme importance attached to the Levitical
distinction of clean and unclean meats, which also
comes into prominence in the age of the Maccabees,
as it afterwards constituted a most prominent element
in the ideal of Talmudic religionism.
V. We have already noticed the avoidance of the
sacred name "Jehovah" even in passages addressed to
Jews (
Periphrases for God, like "the Ancient of Days," become normal in Talmudic literature.
VI. Again, the doctrine of the Messiah, like these
other doctrines, is, as Professor Driver says, "taught
with greater distinctness and in a more developed form
than elsewhere in the Old Testament, and with features
approximating to, though not identical with, those met
with in the earlier parts of the Book of Enoch (b.c. 100).
In one or two instances these developments may have
been partially moulded by foreign influences. Introd., p. 477. Comp.
We shall see in later pages that the supreme value Roszmann, Die Makkabäische Erhebung, p. 45. See Wellhausen,
Die Pharis. u. d. Sadd., 77 ff.
If we have found much to lead us to serious doubts
as to the authenticity and genuineness—i.e., as to
the literal historicity and the real author—of the Book
of Daniel in its historic section, we shall find still more
in the prophetic section. If the phenomena already
passed in review are more than enough to indicate the
impossibility that the Book could have been written by
the historic Daniel, the phenomena now to be considered
are such as have sufficed to convince the immense
majority of learned critics that, in its present form,
the Book did not appear before the days of Antiochus
Epiphanes. Among these critics are Delitzsch, Riehm, Ewald, Bunsen,
Hilgenfeld, Cornill, Lücke, Strack, Schürer, Kuenen, Meinhold,
Orelli, Joël, Reuss, König, Kamphausen, Cheyne, Driver, Briggs,
Bevan, Behrmann, etc.
Leaving minuter examination to later chapters of commentary, we will now take a brief survey of this unique apocalypse.
I. As regards the style and method the only distant
approach to it in the rest of the Old Testament is in
a few visions of Ezekiel and Zechariah, which differ Renan, History of Israel, iv. 354. He adds, "L'essence du genre
c'est le pseudonyme, ou si l'on veut l'apocryphisme" (p. 356).
Chap. vii. contains a vision of four different wild beasts rising from the sea: a lion, with eagle-wings, which afterwards becomes semi-human; a bear, leaning on one side, and having three ribs in its mouth; a four-winged, four-headed panther; and a still more terrible creature, with iron teeth, brazen claws, and ten horns, among which rises a little horn, which destroyed three of the others—it has man's eyes and a mouth speaking proud things.
There follows an epiphany of the Ancient of Days, who destroys the little horn, but prolongs for a time the existence of the other wild beasts. Then comes One in human semblance, who is brought before the Ancient of Days, and is clothed by Him with universal and eternal power.
We shall see reasons for the view that the four
beasts—in accordance with the interpretation of the
vision given to Daniel himself—represent the Babylonian,
the Median, the Persian, and the Greek empires,
issuing in the separate kingdoms of Alexander's
successors; and that the little horn is Antiochus Lagarde, Gott. Gel. Anzieg., 1891, pp. 497-520, stands almost, if
not quite, alone in arguing that
The vision of the eighth chapter mainly pursues the history of the fourth of these kingdoms. Daniel sees a ram standing eastward of the river-basin of the Ulai, having two horns, of which one is higher than the other. It butts westward, northward, and southward, and seemed irresistible, until a he-goat from the West, with one horn between its eyes, confronted it, and stamped it to pieces. After this its one horn broke into four towards the four winds of heaven, and one of them shot forth a puny horn, which grew great towards the South and East, and acted tyrannously against the Holy People, and spoke blasphemously against God. Daniel hears the holy ones declaring that its powers shall only last two thousand three hundred evening-mornings. An angel bids Gabriel to explain the vision to Daniel; and Gabriel tells the seer that the ram represents the Medo-Persian and the he-goat the Greek Kingdom. Its great horn is Alexander; the four horns are the kingdoms of his successors, the Diadochi; the little horn is a king bold of vision and versed in enigmas, whom all agree to be Antiochus Epiphanes.
In the ninth chapter we are told that Daniel has
been meditating on the prophecy of Jeremiah that
Jerusalem should be rebuilt after seventy years, and
as the seventy years seem to be drawing to a close he
Here, again, we shall have reason to see that the whole prophecy culminates in, and is mainly concerned with, Antiochus Epiphanes. In fact, it furnishes us with a sketch of his fortunes, which, in connexion with the eleventh chapter, tells us more about him than we learn from any extant history.
In the tenth chapter Daniel, after a fast of twenty-one days, sees a vision of Gabriel, who explains to him why his coming has been delayed, soothes his fears, touches his lips, and prepares him for the vision of chapter eleven. That chapter is mainly occupied with a singularly minute and circumstantial history of the murders, intrigues, wars, and intermarriages of the Lagidæ and Seleucidæ. So detailed is it that in some cases the history has to be reconstructed out of it. This sketch is followed by the doings and final overthrow of Antiochus Epiphanes.
The twelfth chapter is the picture of a resurrection, and of words of consolation and exhortation addressed to Daniel.
Such in briefest outline are the contents of these
chapters, and their peculiarities are very marked.
Until the reader has studied the more detailed explanation
of the chapters separately, and especially of the
eleventh, he will be unable to estimate the enormous force
of the arguments adduced to prove the impossibility of
such "prophecies" having emanated from Babylon and
Susa about b.c. 536. Long before the astonishing enlargement
of our critical knowledge which has been the
work of the last generation—nearly fifty years ago—the
mere perusal of the Book as it stands produced on
the manly and honest judgment of Dr. Arnold a strong
impression of uncertainty. He said that the latter
chapters of Daniel would, if genuine, be a clear exception
to the canons of interpretation which he laid down
in his Sermons on Prophecy, since "there can be no
reasonable spiritual meaning made out of the kings of
the North and South." "But," he adds, "I have long
thought that the greater part of the Book of Daniel is
most certainly a very late work of the time of the
Maccabees; and the pretended prophecies about the
kings of Grecia and Persia, and of the North and South,
are mere history, like the poetical prophecies in Virgil
and elsewhere. In fact, you can trace distinctly the
date when it was written, because the events up to
that date are given with historical minuteness, totally
unlike the character of real prophecy; and beyond that
date all is imaginary." Stanley, Life of Arnold, p. 505.
The Book is the earliest specimen of its kind known
to us. It inaugurated a new and important branch of
Jewish literature, which influenced many subsequent
writers. An apocalypse, so far as its literary form is
concerned, "claims throughout to be a supernatural
II. In the next place an apocalypse is literary, not
oral. Schürer, who classes Daniel among the oldest and
most original of pseudepigraphic prophecies, etc., rightly
says that "the old prophets in their teachings and
exhortations addressed themselves directly to the
people first and foremost through their oral utterances;
and then, but only as subordinate to these, by written
discourses as well. But now, when men felt themselves
at any time compelled by their religious enthusiasm
to influence their contemporaries, instead of
directly addressing them in person like the prophets
of old, they did so by a writing purporting to be the
work of some one or other of the great names of the
past, in the hope that in this way the effect would be
all the surer and all the more powerful." Schürer, Hist. of the Jew. People, iii. 24 (E. Tr.).
III. Thirdly, it is impossible not to notice that
Daniel differs from all other prophecies by its all-but-total
indifference to the circumstances and surroundings
We may notice further the constant use of round
and cyclic numbers, such as three and its compounds
(i. 5, iii. 1, vi. 7, 10, vii. 5, 8); four (ii., vii. 6, and
viii. 8, xi. 12); seven and its compounds (iii. 19, iv. 16, 23,
ix. 24, etc.). The apocalyptic symbols of Bears, Lions,
Eagles, Horns, Wings, etc., abound in the contemporary
and later Books of Enoch, Baruch, 4 Esdras, the
Assumption of Moses, and the Sibyllines, as well as in
the early Christian apocalypses, like that of Peter. The
authors of the Sibyllines (b.c. 140) were acquainted with
Daniel; the Book of Enoch breathes exactly the same
spirit with this Book, in the transcendentalism which
avoids the name Jehovah (vii. 13; Enoch xlvi. 1, xlvii. 3),
in the number of angels (vii. 10; Enoch xl. 1, lx. 2),
their names, the title of "watchers" given to them,
and their guardianship of men (Enoch xx. 5). The
Judgment and the Books (vii. 9, 10, xii. 1) occur again
in Enoch xlvii. 3, lxxxi. 1, as in the Book of Jubilees,
and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. On the close resemblance between Daniel and other apocryphal
books see Behrmann, Dan., pp. 37-39; Dillmann, Das Buch Henoch.
For its relation to the Book of Baruch see Schrader, Keilinschriften,
435 f. Philo does not allude to Daniel.
I. Other prophets start from the ground of the
present, and to exigencies of the present their
prophecies were primarily directed. It is true that
their lofty moral teaching, their rapt poetry, their
impassioned feeling, had its inestimable value for all
ages. But these elements scarcely exist in the Book
of Daniel. Almost the whole of its prophecies bear on
one short particular period nearly four hundred years
after the supposed epoch of their delivery. What,
then, is the phenomenon they present? Whereas other
prophets, by studying the problems of the present in
the light flung upon them by the past, are enabled,
by combining the present with the past, to gain, with
the aid of God's Holy Spirit, a vivid glimpse of the
immediate future, for the instruction of the living
generation, the reputed author of Daniel passes over
the immediate future with a few words, and spends the
main part of his revelations on a triad of years separated
by centuries from contemporary history. Occupied as
this description is with the wars and negotiations
of empires which were yet unborn, it can have had
little practical significance for Daniel's fellow-exiles.
Nor could these "predictions" have been to prove the
possibility of supernatural foreknowledge, Any apparently requisite modification of these words will be
considered hereafter.
But, as Hengstenberg, the chief supporter of the
authenticity of the Book of Daniel, well observes, On Revelations, vol. i., p. 408 (E. Tr.). "Dient bei ihnen die Zukunft der Gegenwart, und ist selbst
fortgesetzte Gegenwart" (Behrmann, Dan., p. xi).
II. And as it does not start from the ground of the present, so too the Book of Daniel reverses the method of prophecy with reference to the future.
For the genuine predictions of Scripture advance by
slow and gradual degrees from the uncertain and the
general to the definite and the special. Prophecy
marches with history, and takes a step forward
at each new period. See M. de Pressensé, Hist. des Trois Prem. Siècles, p. 283. See some admirable remarks on this subject in Ewald, Die Proph.
d. Alt. Bund., i. 23, 24; Winer, Realwörterb., s.v. "Propheten"
Stähelin, Einleit., § 197.
In Daniel the case is reversed: the only kingdom
which was looming into sight is dismissed with a few
words, and the kingdom most dwelt upon is the most
distant and quite the most insignificant of all, of the
very existence of which neither Daniel nor his contemporaries
had even remotely heard. Comp. Enoch i. 2.
III. Then again, although the prophets, with their Ewald, Die Proph., i. 27; Michel Nicolas, Études sur la Bible,
pp. 336 ff. Comp. System der christlichen Lehre, p. 66. E.g., in the case of Josiah ( De Coronâ, 73: ἰδεῖν τὰ πράγματα ἀρχόμενα καὶ προαισθέσθαι καὶ
προειπεῖν τοῖς ἄλλοις.
Even Demosthenes, by virtue of a statesman's thoughtful experience, can describe it as his office and duty "to see events in their beginnings, to discern their purport and tendencies from the first, and to forewarn his countrymen accordingly." Yet the power of Demosthenes was as nothing compared with that of an Isaiah or a Nahum; and we may safely say that the writings alike of the Greek orator and the Hebrew prophets would have been comparatively valueless had they merely contained anticipations of future history, instead of dealing with truths whose value is equal for all ages—truths and principles which give clearness to the past, security to the present, and guidance to the future. Had it been the function of prophecy to remove the veil of obscurity which God in His wisdom has hung over the destinies of men and kingdoms, it would never have attained, as it has done, to the love and reverence of mankind.
IV. Another unique and abnormal feature is found The symbolism of numbers is carefully and learnedly worked out
in Bähr's Symbolik: cf. Auberlen, p. 133. The several fulfilments of
the prophesied seventy years' captivity illustrate this. Hengstenberg, On Revelations, p. 609.
V. Alike, then, in style, in matter, and in what has
been called by V. Orelli its "exoteric" manner,—alike
in its definiteness and its indefiniteness—in the point
from which it starts and the period at which it terminates—in
its minute details and its chronological indications—in
the absence of the moral and the impassioned
And if anything further were wanting to complete the cogency of the internal evidence which forces this conclusion upon us, it is amply found in a study of those books, confessedly apocryphal, which, although far inferior to the Book before us, are yet of value, and which we believe to have emanated from the same era.
They resemble this Book in their language, both
Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as in certain recurring
expressions and forms to be found in the Books of
Maccabees and the Second Book of Esdras;—in their
style—rhetorical rather than poetical, stately rather
than ecstatic, diffuse rather than pointed, and wholly
inferior to the prophets in depth and power;—in the use
of an apocalyptic method, and the strange combination
of dreams and symbols;—in the insertion, by way of
embellishment, of speeches and formal documents which
can at the best be only semi-historical;—finally, in the
whole tone of thought, especially in the quite peculiar
doctrine of archangels, of angels guarding kingdoms,
and of opposing evil spirits. In short, the Book of
Daniel may be illustrated by the Apocryphal books in
every single particular. In the adoption of an illustrious
name—which is the most marked characteristic
of this period—it resembles the additions to the Book
of Daniel, the Books of Esdras, the Letters of Baruch All these particulars may be found, without any allusion to the
Book of Daniel, in the admirable article on the Apocrypha by Dean
Plumptre in Dr. Smith's Dict. of the Bible. Ewald, Gesch. Isr., iv. 541.
The conclusion is obvious; and it is equally obvious
that, when we suppose the name of Daniel to have
been assumed, and the assumption to have been supported
by an antique colouring, we do not for a moment
charge the unknown author—who may very well have
been Onias IV.—with any dishonesty. Indeed, it
appears to us that there are many traces in the Book—φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν—which
exonerate the writer from
any suspicion of intentional deception. They may have
been meant to remove any tendency to error in understanding
the artistic guise which was adopted for the
better and more forcible inculcation of the lessons to
be conveyed. That the stories of Daniel offered peculiar
opportunities for this treatment is shown by the
apocryphal additions to the Book; and that the practice
It is to Porphyry, a Neoplatonist of the third century
(born at Tyre, a.d. 233; died in Rome, a.d. 303), that
we owe our ability to write a continuous historical
commentary on the symbols of Daniel. That writer
devoted the twelfth book of his Λόγοι κατὰ Χριστιανῶν
to a proof that Daniel was not written till after the
epoch which it so minutely described. "Et non tam Danielem ventura dixisse quam illum narrasse
præterita" (Jer.). "Ad intelligendas autem extremas Danielis partes multiplex Græcorum historia necessaria est" (Jer., Proæm. Explan. in Dan.
Proph. ad f.). Among these Greek historians he mentions eight whom
Porphyry had consulted, and adds, "Et si quando cogimur litterarum
sæcularium recordari ... non nostræ est voluntatis, sed ut dicam,
gravissimæ necessitatis." We know Porphyry's arguments mainly
through the commentary of Jerome, who, indeed, derived from
Porphyry the historic data without which the eleventh chapter,
among others, would have been wholly unintelligible.
We have seen that there are many circumstances which force upon us the gravest doubts as to the authenticity of the Book of Daniel. We now proceed to examine the evidence urged in its favour, and deemed adequate to refute the conclusion that in its present form it did not see the light before the time of Antiochus IV.
Taking Hengstenberg as the most learned reasoner
in favour of the genuineness of Daniel, we will pass in
review all the positive arguments which he has adduced. Hävernick is another able and sincere supporter; but Droysen
truly says (Gesch. d. Hellenismus, ii. 211), "Die Hävernickschen
Auffassung kann kein vernunftiger Mensch bestimmen."
I. Such, for instance, are the testimony of the author
II. The character of the language, as we have seen
already, proves nothing. Hebrew and Aramaic long
continued in common use side by side at least among
the learned, See Grimm, Comment., zum I. Buch der Makk., Einleit., xvii.;
Mövers in Bonner Zeitschr., Heft 13, pp. 31 ff.; Stähelin, Einleit.,
p. 356.
III. How any argument can be founded on the exact
knowledge of history displayed by local colouring we
cannot understand. Were the knowledge displayed
ever so exact it would only prove that the author was
a learned man, which is obvious already. But so far
from any remarkable accuracy being shown by the
author, it is, on the contrary, all but impossible to
reconcile many of his statements with acknowledged
facts. The elaborate and tortuous explanations, the
frequent "subauditur," the numerous assumptions
IV. Passing over other arguments of Keil, Hengstenberg,
etc., which have been either refuted already, or
which are too weak to deserve repetition, we proceed to
examine one or two of a more serious character. Great
stress, for instance, is laid on the reception of the Book
into the Canon. We acknowledge the canonicity of
the Book, its high value when rightly apprehended, and
its rightful acceptance as a sacred book; but this in
nowise proves its authenticity. The history of the Old
Testament Canon is involved in the deepest obscurity.
The belief that it was finally completed by Ezra and the
Great Synagogue rests on no foundation; indeed, it is
irreconcilable with later historic notices and other facts
connected with the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther,
and the two Books of Chronicles. The Christian
Fathers in this, as in some other cases, implicitly
believed what came to them from the most questionable
sources, and was mixed up with mere Jewish fables.
One of the oldest Talmudic books, the Pirke Aboth, is
entirely silent on the collection of the Old Testament,
though in a vague way it connects the Great Synagogue
with the preservation of the Law. The earliest mention
of the legend about Ezra is in the Second Book of Esdras
(xiv. 29-48). This book does not possess the slightest
claim to authority, as it was not completed till a century
after the Christian era; and it mingles up with this
very narrative a number of particulars thoroughly fabulous Iren., Adv. Hæres., iv. 25; Clem., Strom. i. 21, § 146; Tert., De
Cult. Fæm., i. 3; Jerome, Adv. Helv., 7; Ps. August., De Mirab., ii.
32, etc. Baba Bathra, f. 13b, 14b. See Oehler, s.v. "Kanon" (Herzog, Encycl.). Rau, De Synag. Magna., ii. 66.
Again, the author of the forged letter at the beginning
of the Second Book of Maccabees—"the work" says
Hengstenberg, "of an arrant impostor" On Daniel, p. 195. "Even after the Captivity," says Bishop Westcott, "the history
of the Canon, like all Jewish history up to the date of the
Maccabees, is wrapped in great obscurity. Faint traditions alone
remain to interpret results which are found realised when the darkness
is first cleared away" (s.v. "Canon," Smith's Dict. of Bible).
V. Nor can the supposed traces of the early existence
of the Book be considered adequate to prove its
genuineness. With the most important of these, the
story of Josephus (Antt., XI. viii. 5) that the high priest
Jaddua showed to Alexander the Great the prophecies
of Daniel respecting himself, we shall deal later. The
alleged traces of the Book in Ecclesiasticus are very
uncertain, or rather wholly questionable; and the
allusion to Daniel in
The First Book of Maccabees cannot be certainly
dated more than a century before Christ, nor have
we reason to believe that the Septuagint version of the
Book is much older. See König, Einleit., § 80, 2.
VI. The badness of the Alexandrian version, and the
apocryphal additions to it, seem to be rather an argument
for the late age and less established authority
of the Book than for its genuineness. "In propheta Daniele Septuaginta interpretes multum ab Hebraica
veritate discordant" (Jerome, ed. Vallarsi, v. 646). In the LXX. are
first found the three apocryphal additions. For this reason the version
of Theodotion was substituted for the LXX., which latter was only
rediscovered in 1772 in a manuscript in the library of Cardinal Chigi. On the Authenticity of Daniel, pp. 159, 290 (E. Tr.). Psalms of Sol. xvii. 36, xviii. 8, etc. See Fabric., Cod. Pseudep.,
i. 917-972; Ewald, Gesch. d. Volkes Isr., iv. 244.
(ii) Still less can we attach any force to Hengstenberg's
argument that, in the Maccabean age, the gift of
prophecy was believed to have departed for ever. Indeed,
that is an argument in favour of the pseudonymity
of the Book. For in the age at which—for purposes of
literary form—it is represented as having appeared the
spirit of prophecy was far from being dead. Ezekiel
was still living, or had died but recently. Zechariah,
Haggai, and long afterwards Malachi, were still to continue
the succession of the mighty prophets of their
race. Now, if prediction be an element in the prophet's
work, no prophet, nor all the prophets together, ever
distantly approached any such power of minutely foretelling
the events of a distant future—even the half-meaningless
and all-but-trivial events of four centuries
later, in kingdoms which had not yet thrown their
distant shadows on the horizon—as that which Daniel
must have possessed, if he were indeed the author of
this Book. Even Auberlen says (Dan., p. 3, E. Tr.), "If prophecy is anywhere
a history of the future, it is here." See Vitringa, De defectu Prophetiæ post Malachiæ tempora Obss.
Sacr., ii. 336.
We must postpone a closer examination of the questions
as to the "four kingdoms" intended by the
writer, and of his curious and enigmatic chronological
calculations; but we must reject at once the monstrous
assertion—excusable in the days of Sir Isaac Newton,
but which has now become unwise and even portentous—that
"to reject Daniel's prophecies would be to
undermine the Christian religion, which is all but
founded on his prophecies respecting Christ"! Happily
the Christian religion is not built on such foundations
of sand. Had it been so, it would long since have been
swept away by the beating rain and the rushing floods.
Here, again, the arguments urged by those who believe
in the authenticity of Daniel recoil with tenfold force
upon themselves. Sir Isaac Newton's observations on
the prophecies of Daniel only show how little transcendent
genius in one domain of inquiry can save a great
thinker from absolute mistakes in another. In writing
upon prophecy the great astronomer was writing on the
assumption of baseless premisses which he had drawn
from stereotyped tradition; and he was also writing at
an epoch when the elements for the final solution of the
problem had not as yet been discovered or elaborated.
It is as certain that, had he been living now, he would
have accepted the conclusion of all the ablest and most
candid inquirers, as it is certain that Bacon, had he now
been living, would have accepted the Copernican theory.
It is absurdly false to say that "the Christian religion
is all but founded on Daniel's prophecies respecting
Christ." If it were not absurdly false, we might well
ask, How it came that neither Christ nor His Apostles
ever once alluded to the existence of any such argument,
or ever pointed to the Book of Daniel and the
prophecy of the seventy weeks as containing the least
But so far from finding any agreement in the opinions
of the Christian Fathers and commentators on a subject
which, in Newton's view, was so momentous, we only
find ourselves weltering in a chaos of uncertainties and
contradictions. Thus Eusebius records the attempt of
some early Christian commentators to treat the last of
the seventy weeks as representing, not, like all the rest,
seven years, but seventy years, in order to bring down
the prophecy to the days of Trajan! Neither Jewish
nor Christian exegetes have ever been able to come to
the least agreement between themselves or with one
another as to the beginning or end—the terminus a quo
or the terminus ad quem—with reference to which the
seventy weeks are to be reckoned. The Christians
naturally made great efforts to make the seventy weeks
end with the Crucifixion. But Julius Africanus Demonstr. Evang., viii. Of the Jews, the LXX. translators seem to make the seventy weeks
end with Antiochus Epiphanes; but in Jerome's day they made the
first year of "Darius the Mede" the terminus a quo, and brought down
the terminus ad quem to Hadrian's destruction of the Temple. Saadia
the Gaon and Rashi reckon the seventy weeks from Nebuchadrezzar
to Titus, and make Cyrus the anointed one of ix. 25. Abn Ezra, on the
other hand, takes Nehemiah for "the anointed one." What can be
based on such varying and undemonstrable guesses? See Behrmann,
Dan., p. xliii.
Hippolytus Hippolytus, Fragm. in Dan. (Migne, Patr. Græc., x.). See Bevan, pp. 141-145.
The reception of the Book of Daniel anywhere into
the Canon might be regarded as an argument in
favour of its authenticity, if the case of the Books of
Jonah and Ecclesiastes did not sufficiently prove that
canonicity, while it does constitute a proof of the value
and sacred significance of a book, has no weight as to
its traditional authorship. But in point of fact the
position assigned by the Jews to the Book of Daniel—not
among the Prophets, where, had the Book been
genuine, it would have had a supreme right to stand,
but only with the Book of Esther, among the latest of
the Hagiographa Jacob Perez of Valentia accounted for this by the hatred of the
Jews for Christianity! (Diestel, Gesch. d. A.T., p. 211). Comp. Opp. ed. Migne, ii. 1260: Εἰς τοσαύτην ἀναισχυντίαν ἤλασαν ὡς καὶ
τοῦ χόρου τῶν προφήτων τοῦτον ἀποσχοινίζειν. He may well add, on his
view of the date, εἰ γὰρ ταῦτα τῆς προφητείας ἀλλότρια, τίνα προφητείας
τὰ ἴδια; Megilla, 3, 1. Josephus, indeed, regards apocalyptic visions as the
highest form of prophecy (Antt., X. xi. 7); but the great Rabbis
Kimchi, Maimonides, Joseph Albo, etc., are strongly against him.
See Behrmann, p. xxxix. It has been described as "ein Versteck für Belesenheit, und ein
grammatischer Monstrum."
It is a serious abuse of argument to pretend, as is
done by Hengstenberg, by Dr. Pusey, and by many
of their feebler followers, that "there are few books
whose Divine authority is so fully established by the
testimony of the New Testament, and in particular by
our Lord Himself, as the Book of Daniel." Hengstenberg, p. 209. Hengstenberg's reference to
Again, Hengstenberg and his school try to prove
that the Book of Daniel existed before the Maccabean
age, because Josephus says that the high priest Jaddua
showed to Alexander the Great, in the year b.c. 332, the
prophecy of himself as the Grecian he-goat in the Book
of Daniel; and that the leniency which Alexander
showed towards the Jews was due to the favourable
impression thus produced. Jos., Antt., XI. viii. 5.
The story, which is a beautiful and an interesting one, runs as follows:—
On his way from Tyre, after capturing Gaza, Alexander
decided to advance to Jerusalem. The news threw
Jaddua the high priest into an agony of alarm. He
feared that the king was displeased with the Jews, and
would inflict severe vengeance upon them. He ordered
a general supplication with sacrifices, and was encouraged
by God in a dream to decorate the city, throw
open the gates, and go forth in procession at the head
of priests and people to meet the dreaded conqueror.
The procession, so unlike that of any other nation,
went forth as soon as they heard that Alexander was approaching
the city. They met the king on the summit
of Scopas, the watch-tower—the height of Mizpah,
from which the first glimpse of the city is obtained. There is nothing to surprise us in this circumstance, for Ptolemy
III. (
But this story, so grateful to Jewish vanity, is a
transparent fiction. It does not find the least support
from any other historic source, and is evidently one of
the Jewish Haggadoth in which the intense national
self-exaltation of that strange nation delighted to depict
the homage which they, and their national religion,
extorted from the supernaturally caused dread of the
greatest heathen potentates. In this respect it resembles
the earlier chapters of the Book of Daniel itself, and
the numberless stories of the haughty superiority of
great Rabbis to kings and emperors in which the
Talmud delights. Roman Catholic historians, like Jahn
and Hess, and older writers, like Prideaux, Jahn, Hebr. Commonwealth, § 71; Hess, Gesch., ii. 37; Prideaux,
Connection, i. 540 ff. Dict. of Bible, s.v. "Jaddua." See Schürer, i. 187; Van Dale,
Dissert. de LXX. Interpr., 68 ff. This part of the story is a mere doublet of that about Cyrus and
the prophecies of Isaiah (Antt., XI. i. 2).
I pass over as meaningless Hengstenberg's arguments
in favour of the genuineness of the Book from
the predominance of symbolism; from the moderation
of tone towards Nebuchadrezzar; from the political
gifts shown by the writer; and from his prediction that
the Messianic Kingdom would at once appear after the
death of Antiochus Epiphanes! When we are told
that these circumstances "can only be explained on the
assumption of a Babylonian origin"; that "they are
directly opposed to the spirit of the Maccabean time";
that the artifice with which the writing is pervaded,
supposing it to be a pseudepigraphic book, "far surpasses
the powers of the most gifted poet"; and that "such a
distinct expectation of the near advent of the Messianic
Kingdom is utterly without analogy in the whole of
prophetic literature,"—such arguments can only be
regarded as appeals to ignorance. They are either
assertions which float in the air, or are disproved at
once alike by the canonical prophets and by the apocryphal
literature of the Maccabean age. Symbolism
is the distinguishing characteristic of apocalypses,
But though it is common with the prophets to pass
at once from the warnings of destruction to the hopes
of a Messianic Kingdom which is to arise immediately
beyond the horizon which limits their vision, it is
remarkable—and the consideration tells strongly against
the authenticity of Daniel—that not one of them had
the least glimpse of the four successive kingdoms or
of the four hundred and ninety years;—not even those
prophets who, if the Book of Daniel were genuine, must
have had it in their hands. To imagine that Daniel took
means to have his Book left undiscovered for some
four hundred years, and then brought to light during
the Maccabean struggle, is a grotesque impossibility.
If the Book existed, it must have been known. Yet not
only is there no real trace of its existence before b.c. 167,
But if it be thought extraordinary that a pseudepigraphic
prophecy should have been admitted into the
Canon at all, even when placed low among the Kethubîm,
and if it be argued that the Jews would never have
conferred such an honour on such a composition, the
answer is that even when compared with such fine books That the fourth empire could not be the Roman has long been
seen by many critics, as far back as Grotius, L'Empereur, Chamier,
J. Voss, Bodinus, Becmann, etc. (Diestel, Gesch. A. T., p. 523).
How late was the date before the Jewish Canon was finally settled we see from the Talmudic stories that but for Hananiah ben-Hizkiah, with the help of his three hundred bottles of oil burnt in nightly studies, even the Book of Ezekiel would have been suppressed, as being contrary to the Law (Shabbath, f. 13, 2); and that but for the mystic line of interpretation adopted by Rabbi Aqiba (a.d. 120) a similar fate might have befallen the Song of Songs (Yaddayim, c. iii.; Mish., 5).
There is, then, the strongest reason to adopt the
conclusion that the Book of Daniel was the production
of one of the Chasidîm towards the beginning of the See Hamburger, Real-Encycl., s.v. "Geheimlehre," ii. 265. The
"Geheimlehre" (Heb., Sithrî Thorah) embraces a whole region of
Jewish literature, of which the Book of Daniel forms the earliest beginning.
See "Plötzlich bei Antiochus IV. angekommen hört alle seine Wissenschaft
auf, so dass wir, den Kalendar in den Hand, fast den Tag angeben
können wo dies oder jenes niedergeschrieben worden ist" (Reuss,
Gesch. d. Heil. Schrift., § 464).
From
Now the Temple was dedicated on December 25th,
b.c. 165; and the Book appeared before the death of
Antiochus, which the writer expected to happen at the
end of the seventy weeks, or, as he calculated them,
in June 164. The king did not actually die till the close
of 164 or the beginning of 163 ( For arguments in favour of this view see Cornill, Theol. Stud.
aus Ostpreussen, 1889, pp. 1-32, and Einleit., p. 261. He reckons twelve
generations, sixty-nine "weeks," from the destruction of Jerusalem
to the murder of the high priest Onias III.
The contents of the previous sections may be briefly summarised.
I. The objections to the authenticity and genuineness of Daniel do not arise, as is falsely asserted, from any a-priori objection to admit to the full the reality either of miracles or of genuine prediction. Hundreds of critics who have long abandoned the attempt to maintain the early date of Daniel believe both in miracles and prophecy.
II. The grounds for regarding the Book as a pseudepigraph are many and striking. The very Book which would most stand in need of overwhelming evidence in its favour is the one which furnishes the most decisive arguments against itself, and has the least external testimony in its support.
III. The historical errors in which it abounds tell
overwhelmingly against it. There was no deportation
in the third year of Jehoiakim; there was no King
Belshazzar; the Belshazzar son of Nabunaid was not
a son of Nebuchadrezzar; the names Nebuchadnezzar
and Abed-nego are erroneous in form; there was no
"Darius the Mede" who preceded Cyrus as king and
conqueror of Babylon, though there was a later Darius,
the son of Hystaspes, who conquered Babylon; the
demands and decrees of Nebuchadrezzar are unlike
IV. The philological peculiarities of the Book are no less unfavourable to its genuineness. The Hebrew is pronounced by the majority of experts to be of a later character than the time assumed for it. The Aramaic is not the Babylonian East-Aramaic, but the later Palestinian West-Aramaic. The word Kasdîm is used for "diviners," whereas at the period of the Exile it was a national name. Persian words and titles occur in the decrees attributed to Nebuchadrezzar. At least three Greek words occur, of which one is certainly of late origin, and is known to have been a favourite instrument with Antiochus Epiphanes.
V. There are no traces of the existence of the Book
before the second century b.c., It is alluded to about b.c. 140 in the Sibylline Oracles (iii. 391-416),
and in
VI. The Book was admitted by the Jews into the
Canon; but so far from being placed where, if genuine,
it would have had a right to stand—among the four
Great Prophets—-it does not even receive a place among
the twelve Minor Prophets, such as is accorded to the
much shorter and far inferior Book of Jonah. It is
relegated to the Kethubîm, side by side with such a
book as Esther. If it originated during the Babylonian
Exile, Josephus might well speak of its "undeviating
prophetic accuracy." Jos., Antt., X. xi. 7. Ewald (Hist. of Israel, v. 208) thinks that the author had read
Baruch in Hebrew, because
VII. Its author seems to accept for himself the view
of his age that the spirit of genuine prophecy had
departed for evermore. See Cornill, Einleit., pp. 257-260.
VIII. When we have been led by decisive arguments
to admit the real date of the Book of Daniel, its place
among the Hagiographa confirms all our conclusions.
The Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa represent,
as Professor Sanday has pointed out, three layers or
stages in the history of the collection of the Canon.
If the Book of Chronicles was not accepted among the
Histories (which were designated "The Former Prophets"),
nor the Book of Daniel among the Greater or
Lesser Prophets, the reason was that, at the date when
the Prophets were formally collected into a division
of the Canon, these books were not yet in existence,
or at any rate had not been accepted on the same level
with the other books. Sanday, Inspiration, p. 101. The name of "Earlier Prophets" was given to the two Books of Samuel, of Kings, and of Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; and the twelve Minor Prophets (the latter
regarded as one book) were called "The Later Prophets." Cornill
places the collection of the Prophets into the Canon about b.c. 250.
IX. All these circumstances, and others which have
been mentioned, have come home to earnest, unprejudiced,
and profoundly learned critics with so irresistible
a force, and the counter-arguments which are adduced
are so little valid, that the defenders of the genuineness
are now an ever-dwindling body, and many of them
can only support their basis at all by the hypothesis of
interpolations or twofold authorship. Thus C. v. Orelli Alttestament. Weissagung, pp. 513-530 (Vienna, 1882). "Alle strahlen des Buches sich in dieser Epoche als in ihrem
Brennpunkte vereinigen" (C. v. Orelli, p. 514). Compare the following passages: Unclean meats,
X. It may then be said with confidence that the
critical view has finally won the day. The human
mind will in the end accept that theory which covers Froude, Short Studies, i. 17.
"His loyalty he kept, his faith, his love."—Milton.
The first chapter of the Book of Daniel serves as a beautiful introduction to the whole, and strikes the keynote of faithfulness to the institutions of Judaism which of all others seemed most important to the mind of a pious Hebrew in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. At a time when many were wavering, and many had lapsed into open apostasy, the writer wished to set before his countrymen in the most winning and vivid manner the nobleness and the reward of obeying God rather than man.
He had read in Comp. See supra, p. 45. Jeremiah (lii. 28-30) mentions three deportations, in the seventh,
eighteenth, and twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar; but there are
great difficulties about the historic verification, and the paragraph
(which is of doubtful genuineness) is omitted by the LXX.
There seems then to be, on the very threshold, every
indication of an historic inaccuracy such as could not
have been committed if the historic Daniel had been
the true author of this Book; and we are able, with The manner in which the maintainers of the genuineness get over
this difficulty is surely an instance of such special pleading as can
convince no unbiassed inquirer. They conjecture (1) that Nebuchadrezzar
had been associated with his father, and received the
title of king before he really became king; (2) that by "came to
Jerusalem and besieged it" is meant "set out towards Jerusalem, so
that (ultimately) he besieged it"; (3) and that a vague and undated
allusion in the Book of Chronicles, and a vague, unsupported, and
evidently erroneous assertion in Berossus—quoted by Josephus,
Antt., X. xi. 1; c. Ap., I. 19, who lived some two and a half centuries
after these events, and who does not mention any siege of Jerusalem—can
be so interpreted as to outweigh the fact that neither contemporary
histories nor contemporary records know anything of this
supposed deportation. Jeremiah (xxv. 1) says correctly that "the
fourth year of Jehoiakim" was "the first year of Nebuchadrezzar";
and had Jerusalem been already captured and plundered, it is
impossible that he should not have alluded to the fact in that chapter.
An older subterfuge for "explaining" the error is that of Saadia the
Gaon, Abn Ezra, Rashi, etc., who interpret "the third year of Jehoiakim"
to mean "the third year after his rebellion from Nebuchadrezzar,"
which is not only impossible in itself, but also contradicts
The writer proceeds to tell us that, after the siege,
Nebuchadrezzar—whom the historic Daniel could never Shinar is an archaism, supposed by Schrader to be a corruption of
Sumir, or Northern Chaldea (Keilinschr., p. 34); but see Hommel,
Gesch. Bab. u. Assyr., 220; F. Delitzsch, Assyr. Gram., 115. The
more common name in the exilic period was Babel ( On this god—Marduk or Maruduk (
Among the captives were certain "of the king's seed,
and of the princes" (Parthemîm). This seems to be a Persian word, fratama, "first." It is only
found in Esther. Josephus says that the four boys were connected
with Zedekiah (Antt., X. x. 1). Comp.
They are called "children," and the word, together
with the context, seems to imply that they were boys
of the age of from twelve to fourteen. The king personally
handed them over to the care of Ashpenaz, Called in i. 7-11 the Sar-hassarîsîm (comp.
They were to be trained in the learning (lit. "the
book") and language of Chaldea for three years; at the
end of which period they were to be admitted into the
king's presence, that he might see how they looked
and what progress they had made. During those three
years he provided them with a daily maintenance of
food and wine from his table. Those who were thus
maintained in Eastern courts were to be counted by
hundreds, and even by thousands, and their position
was often supremely wretched and degraded, as it still
is in such Eastern courts. The wine was probably Athen., Deipnos, xi. 583. See Bevan, p. 60; Max Müller in
Pusey, p. 565. How Professor Fuller can urge the presence of these
Persian words in proof of the genuineness of Daniel (Speaker's Commentary,
p. 250) I cannot understand. For Daniel does not seem to
have survived beyond the third year of the Persian dominion, and it
is extremely difficult to suppose that all these Persian words, including
titles of Nebuchadrezzar's officials, were already current among
the Babylonians. On the other hand, Babylonian words seem to be
rare, though Daniel is represented as living nearly the whole of a
long life in Babylon. There is no validity in the argument that these
words could not have been known in the days of the Maccabees,
"for half of them are common in Syria, though the oldest extant
Syriac writers are later by three centuries than the time of the Maccabees"
(Bevan, p. 41).
But among these captives were four young Jews named Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
Their very names were a witness not only to their
nationality, but to their religion. Daniel means "God
is my judge"; Hananiah, "Jehovah is gracious";
Mishael (perhaps), "who is equal to God?" The name Daniel occurs among Ezra's contemporaries in
It is hardly likely that the Chaldeans would have
tolerated the use of such names among their young
pupils, since every repetition of them would have
sounded like a challenge to the supremacy of Bel,
Merodach, and Nebo. It was a common thing to
change names in heathen courts, as the name of Joseph Balatsu-utsur. The name in this form had nothing to do with Bel,
as the writer of Daniel seems to have supposed ( F. Delitzsch calls Meshach vox hybrida. Neither "Shadrach"
nor "Meshach" occurs on the monuments. "That the imposition of
names is a symbol of mastership over slaves is plain" (S. Chrys.,
Opp., iii. 21; Pusey, p. 16). Comp. Comp. Obadiah, Abdiel, Abdallah, etc. Schrader says, p. 429:
"The supposition that Nebo was altered to Nego, out of a contumelious
desire (which Jews often displayed) to alter, avoid, and
insult the names of idols, is out of place, since the other names are
not altered." Jos., Antt., XII. v. 1; Derenbourg, Palestine, p. 34; Ewald, Hist.,
v. 294 (E. Tr.); Munk, Palestine, p. 495, etc.
It was far otherwise with acquiescence in the eating
of heathen meats, which, in the days of the Maccabees,
was forced upon many of the Jews, and which, since
the institution or reinstitution of Levitism after the
return from the Exile, had come to be regarded as a
deadly sin. It was during the Exile that such feelings
had acquired fresh intensity. At first they do not
seem to have prevailed. Jehoiachin was a hero among
the Jews. They remembered him with intense love
and pity, and it does not seem to have been regarded
as any stain upon his memory that, for years together,
he had, almost in the words of See Ewald, Gesch. Isr., vi. 654. "They shall eat unclean things
in Assyria" (
In the days of Antiochus Epiphanes the ordinary
feeling on this subject was very different, for the
religion and nationality of the Jews were at stake.
Hence we read: "Howbeit many in Israel were fully
resolved and confirmed in themselves not to eat any
unclean thing. Wherefore they chose rather to die,
that they might not be defiled with meats, that they might
not profane the holy covenant: so then they died."
And in the Second Book of Maccabees we are told
that on the king's birthday Jews "were constrained
by bitter constraint to eat of the sacrifices," and that
Eleazar, one of the principal scribes, an aged and
noble-looking man, preferred rather to be tortured to
death, "leaving his death for an example of noble
courage, and a memorial of value, not only unto young
men, but unto all his nation." Prophets of the O. T., p. 184 (E. Tr.).
It may be doubtful whether such views as to ceremonial
defilement were already developed at the beginning Mr. Bevan says that the verb for "defile" (גאל), as a ritual term
for the idea of ceremonial uncleanness, is post-exilic; the Pentateuch
and Ezekiel used טמא (Comment., p. 61). The idea intended is that
the three boys avoided meat which might have been killed with
the blood and offered to idols, and therefore was not Kashar ( Jos., Vit., iii. Comp.
The four princely boys—they may have been from
twelve to fourteen years old Plato, Alcib., i. 37; Xen., Cyrop., i. 2. Youths entered the king's
service at the age of seventeen. Lit. "sadder." LXX., σκυθρωποί. LXX., κινδυνεύσω τῷ ἰδίῳ τραχήλῳ. Perhaps the Assyrian matstsara, "guardian" (Delitzsch). There
are various other guesses (Behrmann, p. 5).
So for ten days the four faithful children were fed
on water, and on the "seeds"—i.e., vegetables, dates,
raisins, and other fruits, which are here generally called
"pulse." Heb., זֵרֹעִים; LXX., σπέρματα; Vulg., legumina. Abn Ezra took
the word to mean "rice." Comp. Ewald, Antiquities, p. 131 f. Pusey (p. 17) quotes from Chardin's notes in Harmer (Obs., lix.):
"I have remarked that the countenance of the Kechicks (monks)
are, in fact, more rosy and smooth than those of others, and that those
who fast much are, notwithstanding, very beautiful, sparkling with
health, with a clear and lively countenance."
Nor was this all. During the three probationary
years they continued to flourish intellectually as well
as physically. They attained to conspicuous excellence
"in all kinds of books and wisdom," and Daniel also
had understanding in all kinds of dreams and visions,
to which the Chaldeans attached supreme importance. The Chartummîm are like the Egyptian ἱερογραμματεῖς. It is
difficult to conceive that there was less chance of pollution in being
elaborately trained in heathen magic and dream-interpretation than
in eating Babylonian food. But this was, so to speak, extra fabulam.
It did not enter into the writer's scheme of moral edification. If,
however, the story is meant to imply that these youths accepted the heathen training, though (as we know from tablets and inscriptions)
the incantations, etc., in which it abounded were intimately connected
with idolatry, and were entirely unharmed by it, this may indicate
that the writer did not disapprove of the "Greek training" which
Antiochus tried to introduce, so far as it merely involved an acquaintance
with Greek learning and literature. This is the view of Grätz.
If so, the writer belonged to the more liberal Jewish school which did
not object to a study of the Chokmath Javanîth, or "Wisdom of
Javan" (Derenbourg, Palestine, p. 361).
At the close of the three years the prince of the
eunuchs brought all his young pages into the presence
of the King Nebuchadrezzar. He tested them by
familiar conversation, LXX., ἐλάλησε μετ' αὐτῶν. Considering the normal degradation of
pages at Oriental courts, of which Rycaut (referred to by Pusey, p. 18)
"gives a horrible account," their escape from the corruption around
them was a blessed reward of their faithfulness. They may now have
been seventeen, the age for entering the king's service (Xen., Cyrop.,
I. ii. 8). On the ordinary curse of the rule of eunuchs at Eastern
courts see an interesting note in Pusey, p. 21. On the names see Gesenius, Isaiah, ii. 355.
The last verse of the chapter, "And Daniel continued
even unto the first year of King Cyrus," is perhaps
a later gloss, for it appears from x. 1 that Daniel lived,
at any rate, till the third year of Cyrus. Abn Ezra adds
the words "continued in Babylon," and Ewald "at the
king's court." Some interpret "continued" to mean
"remained alive." The reason for mentioning "the
first year of Cyrus" may be to show that Daniel survived
the return from the Exile, Alluded to in ix. 25. Daniel, pp. 20, 21.
The domestic anecdote of this chapter, like the other
more splendid narratives which succeed it, has a value
far beyond the circumstances in which it may have
originated. It is a beautiful moral illustration of the
blessings which attend on faithfulness and on temperance,
and whether it be an Haggada or an historic
tradition, it equally enshrines the same noble lesson as Comp.
It teaches the crown and blessing of faithfulness. It was the highest glory of Israel "to uplift among the nations the banner of righteousness." It matters not that, in this particular instance, the Jewish boys were contending for a mere ceremonial rule which in itself was immaterial, or at any rate of no eternal significance. Suffice it that this rule presented itself to them in the guise of a principle and of a sacred duty, exactly as it did to Eleazar the Scribe, and Judas the Maccabee, and the Mother and her seven strong sons in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. They regarded it as a duty to their laws, to their country, to their God; and therefore upon them it was sacredly incumbent. And they were faithful to it. Among the pampered minions and menials of the vast Babylonian palace—undazzled by the glitter of earthly magnificence, untempted by the allurements of pomp, pleasure, and sensuous indulgence—
And because God loves them for their constancy,
because they remain pure and true, all the Babylonian
varletry around them learns the lesson of simplicity,
the beauty of holiness. Amid the outpourings of the
Divine favour they flourish, and are advanced to the
highest honours. This is one great lesson which
dominates the historic section of this Book: "Them
that honour Me I will honour, and they that despise
But there also lay incidentally in the story a warning against corrupting luxury, the lesson of the need for, and the healthfulness of,
"The love of sumptuous food and delicious drinks is never good," says Ewald, "and with the use of the most temperate diet body and soul can flourish most admirably, as experience had at that time sufficiently taught."
To the value of this lesson the Nazarites among the
Jews were a perpetual witness. Jeremiah seems to
single them out for the special beauty which resulted
from their youthful abstinence when he writes of
Jerusalem, "Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they
It is the lesson which Milton reads in the story of Samson,—
It is the lesson which Shakespeare inculcates when he makes the old man say in As You Like It,—
The writer of this Book connects intellectual advance as well as physical strength with this abstinence, and here he is supported even by ancient and pagan experience. Something of this kind may perhaps lurk in the ἄριστον μὲν ὕδωρ of Pindar; and certainly Horace saw that gluttony and repletion are foes to insight when he wrote,—
Hor., Sat., II. ii. 77.
Pythagoras was not the only ancient philosopher who recommended and practised a vegetable diet, and even Epicurus, whom so many regard as
placed over his garden door the inscription that those
But the grand lesson of the picture is meant to be
that the fair Jewish boys were kept safe in the midst of
every temptation to self-indulgence, because they lived
as in God's sight: and "he that holds himself in reverence
and due esteem for the dignity of God's image
upon him, accounts himself both a fit person to do the
noblest and godliest deeds, and much better worth than
to deject and defile, with such debasement and pollution
as Sin is, himself so highly ransomed and ennobled
to a new friendship and filial relation with God." Milton, Reason of Church Government.
"With thee will I break in pieces rulers and captains."—Jer. li. 23.
The Book of Daniel is constructed with consummate
skill to teach the mighty lessons which it
was designed to bring home to the minds of its readers,
not only in the age of its first appearance, but for ever.
It is a book which, so far from being regarded as
unworthy of its place in the Canon by those who cannot
accept it as either genuine or authentic, is valued by
many such critics as a very noble work of inspired
genius, from which all the difficulties are removed when
it is considered in the light of its true date and origin.
This second chapter belongs to all time. All that might
be looked upon as involving harshnesses, difficulties,
and glaring impossibilities, if it were meant for literal
history and prediction, vanishes when we contemplate
it in its real perspective as a lofty specimen of imaginative
fiction, used, like the parables of our Blessed Lord,
as the vehicle for the deepest truths. We shall see
how the imagery of the chapter produced a deep impress
on the imagination of the holiest thinkers—how magnificent
a use is made of it fifteen centuries later by the
great poet of mediæval Catholicism. Dante, Inferno, xiv. 94-120.
The first chapter serves as a keynote of soft, simple, and delightful music by way of overture. It calms us for the contemplation of the awful and tumultuous scenes that are now in succession to be brought before us.
The model which the writer has had in view in this Haggadah is the forty-first chapter of the Book of Genesis. In both chapters we have magnificent heathen potentates—Pharaoh of Egypt, and Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon. In both chapters the kings dream dreams by which they are profoundly troubled. In both, their spirits are saddened. In both, they send for all the Chakamîm and all the Chartummîm of their kingdoms to interpret the dreams. In both, these professional magicians prove themselves entirely incompetent to furnish the interpretation. In both, the failure of the heathen oneirologists is emphasised by the immediate success of a Jewish captive. In both, the captives are described as young, gifted, and beautiful. In both, the interpretation of the king's dream is rewarded by the elevation to princely civil honours. In both, the immediate elevation to ruling position is followed by life-long faithfulness and prosperity. When we add that there are even close verbal resemblances between the chapters, it is difficult not to believe that the one has been influenced by the other.
The dream is placed "in the second year of the reign
of Nebuchadnezzar." The date is surprising; for the
first chapter has made Nebuchadrezzar a king of The Assyrian and Babylonian kings, however, only dated their
reigns from the first new year after their accession. Antt., X. x. 3.
There was nothing strange in the notion that God
should have vouchsafed a prophetic dream to a heathen
potentate. Such instances had already been recorded
in the case of Pharaoh ( See Professor Fuller, Speaker's Commentary, vi. 265. Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i. 39. The belief that dreams come from God is not peculiar to the Jews, or to Egypt, or Assyria, or Greece (Hom., Il., i. 63; Od., iv.
841), or Rome (Cic., De Div., passim), but to every nation of mankind,
even the most savage.
Nebuchadrezzar then—in the second or twelfth year
of his reign—dreamed a dream, by which (as in the
case of Pharaoh) his spirit was troubled and his sleep
interrupted.
Pharaoh, in the story of Joseph, remembered his
dreams, and only asked the professors of necromancy
to furnish him with its interpretation. But Nebuchadrezzar
is here represented as a rasher and fiercer despot,
not without a side-glance at the raging folly and tyranny
of Antiochus Epiphanes. He has at his command an
army of priestly prognosticators, whose main function
it is to interpret the various omens of the future. Of
what use were they, if they could not be relied upon
in so serious an exigency? Were they to be maintained
in opulence and dignity all their lives, only to
So Nebuchadrezzar summoned together the whole
class of Babylonian augurs in all their varieties—the
Chartummîm, "magicians," or book-learned; The word is peculiar to Daniel, both here in the Hebrew and in
the Aramaic. Pusey calls it "a common Syriac term, representing
some form of divination with which Daniel had become familiar in
Babylonia" (p. 40). As in the rule "Chaldæos ne consulito." See supra, p. 48. The equivalents in the LXX., Vulgate, A.V., and other versions
are mostly based on uncertain guess-work. See E. Meyer, Gesch. d.
Alterth., i. 185; Hommel, Gesch. Bab. u. Assyr., v. 386; Behrmann, p. 2. E.g., iii. 2, 3, officers of state; iii. 4, 5, etc., instruments of
music; iii. 21, clothes.
When they were assembled before him, the king
informed them that he had dreamed an important dream,
but that it produced such agitation of spirit as had
caused him to forget its import. ii. 5: "The dream is gone from me," as in ver. 8 (Theodotion,
ἀπέστη). But the meaning may be the decree (or word) is "sure":
for, according to Nöldeke, azda is a Persian word for "certain."
Comp. Berachôth, f. 10, 2. This book supplies a charm to be spoken by
one who has forgotten his dream (f. 55, 2).
Then spake the Chaldeans to the king, and their
answer follows in Aramaic (Aramîth), a language
which continues to be used till the end of chap. vii.
The Western Aramaic, however, here employed could
not have been the language in which they spoke, but
their native Babylonian, a Semitic dialect more akin to
Eastern Aramaic. The word Aramîth here, as in
With the courtly phrase, "O king, live for ever," they promised to tell the king the interpretation, if he would tell them the dream.
"That I cannot do," said the king, "for it is gone
from me. Nevertheless, if you do not tell me both the
dream and its interpretation, you shall be hacked limb
by limb, and your houses shall be made a dunghill."
The language was that of brutal despotism such as
had been customary for centuries among the ferocious Comp. In iii. 96, καὶ ἡ οἰκία αὐτοῦ δημευθήσεται. Comp.
With "nervous servility" the magi answer to the king's extravagantly unreasonable demand, that he must tell them the dream before they can tell him the interpretation. Ewald is probably not far wrong in thinking that a subtle element of irony and humour underlies this scene. It was partly intended as a satirical reflection on the mad vagaries of Epiphanes.
For the king at once breaks out into fury, and
tells them that they only want to gain (lit. "buy") LXX. Theodot., καιρὸν ἐξαγοράζετε (not in a good sense, as in
Theodot., συνέθεσθε. Cf. Theodot., ἔως οὗ ὁ καιρὸς παρέλθῃ.
The "Chaldeans" naturally answered that the king's
request was impossible. The adoption of the Aramaic
at this point may be partly due to the desire for local
colouring. The word Aramîth may be (as Lenormant thinks) a gloss, as in
A curious parallel is adduced by Behrmann (Daniel, p. 7).
Rabia-ibn-nazr, King of Yemen, has a dream which he cannot recall,
and acts precisely as Nebuchadrezzar does (Wüstenfeld, p. 9). See Lenormant, La Magie, pp. 181-183.
and are too far above mankind to mingle with their
thoughts. LXX., ii. 11: εἰ μή τις ἄγγελος.
Thereupon the unreasonable king was angry and very furious, and the decree went forth that the magi were to be slain en masse.
How it was that Daniel and his companions were
not summoned to help the king, although they had
been already declared to be "ten times wiser" than all
the rest of the astrologers and magicians put together,
is a feature in the story with which the writer does not
trouble himself, because it in no way concerned his
main purpose. Now, however, since they were prominent
members of the magian guild, they are doomed
to death among their fellows. Thereupon Daniel
sought an interview with Arioch, "the chief of the
bodyguard," Lit. "chief of the slaughter-men" or "executioners." LXX.,
ἀρχιμάγειρος. The title is perhaps taken from the story, which in this
chapter is so prominently in the writer's mind, where the same title
is given to Potiphar ( If Daniel went (as the text says) in person, he must have been
already a very high official. (Comp.
The delay was conceded, and Daniel went to his
three companions, and urged then to join in prayer that
God would make known the secret to them and spare
their lives. Christ tells us that "if two shall agree on
earth as touching anything that they ask, it shall be
done for them." The title is found in Comp. With the phraseology of this prayer comp.
Accordingly Daniel bids Arioch not to execute the magians, but to go and tell the king that he will reveal to him the interpretation of his dream.
Then, by an obvious verbal inconsistency in the
story, Arioch is represented as going with haste to
the king, with Daniel, and saying that he had found a
captive Jew who would answer the king's demands.
Arioch could never have claimed any such merit, seeing
that Daniel had already given his promise to Nebuchadrezzar
in person, and did not need to be described.
The king formally puts to Daniel the question whether
he could fulfil his pledge; and Daniel answers that,
though none of the Khakhamîm, Ashshaphîm, Chartummîm,
or Gazerîm Here the new title Gazerîm, "prognosticators," is added to the
others, and is equally vague. It may be derived from Gazar, "to cut"—that
is, "to determine." Comp.
The king, before he fell asleep, had been deeply
pondering the issues of the future; and God, "the
revealer of secrets," Comp.
The king had seen Here we have (ver. 31) aloo! "behold!" as in iv. 7, 10, vii. 8; but
in vii. 2, 5, 6, 7, 13, we have aroo! In the four metals there is perhaps the same underlying thought
as in the Hesiodic and ancient conceptions of the four ages of the
world (Ewald, Hist., i. 368). Comp. the vision of Zoroaster quoted
from Delitzsch by Pusey, p. 97: "Zoroaster saw a tree from whose
roots sprang four trees of gold, silver, steel, and brass; and Ormuzd
said to him, 'This is the world; and the four trees are the four
"times" which are coming.' After the fourth comes, according to
Persian doctrine, Sosiosh, the Saviour." Behrmann refers also to
Bahman Yesht (Spiegel, Eran. Alterth., ii. 152); the Laws of Manu
(Schröder, Ind. Litt., 448); and Roth (Mythos von den Weltaltern, 1860). Much of the imagery seems to have been suggested by Comp.
That was the haunting and portentous dream; and this was its interpretation:—
The head of gold was Nebuchadrezzar himself, the
king of what Isaiah had called "the golden city" King of kings. Comp.
After him should come a second and an inferior kingdom, symbolised by the arms and heart of silver.
Then a third kingdom of brass.
Finally a fourth kingdom, strong and destructive
as iron. But in this fourth kingdom was an element
of weakness, symbolised by the fact that the feet are
partly of iron and partly of weak clay. An attempt
should be made, by intermarriages, to give greater
coherency to these elements; but it should fail, because
they could not intermix. In the days of these kings,
indicated by the ten toes of the image, swift destruction
should come upon the kingdoms from on high; for the
King of heaven should set up a kingdom indestructible
and eternal, which should utterly supersede all former
kingdoms. "The intense nothingness and transitoriness
of man's might in its highest estate, and the
might of God's kingdom, are the chief subjects of this
vision." Pusey, p. 63.
Volumes have been written about the four empires
indicated by the constituents of the colossus in this
dream; but it is entirely needless to enter into them
at length. The vast majority of the interpretations
have been simply due to a-priori prepossessions, which
are arbitrary and baseless. The object has been to
make the interpretations fit in with preconceived theories
of prophecy, and with the traditional errors about the
That the first empire, represented by the head of gold, is the Babylonian, concentrated in Nebuchadrezzar himself, is undisputed, because it is expressly stated by the writer (ii. 37, 38).
Nor can there be any serious doubt, if the Book be one coherent whole, written by one author, that by the fourth empire is meant, as in later chapters, that of Alexander and his successors—"the Diadochi," as they are often called.
For it must be regarded as certain that the four
elements of the colossus, which indicate the four
empires as they are presented to the imagination of
the heathen despot, are closely analogous to the same
four empires which in the seventh chapter present
themselves as wild beasts out of the sea to the imagination
of the Hebrew seer. Since the fourth empire
is there, beyond all question, that of Alexander and
his successors, the symmetry and purpose of the Book
prove conclusively that the fourth empire here is also
the Græco-Macedonian, strongly and irresistibly founded
by Alexander, but gradually sinking to utter weakness
by its own divisions, in the persons of the kings who
split his dominion into four parts. If this needed any
confirmation, we find it in the eighth chapter, which
is mainly concerned with Alexander the Great and
Antiochus Epiphanes; and in the eleventh chapter,
which enters with startling minuteness into the wars,
diplomacy, and intermarriages of the Ptolemaic and
Seleucid dynasties. In viii. 21 we are expressly told
that the strong he-goat is "the King of Grecia," who
puts an end to the kingdoms of Media and Persia.
The arguments of Hengstenberg, Pusey, etc., that the
Greek Empire was a civilising and an ameliorating
power, apply at least as strongly to the Roman Empire.
But when Alexander thundered his way across the
dreamy East, he was looked upon as a sort of shattering
levin-bolt. The interconnexion of these visions
is clearly marked even here, for the juxtaposition of Comp. Bevan, p. 66.
The reason of the attempt is to make the termination
of the prophecy coincide with the coming of Christ, which
is then—quite unhistorically—regarded as followed by
the destruction of the fourth and last empire. But
the interpretation can only be thus arrived at by a
falsification of facts. For the victory of Christianity
over Paganism, so decisive and so Divine, was in no
sense a destruction of the Roman Empire. In the first
place that victory was not achieved till three centuries
after Christ's advent, and in the second place it was
rather a continuation and defence of the Roman Empire
than its destruction. The Roman Empire, in spite of
Alaric and Genseric and Attila, and because of its
alliance with Christianity, may be said to have practically
continued down to modern times. So far from The interpretation is first found, amid a chaos of false exegesis,
in the Epistle of Barnabas, iv. 4, § 6. See Bevan, p. 65.
Every detail of the vision as regards the fourth
The two legs and feet are possibly meant to indicate the two most important kingdoms—that of the Seleucidæ in Asia, and that of the Ptolemies in Egypt. If we are to press the symbolism still more closely, the ten toes may shadow forth the ten kings who are indicated by the ten horns in vii. 7.
Since, then, we are told that the first empire represents
Nebuchadrezzar by the head of gold, and
since we have incontestably verified the fourth empire
It is obvious that the silver is meant for the Median
Empire, because, closely as it was allied with the
Persian in the view of the writer (vi. 9, 13, 16, viii. 7),
he yet spoke of the two as separate. The rule of
"Darius the Mede," not of "Cyrus the Persian," is, in
his point of view, the "other smaller kingdom" which
arose after that of Nebuchadrezzar (v. 31). Indeed,
this is also indicated in the vision of the ram (viii. 3);
for it has two horns, of which the higher and stronger
(the Persian Empire) rose up after the other (the
Median Empire); just as in this vision the Persian
Empire represented by the thighs of brass is clearly
stronger than the Median Empire, which, being wealthier,
is represented as being of silver, but is smaller than
the other. On the distinction in the writer's mind between the Median and
Persian Empires see v. 28, 31, vi. 8, 12, 15, ix. 1, xi. 1, compared with
vi. 28, x. 1. In point of fact, the Persians and Medians were long
spoken of as distinct, though they were closely allied; and to the
Medes had been specially attributed the forthcoming overthrow of
Babylon:
It may then be regarded as a certain result of exegesis that the four empires are—(1) the Babylonian; (2) the Median; (3) the Persian; (4) the Græco-Macedonian.
But what is the stone cut without hands which smote the image upon his feet? It brake them in pieces, and made the collapsing débris of the colossus like chaff scattered by the wind from the summer threshing-floor. It grew till it became a great mountain which filled the earth.
The meaning of the image being first smitten upon its feet is that the overthrow falls on the iron empire.
All alike are agreed that by the mysterious rock-fragment
the writer meant the Messianic Kingdom.
The "mountain" out of which (as is here first
mentioned) the stone is cut is "the Mount Zion." See
Whether a personal Messiah was definitely prominent in the mind of the writer is a question which will come before us when we consider the seventh chapter. Here there is only a Divine Kingdom; and that this is the dominion of Israel seems to be marked by the expression, "the kingdom shall not be left to another people."
The prophecy probably indicates the glowing hopes
which the writer conceived of the future of his nation,
even in the days of its direst adversity, in accordance
with the predictions of the mighty prophets his predecessors,
whose writings he had recently studied.
Very few of those predictions have as yet been literally
fulfilled; not one of them was fulfilled with such
Antiochus died, and his attempts to force Hellenism
upon the Jews were so absolute a failure, that, in point
of fact, his persecution only served to stereotype the
ceremonial institutions which—not entirely proprio motu,
but misled by men like the false high priests Jason
and Menelaus—he had attempted to obliterate. But
the magnificent expectations of a golden age to follow
were indefinitely delayed. Though Antiochus died and
failed, the Jews became by no means unanimous in
their religious policy. Even under the Hasmonæan
princes fierce elements of discord were at work in the
midst of them. Foreign usurpers adroitly used these
dissensions for their own objects, and in b.c. 37 Judaism
acquiesced in the national acceptance of a depraved
Edomite usurper in the person of Herod, and a section
of the Jews attempted to represent him as the promised
Messiah! See Kuenen, The Prophets, iii.
Not only was the Messianic prediction unfulfilled in
its literal aspect "in the days of these kings," No kings have been mentioned, but the ten toes symbolise ten
kings. Comp. vii. 24.
But apart from the Divine predictions of the eternal
sunlight visible on the horizon over vast foreshortened
ages of time which to God are but as one day, let us
notice how profound is the symbolism of the vision—how
well it expresses the surface glare, the inward
hollowness, the inherent weakness, the varying successions,
the predestined transience of overgrown
empires. The great poet of Catholicism makes magnificent
use of Daniel's image, and sees its deep significance.
He too describes the ideal of all earthly
empire as a colossus of gold, silver, brass, and iron,
which yet mainly rests on its right foot of baked and
brittle clay. But he tells us that every part of this
image, except the gold, is crannied through and through
by a fissure, down which there flows a constant stream
of tears. Dante, Inferno, xiv. 94-120.
Milton, Paradise Lost, ii. 575.
There is a terrible grandeur in the emblem. Splendid and venerable looks the idol of human empire in all its pomp and pricelessness. But underneath its cracked and fissured weakness drop and trickle and stream the salt and bitter runnels of misery and anguish, till the rivers of agony are swollen into overflow by their coagulated scum.
It was natural that Nebuchadrezzar should have felt
deeply impressed when the vanished outlines of his
dream were thus recalled to him and its awful interpretation
revealed. The manner in which he expresses
his amazed reverence may be historically improbable,
but it is psychologically true. We are told that "he
fell upon his face and worshipped Daniel," and the
word "worshipped" implies genuine adoration. That
so magnificent a potentate should have lain on his
face before a captive Jewish youth and adored him
is amazing. It may be paralleled by the legendary prostrations of Alexander
the Great before the high priest Jaddua (Jos., Antt., XI. viii. 5), and
of Edwin of Deira before Paulinus of York (Bæda, Hist., ii. 14-16). Comp.
But it is much more amazing that Daniel, who, as
a boy, had been so scrupulous about the Levitic
ordinance of unclean meats, in the scruple against
which the gravamen lay in the possibility of their
having been offered to idols, Comp. So Jerome: "Non tam Danielem quam in Daniele adorat Deum,
qui mysteria revelavit." Comp. Jos., Antt., XI. viii. 5, where Alexander
answers the taunt of Parmenio about his προσκύνησις of the high
priest: οὐ τοῦτον προσεκύνησα, τὸν δὲ Θεόν.
That the King of Babylon should be represented as
at once acknowledging the God of Daniel as "a God
And so great was the distinction which he earned
by his interpretation of the dream, that, at his further
request, satrapies were conferred on his three companions;
but he himself, like Mordecai, afterwards "sat
in the gate of the king."
"Every goldsmith is put to shame by his molten image: for his molten image is vanity, and there is no breath in them. They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish."—Jer. li. 17, 18.
"The angel of the Lord encampeth around them that fear Him, and shall deliver them."—Psalm xxxiv. 7.
"When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee."—Isa. xliii. 2.
Regarded as an instance of the use of historic fiction to inculcate the noblest truths, the third chapter of Daniel is not only superb in its imaginative grandeur, but still more in the manner in which it sets forth the piety of ultimate faithfulness, and of that
which is the essence of the most heroic and inspiring
forms of martyrdom. So far from slighting it, because
it does not come before us with adequate evidence to
prove that it was even intended to be taken as literal
history, I have always regarded it as one of the most
precious among the narrative chapters of Scripture.
It is of priceless value as illustrating the deliverance
of undaunted faithfulness—as setting forth the truth
that they who love God and trust in Him must love
Him and trust in Him even till the end, in spite not
only of the most overwhelming peril, but even when The false prophets Ahab and Zedekiah were "roasted in the fire"
( Malcolm, Persia, i. 29, 30.
This immortal chapter breathes exactly the same spirit as the forty-fourth Psalm.
"Nebuchadnezzar the king," we are told in one of the stately overtures in which this writer rejoices, "made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits, and he set it up in the plains of Dura, in the province of Babylon."
No date is given, but the writer may well have
supposed or have traditionally heard that some such
event took place about the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar's
reign, when he had brought to conclusion a
series of great victories and conquests. Both in Theodotion and the LXX. we have ἔτους ὀκτωκαιδεκάτου.
The siege of Jerusalem was not, however, finished till the nineteenth
year of Nebuchadrezzar ( Records of the Past, v. 113. The inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar
are full of glorification of Marduk (Merodach), id., v. 115, 135, vii. 75. Comp. By the apologists the "image" or "statue" is easily toned down
into a bust on a hollow pedestal (Archdeacon Rose, Speaker's Commentary,
p. 270). The colossus of Nero is said to have been a hundred
and ten feet high, but was of marble. Nestle (Marginalia, 35) quotes
a passage from Ammianus Marcellinus, which mentions a colossal
statue of Apollo reared by Antiochus Epiphanes, to which there may
be a side-allusion here. Schrader, p. 430: Dur-Yagina, Dur-Sargina, etc. LXX., ἐν πεδίῳ
τοῦ περιβόλου χώρας Βαβυλωνίας.
Then the king proclaimed a solemn dedicatory festival, to which he invited every sort of functionary, of which the writer, with his usual πύργωσις and rotundity of expression, accumulates the eight names. They were:—
1. The Princes, "satraps," or wardens of the realm. LXX. and Vulg., satrapæ. Comp.
2. The Governors Signî, Babylonian word (Schrader, p. 411).
3. The Captains. LXX., τοπάρχαι. Comp. Pechah,
4. The Judges. LXX., ἡγούμενοι. Perhaps the Persian endarzgar, or "counsellor."
5. The Treasurers or Controllers. LXX., διοικηταί. Comp.
6. The Counsellors. This word is perhaps the old Persian dàtabard.
7. The Sheriffs. The word is found here alone. Perhaps "advisers." On these
words see Bevan, p. 79; Speaker's Commentary, pp. 278, 279; Sayce,
Assyr. Gr., p. 110.
8. All the Rulers of the Provinces.
Any attempts to attach specific values to these titles are failures. They seem to be a catalogue of Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian titles, and may perhaps (as Ewald conjectured) be meant to represent the various grades of three classes of functionaries—civil, military, and legal.
Then all these officials, who with leisurely stateliness
are named again, came to the festival, and stood before
the image. It is not improbable that the writer may
have been a witness of some such splendid ceremony
to which the Jewish magnates were invited in the reign
of Antiochus Epiphanes. Ewald, Prophets, v. 209; Hist., v. 294.
Then a herald (kerooza The word has often been compared with the Greek κήρυξ, but the
root is freely found in Assyrian inscriptions (Karaz, "an edict"). Comp.
Of the six different kinds of musical instruments,
which, in his usual style, the writer names and reiterates, See supra, p. 22. The qar'na (horn, κέρας) and sab'ka (σαμβύκη)
are in root both Greek and Aramean. The "pipe" (mash'rôkîtha)
is Semitic. Brandig tries to prove that even in Nebuchadrezzar's time
these three Greek names (even the symphonia) had been borrowed
by the Babylonians from the Greeks; but the combined weight of
philological authority is against him.
Any one who refused to obey the order was to be
flung, the same hour, into the burning furnace of fire.
Professor Sayce, in his Hibbert Lectures, connects
the whole scene with an attempt, first by Nebuchadrezzar,
then by Nabunaid, to make Merodach—who,
to conciliate the prejudices of the worshippers of the
older deity Bel, was called Bel-merodach—the chief
deity of Babylon. He sees in the king's proclamation
an underlying suspicion that some would be found to
oppose his attempted centralisation of worship. See Hibbert Lectures, chap. lxxxix., etc.
The music burst forth, and the vast throng all prostrated themselves, except Daniel's three companions, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego.
We naturally pause to ask where then was Daniel?
If the narrative be taken for literal history, it is easy
to answer with the apologist that he was ill; or was
absent; or was a person of too much importance
to be required to prostrate himself; or that "the
Chaldeans" were afraid to accuse him. "Certainly,"
Observing the defiance of the king's edict, certain
Chaldeans, actuated by jealousy, came near to the king
and "accused" the Jews. Comp. vi. 13, 14.
The word for "accused" is curious and interesting.
It is literally "ate the pieces of the Jews," Akaloo Qar'tsîhîn. It is "found in the Targum rendering of Jerome emphasises the element of jealousy, "Quos prætulisti
nobis et captivos ac servos principes fecisti, ii elati in superbiam tua
præcepta contemnunt."
Nebuchadrezzar, like other despots who suffer from the vertigo of autocracy, was liable to sudden outbursts of almost spasmodic fury. We read of such storms of rage in the case of Antiochus Epiphanes, of Nero, of Valentinian I., and even of Theodosius. The double insult to himself and to his god on the part of men to whom he had shown such conspicuous favour transported him out of himself. For Bel-merodach, whom he had made the patron god of Babylon, was, as he says in one of his own inscriptions, "the Lord, the joy of my heart in Babylon, which is the seat of my sovereignty and empire." It seemed to him too intolerable that this god, who had crowned him with glory and victory, and that he himself, arrayed in the plenitude of his imperial power, should be defied and set at naught by three miserable and ungrateful captives.
He puts it to them whether it was their set purpose The phrase is unique and of uncertain meaning.
The question is a direct challenge and defiance of the
God of Israel, like Pharaoh's "And who is Jehovah,
that I should obey His voice?" or like Sennacherib's
"Who are they among all the gods that have delivered
their land out of my hand?"
The answer of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego is
truly magnificent in its unflinching courage. It is: "O
Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer thee a
word concerning this. Jerome explains "But if not" by Quodsi noluerit; and Theodoret
by εἴτε οὖν ῥύεται εἴτε καὶ μή. iii. 18. LXX., καὶ τότε φανερόν σοι ἔσται. Tert., from the Vet.
Itala, "tunc manifestum erit tibi" (Scorp., 8).
By the phrase "if our God be able" no doubt as to
God's power is expressed. The word "able" merely
means "able in accordance with His own plans." Comp.
But the willing martyrs were also well aware that in many cases it has not been God's purpose to deliver His saints out of the peril of death; and that it has been far better for them that they should be carried heavenwards on the fiery chariot of martyrdom. They were therefore perfectly prepared to find that it was the will of God that they too should perish, as thousands of God's faithful ones had perished before them, from the tyrannous and cruel hands of man; and they were cheerfully willing to confront that awful extremity. Thus regarded, the three words "And if not" are among the sublimest words uttered in all Scripture. They represent the truth that the man who trusts in God will continue to say even to the end, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." They are the triumph of faith over all adverse circumstances. It has been the glorious achievement of man to have attained, by the inspiration of the breath of the Almighty, so clear an insight into the truth that the voice of duty must be obeyed to the very end, as to lead him to defy every combination of opposing forces. The gay lyrist of heathendom expressed it in his famous ode,—
It is man's testimony to his indomitable belief that the things of sense are not to be valued in comparison to that high happiness which arises from obedience to the law of conscience, and that no extremities of agony are commensurate with apostasy. This it is which, more than anything else, has, in spite of appearances, shown that the spirit of man is of heavenly birth, and has enabled him to unfold
For wherever there is left in man any true manhood, he has never shrunk from accepting death rather than the disgrace of compliance with what he despises and abhors. This it is which sends our soldiers on the forlorn hope, and makes them march with a smile upon the batteries which vomit their cross-fires upon them; "and so die by thousands the unnamed demigods." By virtue of this it has been that all the martyrs have, "with the irresistible might of their weakness," shaken the solid world.
On hearing the defiance of the faithful Jews—absolutely
firm in its decisiveness, yet perfectly respectful
in its tone—the tyrant was so much beside himself,
that, as he glared on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego,
his very countenance was disfigured. The furnace
was probably one used for the ordinary cremation
of the dead. Cremation prevailed among the Accadians, and was adopted by
the Babylonians (G. Bertin, Bab. and Orient. Records, i. 17-21). Fire
was regarded as the great purifier. In the Catacombs the scene of
the Three Children in the fire is common. They are painted walking in a sort of open cistern full of flames, with doors beneath. The
Greek word is κάμινος ( It seems very needless to introduce here, as Mr. Deane does in
Bishop Ellicott's commentary, the notion of the seven Maskîm or
demons of Babylonian mythology. In the Song of the Three Children
the flames stream out forty-nine (7 × 7) cubits. Comp. The meaning of these articles of dress is only conjectural: they
are—(1) Sarbālîn, perhaps "trousers," LXX. σαραβάροι, Vulg. braccæ;
(2) Patîsh, LXX. τιάραι, Vulg. tiaræ; (3) Kar'bla, LXX. περικνημῖδες,
Vulg. calceamenta. It is useless to repeat all the guesses. Sarbala
is a "tunic" in the Talmud, Arab. sirbal; and some connect Patîsh
with the Greek πέτασος. Judging from Assyrian and Babylonian
dress as represented on the monuments, the youths were probably
clad in turbans (the Median καυνάκη), an inner tunic (the Median
κάνδυς), an outer mantle, and some sort of leggings (anaxurides). It
is interesting to compare with the passage the chapter of Herodotus
(i. 190) about the Babylonian dress. He says they wore a linen
tunic reaching to the feet, a woollen over-tunic, a white shawl, and
slippers. It was said to be borrowed from the dress of Semiramis.
The death of the executioners seems to have attracted
no special notice, but immediately afterwards
Nebuchadrezzar started in amazement and terror from
his throne, and asked his chamberlains, Chald., haddab'rîn; LXX., οἱ φίλοι τοῦ βασιλέως.
"True, O king," they answered.
"Behold," he said, "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!" The A.V., "like the Son of God," is quite untenable. The expression
may mean a heavenly or an angelic being (
Then the king approached the door of the furnace of
fire, and called, "Ye servants of the Most High God, LXX., ὁ Θεὸς τῶν θεῶν, ὁ ὕψιστος. Comp. So in Persian history the Prince Siawash clears himself from a
false accusation in the reign of his father Kai Kaoos by passing
through the fire (Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i. 38).
Then the king—as he had done before—promoted
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego in the province of
Babylon. Comp.
Henceforth they disappear alike from history, tradition,
and legend; but the whole magnificent Haggada
is the most powerful possible commentary on the words
of Comp.
How powerfully the story struck the imagination of
the Jews is shown by the not very apposite Song
of the Three Children, with the other apocryphal
additions. Here we are told that the furnace was
heated "with rosin, pitch, tow, and small wood; so that
the flame streamed forth above the furnace forty and
nine cubits. And it passed through, and burned those
Chaldeans it found about the furnace. But the angel
of the Lord came down into the furnace together with
Azarias and his fellows, and smote the flame of the fire
out of the oven; and made the midst of the furnace as
it had been a moist whistling wind, πνεῦμα νότιον διασύριζον, "a dewy wind, whistling continually." Song of the Three Children, 23-27.
In the Talmud the majestic limitations of the Biblical Vay. Rab., xxv. 1 (Wünsche, Bibliotheca Rabbinica).
In Sanhedrin, f. 93, 1, the story is told of the adulterous
false prophets Ahab and Zedekiah, and it is added that
Nebuchadrezzar offered them the ordeal of fire from
which the Three Children had escaped. They asked
that Joshua the high priest might be with them, thinking
that his sanctity would be their protection. When
the king asked why Abraham, though alone, had been
saved from the fire of Nimrod, and the Three Children
from the burning furnace, and yet the high priest
should have been singed (
In Pesachin, f. 118, 1, there is a fine imaginative passage on the subject, attributed to Rabbi Samuel of Shiloh:—
"In the hour when Nebuchadrezzar the wicked threw
Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah into the midst of the
furnace of fire, Gorgemi, the prince of the hail, stood
before the Holy One (blessed be He!) and said, 'Lord
of the world, let me go down and cool the furnace.'
'No,' answered Gabriel; 'all men know that hail
Mr. Ball, who quotes these passages from Wünsche's
Bibliotheca Rabbinica in his Introduction to the Song
of the Three Children, Speaker's Commentary, on the Apocrypha, ii. 305-307.
The part played by Daniel in the apocryphal Story of Susanna is probably suggested by the meaning of his name: "Judgment of God." Both that story and Bel and the Dragon are in their way effective fictions, though incomparably inferior to the canonical part of the Book of Daniel.
And the startling decree of Nebuchadrezzar finds
its analogy in the decree published by Antiochus the Jos., Antt., XII. iii. 3; Jahn, Hebr. Commonwealth, § xc.
"Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."—Prov. xvi. 18.
Thrice already, in these magnificent stories, had Nebuchadrezzar been taught to recognise the existence and to reverence the power of God. In this chapter he is represented as having been brought to a still more overwhelming conviction, and to an open acknowledgment of God's supremacy, by the lightning-stroke of terrible calamity.
The chapter is dramatically thrown into the form of
a decree which, after his recovery and shortly before
his death, the king is represented as having promulgated
to "all people, nations, and languages that dwell
in all the earth." Comp.
Readers unbiassed by a-priori assumptions, which
are broken to pieces at every step, will ask, "Is it
even historically conceivable that Nebuchadrezzar (to
whom the later Jews commonly gave the title of
Ha-Rashang, 'the wicked') could ever have issued such
a decree?" Professor Fuller follows them in supposing that the decree is really
a letter written by Daniel, as is shown by the analogy of similar
documents, and the attestation (!) of the LXX. (ἀρχὴ τῆς ἐπιστολῆς).
He adds, "The undertone of genuineness which makes itself so
inobtrusively felt to the Assyrian scholar when reading it, is quite
sufficient to decide the question of authenticity"! Such remarks are meant
only for a certain circle of readers already convinced. If they were
true, it would be singular that scarcely one living Assyriologist
accepts the authenticity of Daniel; and Mr. Bevan calls this "a
narrative which contains scarcely anything specifically Babylonian."
As to the monuments and inscriptions, they are
entirely silent upon the subject; nor is there any trace
of these events in any historic record. Those who,
with the school of Hengstenberg and Pusey, think that
the narrative receives support from the phrase of
Berossus that Nebuchadrezzar "fell sick and departed
this life when he had reigned forty-three years," must
be easily satisfied, since he says very nearly the same
of Nabopolassar. See
It is different with the testimony of Abydenus, quoted
by Eusebius. Præp. Ev., lx. 41. I follow the better readings which Mr. Bevan adopts from Von
Gutschmid and Toup.
I have italicised the passages which, amid immense differences, bear a remote analogy to the story of this chapter. To quote the passage as any proof that the writer of Daniel is narrating literal history is an extraordinary misuse of it.
Megasthenes flourished b.c. 323, and wrote a book
Aware, then, of some dim traditions that Nebuchadrezzar
at the close of his life ascended his palace roof
and there received some sort of inspiration, after which
he mysteriously disappeared, the writer, giving free
play to his imagination for didactic purposes, after the
common fashion of his age and nation, worked up
these slight elements into the stately and striking
Midrash of this chapter. He too makes the king mount
his palace roof and receive an inspiration; but in his
pages the inspiration does not refer to "the mule"
or half-breed, Cyrus, nor to Nabunaid, the son of a
Median woman, nor to any imprecation pronounced
upon them, but is an admonition to himself; and the
imprecation which he denounced upon the future
subverters of Babylon is dimly analogous to the fate
which fell on his own head. Instead of making him
Ewald thinks that a verse has been lost at the beginning of the chapter, indicating the nature of the document which follows; but it seems more probable that the author began this, as he begins other chapters, with the sort of imposing overture of the first verse.
Like Assur-bani-pal and the ancient despots, Nebuchadrezzar
addresses himself to "all people in the
earth," and after the salutation of peace Comp. If Nebuchadrezzar wrote this edict, he must have been very
familiar with the language of Scripture. See
He goes on to relate that, while he was at ease and
secure in his palace, Heykal, "palace"; Bab., ikallu. Comp. A mistake of the writer. See supra, p. 129. Rab-chartummaya.
The writer probably derives the images of the dream
from the magnificent description of the King of Assyria
as a spreading cedar in
"Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters nourished him, the deep made him to grow.... Therefore his stature was exalted above all the trees of the field; and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long by reason of many waters. All the fowls of the air made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations.... The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him ... nor was any tree in the garden of God like him in his beauty.... Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because thou art exalted in stature ... I will deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations.... And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him. Upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are broken ... and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him.... I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall."
We may also compare this dream with that of
Cambyses narrated by Herodotus Herod., i. 108.
So too Nebuchadrezzar in his dream had seen a
tree in the midst of the earth, of stately height, which
reached to heaven and overshadowed the world, with
fair leaves and abundant fruit, giving large nourishment
to all mankind, and shade to the beasts of the field
and fowls of the heaven. The LXX. adds with glowing
exaggeration, "The sun and moon dwelled in it, and
gave light to the whole earth. And, behold, a watcher
['îr] עִיר. Comp. Comp. The LXX., in its free manipulation of the original, adds that the
king saw the dream fulfilled. In one day the tree was cut down, and
its destruction completed in one hour.
This dream Nebuchadrezzar bids Daniel to interpret, "because thou hast the spirit of a Holy God in thee."
Before we proceed let us pause for a moment to notice the agents of the doom. It is one of the never-sleeping ones—an 'îr and a holy one—who flashes down from heaven with the mandate; and he is only the mouthpiece of the whole body of the watchers and holy ones.
Generally, no doubt, the phrase means an angelic
denizen of heaven. The LXX. translates watcher by
"angel." Theodotion, feeling that there is something
technical in the word, which only occurs in this chapter,
renders it by εἴρ. This is the first appearance of the
term in Jewish literature, but it becomes extremely
common in later Jewish writings—as, for instance, in
the Book of Enoch. The term "a holy one" Comp. See Dr. A. Kohut, Die jüdische Angelologie, p. 6, n. 17. For a full examination of the subject see Oehler, Theol. of the
O. T., § 59, pp. 195 ff.; Schultz, Alttest. Theol., p. 555; Hamburger,
Real-Encycl., i., s.v. "Engel"; Professor Fuller, Speaker's Commentary,
on the Apocrypha, Tobit, i., 171-183.
Sayce, Records of the Past, ix. 140.
It is true that in Enoch (xc. 91) the prophet sees
"the first six white ones," and we find six also in
The number seven is not, however, found in all texts. The Jewish tradition admits that the names of the angels came
from Persia (Rosh Hashanah, f. 56, 1; Bereshîth Rabba, c. 48;
Riehm, R. W. B., i. 381). Descent of Ishtar, Records of the Past, i. 141. Botta found seven
rude figures buried under the thresholds of doors.
To Daniel, when he had heard the dream, it seemed
so full of portentous omen that "he was astonished The Targum understands it "for a moment." The wish was quite natural. It is needless to follow Rashi, etc., in
making this an address to God, as though it were a prayer to Him
that ruin might fall on His enemy Nebuchadrezzar. Comp. Ov., Fast.,
iii. 494: "Eveniat nostris hostibus ille color." Records of the Past, i. 133.
The only feature of the dream which is left uninterpreted
is the binding of the stump with bands of iron
and brass. Most commentators follow Jerome in making
it refer to the fetters with which maniacs are bound, Bevan, p. 92. In the Mishnah often Shamayîm; N. T., ἡ βασίλεια τῶν οὐρανῶν.
Having faithfully interpreted the fearful warning of
the dream, Daniel points out that the menaces of doom
are sometimes conditional, and may be averted or delayed.
"Wherefore," he says, "O king, let my counsel
be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness,
and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the
poor; if so be there may be a healing of thy error." Or, as in A.V. and Hitzig, "if it may be a lengthening of thy
tranquillity"; but Ewald reads arukah, "healing" (
This pious exhortation of Daniel has been severely criticised from opposite directions.
The Jewish Rabbis, in the very spirit of bigotry and
false religion, said that Daniel was subsequently thrown
into the den of lions to punish him for the crime of
tendering good advice to Nebuchadrezzar; Baba Bathra, f. 4, 1. Berachôth, f. 10, 2; f. 57, 2.
On the other hand, the Roman Catholics have made it their chief support for the doctrine of good works, which is so severely condemned in the twelfth of our Articles.
Probably no such theological questions remotely
entered into the mind of the writer. Perhaps the words
should be rendered "break off thy sins by righteousness,"
rather than (as Theodotion renders them)
"redeem thy sins by almsgiving." Theodot., τὰς ἁμαρτίας σου ἐν ἐλεημοσύναις λύτρωσαι; Vulg.,
peccata tua eleemosynis redime. Comp.
In Baba Bathra, f. 10, 1, and Rosh Hashanah, f. 16, 2,
we have "alms delivereth from death," as a gloss on
the meaning of Comp.
We cannot tell that the writer shared these views. He probably meant no more than that cruelty and injustice were the chief vices of despots, and that the only way to avert a threatened calamity was by repenting of them. The necessity for compassion in the abstract was recognised even by the most brutal Assyrian kings.
We are next told the fulfilment of the dark dream. The interpretation had been meant to warn the king; but the warning was soon forgotten by one arrayed in such absolutism of imperial power. The intoxication of pride had become habitual in his heart, and twelve months sufficed to obliterate all solemn thoughts. The Septuagint adds that "he kept the words in his heart"; but the absence of any mention of rewards or honours paid to Daniel is perhaps a sign that he was rather offended than impressed.
A year later he was walking on the flat roof of the
great palace of the kingdom of Babylon. The sight
of that golden city in the zenith of its splendour may
well have dazzled the soul of its founder. He tells us
in an inscription that he regarded that city as the apple
of his eye, and that the palace was its most glorious
ornament. It is now called Kasr, but the Arabs call it Mujelibé, "The
Ruined."
Beyond this superb edifice, where now the hyæna
prowls amid miles of débris and mounds of ruin, and
where the bittern builds amid pools of water, lay the
unequalled city. Its walls were three hundred and
eighty feet high and eighty-five feet thick, and each
side of the quadrilateral they enclosed was fifteen miles
in length. The mighty Euphrates flowed through the
midst of the city, which is said to have covered a space
of two hundred square miles; and on its farther bank,
terrace above terrace, up to its central altar, rose the
huge Temple of Bel, with all its dependent temples and
palaces. Birs-Nimrod (Grote, Hist. of Greece, III., chap. xix.; Layard,
Nin. and Bab., chap. ii.).
Babylon, to use the phrase of Aristotle, included, not
a city, but a nation. Arist., Polit., III. i. 12. He says that three days after its capture
some of its inhabitants were still unaware of the fact.
Enchanted by the glorious spectacle of this house of his royalty and abode of his majesty, the despot exclaimed almost in the words of some of his own inscriptions, "Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my treasures and for the honour of my majesty?"
The Bible always represents to us that pride and
arrogant self-confidence are an offence against God.
The doom fell on Nebuchadrezzar "while the haughty
boast was still in the king's mouth." The suddenness
of the Nemesis of pride is closely paralleled by the
scene in the Acts of the Apostles in which Herod
Agrippa I. is represented as entering the theatre at
Cæsarea to receive the deputies of Tyre and Sidon.
He was clad, says Josephus, in a robe of intertissued
silver, and when the sun shone upon it he was surrounded
with a blaze of splendour. Struck by the
scene, the people, when he had ended his harangue to
them, shouted, "It is the voice of a god, and not of a
man!" Herod, too, in the story of Josephus, had received,
just before, an ominous warning; but it came
to him in vain. He accepted the blasphemous adulation,
and immediately, smitten by the angel of God, he
was eaten of worms, and in three days was dead.
And something like this we see again and again in
what the late Bishop Thirlwall called the "irony of
history"—the very cases in which men seem to have
been elevated to the very summit of power only to
heighten the dreadful precipice over which they
"While the word was yet in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven." It was what the Talmudists alluded to so frequently as the Bath Qôl, or "daughter of a voice," which came sometimes for the consolation of suffering, sometimes for the admonition of overweening arrogance. It announced to him the fulfilment of the dream and its interpretation. As with one lightning-flash the glorious cedar was blasted, its leaves scattered, its fruits destroyed, its shelter reduced to burning and barrenness. Then somehow the man's heart was taken from him. He was driven forth to dwell among the beasts of the field, to eat grass like oxen. Taking himself for an animal in his degrading humiliation he lived in the open field. The dews of heaven fell upon him. His unkempt locks grew rough like eagles' feathers, his uncut nails like claws. In this condition he remained till "seven times"—some vague and sacred cycle of days—passed over him.
His penalty was nothing absolutely abnormal. His
illness is well known to science and national tradition For further information on this subject I may refer to my paper
on "Rabbinic Exegesis," Expositor, v. 362-378. The fact that there are
slight variations in spelling Nebuchadnezzar and Antiochus Epiphanes
is of no importance.
נ = 50; ב = 2; ו = 6; כ = 20; ד = 4; נ = 50; א = 1;
צ = 90; ר = 200 = 423.
And Antiochus Epiphanes = 423:—
א = 1; נ = 50; ט = 9; י = 10; ו = 6; כ = 20; ו = 6;
ס = 60 = . . . . . . . 162}
א = 1; פ = 70; י = 10; פ = 70; נ = 50; ס = 60 = 261} = 423.
The madness of Antiochus was recognised in the
popular change of his name from Epiphanes to Epimanes.
But there were obvious points of resemblance between
What happened to the kingdom of Babylon during the interim is a point with which the writer does not trouble himself. It formed no part of his story or of his moral. There is, however, no difficulty in supposing that the chief mages and courtiers may have continued to rule in the king's name—a course rendered all the more easy by the extreme seclusion in which most Eastern monarchs pass their lives, often unseen by their subjects from one year's end to the other. Alike in ancient days as in modern—witness the cases of Charles VI. of France, Christian VII. of Denmark, George III. of England, and Otho of Bavaria—a king's madness is not allowed to interfere with the normal administration of the kingdom.
When the seven "times"—whether years or brief
periods—were concluded, Nebuchadrezzar "lifted up
his eyes to heaven," and his understanding returned
to him. No further light is thrown on his recovery,
which (as is not infrequently the case in madness) was
as sudden as his aberration. Perhaps the calm of the
infinite azure over his head flowed into his troubled
soul, and reminded him that (as the inscriptions say)
"the Heavens" are "the father of the gods."
He instantly blessed the Most High, "and praised
and honoured Him who liveth for ever, whose dominion
is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from
Then his lords and counsellors reinstated him in his
former majesty; his honour and brightness returned to
him; he was once more "that head of gold" in his
kingdom.
He concludes the story with the words: "Now I
Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King
of heaven, all whose works are truth and His ways
judgment;
He died b.c. 561, and was deified, leaving behind him an invincible name.
In this chapter again we have another magnificent fresco-picture, intended, as was the last—but under circumstances of aggravated guilt and more terrible menace—to teach the lesson that "verily there is a God that judgeth the earth."
The truest way to enjoy the chapter, and to grasp
the lessons which it is meant to inculcate in their proper
force and vividness, is to consider it wholly apart from
the difficulties as to its literal truth. To read it aright,
and duly to estimate its grandeur, we must relegate
to the conclusion of the story all worrying questions,
impossible of final solution, as to whom the writer
intended by Belshazzar, or whom by Darius the Mede. The question has already been fully discussed (supra, pp. 54-57).
The apologists say that— See
1. Belshazzar was Evil-merodach (Niebuhr, Wolff, Bishop Westcott,
Zöckler, Keil, etc.), as the son of Nebuchadrezzar (
2. Belshazzar was Nabunaid (St. Jerome, Ewald, Winer, Herzfeld,
Auberlen, etc.). But the usurper Nabunaid, son of a Rab-mag, was
wholly unlike Belshazzar; and so far from being slain, he was
pardoned, and sent by Cyrus to be Governor of Karmania, in which
position he died.
3. Belshazzar was the son of Nabunaid. But though Nabunaid had
a son of the name he was never king. We know nothing of any
relationship between him and Nebuchadrezzar, nor does Cyrus in
his records make the most distant allusion to him. The attempt to
identify Nebuchadrezzar with an unknown Marduk-sar-utsur, mentioned
in Babylonian tablets, breaks down; for Mr. Boscawen (Soc.
Bibl., in § vi., p. 108) finds that he reigned before Nabunaid. Further,
the son of Nabunaid perished, not in Babylon, but in Accad.
"It is natural," says Ewald, "that thus the picture drawn in this narrative should become, under the hands of our author, a true night-piece, with all the colours of the dissolute, extravagant riot of luxurious passion and growing madness, of ruinous bewilderment, and of the mysterious horror and terror of such a night of revelry and death."
The description of the scene begins with one of those crashing overtures of which the writer duly estimated the effect upon the imagination.
"Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a
thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the
thousand." The LXX. says "two thousand." Comp. Herod., i. 191, v. 18; Xen., Cyrop., V. ii. 28; Q. Curt., V. i. 38.
Theodotion, perhaps scandalised by the fact, omits the wives, and the
LXX. omits both wives and concubines. Layard, Nin. and Bab., ii. 262-269. Athen., Deipnos, iv. 145. See the bas-relief in the British Museum
of King Assur-bani-pal drinking wine with his queen, while the head
of his vanquished enemy, Te-Umman, King of Elam, dangles from a
palm-branch full in his view, so that he can feast his eyes upon it.
None others are present except the attendant eunuchs.
Then the wild king, with just such a burst of folly
and irreverence as characterised the banquets of
Antiochus Epiphanes, bethought him of yet another
element of splendour with which he might make his
banquet memorable, and prove the superiority of his The Babylonians were notorious for drunken revels. Q. Curt.,
V. i., "Babylonii maxime in vinum et quæ ebrietatem sequuntur, effusi
sunt."
Similarly Antiochus Epiphanes, if he had not been
half mad, might have taken warning, before he insulted
the Temple and the sacred vessels of Jerusalem, from
the fact that his father, Antiochus the Great, had met
his death in attempting to plunder the Temple at
Elymais (b.c. 187). He might also have recalled the
celebrated discomfiture—however caused—of Heliodorus
in the Temple of Jerusalem.
Such insulting and reckless blasphemy could not go
unpunished. It is fitting that the Divine retribution
should overtake the king on the same night, and that
the same lips which thus profaned with this wine the
holiest things should sip the wine of the Divine poison-cup,
whose fierce heat must in the same night prove
fatal to himself. But even such sinners, drinking as
it were over the pit of hell, "according to a metaphor
used elsewhere, Ewald.
For at this very moment Comp.
Seated on his lofty and jewelled throne, which
his eye caught something visible on the white stucco of
the wall above the line of frescoes. See Layard, Nin. and Bab., ii. 269. A word of uncertain origin. The Talmud uses it for the word
למפדס (the Greek λαμπάς). "Hollow." Heb., pas; Theodot., ἀστραγάλους; Vulg., articulos.
The word may mean "palm" of the hand, or sole of the foot
(Bevan).
The portent astounded and horrified him. The
flush of youth and of wine faded from his cheek;—"his
brightnesses were changed"; his thoughts troubled
him; the bands of his loins were loosed; Comp.
With a terrible cry he ordered that the whole familiar
tribe of astrologers and soothsayers should be summoned.
For though the hand had vanished, its trace
was left on the wall of the banqueting-chamber in Doubtless suggested by
It was the usual resource; and it failed as it had done in every previous instance. The Babylonian magi in the Book of Daniel prove themselves to be more futile even than Pharaoh's magicians with their enchantments.
The dream-interpreters in all their divisions entered the banquet-hall. The king was perturbed, the omen urgent, the reward magnificent. But it was all in vain. As usual they failed, as in every instance in which they are introduced in the Old Testament. And their failure added to the visible confusion of the king, whose livid countenance retained its pallor. The banquet, in all its royal magnificence, seemed likely to end in tumult and confusion; for the princes, and satraps, and wives, and concubines all shared in the agitation and bewilderment of their sovereign.
Meanwhile the tidings of the startling prodigy had
reached the ears of the Gebîrah—the queen-mother—who,
as always in the East, held a higher rank than even The word Qistrîn, "knots," may mean "hard questions"; but Mr.
Bevan (p. 104) thinks there may be an allusion to knots used as magic
spells. (Comp. Sen., Œdip., 101, "Nodosa sortis verba et implexos
dolos.") He quotes Al-Baidawi on the Koran, lxiii. 4, who says that
"a Jew casts a spell on Mohammed by tying knots in a cord, and
hiding it in a well." But Gabriel told the prophet to send for the cord,
and at each verse of the Koran recited over it a knot untied itself.
See Records of the Past, iii. 141; and Duke, Rabb. Blumenlehre, 231.
Then, Daniel was summoned; and since the king
"has heard of him, that the spirit of the gods is in him,
and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom
is found in him," and that he is one who can interpret
dreams, and unriddle hard sentences and untie knots,
"Let thy gifts be thine, and thy rewards to another," So Elisha,
And now what was the writing? Daniel at the first glance had read that fiery quadrilateral of letters, looking like the twelve gems of the high priest's ephod with the mystic light gleaming upon them.
M. | N. | A. |
M. | N. | A. |
T. | Q. | L. |
P. | R. | S. |
Four names of weight. The Menê is repeated for emphasis. In the Upharsîn (ver. 25)
the u is merely the "and," and the word is slightly altered, perhaps
to make the paronomasia with "Persians" more obvious. According
to Buxtorf and Gesenius, peras, in the sense of "divide," is very rare
in the Targums.
A Mina. |
A Mina. |
A Shekel. |
A Half-mina. Journal Asiatique, 1886. (Comp. Nöldeke, Ztschr. für Assyriologie, i. 414-418; Kamphausen, p. 46.) It is M. Clermont-Ganneau who has the credit of discovering what seems to be the true interpretation of these mysterious words. M'nê (Heb. Maneh) is the Greek μνᾶ, Lat. mina, which the Greeks borrowed from the Assyrians. Tekel (in the Targum of Onkelos tîkla) is the Hebrew shekel. In the Mishnah a half-mina is called peras, and an Assyrian weight in the British Museum bears the inscription perash in the Aramaic character. (See Bevan, p. 106; Schrader, s.v. "Mene" in Riehm, R.W.B.) Peres is used for a half-mina in Yoma, f. 4, 4; often in the Talmud; and in Corp. Inscr. Sem., ii. 10 (Behrmann). |
What possible meaning could there be in that? Did it need an archangel's colossal hand, flashing forth upon a palace-wall to write the menace of doom, to have inscribed no more than the names of four coins or weights? No wonder that the Chaldeans could not interpret such writing!
It may be asked why they could not even read it,
since the words are evidently Aramaic, and Aramaic
was the common language of trade. The Rabbis say
that the words, instead of being written from right to
פ | ת | מ | מ |
ר | ק | נ | נ |
ס | ל | א | א |
Read from left to right, they would look like gibberish; read from above downwards, they became clear as far as the reading was concerned, though their interpretation might still be surpassingly enigmatic.
But words may stand for all sorts of mysterious meanings; and in the views of analogists—as those are called who not only believe in the mysterious force and fascination of words, but even in the physiological quality of sounds—they may hide awful indications under harmless vocables. Herein lay the secret.
A mina! a mina! Yes; but the names of the weights recall the word m'nah, "hath numbered": and "God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it."
A shekel! Yes; t'qilta: "Thou hast been weighed in a balance and found wanting."
Peres—a half-mina! Yes; but p'rîsath: "Thy kingdom
has been divided, and given to the Medes and
Persians." The word occurs in Perez Uzza. There still, however, remain
some obviously unexplored mysteries about these words. Paronomasia,
as I showed long ago in other works, plays a noble and
profound part in the language of emotion; and that the interpretation
should here be made to turn upon it is not surprising by any means.
We find it in the older prophets. Thus in
And that the same use of plays on words was still common in the
Maccabean epoch we see in the Story of Susanna. There Daniel
plays on the resemblance between σχῖνος, "a mastick tree," and
σχίσει, "shall cut thee in two"; and πρῖνος, "a holm oak," and
πρίσαι, "to cut asunder." We may also point to the fine paronomasia
in the Hebrew of
As regards the Medes, they are placed after the Persians in
At this point the story is very swiftly brought to a
conclusion, for its essence has been already given.
Daniel is clothed in scarlet, and ornamented with the
chain of gold, and proclaimed triumvir. LXX., ἔδωκεν ἐξουσίαν αὐτῳ τοῦ τρίτου μέρους; Theodot., ἄρχοντα
τρίτον. See supra, p. 210.
But the king's doom is sealed! "That night was Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, slain." His name meant, "Bel! preserve thou the king!" But Bel bowed down, and Nebo stooped, and gave no help to their votary.
"And Darius the Mede took the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old."
As there is no such person known as "Darius the
Mede," the age assigned to him must be due either to
some tradition about some other Darius, or to chronological
calculations to which we no longer possess the
key. The LXX. evidently felt some difficulty or followed some other
text, for they render it, "And Artaxerxes of the Medes took the kingdom,
and Darius full of days and glorious in old age." So, too,
Josephus (Antt., X. xi. 4), who says that "he was called by another
name among the Greeks."
He is called the son of Achashverosh, Ahasuerus (ix. 1), or Xerxes. The apologists have argued that—
1. Darius was Cyaxares II., father of Cyrus, on the
authority of Xenophon's romance, Cyrop., I. v. 2. Antt., X. xi. 4. This was the view of Vitringa, Bertholdt,
Gesenius, Winer, Keil, Hengstenberg, Hävernick, etc. Ad. Q. Fratr., i. 8.
2. Darius was Astyages. The view of Niebuhr and Westcott.
3. Darius was the satrap Gobryas, who, so far as
we know, only acted as governor for a few months.
But he is represented on the contrary as an extremely
absolute king, setting one hundred and twenty princes
"over the whole kingdom," and issuing mandates to
"all people, nations, and languages that dwell in all the
earth." Even if such an identification were admissible, See Herod., i. 109. The Median Empire fell b.c. 559; Babylon
was taken about b.c. 539. It is regarded as "important" that a late
Greek lexicographer, long after the Christian era, makes the vague
and wholly unsupported assertion that the "Daric" was named after
some Darius other than the father of Xerxes! See supra, pp. 57-60.
We can now proceed to the examination of the next chapter unimpeded by impossible and half-hearted hypotheses. We understand it, and it was meant to be understood, as a moral and spiritual parable, in which unverified historic names and traditions are utilised for the purpose of inculcating lessons of courage and faithfulness. The picture, however, falls far below those of the other chapters in power, finish, and even an approach to natural verisimilitude.
"Thou shalt tread upon the lion ... the young lion shalt thou trample under thy feet."—Psalm xci. 13.
On the view which regards these pictures as powerful parables, rich in spiritual instructiveness, but not primarily concerned with historic accuracy, nor even necessarily with ancient tradition, we have seen how easily "the great strong fresco-strokes" which the narrator loves to use "may have been suggested to him by his diligent study of the Scriptures."
The first chapter is a beautiful picture which serves
to set forth the glory of moderation and to furnish a
vivid concrete illustration of such passages as those of
Jeremiah: "Her Nazarites were purer than snow; they
were whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in body
than rubies; their polishing was of sapphire."
The second chapter, closely reflecting in many of its
details the story of Joseph, illustrated how God "frustrateth
the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners
mad; turneth wise men backward, and maketh their
knowledge foolish; confirmeth the word of His servant,
and performeth the counsel of His messengers."
The third chapter gives vividness to the promise,
The fourth chapter repeats the apologue of Ezekiel,
in which he compares the King of Assyria to a cedar
in Lebanon with fine branches, and with a shadowy
shroud, and fair by the multitude of his branches, so
that all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of
God envied him, but whose boughs were "broken by
all the watercourses until the peoples of the earth left
his shadow."
The fifth chapter gives a vivid answer to Isaiah's
challenge: "Let now the astrologers, the stargazers,
the monthly prognosticators, stand up and save thee
from these things which shall come upon thee." The word is a cabalistic cryptogram—an instance of Gematria—for
Babel.
The sixth chapter puts into concrete form such
passages of the Psalmist as: "My soul is among lions:
and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even
the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows,
and their tongue a sharp sword";
This genesis of Haggadoth is remarkably illustrated
by the apocryphal additions to Daniel. Thus the History
of Susanna was very probably suggested by Jeremiah's
allusion (xxix. 22) to the two false prophets Ahab and
Zedekiah, whom Nebuchadrezzar burnt. Sanhedrin, f. 93, 1. See another story in Vayyikra Rabba, c. xix. Bereshîth Rabba, § 68.
Hitherto the career of Daniel had been personally prosperous. We have seen him in perpetual honour and exaltation, and he had not even incurred—though he may now have been ninety years old—such early trials and privations in a heathen land as had fallen to the lot of Joseph, his youthful prototype. His three companions had been potential martyrs; he had not even been a confessor. Terrible as was the doom which he had twice been called upon to pronounce upon Nebuchadrezzar and upon his kingdom, the stern messages of prophecy, so far from involving him in ruin, had only helped to uplift him to the supremest honours. Not even the sternness of his bearing, and the terrible severity of his interpretations of the flaming message to Belshazzar, had prevented him from being proclaimed triumvir, and clothed in scarlet, and decorated with a chain of gold, on the last night of the Babylonian Empire. And now a new king of a new dynasty is represented as seated on the throne; and it might well have seemed that Daniel was destined to close his days, not only in peace, but in consummate outward felicity.
Darius the Mede began his reign by appointing
one hundred and twenty princes over the whole kingdom; The LXX. says 127, and Josephus (Antt., X. xi. 4) says 360
(comp.
But assuming that the writer is dealing, not with the
real, but with the ideal, something would be lacking to
Daniel's eminent saintliness, if he were not set forth
as no less capable of martyrdom on behalf of his convictions
than his three companions had been. From
the fiery trial in which their faithfulness had been
proved like gold in the furnace he had been exempt.
His life thus far had been a course of unbroken prosperity.
But the career of a pre-eminent prophet and
saint hardly seems to have won its final crown, unless
he also be called upon to mount his Calvary, and to
share with all prophets and all saints the persecutions
which are the invariable concomitants of the hundredfold
reward.
Daniel's age—for by this time he must have passed
the allotted limit of man's threescore years and ten—might
have exempted him from envy, even if, as the
LXX. adds, "he was clad in purple." But jealous that
a captive Jew should be exalted above all the native
satraps and potentates by the king's favour, his colleagues
the presidents (whom the LXX. calls "two
young men") and the princes "rushed" before the
king with a request which they thought would enable
them to overthrow Daniel by subtlety. Faithfulness
is required in stewards;
The phrase that they "made a tumult" or "rushed"
That these "presidents and satraps," instead of trying to win the king by such flatteries and "gaping upon him an earth-grovelling howl," should on each occasion have "rushed" into his presence, must be regarded either as a touch of intentional sarcasm, or, at any rate, as being more in accord with the rude familiarities of licence permitted to the courtiers of the half-mad Antiochus, than with the prostrations and solemn approaches which since the days of Deïoces would alone have been permitted by any conceivable "Darius the Mede."
However, after this tumultuous intrusion into the
king's presence, "all the presidents, governors, chief The den (goob or gubba) seems to mean a vault. The Hebrew
word for "pit" is boor.
Professor Fuller, in the Speaker's Commentary, considers
that "this chapter gives a valuable as well as an
interesting insight into Median customs," because the
king is represented as living a secluded life, and keeps
lions, and is practically deified! The importance of
the remark is far from obvious. The chapter presents
no particular picture of a secluded life. On the contrary,
the king moves about freely, and his courtiers seem
to have free access to him whenever they choose. As
for the semi-deification of kings, it was universal
throughout the East, and even Antiochus II. had openly
taken the surname of Theos, the "god." Again, every
Jew throughout the world must have been very well
aware, since the days of the Exile, that Assyrian and
other monarchs kept dens of lions, and occasionally
flung their enemies to them. See Layard, Nin. and Bab., i. 335, 447, 475; Smith, Hist. of
Assur-bani-pal, xxiv.
The king, without giving another thought to the matter, at once signs the irrevocable decree.
It naturally does not make the least difference to
the practices or the purpose of Daniel. His duty
towards God transcends his duty to man. He has
been accustomed, thrice a day, to kneel and pray to
God, with the window of his upper chamber open,
looking towards the Kibleh of Jerusalem; The chamber was perhaps supposed to be a ὑπερῷον on the roof.
The "kneeling" in prayer (as in
The Temple, and Jerusalem, was the Kibleh, or sacred direction of
devotion (
Then the princes "rushed" thither again, and found Daniel praying and asking petitions before his God.
Instantly they go before the king, and denounce Daniel for his triple daily defiance of the sacrosanct decree, showing that "he regardeth not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed."
Their denunciations produced an effect very different
from what they had intended. They had hoped to
raise the king's wrath and jealousy against Daniel,
as one who lightly esteemed his divine autocracy. Comp. Theodot., ἀγωνιζόμενος.
But as this resource did not suggest itself to
Darius, nothing could be done except to cast Daniel
into the den or "pit" of lions; but in sentencing him
the king offers the prayer, "May the God whom thou
servest continually deliver thee!" "Courage, till to-morrow" (ἕως πρωῒ θάῤῥει), adds the LXX. Comp.
From the lion-pit the king went back to his palace,
but only to spend a miserable night. He could take
no food. Theodot., ἐκοιμήθη ἄδειπνος. Daniel, on the other hand, in the
apocryphal Haggada, gets his dinner miraculously from the Prophet
Habakkuk. Heb., dachavān; R.V., "instruments of music"; R.V. marg.,
"dancing-girls"; Gesenius, Zöckler, etc., "concubines." Theodot., τὸ πρωῒ ἐν τῷ φωτί.
And the voice of the prophet answered, "O king,
live for ever! My God sent His angel, Comp.
Thereupon the happy king ordered that Daniel should be taken up out of the lion-pit; and he was found to be unhurt, because he believed in his God.
We would have gladly spared the touch of savagery
with which the story ends. The deliverance of Daniel Comp.
"Then King Darius wrote to all the nations, communities, and tongues who dwell in the whole world, May your peace be multiplied! I make a decree, That in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel: for He is the living God, and steadfast for ever, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and His dominion even unto the end. He delivereth and He rescueth, and He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who delivered Daniel from the power of the lions."
The language, as in Nebuchadrezzar's decrees, is
purely Scriptural.
He merely adds that Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and of Cyrus the Persian.
We now enter upon the second division of the
Book of Daniel—the apocalyptic. It is unquestionably
inferior to the first part in grandeur and
importance as a whole, but it contains not a few great
conceptions, and it was well adapted to inspire the
hopes and arouse the heroic courage of the persecuted
Jews in the terrible days of Antiochus Epiphanes.
Daniel now speaks in the first person, Except in the heading of chap. x.
In the form of apocalypse which he adopts he had already had partial precursors in Ezekiel and Zechariah; but their symbolic visions were far less detailed and developed—it may be added far more poetic and classical—than his. And in later apocalypses, for which this served as a model, little regard is paid to the grotesqueness or incongruity of the symbols, if only the intended conception is conveyed. In no previous writer of the grander days of Hebrew literature would such symbols have been permitted as horns which have eyes and speak, or lions from which the wings are plucked, and which thereafter stand on their feet as a man, and have a man's heart given to them.
The vision is dated, "In the first year of Belshazzar,
King of Babylon." It therefore comes chronologically
between the fourth and fifth chapters. On the pseudepigraphic
view of the Book we may suppose that this
date is merely a touch of literary verisimilitude, designed
to assimilate the prophecies to the form of those uttered
by the ancient prophets; or perhaps it may be intended
to indicate that with three of the four empires—the
Babylonian, the Median, and the Persian—Daniel had
a personal acquaintance. Beyond this we can see no
significance in the date; for the predictions which are
here recorded have none of that immediate relation to
the year in which they originated which we see in the
writings of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Perhaps the verse
itself is a later guess or gloss, since there are slight
variations in Theodotion and the LXX. Daniel, we are
told, both saw and wrote and narrated the dream. In the opinion of Lagarde and others this chapter—which is
not noticed by Josephus, and which Meinhold thinks cannot have
been written by the author of chap. ii., since it says nothing of the
sufferings or deliverance of Israel—did not belong to the original form
of the Book. Lagarde thinks that it was written a.d. 69, after the
persecution of the Christians by Nero.
In the vision of the night he had seen the four winds
of heaven travailing, or bursting forth, on the great
sea; St. Ephræm Syrus says, "The sea is the world."
The first was a lion, with four eagles' wings. The wings were plucked off, and it then raised itself from the earth, stood on its feet like a man, and a man's heart was given to it.
The second was like a bear, raising itself on one side,
The third is a leopard, or panther, with four wings and four heads, to which dominion is given.
The fourth—a yet more terrible monster, which is
left undescribed, as though indescribable—has great
devouring teeth of iron, and feet that stamp and crush. In the vision of the colossus in ii. 41-43 stress is laid on the
division of the fourth empire into stronger and weaker elements
(iron and clay). That point is here passed over.
Then the thrones were set for the Divine judges, A.V., "the thrones were cast down." In ii. 35, 44, the four empires are represented as finally destroyed.
But then, in the night vision, there came "one even as a son of man" with the clouds of heaven, and is brought before the Ancient of Days, and receives from Him power and glory and a kingdom—an everlasting dominion, a kingdom that shall not be destroyed—over all people, nations, and languages.
Such is the vision, and its interpretation follows. The heart of Daniel "is pierced in the midst of its sheath" by what he has seen, and the visions of his head troubled him. Coming near to one of them that stood by—the angelic ministrants of the Ancient of Days—he begs for an interpretation of the vision.
It is given him with extreme brevity.
The four wild beasts represent four kings, the
founders of four successive kingdoms. But the ultimate
and eternal dominion is not to be with them. It is to
be given, till the eternities of the eternities, to "the holy
ones of the Lofty One." A.V. marg., "high ones"—i.e., things or places.
What follows is surely an indication of the date of the Book. Daniel is quite satisfied with this meagre interpretation, in which no single detail is given as regards the first three world-empires, which one would have supposed would chiefly interest the real Daniel. His whole curiosity is absorbed in a detail of the vision of the fourth monster. It is all but inconceivable that a contemporary prophet should have felt no further interest in the destinies which affected the great golden Empire of Babylon under which he lived, nor in those of Media and Persia, which were already beginning to loom large on the horizon, and should have cared only for an incident in the story of a fourth empire as yet unheard of, which was only to be fulfilled four centuries later. The interests of every other Hebrew prophet are always mainly absorbed, so far as earthly things are concerned, in the immediate or not-far-distant future. That is true also of the author of Daniel, if, as we have had reason to see, he wrote under the rule of the persecuting and blaspheming horn.
In his appeal for the interpretation of this symbol there are fresh particulars about this horn which had eyes and spake very great things. We are told that "his look was more stout than his fellows"; and that "he made war against the saints and prevailed against them, until the Ancient of Days came. Then judgment was given to the saints, and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom."
The interpretation is that the fourth beast is an
earth-devouring, trampling, shattering kingdom, diverse
from all kingdoms; its ten horns are ten kings that
shall arise from it. Not kingdoms, as in viii. 8. Comp.
Such was the vision; such its interpretation; and there can be no difficulty as to its general significance.
I. That the four empires, and their founders, are
not identical with the four empires of the metal colossus
in Nebuchadrezzar's dream, is an inference which,
apart from dogmatic bias, would scarcely have occurred
to any unsophisticated reader. To the imagination of
Nebuchadrezzar, the heathen potentate, they would
naturally present themselves in their strength and
towering grandeur, splendid and impassive and secure,
till the mysterious destruction smites them. To the
Jewish seer they present themselves in their cruel
II. The turbulent sea, from which the immense
beasts emerge after the struggling of the four winds of
heaven upon its surface, is the sea of nations. Comp.
III. The first great beast is Nebuchadrezzar and
the Babylonian Empire. Comp. Comp. The use of enôsh—not eesh—indicates chastening and weakness.
IV. The bear, which places itself upon one side, is
the Median Empire, smaller than the Chaldean, as the
bear is smaller and less formidable than the lion. The
crouching on one side is obscure. It is explained by
some as implying that it was lower in exaltation than
the Babylonian Empire; by others that "it gravitated,
as regards its power, only towards the countries west
of the Tigris and Euphrates." Ewald.
V. The leopard or panther represents the Persian
kingdom. The composite beast of Comp. viii. 4-8.
VI. The fourth monster won its chief aspect of
terribleness from the conquests of Alexander, which
blazed over the East with such irresistible force and
suddenness. Battle of the Granicus, b.c. 334; Battle of Issus, 333; Siege of
Tyre, 332; Battle of Arbela, 331; Death of Darius, 330. Alexander
died b.c. 323.
b.c. | |
1. Seleucus I. (Nicator) This was the interpretation given by the great father Ephræm Syrus in the first century. Hitzig, Kuenen, and others count from Alexander the Great, and omit Ptolemy Philometor. |
312-280 |
2. Antiochus I. (Soter) | 280-261 |
3. Antiochus II. (Theos) | 261-246 |
4. Seleucus II. (Kallinikos) | 246-226 |
5. Seleucus III. (Keraunos) | 226-223 |
6. Antiochus III. (Megas) | 223-187 |
7. Seleucus IV. (Philopator) | 223-187 |
Then followed the three kings (actual or potential) who were plucked up before the little horn: namely— | |
8. Demetrius. | 175 |
9. Heliodorus. | 176 |
10. Ptolemy Philometor. | 181-146 |
Of these three who succumbed to the machinations
of Antiochus Epiphanes, or the little horn,
The second, Heliodorus, seeing that Demetrius the Appian, Syr., 45; Liv., xli. 24. The story of his attempt to rob
the Temple at Jerusalem, rendered so famous by the great picture of
Raphael in the Vatican stanze, is not mentioned by Josephus, but only
in
Ptolemy Philometor was the son of Cleopatra, the
sister of Seleucus Philopator. A large party was in
favour of uniting Egypt and Persia under his rule.
But Antiochus Epiphanes ignored the compact which
had made Cœle-Syria and Phœnicia the dower of
Cleopatra, and not only kept Philometor from his
rights, but would have deprived him of Egypt also but
for the strenuous interposition of the Romans and their
ambassador M. Popilius Lænas. Porphyry interpreted the three kings who succumbed to the little
horn to be Ptolemy Philometor, Ptolemy Euergetes II., and Artaxias,
King of Armenia. The critics who begin the ten kings with Alexander
the Great count Seleucus IV. (Philopator) as one of the three who
were supplanted by Antiochus. Von Gutschmid counts as one of the
three a younger brother of Demetrius, said to have been murdered by
Antiochus (Müller, Fr. Hist. Græc., iv. 558).
When the three horns had thus fallen before him, the
little horn—Antiochus Epiphanes—sprang into prominence.
The mention of his "eyes" seems to be a
reference to his shrewdness, cunning, and vigilance. Comp. viii. 23. Comp. λαλεῖν μέγαλα ( Comp. xi. 36. Jos., B. J., I. i. 2, VI. x. 1. In Antt., XII. v. 3, Josephus says he
took Jerusalem by stratagem. Jahn, Hebr. Commonwealth, § xciv.; Ewald, Hist. of Isr., v.
293-300.
Further than all this, "he thought to change times and
laws"; and they were "given into his hand until a time,
and two times, and a half." For he made a determined
attempt to put down the Jewish feasts, the Sabbath,
circumcision, and all the most distinctive Jewish ordinances. Jerome, Comm. in Dan., viii., ix.; Tac., Hist., v. 8;
The triumph of this blasphemous and despotic
The news of this revolt brought Antiochus to Palestine
in b.c. 166, and among his other atrocities he
ordered the execution by torture of the venerable scribe
Eleazar, and of the pious mother with her seven sons.
In spite of all his efforts the party of the Chasidîm
grew in numbers and in strength. When Mattathias
died, Judas the Maccabee became their leader, and his
brother Simon their counsellor. Maccabee perhaps means "the Hammerer" (comp. the names
Charles Martel and Malleus hæreticorum). Simeon was called
Tadshî, "he increases" (? Gk., Θασσίς). The numbers vary in the records.
Lysias retired to Antioch, intending to renew the
invasion next year. Thereupon Judas and his army
recaptured Jerusalem, and restored and cleansed and
reconsecrated the dilapidated and desecrated sanctuary.
He made a new shewbread-table, incense-altar, and
candlestick of gold in place of those which Antiochus
had carried off, and new vessels of gold, and a new
veil before the Holiest Place. All this was completed
on Kisleu 25, b.c. 165, about the time of the winter
solstice, "on the same day of the year on which, three
years before, it had been profaned by Antiochus, and
just three years and a half—'a time, two times, and
half a time'—after the city and Temple had been
desolated by Apollonius." Prideaux, Connection, ii. 212. Comp.
The neighbouring nations, when they heard of this
revolt of the Jews, and its splendid success, proposed
to join with Antiochus for their extermination. But
meanwhile the king, having been shamefully repulsed
in his sacrilegious attack on the Temple of Artemis at
Elymais, retired in deep chagrin to Ecbatana, in Media.
It was there that he heard of the Jewish successes and On the death of Antiochus see Polybius, De Virt. et Vit., Exc. Vales, p. 144; Q. Curtius, v. 13;
Strabo, xi. 522; Appian, Syriaca, xlvi. 80;
Such were the fortunes of the king whom the writer
shadows forth under the emblem of the little horn with
But the eternal life, and the imperishable dominion,
which were denied to them, are given to another in the
epiphany of the Ancient of Days. The vision of the
seer is one of a great scene of judgment. Thrones are
set for the heavenly assessors, and the Almighty appears
in snow-white raiment, and on His chariot-throne
of burning flame which flashes round Him like a vast
photosphere.
But who is the "one even as a son of man," who
"comes with the clouds of heaven," and who "is brought
before the Ancient of Days," Comp. Comp.
We should naturally answer, in accordance with the
multitude of ancient and modern commentators both
Jewish and Christian, that the Messiah is intended; It is so understood by the Book of Enoch; the Talmud (Sanhedrin,
f. 98, 1); the early father Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph., 31, etc. Some
of the Jewish commentators (e.g., Abn Ezra) understood it of the
people of God, and so Hofmann, Hitzig, Meinhold, etc. See Behrmann,
Dan., p. 48. See Schürer, ii. 138-187, "The Messianic Hope": he refers to
The chapter closes with the words: "Here is the end of the matter. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts much troubled me, and my brightness was changed in me: but I kept the matter in my heart."
This vision is dated as having occurred in the third year of Belshazzar; but it is not easy to see the significance of the date, since it is almost exclusively occupied with the establishment of the Greek Empire, its dissolution into the kingdoms of the Diadochi, and the godless despotism of King Antiochus Epiphanes.
The seer imagines himself to be in the palace of
Shushan: "As I beheld I was in the castle of Shushan." Pers., baru; Skr., bura; Assyr., birtu; Gk., βάρις. Comp. Æsch.,
Pers., 554; Herod., ii. 96.
Shushan is described as being in the province of
Elam or Elymais, which may be here used as a general
designation of the district in which Susiana was included.
The prophet imagines himself as standing by
the river-basin (oobâl Theodot., οὐβάλ; Ewald, Stromgebiet—a place where several
rivers meet. The Jews prayed on river-banks ( "Susianam ab Elymaide disterminat amnis Eulæus" (Plin., H. N.,
vi. 27).
Shushan is said by Pliny and Arrian to have been on the river Eulæus, and by Herodotus to have been on the banks of
It seems now to have been proved that the Ulai was
merely a branch of the Choaspes or Kerkhah. See Loftus, Chaldæa, p. 346, who visited Shush in 1854;
Herzog, R. E., s.v. "Susa." A tile was found by Layard at Kuyunjik
representing a large city between two rivers. It probably represents
Susa. Loftus says that the city stood between the Choaspes and
the Kopratas (now the Dizful).
Lifting up his eyes, Daniel sees a ram standing eastward
of the river-basin. It has two lofty horns, the
loftier of the two being the later in origin. It butts
westward, northward, and southward, and does great
things. The Latin word for "to butt" is arietare, from aries, "a ram." It
butts in three directions (comp. Unicorns are often represented on Assyrio-Babylonian sculptures. Fury (chemah), "heat," "violence"—also of deadly venom ( A.V., "four notable horns"; but the word chazoth means literally
"a sight of four"—i.e., "four other horns" (comp. ver. 8). Grätz
reads achēroth; LXX., ἕτερα τέσσαρα (comp. xi. 4). Lit. "out of littleness." Hatstsebî. Comp. xi. 45; The physical image implies the war against the spiritual host of heaven, the holy people with their leaders. See So in the Hebrew margin (Q'rî), followed by Theodoret and
Ewald; but in the text (Kethîbh) it is, "by him the daily was
abolished"; and with this reading the Peshito and Vulgate agree.
Hattamîd, "the daily" sacrifice; LXX., ἐνδελεχισμός; The Hebrew is here corrupt. The R.V. renders it, "And the
host was given over to it, together with the continual burnt offering
through transgression; and it cast down truth to the ground, and it
did its pleasure and prospered."
Daniel sought to understand the vision, and immediately
there stood before him one in the semblance
of a man, and he hears the distant voice of some one LXX., φελμωνί; nescio quis (Vulg., viri). Comp. for the expression xii. 6. We find no names in Ben-Adam (
The two-horned ram, he said, the Baal-keranaîm,
or "lord of two horns," represents the King of Media
and Persia; the shaggy goat is the Empire of Greece;
and the great horn is its first king—Alexander the
Great. Comp.
The four horns rising out of the broken great horn
are four inferior kingdoms. In one of these, sacrilege
would culminate in the person of a king of bold face, "Strength of face" (LXX., ἀναιδὴς προσώπῳ; The meaning is uncertain. It may mean (1) that he is only
strong by God's permission; or (2) only by cunning, not by strength. Comp. Not merely the angelic prince of the host (
Such is the vision and its interpretation; and though there is here and there a difficulty in the details and translation, and though there is a necessary crudeness in the emblematic imagery, the general significance of the whole is perfectly clear.
The scene of the vision is ideally placed in Shushan,
because the Jews regarded it as the royal capital of
the Persian dominion, and the dream begins with the
overthrow of the Medo-Persian Empire. Comp.
The he-goat is Greece. It is said to be the national emblem of Macedonia. He is called "the King of Javan"—i.e., of the Ionians. The fury of the he-goat represents the vengeance cherished by
the Greeks against Persia since the old days of Marathon, Thermopylæ,
Salamis, Platæa, and Mycale. Persia had invaded Greece
under Mardonius (b.c. 492), under Datis and Artaphernes (b.c. 490),
and under Xerxes (b.c. 480).
There the great horn is suddenly broken without
hand.
The dismemberment of his empire immediately
followed. In b.c. 322 its vast extent was divided
With one only of the four kingdoms, and with one only of its kings, is the vision further concerned—with the kingdom of the Seleucidæ, and with the eighth king of the dynasty, Antiochus Epiphanes. In this chapter, however, a brief sketch only of him is furnished. Many details of the minutest kind are subsequently added.
He is called "a puny horn," because, in his youth,
no one could have anticipated his future greatness. He
was only a younger son of Antiochus III. (the Great).
When Antiochus III. was defeated in the Battle of
Magnesia under Mount Sipylus (b.c. 190), his loss was
terrible. Fifty thousand foot and four thousand horse
were slain on the battlefield, and fourteen hundred
were taken prisoners. He was forced to make peace
with the Romans, and to give them hostages, one of
whom was Antiochus the Younger, brother of Seleucus,
who was heir to the throne. Antiochus for thirteen
years languished miserably as a hostage at Rome. His
father, Antiochus the Great, was either slain in b.c. 187
by the people of Elymais, after his sacrilegious plundering
of the Temple of Jupiter-Belus; So Diodorus Siculus (Exc. Vales., p. 293); Justin, xxxii. 2;
Jer. in Dan., xi.; Strabo, xvi. 744. Aurel. Vict., De Virr. Illustr., c. liv.
The chances, therefore, of Antiochus seemed very
forlorn. But he was a man of ability, though with a
taint of folly and madness in his veins. By allying himself
with Eumenes, King of Pergamum, as we shall see
hereafter, he suppressed Heliodorus, secured the kingdom,
and "becoming very great," though only by fraud,
cruelty, and stratagem, assumed the title of Epiphanes
"the Illustrious." He extended his power "towards
the South" by intriguing and warring against Egypt
and his young nephew, Ptolemy Philometor; He conquered Egypt b.c. 170 ( See Comp.
His chief enormity was the abolition of "the daily"
(tamîd)—i.e., the sacrifice daily offered in the Temple;
and the desecration of the sanctuary itself by violence
and sacrilege, which will be more fully set forth in the
next chapters. He also seized and destroyed the sacred
books of the Jews. As he forbade the reading of the
Law—of which the daily lesson was called the Parashah—there
began from this time the custom of selecting
a lesson from the Prophets, which was called the
Haphtarah. See Hamburger, ii. 334 (s.v. "Haftara").
It was natural to make one of the holy ones, who
are supposed to witness this horrible iniquity, Comp. ὀργὴ μεγάλη (
In the further explanation given to Daniel by Gabriel a few more touches are added.
Antiochus Epiphanes is described as a king "bold
of visage, and skilled in enigmas." His boldness is
sufficiently illustrated by his many campaigns and
battles, and his braggart insolence has been already Comp. xi. 21. Comp. ii. 34, xi. 45. Antiochus died of a long and terrible illness
in Persia. Polybius (xxxi. 11) describes his sickness by the word
δαιμονήσας. Arrian (Syriaca, 66) says φθίνων ἐτελεύτησε. In
Daniel is bidden to hide the vision for many days—a
sentence which is due to the literary plan of the
Book; and he is assured that the vision concerning
the "evening-morning" was true. He adds that the
vision exhausted and almost annihilated him; but,
afterwards, he arose and did the king's business.
He was silent about the vision, for neither he nor any
one else understood it. Ver. 27, "I was gone" (or, "came to an end") "whole days."
With this ἔκστασις comp. ii. 1, vii. 28; In ver. 26 the R.V. renders "it belongeth to many days to come."
Emphasis is evidently attached to the "two thousand three hundred evening-morning" during which the desolation of the sanctuary is to continue.
What does the phrase "evening-morning" ('erebh-bôqer) mean?
In ver. 26 it is called "the vision concerning the evening and the morning."
Does "evening-morning" mean a whole day, like the
Greek νυχθήμερον, or half a day? The expression is
doubly perplexing. If the writer meant "days," why
does he not say "days," as in xii. 11, 12? Comp.
It is a natural supposition that the time is meant to correspond with the three years and a half ("a time, two times, and half a time") of vii. 25. But here again all certainty of detail is precluded by our ignorance as to the exact length of years by which the writer reckoned; and how he treated the month Ve-adar, a month of thirty days, which was intercalated once in every six years.
Supposing that he allowed an intercalary fifteen days
for three and a half years, and took the Babylonian
If, then, "two thousand three hundred evening-morning" means two thousand three hundred half days, we have one hundred and ten days too many for the three and a half years.
And if the phrase means two thousand three hundred
full days, that gives us (counting thirty intercalary
days for Ve-adar) too little for seven years by two
hundred and fifty days. Some see in this a mystic
intimation that the period of chastisement shall for the
elect's sake be shortened.
In neither case do the calculations agree with the twelve hundred and ninety or the thirteen hundred and thirty-five days of xii. 12, 13.
Entire volumes of tedious and wholly inconclusive
comment have been written on these combinations, but
by no reasonable supposition can we arrive at close
accuracy. Strict chronological accuracy was difficult
of attainment in those days, and was never a matter
about which the Jews, in particular, greatly troubled
themselves. We do not know either the terminus a
quo from which or the terminus ad quem to which the
writer reckoned. All that can be said is that it is
perfectly impossible for us to identify or exactly equiparate
the three and a half years (vii. 25), the "two "These five passages agree in making the final distress last
during three years and a fraction: the only difference lies in the
magnitude of the fraction" (Bevan, p. 127).
Turning now to the dates, we know that Judas the
Maccabee cleansed See on this period Diod. Sic., Fr., xxvi. 79; Liv., xlii. 29; Polyb.,
Legat., 71; Justin, xxxiv. 2; Jer., Comm. in Dan., xi. 22; Jahn,
Hebr. Commonwealth, § xciv.; Prideaux, Connection, ii. 146.
If we reckon back two thousand three hundred half-days,
eleven hundred and fifty whole days, we must go
back three years and seventy days, but we cannot tell
what exact event the writer had in mind as the starting-point
of his calculations. The actual time which elapsed
from the final defilement of the Temple by Apollonius,
It must, however, be borne in mind that no minute
certainty about the exact dates is attainable. Many
authorities, from Prideaux Connection, ii. 188. Gesch. d. V. Isr., i. 155.
Approximate Dates, as inferred by Cornill
and Others Some of these dates are uncertain, and are variously given by different authorities. |
|
b.c. | |
Jeremiah's prophecy in |
605 |
Jeremiah's prophecy in |
594 |
Destruction of the Temple | 586 or 588 |
Return of the Jewish exiles | 537 |
458 | |
Second decree ( |
445 |
Accession of Antiochus Epiphanes (August, Clinton) | 175 |
Usurpation of the high-priesthood by Jason | 175 |
Jason displaced by Menelaus | 172(?) |
Murder of Onias III. | (June) 171 |
Apollonius defiles the Temple | 168 |
War of independence | 166 |
Purification of the Temple by Judas the Maccabee | (December) 165 |
Death of Antiochus | 163 |
This chapter is occupied with the prayer of Daniel, and with the famous vision of the seventy weeks which has led to such interminable controversies, but of which the interpretation no longer admits of any certainty, because accurate data are not forthcoming.
The vision is dated in the first year of Darius, the
son of Achashverosh, of the Median stock. Achashverosh,
He understood from "the books" the number of the
years "whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah
the prophet for the accomplishing of the desolation of
Jerusalem, even seventy years." By "the books" is here probably meant the Thorah or Pentateuch,
in which the writer discovered the key to the mystic meaning of the seventy years. It was not in the two sections of Jeremiah himself
(called, according to Kimchi, Sepher Hamattanah and Sepher Hagalon)
that he found this key. Jeremiah is here Yir'myah, as in Dan., p. 146. Comp. a similar usage in Aul. Gell., Noct. Att.,
iii. 10, "Se jam undecimam annorum hebdomadem ingressum esse";
and Arist., Polit., vii. 16.
The writer of Daniel saw, nearly four centuries later,
That the difficulty was felt is shown by the fact that
the Epistle of Jeremy (ver. 2) extends the epoch of
captivity to two hundred and ten years (7 × 30),
whereas in See Fritzsche ad loc.; Ewald, Hist. of Isr., v. 140.
What was the explanation of this startling apparent discrepancy between "the sure word of prophecy" and the gloomy realities of history?
The writer saw it in a mystic or allegorical interpretation
of Jeremiah's seventy years. The prophet
could not (he thought) have meant seventy literal years.
The number seven indeed played its usual mystic part
in the epoch of punishment. Jerusalem had been taken
b.c. 588; the first return of the exiles had been about
b.c. 538. The Exile therefore had, from one point of
view, lasted forty-nine years—i.e., 7 × 7. But even if
seventy years were reckoned from the fourth year of
Jehoiakim (b.c. 606?) to the decree of Cyrus (b.c. 536),
and if these seventy years could be made out, still The writer of
Surely then—so thought the writer—the real meaning
of Jeremiah must have been misunderstood; or, at any
rate, only partially understood. He must have meant,
not "years," but weeks of years—Sabbatical years. And
that being so, the real Messianic fulfilments were not to
come till four hundred and ninety years after the beginning
of the Exile; and this clue he found in Leviticus.
It was indeed a clue which lay ready to the hand of
any one who was perplexed by Jeremiah's prophecy,
for the word שָׁבוּעַ, ἑβδομάς, means, not only the week,
but also "seven," and the seventh year;
Another consideration may also have led the writer
to his discovery. From the coronation of Saul to the
captivity of Zachariah, reckoning the recorded length
of each reign and giving seventeen years to Saul (since
the "forty years" of See Cornill, Die Siebzig Jahrwochen Daniels, pp. 14-18.
The writer introduces what he thus regarded as a
consoling and illuminating discovery in a striking
manner. Daniel coming to understand for the first
time the real meaning of Jeremiah's "seventy years,"
"set his face unto the Lord God, to seek prayer and
supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes." The LXX. and Theodotion, with a later ritual bias, make the fasting
a means towards the prayer: εὑρεῖν προσευχὴν καὶ ἔλεος ἐν νηστείαις.
His prayer is thus given:—
It falls into three strophes of equal length, and is
"all alive and aglow with a pure fire of genuine repentance,
humbly assured faith, and most intense petition." Ewald, p. 278. The first part (vv. 4-14) is mainly occupied with confessions
and acknowledgment of God's justice; the last part (vv. 15-19)
with entreaty for pardon: confessio (vv. 4-14); consolatio (vv. 15-19)
(Melancthon). Besides the parallels which follow, it has phrases from
Baruch.
Verse.
Verse.
Verse.
4
7
32
—
5
7
33, 34
i. 11
6
7
32, 33
—
7
6, 7
32, 33
i. 15-17
8
6, 7
33
—
9
—
17
—
13
—
—
ii. 7
14
15
33
—
15
—
10
ii. 11
18
—
—
ii. 19
19
—
—
ii. 15
In the first division of the prayer (vv. 4-10) Daniel
In the second part (vv. 11-14) he sees in these
transgressions the fulfilment of "the curse and the
oath" written in the Law of Moses, with special reference
to ix. 13 (Heb.). Comp.
The third section (vv. 15-19) appeals to God by
His past mercies and deliverances to turn away His
wrath and to pity the reproach of His people. Daniel
entreats Jehovah to hear his prayer, to make His face
shine on His desolated sanctuary, and to behold the
horrible condition of His people and of His holy city.
Not for their sakes is He asked to show His great
compassion, but because His Name is called upon His
city and His people. Comp.
Such is the prayer; and while Daniel was still
speaking, praying, confessing his own and Israel's
sins, and interceding before Jehovah for the holy
mountain—yea, even during the utterance of his
prayer—the Gabriel of his former vision came speeding
to him in full flight ix. 21. LXX., τάχει φερόμενος; Theodot., πετόμενος; Vulg., cito
volans; A.V. and R.V., "being made to fly swiftly"; R.V. marg., "being
sore wearied"; A.V. marg., "with weariness"; Von Lengerke, "being
caused to hasten with haste." The verb elsewhere always connotes
weariness. If that be the meaning here, it must refer to Daniel. If
it here means "flying," it is the only passage in the Old Testament
where angels fly; but see In the time of the historic Daniel, as in the brief three and a
half years of Antiochus, the tamîd had ceased. ix. 23. Heb., eesh hamudôth; Vulg., vir desideriorum, "a man of
desires"; Theodot., ἀνὴρ ἐπιθυμιῶν. Comp. x. 11, 19, and
1. Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people, and
upon thy holy city Daniel used Shabuîm for weeks, not Shabuôth.
(α) to finish (or "restrain") the transgression;
(β) to make an end of (or "seal up," Theodot.
σφραγίσαι) sins; In ver. 24 the Q'rî and Kethîbh vary, as do also the versions.
(γ) to make reconciliation for (or "to purge away") iniquity;
(δ) to bring in everlasting righteousness;
(ε) to seal up vision and prophet (Heb., nābî; LXX., προφήτην); and
(ζ) to anoint the Most Holy (or "a Most Holy Place"; LXX., εὐφρᾶναι ἅγιον ἁγίων).
2. From the decree to restore Jerusalem unto the
Anointed One (or "the Messiah"), the Prince, shall be
seven weeks. For sixty-two weeks Jerusalem shall be
built again with street and moat, though in troublous
times. For charoots, "moat" (Ewald), the A.V. has "wall," and in the
marg. "breach" or "ditch." The word occurs for "ditches" in the
Talmud. The text of the verse is uncertain.
3. After these sixty-two weeks—
(α) an Anointed One shall be cut off, and shall have Perhaps because neither Jason nor Menelaus (being apostate)
were regarded as genuine successors of Onias III.
(β) the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;
(γ) his end and the end shall be with a flood, and war, and desolation;
(δ) for one week this alien prince shall make a covenant with many;
(ε) for half of that week he shall cause the sacrifice and burnt offering to cease;
(ζ) and upon the wing of abominations [shall come] one that maketh desolate;
(η) and unto the destined consummation [wrath] shall be poured out upon a desolate one (?) (or "the horrible one").
Much is uncertain in the text, and much in the translation; but the general outline of the declaration is clear in many of the chief particulars, so far as they are capable of historic verification. Instead of being a mystical prophecy which floated purely in the air, and in which a week stands (as Keil supposes) for unknown, heavenly, and symbolic periods—in which case no real information would have been vouchsafed—we are expressly told that it was intended to give the seer a definite, and even a minutely detailed, indication of the course of events.
Let us now take the revelation which is sent to the perplexed mourner step by step.
1. Seventy weeks are to elapse before any perfect
deliverance is to come. We are nowhere expressly
told that year-weeks are meant, but this is implied
The precise meaning attached in the writer's mind
to the events which are to mark the close of the four
hundred and ninety years—namely, (α) the ending of
transgression; (β) the sealing up of sins; (γ) the atonement
for iniquity; (δ) the bringing in of everlasting
righteousness; and (ε) the sealing up of the vision and
prophet (or prophecy Comp. See
But (ζ) another event, which would mark the close of the seventy year-weeks, was to be "the anointing of a Most Holy."
What does this mean?
Theodotion and the ancient translators render it
"a Holy of Holies." But throughout the whole Old For the anointing of the altar see
In that verse some propose the rendering, "to sanctify, as most holy, Aaron and his sons for ever"; but both the A.V. and the R.V. render it, "Aaron was separated that he should sanctify the most holy things, he and his sons for ever." If there be a doubt as to the rendering, it is perverse to adopt the one which makes the usage differ from that of every other passage in Holy Writ.
Now the phrase "most holy" is most frequently
applied to the great altar of sacrifice. It is only used thirteen times of the Debhîr, or Holiest Place.
2. But in the more detailed explanation which follows, the seventy year-weeks are divided into 7 + 62 + 1.
(α) At the end of the first seven week-years (after
forty-nine years) Jerusalem should be restored, and
there should be "an Anointed, a Prince." Theodot., ἕως χριστοῦ ἡγουμένου.
Some ancient Jewish commentators, followed by
many eminent and learned moderns, Saadia the Gaon, Rashi, Von Lengerke, Hitzig, Schürer, Cornill.
Others, however, both ancient (like Eusebius) and
modern (like Grätz), prefer to explain the term of
the anointed Jewish high priest, Joshua, the son of
Jozadak. For the term "Anointed" is given to the
high priest in
(β) After this restoration of Temple and priest, sixty-two
weeks (i.e., four hundred and thirty-four years) are to
elapse, during which Jerusalem is indeed to exist "with
street and trench"—but in the straitness of the times. We see from
This, too, is clear and easy of comprehension. It
exactly corresponds with the depressed condition of
Jewish life during the Persian and early Grecian
epochs, from the restoration of the Temple, b.c. 538, to
b.c. 171, when the false high priest Menelaus robbed
the Temple of its best treasures. This is indeed, so
far as accurate chronology is concerned, an unverifiable
period, for it only gives us three hundred and sixty-seven
years instead of four hundred and thirty-four:—but
of that I will speak later on. The punctuation of
the original is disputed. Theodotion, the Vulgate, and
our A.V. punctuate in ver. 25, "From the going forth of
the commandment" ("decree" or "word") "that Jerusalem
3. After the sixty-two weeks is to follow a series of events, and all these point quite distinctly to the epoch of Antiochus Epiphanes.
(α) Ver. 26.—An Anointed One LXX., ἀποσταθήσεται χρίσμα καὶ οὐκ ἔσται; Theodot., ἐξολεθρευθήσεται
χρίσμα καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν αὐτῷ; Aquil., ἐξ. ἠλειμμένος καὶ οὐχ ὑπάρξει αὐτῷ.
There can be no reasonable doubt that this is a
reference to the deposition of the high priest Onias III.,
and his murder by Andronicus (b.c. 171). See xi. 22. Von Lengerke, however, and others refer it to
Seleucus Philopator, murdered by Heliodorus (b.c. 175). Syr. Aquil., οὐχ ὑπάρξει αὐτῷ; Theodot., καὶ οὔκ ἐστιν ἐν αῦτῳ;
LXX., καὶ οὐκ ἔσται; Vulg., "Et non erit ejus populus qui eum negaturus
est." The A.V. "and not for himself" is untenable. It would have
been וְלֹא לוֹ. See Pusey, p. 182, n. Steudel, Hofmann. So too Cornill, p. 10: "Ein frommer Jude
das Hoher Priesterthum mit Onias für erloschen ansah." Comp. ואין לו and חניו (Joël, Notizen, p. 21).
(β) The people of the coming prince shall devastate the city and the sanctuary (translation uncertain).
This is an obvious allusion to the destruction and
massacre inflicted on Jerusalem by Apollonius and the
army of Antiochus Epiphanes (b.c. 167). Antiochus is
called "the prince that shall come," because he was at
Rome when Onias III. was murdered (b.c. 171). Jos., Antt., XII. v. 4;
(γ) "And until the end shall be a war, a sentence of desolation" (Hitzig, etc.); or, as Ewald renders it, "Until the end of the war is the decision concerning the horrible thing."
This alludes to the troubles of Jerusalem until the heaven-sent Nemesis fell on the profane enemy of the saints in the miserable death of Antiochus in Persia.
(δ) But meanwhile he will have concluded a covenant
with many for one week. Here again the meaning is uncertain; and Grätz, altering the
reading, thinks that it should be, "He shall abolish the covenant
[with God] for the many"; or, "shall cause the many to transgress
the covenant."
In any case, whatever be the exact reading or
rendering, this seems to be an allusion to the fact
that Antiochus was confirmed in his perversity and led
on to extremes in the enforcement of his attempt to
Hellenise the Jews and to abolish their national religion
by the existence of a large party of flagrant apostates.
These were headed by their godless and usurping high
(ε) For the half of this week (i.e., for three and a half
years) the king abolished the sacrifice and the oblation
or meat offering.
This alludes to the suppression of the most distinctive ordinances of Jewish worship, and the general defilement of the Temple after the setting up of the heathen altar. The reckoning seems to be from the edict promulgated some months before December, 168, to December, 165, when Judas the Maccabee reconsecrated the Temple.
(ζ) The sentence which follows is surrounded with every kind of uncertainty.
The R.V. renders it, "And upon the wing [or, pinnacle] of abominations shall come [or, be] one that maketh desolate."
The A.V. has, "And for the overspreading of abominations"
(or marg., "with the abominable armies") "he
shall make it desolate." The special allusion, whatever it may precisely mean, is found
under three different designations: (i) In viii. 13 it is called happeshang shomeem; Gk., ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., peccatum desolationis.
(ii) In ix. 27 (comp. ix. 31) it is shiqqootsîm m'shomeem; Gk.,
βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., abominatio desolationis. (iii) In xii. 11
it is shiqqoots shomeem; Gk., τὸ βδέλυγμα ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., abominatio
in desolationem. Some traditional fact must (as Dr. Joël says)
have underlain the rendering "of desolation" for "of the desolator."
In xi. 31 Theodotion has ἠφανισμένων, "of things done away with,"
for ἐρημωσέων. The expression with which the New Testament has
made us so familiar is found also in
It is from the LXX. that we derive the famous
expression, "abomination of desolation," referred to by
St. Matthew (xxiv. 15: cf.
Other translations are as follows:—
Gesenius: "Desolation comes upon the horrible wing of a rebel's host."
Ewald: "And above will be the horrible wing of abominations."
Wieseler: "And a desolation shall arise against the wing of abominations."
Von Lengerke, Hengstenberg, Pusey: "And over the
edge [or, pinnacle Comp. πτερύγιον (
Kranichfeld and Keil: "And a destroyer comes on the wings of idolatrous abominations."
Kuenen, followed by others, boldly alters the text
from ve'al k'naph, "and upon the wing," into ve'al kannô,
"and instead thereof." Kuenen, Hist. Crit. Onderzook., ii. 472.
"And instead thereof" (i.e., in the place of the sacrifice and meat offering) "there shall be abominations."
It is needless to weary the reader with further attempts
at translation; but however uncertain may be the exact
reading or rendering, few modern commentators doubt
that the allusion is to the smaller heathen altar built by
Antiochus above (i.e., on the summit) of the "Most
Holy"—i.e., the great altar of burnt sacrifice—overshadowing
it like "a wing" (kanaph), and causing
desolations or abominations (shiqqootsîm). That this
interpretation is the correct one can hardly be doubted
in the light of the clearer references to "the abomination
that maketh desolate" in xi. 31 and xii. 11. In
favour of this we have the almost contemporary interpretation
of the Book of Maccabees. The author of
that history directly applies the phrase "the abomination
of desolation" to the idol altar set up by Antiochus
(
(η) Lastly, the terrible drama shall end by an outpouring of wrath, and a sentence of judgment on "the desolation" (R.V.) or "the desolate" (A.V.).
This can only refer to the ultimate judgment with which Antiochus is menaced.
It will be seen then that, despite all uncertainties in the text, in the translation, and in the details, we have in these verses an unmistakably clear foreshadowing of the same persecuting king, and the same disastrous events, with which the mind of the writer is so predominantly haunted, and which are still more clearly indicated in the subsequent chapter.
Is it necessary, after an inquiry inevitably tedious,
and of little or no apparently spiritual profit or significance,
to enter further into the intolerably and interminably
perplexed and voluminous discussions as to
the beginning, the ending, and the exactitude of the
seventy weeks? Any one who thinks the inquiry likely to lead to any better
results than those here indicated has only to wade through Zöckler's
comment in Lange's Bibelwerk ("Ezekiel and Daniel," i. 186-221). It
is hard to conceive any reading more intolerably wearisome; and at the
close it leaves the reader in a state of more hopeless confusion than
before. The discussion also occupies many pages of Pusey (pp. 162-231);
but neither in his hypothesis nor any other are the dates exact.
He can only say, "It were not of any account if we could not interpret
these minor details. De minimis non curat lex." On the view that
the seventy weeks were to end with the advent of Christ we ask:
(1) Why do no two Christian interpreters agree about the interpretation?
(2) Why did not the Apostles and Evangelists refer to so
decisive an evidence?
I cannot think that the least advantage can be derived from doing so.
For scarcely any two leading commentators agree
as to details;—or even as to any fixed principles by On this, however, we may remark with Cornill, "Eine Apokalypse,
deren ἀποκαλύψεις unenthülbar sind, wäre ein nonsens, eine contradictio
in adjecto" (Die Siebzig Jahrwochen, p. 3). The indication was
obviously meant to be understood, and to the contemporaries of the
writer, familiar with the minuter facts of the day, it probably was
perfectly clear.
There is not even an initial agreement—or even the data as to an agreement—whether the "years" to be counted are solar years of three hundred and forty-three days, or lunar years, or "mystic" years, or Sabbath years of forty-nine years, or "indefinite" years; or where they are to begin and end, or in what fashion they are to be divided. All is chaos in the existing commentaries.
As for any received or authorised interpretation, there
not only is none, but never has been. The Jewish
interpreters differ from one another as widely as the
Christian. Even in the days of the Fathers, the early
exegetes were so hopelessly at sea in their methods "Scio de hac quæstione ab eruditissimis viris varie disputatum
et unumquemque pro captu ingenii sui dixisse quod senserat" (Jer.
in Dan., ix.). In other words, there was not only no received interpretation
in St. Jerome's day, but the comments of the Fathers were
even then a chaos of arbitrary guesses.
The attempt to refer the prophecy of the seventy
weeks primarily or directly to the coming and death
of Christ, or the desolation of the Temple by Titus,
can only be supported by immense manipulations, and
by hypotheses so crudely impossible that they would
have made the prophecy practically meaningless both
to Daniel and to any subsequent reader. The hopelessness
of this attempt of the so-called "orthodox"
interpreters is proved by their own fundamental disagreements. Pusey makes out a table of the divergent interpretation of the
commentators, whom, in his usual ecclesiastical fashion, he charitably
classes together as "unbelievers," from Corrodi and Eichhorn down
to Herzfeld. But quite as striking a table of divergencies might
be drawn up of "orthodox" commentators.
Of course it is open to any reader to adopt the view of Keil and others, that the prophecy is Messianic, but only typically and generally so.
On the other hand, it may be objected that the
Antiochian hypothesis breaks down, because—though it Thus Eusebius, without a shadow of any pretence at argument
makes the last week mean seventy years! (Dem. Evan., viii.).
But to those who are guided in their exegesis, not by unnatural inventions, but by the great guiding principles of history and literature, this consideration presents no difficulty. Any exact accuracy of chronology would have been far more surprising in a writes of the Maccabean era than round numbers and vague computations. Precise computation is nowhere prevalent in the sacred books. The object of those books always is the conveyance of eternal, moral, and spiritual instruction. To such purely mundane and secondary matters as close reckoning of dates the Jewish writers show themselves manifestly indifferent. It is possible that, if we were able to ascertain the data which lay before the writer, his calculations might seem less divergent from exact numbers than they now appear. More than this we cannot affirm.
What was the date from which the writer calculated
his seventy weeks? Was it from the date of Jeremiah's
first prophecy (xxv. 12), b.c. 605? or his second
prophecy (xxix. 10), eleven years later, b.c. 594? or
from the destruction of the first Temple, b.c. 586? or,
as some Jews thought, from the first year of "Darius
the Mede"? or from the decree of Artaxerxes in
As to the terminus ad quem, it is open to any commentator to say that the prediction may point to many subsequent and analogous fulfilments; but no competent and serious reader who judges of these chapters by the chapters themselves and by their own repeated indications, can have one moment's hesitation in the conclusion that the writer is thinking mainly of the defilement of the Temple in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, and its reconsecration (in round numbers) three and a half years later by Judas Maccabæus (December 25th, b.c. 164).
It is true that from b.c. 588 to b.c. 164 only gives
us four hundred and twenty-four years, instead of four
hundred and ninety years. How is this to be accounted
for? Ewald supposes the loss of some passage in the
text which would have explained the discrepancy; and
that the text is in a somewhat chaotic condition is
proved by its inherent philological difficulties, and by
the appearance which it assumes in the Septuagint.
The first seven weeks indeed, or forty-nine years,
approximately correspond to the time between b.c. 588
(the destruction of the Temple) and b.c. 536 (the decree
of Cyrus); but the following sixty-two weeks should
Not one single suggestion has ever accounted for it,
or has ever given exactitude to these computations on
any tenable hypothesis. Jost (Gesch. d. Judenthums, i. 99) contents himself with speaking
of "die Liebe zu prophetischer Auffassung der Vergangenheit, mit
möglichst genauen Zahlenagaben, befriedigt, die uns leider nicht mehr
verständlich erscheinen."
But Schürer has shown that exactly similar mistakes of reckoning are made even by so learned and industrious an historian as Josephus.
1. Thus in his Jewish War (VI. iv. 8) he says that there were six hundred and thirty-nine years between the second year of Cyrus and the destruction of the Temple by Titus (a.d. 70). Here is an error of more than thirty years.
2. In his Antiquities (XX. x.) he says that there were four hundred and thirty-four years between the Return from the Captivity (b.c. 536) and the reign of Antiochus Eupator (b.c. 164-162). Here is an error of more than sixty years.
3. In Antt., XIII. xi. 1, he reckons four hundred and eighty-one years between the Return from the Captivity and the time of Aristobulus (b.c. 105-104). Here is an error of some fifty years.
Again, the Jewish Hellenist Demetrius In Clem. Alex., Strom., i. 21. Cornill, p. 14; Bevan, p. 54. Schürer, Hist. of Jewish People, iii. 53, 54 (E. Tr.). This is also
the view of Graf, Nöldeke, Cornill, and many others. In any case we
must not be misled into an impossible style of exegesis of which Bleck
says that "bei ihr alles möglich ist und alles für erlaubt gilt."
And, for the rest, we must say with Grotius, "Modicum nec prætor curat, nec propheta."
The remaining section of the Book of Daniel forms but one vision, of which this chapter is the Introduction or Prologue.
Daniel is here spoken of in the third person.
It is dated in the third year of Cyrus (b.c. 535). The LXX. date it in "the first year of Cyrus," perhaps an intentional
alteration (i. 21). We see from Ezra, Nehemiah, and the latest
of the Minor Prophets that there was scarcely even an attempt to
restore the ruined walls of Jerusalem before b.c. 444.
In this chapter, as in the two preceding, there are great difficulties and uncertainties about the exact significance of some of the verses, and textual emendations have been suggested. The readers of the Expositor's Bible would not, however, be interested in minute and dreary philological disquisitions, which have not the smallest moral significance, and lead to no certain result. The difficulties affect points of no doctrinal importance, and the greatest scholars have been unable to arrive at any agreement respecting them. Such difficulties will, therefore, merely be mentioned, and I shall content myself with furnishing what appears to be the best authenticated opinion.
The first and second verses are rendered partly by
Ewald and partly by other scholars, "Truth is the
revelation, and distress is great; Lit. "great warfare." It will be seen that the A.V. and R.V.
and other renderings vary widely from this; but nothing very important
depends on the variations. Instead of taking the verbs as
imperatives addressed to the reader, Hitzig renders, "He heeded the
word, and gave heed to the vision."
Daniel had been mourning for three full weeks, Lit. "weeks of days" ( "Bread of desires" is the opposite of "bread of affliction" in
Comp. He fasted from Abib 3 to 24. The festival of the New Moon
might prevent him from fasting on Abib 1, 2. Hiddekel ("the rushing") occurs only in For the girdle see Heb., eben tarshish ( Theodot., τὰ σκέλη; LXX., οἱ πόδες ( This description of the vision follows Rashi guesses that they were Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Comp.
At this great spectacle his strength departed, and Comp. Lit. "shook" or "caused me to tremble upon my knees and the
palms of my hand." x. 11. LXX., ἄνθρωπος ἐλεεινὸς εἶ; Tert., De Jejun., 7, "homo es
miserabilis" (sc., "jejunando"). The protecting genius of Persia ( Michael, "who is like God" ( Heb., nôthartî. "I came off victorious," or "obtained the precedence"
(Luther, Gesenius, etc.); "I was delayed" (Hitzig); "I was
superfluous" (Ewald); "Was left over" (Zöckler); "I remained"
(A.V.); "Was not needed" (R.V. marg.). The LXX. and Theodoret
seem to follow another text. LXX., "with the army of the king of the Persians." Again the text and rendering are uncertain.
Once more Daniel was terrified, remained silent, and fixed his eyes on the ground, until one like the sons of men touched his lips, and then he spoke to apologise for his timidity and faintheartedness.
A third time the vision touched, strengthened, blessed him, and bade him be strong. "Knowest thou," the angel asked, "why I am come to thee? I must return to fight against the Prince of Persia, and while I am gone the Prince of Greece [Javan] will come. I will, however, tell thee what is announced in the writing of truth, the book of the decrees of heaven, though there is no one to help me against these hostile princes of Persia and Javan, except Michael your prince."
The difficulties of the chapter are, as we have said, of a kind that the expositor cannot easily remove. I have given what appears to be the general sense. The questions which the vision raises bear on matters of angelology, as to which all is purposely left vague and indeterminate, or which lie in a sphere wholly beyond our cognisance.
It may first be asked whether the splendid angel
of the opening vision is also the being in the similitude
of a man who thrice touches, encourages, and strengthens
Daniel. It is perhaps simplest to suppose that this is
the case, So Hitzig and Ewald. The view that they are distinct persons
is taken by Zöckler, Von Lengerke, etc. Other guesses are that the
"man clothed in linen" is the angel who called Gabriel (viii. 16); or
Michael; or "the angel of the Covenant" (Vitringa); or Christ; or
"he who letteth" (ὁ κατέχων,
The general conception of the archangels as princes
of the nations, and as contending with each other,
belongs to the later developments of Hebrew opinion on
such subjects. Thus in the LXX. (Dent, xxxii. 8) we read of angels of the nations. See too
Ewald regards the two last verses of the chapter as
a sort of soliloquy of the angel Gabriel with himself.
He is pressed for time. His coming has already been
delayed by the opposition of the guardian-power of
the destinies of Persia. If Michael, the great archangel
of the Hebrews, had not come to his aid, and (so
to speak) for a time relieved guard, he would have
been unable to come. But even the respite leaves him
anxious. He seems to feel it almost necessary that he
should at once return to contend against the Prince of
Persia, and against a new adversary, the Prince of
Javan, who is on his way to do mischief. Yet on the
whole he will stay and enlighten Daniel before he takes
his flight, although there is no one but Michael who
aids him against these menacing princes. It is difficult
to know whether this is meant to be ideal or real—whether
it represents a struggle of angels against
demons, or is merely meant for a sort of parable which
represents the to-and-fro conflicting impulses which
sway the destinies of earthly kingdoms. In any case
"Pone hæc dici de Antiocho, quid nocet religioni nostræ?"—Hieron. ed. Vallars, v. 722.
If this chapter were indeed the utterance of a prophet
in the Babylonian Exile, nearly four hundred years
before the events—events of which many are of small
comparative importance in the world's history—which
are here so enigmatically and yet so minutely depicted,
the revelation would be the most unique and perplexing
in the whole Scriptures. It would represent a
sudden and total departure from every method of God's
providence and of God's manifestation of His will to the
minds of the prophets. It would stand absolutely and
abnormally alone as an abandonment of the limitations
of all else which has ever been foretold. And it would
then be still more surprising that such a reversal of the
entire economy of prophecy should not only be so
widely separated in tone from the high moral and
spiritual lessons which it was the special glory of
prophecy to inculcate, but should come to us entirely
devoid of those decisive credentials which could alone
suffice to command our conviction of its genuineness
and authenticity. "We find in this chapter," says Mr.
Bevan, "a complete survey of the history from the
beginning of the Persian period down to the time of Daniel, p. 162. On this chapter see Smend, Zeitschr. für Alttest. Wissenschaft,
v. 241.
There is here an unfortunate division of the chapters.
The first verse of chap. xi. clearly belongs to the last
verses of chap. x. It seems to furnish the reason
why Gabriel could rely on the help of Michael, and
therefore may delay for a few moments his return
to the scene of conflict with the Prince of Persia
and the coming King of Javan. Michael will for that
brief period undertake the sole responsibility of maintaining
the struggle, because Gabriel has put him
under a direct obligation by special assistance which he
rendered to him only a little while previously in the
first year of the Median Darius. Ewald, Prophets, v. 293 (E. Tr.).
The announcement occupies five sections.
First Section (xi. 2-9).—Events from the rise of Doubtless the three mentioned in Heb., Hakkôl—lit. "the all." There were probably Jews in his
army (
There were of course many more than four kings of
Persia Zöckler met the difficulty by calling the number four "symbolic,"
a method as easy as it is profoundly unsatisfactory.
b.c. | |
Cyrus | 536 |
Cambyses | 529 |
Pseudo-Smerdis | 522 |
Darius Hystaspis | 521 |
Xerxes I. | 485 |
Artaxerxes I. (Longimanus) | 464 |
Xerxes II. | 425 |
Sogdianus | 425 |
Darius Nothus | 424 |
Artaxerxes II. (Mnemon) | 405 |
Artaxerxes III. | 359 |
Darius Codomannus | 336 |
But probably the writer had no historic sources to
which to refer, and only four Persian kings are prominent
in Scripture—Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, and
Artaxerxes. Darius Codomannus is indeed mentioned
in Herod., iii. 96, iv. 27-29.
Ver. 3 (b.c. 336-323).—Then shall rise a mighty
king (Alexander the Great), and shall rule with great
dominion, and do according to his will. "Fortunam
solus omnium mortalium in potestate habuit," says his
historian, Quintus Curtius. Q. Curt., X. v. 35.
Ver. 4 (b.c. 323).—But when he is at the apparent
zenith of his strength his kingdom shall be broken,
and shall not descend to any of his posterity, See Grote, xii. 133. Alexander had a natural son, Herakles, and
a posthumous son, Alexander, by Roxana. Both were murdered—the
former by Polysperchon. See Diod. Sic., xix. 105, xx. 28;
Pausan., ix. 7; Justin, xv. 2; Appian, Syr., c. 51.
Ver. 5.—Of these four kingdoms and their kings
the vision is only concerned with two—the kings of
the South The King of the Negeb (comp. See Stade, Gesch., ii. 276. Seleucus Nicator was deemed so important
as to give his name to the Seleucid æra (
b.c. 306.—The King of the South (Ptolemy Soter, son of Lagos) shall be strong, and shall ultimately assume the title of Ptolemy I., King of Egypt.
But one of his princes or generals (Seleucus Nicator)
shall be stronger, Diod. Sic., xix. 55-58; Appian, Syr., c. 52. He ruled from Phrygia
to the Indus, and was the most powerful of the Diadochi. The word
one is not expressed in the Hebrew: "but as for one of his captains."
There may be some corruption of the text. Seleucus can scarcely
be regarded as a vassal of Ptolemy, but of Alexander.
Ver. 6 (b.c. 250).—The vision then passes over the
reign of Antiochus II. (Soter), and proceeds to say
that "at the end of years" (i.e., some half-century later,
b.c. 250) the kings of the North and South should form
a matrimonial alliance. The daughter of the King of
the South—the Egyptian Princess Berenice, daughter
of Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus), should come to the King
of the North (Antiochus Theos) to make an agreement.
This agreement (marg., "equitable conditions")
was that Antiochus Theos should divorce his wife
and half-sister Laodice, and disinherit her children,
and bequeath the throne to any future child of Berenice,
who would thus unite the empires of the Ptolemies
and the Seleucidæ. Appian, Syr., c. 55; Polyænus, viii. 50; Justin, xxvii. 1. See Herzberg,
Gesch. v. Hellas u. Rom., i. 576. Dates are not certain. Jer., ad loc. ( The rendering is much disputed, and some versions, punctuating
differently, have, "his seed [i.e., his daughter] shall not stand." Every
clause of the passage has received varying interpretations.
Ver. 7 (b.c. 285-247).—But the murder of Berenice
shall be well avenged. For "out of a shoot from her
roots" stood up one in his office, even her brother
Ptolemy III. (Euergetes), who, unlike the effeminate
Ptolemy II., did not entrust his wars to his generals,
but came himself to his army. He shall completely
conquer the King of the North (Seleucus II., Kallinikos,
son of Antiochus Theos and Laodice), shall seize his
fortress (Seleucia, the port of Antioch). Polyb., v. 58.
Ver. 8 (b.c. 247).—In this campaign Ptolemy Euergetes,
who earned the title of "Benefactor" by this vigorous
invasion, shall not only win immense booty—four
thousand talents of gold and many jewels, and forty
thousand talents of silver—but shall also carry back
with him to Egypt the two thousand five hundred
molten images, Heb., nasîkîm; LXX., τὰ χωνευτά; Vulg., sculptilia. Herodotus (iii. 47) says that he ordered the images to be burnt.
On the Marmor Adulitanum, Ptolemy Euergetes boasted that he
had united Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Persia, Susiana, Media, and all countries as far as Bactria under his rule. The inscription was seen
at Adules by Cosmas Indicopleustes, and recorded by him (Wolf u.
Buttmann, Museum, ii. 162).
After this success he will, for some years, refrain
from attacking the Seleucid kings. R.V. marg., "He shall continue more years than the King of
the North." Ptolemy Euergetes died b.c. 247; Seleucus Kallinikos,
b.c. 225. It must be borne in mind that in almost every clause the
readings, renderings, and interpolations vary. I give what seem to
be the best attested and the most probable.
Ver. 9 (b.c. 240).—Seleucus Kallinikos makes an
attempt to avenge the shame and loss of the invasion
of Syria by invading Egypt, but he returns to his
own land totally foiled and defeated, for his fleet was
destroyed by a storm. Justin, xxvii. 2.
Second Section (vv. 10-19).—Events from the death of Ptolemy Euergetes (b.c. 247) to the death of Antiochus III. (the Great, b.c. 175). In the following verses, as Behrmann observes, there is a sort of dance of shadows, only fully intelligible to the initiated.
Ver. 10.—The sons of Seleucus Kallinikos were Seleucus III. (Keraunos, b.c. 227-224) and Antiochus the Great (b.c. 224-187). Keraunos only reigned two years, and in b.c. 224 his brother Antiochus III. succeeded him. Both kings assembled immense forces to avenge the insult of the Egyptian invasion, the defeat of their father, and the retention of their port and fortress of Seleucia. It was only sixteen miles from Antioch, and being still garrisoned by Egyptians, constituted a standing danger and insult to their capital city.
Ver. 11.—After twenty-seven years the port of
Seleucia is wrested from the Egyptians by Antiochus
the Great, and he so completely reverses the former
Ver. 12 (b.c. 217).—But at last the young Egyptian
King, Ptolemy IV. (Philopator), is roused from his
dissipation and effeminacy, advances to Raphia (southwest
of Gaza) with a great army of twenty thousand
foot, five thousand horse, and seventy-three elephants,
and there, to his own immense self-exaltation, he inflicts
a severe defeat on Antiochus, and "casts down tens of
thousands." See Justin says (xxx. i): "Spoliasset regem Antiochum si fortunam
virtute juvisset."
Ver. 13.—Twelve years later (b.c. 205) Ptolemy Philopator died, leaving an infant son, Ptolemy Epiphanes. Antiochus, smarting from his defeat at Raphia, again assembled an army which was still greater than before (b.c. 203), and much war-material. In the intervening years he had won great victories in the East as far as India.
Ver. 14.—Antiochus shall be aided by the fact that
many—including his ally Philip, King of Macedon,
and various rebel-subjects of Ptolemy Epiphanes—stood
up against the King of Egypt and wrested Phœnicia
and Southern Syria from him. The Syrians were
further strengthened by the assistance of the "children
of the violent" among the Jews, "who shall lift themselves Chāzôn, "the vision." Grätz renders it, "to cause the Law to
totter"; but this cannot be right. E.g., Joseph, and his son Hyrcanus.
Vv. 15, 16.—But however much any of the Jews
may have helped Antiochus under the hope of ultimately
regaining their independence, their hopes were
frustrated. The Syrian King came, besieged, and took
a well-fenced city—perhaps an allusion to the fact that
he wrested Sidon from the Egyptians. After his great
victory over the Egyptian general Scopas at Mount
Panium (b.c. 198), the routed Egyptian forces, to the
number of ten thousand, flung themselves into that
city. Polyb., xxviii. 1; Liv., xxxiii. 19; Jos., Antt., XII. iii. 4. See
St. Jerome, ad loc. Vulg., terra inclyta; but in viii. 9, fortitudo.
Ver. 17 (b.c. 198-195).—After this there shall again be an attempt at "equitable negotiations"; by which, however, Antiochus hoped to get final possession of Egypt and destroy it. He arranged a marriage between "a daughter of women"—his daughter Cleopatra—and Ptolemy Epiphanes. But this attempt also entirely failed.
Ver. 18 (b.c. 190).—Antiochus therefore "sets his face In the choice of the Hebrew words qatsîn cher'patho lo, Dr. Joël
suspects a sort of anagram of Cornelius Scipio, like the ἀπὸ μέλιτος
for Ptolemy, and the ἵον Ἥρας for Arsione in Lycophron; but the real
meaning and rendering of the verse are highly uncertain.
Ver. 19 (b.c. 175).—Antiochus next turns his attention ("sets his face") to strengthen the fortresses of his own land in the east and west; but making an attempt to recruit his dissipated wealth by the plunder of the Temple of Belus in Elymais, "stumbles and falls, and is not found."
Third Section (vv. 20-27).—Events under Seleucus Philopator down to the first attempts of Antiochus Epiphanes against Egypt (b.c. 170).
Ver. 20.—Seleucus Philopator (b.c. 187-176) had a
character the reverse of his father's. He was no restless
seeker for glory, but desired wealth and quietness. Liv., xii. 19: "Otiosum, nullisque admodum rebus gestis nobilitatum." Joël, Notizen, p. 16. See Jost, i. 110.
Ver. 21.—Seleucus Philopator died b.c. 175 without
an heir. This made room for a contemptible person,
a reprobate, who had no real claim to royal dignity, Vulg., vilissimus et indignus decore regio; R.V., "to whom they
had not given the honour of a kingdom"; Ewald, "upon him shall
not be set the splendour of a kingdom." Dr. Joël sees in nibzeh
a contemptuous paronomasia on "Epiphanes" (Notizen, p. 17).
Ver. 22.—Yet "the overflowing wings of Egypt" (or
"the arms of a flood") "were swept away before him
and broken; yea, and even a covenanted or allied prince."
Some explain this of his nephew Ptolemy Philometor,
others of Onias III., "the prince of the covenant"—i.e.,
the princely high priest, whom Antiochus displaced
in favour of his brother, the apostate Joshua, who
Græcised his name into Jason, as his brother Onias
did in calling himself Menelaus. Jos., Antt., XII. v. 1.
Ver. 23.—This mean king should prosper by deceit Jerome, amicitias simulans.
Ver. 24.—"In time of security shall he come, even upon
the fattest places of the province." By this may be
meant his invasions of Galilee and Lower Egypt. Acting
unlike any of his royal predecessors, he shall lavishly
scatter his gains and his booty among needy followers, See
Ver. 25.—After this (b.c. 171) he shall, with a "great army," seriously undertake his first invasion of Egypt, and shall be met by his nephew Ptolemy Philometor with another immense army. In spite of this, the young Egyptian King shall fail through the treachery of his own courtiers. He shall be outwitted and treacherously undermined by his uncle Antiochus. Yes! even while his army is fighting, and many are being slain, the very men who "eat of his dainties," even his favourite and trusted courtiers Eulæus and Lenæus, will be devising his ruin, and his army shall be swept away.
Vv. 26, 27 (b.c. 174).—The Syrians and the Egyptian
King, nephew and uncle, shall in nominal amity sit at
one banquet, eating from one table; Liv., xliv. 19: "Antiochus per honestam speciem majoris Ptolemæi
reducendi in regnum," etc. Or "Paunch." He was so called from his corpulence. Comp. the
name Mirabeau, Tonneau.
Fourth Section (vv. 28-35).—Events between the first attack of Antiochus on Jerusalem (b.c. 170) and his plunder of the Temple to the first revolt of the Maccabees (b.c. 167).
Ver. 28 (b.c. 168).—Returning from Egypt with great
plunder, Antiochus shall set himself against the Holy
Covenant. He put down the usurping high priest Jason,
who, with much slaughter, had driven out his rival
usurper and brother, Menelaus. He massacred many
Jews, and returned to Antioch enriched with golden
vessels seized from the Temple.
Ver. 29.—In b.c. 168 Antiochus again invaded Egypt,
but with none of the former splendid results. For
Ptolemy Philometor and Physkon had joined in sending
an embassy to Rome to ask for help and protection.
In consequence of this, "ships from Kittim" The LXX. render this ἥξουσι Ῥωμαῖοι. Comp. Polyb., xxix. 11; Appian, Syr., 66; Liv., xlv. 12; Vell. Paterc.,
i. 10. According to Polybius (xxxi. 5), Epiphanes, by his crafty dissimulation,
afterwards completely hoodwinked the ambassador Tiberius
Gracchus.
Ver. 30.—Returning from Egypt in an indignant frame of mind, he turned his exasperation against the Jews and the Holy Covenant, especially extending his approval to those who apostatised from it.
Ver. 31.—Then (b.c. 168) shall come the climax of
horror. Antiochus shall send troops to the Holy Land,
who shall desecrate the sanctuary and fortress of the
Temple, and abolish the daily sacrifice (Kisleu 15), and
set up the abomination that maketh desolate.
Ver. 32.—To carry out these ends the better, and with the express purpose of putting an end to the Jewish religion, he shall pervert or "make profane" by flatteries the renegades who are ready to apostatise from the faith of their fathers. But there shall be a faithful remnant who will bravely resist him to the uttermost. "The people who know their God will be valiant, and do great deeds."
Ver. 33.—To keep alive the national faith "wise teachers of the people shall instruct many," and will draw upon their own heads the fury of persecution, so that many shall fall by sword, and by flame, and by captivity, and by spoliation for many days.
Ver. 34.—But in the midst of this fierce onslaught
of cruelty they shall be "holpen with a little help."
There shall arise the sect of the Chasidîm, or "the
Pious," bound together by Tugendbund to maintain the
Laws which Israel received from Moses of old.
Ver. 35.—To purge the party from such spies and Laodiceans, the teachers, like the aged priest Mattathias at Modin, and the aged scribe Eleazar, will have to brave even martyrdom itself till the time of the end.
Fifth Section (vv. 36-45, b.c. 147-164).—Events from the beginning of the Maccabean rising to the death of Antiochus Epiphanes.
Ver. 36.—Antiochus will grow more arbitrary, more
insolent, more blasphemous, from day to day, calling
himself "God" (Theos) on his coins, and requiring all
his subjects to be of his religion, Diod. Sic, xxxi. 1;
Ver. 37.—He will, in fact, make himself his own god,
paying no regard (by comparison) to his national or
local god, the Olympian Zeus, nor to the Syrian deity,
Tammuz-Adonis, "the desire of women." Jahn (Heb. Com., § xcii.) sees in the words "neither shall he
regard the desire of women" an allusion to his exclusion of women
from the festival at Daphne. Some explain the passage by his
robbery of the Temple of Artemis or Aphrodite in Elymais (Polyb.,
xxxi. 11; Appian, Syr., 66;
Ver. 38.—The only God to whom he shall pay marked
respect shall be the Roman Jupiter, the god of the
Capitol. To this god, to Jupiter Capitolinus, not to
his own Zeus Olympios, the god of his Greek fathers,
he shall erect a temple in his capital city of Antioch,
and adorn it with gold and silver and precious stones. Polyb., xxvi. 10;
Ver. 39.—"And he shall deal with the strongest fortresses
by the help of a strange god" R.V. The translation is difficult and uncertain.
Ver. 40.—But his evil career shall be cut short. Egypt, under the now-allied brothers Philometor and Physkon, shall unite to thrust at him. Antiochus will advance against them like a whirlwind, with many chariots and horsemen, and with the aid of a fleet.
Vv. 41-45.—In the course of his march he shall pass The LXX. here render this expression (which puzzled them, and
which they omit in vv. 16, 41) by θέλησις. Theodot., τὴν γῆν τοῦ
Σαβαείμ. Ewald takes these for metaphoric designations of the Hellenising
Jews. Some (e.g., Zöckler) understand these verses as a recapitulation
of the exploits of Antiochus. The whole clause is surrounded by
historic uncertainties.
How far these events correspond to historic realities is uncertain. Jerome says that Antiochus invaded Egypt a third time in b.c. 165, the eleventh year of his reign; but there are no historic traces of such an invasion, and most certainly Antiochus towards the close of his reign, instead of being enriched with vast Egyptian spoils, was struggling with chronic lack of means. Some therefore suppose that the writer composed and published his enigmatic sketch of these events before the close of the reign of Antiochus, and that he is here passing from contemporary fact into a region of ideal anticipations which were never actually fulfilled.
Ver. 43 (b.c. 165).—In the midst of this devastating
invasion of Egypt, Antiochus shall be troubled with
disquieting rumours of troubles in Palestine and other
realms of his kingdom. He will set out with utter fury
to subjugate and to destroy, determining above all to
suppress the heroic Maccabean revolt which had inflicted
such humiliating disasters upon his generals,
Seron, Apollonius, and Lysias. The origin of the name Maccabee still remains uncertain. Some make it stand for the initials of the Hebrew words, "Who among the
gods is like Jehovah?" in
Ver. 45 (b.c. 164).—He shall indeed advance so far
as to pitch his palatial tent Vulg., Aphadno. The LXX. omit it. Theodot., Apadano;
Symm., "his stable." Porphyry says that "he pitched his tent in a place called
Apedno, between the Tigris and Euphrates"; but even if these
rivers should be called seas, they have nothing to do with the Holy
Mountain. Apedno seems to be a mere guess from the word אפדן,
"palace" or "tent," in this verse. See
These latter events either do not correspond with the
actual history, or cannot be verified. So far as we
know Antiochus did not invade Egypt at all after
b.c. 168. Still less did he advance from Egypt, or
pitch his tent anywhere near Mount Zion. Nor did he
die in Palestine, but in Persia (b.c. 165). The writer,
indeed, strong in faith, anticipated, and rightly, that
Antiochus would come to an ignominious and a sudden
end—God shooting at him with a swift arrow, so that
he should be wounded. But all accurate details seem
suddenly to stop short with the doings in the fourth
section, which may refer to the strange conduct of
Antiochus in his great festival in honour of Jupiter at
Daphne. Had the writer published his book after this
date, he could not surely have failed to speak with
triumphant gratitude and exultation of the heroic stand
made by Judas Maccabæus and the splendid victories
We find notices of Antiochus in the Books of Maccabees,
in Josephus, in St. Jerome's Commentary on
Daniel, and in Appian's Syriaca. We should know
more of him and be better able to explain some of the
allusions in this chapter if the writings of the secular
historians had not come down to us in so fragmentary
a condition. The relevant portions of Callinicus Sutoricus,
Diodorus Siculus, Polybius, Posidonius, Claudius,
Theon, Andronicus, Alypius, and others are all lost—except
a few fragments which we have at second or
third hand. Porphyry introduced quotations from these
authors into the twelfth book of his Arguments against
the Christians; but we only know his book from Jerome's
ex-parte quotations. Other Christian treatises, written
in answer to Porphyry by Apollinaris, Eusebius, and
Methodius, are only preserved in a few sentences by
Nicetas and John of Damascus. The loss of Porphyry
and Apollinarius is especially to be regretted. Jerome
says that it was the extraordinarily minute correspondence
of this chapter of Daniel with the history of
Antiochus Epiphanes that led Porphyry to the conviction
that it only contained vaticinia ex eventu. Jahn, § xcv.
Antiochus died at Tabæ in Paratacæne on the frontiers
of Persia and Babylonia about b.c. 163. The
Jewish account of his remorseful deathbed may be read
in
The twelfth chapter of the Book of Daniel serves as a general epilogue to the Book, and is as little free from difficulties in the interpretation of the details as are the other apocalyptic chapters.
The keynote, however, to their right understanding must be given in the words "At that time," with which the first verse opens. The words can only mean "the time" spoken of at the end of the last chapter, the days of that final effort of Antiochus against the holy people which ended in his miserable death.
"At that time," then—i.e., about the year b.c. 163—the guardian archangel of Israel, "Michael, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people," shall stand up for their deliverance.
But this deliverance should resemble many similar
crises in its general characteristics. It should not be
immediate. On the contrary, it should be preceded by
days of unparalleled disorder and catastrophe—"a time
of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation
even to that same time." We may, for instance, compare
with this the similar prophecy of Jeremiah (xxx. 4-11):
"And these are the words which the Lord spake concerning
Israel and concerning Judah. For thus saith
the Lord; We have heard a voice of trembling, of
fear, and not of peace.... Alas! for that day is great, See too
The general conception is so common as even to have found expression in proverbs,—such as, "The night is darkest just before the dawn"; and, "When the tale of bricks is doubled, Moses comes." Some shadow of similar individual and historic experiences is found also among the Greeks and Romans. It lies in the expression θεὸς ἀπὸ μηχανῆς, and also in the lines of Horace,—
We find the same expectation in the apocryphal
Book of Enoch, Enoch xc. 16. Comp.
"Behold, a day of the Lord cometh, when thy spoil
shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather
all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city
shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women
ravished; and half of the people shall go forth into
captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be
cut off from the city. Then shall the Lord go forth,
and fight against those nations, as when He fought
in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that
day upon the Mount of Olives.... And it shall come
to pass in that day, that the light shall not be light,
but cold and ice: Such is the reading of the LXX., Vulgate, Peshitta, Symmachus, etc.
The anticipation of the saintly writer in the days
of the early Maccabean uprising, while all the visible
issues were still uncertain, and hopes as yet unaccomplished
could only be read by the eyes of faith, were
doubtless of a similar character. When he wrote
Antiochus was already concentrating his powers to
advance with the utmost wrath and fury against the
Holy City. Humanly speaking, it was certain that
the holy people could oppose no adequate resistance
to his overwhelming forces, in which he would doubtless
be able to enlist contingents from many allied nations.
What could ensue but immeasurable calamity to the
great majority? Michael indeed, their prince, should
do his utmost for them; but it would not be in his
Nevertheless, they should not be given up to utter or to final destruction. As in the days of the Assyrians the name Shear-jashub, which Isaiah gave to one of his young sons, was a sign that "a remnant should be left," so now the seer is assured that "thy people shall be delivered"—at any rate "every one that shall be found written in the book."
"Written in the book"—for all true Israelites had
ever believed that a book of record, a book of remembrance,
lies ever open before the throne of God, in
which are inscribed the names of God's faithful ones;
as well as that awful book in which are written the evil
deeds of men. Comp. vii. 10: "And the books were opened."
In the next verse the seer is told that "many of
them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting
abhorrence." "Many sleepers in the land of dust" seems to mean the dead.
Comp.
It is easy to glide with insincere confidence over the difficulties of this verse, but they are many.
We should naturally connect it with what goes
before as a reference to "that time"; and if so, it
would seem as though—perhaps with reminiscences
of the concluding prophecy of Isaiah It is certain that the doctrine of the Resurrection acquired more
clearness in the minds of the Jews at and after the period of the
Exile; nor is there anything derogatory to the workings of the
Spirit of God which lighteth every man, in the view which supposes
that they may have learnt something on this subject from the Babylonians
and Assyrians. See the testimonies of St. Peter and St. Paul
as to some degree of Ethnic inspiration in See Theodoret says that "many" means "all," as in
To them that be wise—to "the teacher," Lit. "those that justify the multitude." Comp.
But there is a further indication that the writer
expected this final consummation to take place immediately
after the troubles of the Antiochian assault; for
he describes the angel Gabriel as bidding Daniel "to
seal the Book even to the time of the end." Now
as it is clear that the Book was, on any hypothesis,
meant for the special consolation of the persecuted
Jews under the cruel sway of the Seleucid King, and
that then first could the Book be understood, the
writer evidently looked for the fulfilment of his last
prophecies at the termination of these troubles. This
meaning is a little obscured by the rendering, "many
shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."
Ewald, Maurer, and Hitzig take the verse, which
literally implies movement hither and thither, in the
sense, "many shall peruse the Book." Comp. He refers to
The angel here ceases to speak, and Daniel, looking
round him, becomes aware of the presence of
two other celestial beings, one of whom stood on
either bank of the river. Jerome guesses that they are the angels of Persia and Greece.
The word הַיְאר lit. "the canal," is often used of the Nile. The LXX. reads καὶ εἷπα, "and I said," making Daniel the
speaker (so too the Vulgate); but the form of the passage is so
closely analogous to viii. 13, as to leave no doubt that here too "one
saint is speaking to another saint."
The question how long these marvels were to last,
and at what period the promised deliverance should
be accomplished, was one which would naturally have
the intensest interest to those Jews who—in the agonies Comp.
The "time, two times, and half a time" of course
means three years and a half, as in vii. 25. There can
be little doubt that their commencement is the terminus
a quo which is expressly mentioned in ver. 11: "the
time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away."
We have already had occasion to see that three years,
with a margin which seems to have been variously
computed, does roughly correspond to the continuance
of that total desecration of the Temple, and extinction
of the most characteristic rites of Judaism, which preceded
Unhappily the reading, rendering, and interpretation
of the next clause of the angel's oath are obscure and
uncertain. It is rendered in the R.V., "and when
they have made an end of breaking in pieces the power
of the holy people, all these things shall be finished."
As to the exact translation many scholars differ. Von
Lengerke translates it, "and when the scattering of
a part of the holy people should come to an end, all
this should be ended." The Septuagint Version is
wholly unintelligible. Mr. Bevan suggests an alteration
of the text which would imply that, "when the
power of the shatterer of the holy people [i.e., Antiochus]
should come to an end, all these things should
be ended." This no doubt would not only give a very
clear sense, but also one which would be identical with
the prophecy of vii. 25, that "they [the times and the
law] shall be given unto his hand until a time and
times and half a time." Those who can rest content with such exegesis may explain this
to imply that "the reign of antichrist will be divided into three
periods—the first long, the second longer, the third shortest of all,"
just as the seventy weeks of chap. ix. are composed of 7 × 62 × 1. By way of comment see
The writer, in the person of Daniel, is perplexed by
the angel's oath, and yearns for further enlightenment
and certitude. He makes an appeal to the vision with לֵךְ is encouraging, as in ver. 13.
"Many," continued the angel, "shall purify themselves,
and make themselves white, and be refined;
but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the
wicked shall understand; the teachers shall understand." Comp.
The verse describes the deep divisions which should
be cleft among the Jews by the intrigues and persecutions
of Antiochus. Many would cling to their ancient
and sacred institutions, and purified by pain, purged
from all dross of worldliness and hypocrisy in the fires
of affliction, like gold in the furnace, would form the new
parties of the Chasidîm and the Anavîm, "the pious"
and "the poor." They would be such men as the good
high priest Onias, Mattathias of Modin and his glorious
sons, the scribe Eleazar, and the seven dauntless
martyrs, sons of the holy woman who unflinchingly
watched their agonies and encouraged them to die
rather than to apostatise. But the wicked would continue
to be void of all understanding, and would go
"And from the time that the continual burnt offering shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days."
If we suppose the year to consist of twelve months
of thirty days, then (with the insertion of one intercalary
month of thirty days) twelve hundred and ninety days
is exactly three and a half years. We are, however,
faced by the difficulty that the time from the desecration
of the Temple till its reconsecration by Judas Maccabæus
seems to have been exactly three years; The small heathen altar to Zeus was built by Antiochus upon the
great altar of burnt offering on Kisleu 15, b.c. 168. The revolt of
Mattathias and his seven sons began b.c. 167. Judas the Maccabee
defeated the Syrian generals Apollonius, Seron, and Gorgias b.c. 166,
and Lysias at Beth-sur in b.c. 165. He cleansed and rededicated the
Temple on Kisleu 25, b.c. 165.
Our difficulties are increased by the next clause: "Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days."
All that we can conjecture from this is that, at the The "time, times, and a half." The 1,290 days, 1,335 days and
the 1,150 days, and the 2,300 days of viii. 14 all agree in indicating
three years with a shorter or longer fraction. It will be observed
that in each case there is a certain reticence or vagueness as to the
terminus ad quem. It is interesting to note that in
Reams of conjecture and dubious history and imaginative
chronology have been expended upon the effort
to give any interpretation of these precise data which
can pretend to the dignity of firm or scientific exegesis.
Some, for instance, like Keil, regard the numbers as
symbolical, which is equivalent to the admission that
they have little or no bearing on literal history; others
suppose that they are conjectural, having been penned
before the actual termination of the Seleucid troubles.
Others regard them as only intended to represent round
numbers. Others again attempt to give them historic
accuracy by various manipulations of the dates and
events in and after the reign of Antiochus. Others
relegate the entire vision to periods separated from the
Maccabean age by hundreds of years, or even into the
remotest future. And none of these commentators, by
their researches and combinations, have succeeded in
establishing the smallest approach to conviction in the
minds of those who take the other views. There can
b.c. | |
Jehoiakim | 608-597 |
Zedekiah | 597-588 |
Jerusalem taken | 588 |
Death of Nebuchadrezzar | 561 |
Evil-merodach | 561 |
Neriglissar | 559 |
Laborosoarchod | 555 |
Nabunaid | 555 |
Capture of Babylon | 538 |
Decree of Cyrus | 536 |
Cambyses | 529 |
Darius, son of Hystaspes | 521 |
Dedication of the Second Temple | 516 |
Battle of Salamis | 480 |
Ezra | 458 |
Nehemiah | 444 |
Nehemiah's reforms | 428 |
Malachi | 420 |
Alexander the Great invades Persia | 334 |
Battle of Granicus | 334 |
Battle of Issus | 333 |
Battle of Arbela | 331 |
Death of Darius Codomannus | 330 |
Death of Alexander | 323 |
Ptolemy Soter captures Jerusalem | 320 |
Simon the Just high priest | 310 |
Beginning of Septuagint translation | 284 |
Antiochus the Great conquers Palestine | (?) 202 |
b.c | ||
Accession of Antiochus Epiphanes | 176 | |
Joshua (Jason), brother of Onias III., gets the priesthood by bribery, and promotes Hellenism among the Jews | 174 | |
First expedition of Antiochus against Egypt.—Murder of Onias III | 171 | |
His second expedition | (?) 170 | |
His plunder of the Temple and massacre at Jerusalem | 170 | |
Third expedition of Antiochus | 169 | |
Apollonius, the general of Antiochus,
advances against Jerusalem with an
army of 22,000.—Massacre.—The
|
169-8 | |
Desecration of the Temple.—Jews compelled to pay public honour to false gods.—Faithfulness of scribes and Chasidîm.—Revolt of Maccabees | 167 | |
Jewish war of independence.—Death of the priest Mattathias.—Judas Maccabæus defeats Lysias | 166 | |
Battles of Beth-zur and Emmaus.—Purification of Temple (Kisleu 25) | 165 | |
Death of Antiochus Epiphanes | 163 | |
Judas Maccabæus dies in battle at Eleasa | 161 |
Seleucus Nicator, b.c. 312-280. Ptolemy Soter (Dan. xi. 5 ). | | Antiochus I. (Soter), Ptolemy Philadelphus. b.c. 280. | | | +------+----------------+ +-----------+------+ | | | | Laodice==Antiochus II. (Theos)==Berenice. Ptolemy Euergetes, | b.c. 260-246. | b.c. 285-247 | | (Dan. xi. 7 ,8 ). | An infant, murdered | +-----+-----------+ by Laodice. | | | Ptolemy Philopator, Seleucus II. Antiochus. b.c. 222-205 (Kallinikos), (Dan. xi. 10-12 ). d. b.c. 226. | | | +--+------------------+ | | | | Seleucus III. Antiochus III. ("the Great"), | (Keraunos). b.c. 224 (Dan. xi. 10-12 ,14 ). | | | +-------------------+------------------+ | | | | | Seleucus Antiochus IV. Cleopatra==Ptolemy Epiphanes, Philopator. (Epiphanes), b.c. 175. | b.c. 205-181 | | | (Dan. xi. 14 ). | | +------+-----------------+ Demetrius. Antiochus V., | | b.c. 164. Ptolemy Philometor, Ptolemy b.c. 181-146 (Dan. xi. 25-30 ). Euergetes II.
For a fuller list and further identifications see Driver, pp. 461, 462, and supra. For the genealogical table see Mr. Deane (Bishop Ellicott's Commentary, v. 402).
Genesis
1:5 2:14 6:2 10:3 10:4 14:1 14:1 14:22 19:22 20:3 20:5-7 24:7 24:7 24:26 27:25 32:30 37:36 37:36 39:21 40 41 41 41:1 41:8 41:8 41:42 41:45 41:45
Exodus
1:12 5:2 6:8 7:4 7:11 7:11 15:11 15:20 17:16 18:11 20:6 23:20 28:2 29:36 29:41 32:13 33:20 34:15
Leviticus
4:3 8:11 19:16 25:2 25:4 26:14 26:15-31 26:18 26:34
Numbers
Deuteronomy
4:28 6:22 7:21 9:27 12:15 12:16 16:3 18:10 18:10 21:13 28:50 32:8 32:24 32:40 33:2 36:1
Joshua
5:13-15 5:14 7:24 100 100 100 100
Judges
4:4 5:13 5:23 13:18 14:12 20:6
Ruth
1 Samuel
1:26 2:8 10:5 13:12 17:17 17:18 18:10
2 Samuel
1 Kings
4:31 8:38-48 8:44 8:50 8:54 13:2 13:6 15:13 18:33 22:19
2 Kings
3:15 5:16 9:11 10:27 18:17 23:34 24:1 24:1 24:2 24:14-16 25:8 25:8 25:11 25:27 25:27 25:27
1 Chronicles
3:1 23:13 25:1 25:2 25:3 26:30
2 Chronicles
6:13 32:13-17 35:17 35:18 35:21 36:6 36:6 36:7 36:7 36:15 36:16 36:21 36:22
Ezra
1:2 1:5 3:2 4:5-7 4:7 4:7 4:7 4:7 4:7 5:1 5:14 5:14 6:1 6:1-12 6:2 6:11 7:1 7:12 7:12 7:21 8:2 8:2 8:2 8:36 9 9:5
Nehemiah
1:1 1:1 1:3 1:5 2:1 2:1-9 2:1-9 8:4 8:6 9 9:5 10:6 10:6 10:7 10:34 12:22 12:22 12:22 12:22 13:24
Esther
1:1 1:2 1:3 1:3 1:4 1:19 2:3 2:7 3:2 3:7 3:12 4:14 5:1 6:1 6:8 6:9 7:7 8:10 9:13 9:14
Job
1:6 1:6 5:1 7:6 9:12 12:22 15:15 38:7 38:16 38:17
Psalms
1:4 5:7 16:12 22:29 29:1 33:4 34:7-10 36:9 44:16 45:9 50:2 50:3 55:15 55:18 57:4 58:6 69:23 69:28 74:9 74:9 74:13 75:5 78:12-16 82 89:6 89:6 89:7 104:4 106:24 106:46 112:9 123:1 135:6 145:13
Proverbs
4:18 4:19 10:2 11:4 16:18 26:20
Ecclesiastes
Isaiah
2:2 5:7 5:26 5:26-29 6:2 6:5 6:11 7:6 8:7 8:18 10:5 10:8 10:10 10:25 10:33 13:4 13:17 13:17 14:4 14:9 17:12 19 21:2 21:2 22:13 23:13 24:21 24:21 25:8 26:9 27:1 27:1 30:4 30:6 30:7 30:26 36:4 36:20 39:6 39:7 39:7 40:26 41:2 41:15 43:2 43:2 43:2 43:3 43:13 44:9-20 44:25 44:25 44:26 45:1 45:23 46:2 46:3 46:6 47:9 47:12 47:13 49:23 49:23 50:11 52:11 52:15 53:11 54:17 58:8 60:7 60:14 60:14 63:11-16 66:24 66:24
Jeremiah
1:11 1:12 3:19 4:7 4:13 7:19 10:9 10:11 10:11 22:18 22:19 23:6 23:18 23:40 25 25:8-11 25:11 25:11 25:12 25:12 25:26 26:1-19 27 27:6 27:7 27:7 27:8 27:20 29:10 29:10 29:10 29:11 29:22 29:22 29:22 29:26 31:20 31:27 32:11 32:14 32:17-23 32:19 32:44 36:1 36:6-10 36:29 39:3 39:3 39:9 41:1 43:10 46:2 46:25 50:2 50:5 50:8 51 51:1 51:9 51:11 51:11 51:11-28 51:28 51:28 51:28-57 51:33 51:39 51:44 52:28-30 52:29 52:31
Lamentations
2:15 3:53 3:53 3:55-57 4:7 4:7 4:19 4:19
Ezekiel
1:1 1:16 1:16-24 1:21 1:26 1:26 2:1 4:6 4:13 4:14 7:17 8:16 9:2 12:13 12:13 16:7 17:2 17:3 17:12 20:5 20:6 20:6 20:6 23:14 23:15 23:15 26:7 26:7 28:1-10 29:3 29:3 29:3 29:17 31:2-15 31:3-18 31:3-18 34:17 37:1-4 37:9 37:9 37:21 40:1 43:2
Daniel
1 1 1:1 1:2 1:3 1:5 1:8 1:11 2 2 2:1 2:1 2:5 2:18 2:30 2:38 2:38 2:45 2:48 3:4-6 3:7 3:8 3:16 3:29 4:3 4:4 4:5 4:14 4:14 4:34 5:1 5:2 5:2 5:2 5:11 5:11 5:11 5:18 5:22 5:22 5:28 5:28 5:29 5:31 5:31 6:2 6:4 6:6 6:6-9 6:11 6:28 7 7 7 7 7 7 7:5 7:7 7:8 7:8 7:12 7:12 7:16 7:17 7:20 7:21 7:22 7:22 7:23 7:24 7:25 7:26 7:27 8:9 8:10 8:11 8:11-13 8:13 8:14 8:15 8:18 8:22 8:24 8:25 9 9 9:1 9:2 9:2 9:2 9:2 9:4-19 9:6 9:10 9:27 10:1-18 11 11:5 11:6 11:6 11:7 11:8 11:8 11:10-12 11:10-12 11:12 11:14 11:14 11:21 11:21 11:22 11:23-24 11:25-30 11:28 11:29 11:30 11:30 11:30-35 11:31 11:31 11:33-35 11:34 11:34 11:35 11:44 12:2 12:2 12:3 12:4-9
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Micah
Habakkuk
Haggai
Zechariah
1:9 1:12 1:12 1:12 1:12 1:13 1:18 1:18 1:19 2:5-17 2:6-10 2:6-13 2:8 3:1 3:2 3:2 4:10 7:14 9:9 10:3 14:1-7 14:5 14:5
Malachi
Matthew
4:5 6:1 11:25 13:42 13:43 16:13 18:19 19:29 21:42-44 24:6 24:7 24:15 24:15 24:15 24:21 24:22 24:22 24:51 26:64
Mark
5:3 5:7 6:26 7:19 11:25 13:14 13:14 14:62
Luke
2:13 2:25 2:26 2:38 4:25 8:28 9:32 15:25 18:11 21:20 24:44
John
Acts
1:7 7:56 7:60 9:4 9:7 10:14 10:34 10:35 12:11 12:20-23 12:22 12:23 13:21 14:11 14:12 14:14 14:15 15:29 16:13 16:17 17:26 17:26 17:27 28:23
Romans
1 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
1 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
Titus
Hebrews
James
1 Peter
Jude
Revelation
1:7 1:13 1:13-15 1:15 2:14 2:20 2:28 10:5 10:6 11:2 11:3 12 12:7 12:14 12:14 13:1 13:2 13:5 14:6 16:14 18:2 20:11 20:12-15 20:14 22:10 22:11
Tobit
Judith
Wisdom of Solomon
Baruch
1:11 1:11 1:12 1:12 1:15 2:1 2:27-35 4:7
1 Maccabees
1:1-3 1:3 1:9 1:10 1:10-15 1:17-20 1:19 1:20-24 1:21 1:21-24 1:23 1:24-30 1:24-30 1:25 1:29-40 1:29-40 1:39 1:41 1:41-53 1:42 1:43 1:45 1:47-51 1:51 1:54 1:56 1:62 1:62 1:62-64 1:63 1:64 2:41-64 2:42 2:59 2:59 2:60 2:60 2:60 3:29-37 3:30 4:41-56 4:42-58 4:45 4:46 4:46 4:46 4:54 5 5:15 5:16 6 6:1-4 6:1-16 6:1-16 6:1-16 6:7 6:8 6:8 6:8-16 7:25-50 14:41
2 Maccabees
1:16 2:13 2:13 2:14 2:14 2:18 3 3:7 3:13 3:24-40 3:31 4:1 4:9-15 4:9-15 4:34 5:5-21 5:11 5:11-14 5:16 5:18 5:21 5:24-26 5:25 5:27 5:27 5:27 6:1-9 6:2 6:2 6:18-31 6:18-31 8 9 9 9 9:2 9:4-28 9:9 9:10 10:1-5 14:6 15:20-35
1 Esdras
2 Esdras
5:20 6:6 6:7 13:41-45 14:22-48
3 Maccabees
Sirach
iii ix x xi xii 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334