Daniel 2
DANIEL FIRST BECOMES DISTINGUISHED (vs. 1-49)
“And in the second year
of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar
Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was
troubled,
and his sleep brake from him.” The versions only differ verbally from the
Massoretic text as represented by the above. The Septuagint
renders “And
in
the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, he chanced to fall into
dreams and visions, and to be troubled with his vision, and his
sleep went
from him.” The differences here that may evidence a difference of text are
slight. Theodotion and the Peshitta are very close to the
Massoretic. The
Vulgate renders, “In the second year of the reign of
Nebuchadnezzar
Nebuchadnezzar saw a vision, and his spirit was troubled,
and his vision
(somnium) fled from him.”
If this is the true text of the Vulgate — and it is
pre-Clementine — the variation seems too great for paraphrase, and yet it
is
an unlikely lectional variation. It is easier to imagine the change taking
place in the Latin, somnus becoming somnium,
especially if the final m was
represented, as so often in Latin manuscripts, by a line over the
preceding
vowel. And
in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. This forms
one
of the chronological difficulties in the interpretation of Daniel. There
seems to be a contradiction between the statement in this verse
and the
chronological data afforded us by the preceding chapter. If
Nebuchadnezzar was already king when he placed Daniel and
his three
companions in the hands of “Ashpeuaz” and assigned them three years
of
study, then as the three years are by implication ended when the
examination took place (ch.1:18-19), the events narrated in this
chapter must be dated not earlier than the third year of
Nebuchadnezzar.
Most commentators recognize this as a difficulty, the
explaining of which is
incumbent on them, whatever their views as to the date or
authenticity of
the
book as a whole may be. A really great writer — and that title cannot
be
denied to the author of “Daniel,” if the book be a fiction — could never
fall into such a glaring self-contradiction. We do not deny that even very
great writers have been guilty of chronological
self-contradictions; but
these contradictions were such as were not obvious. The only commentator
who
does not feel it incumbent on him, having noticed the difficulty, to
give some hint of a possible solution, is Professor Bevan. From the
obviousness of the discrepancy, we must assume that it was known to
the
writer, and from this we must further assume that the discrepancy
was
regarded by him as a merely apparent one, the explanation of which
was so
obvious at the time he wrote that it was needless to state it. In
making this
statement, we refer to the original documents from which our present
Daniel was compiled. Another hypothesis certainly is
possible — that there
is
a false reading here. Ewald has suggested the twelfth year, which implies
that the word עְֶשרֵה, (esreh)
has been omitted. The main difficulty is that
there is no sign that there is any difference of reading. If we
are to correct
the
reading, we must go behind the present book to those documents from
which it has been formed. If this portion of Daniel is a
translation and a
condensation of an Aramaic text, then תַרְתִין (tar’teen) is “two,” but
“three” would be תְלָת (t’lath). When the ל loses
from any cause.its upper
part, it becomes little distinguishable from n; this renders it not
impossible
that in the original Aramaic narrative the events in this chapter were dated
“the third year of
Nebuchadnezzar,” not “the second.” This explanation
does not apply to the older form of script as seen in Sindschirli or in
There have been various other ways of getting over the
difficulty. One
device, that of Josephus (‘Antiq.,’ 10:10. 3), maintained also by
Jephet-ibn-
Ali, is to date the reign from the conquest of
supposed to reckon that Nebuchadnezzar began to reign over
the world.
The conquest of
Scripture, Jephet dates in the thirtieth year of
Nebuchadnezzar; the date of
this chapter, then, according to him, is the thirty-second
year of
Nebuchadnezzar. Rashi explains this date by referring it to
the destruction
of the temple. There is, however, nothing to indicate that
any of these dates
was ever reckoned of importance in Babylonian chronology.
And, however
important the destruction of the temple was to the Jews,
few of them, even
at the latest date criticism assigns to Daniel, would have
the hardihood to
date a monarch’s reign from this. Another solution is that
the second year
is reckoned from the time when these Jewish captives stood
before the
king. This would have implied a different reading, but, as
we have said, so
far as this clause is concerned, there is no variation.
Another suggestion
may be made, viz. that this appearance of Daniel before the
king is the
same as that mentioned in the previous chapter (1:18-20).
This
is Wieseler’s hypothesis. As a reign was not reckoned from
the date of
accession, but from the beginning of the year following,
Nebuchadnezzar’s
second year might well be the third year of the training of
those Hebrew
captives. The occasion of their appearance before the king
may not have
been that he took thought on the matter — a view which,
though that of
the Massoretic text, is not supported by the Septuagint —
but may have been
caused by this disquieting dream. On the supposition which
we have
suggested, that in ch. 1 we have a condensed version from
an Aramaic
original, this solution is plausible. The main difficulty,
that the quiet
communing implied in the nineteenth verse does not suit the
fury of the
king and the threatened death of the wise men, cannot be
pressed, as the
communing might follow the interpretation. It may seem to
some better to
maintain that the incidents of this chapter occurred some
little time after
Daniel and his three companions were admitted to the royal
council. The
band of captives and hostages, with the mass of the Babylonian
army,
arrived at
himself, who had hurried across the desert; still, a month
would probably
be the utmost of the difference. There might, therefore, be
many months to
run before the first year of Nebuchadnezzar actually began,
when these
captives were placed under the charge of the Melzar; so
that if our
suggestion of a various reading of “third” instead of
“second” be accepted,
the years would be over while the “third” year of Nebuchadnezzar
was still
proceeding. However, although many prisoners and hostages
may have
been sent along with the main army, after Nebuchadnezzar
]earned of the
death of his father, many may have been sent earlier, and
among these
Daniel. The main difficulty is to imagine the orders of
Nebuchadnezzar,
while merely crown prince, being carried out with such
exactness, or that
he should be spoken of as “my lord the king” (ch.1:10). But their
training must have begun during the lifetime of
Nabopolassar, if the three
years were completed while the second year of
Nebuchadnezzar was still
to finish. If we reject both these solutions, we are shut
up to the idea that
there is something amiss with the reading — always a thing
to be
deprecated — and the simplest emendation is to imagine that
the “third”
has been misread “second.” This, as we have shown, would be
easy in
Aramaic. On the assumption that the text before us is a
translation and
condensation of an Aramaic text, it is easy to understand
how all derivative
texts followed its initial mistake. There is a certain
importance here due to
the copula “and:” “And in the second year of
Nebuchadnezzar.” When any
one attempts to read this verse in connection with the last
verse of the first
chapter, it at once becomes clear that the twenty-first
verse of ch. 1. is an
interpolation. It is probable that the condensation, which
was likely to be
considerable in the first chapter, becomes less so now,
before passing from
the one portion to the other; hence either the translator or
some other
added the note which is contained in ch.1:21. Nebuchadnezzar
dreamed
dreams. The Greek versions and the Syriac of Paulus Tellensis
omit the name “Nebuchadnezzar,” either as nominative or as
genitive. The
Peshitta follows the order of the Massoretic text. The
omission does not
alter the sense; possibly the proper names thus came in
close juxtaposition
in the Massoretic in consequence of an endeavor to condense
by omission,
without making any further change. It would seem that the
Septuagint
had
read נִקְרָא (niq’ra) instead of חלם (halam).
The rendering is, “It
happened (συνέβη – sunebae - ) that the king fell into dreams and visions.”
This awkward sentence seems to be the result of a difficulty and
consequent
slavish following of the text before the translator; it is
difficult to imagine
what the reading could be which could be translated as it
is in the
Septuagint, and yet was not totally unlike the Massoretic
text. “Dreams
and visions” is the evident result of a coalescence of two
renderings of
חֲלמות (halomoth). It is to be observed
that it is “dreams” that
Nebuchadnezzar had, and yet only one “dream” is spoken of.
Kliefeth
thinks this refers merely to the class, so that “dreamed dreams’
is
equivalent to “was dreaming.” Agreeing with this is
Havernick. Jephet-ibn-
Ali take the plurality to refer to the contents of the
dream — that it refers
to the four world kingdoms and that of
a similar use of plural for singular, he refers to Genesis
37:8. Moses
Stuart thinks that it is implied that the dream was
repeated. It seems to be
somewhat of a mannerism of Daniel to use plural for
singular, as the
“visions of the
head” of ch. 4. Wherewith his spirit was troubled. The same
phrase occurs in regard to Pharaoh (Genesis 41:8), when he
had
dreamed of the seven kine and seven ears of corn. The
similarity of the
thing to be stated might easily lead to a similarity of
statement, without
there being any necessary copying. If, as we believe, this
portion of Daniel
had an Aramaic original, the resemblance in language to
Genesis proves
very little. In this case also the reading of the
Septuagint is different.
Instead of רוּחו
(ruho), “his spirit,”
the translators must have had בָחֲלום ;
ἐν τῷ ἐνυπνίῳ – en to enupnio
- dreamed; also instead of the feminine
תִּתְפַיִם (tith’pa’em), the reading must have been יִתְפַעֶם (yith’pa’em). Though
yod and tan are
not readily confused, nun and tan in the older
script are, and in
Eastern Aramaic nun is
the preformative of the third person imperfect, and a
change may have been made in translating from the Aramaic.
Professor
Fuller, following Saadia, makes too much of the fact that,
while in the
present case the conjugation used is the hithpael, in
Genesis it is niphal,
since the niphal conjugation occurs in ver. 3. Kranichfeld
holds that the
“hithpael heightens the idea lying in the niphal.” In
Biblical Aramaic
hithpael takes the place of the Hebrew niphal. And his sleep brake from
him. While the meaning
here is plain, the words are used in an unusual
sense; the word here translated “brake from” is the passive
of the verb “to
be,” in this precise sense only used here. The fact that
the substantive verb
in Eastern Aramaic has this significance (Nestle, ‘Gram.
Syr.,’ 100)
indicates that this is a case where the Syriac original
shines through the
translation. This is all the more obvious when we remember
that in Eastern
Aramaic n
(nun) was in the pre-formative.
Analogous to this is the Latin
use of the perfect of the substantive verb, e.g. funimus
Troes; compare
Romans 6:17, “God be thanked that ye were (η΅τε – aete – ye were) the servants
of sin.” As we have said, the meaning of this verse is
perfectly clear, and
although there are
differences of reading, there are none that affect the sense.
“In the second (or third) year of his reign, Nebuchaduezzar
had a dream.” To
us in the West, living in the 21st century after Christ, it
seems puerile
to date so carefully a dream, of all things; but in the
East, six hundred years
before Christ, dreams had a very different importance from
what they have
now. In the history of Asshur-baui-pal dreams play a great
part. Gyges
submits to him in consequence of a dream In consequence of
a dream
Urdamane (Nut-mi-ammon) invades
pal encouraged by dreams which appear to seers. It is
ignorance of
this that makes Hitzig declare, “The character of the king
as here
represented to us has no verisimilitude.” Although
Heredotus does make
dreams prominent in his history, we could not imagine any
of the diadochi
recording and dating his dreams as does Asshur-bani-pal.
A King Troubled with Bad Dreams (v. 1)
In accordance with the wide cosmopolitan interests with
which the Book
of Daniel is concerned, we are introduced thus early to the
troubles of the
Babylonian court. The most striking feature of the book — its apocalyptic
character — is
first shown in the dreams of a heathen king. Let us notice.
TROUBLED WITH BAD DREAMS. In the previous chapter we saw the
king triumphing over the Jews.
He is now only in the second year of
undivided supremacy. Yet the
first glimpse we have of his court reveals the
king in trouble.
Ø No prosperity of external circumstances can secure the peace
of mind
which is essential
to true happiness. Success in battle cannot ward off the
invasion of bad dreams. Wealth and
power cannot command the luxury of
sleep.
Ø
High rank is especially subject to restless anxiety. Scripture more
than
once refers to the sleeplessness
of great men (Esther 6:1;
Ecclesiastes 5:12; ch. 4:18). On the other hand, sleep is
regarded as a
boon (John 11:12), and a gift of
God to “His beloved” (Psalm 127:2).
DREAMS ARE MESSENGERS OF DIVINE REVELATION.
Nebuchadnezzar is the victorious
enemy of “the people of God,” who has
sacked the city of
carried the flower of the nation
captive, and entirely broken its ancient
independence; and now he reigns
over his vast domains as a cruel tyrant
(v. 5). With this man God opens
up mysterious communications.
Ø
Thus revelation is
not confined to prophets, nor to Jews, nor to good
men. God has not deserted the
heathen world. He has not deserted
bad men (Genesis 6:3).
Ø
Nevertheless, this
revelation is imperfect. It is in a dream — the lowest
form of revelation (Joel 2:28).
The dream is so shadowy that it is
forgotten on the king’s awaking.
The interpretation is beyond the power
of the dreamer. This lowest form of revelation vouchsafed to
a bad man is
dim, vague, perplexing, and troubling;
and the dreamer experiences it as a
passive subject. It needs the
higher revelation enjoyed by a true prophet
— a
good man in living active communion with God — to make it
intelligible and profitable. Thus there are scintillations of Divine light
in
the darkness of heathendom; but these do little more than make
the
darkness visible and increase
the terrors of its superstition. They call
for the interpretation of the fuller scriptural revelation
(Acts 17:28).
NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S DREAM, THIS ONLY GIVES HIM THE
GREATER TROUBLE. It is
plain that the king regarded this as a dream of
more than ordinary import (v.
2), and therefore it caused him sleepless
anxiety. His trouble would arise
from various sources; viz.:
Ø
The sense of mystery. The dream was gone.
When present it was
unintelligible. Thus a partial
revelation may often bring only trouble.
Perhaps if we knew more of the
unseen world we should only be able to
discern enough to fill us with
dismay.
Ø
The apprehension of future calamity. Possibly the king saw
enough to
recognize a portend of future
woe. It must be too often the case that a
revelation of the future will
bring only distress. We desire to pierce the
veil of futurity. It is by God’s mercy that it is impervious to our sight
(Matthew 6:34).
Ø
The timidity of an evil conscience. An evil conscience
peoples the
unseen world with terrors. The
Divine and the future are to it both
clouded with apprehension.
2 “Then the king commanded
to call the magicians, and the
astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to
show the
king his dreams. So they came and stood before the
king.” The
Septuagint renders, “And the king commended that the
magicians,
astrologers, and sorcerers of the Chaldeans be brought in
to tell the king
his dream. And they came and stood before the king.” The
difference is
slight verbally, but very important. Theodotion and the
Peshitta agree
closely with the Massoretic. The Vulgate renders mecashe-pheem,
“sorcerers,” malefici, “evil workers.” Then the king commanded to call the
magicians. The scene seems
to stand out before us — the king, excited and
sleepless, calling out to his attendants to summon to his
presence all the
wise men in the capital of his empire. The first that are
named are the
hartummeem. The name
is derived by Gesenius from חֶרֶט
(heret), “a
stylus,” and he supposes them to be sacred scribes. We find
the word in
Genesis 41:24. Although the order may have existed among
the
Egyptians, the name given to them here and in Exodus may
quite well have
a Semitic origin. The Tel-el-Amarna tablets show us how
well the language
of Assyria was known in
“est Abbild des Pharao und zugleich Vorbild des Antiochus
Epiphanes.” It
is a way critics have; they are always quite sure. It may
be observed that
both the Greek versions have for this word ἐπαοιδούς,– epasadous - those
who use incantations. The
Peshitta has harasha, primarily “one who is silent,”
then “one who mutters,”
then “one who sings an incantation.” Paulus Tellensis
has lehasha, “to whisper,” and then “to reheat a
charm” or “incautation.”
Jerome renders arioli,” foretellers.” While the
Peshitta interprets
hartummeem in Genesis
by the same word as that used here, in the
Septuagint the word in Genesis is ἐξηγητής – exaegaetaes – declarers;
tellers - instead
of ἐπαοίδος,
–
epaoidos – magicians - and Jerome uses
conjectores instead
of, as we have seen, arioli In
Exodus 7:11 harturameem
is
translated in the Septuagint ἐπαοιδοί – epaoidoi - magicians. Jerome
renders ipsi, as if the word had not been in his
text. if, then, the word
hartummeem stood in the text of
Daniel when the Greek versions were
made, there was an uncertainty as to the meaning to be
assigned to it in
etymology of the word hartummeem, and that derived
from the Greek
equivalent, is not great. The religion of the Chaldeans was
largely a system
of incantations that were preserved primarily in the
Accadian — a tongue
known only to the sacred scribes. Many of the formulae are
translated into
Assyrian — a language, by the time of Nebuchadnezzar,
practically as
much restricted to the scribes and learned class as the
Accadian. Hence
only a scribe could know the proper words to use in an
incantation, only he
could perpetuate and preserve them. It is difficult to know
on what ground
the translators of the Authorized Version selected the word
“magicians.”
The Geneva Bible rendered it “enchanters,” which is adopted
by the
Revisers. Luther is further afield in tendering sternsehers.
The name is
Assyrian, and apparently derived from harutu, “a
staff” (Norris, ‘Assyr.
Dict.’). This staff was possibly used, as the staff of the
Roman augur, to
mark off the regions of the heavens, or, it may be, to ward
off demons.
And the
astrologers. The Hebrew word used here is ashshapheem. “In
Assyrian the word asep or asipu is used in
the sense of diviner. The word
was actually borrowed by the Aramaic of Daniel under the
form of
ashshaph” (Sayce,
‘Hibbert Lecture,’ p. 51). It is supposed to mean “one
who uses enchantments.” It is not Hebrew, but really Syriac
or Eastern
Aramaic. In both Greek versions the equivalent is μάγοι – magoi – sorcerer;
magician ,
which Jerome follows. The
Peshitta reserves magoeha for the next
term. The assertion that
this word was really the Greek σοφοί – sophoi – wiseman -
is now abandoned. The Greek σ – s – sigma never rendered by שׁ – n – nu, which
represented a sound not present in Greek at all. The fact
that this non-Hellenic
sound is doubled makes it utterly impossible that this word could be brought over
from the Greek. It is impossible to assign to this word the precise shade of meaning
which belongs to it. There is
nothing to suggest “astrologers” in the root of the word.
And the sorcerers. The Hebrew here is mekash,hepheem.
Dr. Robertson Smith, as
quoted in Professor Bevan, suggests that the word is derived from
כשפ,
“to shred or cut to pieces,” hence
“to
prepare magical drugs.” This is in
agreement with the Greek versions, which render φαρμακοί –
pharmakoi
sorcerer; a user of drugs. The verb, however, is a Syrian one, and means
“to worship”. (Acts 4:31; Philippians 1:4) It occurs in the Hebrew of Exodus
7:11 along with hartummeem; in Deuteronomy 18:10, in a verse forbidding to the
Israelites the use of magical arts; in II Chronicles 33:6, in an account of
how Manasseh traversed that law. It may be noted that in
this last verse the
Peshitta renders
that we do not know the distinctions involved in these
different names. And
the Chaldeans.
The Hebrew word here is כַשְׂדִים (Kas’deern); both the
form Kassatu and Kaldu occur in inseriptions.
The meaning of this word
has caused great discussion, and its use in this chapter
for a class of
magicians has been held as a strong proof that the writer
of the book
before us lived long after the time in which he places the
events he
narrates. The use of “Chaldean” for “magician,”
“astrologer,” or
“soothsayer” in classic times is well known. The difficulty
here is that the
name “Chaldean” is used for a particular and limited class
in the nation, and
at the same time for that nation as a whole. This is not
necessarily
impossible. In
is
also the clan whose surname is Scott, or, as it was earlier spelt, “Scot.”
It would not show confusion or ignorance did a writer of
the fifteenth
century speak in one page of the Kers, the Hepburns, and
the Scots
(Scotts) as forming one army, and then in the next page
proceed to speak
of the whole army as the army of the Scots. His use of the
name in the one
case for the nation and the other for the clan, so far from
showing an
insufficient acquaintance with the constitution of
its affairs, really evidences the accuracy of the writer’s
knowledge. We
cannot conclude that the author therefore made a mistake in
speaking — if
he does so — of a class of the Babylonian magicians being
called Chaldeans
because the nation bore the same name. We certainly have as
yet found no
trace of such a usage, but the argumentum e silentio is
of strikingly little
value in regard to
bear in mind that the text of Daniel is in a very bad
state: it has been
subjected to various interpolations and alterations. It is,
therefore,
hazardous to rest any stress on single words. It is clear
the writer knew
perfectly well that the nation were called Chaldeans.
According to the
Massoretic text, ch. 5:30 asserts, “In that night
was Belshazzar
King of the
Chaldeans slain;” according to the
Septuagint version of the same
verse it is, “And the
kingdom was taken from the Chaldeans and given to
the Medea and
Persians.” If we are sure the writer did
make the Chaldeans
also a class of magicians, the probability is that he knew
what he was talking
about, and made no explanation because, as a contemporary,
he took for
granted everybody knew how this was. But is it absolutely
certain that the
writer of Daniel does make this assertion? It is true that
in the Massoretic
text the Kasdeem are represented as a class of
magians coordinate with the
hartummeem, ashshapheem,
and mekashepheem, but in the Septuagint we
find the word χαλδαίων - Chaldaion in the genitive. Consequently, the
sentence reads, “the
magicians and the astrologers and the sorcerers of the
Chaldeans.” If at the time the Massoretic recension was made the name
“Chaldean” had gained its later significance of “soothsayer,” one can easily
understand how natural it would be to insert the copulative before the
preposition.
The construction
of the sentence in the text before the translator of the Septuagint
Version is certainly irregular, but not unexampled. It is
not so easy to
imagine the Septuagint translator changing the nominative
plural into a
genitive, especially when, by the time the translation was
made, the usage
we have spoken of above was in full force. We may assume,
then, that in
the original text of Daniel the “Kasdeem” were not spoken
of, in this verse
at all events, as a class of magicians. As the clause
appears in the Septuagint
Nebuchadnezzar assembled all the magicians of his
nationality, the
Chaldeans as distinguished from the Babylonians. Perhaps he
had more
confidence in them. While the change we have suggested
would make only
the mekashshepheem connected with the Chaldeans, the
grammatical
structure of the verse has the aspect of a freer rendering
than that in
Theodotion’ hence it might quite well have been that the
original Hebrew
had the meaning represented by the Greek of the Septuagint.
Lenormant
sees in the four classes here an exact representation of
the four classes of
Babylonian soothsayers. We do not feel obliged to
maintain that all the
different classes should be called in on the occasion of
this dream. We do
not know precisely the characteristics that separated one
class from the
other, but it seems little likely that they all devoted
themselves to the
interpretation of dreams. There were other omens and
portents that had to
be explained. For
to show the king his dreams. The natural sense is that
represented by the Greek versions, “to tell the
king his dream.” The usual
reason for these officials being called was to declare to
the king the
interpretation of the dream; but here it was to declare the
dream itself. Yet
if they could foretell the future, could they not much more
easily tell what
had happened? They professed to know what was coming; they
could —
so Nebuchadnezzar might argue — readily enough reason back
from the
future they knew to the sign of the future, the dream which
had been given
to him. So they
came and stood before the king. We can imagine the long
ranks of the principal classes of Chaldean soothsayers
in
into the royal presence. All the soothsayers, we see, were
not summoned,
for Daniel and his friends were not, and they were not
singular, else the
writer would have given some reason for this omission. The
writer assumes
that his readers know so much about the habits of
Babylonian wise men
and their schools, as to be aware that certain individuals
might nominally
be summoned to the court; and yet it might be some time
before they were
summoned on any critical occasion. The absence of the four
Hebrews
might be explained in two ways: either only the Chaldean
magicians were
in this case summoned, and, as Daniel and his friends were
not Chaldeans,
they were omitted; or they were not summoned because their
training was
not yet complete.
3 “And the king said unto
them, I have dreamed a dream, and
my spirit was troubled to know the dream. The Revised Version
improves the English of the verse by putting the verb in
the present, “My
Spirit is troubled to know the dream.” The Septuagint
Version has the
appearance of a paraphrase, “And the king said to them, I
have seen a
dream, and my spirit is troubled, and I desire to
understand the dream.” It
is an unusual combination “to see a dream;” from its
unusualness the
reading of the Septuagint is to be preferred. In old Hebrew ל (l) and ז (z)
are not unlike each other, nor are מ (m) and י (y). Yet these two, letters
are the only differences between halamti, “I have
dreamed.” and hazithi. “I
have seen.” The Peshitta has haloma hazith, which
gives the same
combination, and would indicate that here too the Aramaic
original is
shining through It is however, difficult to see how such a
word as ahpatz.
“I wish,” could drop out of the Massoretic. The must
natural solution is
that the translator added θέλω -– thelo – wish;
desire - to complete the sense.
Certainly a link is wanting as it stands in the ordinary
interpretation of this verse.
Theodotion agrees with the Massoretic, while the Vulgate
paraphrases the
last clause, “And the king said to them. I have seen a
dream, and confused
in mind I have forgot what I saw.” The king has been
perturbed by the
dream, and his perturbation leads him to wish to know the
dream — not
necessarily what the dream actually had been, but what it
meant. Thus in
ch. 1:17 Daniel had understanding “in all visions and
dreams;” this
meant that he knew the meaning of dreams and visions. The other versions
give us no assistance to explain this. Archdeacon Rose
says, “The king
here plainly intimates that, though the dream had troubled
and perplexed
him. he could not remember what it was.” It does not
appear to us quite so
plain It is certainly not impossible to imagine that, while
the king had been
strongly affected by the dream, he might not remember
distinctly what it
was. If, however, he had no remembrance of the dream, and
only the
feeling of perturbation, any grandiose vision might have
been brought
before him, and he would not have been able to check it, or
say that was
not the dream he had had. If, again, he had some
fragmentary
remembrance, he naturally would have told what he
remembered, in order
that they might reconstruct his dream for him.
Nebuchadnezzar’s great
purpose is not merely to see again his dream, but really to
test these
soothsayers that promised so much. If they could with such
certainty as
they professed tell what was about to happen, surely it was
no great
demand that they should know this dream of his. The king
seems merely to
have made the general statement, and left the soothsayers
to tell at once
the dream and interpretation. There sits the king with
troubled brow, and
there stand before him the principal adepts at
interpretation of dreams.
Some have found it a difficulty that God should reveal the
future to a
heathen monarch. But in the parallel case of Pharaoh this
occurred;
certainly the future revealed to him was the immediate
future of the, land
he ruled, whereas the dream of Nebuchadnezzar extended in
its revelation
to the very end of time. Archdeacon Rose refers to Pilate’s
wife and her
mysterious dream at the trial of our Lord. The revelation
as given to
Nebuchadnezzar served a double purpose — it gave emphasis
to it when,
not an obscure Hebrew scholar got the vision, but the great
conqueror;
further, it gave an occasion for bringing Daniel into
prominence, and gave
thus to him and to his companions an opportunity of showing
their fidelity
to God. This gave an occasion for miracles, the effect of
which was to
strengthen the Jews in their faith.
4 “Then spake the
Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O king,
live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will
show the
interpretation.” The
versions do not imply any important difference Then...
the Chaldeans. This does not mean merely that one
class of soothsayers —
a class the existence of which is doubtful — nor that the
whole band of
soothsayers bore the name “Chaldeans.” The name is
simply the name of
the nation, but is here used of this small portion of it
that were soothsayers,
in the same way as in John 9:22 “Jews,” the name of the nation, is used
for the rulers: “For
the Jews had agreed already that if any man did confess
that He was
Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.” Hence it is
needless to speak of’ the Chaldeans being the principal
class, and therefore
for the sake of breviloquence” (brevity) put for the
whole. So
also Kliefoth (‘Kom.,’ p. 79), “Because the Chaldeans were
the first class,
they alone are named.” The Chaldeans were not the
inhabitants of
Babylonia, but belonged to several cantons south and east
of
Spake. The word yedabberu
is usually followed by the verb amar in the
infinitive. In Ezekiel 40:4 we have the verb dibber used
without arnar,
to introduce the thing said. It is not improbable that in
this instance
Aramith, “in the
Syriac tongue,” helped to the omission of amar. In the
Syriack (Aramith).
All scholars know now that there are two leading
dialects of the Aramaean or Aramaic — the Eastern or
Syriac, and the
Western or Chaldee. The terms are very confusing; as
to the west of
sprung up to call the Western variety Chaldee, and the
Eastern variety
Syriac. The usage having been established, it has a certain
convenience to
be able to name all the Western, or, as they may be called,
Palestinian
dialects of Aramaic Chaldee, and all the Eastern varieties
Syriac. While the
English version uses the term “Syriac,” as the portion of
Daniel which
follows has come down to us, it is not written in Syriac,
but in Chaldee.
We shall, however, endeavor to show that this is due to
changes
introduced by transcribers. As to the word Aramith occurring
here, there is
great force in the view maintained by Lenormant, that it is
to be regarded
as a note to the reader, indicating that at this point the
Hebrew ceases and
the Aramaic begins. The reason of the change from one
language to
another has been already dealt with in considering the
question of the
structure of Daniel. In the mean time it is sufficient to
say that our theory is
that the Hebrew in the beginning of Daniel is due to the
editor, who
collected the scattered fly-leaves. In the first chapter
and in the three
opening verses of that before us, we have the results of
translation and
condensation. As the previous sacred books had been written
in Hebrew —
the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, not to speak of
other books — it
was natural that the editor, especially if he were under
the influence of
Ezra, would desire to see a
book that had so much of holy hope and
aspiration about it, in the sacred language of the patriarchs and prophets.
There would be probably a considerable mass of irregular
material to be
gone over before a connected account could be given of the
early days of
Daniel. These sources would be necessarily in the main
Aramaic, and hence
the translation and condensation. It was formerly one of
the objections
urged against Daniel that the author regarded Aramaic as
the language
spoken in
been discovered not to be any previously known tongue. It
is now found
that, although the inhabitants of
inscriptions, the language of ordinary business and social
intercourse was
Aramaic. and had been for several centuries. Dr. Hugo
Winckler says, in
his ‘History of Babylonia and
language of social intercourse (ungangsprache) in
nearly the whole of
as a literary tongue (schriftsprache).”
Bronze weights have been found
dating back to the Sargo-nids, with the weight marked on
the one side in
Aramaic, while on the other the titles of the king are
given in Assyrian,
When Sennacherib sent Rabshakeh to
wished the conversation to be carried on in Aramaic,
implying that by this
time Aramaic had become the ordinary language of diplomacy.
The single
Aramaic verse in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 10:11) implies that the
Jewish
captives would be dwelling among a people who ordinarily
spoke Aramaic.
Some have deduced from the phrase, “then spake,” etc., that
Aramaic was
not the ordinary language of the speakers — a deduction
that would be
plausible if it had not been that from this point till the
end of the seventh
chapter the book is in Aramaic. Jephet-ibn-Ali thinks that
Nebuchadnezzar
had first addressed the wise men in some other language,
and then betook
him to Aramaic. O king,
live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we
will show the
interpretation. The soothsayers address the king in terms of
Oriental adulation. Similar phrases are found in dispatches
to
Asshurbanipal. In the Septuagint Version the phrase is
accommodated
more to the Hellenic usage, and the king is addressed as κύριε
βασιλεῦ -
kurie basileu –
lord king. Their
language implies that they expected to be told
the dream, and then, having been told the dream, they would
apply the rules
of their art to it, and
declare to the king the interpretation.
5 “The king answered and
said to the Chaldeans, The thing is
gone from me if ye will not make known unto me the dream,
with the
interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your
houses shall
be made a dunghill.” The
Septuagint has slight but important differences from
the Massoretic text. It is as follows “And the king
answered and said to the
Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if therefore ye do
not tell me the dream
truly and show me the interpretation thereof, ye shall be
made an example of,
and your goods shall be escheat to the royal treasury.” Theodotion
renders the
last portion of the verse, “ye shall be destroyed, and your
houses shall be
plundered.” The Peshitta is closer to the
Massoretic, but, like Theodotion,
softens the last clause into “plundered.” The Vulgate
retains the fierceness
of the Massoretic, softened merely in phrase, not in
meaning. The king
answered and
said to the Chaldeans, The thing is
gone
from me. The first thing to be noticed is the difference of the Q’ri
and the
K’thib in the word “Chaldean;” it is written כשׂדיא, according to the
Syriac usage, not כשׂדאי according
to the Chaldee. As the Book of Daniel
was copied and recopied many times, probably at least
scores of’ times
before, on the latest assignable critical date of Daniel, the
Massoretic text
was
fixed, and copied mainly by those whose language was Western not
Eastern Aramaic. the occurrence of Syriac forms is more
likely to be
survivals from a Syriac original than insertions, either
accidental or
intentional. When the differences are so slight as those
between Eastern
and Western Aramaic, the tendency is to remove them rather
than to
accentuate them. The older interpretation of mill tha,
“thing” or “word,”
was to take it as referring to the dream — that it was the
matter that had
gone from him. This, however, depends to a large degree on
the meaning
to be attached to ozda. Is it to be regarded as
equivalent to azla, as if it
were derived from lz"a}, “to go;” or is azda
to be regarded as Persian azdu,
“sure,” “diligent”? Delitzsch suggests azanda. “known.”
The two Greek
versions render, ὁ λόγος
ἀπ ἐμοῦ ἀπέστη – ho logos ap
emou apestae -
,a phrase which may either be “the word has gone from me,” or “the
matter has
departed from me,” the latter being the more natural, from the meaning of
ἀφίστημι – aphistaemi – depart;
withdraw; remove. . The Peshitta
rendering is, “Sure is the word I have spoken.” The older
commentators
have mainly taken this sentence as asserting that
Nebuchadnezzar had
forgotten the dream; Calvin. however, does so only because
he feels
himself compelled to take v. 8 as meaning this; while
Jephet-ibn-Ali and
others assume this to be the meaning of the phrase. Aben
Ezra takes azda
as meaning “firm” or sure. Berthohlt, among moderns,
maintains that
millitha is “the
dream.” Most others assert the sentence to mean, “The
word which has gone forth from me is sure;” this is also
Professor Bevan’s
interpretation. Hitzig’s view here is peculiar: he would
translate, “For the
matter is important to me.” This view does not suit v. 8.
The lexicons
differ in this. Winer first gives elapsus est, abiit,
then adds, “unless rather it
be derived from the Arabic <ARAMAIC> (atzad),
‘strong,’ or from the
Rabbinic אָזַד, robustus.”
Buxtorf does give the alleged Rabbinic use of the
verb, but gives reference only to occurrence in the passage
before us and
v. 8, and renders abire. Gesenius renders, “to
depart,” and quotes in
support of this the Rabbinic formula, אזדא
לטצמים,
“to go to one’s own
opinion,” spoken of a rabbi who holds a view not shared by
any other. At
the same time, Gesenius gives a meaning to the clause as a
whole which
accords with that of most commentators, “The word has gone
out from
me.” Furst takes the word as meaning “firm,” “sure,”
“unalterable.” He too
quotes the Rabbinic formula, as if it confirmed his view,
which really it
does not. Castell gives <ARAMAIC> as robur,
but appends no reference.
Brockelmann does not give it at all, nor does Levy. Had
Castell given any
reference, it might have been argued to be a survival of a Syriac
word
through transcription; but we must remain in doubt in this,
all the more so
that the Peshitta does not transfer the word, which it
would naturally have
done had the word been extant in Syriac in A.D. 100.
This would make it
probable that it is an old word. The fact that it is used
in Talmudic only in a
formula, and then in a sense unsuitable to the present
passage, confirms the
idea of its age. It had probably a technical meaning,
denoting that a certain
matter was irrevocable. The Persian derivation of the word
is by no means
certain, though supported by Schrader and Noehleke. It may
have a
Shemitic root. אזז (azoz) Assyrian
(Schrader, 526), “to be firm,” may be
the
Assyrian form of the word, which becomes זָהַב in Syriac, and אזדא in
status emphatieus. In
Aramaic ז of Hebrew becomes ד,
as זָהַב (zabab) and דְהַב
(dehab), “gold.” The
Assyrian use of sibilants is more akin to
Hebrew than to Aramaic. Sa,
“this,” is equivalent to זֶה, (zeh),
Schrader,
‘Keiln.,’ 586. If אזז were
transferred from Assyrian and put in the status
emphaticus, אַזְדָא is not an unlikely form for it to assume. Even grant the
word to be Persian, it is far from proving, or even
rendering it probable,
that Daniel was composed in the days of the Maccabees.
There is no trace
of Persian producing much effect on the language of the
numerous peoples
that were subject to the
known in
fixed. In
meaning of the word was not known, and was thought to be
equivalent to
אזל (azal). In
unknown. Jerome, who made his version, if not in
Pales-tinian guidance, translates it also as equivalent to azal.
The natural
conclusion is that this book must have been composed not
later than the
Persian period, and not far from the centre of government.
As we have
already said, our interpretation agrees with that of
Professor Bevan; we
would render the phrase, “The word which has gone
forth from me,” i.e.,
“is fixed.” The reason of the king’s refusal to tell the
wise men his dream is
that he cannot do it, not because he has forgotten it, but
because he has
already announced that he wishes these soothsayers to prove
their ability to
give the interpretation of the dream by telling him what
the dream was
which he had had. He has committed himself to that course;
he is a king,
and he may not change,
If ye will not make known to me the dream, with
the
interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut
in pieces, and your houses shall
be made a
dunghill. The king, unaccustomed to be
opposed or refused
anything, at once determines that it is not inability to
tell him what he
wishes to know that hinders the soothsayers, but
unwillingness. Of course,
the abruptness of the action, immediate sentence pronounced
on their
hesitating to satisfy his demand, seems improbable. We
must, however,
remember that we have the account given us in the utmost
brevity. We
have the substance of the dialogue between the king and his
astrologers. It
is put in dialogue form simply because the Shemitic tongues
naturally lend
themselves to this mode of presentation. The sentence, “ye
shall be cut in
pieces,” suggests some of the punishments inflicted by
Asshurbanipal on
those who rebelled against him. In the Aramaic the meaning
literally is, “Ye
shall be made pieces of.” This is considerably softened in
both the Greek
versions. In the Septuagint, the rendering is, Παρὰ
δειγματισθήσεσθε –
Αἰς ἀπώλειαν
ἔσεσθε - Ais apoleian esesthe -Ye
shall be for destruction.
The Peshitta is stronger, if anything, from the succession
of words, “Piece piece
ye shall be cut.” The punishment
certainly was horrible, but not more so than the
punishment David inflicted on
the murderers of Ishbosheth. Indeed, in European
countries a century and a half ago punishments yet more
revolting were
frequent. The punishment for treason in our own country was
as horrible as
anything well could be. The sentence, however, went further
than merely
the individuals. And
your houses shall be made a dunghill. In the ‘Records
of the Past,’ 1:27, 43, are references to something like
this. “houses
reduced to heaps of rubbish.” That the houses thus made
heaps of rubbish
should therefore be made dunghills, is in perfect accordance
with the
manners at present holding in the East. The rendering of
the Septuagint is
very peculiar here, (καὶ ὀναληφθήσεται
ὑμῶν τὰ ὑπάρχοντα
εἰς τὸ βασιλίκον –
kai
onalaephthaesetai humon ta huparchonta eis to basilikon –
and your goods shall be escheat to tire royal treasury). This cannot be due to
any desire to soften the meaning, for in the first place,
in ch. 3:29, where the
same phrase occurs in the Aramaic, it is paraphrased, but
not really changed;
it
is rendered δημευθήσεται –
daemeuthaesetai. But further, the meaning
here is perfectly different from that in the Aramaic of the Masse,retie
recension.
Theodotion’s rendering is a softening of the Massoretic,
“Your houses shall be
(διαρπαγήσονται – diarpagaesontai -)
torn down;” but the Septuagint quite
changes the meaning. If the translator had a slightly
blurred copy before him,
he
might read נזלו instead of נולי; that is to say, instead of “a dunghill,”
he
read it as the third person plural pael of the verb אֲזַלַ (azal), “to go.” When
written in Samaritan characters, or in old Phoenican
characters, the last word would
not
be unlike למלך, “to the king.” This is the only explanation of
this variation that
seems feasible, and it implies that the manuscript before
the Septuagint translator
was written in Eastern, not Western Aramaic. The
preformative n, used as the sign
of the third person, is the peculiarity of Eastern Aramaic.
The translator must
have had this generally before him in his manuscript, or he
never could
have made this mistake. This is another indication that the
Aramaic of
Daniel was originally not Chaldee, but Syriac. We can
imagine the striking
scene: on the one side the haughty young conqueror, blazing
in
indignation at the obstinate refusal, as he counts it, of
his soothsayers and
augurs to tell him his dream and the meaning of it; on the other,
the
crouching crowd of magicians, astrologers, and oneiromantists,
dispirited
and nonplussed. Brought up in an absolute faith in
astrology and augury,
the king never doubted their ability to tell him his dream;
it could only be a
treasonable desire to hinder him from taking the suitable
steps to avoid
whatever danger might be threatened by it, or to gain
whatever advantage
might be promised. They would not tell him the dream,
because by their
rules the interpretation would be fixed, and from that they
could not
escape. The king will
not and cannot reverse his word, and they cannot tell
him what he desires, and so they stand facing each other.
6 “But if ye show the
dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye
shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honor:
therefore
show me the dream, and the interpretation thereof.” The Septuagint
Version is “If ye will show me the dream, and tell me its
interpretation, ye
shall receive every sort (παντοῖα - pantoia) of gifts, and be honored by me:
show me the dream, and judge.” There are indications of
differences in the text,
which are considered below. Theodotion agrees with the
Massoretic in its
rendering of this verse. The Peshitta also manifests no
serious difference.
All these older versions render it doubtful whether nebizba
was part of the
original text. But
if ye show the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye
shall receive
of me gifts and rewards and great honour. Ewald would
conjoin with this verse the latter part of the verse
preceding, with
considerable justification. Like the latter part of the
previous verse, it is to
be
taken as the summation of a long argument, in which threats and
promises would bear a large part, probably both heightening as they
failed
to produce the effect required of making the soothsayers
reproduce to
Nebuchadnezzar his dream. Now the acme is reached — on the
one hand,
a death of torture and infamy is threatened; on the other
hand, in the verse
before us, “gifts, rewards, and great honor.” The king is eager to have his
dream interpreted, but he has taken his stand — before he
will listen to the
interpretation, they must afford him evidence that they can
interpret
correctly this dream, by reproducing it to him. One of the
words here has
been used by Berthohlt as evidence that the Book of Daniel
originated in
the days of the Maccabees, when Greek was largely spoken.
The word
translated “reward” in our version is nebizba;
this, it was argued by
Bertholdt, is νόμισμα – nomisma, m becoming b — a not infrequent
commutation. In support of this, if we take νόμισμα as meaning
coined money, this would make a
distinction between this word and matnan,
the more ordinary word for “a
gift.” Jephet-ibn-Ali translates in accordance with
this meaning: “I will
give you raiment and dinars,” he makes Nebuchadnezzar
say. Yet this view is now abandoned by all critics, and
however many
alleged Greek words are found in Daniel, this is never now
brought
forward as one of them. Lexicographers are practically
unanimous in
rejecting this derivation. There are two other derivations,
one making it a
palpel form of the בְוז with
a נ pre-formative which was Gesenius’s view in
his ‘Thesaurus.’ He later abandoned this view, and
maintained that it was
connected with some Persian root. Winer maintains the
former of these
views, and Furst the latter. As a Persian word, it is
supposed to prove the
late date of Daniel. It does seem somewhat strange logic to
argue, from the
presence of Persian words in a document, that therefore it
was written late
in the Greek period. The prior question presents itself —
Is the word
Persian, Greek, or Aramaic, really a part of the original
text of Daniel? In
regard to this the Septuagint Version is of importance. Its
rendering of this
clause is, as we have seen, “But
if ye shall show me the dream, and tell me
the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive all manner of
gifts, and shall be
honored by me.” This interpretation
implies a different text — the word
nebizba disappears
from the text altogether, for no one would translate it
παντοῖα; evidently the translator had before him some combination
of col,
“all.” The
combination matnan nebizba occurs in the Targum in
Jeremiah 40:5, therefore, had it been present, the
translator would have
been aware of its meaning. Theodotion renders it δωρεάς – doreas - gift.
If the phrase occurred elsewhere, there would easily be a
motive to introduce
the word nebizba, but there seems none to substitute
for it another word altogether;
certainly כ and נ are not unfrequently confounded, and a defective ל might be read
as a ב. It would not be difficult to reproduce a Hebrew sentence,
the
rendering of which would require παντοῖα. This much is clear —
nebizba was not before
the Septuagint translator. It is further to be
observed that the Septuagint translator has had before him,
not the noun
yeqar, “honor,” but the verb in the passive or ethpael. These, however,
are not all the points where the Septuagintal text must
have differed from
the text we have received from the Massoretes. The
adjective sagi,” great,”
occurs in the Authorized Version, but is not represented in
the Septuagint.
The order of the Greek words suggests a different order in
the original
Aramaic. Other things being equal, the shorter a reading,
the more likely it
is to be the original reading. It is clear that this
advantage is with the
Septuagint reading. If there were any likelihood of certain
words being
omitted from any probable cause as homoioteleuton (like
ending), it would be
different. On the
other hand, the addition of a kind which is frequently seen,
the more recent word nebizba is put alongside its
more ancient equivalents. In
the other case, the adjective sagi, “great,” is
inserted, as frequently
happens, with a view of heightening the effect. Another
explanation may be
suggested. We know the Aramaic docquets on the back of the
contract
tablets are written in a script resembling Phoenician
characters. If the
original manuscripts were written at the date assigned by
tradition, then it
would be written in this style of letter. In it we find
that ש and מ were
liable to be mistaken, as also; and ג; we should then have נ (minni),
“from
me,” as a possible
reading which had been misread by some Palestinian
scribe into שׂגי (sagi),
“great,” and the א added to complete the
word. The
case is only a familiar case of doublets. When we have
further מִן־קָדָמָי,
“from me,” the change of the preceding is thus in a sense
necessitated. This
may
be regarded as an indication of age, as the square character had begun
at least a century before Christ (Driver,’ Samuel,’ p.
21.). This leaves but
little time for modifications and blunders of penmanship
between this and
the critical date of Daniel. The latter clause of this
verse shows us another
variation between the Massoretic text and that lying behind
the Septuagint.
The Massoretic recension is well represented in the
Authorized Version.
Therefore show
me the dream, and the interpretation
thereof. The version
of the Septuagint indicates a different reading, and has a
different point,
“Declare to me the dream, and judge.” According to the
Massoretic
reading, the king merely repeats his demands, the only
reference to the
preceding promises and threatenings being in the
conjunction ˆhel; (lahen),
“therefore.” Whereas the main reference of the clause,
according to the
Septuagint, is to the immediately preceding promises, “Show
me the
dream, and judge if I will do as I have said.” Another
supposition possible
is that there has been a transposition. In the very next
verse חְוָה (hevah)
is
represented by κρίνω – krino - in that case it may
mean “interpret,” the
rendering then would be, “Show me the dream and interpret,” and
represent some part of the verb פשר, only there is the awkwardness of
using the same word as equivalent to two different Aramaic
words in
contiguous verses. The difference is not of great
importance; the king is
eager to get the magicians to tell him his dream and its
interpretation, but,
having commenced the experiment as to their powers, he will
not allow
himself to be driven from it. Before leaving this verse, we
must note the
presence of certain signs of old date in the Aramaic of the
passage. First,
the word hen, “if,” is not used in the Targums; it
is not in Levy’s
Dictionary; neither Gesenius nor Furst gives any
non-Biblical reference for
the
use of the word In the same way, its derivative לָהֵן; (lahen),
“therefore,” is equally peculiar to Biblical Aramaic.
Particles are good
notes of age, as they are less liable to change than nouns
substantive.
7 “They answered again and
said, Let the king tell his servants
the dream, and we will show the interpretation of it.” The Septuagint
Version here is, “And they answered the second time,
saying, O king, tell
the dream, and thy servants will judge of these things.”
Theodotion, the
Peshitta, and the Vulgate agree with the Massoretic. The
wise men are
unable to satisfy the king’s demands. Ewald comments on the
fact that
none of them had the inventiveness to make up a dream, and
tell the king
that had been his dream. He admits himself that there might
have been risk
of the king discovering the deception, if no flash of reviving
memory in his
mind answered to their invention. On our hypothesis that
the king had not
forgotten his dream, but was testing their powers, it was
not only in the
highest degree hazardous, but it was certain of failure.
They must have
known the case to be as we imagine it, or, when they were
sentenced to
death, they would have run the hazard, on the plea, “If we
perish, we
perish.” There was a chance, though a faint one, of success
in the attempt
to palm off upon the king their own imaginings for his
dream; there was a
certainty of death if they did nothing. All they can do,
however, is simply
to repeat what they before said, “Tell us the dream, and we will
find the
interpretation of it.” Nebuchadnezzar has often been denounced as
specially foolish and tyrannical on account of this demand
which he made
of the wise men; but tyrannical though he was, and foolish
though he seems
at times, looked at from our elevation, this demand of his
is not an example
either of his folly or his tyranny. These soothsayers
enjoyed great honor
and great revenues, on the assumption that they possessed
certain powers
of foreseeing the future. He demands of them, instead of an
enigmatical
statement of what was coming on the earth, that they tell
him what he had
dreamed. They professed to be able to discover thefts, and
where stolen
property was; they professed to point out men who were
devising evil
against another. If their claims were true, they could
surely tell the king his
dream. They were thus employed and honored in order that
they should
foretell to the king any fortune, good or bad, impending
himself or the
nation. His dream presumably foretold the future; they
affirmed that they
knew the future; they surely might tell the king what
prophecy was made to
him in his dream. Believing in the reality of their powers
with all the faith
of a fanatic, their refusal could only mean to him treason.
They did not tell
him his dream, not because they could not, but because they
would not, in
order that the disaster — for such he would be sure the
dream portended
— might not be averted by timely sacrifices. If the
elaborate treatises on
magic and divination which have come to us, so far as has
been discovered,
only in fragments, were complete, it is not impossible that
we might be able
to tell what interpretation these wise men would have put
on the dream,
had they been told it. It would be a curious exercise, for
certainly Daniel’s
interpretation would not be the result. We must return to
the versions for a
little, in one respect the Septuagint is closer to the
Massoretic than
Theodotion, by having λέγοντες – legontes – said - the participle, instead
of
εϊπαν – eipan – said. We direct
attention to this, with a view to the
phenomenon we find in the succeeding clause.
The Septuagint rendering is
given above. The most noticeable
thing which the reader will find about this
rendering is the change of person in
the last clause. As it stands in the Massoretic
text, it is certainly the first
person plural Imperfect pael of חוה but in Syriac the
preformative נ was the sign of the
third person in the imperfect, as well as
of the first person plural; hence, if there were a little
uncertainty as to the
end of the word, it was an easy mistake to one who was reading
from a
manuscript in Eastern Aramaic, but an impossible one for a
scribe
translating from a manuscript written in Chaldee, or
Western Aramaic. It
cannot be urged plausibly that the change might simply
result from a free
translation, for the slavish accuracy of the rest of the
verse precludes that
escape. As the reading of the Greek is confirmed by the
version of Paulus
Tel-lensis, the probability is slight of a various reading.
This is another
evidence that Daniel was originally written in Eastern, not
Western
Aramaic. It may be observed that while in the Massoretic
text the verb
“tell” (y’emar) is put in the imperfect, in
the Septuagint it is translated as
if it were. imperative. The difference between the third
person imperfect
and the second person imperative is the presence, in the
case of the former,
of
the preformative y (י),
which is absent in the other. That is a thing that
might easily happen, that, (yodh) might be dropped
or inserted mistakenly;
consequently, this affords no evidence that the Septuagint
translator took
liberties with his text. The question may be put, how far
these soothsayers
knew they were impostors. Most likely they were unconscious
of anything
approaching imposition. We know the elaborate rules by
which they
determined the exact meaning of every sign and portent. We
know how
prone men are to supplement such rules by a native faculty for
foreseeing
what is likely to happen, and how, further, explanations
may be devised to
save the credit of these canons of interpretation, even
when most
hopelessly proved to be false by events. Archdeacon Rose
appeals to
modern spiritualists as examples in point, regarding
both the Chaldean
soothsayers and modern spiritualists as equally impostors.
We feel inclined
to regard them as so far alike in this — that most of both
classes imposed
most on themselves. The presence of these false prophets is
an evidence of
the existence of the true prophets at some time, at all
events; there would
be no counterfeit coin were there no genuine money.
8 “The king answered and
said, I know of certainty that ye
would gain the time, because ye see the thing is gone from
me.” The
versions here do not differ in any essential point. The
king now becomes
certain of the treasonable purpose of the soothsayers. The
word zeban
means not so much “gain” as “purchase,” “barter.” To
the king the
meaning of their obstinate refusal to submit to his
requirements is that they
know that some great advantage may be gained by the king,
or some great
disaster forefended (prevent from happening), if he only
knows the meaning of
this dream, and that if the king does not submit to them
and yield up his decree,
and, putting his pride under his feet, tell them the dream,
the time when its
revelation may be taken advantage of may be passed. In
these matters everything
was supposed to depend on the thing to be done being done
precisely at the
right conjunction of the planets. His last utterance seems
almost to rise to
agony, “Because ye see the thing is fixed away from me!” We
have the
same word (azda) translated here, as in the fifth
verse, “gone.” As we saw
above, its real meaning is rather “fixed,” “settled,”
“determined.” His
decree had gone out, and he would not — nay, so strongly
had he willed at
that it was as if he could not — alter his decision. It has
been regarded as
bearing on this passage that Paul (Ephesians 5:16) uses the
same
word as that by which the Greek versions translate zeban,
“redeeming the
time, because the days are evil.” The meaning of the apostle is to some
extent in contrast to that here. Believers are, as it were,
to purchase the
time from the evil days. Nebuchadnezzar thought the
astrologers were, as
it were, meaning by their delays to buy the auspicious moment for the
kingdom from under his feet.
It is a mistaken idea that he thought they
merely wished to gain time. It would I seem, from what we
read further of
his treatment of Daniel’s request for time, that, had they
merely asked for
time, Nebuchadnezzar would have granted their request. He
had staked his
faith in their ability to unfold any mystery on this one
test, and they seemed
to him obstinately to refuse to submit to it. To believe
them unable to
reveal the truth that he wished, would be to overturn all
the fabric of his
faith in the religion of his fathers; therefore,
with all the strength of a
strong man and all the blind faith of a fanatic, he will
not acknowledge the
inability of the soothsayers to tell him his dream; it must
be obstinacy, he
thinks, that prevents the soothsayers telling him, and that
obstinacy must
have a sinister purpose. There is a clause in the
Septuagint completing this
verse, but it is not parallel with any clause in the
Massoretic text: “Then
just as I have ordered, thus shall it be.” This probably is
an alternative
rendering. Azda is taken in what is now regarded as
its meaning — “that
which is fixed,” or “decreed,” in which case this final
clause might be
rendered, “What is fixed from me is a decree;” and of this
the above
mentioned clause is a somewhat free rendering. This
interpretation of the
clause confirms our view of the situation.
9 “But if ye will not make
known unto me the dream, there is but one decree
for you: for ye have
prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me,
till the time be changed:
therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that
ye can shew me the interpretation thereof.” The
words translated (di hen)
“but it’ have
caused some difference, most translating as if the first word were
not present. This is the rendering of the Septuagint.
Theodotion and Jerome
render the first word, which is really the relative, as
“therefore,” ergo,
οϋν – oun - then. The Peshitta has den, the corresponding Syriac
phrase, which
has a similar sense to that assumed here. The
rendering of the next clause,
both in the Septuagint and in the version of Theodotion,
differs
considerably from the Massoretic text. The rendering of the
Septuagint is
as follows: “If ye do not truly tell me the dream, and show
me the
interpretation, ye shall die.” The version of Theodotion is
shorter, “It, then,
ye will not tell me the dream.” Theodotion thus omits the
clause translated,
“there is but one decree for you;” the only word
that may be the remains of
it
is οϊδα – oida - ידעת, or simply the participle, The Syriac is, “If ye will not
declare the dream to me, one is your plan and your word.”
The text of the
Septuagint in this case indicates that we have here
additions from previous
verses. The phrase, “and declare to me the interpretation,” is
evidently
supplied from v. 5, whereas “ye shall die.” literally, “ye
shall chance to
(fall into) death,” has a different origin. This phrase has
all the appearance
of a translation. It would seem applicable on the idea that
in the text before
the
Septuagint translator, instead of ˆ דתכון (datheon),
“your decree,” there
stood מתכון (motheon), “your death,” the ו (vav)
being omitted, and
possibly the preposition בְ (be),
and milch being read into some part of
nephal, “to fall,” probably תִּפּלוּן (tippelun). The omission of this clause,
as
above mentioned, from Theodotion renders it a little doubtful, as it
indicates that in the text used by the Jews of Asia Minor this
phrase was
wanting. Most commentators take dath in the sense more
common in
Eastern than in Western Aramaic, of “pica” rather than
“decree” Ewald and
Professor Bevan oppose this view, as also Keil, the last
with great
positiveness. The facts that so many commentators give this
meaning, and
that certain Rabbinic authorities referred to but not named
by Jephet-ibn-
Ali prove it to be no impossible translation. Hitzig, Von
Lengerke, Maurer,
Michaelis, and Moses Stuart are not quite despicable. The
main reason
against this view is that in Western Aramaic dath means
“decree,” in
Eastern Aramaic it means, according to Castell, scopus,
meta, finis,
voluntas. The only
difficulty is that he gives no reference, and Brockelmann
gives only lex, which in this case it cannot be,
though this is the only
reference beside Hoffmann’s ‘Glossary.’ It might be an
individual “decree,”
but a “law” it cannot be. On the received renderings the
succession is
somewhat violent. “If ye will not tell me the dream, one is
your decree,”
can only be made consecutive by a violent jerk away back to
the fifth verse.
It seems more natural to take it as meaning, “Ye have
agreed together to
say one thing to me.” The accusation of conspiracy
naturally followed from
the king’s firm conviction that the soothsayers could tell,
if they only
would, what he required of them. If there began to dawn
upon him any
idea that their silence was due to inability to answer, it
might well move
him to redoubled anger that they had been guilty of
imposture in claiming
such lofty powers and being so highly paid and honored for
their exercise.
The king’s mind had not yet abandoned the faith of his
fathers in magic and
divination. For ye have prepared lying and corrupt words
to speak before
me. If the
Septuagint is to be taken as our guide, the word shheethah is a
doubtful addition to the Massoretic text It is, however, in
the other later
versions. According to the rendering of both the Greek
versions, the
meaning here is stronger than that which is expressed in
the Authorized
Version; hizdaminton really means “to conspire.” He
will not admit the
plea of inability to satisfy his demands — the vague
suspicion may be
floating before his mind — as, if he were to admit their
inability to satisfy
what he wished to learn, then, according to his logic, all
their claims were
false. Hence the accusation of “lying and corrupt words”
would still stand,
and have all the greater emphasis. Waiving the question of
the authenticity
of “corrupt,” the distinction between the two words
“lying” and “corrupt”
seems to be in this: the first refers to the person
addressed — to
Nebuchadnezzar, — the words are untrue, they are lies — as
coming from
the soothsayers they are “corrupt,” because they are
symptomatic of a
corrupt disposition, probably traitorous. Till the
time be changed.
Theodotion renders here. “till the time be passed.” The
Septuagint follows
a similar reading to that in the Massoretic text. The
Peshitta rendering is
akin to that of Theodotion. While in all forms of magic and
soothsaying,
time was an element not to be neglected, it was doubly
important in regard
to astrology, and an hour or two changed the position of
the moon in
relation to the constellations. If something required to be
done in
consequence of this dream, then most likely it would require
to be done in
a certain relation of the heavenly bodies to each other. Therefore
tell me
the dream, and I shall know that ye can show me the
interpretation thereof.
The Septuagint rendering is paraphrastic, “Now then, if ye
tell me the thing
which I saw in the night, I shall know that ye can also
show the
interpretation.” While we have called it a paraphrase as
regards the
Massoretic text, the rendering in the Septuagint may
represent the
Egyptian recension of the text of Daniel. The use of ῤῆμα – hraema – word -
or “thing” suggests translation, and assumes millah or
mill’tha, which has the
same double suggestion of “word spoken” and“thing spoken
about.” If the
Septuagint text were assumed here, we should have
confirmation of our
view that Nebuchadnezzar remembered his vision, but was
determined to
experiment on the soothsayers of his court. This view is
certainly implied in
the following clause. The first word of this clause is
peculiar
grammatically: אִנְדַּע (‘in’d’a) instead of אידע (‘iyda) or אִדַּע (‘idda).
This form of compensating for a dropped consonant by
inserting נ (nun)
instead of doubling occurs elsewhere in Biblical Aramaic
(see v. 30). This
is
rare in Syriac, and in the Targums found only in those later, especially
those of the Megilloth, which have affinities with the form of
Aramaic seen
in the Babylonian Talmud. This peculiarity is common in the
Maudaitic
dialect. It is thus a distinctively Eastern form of Aramaic
that is indicated
here. When we pass beyond the grammatical elements, we find
that
Nebuchadnezzar would take correct information as to what he
had
dreamed a guarantee of the correctness of the
interpretation of the dream
which the soothsayers might afterwards give him. His attitude
was purely
and truly scientific, as it is stated. In his own mind he
was warped and
confused by his overmastering belief in omens and auguries,
in gods and
demons, in magicians and astrologers. With this faith in
his heart, his only
explanation of the silence of these soothsayers was
treason.
10 “The Chaldeans answered
before the king, and said, There
is not a man upon the earth that can show the king’s
matter:
therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked
such things at
any magician, astrologer, or Chaldean.” It is to be noted, in the first
place, that we have the same Syriac form of כַּשְׂדָיֵא. This seems to us a
survival from an earlier condition of the text, when the
Syriac forms were
predominant, if not universal, in it. Scribes accustomed to
speak and write
in Chaldee would naturally harmonize the text to the
language they were
accustomed to use. The word “saying” (“and said,”
Authorized Version) is
omitted from the. Septuagint, but it is found in all other
versions: its
omission in the Septuagint may have been due to error — the
Aramaic is
not complete without it. לָא־אִתַי ; (la-’itha),
“there is not.” The ordinary
Targumic and Talmudic usage is לַיִת (layith), “is not.” one word. This full
way of writing this negative form is an undeniable proof of
antiquity.
Neither Levy nor Castell gives any example of the full
writing which is the
regular practice in Biblical Aramaic. Merx, ‘Chrestomath.
Targ.,’ 168, 225,
also gives only לית. As a rule, the fuller a form is, the older it
is. Earth;
literally, dry groined- the same word as is used in
the Targum of Genesis 1:9,
“Let the dry
land appear,” but not the usual
word for “the world.”
Theodotion, in accordance, translates ξηρᾶς - xaerus – dry land - the
Septuagint
renders merely, ἐπὶ
τῆς γῆς –
epi taes gaes – on the earth - The Peshitta has
<ARAMAIC> (ar’a). The king’s
matter (mil-lath malea); literally, the
king’s word,
which, consequently, Theodotion translates ῤῆμα
(reveal). The Septuagint renders
“to tell the king that which he has seen.” It is evident
that he read milbdh, as if
derived from melal, “to speak,” as lemallala. The
rendering, “that which he has seen,”
is
due to reading ל (l) into ד (d); the verb heva was read heza, and
then the change
in meaning becomes intelligible. Therefore there is no king, lord, nor
ruler. The mote natural
interpretation of the Aramaic is, “There is no king
great and powerful.” Some have regarded ral, ushlat
as a title of the King
of
sense is rather that of the marginal rendering, “There is
no king be he
never so great and powerful.” Theodotion has this reading.
The
Septuagint renders, “no king and no ruler (πᾶς βασιλεὺς
καὶ πᾶς δυνάστης...οὐκ –
pas basileus kai pas dunastaes…ouk – no
king or ruler),” reading כול (eol)
for
רב (rab). The Peshitta follows the
Massoretic closely here. In this connection,
it
may be observed, שליט (shaleet)
is not frequent in the Targums, but it occurs in
the
Peshitta. That asked such things. Kidnah, “like this.” This form of the
demonstration, ending with ה (h), instead of א, is regarded as older than the Targumic
form. Theodotion inserts ῤῆμα (reveal) here. At
any magician, or astrologer,
or
Chaldean. The first thing that
strikes the reader of the Aramaic, and for
that matter the other versions, is the omission of one of
the classes of
soothsayers — that called “sorcerers” in our Authorized
Version. We saw
that, according to the Septuagint, the” Chaldeans” were not
a separate
college of augurs or soothsayers. When we look attentively at the
Aramaic,
the reason of the presence of “Chaldeans” here, and the
absence of
“sorcerers” becomes probable. In the first place, כשדיא is written
without
the
א, as singular. When so written, its resemblance to מְכַשֵׁפ (mekashshaph)
suggests the question whether there might not be,
occupying this place, an Aramaic noun equivalent to ashshaph,
which we
see is really Assyrian, and, interpreting it we find mekashshaph
put thus
after ashshaph elsewhere, but omitted here. The
solution of’ the omission
of mekashshaph is the likeness the latter part of
the word bears to Kusdt,
especially in the script of
other. These assembled wise men protest against the test to
which the king
would put them as essentially unfair. They had been trained
to divine the
future from dreams, but never to find out dreams by what
they had learned
from their arts the future would be; and in proof of this
they urge that no
king, however great, had made such a demand of any
astrologer or
soothsayer. Nay, they go
further, and say that no man upon the
earth is
able to tell the king what he wishes. They endeavor to make the king see
that what he asks is an impossibility.
11 “And it is a rare thing
that the king requireth, and there is
none other
that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose
dwelling is not
with flesh.” And it is a rare thing that the king
requireth. The
Septuagint Version of this passage is, “The thing which
thou requirest, O
king, is hard and strange.” The last two words are most
likely a case of
doublet — two different renderings of the same Aramaic
wind, yakkirah.
The primary meaning of this word is “heavy,” and by
transference it
becomes “difficult,” and then, “strange” or “rare.” There
may have been a
slight difference of reading to account for the sentence
taking the vocative
term it does. It may be due to reading הדר instead
of אחר in the following
clause. Theodotion agrees with the Massoretic text. and
translates yakkirah,
βαρύς – barus – grievous;
heavy. The Peshitta does not differ
here from the Massoretic text. The soothsayers still pursue
their line of defense,
which they had adopted in
the preceding verse. The king cannot get the answer he
demands — his demand is so difficult and strange. And there
is none other
that can show it before the king except the gods, whose
dwelling is not
with flesh. The Septuagint rendering (differs somewhat,
though slightly,
from the Massoretic text: “And there is no one who will
show these things
to
the king, unless some (τις – tis -
some) angel, whose dwelling is not at all with
flesh.” The omission of ahoran, “other,” gives some
slight confirmation of
the
suggestion that ἐπίδοξος – epidoxos - strange; peculiar - represents it. It is
very characteristic of the time when the Septuagint
translation was made,
and
of the opinions then current, that the, word אלחין (elohin),
“gods,”
should be rendered ἄγγελος – aggelos - angels;
messengers. By this time there
was
an avoidance of the use of the Divine name, and anything that suggested it;
further, there was an avoidance of the names of heathen
deities. The same feeling
that makes the historian of the Book of Samuel represent (I
Samuel 29:6)
Achish swearing by Jehovah rather than by his own gods, as
would
certainly be the case, makes the translator here represent
the soothsayers
referring to “angels.” The idea of angels of the nations,
which we find later
in this book, was generally adopted by the Jews in
Deuteronomy 32:8,
Septuagint). A question has been raised here as to
whether the statement, “whose dwelling is not with flesh,”
is to be
regarded as distinguishing all gods from human beings, or
as distinguishing
certain of the higher gods from the others. There is one
thing certain — that the
soothsayers and interpreters of dreams and auguries believed,
or, at all
events, pretended they believed, themselves each under the
guidance of a
special genius or subordinate god. Such a god had
his dwelling with flesh
— that is to say, with humanity; but there were in their
pantheon higher
gods, whose dwelling was not with flesh. In some of the
incantations and
magical formulas which Lenormant has collected in his ‘La
Magie,’ we find
(p. 21) Selek-Moulou-ki coming to Ea his father for
information as to the
causes of disease, etc. Marduk is the Babylonian name for
Selek-Moulouki,
and Marduk was the great revealer; but by this his dwelling
was with
flesh. As we see, however, there were gods whose dwelling
was not with
flesh, who knew secrets hid even from Marduk. This excuse
of the wise
men is a preparation for Daniel’s claim to reveal the
secret of the king by
the power of a higher God than any that communicated with
the
Babylonian soothsayers. We regard it as the providential
intervention of God
Himself, that these heathen soothsayers should shelter
themselves under an
excuse that forced into clearer light the supremacy of
Jehovah. It indicates a
special knowledge of Babylonian worship thus to lay stress
on this distinction
between higher and lower gods.
12 “For this cause the
king was angry and very furious, and
commanded to destroy all the wise men of
rendering differs little in sense from the above, but in
words it does
considerably, “Then the king, becoming gloomy and very
grieved,
commanded that they lead out all the wise men of
thing to be observed is the softening of the meaning in the
hands of the
Septuagint translator. This is so great as to suggest that
he read לָהוזָלה;
instead of לְהובָדָה. The aphel of אזל is not used in Chaldee, but is used
in Syriac. Theodotion’s rendering is, “Then the king in
anger and wrath
commanded to destroy all the wise meal of Babylon.” The
Syriac has a
shade of difference, “Then was the king vehemently enraged,
and in great
fury commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.” It
is evident that
Theodotion read בְנַס
(benas), “was angry,” as if it were the preposition ב
and
the Syriac noun נַס (has),
“anger.” He also must have inserted the
preposition before קְצַפ (qetzaph), “wrath;” in this he is followed by the
Peshitta. The Septuagint is freer in its rendering in this verse,
and one
cannot argue anything from it. The probability seems to be
that נַס; (nas)
is
used as a noun, and that the Targamic verb was formed from
the mistake
of
a scribe dropping the preposition before קְצַפ (qetzaph). If we are
correct in this, we have an additional evidence that the
original language
of Daniel was not Chaldee, but Syriac, or, at all events,
Eastern Aramaic.
As a grammatical note, we direct attention to the form לְהובָדָה, where
the
א of the root has totally disappeared before the ה of
the haphel, the
equivalent in Biblical Aramaic of the Chaldee and Syriac aphel with
its
preformative a. Professor Bevan says that this distinction is only a
matter
of orthography. Are we to deduce that Professor Bevan has a
cockney
disregard for h’s? The writer now drops reference to
special classes of wise
men, and names them generally hakeemin. The king is
unconvinced of the
truth of these wise men (hakeemin), or rather he is
convinced that they are
traitors and deceivers. They are either concealing from him
the knowledge
they have, and are, therefore, traitors to him; or the gods
have withdrawn
from them, and therefore they must have been untrue to the
gods. On both
these grounds Nebuchadnezzar thinks them worthy of death.
He at once
issues the decree that all the wise men in the city of
Babylon should be
slain. If the Septuagint
reading of v.2 be correct, he had only
summoned the Chaldean wise men. If all the wise men of
Babylon were
ordered to be slain, the punishment is extended beyond the
offence.
Possibly he argued, “If even my fellow-countrymen, the
Chaldeans, are
traitors, much more will the Babylonians be so.” So far as words
go, it is
doubtful whether this decree applies to the province of
Babylonia, as the
Septuagint translator thinks, or merely to those in the
city. But cruel and
furious as was the young conqueror, he was scarcely likely
to order the
wholesale massacre of those who, in Sippara and Borsippa,
had neither
refused to do what he wished, nor by implication called him
an
unreasonable tyrant, as had the wise men in
13 “And the decree went
forth that the wise men should be
slain; and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain.”
As the Aramaic
stands, it might be translated “And the decree went forth, and the wise men
were being slain;” the ו
of co-ordination maybe regarded as here used of
Subordination. Further,
the use of the participle for the preterite is not by any
means uncommon in Daniel,
certainly mainly in the principal clause, as in v. 5
of the present chapter.
Noldeke, in his ‘Syriac Grammar,’ 278a, gives examples
of
the passive participle being used as
here in the subordinate clause. The
Septuagint is very condensed, but possibly drawn from a
similar text, only
such extreme condensation is unlike the translator
elsewhere. It is possible
that some part of the פְּקַד (peqad), “to decree,” was used, perhaps the
participle hithpael. It is possible that the verb qetal was
in the infinitive.
Theodotion renders, “And the decree went forth, and the
wise men were
slain.” This, though a possible translation, does not fit
what we find
represented to be the circumstances, as v. 24 seems to
assume that the
wise men were not yet destroyed. On the other hand, it
would be hardly
possible to imagine the king allowing these wise men who
had refused to
answer his question, to go out of his presence in safety
and unbound. It
would seem more natural to imagine that they were carried
off to prison,
and that all the soothsaying class were intended to be
gathered together in
prison, in order that the vengeance of the king might be
more appallingly
manifest. The sentence looks at first sight to us as too
savage to be true,
but just as savage proofs of vengeance were given by
Asshurbanipal. And
they sought Daniel
and his fellows to be slain. The Septuagint
translation of this clause is somewhat paraphrastic, “And
Daniel was
sought for and all those with him in order to be put to
death.” The want of
an antecedent to fix the nominative of the verb probably
led to the sentence
assuming its present mold; but “all” seems to have no word
to occasion it.
Theodotion follows the Massoretic text closely; so also
does the Peshitta.
It is clear from this that Daniel and his companions had
not been
summoned into the royal presence when the question
concerning the dream
was put to the wise men. This would seem to contradict the
statement of
ch.1:19, “Therefore stood they”
— to wit these Hebrew youths —
“before the king.”
Their position was probably like those who had passed
the examination for the Indian Civil Service — they are
accepted, but they
have still a season of study, and then, after they go out
to India, they
occupy only subordinate situations at first. While
permitted to enter the
ranks of the soothsayers and astrologers to the court, they
were placed at
first only in the lower grades, and would have to rise by
degrees, and in
ordinary circumstances a long time would elapse before they
would be
summoned into the immediate presence of the sovereign. On
the reading of
the Septuagint, Daniel and his friends would not, because
they were Jews, and
not Chaldeans. One has only to turn to the Talumdic tales
to see how
unlike this reasonable position is to the ordinary Jewish
fictitious narrative.
The Book of Daniel is not nearly prodigal enough in wonders
to be a
representative of the Jewish Midrash. It is further clear
that the decree of
the king went beyond those who had actually been in his
council-chamber
on that memorable day. The idea of the king probably was
that the treason
which he had found in the heads of the various classes of
Chaldean
soothsayers would have permeated all the members.
Babylonian and
foreign, as well; therefore he orders them all to suffer a
common fate.
Wieseler’s hypothesis, that this event took place close to
the end of the
three years of study which had been assigned to these
youths, would suit
the statement of events which we find here; although it is
not necessary, yet
on this assumption, the succession of events as narrated in
this chapter
becomes perfectly natural.
The
Revelation Lost (vs. 1-13)
“My spirit was troubled to know the dream” (v. 3). Since the word “and,” at the
beginning of this chapter, links it with ch. 1:21, i.e. Daniel’s
public life with Daniel’s
preparation, it may be well here to notice what his preparation had
been.
1. At home, and the associations of
2. Knowledge of
previous revelations (see ch. 9:2).
3. Moral victory at a
crisis of history.
4. Experience of life
at one of its great centers —
court.
As indicating the difference between Ezekiel’s standpoint
and that of
Daniel, note Ezekiel dates from the years of the Captivity
— for him, in
comparative obscurity, the years dragged on wearily — Daniel, by the
reigns of kings in whose court he was. Daniel’s experience grew
with the
years, and he became increasingly fit to receive political
revelations —
revelations as to the rise and fall of empires.
·
THE DISCREPANCY.
Between ch.1:5 and ch. 2:1.
Occasion might well be taken
from this to insist upon one or two
wholesome truths in reference to Biblical interpretation.
1. The discrepancy looks at first sight glaring enough;
i.e. as to the dates.
Still, with our idea of the
sacred writings, we should be justified in
believing:
2. That some explanation would be forthcoming, if we
knew all the facts.
Of the propriety of this assumption,
we shall have a striking illustration in
the recent clearing up of’ the special critical difficulty of
ch. 5.
3. One might fairly conclude that Daniel is quite as
reliable an historian
as any other author.
4. The seeming discrepancy is clear evidence that Daniel,
and none other,
is the writer; for these
two dates would never have been admitted in a form
apparently contradictory, coming so close to each other as to
challenge
attention, if the author had been an impostor. Daniel writes
straightforwardly the truth, unconscious of the possible misconstruction of
his words. This unguardedness of style is a sure sign of the
credibility of a
living witness, and of the genuineness of any book.
5. There are several explanations forthcoming, one specially credible (see
Exposition).
6. Our feeling in relation to discrepancies real or
apparent, will doped
entirely on our moral attitude in
relation to revelation. The believer will
treat them lightly; the captious and unbelieving will make the
very most of
.them (see Alford on receipt of
one of Colenso’s volumes, in ‘Alford’s
Life’).
·
THE PREPARATION. There
were subjective conditions of the dream
which argue a certain nobility in Nebuchadnezzar. Dreams grow
out of
waking thought; and, though this dream was supernatural, we may
well
believe it was naturally conditioned. The mood of the king created
a certain
receptivity for Divine revelation (v. 29).
1. The cares of empire weighted his soul.
2. His mind projected itself
into the far future. (v. 29.)
3. Thoughts of present responsibility and visions of the
future were entertained.
To all, such high thoughts come
at some time or other; but not all
entertain them. We may drown them in frivolity, or quench them by
intoxication. When God comes to a soul with thoughts worthy of its
nature, it is for the soul to open wide its
portals and let the glory in. About
this young conqueror there was a certain grasp and elevation of
mind.
·
THE DREAM. Here, at
present, we ignore its contents; we are
supposed, indeed, not to know it: and consider only generally
whether, and
to what extent, the dream may become the article of Divine
communications to man. In a complete, discussion, we should have to cite
the following testimonies: Those of:
1. Psychology. The nature and origin of dreams should
be elucidated, with
the view to a just estimate of the testimonies which follow.
Sufficient wilt
be found for homiletic purposes in Dr. Smith’s ‘Bible Dict.,’
art. “Dreams.”
2. Scripture. These inductions seem valid:
(1) “That Scripture claims the dream, as it does every other
action of the
human mind, as a medium through which God may speak to man!“
(2) “That it lays far greater stress on that Divine influence
by which the
understanding also is affected.” In
dream, the imagination is in the
ascendant; the reason, dormant.
(3) That dream as a medium of Divine communication is inferior
to
prophecy.
(4) That dreams, therefore, were granted:
(a) To the heathen rather than to the covenant people of
God.
(b) To the latter only during their earliest and most
imperfect individual
knowledge of Him.
(c) Only in the earliest ages, and less frequently as
the revelations of
prophecy increase.
(d) Almost invariably require an interpreter. These last
four points are all
illustrated by the dreams in the Book of Daniel.
3. Experience. The reference here is to that modern
experience, of which
we may be either the subjects or the observers. Even in a
Christian
civilization like ours, the superstitious regard fur dreams is so
common,
that the following truths may well be insisted on:
(1) That dreams should never for us stand in the place of
revelation.
(2) Should be disregarded entirely, when contravening the truth “as it is in
Jesus”
(3) That God may see fit by dream to prepare the mind for
the future.
(4) That there seems well-authenticated instances in which the
coming
event has been imaged in dream. Surely he who made the soul can have
access to it by night or by day, directly or mediately, as He
will in the
application of these truths to our own life, the greatest spiritual
wisdom
will be necessary.
·
THE SEARCH. We do not
agree with Keil, that the king remembered
the dream, and was intent on testing the value of the
interpretation by
making the interpreter tell also the dream itself; nor with the
reasons he
assigns for that interpretation. We believe that the dream was
gone from
memory, yet leaving behind such an impression that the king would
recognize it on its being described, and also leaving behind an idea
of its
tremendous import, and a conviction that its origin was Divine. Here
note:
1. The mission of oblivion. “God sometimes serves His
own purposes by
putting things out of men’s minds, as well as by putting things
into their
minds.” By the king’s forgetfulness Daniel came to be honored,
and in
him the God of Daniel.
2. The adaptation of Divine revelations. From ch.2:4 to 8:28 the
language of the book is Chaldee; as though God would throw open the
revelation through Daniel to the people of
After ch. 8. the language reverts to Hebrew,
for the communications are
then chiefly for
universally.
3. The infirmities of even noble minds. There were
many elements of
greatness about Nebuchadnezzar; but all shaded by:
(1) Superstition. Seeking
for light where no light could be found — from
the magi of various grades.
(2) Unreason. Demanding both dream and interpretation. A certain sort of
wisdom might interpret; but only the omniscience of God could recover
the
dream.
(3) Cruelly. Many instances besides that in this chapter.
·
THE FAILURE. (v. 11.)
Observe:
1. The error into which exalted intellect may fall. “Gods”
imply
polytheism.
2. The truth which may shine through error. The magi
were aware:
(1) Of the omniscience that is essential to Deity.
(2) Of the limitation that belongs to the creature. The flesh
is a veil that
hides from us much of the spirit-world.
·
THE DOOM. Cruel as was
the edict on the part of the king, there
was, nevertheless, a sort of rough justice on the part of
God’s natural
government of the world, in consigning to punishment the practicers
of
imposition and traders on the superstitious fear, of men. “They
sought
Daniel and his
fellows to be slain” suggests how oft the innocent are
caught in the consequences of the sin of others.
The Failure and
Discomfiture of Falsehood (vs. 1-13)
As every drop of water on the surface of the hills has a
tendency to flow
towards the ocean, as every step of the racer moves towards the
goal, so
every event in every
kingdom points toward the establishment of Messiah’s
empire. The exile of the Jews, though apparently a retrograde
movement in
the
spiritual machinery; the special education of Daniel and his
companions; the heathen monarch’s dream; the discomfiture of the
magicians; — all these, and like events in
influence leading on to the advent of Messiah. God is no respecter
of
persons, no respecter of places, and if there be a more pliant
disposition in
the
King of
reveal His will to Nebuchadnezzar, and use him in molding
public events.
Consciously or unconsciously, all conquerors and all
captives are working
out
the purposes of the universal Lord.
·
THE GREAT MONARCH’S DISTRESS.
Ø
For even kings are not
exempt from trouble, Yea, their very elevation
exposes them to winds of adversity, from which those escape who
dwell
in the sequestered vales of private station. As in nature, so
in human life,
there is a marvelous system of compensation. We look at the
external
palaces of princes, and are too ready to envy their privileged
estate; but
could we look within their breasts, we should be prone chiefly
to pity
them. “The sleep of a laboring man is sweet,” but the pillow of
royalty
is thickly sown with prickly cares.
Ø
Most probably, outward
circumstance combined with inward fear to
produce this ominous dream. By admitting a natural element in
human
events, we do not exclude the supernatural. Both elements are
under
Divine
direction. Everywhere God engrafts the
spiritual upon the natural.
The laws and processes of nature
and of human life God uses so far as
they serve his particular purpose, and when they fall short of
fitness He
introduces the higher element of miracle. If Nebuchadnezzar already
saw the development of military strength in other royal
courts, it was
impossible but this knowledge would make a corresponding impression
upon his mind, and it would be wanton blindness on our part to
exclude
this from our investigation of the truth. It is equally certain
that an
influence from God moved upon the monarch’s mind — arranging (it
may be) the materials of the imagery, impressing his
imagination with
the portentous meaning of the vision, and partly effacing the
recollection from his memory.
Ø
With stupendous
condescension, God accommodates Himself to the
infancy of the race. He who tempers the wind for the shorn lamb,
simplifies His lessons to the weakness of our understanding. To the
inquiry, “Why should God make known His will to men through
dreams?”
it is a sufficient reply that He found this method the most
suitable to the
capacity of man in the childhood of his intelligence. During the
hours
of sleep, the soul is more free from the disturbance of
outward events;
the will does not play so dominant a part over the
movements of thought;
the predilections and propensities of the inner man are
unveiled. Men
have an intense longing to know the future. We cannot doubt
that
the same God who has given us a faculty for acquiring all the
past
could have given us a
faculty for foreseeing the future. Some potent
reason has prevailed with Him to hang an impenetrable veil over
our
untraversed life. Yet some of the grand outlines of the future have
gradually been revealed. Our character forecasts our future
fortunes.
Practical obedience to the will
of God is the best telescope through
which we may discern our distant weal. Our real destiny
is not wrapped in night. But Nebuchadnezzar was mainly
concerned
about his dominion and his dynasty; hence his inward distress
produced
by the midnight vision.
·
THE IMPOTENCE OF HUMAN QUACKS.
Ø
It must be granted
that these Babylonian magicians had attained to
knowledge and craft beyond the ordinary attainments of men; but (as
is
frequently the case) their knowledge fed their vanity; they imposed
on
themselves the belief that this knowledge gave them access to the
secrets
of the unseen world, and they sought to impose on others the
conviction
that they could foretell coming events. Knowledge does not
always ripen
into wisdom — does not always bear the fruits of humility and
truthfulness. These men were
deceivers and self-deceived. They made
a market out of the ambition and fear of kings.
Ø
Inflated conceit.
They imagined that their skill was the
measure of
universal attainment. Failing themselves to decipher the problem,
they
plead, “There’s not a man upon the earth that can
show the king’s
matter.” The usual plea of weakness: “What I cannot do, no one
else can do: let us yield to the inevitable.” This is
the sophistry of
modern skeptics, who prefer to style themselves
agnostics. Because
they fail to unravel difficulties in nature and in the
universe, they rush
to the conclusion that the matter itself is inexplicable. “A
little child
shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6)
Ø
A crucial test.
The monarch, unreasonable and unscrupulous
as he may
seem, brings their boasted knowledge to a real test. Whether
these
magicians did or did not accurately interpret dreams or forecast the
future, the king had never known. He had been compelled to take
their
pretensions wholly upon trust. The oracular deliverances had been
delightfully ambiguous — were capable of wide significance. No
guarantee had ever been furnished by these magicians of their
honesty.
Now a favorable opportunity
occurred for testing the skill of these
boasted diviners. If their scientific calculations allowed them to
descry
the future, much more should it enable them to read a page of
the recent
past, If their popular deities gave them skill to interpret the
meaning of
a dream, much easier was it for these deities to give their
servants power
to revive in a man’s memory the loss of a dream. If they could
not
accomplish the lesser task, it was vain to pretend they could
perform
the greater. It was therefore only just that the king should
sharply rebuke
them in the words, “Ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to
speak before me.”
·
THE HASTY VERDICT OF THE KING.
Ø
See the violence of carnal passion. Haste and impatience are always
conspicuous signs of weakness. His expectation of escape from mental
disquietude had been awakened by the pretentious arts of these
magicians,
and, this expectation having collapsed, disappointment added
another
ingredient to his cup of trouble. If he had only given himself time
to
recover from this mental disturbance, time to reflect upon his
responsibility as arbiter of human life, time to perceive his own folly
in pandering aforetime to the pretensions of these men, he
would
have gained a reputation for wisdom, and have rendered the
world
a service by exposing the hypocrisy of sorcerers.
Ø
His verdict was excessively severe. The penalty of death
was the
severest he could inflict upon his subjects, and if this penalty
was
enforced on every occasion, even when no public injury was
done
to the state, he confounded all degrees of crime, and encouraged
men,
who had transgressed in lesser matters, to become desperate
inflictors
of mischief. When men
know that their offence is trivial compared
with other forms of guilt, and yet have to endure the heaviest
sentence
of doom, they will often lend themselves to some desperate
project
of vengeance.
Ø
His verdict was indiscriminate, and involved both
the righteous and
the wicked. Not content
with inflicting capital punishment on the
offenders, he decrees
that their “houses shall be made a dunghill.”
By such a vindictive deed, innocent women and young
children
would have been plunged into
suffering and disgrace for no fault,
and without any advantage to the state. Moreover, the arbitrary decree
required “that all
the wise men should be slain.” This included Daniel
and his comrades — yea, all men of intelligence and wisdom, though
they had made no pretence to magical art. By a blind act of ungovernable
passion, the king would have stripped his court of every ornament, and
his government of its best supports. A passionate man usually maims
his own face. Nebuchadnezzar would have defeated his own purpose —
cut off his only chance of having his dream interpreted — if his
vindictive and unscrupulous command had been executed. What vile
deeds have royal hands frequently performed! How does the cry of
innocent blood from a myriad battle-field rise to heaven against them!
14 “Then Daniel answered
with counsel and wisdom to Arioch
the captain of the king’s guard, which was gone forth to
slay the wise
men of
the Egyptian recension, the translation of which we have in
the Septuagint
Version. “Then Daniel spake with the counsel and knowledge
which were
his
to Arioch the chief executioner [ἀρχὶ
μαγείρῳ – archi mageiro - chief
executioner - chief butcher - used by Plutarch for ‘chief cook’] of the king, to
whom it was appointed to lead out
the wise men (σοφιστὰς - sophistos) of
(deeleh), “which to him,” equivalent to “which he had.” The Septuagint text had
פקד instead of נפק Something may be said for this
reading, as the ל of the
succeeding word may have
occasioned the disappearance of the ד
which might
be
regarded as a ל defectively written. Theodotion agrees perfectly with the
Massoretic text.
The Peshitta is somewhat of a paraphrase in regard to the first
clause, “Then Daniel pacified and consulted, and said to Arioch
the chief of the
king’s guard, who had gone out to slay the wise men of
seem as if there had been some confusion of the words here,
though the
meaning is not far from that of the other version. The
Vulgate Version
differs, “Then Daniel asked about the law and sentence (sentientia)
at
Arioch, who had gone forth to slay the wise men of
Babylon.” The slate of
matters implied here reveals to us the fact that several
links of the story are
wanting. There seems to have been absolute secrecy as to
what had taken
place in the royal council-chamber, and how absolute had
been the failure
of the Chaldean wise men to satisfy the demands of the
king. We could
imagine the strange turmoil that this would have caused in
the college of
young cadets of the various guilds of soothsayers and
augurs, had it been
announced that these great heads of their various orders
had failed. News
may have come of the wrath of the king, and close behind
the angry
sentence of extirpation, passed not only on those who had
been the
immediate occasions of the king’s wrath, but on all the
guilds of wise men
in Babylon. This must have filled those who belonged to the
various guilds
implicated, not only with terror, but with amazement. It
was next brought
to them that they, though only in the lower stages of these
famous guilds,
were doomed to a common destruction with the past masters
of the craft.
That this was allowed to reach these subalterns proves that
popular opinion
had not gone with the fiery edict of the king. Above all,
Arioch, captain “of
the guard” — “of the cut-throats,” as the Spanish
translators have rendered
it; “chief butcher,” as both Theodotion and the Septuagint
render his title
— acts as if he is not in favor of it. he is compelled to
do the king’s
bidding; but he is evidently bent on going about the matter
in such a
leisurely fashion that the great body of the condemned may
escape. We
may stay to notice that the name Arioch is a genuine
Babylonian name, Eri
Aku, “Servant of the
moon-god.” Professor Bevan declares it is borrowed
from Genesis 14:1, as his title is from Ibid. ch. 37:36. It
is singular
that when the author’s acquaintance with the earlier
Scriptures was so full
and accurate, he should drop into the blunders he is
accused of. In Genesis
the executioner does not execute anybody; in Daniel he is
represented as
engaged in organizing the massacre. Daniel seems not to
have waited till
the terrible band of guardsmen-executioners arrived at the
college where he
and his friends were living, he goes direct to the chief of
the band. The fact
that he is not cut down immediately on his approach seems
to argue that
even the common guardsmen shrank from the duty imposed on
them. Their
horror and shrinking were perfectly natural. Let us suppose
a company in a
regiment of Irish Roman Catholics ordered to shoot down
their own
priests, and we may have some idea of the feelings of these
soldiers. These
augurs and soothsayers, these astrologers and magicians,
had been their
counselors; they had been their intercessors with their
deities. If they were
all slaughtered, would not the sheer blank in their own
lives be immense?
There would be no one now to tell them, however falsely, of
the future: no
one to tell them what to do to propitiate the gods. But
more, the gods
might well be supposed to be enraged by the slaughter of so
many of their
special servants, and might be expected to pour down
vengeance on the
whole nation as well as on the king who had commanded it,
but most of all
on those who, under whatever compulsion, raised their sacrilegious
hands
against the priests of the holy gods. It is even not
improbable that, once the
immediate paroxysm of his fury had passed, Nebuchadnezzar
would be
appalled at what he had himself ordered, and would connive
at delay, in the
hope that, though late, these wise men might come to reason
and tell him
what he wished. Daniel seems to find no difficulty in
gaining access to the
presence of Arioch. There are men who have a magnetic power
over their
fellows, and bend every one to their way, and still gain
their affection. And
Daniel seems pre-eminently to have been a man of this type. Personal good
looks and suave manners had their own share, but something
more was
needed to carry a condemned man through the ranks of guards
right into
the presence of their chief. This is made all the more
striking when we bear
in mind that preparations were being made for the great
massacre.
15 “He answered and said
to Arioch the king’s captain, Why is
the decree so hasty from the king? Then Arioch made the
thing
known to Daniel.” The
opening clause in this verse is doubtful. In the
Septuagint the verse is rendered, “And he asked him saying,
Ruler, why is
it decreed so bitterly by the king? And he showed him the
warrant.”
Theodotion is yet briefer, “Ruler of the king, why has so
harsh a sentence
come forth from the king? And he declared (ἐγνώρισε – egnorise ) to him
his orders.” But briefest of all is the Peshitta. It begins at once
without any
address, “Why is this harsh
decree from the king? And Arioch showed the
matter (miltha) to
Daniel.” As a rule, the shorter a reading is the better it is.
Therefore we are inclined to prefer the Peshitta rendering.
“Answered and
said” is a formula that might easily be stuck in where
anything of the kind
seemed needed. Here it is not suitable, as Daniel is
already said to have
“answered Arioch with counsel and prudence.” The addition
of the
Septuagint is more reasonable, “He asked him saying,
Ruler.” Theodotion
feels some title is necessary, so he calls Arioch “ruler of
the king.” It
appears to us that the brief Peshitta represents the best
text. Hasty
repesents to some extent, though not fully, the element of
blame implied in
the word mehahetzpah in greater degree than our
English word would
indicate. It means” rough,” “raging,” “shameless;” it might
be too strong to
say that “scandalous” represents Daniel’s meaning. Some
commentators
cannot imagine a man thus criticizing a royal decree to one
of the court
officials. Much, however, is permitted to a man speaking
about a decree
which has condemned him to death without his having an
opportunity to
defend himself It is possible that he might be able to use
all the more
freedom by seeing that Arioch had no favor for the business
to which he
was ordered. The Greek versions represent that Arioch
showed the
warrant, the king’s order for the execution. As that would
not be
considered an answer to Daniel’s question, on the one hand,
so on the
other, it would not be an occasion for the step Daniel
immediately
thereafter took. We think, on the whole, that the
Massoretic reading
amended here by the Peshitta is the better. As leader of
the royal
bodyguard, the place of Arioch would be beside
Nebuchadnezzar, even in
the council-chamber. He would thus be quite cognizant of
everything that
took place the demands of the king, the arguments of the
wise men. All this
scene he could portray for the information of Daniel. The
mere exhibition
of a warrant would tell nothing more than the fact that the
action of Arioch
was in obedience to orders.
16 “Then Daniel went in,
and desired of the king that he
would give him time, and that he would show the king the
interpretation.” The version of Theodotion omits all mention of
Daniel’s
going into the palace, “And
Daniel petitioned the king that he should give
him time, and he
would tell his interpretation to the king.”
The rendering of
the Peshitta agrees with this, “And Daniel petitioned the
king for time, and
he would show the interpretation to the king.” The version
of the
Septuagint is longer, “And Daniel went in quickly to the
king, and
petitioned that time should be given him from the king, and
he would show
all things to the king.” Jerome gives a rendering of the
Massoretic text in
Latin condensation. The question of reading here is of some
importance in
the light of the apparent contradiction implied in the
twenty-fifth verse.
There Arioch declares that he “had found a man of the
captives of Judah,
that will make known unto the king the interpretation” —
as if
Nebuchadnezzar had never seen him before, whereas, if the
Massoretic
recension is correct, Nebuchadnezzar had seen Daniel but a
little while
before. According to the reading of Theodotion and the Peshitta,
Daniel
petitioned the king for time, but that petition does not
imply necessarily
that he was admitted into the king’s presence; the petition
would pass
through court officials, and reach the king in due course.
We may note the
ease with which he granted this request, and look upon it
as confirmatory
of our notion that the king, now that his rage had gone
down, repented of
his harsh decree, and was hoping against hope that the
catastrophe would
be averted. The only other explanation that would save the
authenticity of
both passages is that Daniel’s entrance into the palace and
his petition to
the king happened without Arioch being aware. The most
natural
explanation of Arioch’s conduct in postponing the execution
of the royal
decree is that the postponement was during the interval the
petition for
time was being presented, but still not decided on. This
seems not unlikely.
Of course, it is always open to us to declare the verses
from this to the
twenty-fourth inclusive an interpolation; Daniel has suffered
so much from
this, that an additional case has no prima facie probability
against it.
Moreover, the prayer or hymn has strong resemblance to the
prayer of
Azarias, which is acknowledged to be an interpolation.
Still, one ought to
be slow to cut a knot in this way, unless there is some
clear ground of
suspicion. It may be observed also that the Massoretic text
does not
necessarily assert entrance into the palace or into the
king’s presence.
Certainly עֲלַל: (‘alal) means “entered,” and in the connection
this would
suggest the palace as the place entered, but it may have
been the house of
Arioch, though this is not likely. We have no means of
knowing whether
any others of those implicated in the sentence of the king
petitioned also
for time. Not impossibly they did. The king, who was so
suspicious that the
wise men wished to delay till the auspicious time was
passed, is willing to
grant time when it is asked. This is explicable on the idea
that
Nebuchadnezzar was anxious to be delivered from the
horrible slaughter
which his decree involved. Another thing to be observed is
that in the
Massoretic text, Theodotion, and the Peshitta, there is no
word of the
dream being told. Of course, this interpretation implied a
knowledge of the
dream also, but it would appear to be another evidence that
the king was
relenting, when a petition that omitted the crucial point
of the question
between him and the wise men should be granted without
difficulty. We are
not
told the amount of time requested, the word used, ˆ
זְמָן (zeman),
is, “a
fixed time,” from זְמַן “to determine.” It occurs again frequently in Daniel,
as in v. 21. It is generally of a fixed point of time, but
sometimes, as
ch.7:12, their lives were prolonged for a season (ˆזְמָן). There being
only one instance among the other passages where this word
occurs, in
which it means a space of time, we are inclined to think
that here Daniel
petitioned that a time be appointed him when he too should
have an
audience of the king in regard to the matter of the dream,
as the other wise
men had. There certainly is implied a space of time in this
request. The
space must have involved at least twenty-four hours, as the
matter is
revealed to Daniel in “a night vision.” It is unlikely it would be
much
longer, for fear the planetary collocation would change —
certainly not
more than a week. Tertullian (‘Adv. Psychicos,’ 7) says,
“Daniel Deo
fidens… spatium tridui
poslulat.” We learn
from what follows that Daniel
acted tamely from his general faith in God, and was
confident that God
would not suffer his saints to be destroyed causelessly, it
is noted by Calvin
that Daniel does not tell the king the reasons of his
confidence. A falsarius
would have taken the opportunity of making Daniel declare
his confidence
in the God of heaven from the very first. The real Daniel
acts as any wise
saint would do, confident that God would do justly, hopeful
that he would
reveal to him the secret, yet too careful of the honor of
Jehovah to put it
in pledge; he knew God could and would defend His own
honor, and His
plan might not involve the saving of their lives.
17 “Then Daniel went to
his house, and made the thing known
to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions.” There is nothing
in the versions that calls for remark here, save that the
Septuagint seems to
have had כֹל “all,” or some such word, instead of mill’tha. After
having
got his petition granted, to all appearance easily, Daniel
now proceeds to
his own house. As during the period of their education the
four friends had
formed one “mess” in the hall of Nebuchadnezzar, and it is
probable had
one table set apart to them, so when in college — if we may
use the phrase
— they occupied one apartment or set of apartments. Their
life in the
matter of food was simple and abstemious, and it is little
likely that they
would require extensive accommodation. Having got the
reprieve he had
petitioned for, Daniel now informs his friends of it. We
have assumed that
the news of the royal decree had reached the college where,
among other
students and soothsayers of as yet lesser grade, Daniel and
his friends
abode; in that case, he would merely have to inform them
how he had spoke
with Arioch. and how he had further presented a petition to
the king for a
time to be set when he should answer the king’s request,
and how he got
what he desired. It may, however, have been that Daniel had
alone heard
the dreadful news, and then acted so that his companions
heard only of the
threatened disaster when they heard of the mode of escape.
It is to be
observed, in passing, that the names of the friends are
given in the Hebrew,
not in the Babylonian form. Alone with each other, we may
imagine they
used the old Hebrew names of their childhood. Now
especially would the
sacred tongue be present to their lips and their thoughts
when the cloud of
a great danger hung over them. It was as Jews, members of
the holy people,
that they could appeal for help and deliverance to Jehovah
the God of Israel.
18 “That they would desire
mercies of the God of heaven
concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should
not perish
with the rest of the wise men of
connection between the preceding verse and that before us
as has the
Massoretie, only it is slightly different in its rendering,
“And he
told them
to fast and pray [urged them to fasting and prayer], and to seek help
from
the Lord the
Highest, concerning this mystery, in order that Daniel with his
companions might
not be given over to destruction with the wise men of
different reading here. The verb צוּם, “to fast,” in the infinitive, might have
begun the verse. Still there would be the difficulty of
finding anything to
correspond to παρήγγειλε
–
paraeggeile – they would ask. It, however,
was probably added to bring the sentence into Greek regimen. The Septuagint
translator read the words as nouns
in the accusative, and of this case לְ was a
frequent sign. Thus what they
had was וּלְבָעוּ
לְצומָא. The Hebrew word
corresponding to the Aramaic word here
translated “mercies,” ˆ
רַחֲמִין (rahamin),
“bowels,” “mercies,” is common
enough in Biblical language; but the phrase, “to
desire mercies,” is not found elsewhere in Scripture. It occurs in the
later
Targums, as Numbers 12:13, as a paraphrastic addition to
the simple
statement of Onkelos, that Moses prayed before the Lord;
only in the case
quoted, as generally, the order is not, as here, the object
before the verb —
a
construction more frequent in Assyrian than in Aramaic, save in poetry.
The phrase is elliptical; the ruling verb is omitted. One
is tempted to
wonder whether the word had not originally been לבעון, making it a case
of
the Babylonian or Eastern Aramaic, third person plural imperfect; then
the
preceding word would be לצומון,, with the vav dropped as
unnecessary, and the mere inserted to make the word a
regular infinitive.
Confirmatory of our view is Theodotion, whose rendering, ἐζήτουν – ezaetoun –
would ask - implies
that he had a third person plural imperfect here. We do not
maintain that it is necessary that he should have had such
a reading, but
there is at least a high probability that he had. The
Peshitta reverses the
order of the words, and omits the conjunction vav,
and, inserting the
relative l, as sign of subordination, proceeds, “that they entreat
mercies
from before God.” Here, also, the third person plural
imperfect is used.
From the greater freedom that Jerome allowed himself in his
translation,
and from the wide difference between the grammatical
construction of a
Latin and an Aramaic sentence, no stress can be laid on the
fact that he too
translates by the third plural imperfect — ut quaerrent
misericordiam. The
balance of probability is that here we have to do with one
of those
indications of the Eastern origin of the Aramaic of Daniel.
There is an
instance of doublet in the Septuagint here in the case of the
phrase,
τιμωρίαν ζητῆσαι – timorian zaetsai - to seek succour. Tertullian,
in his
reference to this passage, to which we have referred above (v. 16), adds to
what we quoted above, cum
sua fraternitate jejunat, and thus shows
that,
though differing somewhat from the
Septuagint text as we have it, the
African Latin Version agreed with
it in inserting something about “fasting”
here. The God
of heaven. This is rendered by the Septuagint
here, as generally,
ὕψιστος - huphistos - highest; Supreme . The probability here is that we
have to do with no difference of reading, but rather with an objection to
applying to God a title used for heathen deities. The title has a
peculiar
significance in the lips of those who, as Daniel, were educated as
astrologers,
and
taught by those who regarded the sun, the moon, and the various planets as
deities. Daniel and his fellows might thus believe in astrology,
but maintain that
the
God of heaven, their God, used heavenly bodies as messengers to proclaim
to
those who could read the writing, the things that were coming on the earth.
They might thus even give a certain limited subordinate
power to the
deities of
who
was also the God of Israel. There may be a reference to Jeremiah 10:11.
The gods that
have not made the heavens and the earth, even
they
shall perish from
the earth, and from under these
heavens. The God of
title is used before — in Genesis 24:7, where Abraham uses it.
It is
characteristic of Biblical Aramaic, that the covenant title of God,
“Jehovah,” is never used.
Before we leave this, we would observe that the
Peshitta inserts ל - d,
the sign of the genitive, before shemayyaa, whereas
the
text before us uses the older form of construct state in the word for
“God.” Concerning
this secret. A parallel passage illustrative of this is
Amos 3:7, “Surely the Lord
God will do nothing, but He revealeth His
secret unto His servants the prophets;” also Deuteronomy 29:29,
“the secret things belong unto the Lord our God.” Whatever was about to
happen, Daniel and his friends knew it could only happen according to
the
purpose and plan of God.
He, as He was the real actor, knew what He was
about to do, and whatever revelation of that future had been
given to
Nebuchadnezzar in his dream, it must have come from the God
of heaven;
therefore to Him do Daniel and his friends make their entreaty. Professor
Bevan declares רַז (raz)
to be a Persian word. Neither Winer, Furst, nor
Gesenius recognizes it to be such. Granted that it is
Persian, is it not a
possible supposition that it is derived from the Aramaic; not that
the
Aramaic word is derived from the Persian? Even on the supposition
that
this word was derived from the Persian, this is not extraordinary, when we
learn the intimate relationship between the Median court and the
Babylonian. That Daniel and
his fellows should not perish with the rest of
the wise men of
already perished? It seems almost necessary to maintain this from
the
meaning of שְׁאָר (shear), “remnant.” It seems at first scarcely
natural to
take this word as meaning merely “the other,” yet the usage in Ezra is in
accordance with this: Ezra 4:9,
“Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai
the
scribe, and the rest (וְּשאָר) of their companions.” A further question
may
be raised — Does this prayer mean that the desire of Daniel and his
friends was that, when the wise men of
superintendence they had been taught, were slain, they should escape? Or
does it mean that they prayed that “they with the wise men of
should not be destroyed”? This wholly depends on the meaning to
be
attached to the word עִם (‘im), “with.” As in English, this word admits of
both meanings. As the word is common to Hebrew and Aramaic, we shall
take our examples from Hebrew. Thus Genesis 18:25, “That be far
from thee, Lord, to
slay the righteous with the
wicked.” As example of the
other use of the word, Genesis 32:6, “Esau and four hundred men with
him.”
Usage thus permits us to regard this prayer as intercessory, that these
Hebrew youths prayed not only to be preserved themselves,
but also that
all
the other wise men who shared their condemnation should also be
preserved. This is the first record of concerted prayer. Of course,
in
heathen worship there was the caricature of this concert of prayer
in the
united shouting of the priests, say, of Baal. This is the earliest
instance of
that practice that has received such a gracious promise from our Lord
(Matthew 18:19), “If
two of you shall agree on earth as touching
anything they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father
which is in
heaven.” We would not maintain,
even in appearance, that multitude adds
to
efficacy with God. But when two or three are gathered together, there is
an infection of earnestness, a community of enthusiasm
generated, that
makes each individual fitter to receive the answer. Yet, again,
the more
that join in a petition, the more it must be raised out of the groveling
region of selfishness. A man who has a purely selfish desire
rising in his
heart cannot ask his fellows to join him in supplicating God to
grant his
request.
Character Revealed by Trial (vs. 2-18)
Critical moments are tests of character, In this incident
the leading features
of three distinct classes of character are clearly
revealed.
CHARACTER OR TYRANNY.
Ø
It is selfish.
Though the charge of a vast empire is
entrusted to him, the
king exercises, his
irresponsible power of life and death simply for his
own convenience.
Ø
It is unreasonable. Nebuchadnezzar not
only asks for the interpretation,
he demands the recovery of his
forgotten dream. Whenever great
authority is not balanced by an
equivalent intelligence, the result must
be some such issue of most
unreasonable commands.
Ø
It is cruel. For failing to meet the king’s preposterous demand, the
Chaldeans are to be hewn in
pieces. Even those junior members, such as
Daniel and his three companions,
who were not consulted, are to suffer the
same fate. Thus the isolation of
supreme rank and irresponsible power
tends to destroy
that sympathy which is dependent on the feeling of
fellowship.
Ø
It is suicidal, in the madness of his disappointment, the king is about to
kill the man who subsequently
proves to be his best friend. Selfishness is
often blind to its highest
interest. Cruelty reverts on the head of its
author.
WEAKNESS OF PRETENSIONS TO MAGICAL POWER. If the dream
had been given, these men would
have offered an interpretation, though
probably one of Delphic
ambiguity. But when the demand is for the
exercise and test of a
distinctly supernatural faculty, they fail. We may
note, in reference to the
pretensions to second sight of such men and their
modern successors, that:
Ø They fail before the crucial test which plainly requires supernatural
powers. They are too vague
for this.
Ø
They are of no practical
interest. Trivial secrets may appear to be
revealed, but mysteries of
serious importance remain unsolved.
Ø
Instead of increasing
religious faith, they discourage it. The
Chaldeans
say that what the king requires
can be done only by “the gods, whose
dwelling is not
with flesh,” thus implying that these
gods make no
revelation to men, and have no
contact with them. Contrast their godless
divination with Daniel’s higher
power of divination, which he
attributes
solely to the
revealing grace of his God.
DEVOUT WISDOM UNDER SEVERE TRIAL.
Ø
It has immediate recourse to prayer. Daniel does not
pretend to solve
the mystery by the force of his
own wisdom. He at once invokes the help
of God. In the method and object of his prayer his action is a
medal of
devout wisdom. Thus:
o
he associates his
three companions with him in his prayer, and
shows his faith in the efficacy
of united prayer (see Acts 2:1;
12:5; Jeremiah 5:14);
o
his prayer is to the
point, asking for special help in special need;
o
it is reasonable, —
Daniel asks for deliverance from threatened
death, but only by
receiving power to fulfill the king’s condition;
he does not look for a
miraculous escape, but for light in the matter
of the king’s dream.
Ø
Devout wisdom finds
its greatest strength in the greatest trial. If it had
not been for the king’s savage
threat, Daniel might have been long in
developing his gifts and
realizing his mission. The danger brings him
out of obscurity, and compels
him to exercise the Divine faculties which
are entrusted to him. If we have
the right spirit in us to appreciate the
opportunities they afford, we
shall often find that the extremities and
emergencies of life are, under
the providence of God, the very means by
which his best gifts and graces
are made to fructify. Their greatest
excellency is in their capacity
to shine brightest under the hardest trials.
19 “Then was the secret
revealed unto Daniel in a night vision.
Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.” The
Septuagint adds that the
secret was revealed (ἐν
αὐτῇ τῇ νυκτι – en autae tae
nukti - that very
night). This may
be held to be implied in the Aramaic, but it is here
explicitly
stated. Further, the Septuagint
speaks of the secret as “the, mystery of the king.”
At the end of the clause
the Septuagint adds the word εὐσήμως - eusaemos –
Evidently; easy to
be understood.. All these
alterations imply additions to the text
made by the translator.
Theodotion, the Peshitta, and Jerome agree with the
Massoretic text.
There has been considerable discussion as to whether this
revelation was made to Daniel by a dream. Hitzig assumes that the
night-vision to
Daniel was a repetition of that which had appeared to
Nebuchadnezzar, and then
proceeds to brand this as a psychological impossibility.
Keil, Kliefoth, Kraniehfeld,
and Zockler all declare against the identification of a
night-vision with a dream.
Keil and Kliefoth say in the same words, “A vision of the
night is simply a
vision which any one receives during the night whilst he is
awake.” And
Kranichfeld says, “Of a dream of Daniel, in our present
case there is not
one word.” Zockler says, “Not a dream-vision, but an
appearance
(Gesicht) vision, which appeared during the night.”
They maintain that,
though all “dreams” may be called “night-visions,”
all “night-visions” are
not “dreams.” It would be difficult to prove that
this is the usage of
Scripture. It is quite
true that the distinction between a dream and a vision
is that in the former the subject is asleep, while in the
latter he is awake. It
may, however, be doubted whether this distinction is always
maintained by
the Hebrew and Aramaic writers, even in regard to “visions”
and “dreams”
generally; and it seems to us impossible to prove it in
regard to “visions of
the night” and “dreams.” In v. 28 of the chapter before us,
there seems
no doubt that Daniel uses these words as equivalent to each
other; “Thy
dream, and the
visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these.” While we
agree with Hitzig that the revelation was to Daniel in a
dream, we do not
admit the psychological impossibility, save only in
the pedantic sense in
which it is said that no two people, however close they may
stand to each
other, see the same rainbow. Dreams are very generally the product of what
the subject has experienced during his waking hours. Surely
Hitzig never
meant to assert that it was a psychological impossibility
for two individuals
to witness the same event. Certainly the improbability is
very great that the
sight of the same physical event should meet the eyes of
two people in
similar states of body, and produce on them precisely the
some sort and
degree of impression. That, however, is akin to the
Hegelian pedantic
statement, which asserts that we cannot go twice down the
same street.
Though it might even be admitted to be an impossibility in
the only sense in
which it can at all be admitted, yet still it is not
self-contradictory. The self-
contradictory is the only impossibility we can assert in
the presence of the
miraculous. Hitzig’s objection to this is really that it
was a miracle, and all
the parade of giving the statement a new face by calling
it, not a miracle,
but a psychological impossibility, is only throwing dust in
the eyes of
others, perhaps of himself. Ewald does not see any
psychological
impossibility, and declares that the author meant to
represent this at all
events. Up, then, before
the mind of Daniel rose the gigantic statue of the
monarch’s vision, and with the vision came also the
divinely given certainty
that this was what the king had seen. He needs, however, more
than the
vision: the interpretation of the vision is vouchsafed to him also. Then
Daniel blessed
the God of heaven. The Septuagint rendering here joins the first
clause of v. 20 to this, “Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven, and
having cried
aloud, said.” Theodotion, the Peshitta,
and Jerome agree with
the Massoretic text. As we have said above, Daniel returned thanks
to God
for His great goodness to him and his friends.
Our blessing God does not
increase Divine felicity, but it expresses our sense of
this felicity, and we
recognize it all the more readily when, as in the case of
these Jews, it is
exhibited in making us partakers of it. Hence blessing God
and giving God
thanks become in such cases one and the same thing.
20 “And Daniel answered
and said, Blessed be the Name of
God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are His.” The Septuagint,
having practically given the beginning of this verse as the
end of v 19.
omits it now: hence it renders, “Blessed be the Name of the
great Lord for
ever, because the wisdom and the greatness are His.” The
fact that
מִן־עָלְמָא
(min’alma), “from eternity,” is not rendered in this
version, and
that the adjective “great” is added in its place, indicates
a difference of
reading. Probably there was a transposition of מברך and מן־עלמא
and
the
מן omitted. Then עלמא would be
regarded as status em-phaticus of
the
adjective עלּים (allim) This is not likely to be a correct reading,
as
allim means “robust,”
— possessing the vigor of youth.” Theodotion
differs somewhat more from the Massoretic text than is his
custom, “And
he said, Be the Name of God blessed from eternity to
eternity, for (the)
wisdom and (the) understanding are his.” This is shorter;
the omission of
the pleonastic formula, “answered and said,” has an
appearance of
genuineness that is impressive. It would seem as if
Theodotion had בינְתָא
(beenetha), “understanding,”
instead of גְבוּרָה (geboorah), “might.” The
Peshitta and the Vulgate do not differ from the Massoretic
text. The first,
word of the Hebrew text of this song of thanksgiving has an
interest for us,
as
throwing light on the question of the original language, לְהֶוֵא has the
appearance of an infinitive, but it is the third person
plural of the imperfect;
ל is here the preformative of the third person singular and
plural as in
Eastern Aramaic as distinct from Western. This preformative
is found
occasionally in the Aramaic of the Babylonian Talmud, along with n, the
preformative we find regularly in Syriac. In Biblical Aramaic this
preformative
is found only with the substantive verb. Suffice it that we regard this as an
evidence that Daniel was originally written in Eastern
Aramaic. Professor Bevan’s
explanation, that the phenomenon is due to the likeness
these parts of this verb
have to the Divine Name, is of force to afford a reason
why, in the midst of the
general process of Occidentalizing the Aramaic, they shrank
from applying it to
this verb. That they had no scruple in writing it first
hand, we find in the
Targums; thus Onkelos, Genesis 18:18, יֶהֲוֵי. We might refer to other
examples in the later Aramaic of the Talmud and other
Rabbinic works.
The Name of
God. Later Judaism, to avoid using the sacred covenant name
of God, was accustomed to use the “Name,” in this sense.
This may be
noted that throughout this whole book, “Jehovah” occurs
only in ch. 9.
This may be due to something of that reverence which has
led the Jews for
centuries to avoid pronouncing the sacred name, and to use
instead,
Adonai, “Lord.”
It is to be observed that all through Daniel the Septuagint
has
Κύριος – Kurios – Lord - the
Greek equivalent for Jehovah, while
Theodotion follows the Massoretic in having Θεός.– Theos – God..
For ever
and ever. This is not an
accurate translation,
although it appears
not only in the Authorized, but also in the Revised
Version. The sound of the
phrase impresses us with a sense of grandeur,
perhaps due to the music with
which it has been associated. When
we think of the meaning we really give to
the phrase, or of its actual grammatical sense, it only conveys to us
the idea of
unending future
duration; it does not at all imply unbeginning
duration. More
correct is Luther’s “veto Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit.” The Greek of
Theodotion
conveys this also, ἀπό τοῦ αἰῶνος
καὶ ἕως τοῦ αἰῶνος – apo tou
aionos kai hoes tou ainonos – forever
and ever. Jerome renders, “a
saeculo et usque in saeculum.” The true rendering is, “from eternity to
eternity.” It is
quite true that the עָלְמָא; means
primarily “an age,” as does
also αἰών– aion –
age; (from where we get our word eon) and saculum:
it is also quite true that it is improbable that in ancient
days man had definite
ideas of eternity; even at the present time, when men strive after definiteness,
they have no real conception of unending
existence (I remember as an
adolescent, trying to fathom eternity and I would get
swimmy headed!
CY – 2014), still less of existence
unbeginning. Still, it was used as
having that meaning so far as men were able to apprehend
it. As αἰών,, it is
used for “world.” For
wisdom and might are his. Wisdom is the Divine
quality of which they have had proof now, but “might” is united with it
as
really one in thought. The fact that the usual combination
is “wisdom
and
understanding” (see Exodus 31:3; Isaiah 11:2; Ezekiel 28:4) has
led the scribe, whose text Theodotion used, to replace
“might” by
“understanding.” He might feel himself confirmed in his
emendation by the
fact that, while God’s wisdom and, it might be said, his
understanding were
exhibited in thus revealing to Daniel the royal dream,
there was no place
for “might.” What was in the mind of Daniel and his friends
was that they
were in the hands of a great Monarch, who was
omnipotent. They now make
known their recognition of the glorious truth that not only
does the wisdom of the wise belong to God, but also the might of
the
strong. Further,
there is another thought here which is present in all
Scripture — that wisdom
and might are really two sides of one and the
same thing; hence
a truth is proved by a miracle, a work of power.
21 “And He changeth the
times and the seasons: He removeth
kings, and setteth up kings: He giveth wisdom unto the
wise, and
knowledge to them that know understanding. In regard to this verse,
Theodotion and the Septuagint only differ in this from the
Massoretic text,
that they omit the repetition of the word “kings.” The
Peshitta has a
different sense in the middle clause. “He maketh (Peshitta,
ma’bed) kings
and confirmeth (Peshitta, maqeem) kings” The Syriac
translators have
evidently read מְחֲעְדֵה (meh
‘deh), “to remove,” as מְהַעְבֵד (meha’bed),
“to make” The utter want of contrast in this reading
condemns it. In regard
to
the Aramaic of this passage, the carrying on of the preformative ה, the
sign of the haphel conjugation, is a proof of the early date
of the Aramaic.
In later Aramaic, ה gives
place to א, and א disappears after the other
preformative as יַקְטֵל,
not יִאֲקְטֵל. Changeth times
and seasons.
Nebuchadnezzar was anxious lest the time in which he might
make
advantageous use of the information conveyed by the dream
should pass
away, and a new “time” be established. Not improbably
Nebuchadnezzar,
like most heathens, imagined that his gods were limited by
some unseen
power like the Greek Fate, and, however wishful they might be to
be
propitious to their worshippers only in certain collocations of the
heavenly
bodies could they carry out their wish. God, the God of
heaven, the God of
the despised Hebrews, He it was who arranged the times and
the seasons,
He made the sun to rise, He makes summer and winter, He
leads out the host
of the stars, alike the star of Nebo and the star of
Marduk. The two words
“time” and “season” are nearly synonymous. Perhaps the
first is more
indefinite than the other. Our own opinion is that the
first has more the idea
of space of time, and the latter more of point of time; but
really they are
almost synonymous. He
removeth kings, and setteth up kings. In this there
seems to be a special reference to the contents of the
vision, which showed
that in the time to come, not only kings but dynasties were
to be set up and
overthrown. The former clause regarded God as the God of
nature. This
looks upon Him as the God of providence, by whom “kings reign, and
princes decree justice.” (Proverbs
8:15). He giveth wisdom unto the wise,
and knowledge
to them that know understanding. This address to God goes
further. Daniel sees in the faculties and
mental acquirements of men the
manifestation of God. It is the inspiration of the Almighty that giveth
understanding. All the power man has of acquiring
knowledge, all the faculty
he has for using that
knowledge aright, ALL COME FROM
GOD!
22 “He revealeth the deep
and secret things; He knoweth what
is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with Him.” The
rendering of the
Septuagint as it stands differs somewhat from the
Massoretic text,
“Revealing deep things and dark, and knowing the things
which are in the
darkness and the things which are in the light, and with
him is a dwelling
place (kata>lusiv – katalusis -
dwells ).” There
is doubt as to the exact force of
this last word; the last element in it suggests “solution.”
This meaning seems to
have been given to it generally; for Paulus Tellensis
renders it shari, which means
a “solution,” but as it is derived from shera, which
means “to dwell,” he
retains the double meaningf3 The reading of Kreysig
is decidedly to be
preferred, omitting τὰ – ta - the things which - before “in the
light,” and καὶ –
kai - and - after. The
rendering then would be, “in light is with
Him the
dwelling-place.”
This rendering harmonizes the Septuagint completely with the
Massoretic. The other versions call for no remark. There is
difference hero
between the Q’rl and K’thib. The Q’ri reads nehora,
“light,” a Chaldee or
Western Aramaic form; the K’thib again is, neheera,
the Eastern Aramaic
form. God is not only
the God of nature, of providence, and of man, but
ALSO OF REVELATION! He can make known to man what
otherwise man
could never know. He is the very Source of all light and
enlightenment. We may
compare this statement with that of Paul in I Timothy 6:16;
he speaks
of God as “whom only hath
immortality dwelling in light which no man can
approach unto.”
It seems to us the words of the Old Testament song convey a
loftier idea of God than does the Pauline statement —
perhaps it is even loftier
than the cognate phrase of the Apostle John (I John 1:5), “God is light, and in
Him is no darkness at all.”
We may compare, in regard to this whole verse,
Psalm 139:12, “The darkness hideth not from thee; but the
night shineth as the
day: the darkness and the tight are both alike to thee,” where neheera is
used as in the passage before us. Daniel ascribes to
Jehovah all the powers
of all the gods of
Divine Omniscience (v. 22)
God knows what is darkness to us, because in Him dwells the
eternal light
which penetrates all darkness. This supreme knowledge is
essential to His
perfection. Without it infinite power and perfect goodness
could only issue
in fearful disasters to the universe; and therefore the order and progress of
all things bear witness TO
ITS EXISTENCE! Consider:
IMPLIES.
Ø
The knowledge of
God comprehends all things. None are too great for
its grasp, none too small for
its notice. The regions of the telescope and
of the microscope come equally
under its notice (Job 28:24; Luke 12:6-7).
(See Fantastic Trip on You Tube
– CY – 2014)
Ø
It penetrates the deepest mysteries. Our most secret thoughts are known
to God, and He knows us better
than we know ourselves (Psalm 139:1-2;
Hebrews 4:13).
Ø
It reaches forward to the whole future. God’s knowledge of the future
can be to some extent
explained on two grounds.
o
His perfect knowledge of
the present must carry with it the
Knowledge of the future as
far as the present contains the
germs of the future (Acts
15:18).
o
His eternal nature is
not limited by our conditions of time,
so that He sees all things,
not in succession, but in one
immediate view (Exodus
3:14; II Peter 3:8).
CONSIDERATION OF THE DIVINE OMNISCIENCE.
Ø
It should lead to sincerity. The hypocrisy which
may seem to help us in
our relations with men, is useless before
God. The really important
question is, not — What does the
world think of us? but — What is
our character in the
sight of God? because our life and all
its destinies
depend on Him (Ecclesiastes
12:14)
Ø
It should strengthen
our faith in the providential care of God. He must
know better than we know;
therefore it
is foolish to fear and wrong to
complain. We must even
expect that, with His supreme knowledge,
He will not act just as we
should act with our very imperfect
knowledge (Job 34:33).
Ø
It should encourage
our hope in the ultimate well-being of the universe.
No one would commence a work if
he knew it would end in failure. No
benevolent pessimist would
create a universe. Before He made the world,
God foresaw the fall of man (Christ stood as a lamb slain before the
Foundation of the earth. Revelation 5:6;
13:8); before He sent His Son,
He saw how sadly He would be
rejected. If He so acted, knowing
all the future, it must have
been because He knew that, after all the
sin and sorrow, righteousness
and peace would finally triumph, so
that the ultimate blessedness of
existence should
amply compensate for all its
earlier misery (Isaiah 53:11).
(Paul said “For our light affliction, which
is but for a moment,
worketh for us a
far more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory.”
II Corinthians 4:17; “For
I reckon that the sufferings of this
present time are
not worthy to be compared with the glory
which shall be revealed in us.” Romans 8:18 – CY – 2014)
Ø
It should lead us to
seek our highest knowledge in Him. All true
discovery comes by revelation. “He revealeth the deep and secret things.”
In His mind are the archetypal
ideas of all things. The knowledge of
God is the
highest knowledge.
23 “I thank thee, and
praise thee, O thou God of my fathers,
who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known
unto me
now what we desired of thee; for thou hast now made known
unto us
the king’s matter.”
The Septuagint renders, “Thee, O
Lord of my fathers, i
thank and praise, because thou gavest wisdom and knowledge
to me, and
now thou hast revealed to me what I entreated, in order to
show the king
concerning these things.” There seems a slight difference
of reading implied
here. Theodotion and the Peshitta are practically at one
with the
Massoretic. Theodotion translates the relative דִי as if it were “and,” not,
as in our version, “for;” and the Peshitta repeats the
first personal pronoun.
Daniel now particularizes his reasons for praise and
thanksgiving. He
addresses God as the God of his fathers. He appeals to Him as
the covenant
God of Israel, who had led their fathers through the
wilderness. God
revealed Himself to Jacob at
of Isaac.” So to
Moses at the burning bush He declared Himself
“the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God. of Jacob.” On the other hand,
when Jacob approached God in prayer, he addressed Him as “the God of
my father Abraham, and the God of my father Isaac.” God had shown
kindness to his fathers: would He not also show kindness to
their seed after
them? Who hast
given me wisdom and might. As Jacob in his prayer at
Mahanaim (Genesis 32:9) not only pleads with God as the God
of his
fathers, but also as the God who had blessed him with His
guidance before,
so Daniel now further addresses God who had bestowed upon
him
“wisdom and might.” When
God has bestowed upon any one special
faculties, he must presumably have a special work for him, it is
therefore reasonable to plead with God to give an
opportunity for the
exercise of these special powers. Here it forms an occasion
of
thanksgiving. We are apt to forget that our powers, mental and physical,
our possessions and acquirements, are gifts
of God’s grace for which we
owe thanks. The
special reason for gratitude, however, follows — God has
answered the prayer of His servants. Hast made known unto me now what
we desired of
thee. It is to be noted that Daniel attributes the answer not
merely to his own prayer, but to the united prayer of his
three friends as
well. Their earnest desire had gone along with his own in
calling down the
Divine answer. Daniel, while giving thanks for the
knowledge vouchsafed
to him, recognizes the help his friends had afforded. For thou hast made
known unto us
the king’s matter. Daniel assigns the
reason here for his
thanksgiving yet more definitely. God had made known to him
what the
king had required.
Special blessing demands special praise! The state of mind which generates
fervent prayer generates also joyous praise. Success in prayer is a fitting occasion
for
exuberant delight: “I thank and
praise thee.” Inward insensibility of feeling
and forgetfulness of past favors are deadly enemies to praise. When gratitude
opens the inner fountains of feeling, the crystal waters of praise freely flow.
Thankfulness is the parent of song.
God is the proper Object of praise. God, in His own nature and excellence,
is deserving of the best music of the heart. The unchangeableness and
faithful love of God are fitting materials for praise. The covenant mercies
of God should be celebrated in praise. “God of my fathers.”
Answers to prayer should be occasions of hearty praise. The pathway to
the Divine favor has been found. New revelations of God’s will should
start
afresh our powers of music. “OH, PRAISE THE
LORD!”
A Specific Remedy for Human Distress (vs.
14-23)
The immoderate anger of the king had only aggravated his
trouble without
bringing a remedy. Uncontrollable temper is suicidal, it
robbed
Nebuchadnezzar of his kingly dignity, of the use of reason,
of the power of
memory. For the time being he had forgotten that, in all
matters of
practical wisdom, he had found Daniel to surpass all other
state
councilors. Now he was on the point of staining his conscience
and his
throne with wanton cruelty, with the waste of life, with
the most precious
blood that
caused by his midnight scare, had
only an imaginary foundation. Natural
cheerfulness was enough to drive
that spectre of evil out of the royal
chamber. He might have laughed
it out of existence. But now a real
distress impended over Daniel
and all the wise men of
merely a fear of future
disaster; reputation,
property, life, were in imminent
peril. The royal edict
had gone forth for their summary destruction. The
executioner was already
preparing the murderous weapons. Before another
dawn the die might be cast — the
deed be beyond recall. Daniel’s anxiety
was awakened as much for others
as himself. With his devout trust in God,
death was not to him draped in
sable gloom. There were worse evils, in his
regard, than violent death. To
die in defense of truth; to die in vindication
of God’s cause, was a noble
deed. But others, not so prepared for the
tremendous change, were included
in the peril. Eternal shame would cover
the king. The foundations of the
throne might be sapped. The fortunes of
God’s people might sink into a
yet deeper night.
suffer a blacker eclipse. The
mind of Daniel would be impressed with the
folly of putting trust in man.
The king had, not long before, shown him
special favor — had expressed
both regard and friendship; yet now,
Daniel is condemned to death
unheard, unjudged. More fickle than the
vernal sunshine is the ephemeral
smile of royalty. “Put not your trust in
princes.” (Psalm
146:3)
sorcerers adopted any measures
to avert the approaching calamity, we are
not told. Possibly they were
paralyzed with fear, and could only hide their
heads in cowardly shame. Now the
worth and power of true piety emerge
into the light. In the darkest
hours of trouble, religion shines in brightest
colors. There was:
Ø
An exercise of preventive prudence. However imperative be
the duty of
prayer, there are other duties
which must not be neglected. The want of
practical prudence often robs
prayer of its efficacious issues, The wise
general will dispose his forces well
on the battle-field before he makes an
onset. Daniel’s first step was
to stay the hasty execution of the edict. He
calls into exercise his
well-disciplined wisdom. He uses his acquired
standing in the realm to secure
delay. He overlooks no point of precaution.
He employs his just influence
with the king to gain a temporary respite.
He does not attempt to reason
with the monarch in his angry mood —
that would be a foolish
enterprise. He moderates his demand so as to
bring it within the compass of a
possible success. Prudence is a
step
towards greater
acquisitions.
Ø
There was united supplication. Daniel’s heart was
not excited with
selfish ambition to secure the
honor of a triumph for himself. He
solicited the aid of his
companions in this holy task, and addresses
them by their proper Jewish
names, which names reminded them that
theirs was an accessible Deity. “Union is strength” in prayer, as
much
as in toil. The lack of
humility, or earnestness, or perseverance, in one
may be supplied or may be
promoted by another Combined fervor has
special promises of success. “If two of you shall agree touching any
matter in my kingdom, it shall be granted unto you.” (Matthew 18:19)
Ø
There was strong confidence in God. In a spirit of calm
and
unquestioning confidence, Daniel
assured the king “that he would show
the king the
interpretation.” Already Daniel knew
that in some way the
response would come. Unbelief
might have whispered into his ear that
Jehovah had never yet answered
such a request as this. Where, in the
range of Jewish history, had it
been recorded that the God of heaven had
disclosed to one a dream which
had lapsed from the memory of another?
But faith would reply, “That
objection is not to the point. There must be a
first occasion, on which God will reveal His will to men on any
matter.
Let this be the first instance
of its kind. The request I make is not in itself
wrong or improper. It is not
hostile to the purity of God’s nature. It does
not spring from a selfish or
carnal motive. Success will bring honor
and homage to the true God. My
petition must succeed. Has not Jehovah
said, by the mouth of David, our
model king, ‘Call upon me in the day
of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me’?” (Psalm 50:15)
Ø
There was becoming humility in the posture of their souls. “They
desired mercies of the God of heaven.” Daniel and his fellow-suppliants
presented no claim. They
abandoned themselves to the abounding mercy
of their God. In a word, they
confessed personal unworthiness, and
approached the heavenly throne
as culprits suing for mercy. This is men’s
only chance of success. For,
wanting all personal merit, they have no
opportunity of feigning a false
merit in Jehovah’s presence. With a glance
of His eye He strips the veil of
pretence from every suppliant, that while
He rewards the contrite, He may
dismay the proud and the hypocrite.
“He requireth
truth in the inward parts.” (Psalm 51:6)
The poor in
spirit, He enriches; the boastful rich, He
empties.
revealed unto
Daniel in a night vision.” In what
particular way this desired
knowledge was imparted is not
said. This is not important. Possibly the
dream or vision of the king was reproduced
before the imagination of
Daniel, with the further
disclosure of its signification. But whatever was
the modus operandi, it was
done. Ascertained fact overrides all pre-assumed
difficulties. The same God who
permits us to have dreams at all
can surely repeat the shadowy
spectacle; and if He is the sovereign Lord of
men, He can certainly make known to intelligent minds His
purposes
respecting the future. “With God nothing is impossible.” (Luke 1:37)
Ø
The mode of deliverance resembled, in form, the
cause of distress.
A dream was the occasion of
Nebuchadnezzar’s alarm — the
occasion of the wise men’s
peril; a night vision was also the method
of relief. Jacob’s carnal
struggle with Esau was his sin, and also his
ground of anxiety; Jacob’s midnight struggle with the heavenly
stranger was the source of
his triumph. Serpents had bitten with
death the Hebrews; by
gazing on a brazen serpent, they are healed.
(I highly recommend Spurgeon Sermon – Number 1500, or The
Lifting Up of the Brazen
Serpent - # 6 – this website – CY – 2014)
The fruit of the forbidden
tree was the occasion of sin; the fruit
“of the tree of
life is for the healing of the nations” (Revelation
22:2). “By
man came death; by man came also the resurrection
from the dead.” (I Corinthians 15:21)
Ø
The outcome was gratitude and gladness. “Then,” without any lapse
of time — “then,” while the sense of benefit was
fresh, “Daniel blessed
the God of heaven.” His faith was
furnished with an additional proof
that
accessible to the
prayers of men; and that HE WAS A REFUGE
in every hour of need. It is a blessed
necessity that drives us to the
throne of grace. (“Let us therefore come boldly unto the
throne of
grace, that we may
obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time
of need.” -
Hebrews 4:16). As the frosts of winter prepare
the soil
for a more prolific
harvest, so trouble, if rightly used is pregnant
with blessing. Now it
would be known all through
while the heathen oracles
are dumb, the heavenly oracle is
ever vocal. The false systems
of human invention are covered with
shame; the system of God’s truth receives new honor. In that hour
of anguish, Daniel learned
new lessons in heavenly wisdom —
obtained fresh discoveries of the Divine
goodness — discovered
new methods in the Divine procedure. Now
he learns that “God
giveth wisdom to
the wise, and knowledge to them
that know
understanding.” They that use their capacities shall enlarge them.
The man who trades with his ten
talents shall gain
ten more. He
who sows in prayer shall reap in
praise.
Divine Might and Divine Wisdom (vs. 19-23)
We have here a model of the highest form of worship — a
prayer which is
wholly adoration and thanksgiving. The importance of this
is emphasized
by the circumstances. Daniel’s life is threatened; he has
just received the
Divine assistance by which he can give the king his dream
and secure his
own escape; yet he stays
to
utter a full expression of praise for the
greatness and goodness of God, with the sentence of death still hanging
over him. For the most part, if people find scant time for
prayer, they have
still less for praise (Philippians 4:6). It is well to rise from the receipt of
Divine mercies to the worship of the Divine excellences
out of which they
flow. Thus Daniel,
having received a special Divine inspiration, at once
contemplates and adores the might and wisdom of God which
it reveals.
Consider the manifestation of these two Divine attributes
in the present
instance.
the idea of the might of God
lies at the root of the scriptural conception of
His nature. He is not only revealed as glorious in being and
wonderful in
thought, but He is always seen
to be active, working, exercising power. He
is not a Platonic supreme idea,
nor an epicurean Divinity, far off and
unconcerned about us, but a
living energizing Presence. Here we see:
Ø
Divine might is
manifested in human affairs. “He changeth the times
and the seasons:
He removeth kings, and setteth up kings”
(v. 21). God
is spoken of in the present
tense. He created the world in the past (Psalm
102:25); but His power is still manifested in maintaining THE LIFE
OF THE WORLD! (John
5:17). His hand is seen in the fields of nature
(Psalm 104.); it is equally present in HUMAN
LIFE! God is the greatest
factor in history.
Ø
Divine might is most
apparent in times of change. “He changeth the
times and the seasons.” It is present at all times, but it is evident in the
crises of history. The volume of
water in the stream is the same while it
flows quietly as when it breaks
into a torrent; but the roar and flash of
the torrent appeal to our senses
with a vehemence of their own.
Ø Divine might is strikingly evident in overruling the
greatest human
powers. “He removeth kings, and setteth up kings.” The old pagan tyrants
thought to set their will up as
a god, but they were made to feel at times
that there was a “King of kings”
above them. The greater the powers that
are made to bow before God, the
more stubborn their self-will or the more
blind their ignorance, the more
fully is the power of God revealed in
overruling them.
Ø Divine might is especially revealed in overthrowing the
evil to stablish
the good. Creating power is greater than destructive power. If
certain kings
are removed, other and better
kings are to be set up. Destruction is not the
end of the exercise of God’s
might; it only prepares the way for fruitful
creative energies. (II Peter 3:11-13)
Ø
This is seen in the Divine
actions — first in the process, by the
arrangement that makes “all
things work together” (Romans
8:28);
and then in the result which is
aimed at, because it is seen to be the
wisest end. Power without wisdom would be brutal, (this is the
problem that Satan has – CY –
2014) and therefore wisdom is needed,
not to make up for the
deficiency of power by its adaptations and
contrivances, but to direct
power to its best exercise.
Ø
This wisdom is seen in
the Divine bestowal of it upon men. Daniel traces
human wisdom up to the Divine: “He giveth wisdom unto the wise”
(Exodus 28:3; Ephesians 1:17).
In direct opposition to the godless magic
of the Chaldeans (vs. 10-11), he
tells Nebuchadnezzar that “there is a
God in heaven
that revealeth secrets” (v. 28). We
may learn from this
that revelation is the result of
inspiration; i.e. it is received through the
gift of Divine wisdom; it is not
flashed upon us apart from spiritual
experience. It is the opening of the eyes to see truths
which were in
existence before, but which were
unrecognized for want of a Divine
wisdom to discern them.
24 “Therefore Daniel went
in unto Arioch. whom the king had
ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went and
said thus
unto him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in
before
the king, and I will show unto the king the
interpretation.” The
differences in the versions from this are slight. The Septuagint
has ἔκαστα –
ekasta - reveal - instead of σύγκρισιν – sugkrisin – compare, as if reading
כֹל instead
of פִשְׂרָא,, an emendation due to the fact that the king had
demanded from the wise men, not merely the interpretation, which, given the
dream, they were willing enough to give, but the dream
itself; only the more
natural emendation would have been to have interpolated הֶלְמָא, (hel’ma), “
dream,” before “interpretation.” Both the Septuagint and
Theodotion omit the
word representing the second “went.” It is to be observed
that “went in” and
“went” are different words in the original, as in the
Peshitta Version. The
verbs עֲלַל (alal) and אזל (azal) have different ideas connected with them.
The first means “to enter,” of a place with a preposition;
the latter has the
notion of simple going. If we can imagine the body-guard of
the king
quartered in some part of the huge palace, then Daniel
“went in” first to the
quarters of the guard, and then, having got a mission, “went” up to
Arioch,
who
was probably endeavoring to occupy as much time as possible to
delay the horrible execution, or perhaps escape the
necessity altogether. It
would seem as if Arioch had heard nothing of the petition
which Daniel
had presented to the king, and only knew that his delay had
not been found
fault with. It might seem by the introductory word
“therefore” (kol-qebedenah)
that the hymn has been an interpolation. It is quite true
that it
would most naturally immediately follow v. 19. Yet we must
bear in
mind that the consecution of one part to another, which we
have in our
Western languages, is not so carefully observed in Eastern
tongues. It may
be
doubted, more over, whether כָּל־קְבֵל־דְנָה; (kol-qebel-denah)
has so
much a logical , as a local or temporal significance.
“‘Thereupon” would,
perhaps, more correctly render this connective here. After
he had finished
offering up his praise and thanks to God, Daniel went to
Arioch. As we
have already said, it would seem that Arioch had a
reluctance to set about
the fulfillment of this horrible order, not that mere
slaughter was a thing
specially repugnant to him — he had taken part in too many
campaigns for
that to impress him much; but this was a massacre of the
priests. All the
reverence of his nature that during his lifetime had
associated itself with
those who had solemnly sacrificed before each campaign, and
taken the
auguries, protested against this sudden and wholesale
massacre. He has
determined to fritter away time, in order to give his
master opportunity to
bethink himself The mere political ill will that would be
roused by such an
attempt was formidable. We know that the Babylonian monarch
Nabunahid
really rather fell before the intrigues of the priests and
augurs than before
the arms of Cyrus. To him, thus waiting and
procrastinating, comes Daniel.
Although there is nothing said of it in the narrative,
Daniel may have given
him to understand that he hoped to be able to satisfy the
demands of the
king. The power Daniel had of gaining the favor and confidence
of those
with whom he came in contact led to his being buoyed up by
a certain
hope in his procrastination, which would be strengthened by
the fact that
the fiery young king made no inquiry whether his order was
being fulfilled.
Still, it must have been with joy he saw Daniel appearing,
and heard him
say, “Destroy not the
wise men of
the request to be brought into the presence of the king;
thus he knew that
Daniel could answer the king’s question and tell him his
dream, as well as
the promised interpretation. If we take the Septuagint
rendering as
representing the original text, Daniel promised to tell the
king
“everything.”
A Good Man Becomes Both King and Savior (v. 24)
The actual king in the empire is not always the man who
wears a diadem
and
occupies a stately seat. An astute statesman is often the real monarch.
The poor man who, by his sagacity, delivered the city, was
the veritable
conqueror. The true servant of God becomes a king among men. See,
for
example, Joseph in
fetters of fear. Daniel was a real sovereign, directing the act of
state
officers, and molding the destinies of the nation.
·
HERE ARE MARKS OF A TRUE PROPHET. “I will show unto the
king the interpretation.” To prophesy is not merely to foretell remote
events: to prophesy is to disclose the unknown — to unveil
mysteries.
False prophets are a curse; a
true prophet is an immeasurable blessing.
Guesses at truth are
untrustworthy, deceptive, perilous. Real revelation is
a
safe anchorage for the soul. Science soon reaches the end of
her tether; she
enjoys a very limited range. Revelation has to do with the infinite and the
absolute — with all the secrets in the universe. To unfold the
mysteries of
human life, one by one, is the mission of God’s prophets. “I
will show the
interpretation.”
·
HERE ARE SIGNS OF KINGLY RULE. Nebuchadnezzar “was angry
and very furious;” he
had lost command over himself. Daniel had learned the
art of self-conquest. Nebuchadnezzar had commanded his officer
to slay
the wise men. Daniel, though one of the doomed, countermands
the order.
The magicians supposed that
their lives were at the disposal of the
monarch. They really were, by God’s ordination, at the disposal of
Daniel.
Nebuchadnezzar was a captive to
dreadful apprehensions; feared a
conspiracy; immured himself in the palace. Daniel walked abroad;
breathed
the sweet air of liberty; and wielded a power more mysterious
than any
enchanter’s wand. Nebuchadnezzar had said, “Let there be war!” Daniel
said, “Peace, be still!” The king had said to Arioch, “Unsheath
thy sword,
and slay!” Daniel countersaid, “Put up thy sword into its
sheath, and
spare!” The king had said to the wise men, “Die!” Daniel said
instead,
“Live!” And the voice of Daniel
prevailed.
·
Here we have, in type
and emblem, A REAL SAVIOUR. It is
easy
enough to destroy; it is difficult to save. A child may set a
city on fire; ten
thousand men may be impotent to save it. A madman has destroyed in
five
minutes what human genius had taken years to create. The fiat from
Nebuchadnezzar’s lips had been,
“Destroy destroy all the wise men of
Daniel’s word prevailed. A
strange foreshadowing this of another event.
Five hundred years later Herod
commanded the massacre of all the infants
in
Saviour of the
world and Herod’s Judge. So mercy “rejoices against
judgment.”
25 “Then Arioch brought in
Daniel before the king in haste,
and said thus unto him, I have found a man of the captives
of Judah,
that will make known unto the king the
interpretation.” Save that the
Septuagint has again ἕκαστα instead of σύγκρισιν or σύγκριμα – sugkrima –
make known - and Paulus Tellensis
adds the adjective “wise” as a description of
the man who had thus
professed to satisfy the king, the versions agree with the
Massoretic text. In regard to the Aramaic here, the use of
the Eastern form
of the haphel is to be noted — hanel instead of ha’el.
These are to be
looked upon as archaisms or Orientalisms, that have
survived modernizing
efforts of the pre-Massoretic scribes. We have already
remarked on this as
an Eastern peculiarity which survives in the Mandaitic and
in the
Babylonian Talmud. The careful way in which the Septuagint
renders the
particular דִי, ὅτι - hoti – that -
omitted in the other old versions save the
Peshitta, ought to be noted as a sign of the extreme carefulness of
the
Septuagint translator, and a reason why we should regard divergences
from the
Massoretic as generally evidences of a different text. It
has been remarked
by
Archdeacon Rose that Arioch claims too much when he asserts that he
had “found Daniel.”
This is not exactly met by Professor Fuller’s assertion
that it was a mode of the court to ignore all “these
captives,” with
something of the contempt with which the European in India
regards those
whom he without qualification denotes as “niggers.” This,
however, does
not meet the case if the ordinary interpretation of the
circumstances is
right; then Nebuchadnezzar had not only seen Daniel in
connection with
this matter, but further, Arioch knew of it. The case of
Abner and David
before Saul, in I Samuel 17:35 should not be brought in in
comparison
with Ibid. ch. 16:21, as the latter does not occur in the
Septuagint.
Unless there has been interpolation, the explanation seems
to be that
Arioch was not aware that Daniel had petitioned. It may be
that Arioch
wishes to disarm the king’s wrath by not saying anything of
Daniel being
one of “the wise men” against whom the king’s sentence had
gone out; but
it may also be regarded as a proof that Daniel and his
companions had not
yet passed out of the class of pupils into that of wise
men. He says he is “of
the sons of the captivity of
Daniel into the king’s presence may be due to his own
delight at having
escaped a piece of employment he had no heart for. There
may have been
an element of anxiety — he had procrastinated, and the
young king had
made no inquiries; but it was not the custom of the
conqueror to give
orders and not to see that they were carried out, and
disobedience to the
orders of Nebuchadnezzar would mean instant death, possibly
with torture.
Every moment was fraught with danger, so Arioch’s hastening
of Daniel
may have been due to his own sense of relief at escape from
an impending
danger. But more, this haste would give the appearance of
eager diligence,
if not in slaughtering the wise men of Babylon, at least in
searching for one
who could make good to the king their lack of service
toward him. His
haste might be intended to give the look at once of
eagerness and diligence.
All the motives may have combined.
26 “The king answered and
said to Daniel, whose name was
Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream
which
I have seen, and the interpretation thereof?” The
variations in the
versions are here unimportant, save that the Septuagint
interpolates “in the
Chaldee tongue” before the Babylonian name of Daniel. It is
also to be
noted that here, as throughout, the Babylonian name of
Daniel, in both the
Greek versions, appears as Βαλτάσαρ - Baltasar, the same form in which they
give Belshazzar. When Daniel is brought in before the king, Nebuchadnezzar
demands if he can fulfill his promise, and tell the dream
as well as the
interpretation. There is no indication that Nebuchadnezzar
remembered
anything of the youth who had done well in the examination
held in his
presence some months before. This certainly is confirmatory
of Wieseler’s
hypothesis. That the king should have forgotten, however,
is nothing
extraordinary, for the occasions of this kind would be
many.
Nebuchadnezzar, in the case of the young Hebrew, does not
question his
willingness to tell him what he wishes, but only his
ability. With regard to
the wise men, he believed, or professed to believe, in
their ability to do
what he wished, and reckoned their refusal to answer him as
due to
obstinacy or treason. It may be that he has moderated
somewhat the
rancor of his ire, and is willing to recognize their
ignorance as to dreams
and such light furniture of the mind as not militating
against their claim to
knowledge in other directions, only for his oath’s sake he
must demand
that the dream be told him by at least some one. It may be
that there was a
certain emphasis on the pronoun when Nebuchadnezzar
demanded of
Daniel, “Is there to thee the power to declare to me the dream
which I
have seen, and
its interpretation?” Is there to thee,
mere student of the
sacred mysteries as thou art, alien as thou art, a hostage
from a city whose
king I overthrew easily? It certainly must have been
strange to
Nebuchadnezzar that what the soothsayers, astrologers, and
magicians of
the court, the highest, and reputed to be the most skilful
of their respective
guilds, could not do, this young Hebrew proclaimed himself
able to
perform. It may be observed that while in the narrative the
author calls the
prophet by his sacred name Daniel, “the Divine judge,” here
in the presence
of Nebuchadnezzar, the court name he had received is
introduced. To his
friends, to his fellow-countrymen, he is Daniel; but as a
court official he is
Belteshazzar, or perhaps Belshazzar. It may be that there
is intended to be
conveyed to us that not only was he introduced into the
royal presence as
Belshazzar, but that the king addressed him,”
Belteshazzar (Belshazzar),
art thou able?”
27 “Daniel answered in the
presence of the king, and said, The
secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men,
the
astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, show unto the
king.” The
differences between this and the Septuagint are but slight
and unimportant.
To render it literally, the Septuagint is, “Daniel, having
spoken out in the
presence of the king, said, The mystery which the king saw
is not the
showing of the wise men, the astrologers, the sorcerers,
the magicians.”
There seems to have been a confusion
between עֲנָה (‘anah),
“to answer,”
and
צְנָה (tzenah), “to cry out;” the latter word is
unsuitable in the present
connection. The change from שׁאל to חזה
is unlikely to have been the
result of any mistake in the writing of the original. It
may have been the
Greek scribe who misread ἠρώτησεν – aerotaesen - into ἑώρακεν –
heoraken- has
demanded. Theodotion and the Peshitta present no peculiarities
worthy of notice.
Jerome translates asbshaphim
by magi, as usual, following
the Peshitta. It is to be observed that here again we have a list of the different
classes of soothsayers,
and the class of Chaldeans is omitted, as also those
marked as mecashphim in v. 2;
instead, occupying the same place in the catalogue,
is gazrin. This may
have been the original word, as evidently the real meaning
was not known either in
Theodotion transfer the word.
The Peshitta translates this word by asuphe, in
reality the corresponding
one to the second word in the Chaldee. This would
seem to show that the
word had disappeared from Eastern as well as Western
Aramaic. It is derived from gezar, “to eat.”
Behrmann (‘Das Buch Daniel’)
derives it thus, and says that it refers to the fact
that those who studied
nativities divided the heavens into sectiones or segmenta.
This was
precisely what the “Chaldeans” of classic times did; hence
it is quite a
possible thing that Chaldeans was inserted in some Greek
translations, and
got into the Aramaic from the Greek. The word does not seem
to be used
for “astrologers” in the Talmud. The occasion of Daniel’s
narrating the
impotence of the other wise men in presence of the task set
them by the
king is that probably he recognized the accent of surprise
in the king’s
tone. As if he said, “Yes, it is perfectly true, what none
of these wise men
could do, I, a mere youth, undertake to do.” There is
nothing of contempt
for them in this, as is seen in the following verse. There
may be a shade of
rebuke implied to the king,
who had demanded from men what they could
not do. They had
declared that only the gods could reveal this to the king.
And what Daniel says is not in opposition to this, but
confirmatory of it.
28 “But there is a God in
heaven that revealeth secrets, and
maketh known to the King Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in
the latter
days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed,
are these.”
All the versions are at one with the Massoretic text to the
beginning of the
last clause, which begins a new sentence. This last clause
is omitted in the
Septuagint. The clause is pleonastic; therefore, seeing it
is omitted by the
Septuagint, we may consider it not genuine, but due to a
case of doublet in
the Aramaic copies. Some copies have the present clause
here, without the
opening clause of the next, and others without this, but
having the opening
clause of v. 29. Then came a copyist, who, unable to settle
which was the
better reading, inserted both. There is a God in heaven. No nation in
ancient times was so addicted to the study of the stars of
heaven and to the
future as were the Chaldeans. Here Daniel announces that the God of
heaven, Jehovah, the God of oppressed
was the God who ruled all the stars from which the
Chaldeans derived the
knowledge of the future they thought they had, and
arranged for his own
purposes all things that were coming upon the earth, and he could tell what
no one on earth could do. And the reason of this he also
makes plain —
God had expressly sent the dream to Nebuchadnezzar in order that he
might know what was to “be
in the latter days.” He, Nebuchadnezzar, was
the first of the great imperial powers who ruled after
TO BE A NATION OF FAITH!
After the
Babylonian Captivity Judaism
became a Church over against A
whom this new state of
things began was this message given. It has exercised
many why this revelation of the future was made to this
heathen monarch. Yet
we must remember that, though made directly to him, through
his obstinacy, it
arrived at the Prophet Daniel, for whom it was meant. Yet
again, no one
can read the inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar and fail to
observe how deep
and unfeigned was his piety according to his light. He
worshipped
Merodach, and if, in his ascriptions of praise, we were to
place “Jehovah”
instead of “Merodach,” these prayers and thanksgivings
would appear
almost as if borrowed from the Hebrew Psalter. God, who
readeth the
hearts of men, might well have seen such a heart in this
conqueror that he
might be honored with a revelation. The phrase, “latter days,” had a
special reference in Jewish prophetic language to the
times of the Messiah
(Isaiah 2:2); hence we may assume that this vision would
stretch in its
revelations on to the times of the kingdom which the Lord
would set up. It
is unscientific to press this as meaning the absolute last
time, as does
Hitzig. It is not the future generally, as Havernick. We
must be led by the
usage of prophetic literature. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon
thy bed are
these. This clause, as we have indicated, is probably one of two
parallel readings. There is probably no distinction
intended between
“dream” and “visions of the head upon the bed.” This is
really to be
regarded as a case of parallelism, in which one portion of
the verse was
balanced by the other. What shade of difference there is,
is between the
dream as a totality and the portions of it as seen.
29 “As for
thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy
bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and He that revealeth secrets
maketh known to thee what shall come to pass.” This verse is of somewhat
suspicious authenticity, the renderings of the different
versions show such a
diversity of text. The Septuagint rendering is very brief,
being merely a
version of the last clause, “He that revealeth secrets (μυστήρια – mustaeria –
mysteries)
showed that which behoveth to be.” This has the appearance as if the
translators here rendered the last word as an infinitive, taking l as
not the
preformatvre of the third person future, but as the sign of
the infinitive. It is
not
necessarily so, because it may be that δει’ is regarded as included in – dei –
must; ought - לֶךהוֵא, (lehave’).
Theodotion is in closer agreement with the
Massoretic, “O king, thy thoughts upon thy bed raised up what behoved
to be
after these things; and He that revealeth secrets hath made known
to thee
what behoveth to be.” The Peshitta renders slightly differently,
Thou, O king,
thy thoughts arose in thy heart on account of what should
be in the latter
days, and He that revealeth secrets made known to thee what shall be.”
Even Jerome, who is usually pretty close to the Massoretic
text, differs a
little here. “Thou, O king, didst begin to think upon thy
couch what would
be after these things; and He who revealeth mysteries
showeth thee what
shall be.” Paulus Tellensis has broken away from the
Septuagint, supplying
the clause omitted, not improbably from Theodotion, “Thou,
O king,
when. thou layest upon thy couch, sawest all things which
behoved to
happen in the last days; and He who revealeth secrets hath
showed to thee
what behoved to be.” Altogether, with the exception of the
last clause,
which is evidenced by all the versions, we doubt the
authenticity of this
verse. However, the interpolation, if we have a case of it
here, must have
been of old date, as is indicated by the archaic form אַנְתָה (an’tah), which
becomes in the Q’ri אַנְת (an’t). Whether an interpolation or
part of the
original text, the picture suggested is very natural. The
young conqueror,
who had already secured the whole of southwestern
Egypt, was occupying his thoughts in speculating what
should come after
him. He falls asleep, and the subject of his waking
thoughts becomes the
subject of his dreams.
30“But as for me, this
secret was not revealed to me for any
wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their
sakes that shall
make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou
mightest
know the thoughts of thy heart. The Septuagint Version is simpler, “But
as for me, not on account of any wisdom in me above all men
is this
mystery revealed, but in order that it should be shown to
the king it is
revealed to me what thou thoughtest in thy heart in
knowledge.” The
translator has read the preformative ת to ב. There is no reference to
“those who shall show the interpretation.” The text before
him may have
omitted the plural termination; consequently, the huphal
was supplied.
Theodotion, the Peshitta, and Jerome all agree pretty
closely with the
Massoretic text, but all make the verb translated “shows”
singular, not
plural, as does the Massoretic. Of course, it may be that
this was due to
rendering the sense, not the words, of the original; but
Theodotion
especially is more prone in any difficulty to slavish
adherence to his
original. His rendering is, “But as for me, not for wisdom
which is in me
beyond all living is the mystery revealed, but that the
interpretation be
made known to the king in order that thou mightest know the
thoughts of
thy heart.” The position Daniel takes up is one which does
not separate him from
the other hakmeen of the court. He in effect says,
“I am no wiser than the other
sages who have been condemned to death, only the God of heaven can
reveal what the king demands, and he has revealed it to me.” The purpose
of the revelation, “that thou mightest know the
interpretation,” is fitted to
soothe his pride. The humility of Daniel has been remarked
in reference to
this verse. He puts himself behind the impersonal form, “in
order that
people may show the king the interpretation.” The reason
why the
interpretation was shown to Nebuchadnezzar might be really to humble
him, to show him
that his empire, splendid as it was, was
only one in a
succession, and that the whole system of world-empires would be
overthrown before a kingdom set up by the God of the Jews.
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The Dream
Found (vs. 14-30)
“Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night
vision.” In this section
Daniel is the principal actor; and as he moves through the
successive
scenes of this part of the sacred drama, his character shines
like the light,
and
may illumine for us the path of life. We shall, therefore, keep him
prominent throughout. Observe Daniel —
·
IN THE SHADE.
1. The position. Although Daniel had been trained for
distinguished
services, pronounced by the king to excel all the magi (ch. 1:20),
he
was forgotten by the king, ignored by his fellows of the
magian college
through jealousy, only discovered to share a common ruin. This was
a
picture of the trials of his whole career. Daniel the eminent had
to contend
with the jealousy of the mean. This
spirit begot the attempt to cast his
companions into the burning fiery furnace. Years after it throws him to
the
lions. So now the captain of the
king’s guard “sought Daniel and his
fellows to be slain.”
2. The moral attitude. Daniel
was ever animated by a sense of duty, and
more by a readiness to serve those who either neglected or
opposed him.
3. The providential call. At the critical moment God,
in wisdom and love,
supervened and intervened; broke the meshes of the confining net; and
called the saint out into that ministry for which he was
intellectually and
spiritually fit, and also morally ready.
·
AT THE KING’S GATE.
1. The calm spirit of Daniel. There was much to
exasperate in the whole
situation. Cruel death was impending. But Daniel lived high above
events
in a serene heaven of the soul, and was, therefore, prepared
to come down
into the incidents of life, and act with the best effect.
His use of
means. To act well in
great emergencies requires the coolness
of spiritual wisdom.
Daniel:
(1) Had conference with Arioch.
(2) Sent a respectful message to the king. (We
understand that Daniel did
not go himself, till later, actually into the presence of the
king, but sent in
the request by the proper officer.)
3. His success. This may be attributed especially to
three causes, note
specially the last:
(1) The king’s remembrance of Daniel.
(2) The awakening of a great hope in the king’s breast.
(3) The hearts of
men are in the keeping of God.
·
WITH HIS OWN COMPANY.
1. The prayer. Here observe:
(1) Daniel did not delay. He lost no time. He did not go
to consult
with the magi, whether there was anything in their art, in
their
books, that might be of use in the matter. With some men prayer
is
the last resort instead of the first.
(2) Resolved to make the difficulty a matter of prayer.
(3) Fell back into the soul fellowship to which he belonged. (v. 17).
(4) Seemed the power of united supplication.
In the prayer itself the
following specialities are suggestive:
(1) It kept prominent the exalted supremacy of God.
(2) It appealed to His “mercies.”
(3) It went upon the principle of committing all that troubles
us to
God.
(4) It concerned a great public interest. But
(5) one
in which the private safety of the petitioners was involved.
2. The prevalence. The all-important fact is that the
prayer was answered.
The answer was revealed either
in a dream, or more probably in a waking
vision of the night; and the vision was no doubt accompanied by a
clear
attestation of the truth of it. Can any one doubt the possibility of such
revelation, who has realized to himself the nearness of the Eternal to the
human mind?
3. The praise. This was:
(1) Instantaneous. Daniel
did not wait till he had verified the dream by
audience with the king. As soon as ever he received the mercy, he
was
ready to praise.
(2) Full. Matthew Henry
puts it well.
(a) Daniel gives to God the glory of what He is in himself.
(b) Of what He is to the world of mankind.
(c) Of this particular discovery.
(3) Sympathetic. Friends
were associated in the praise, as in the prayer.
·
IN THE KING’S CLOSET.
Here we have Daniel, the living
representative of what a true prophet should be. He is not only a type of
him whom technically we call a prophet, but of every one who
is for God
the mouthpiece of vital truth to man. Before the king:
1. He sinks himself. (v. 30.)
2. He forgives personal adversaries. (v. 24.)
3. He is forward to put down all that exalts itself against
God.
(v. 27.)
4. He has a sense of the moment of his message. (vs. 8, 29.)
5. He glorifies God. (v. 28.)
Needful Preparations to Receive Divine
Revelation (vs. 25-30)
Subjective conditions of mind are requisite for objective
truth to enter.
Common light cannot penetrate walls of stone or iron
shutters. The electric
force will only circulate along proper conductors. And if
material forces
demand suitable conditions in which to perform their active
mission, so
much more does the spiritual
force of truth require that the hand of the
recipient shall be sensitive, candid, impressible. Such was the gross,
unspiritual state of some populations in
do his mighty works among them. (“He did not many mighty works
there because of their unbelief!” Matthew
13:58). Daniel proceeds to
prepare the soil for the seed.
so greatly excited by the
impotence and the imposture of his wise men, that
Daniel perceived it best to
forego his privilege of entering the monarch’s
presence at will. It was better
to take the circuitous route of a formal
introduction, as if he were a
stranger. Hence the marshal of the court
precedes the Hebrew prophet, secures
the monarch’s attention, and
introduces Daniel, not as one of
the royal college of sages, but simply as a
Jewish captive. The former
credulity of the king had given place to utter
skepticism. So men’s minds oscillate between the points of easy,
groundless
belief and obstinate prejudice. No
vice so frequently assumes
the air of respectable propriety
as this vice of prejudice. It serves as a thick
fog to shut out from the mind
the clear light of heavenly truth. “There’s
none so blind as
those who will not see.” (Matthew Henry)
the dream?” Inquiry is the natural state of the human mind. It is its
sense of
hunger — the putting forth of
its prehensile organs to obtain food. To the
spiritually inert nothing
will be revealed. Sincere desire for
wisdom will
impel us to interrogate every
possible teacher, and to say, “Art thou able to
add to my stock of knowledge?”
The true philosopher or prophet will often
appear in very modest garb, as did
Daniel; but the spirit of the learner is a
spirit of humility — ‘tis the
spirit of a child. Remote as the antipodes is the
temper that asks, “Can
any good thing come out of
“Every one that seeketh findeth.” (Matthew 7:8) We may often find through
a dependent — through a despised
slave — what we cannot find ourselves.
Nebuchadnezzar, with all his
royal gifts, could not find an interpreter. Arioch,
the captain of his guard,
greets him with the news, “I have found him!” A
little captive maid in
Naaman’s kitchen could direct her master where to find
a cure for his leprosy. (II Kings 5)
BE DESTROYED. Side by
side with the growth of true faith must proceed
the destruction of a false
faith. The pompous monarch had rested his faith
in the magicians and
soothsayers, without sufficient reason. He
had very
likely prided himself on the
superhuman wisdom of his counselors. Yet
what guarantee had he that they
had ever spoken truth? Had he ever
examined their credentials? ever
put to the test their real capacity? If not,
he was simply the victim of
self-imposed credulity. The institution of
sorcery was ancient and
time-honored, but none the less was
it false and
corrupt. If the king would not take
the pains to examine the pretensions of
these magicians, he
deserved to be deceived. A Heaven-sent
teacher is an
incalculable treasure; a false
prophet is a poisoned cup — a wolf in sheep’s
clothing “Try the spirits, whether they be
of God” (I John 4:1). No human
authority is self-originative;
we must know the source whence it sprang.
“Cease from man,
whose breath is in his nostrils.” (Isaiah 2:22)
ESPECIALLY IN TIMES OF PERPLEXITY. Recognition of God is
becoming in men, especially in times of perplexity! “There is a God in heaven.”
Nor is that heaven far removed. “In Him we live and move and exist.”
(Acts 17:28). Even the magicians had confessed that there were invisible
deities: “The gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.” (v. 11) If we believe in
God, we shall recognize Him, honor Him, and use Him in seasons of need.
The true God does not love to see us grope in darkness; He longs to give us light.
Our mental capacities preach to us this truth. He “revealeth secrets.”
“The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.” (Psalm 25:14)
The secrets of nature He reveals to the patient investigator; and if we will
inquire at the portals of the heavenly kingdom (“knock
and it shall be
opened unto you” Matthew 7:7), we shall know, by gradual disclosures,
the secrets of the invisible world. Even our inner selves we do not
accurately know, until God unveils to us the mystery. Daniel was sent
to the king, that he might know the workings of his own heart.
secret,” said Daniel, “is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I
have.”
Natural endowments of
intellect often puff men up with vain conceit of
themselves; but the enlightening grace of God’s Spirit develops their
humility. “The meek will He
teach His way.” (Psalm 25:9)
Having
revealed to suppliants their own
nothingness, their absolute dependence
on the heavenly source, He
unveils to them all truth that ministers to
happiness and purity. The
mysteries of His kingdom He hides from the
boastful wise and prudent, but
reveals them unto babes (Matthew 11:25).
The messenger of Divine truth
will divert the attention of men from himself
to his Master. Like John the
Baptist, he accounts himself only as a “voice,” and
announces that
One mightier and worthier cometh — the true
Light and Life
of men. John 1:23, 15, 27, 9) “He must increase
but I must decrease!”
(Ibid. ch.3:30). Humility is a prerequisite for Divine employment.
is noteworthy that Daniel
disclosed the reason why God vouchsafed this
revelation to the king. It was not
done for the sake of the king, nor for the
sake of the magicians, nor for
the sake of the empire, but for the sake of
the Jewish suppliants. It would
be galling to our pride sometimes if we
knew to what human mediation we
were indebted for Divine blessing. The
prayer of some bed-ridden saint
has brought down the treasures of
heavenly rain upon the Church.
For the sake of Paul the prisoner, the lives
of all on board the imperiled
ship were saved. For Joseph and his
brethren’s sake, famine was
averted from the Egyptians. Yet these are but
faint and imperfect types of that GRAND SCHEME OF MEDIATION
which GOD
HAS PROVIDED for the REDEMPTION OF THE
WORLD and:
Ø
for Jesus’ sake,
mercy flows in a full stream to men;
Ø
for Jesus’ sake,
heaven is opened to all believers;
Ø
for Jesus’ sake,
prayer is heard and the Holy Ghost is given.
We, too, can be mediators
for others; and it may yet be said that for our
sakes, and in response to our
intercessions:
Ø
dark minds are enlightened, and
Ø
a world is
blessed.
Christ the High Priest puts a
censer into our hands, and asks us to
fill it with the fragrant
incense of spiritual prayer.
31 “Thou, O king, sawest,
and behold a great image. This
great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before
thee; and
the form thereof was terrible.” The Greek versions
do not require notice,
as they do not imply any difference in reading from the
Massoretic text.
The Peshitta is shorter, “Thou, O king, wert seeing, and,
lo! a great image
of beauty exceeding excellent, and it stood before thee.”
The opening
clause of the next verse may be regarded as taking up the
last clause of the
verse before us. As to the Aramaic of the passage, it is to
be observed that
the same long form of the second person is used in v. 29.
The numeral
חַד (had)
is used in this verse very much in the sense of the English
indefinite article which is used to translate it in the
English versions. It is
represented in the Greek Version by μία – mia – one;
first. The particle אְלַוּ
(‘ulu),” behold,” does not occur in the Targums; a
cognate form occurs in
Samaritan, hala. In Talmudic it occurs in a form
like the Samaritan. This
word occurs in ch. 7., varied by אֲרוּ (‘aru), which is regarded as a
phonetic variation. It may, however, be due to defective
penmanship,
having the top of the l too faintly written. Its
etymology is doubtful. No
Assyrian root has been found from which it may be derived.
The word for
“image,” צֶלֶם, (tzelem),
occurs in the Palmyrene inscriptions, as the regular
term for a memorial statue. Hence, unless reason can be
shown to the
contrary, we could assume, even though there had been no
more, that the
figure was like a statue of a man. The word for this, צֶלֶם (diccen), occurs
only in Daniel; the corresponding word in Ezra is דֵך (dec). The n sound is
one
that so readily slips away, that its presence as a final letter is a sign that
the
form of a word possessing it is in an older stage than that without it;
hence we would argue that as דֵך (dec) is older than דָא; (da)
of the
Targums, so דִכֵּן (diccen) of Daniel is older than דֵך (dec). The word that
is
most interesting is זִיוֵהּ (ziveh); it is rendered “brightness” in our
version. It is recognized by Professor Bevan, on the
authority of Delitzsch,
as an Assyrio-Babylonian word, therefore affording an
additional evidence
of the Eastern origin of Daniel. Noldeke would derive it
from the Persian
zeb (quoted by
Behrmann, but there is some mistake in his reference). This
tendency to derive everything from the Persian is to be
suspected. The long
political connection between Babylon and the Aryan nations
north and east
of it might easily introduce words of such an origin into
the writings of a
Babylonian diplomat. Another derivation is from זָחָה (zahah), but seems
doubtful, as, although in Hebrew, there is no trace of such
a verb in
Aramaic. The only other word that merits note is רֵוֵה (reve),
“appearance.” Professor Bevan says it is the only
appearance in Aramaic of
a
corresponding root to the Hebrew רָאָה (ra’ah), “to see.” Daniel, it will
be seen, lays stress on the emotions which each
feature excited, in order to
recall, not only the dream, but something of the feelings
with which
Nebuchadnezzar had beheld it. With this dream of
Nebuchadnezzar we
might compare the dream of the seer of Asshurbanipal, given by
Lenormant (‘La Divination,’ p. 137), “The seer (voyant)
narrated to
Asshurbanipal how the goddess Istar had stood before him
seated in her
chariot, surrounded by flame, with a bow in her hand” (see
also Smith’s
‘Assurbanipal,’ pp. 123. 124). It is unlikely that the
colossal image was
identified by Nebuchadnezzar with any one of the Babylonian
gods;
perhaps this was one of the elements of the terror excited
by the vision,
that he could not identify him. If he did make any
identification, Daniel
does not do anything to justify him in any such
identification.
32 “This image’s head was
of fine gold, his breasts and his arms of silver,
his belly and his thighs of brass, 33 his legs of iron, his feet
part of iron and part of clay.” The versions present
no occasion of
remark, save that Theodotion has a doublet, αἱ χεῖρες– ai cheires -, translating,
the hands, the
breast, and the arms. The word rendered
“fine” is really “good”
(טָב, tab). Naturally, there have
not been preserved to us any composite
images of this kind; gold and silver would certainly soon
have found their
way to the melting-pot after the fall of the Babylonian
empire, had such a
statue been erected in Babylon. Brass and iron were too
precious not to
follow in the same road. Among the Greeks, as we know,
there were what
were called “chryselephantine” statues, partly gold and
partly ivory. In the
description given of the Temple of Belus, we see a
succession something
akin to that in the statue, but it may be doubted whether
we may deduce
any connection between the two on that account. In the Book
of Enoch the
apocalyptist sees mountains of different kinds of
metal — of gold, silver,
brass, iron, tin, and mercury, the first four coinciding
with the metals in
Daniel’s vision. Ewald refers in a note to the possibility
that this idea might
be borrowed from Hesiod, but rightly dismisses it as
improbable. As to the
metals used, gold and silver were well known in ancient times, as
also iron,
though, from the difficulty of working it, later. What is
here translated
“brass” ought to be rendered “copper;” “bronze” certainly
was known very
early, but the whole use of the word, נְחָשׁ (Aramaic), or נְחשֶׁת (Hebrew),
implies that it is a simple metal; thus Deuteronomy 8:9, “Out of whose
hills thou mayest dig
brass” (Hebrew, נְחשֶׁת Onkelos, נְחָשָׁא). In this
statue the progressive
degradation of the material and situation is to be
observed. The
head, the highest part, gold; the shoulders, lower, silver; the
belly and thighs, lower still, brass; the legs, lower yet,
iron; and the feet and
toes, lowest of all, a mixture of iron and clay. It is
observed by Kliefoth
that there is further a growing division. The head is one,
without any
appearance of division; the portion consisting of the
breast and arms is
divided, though slightly, for the chest is more important
and bulky than the
arms; the belly and thighs form a portion which from the
plural form given
to
the word translated “belly,” מעוהי (m’ohi), suggests
more of
division than
does that above. The lowest portion, that forming the legs
and toes, has the greatest amount
of division. Kliefoth also refers to
another point — that while there is a progressive degradation of the metal,
there is also progression in degrees of hardness, silver being harder than
gold, copper harder than silver, and iron hardest of all;
then suddenly the
iron is mingled with clay. There is not a new, softer
material added to form
a
new fifth part; but there is a mingling of “clay” — clay suitable for the
potter, or rather that has already been baked in the kiln,
and therefore in
the last degree brittle. In fact, there is a progress in
frangibility — gold the
most ductile of metals, and iron the least so, then clay,
when baked, more
brittle still. There are many other successions that might
be followed,
which are at least ingenious. The idea suggested by the
phrase, “part of
iron and part of clay,” is that there was not a complete
mingling, but that
portions were seen that were clearly clay, and other
portions as clearly still
iron; there was therefore the superadded notion of the imperfect union of
the parts with the necessary additional weakness which
follows.
34 “Thou sawest till that
a stone was cut out without hands,
which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and
clay, and
brake them to pieces.” Practically,
the versions are at one with the
Massoretic text in regard to this verse, save that the two
Greek versions
add,
ἐξ ὅρους – ex horous - out of the
mountain - Concerning the Chaldee
text, we would remark that in the dual form בִּידַיִן (biydayin), the dual has
disappeared in the Aramaic of the Targums. Thou sawest till implies
some
time of contemplation and wonder. The king saw this
gigantic statue, not
possessing the attributes of any of his national gods, and
he looks on in his
dream in wonder and awe. Till a stone cut out without hands. The Greek
versions make an addition which seems necessary to the
sense — “out of
the mountain.” This addition may certainly have been made
from the later
verse (v. 45). The logical necessity, however, may have
prompted this
addition. On the other hand, the evidence of both the Greek
versions
agreeing in one addition has very considerable weight. It
is not impossible
that the word מִטּוּרה (mitturah), “from the mountain,” had dropped from
the manuscripts used by the Massoretes. In favor of the
Massoretic text is
the fact that the Peshitta omits the word. On the other
band, Jerome adds
de monte. It may be noted, as at least a curiosity, that
the Peshitta, instead
of
the אבן (aben),”
a stone,” gives kepha, from which Cephas, the name
of the Apostle Peter, is derived. As the monarch gazes at
the huge image,
he sees behind the image a mountain towering above
the image, huge as it
is. From this mountain he sees a boulder detach itself, as
if it were being
cut with chisel and wedge, but no hands are risible. Once
set loose from the
mountain’s side, it came by bounds and leaps down the
declivity, “and
smote the
image upon his feet that were of iron
and clay.” Every bound
that the stone makes down the mountain is larger, and
raises it higher and
makes it strike the earth with more of force, till with a
bound greater than
any it had made before, it strikes the feet of the image, “which were of iron
and clay” mingled, yet
separate — and at once they are broken in pieces:
“utterly crushed” is the meaning
of the word דוּק (duq). The Septuagint
tendering is κατήλεσεν – kataelesen - ground - it
occurs in Exodus 32:20,
of Moses grinding the
golden calf to powder. Theodotion’s word is not a
correct rendering of the word; it is ἐλέπτυνεν – eleptunen - beat into thin
scales - compare Matthew 21:42-44 - “the stone which the builders
rejected
…..on whomsoever
it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.” It is to be observed
that this cutting of the stone out of the mountain took
place after the fourth
portion of the image was clearly visible. In the dream the
catastrophe took
place after the stone had been cut from the mountain and
had bounded
down its side. A similar
chronological succession may be expected in the
events foreshadowed.
35 “Then was the iron, the
clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to
pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer
threshing-floors;
and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for
them: and the
stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and
filled the whole earth.”
Then was the iron,
the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to
pieces together,
and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors.
The versions arc closer to the Massoretic than our
Authorized Version, as they all
give more prominence to כַחֲדָה (kahadah), “at
once.” It is rendered “together.”
The Septuagint renders ἅμα –
the Peshitta repeats the word; and Jerome renders pariter. Theedotion
changes the
order somewhat, for the sake of making it more symmetrical.
The rendering of the
Septuagint is in some respects different from the
natural sense of the Massoretic text,
but not so much so as to require us to presume a
radically different text: “Then the
iron, and the clay, etc., became fragments, and they
were smaller than the chaff of
the threshing-floor.” We have this verse also in the
Itala, preserved to us in
Tertullian, but it does not differ from Jerome seriously.
It would follow
naturally enough if the mighty image were so smitten on its
weak and
fragile feet, that it would come crashing to the earth; but more happened
than this. As the
monarch looked, in falling, the various parts of the image,
as
they fell in a heap, became broken, nay, triturated — they became as the
dust or chaff of the summer threshing-floor. Summer is the dead time in the
East; harvest is over by the end of June, and the threshing
of corn then
commences. All this huge
statue was reduced to particles as small and light
as the chaff that is beaten off the grain by the threshing
instruments of
those days — feet of oxen or
wheel of cart. Chaff is a
favorite symbol for
lightness and worthlessness. In the first psalm the wicked are compared to
chaff. In Hosea, where he speaks (Hosea 13:3) of
“Ephraim shall be
like the chaff of the threshingfloor.”
Isaiah (Isaiah 41:15-16)
speaks of Jacob getting new threshing instruments to thresh
the mountains, and
make them small as chaff. It may be noted that the word
here translated “chaff”
only occurs here. The word does not appear in the Targums,
instead of which is
used מוצ (motz),
the Hebrew word. In Syriac, again, in the Peshitta, it occurs
frequently, as Psalm 1:4 and Isaiah 40:15 — another sign,
slight in itself, of the
Eastern origin of the Book of Daniel. The fact that the
word occurred in
Daniel would have a tendency to preserve it if in use when
Daniel was
published, or introduce it if it were not. Yet, as we have
said, it does not
appear in the Targums. It does appear in Syriac, the
language of a people
who, as not Jews, would presumably not be familiar with
Daniel. The word
for
“threshing-floor,” אִדְּרֵי (iddrei), is also one that does not appear in the
Targums, but it does appear in the Peshitta. Jensen
suggests an Assyrian
etymology, but Brockelmann marks this doubtful; Lagarde
suggests a
Persian etymology, also marked doubtful. Whichever
etymology holds
bears out the Eastern origin of the book. The Targums
represent the older
Aramaic of
Persian words appearing in it might also be expected to
appear in the
Targums. And the
wind carried them away, that no place was found
for them: and the
stone that smote the image became a great
mountain, and
filled the whole earth. The Septuagint
rendering is, “And the
wind carried
them away, so that there was nothing left of them, and the
stone that smote
the image became a great mountain, and smote the whole
earth.” The first portion of this is a fairly correct rendering of
our present
Massoretic text. On the other hand, the latter clause
implies that the
translator had before him, or imagined he had, not מלאת,, but מחת; not
impossibly מלאת might be written without the silent a; thus, מלת, as in
the Peshitta. In that case the mistake might easily be
made. Behrmann
remarks on the vocalization of מלאת in
this passage being the same as
מחת, but
does not remark that it is written defectively in Syriac. The sense
in the Massoretic text is much better than that implied in
this reading.
Theodotion’s rendering differs in the first clause of this
portion of the
present verse, “And the abundance (πλῆθος – plaethos) of wind carried
it away, and place was not found
for them: and the stone, when it had smitten
(πατάξας - pataxas -
smitten) the image, became a great mountain, and
filled the whole earth.” The rendering “multitude” (πλῆθος) is due to reading
ˆ
הָמון instead of הִמון.. This form of the plural of the demonstrative
pronoun is the commoner in Biblical Aramaic, but does not
appear in the
Targums nor the Peshitta. It is akin to the Mandaitic הינון. Neither the
Peshitta nor the Vulgate presents any peculiarities of
rendering. All this mass
that had formed the image, though it had been gold, silver, brass, and iron,
yet was so ground
down — had become reduced to particles so small, that the
wind carried them away. So scattered were they that they collected in no
special place, so that one could say, “This is the image.”
The figure is still
that of the threshing-floor; the wind, blowing on the grain
that is lifted up
before it, carries away the chaff, but, search as one may, the chaff, once
blown away, cannot be found. A more remarkable thing now takes place
— the stone that, bounding down the mountainside, had
smitten the image
on the feet, so that it fell and became as dust, now grows
apace,
overtopping the utmost height the image had attained,
overtopping the
mountain from which it had been cut. Not only did it grow in height, but,
as it increased in height, its base broadened till the
whole earth was filled
with it. There
seems to be a reference here to Isaiah 2:2, “The mountain
of the Lord’s
house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and
shall be
exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.”
As the
monarch gazes in his dream, the change is completed, the
huge image, with
its glittering head and gleaming breast, its polished
thighs and legs of iron,
its unseemly feet that inspired terror by its very
appearance, had utterly
disappeared, and its place was occupied by a mountain, huge but peaceful,
on which the flocks might browse and trees might grow. It
may be noted,
though not as of importance, that the material of the
mountain is most akin
with that of the weak clay of which the feet of the image
were largely
composed. Such, then, is the dream which Nebuchadnezzar had
seen, and
which the prophet now presented once more before him. We
must, however,
glance at the picture presented by the reading of the
Septuagint. To the
translator the picture evidently present was that of a
stone descending from
the mountain, and increasing in momentum as it descends;
but this stone
further increases in size, till before its tremendous
strokes and rebounds the
very solid earth quakes.
36 “This is the dream; and
we will tell the interpretation thereof before the
king.” The various versions agree closely with the Massoretic
text. It is scarcely a
variation when the Septuagint has ἐπὶ – epi- to - instead of ἐνώπιον, – enopion –
before - that is
to say, לְ instead of קְדָם (qedam). Jerome must have read קָדָמָך,
(qadamak), “before thee,” as he renders coram te,
rex; but that also is unimportant.
Having finished telling
Nebuchadnezzar his dream, Daniel now announces his
intention of giving the interpretation. Commentators have
noticed the fact that
Daniel does not say, “I will give,” but “we.” The opinion
of Professor Fuller is
that Daniel here includes with himself his three companions; of Keil,
Kranichfeld, Zockler, and Behrmann, that he identifies himself
with all
worshippers of Jehovah; Aben Ezra makes the plurality by
making him
refer to himself and the Divine wisdom; Jephet-ibn-Ali
makes its force lie in
contrast; Hitzig makes it really the pluralis
excellintiae, and quotes in
defense Genesis 1:26 and 11:7, where it is God Himself that
speaks.
Had Daniel introduced the phrase, “thus saith the Lord,”
this opinion might
have been defended. It may be that Daniel fell back on the
methods and
ordinary mode of address for an astrologer before the King
of Babylon (see
v. 7). He does not wait for the king to acknowledge that
this is the dream
he had. Daniel at once proceeds with the interpretation.
37 “Thou, O king, art a
king of kings: for the God of heaven
hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.”
The
Septuagint renders the latter clause, “To thee the Lord of
heaven gave the
dominion, and the kingdom, and the might, and the honor,
and the glory in
all the earth.” (ἐν πάσῃ
τῇ οἰκουμένῃ – en pasae tae
oikoumenae –
wherever the children dwell – beginning
of next verse). There appears here to
be
two cases of doublet; ἀρχὴ – archae – power
- and βασιλεία – basileia –
kingdom - are
probably originally alternative renderings of malcutha,
and τιμὴ –
timae – honor
- and δόξα doxa – glory
- double renderings of yiqara.
On this hypothesis there is only one Greek word for two
Aramaic. We shall
consider this later. Paulus Tellensis, in his translation of the
Septuagint
Version, draws the beginning of the next verse into
connection with the
final words of this verse as given here. The words, “in the whole earth,” is
a transference from the next verse. The rendering of
Theodotion is, “Thou,
O king, art a king of kings, to whom the God of heaven gave
a strong and
mighty and honorable kingdom,” making thus hisna, toqpa,
and yiqara
adjectives of malcut a. But malcutha is
feminine, and, if adjectives. hisna,
etc., are masculine. The Peshitta differs from the
Massoretic in leaving out
one of the terms, “Thou, O king, art a king of kings; God
most high
(merima) a strong kingdom and glory has given to
thee.” Of course, the
same objection holds to some extent against this version as
against that of
Theodotion, but it is to be noted that there are not two
words conveying
the same idea of strength. As there was only one in the
Septuagint, we are
inclined to think that toqpi must have been an
addition. Jerome’s rendering
is, “Thou art a king of kings, and the God of heaven has
given to thee the
kingdom, and might, and dominion, and glory.” There seems
to be a
transposition here. The general scope of this verse and the
next is given in
Jeremiah 27:5-6. There is certainly high honor given to
Nebuchadnezzar in this
address, but, at the same
time, he is warned that all his glory is bestowed upon
him BY THE GOD OF
HEAVEN. It is possible that
Nebuchadnezzar
interpreted the words as referring to Merodach, the god
whom he
specially worshipped, or regarded the God of heaven as only
another of the gods many and lords many which, as a
polytheist, he
acknowledged. The title of the Babylonian king was shar-sharani,”
king of
kings,” and sharru-rabbu, “great king.” Thus in this
address the technical
title is given him. The Babylonian monarchs assumed this
from their
Assyrian predecessors, as e.g. Asshurbanipal (Smith,
‘History,’ pp. 26, 73,
196). From the Babylonians it was passed on to the Persian
monarchs. In
Ezekiel 26:7 the prophet gives Nebuchadnezzar this title.
As we find by
the succeeding verse, the kingdom here is not mere royalty
or kingship, but
the special royalty of practically universal empire; that
is to say, universal
so far as the knowledge of the times went. Our rendering in
the Authorized
Version fails in accuracy, in not inserting the definite
article, which is really
implied in the sign of the status emphaticus. Luther
makes the same
mistake. Happily the Revisers have altered matters, and
inserted “the,” as
does Behrmann. The Greek Version and Peshitta are accurate
in this. The
word translated “power,” חִסְנָא (his’na), is consonantly present in
both
dialects of more recent Aramaic.
38 “And wheresoever the
children of men dwell, the beasts of
the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into
thine hand,
and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head
of gold.”
The Septuagint, if we take along with this verse the final
clause of the
preceding verse, has even more of that look of exaggeration
which we can
scarcely fail to be conscious of in the Massoretic, “In all
the earth
inhabited
by men, and wild beasts, and birds of the
heaven, and fish of the
sea, be delivered (all things) into thy hand to rule over
all.” The addition to
the realm of Nebuchadnezzar of the dwelling-place of the
fish of the sea is
readily observed. Theodotion has the same addition, “In
every place where
the sons of men dwell, he gave into thy hand beasts of the
earth, birds of
the air, fishes of the sea, and appointed thee lord of
all.” One cannot but
observe not only the presence of “the fishes,” but also the
fact that only the
lower animals are given into his power. It may be that
here, as in the Septuagint
the object is to render with slavish exactness the original
— unobservant of
the fact that the construction was irregular. Behrmann
thinks the author
had
before his mind השׁלטך (hashaltak),
“has made thee ruler,” and then
changed the construction. Something might be said for Moses
Stuart’s
view that כָּל־דִידָארִין; should
be translated “wherever,” if there were
any similar construction to be found. The rendering of the
Peshitta agrees
with the sense of Moses Stuart, “Every place where the sons
of men dwell,
the bird of heaven, or the beast of the field, he hath
given into thy hand,
and caused thee to rule over all of them.” The change of
order is to be
noted. The Vulgate agrees with the Massoretic. The word for
“dwelling” is
an
older form ˆ
דארין (dareen),
instead of the more recent form, which is
that read דירין (dayreen). This copious insertion of the a is
an Eastern
peculiarity. This assertion of Daniel must seem exaggerated
to us, but we
must remember the courtly form of address that was usual in
Oriental
courts, and that Nebuchadnezzar in all likelihood claimed
this breadth of
empire; so Daniel, in order to make way for the assertion
he had already
made of the king’s dependence on One higher, gives him
everything he
claims. The addition of the sea to his dominion, although
in it Theodotion
supports the Septuagint, is due to a mistaken idea of the
point of Daniel’s
statements. He adds, Thou
art this head of gold. This is not, as Hitzig
asserts, Nebuchadnezzar personally, but to him as the type of the
Babylonian monarch. This was but natural, as of the
duration of this
monarchy his independent reign extended to the half. Before
his advent as
“king’s son,” the Babylonian Empire had to endure the
assault of Egypt,
and had to struggle for existence against it. With his
advent began its
glory, with his disappearance began at once its decadence.
Only under
Nebuchadnezzar was Babylon really imperial. The short
reigns of his
successors are proofs of an insufficient hand upon the
reins. With all the
tyrannical moods to which be was subject, and all the wild
whirlwinds of
passion which were liable to carry him away,
Nebuchadnezzar, as
presented to us here, was a splendid man — utterly unlike
Epiphanes, we
may remark in passing, with his low tastes and his cringing
submission to
Rome. His brilliance was that of Alcibiades; he had nothing
of the dignity
implied in the head of gold. Nebuchadnezzar had secured the
love of this
captive, as we see by the sorrow with which Daniel
communicated to him
his approaching madness. There is thus a reasonableness in
making him, in
especial, the head of gold.
39 “And after thee shall
arise another kingdom inferior to
thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear
rule over
all the earth.” None
of the versions presents any difficulties, or gives
occasion for any remark, save the Vulgate, which inserts argenteum,
as if
reading כספ. The word used, “kingdom,” not “king,” shows, without
possibility of reasonable dispute, that in identifying
Nebuchadnezzar with
the head of gold, the reference is not to him personally,
but to him as
representing his dynasty. The next dynasty is said to be
inferior, that is to
say, nearer the ground אָרְעָא (ar’a), which is certainly true of the
shoulders in relation to the head. Not only does the
inferior metal imply
inferiority, but the inferior position dues so also. The
metal is omitted here,
but stated in the next clause, Another third kingdom of brass, which shall
bear rule over
all the earth. The metal is here referred to, but not the
position; there is no need to say it is inferior — that is implied
when it is
said to be a kingdom of brass. We need only refer to what
we have said
above, as to the fact that “brass” here really means
“copper.” As the
inferiority stated in the first clause is omitted in the
second, so the
statement made at the end, which grammatically applies only
to the third
kingdom, applies also to the second. It is only as, in a
sense, bearing rule
over the whole earth, that any monarchy comes into this
statue at all. When
we look at these two, we find certainly the two arms suggesting
and
rendering emphatic a two-foldness of some sort in this
power. The fact that,
in
the description of the statue, the word translated “belly” (מעוהי) is
plural, suggests, along with the two thighs, the
idea of four-foldness.
Faintly is this suggestion made, but the exigencies of the
figure must be
considered.
40 “And the fourth kingdom
shall be strong as iron:
forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all
things: and as
iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and
bruise.” The
Septuagint differs considerably here, “The fourth kingdom shall
be strong as iron, as
iron which subdueth all things, even as iron cutteth
down every tree.” It is evident that the translator has
read ˆ
אִילָן
(‘illan), “a
tree,” instead of אִלֵּין (‘illeen), “these.” The last clause is due
to וְתֵּרֹעַ
(vetayroa’) being written
with the א: ותארע; however, ו (vav) is not
unlike, in ancient Aramaic script, to כּ (kaph),
although ל (lamed) is not
like ת (tau), yet the phrase כָלאּאֲרַע would carry the reader over every
obstacle. Theodotion differs less from the Massoretic,” The fourth
kingdom is that which shall be as strong as iron, just as (ὅν τρόπον
– on tropon – like; in the manner of)
iron beateth small and subdueth all
things, thus shall it beat small and subdue all things.” It may be observed
that the clause, “and
as iron breaketh all these,” is omitted from the text.
It certainly appears to be an addition, indeed, has the look of a “doublet.”
This view is confirmed by the fact that the Peshitta also omits this clause.
The Peshitta rendering is, “The fourth kingdom shall be strong like
iron,
and even as iron
crushes and bruises all, thus even it shall beat small and
subdue all.” The Vulgate rendering also omits
a clause, “And the fourth
kingdom shall be like iron, as iron beats small and subdues all things, it
shall beat small (comminuet) all these.” For these grounds we feel inclined
to regard the clause in question as an explanatory note, which has slipped
into the text. Before we leave the consideration of the text, we must observe
that the word for “fourth” assumes
the Syriac, or Eastern Aramaic form, not
the form in Chaldee, or Western
Aramaic. That empire which was represented
by the basest of the four
metals, and occupied the lowest position in the figure,
is that which is the most powerful. When we go back we find brass is the
next
in point of hardness and
strength; it is the third, and of it, at all events, if not
also of that which preceded
it, it is said that “it shall bear rule over all the earth.”
The inferiority indicated by the metals and by the position
occupied in the
image, did not indicate inferiority in power or in extent
of dominion. An
interesting theory has been formed by Dr. Bonnar (‘Great
Interregnum’),
that this degeneration was one of type. The monarchy as
exhibited in
Babylon, especially when the monarch was a man of genius,
as was
Nebuchadnezzar, was likest to the rule of the Almighty over
the world: his
authority was without limit, direct and absolute over every
one subject to
his sceptre The Medo-Persian monarchy had much of the
Babylonian
absoluteness, but there were, if Herodotus is to be
trusted, the peers of the
crown, and, above all, there were the satraps, with their
almost
independent position in respect to the central power. The
third, in our
author’s opinion, the Hellenic, had the monarchy limited,
not only by
numerous compeers, as the king in Antioch was balanced by
the kings in
Alexandria and Pergamus, not to speak of the monarchs of
Parthia, but
also by the autonomous cities with the semblance of
freedom. The fourth,
the Roman, was yet further removed from the old
Divine-right monarchy
of the Babylonian type. At their first intercourse with the
Jews the Romans
were Republicans. Their first conquest of Judaea was made
by Pompey, the
general of the Republic. To the last the emperor, whatever
his power, was
still theoretically the first magistrate of a republic. The
feet and toes of
mingled clay and iron, he held, were modern constitutional
monarchies —
monarchies built upon democracy and the will of the people.
All this is
doomed to be overthrown by the coming of the Messianic kingdom.
41 “And whereas thou
sawest the feet and toes, part of
potter’s clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be
divided: but there
shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as
thou sawest the
iron mixed with miry clay.
42 And
as the toes of the feet were part of
iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall he partly
strong, and
partly broken. 43 And whereas thou sawest
iron mixed with miry clay,