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Title: The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Daniel
Author: Farrar, F. W. (Frederic William), 1831-1903
Language: English
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THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE.
_Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. each vol._
FIRST SERIES, 1887-8.
Colossians.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D.
St. Mark.
By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh.
Genesis.
By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.
1 Samuel.
By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.
2 Samuel.
By the same Author.
Hebrews.
By Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D.
SECOND SERIES, 1888-9.
Galatians.
By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.
The Pastoral Epistles.
By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.
Isaiah I.-XXXIX.
By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. I.
The Book of Revelation.
By Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D.
1 Corinthians.
By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.
The Epistles of St. John.
By Rt. Rev. W. ALEXANDER, D.D.
THIRD SERIES, 1889-90.
Judges and Ruth.
By R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D.
Jeremiah.
By Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A.
Isaiah XL.-LXVI.
By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. II.
St. Matthew.
By Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D.
Exodus.
By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh.
St. Luke.
By Rev. H. BURTON, M.A.
FOURTH SERIES, 1890-1.
Ecclesiastes.
By Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D.
St. James and St. Jude.
By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.
Proverbs.
By Rev. R. F. HORTON, D.D.
Leviticus.
By Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D.
The Gospel of St. John.
By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. I.
The Acts of the Apostles.
By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. I.
FIFTH SERIES, 1891-2.
The Psalms.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. I.
1 and 2 Thessalonians.
By JAMES DENNEY, D.D.
The Book of Job.
By R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D.
Ephesians.
By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.
The Gospel of St. John,
By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. II.
The Acts of the Apostles.
By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. II.
SIXTH SERIES, 1892-3.
1 Kings.
By Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR.
Philippians.
By Principal RAINY, D.D.
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.
By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A.
Joshua.
By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.
The Psalms.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. II.
The Epistles of St. Peter.
By Prof. RAWSON LUMBY, D.D.
SEVENTH SERIES, 1893-4.
2 Kings.
By Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR.
Romans.
By H. C. G. MOULE, M.A.
The Books of Chronicles.
By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A.
2 Corinthians.
By JAMES DENNEY, D.D.
Numbers.
By R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D.
The Psalms.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. III.
EIGHTH SERIES, 1895-6.
Daniel.
By Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR.
The Book of Jeremiah.
By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A.
Deuteronomy.
By Prof. ANDREW HARPER, B.D.
The Song of Solomon and Lamentations.
By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A.
Ezekiel.
By Prof. JOHN SKINNER, M.A.
The Minor Prophets.
By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Two Vols.
THE BOOK OF DANIEL
BY
F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S.
LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; ARCHDEACON OF
WESTMINSTER
=London=
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCV
_Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
CONTENTS
PART I
_INTRODUCTION_
CHAPTER I
PAGE
THE HISTORIC EXISTENCE OF THE PROPHET DANIEL 3
CHAPTER II
GENERAL SURVEY OF THE BOOK 13
1. THE LANGUAGE 13
2. UNITY 24
3. GENERAL TONE 27
4. STYLE 29
5. STANDPOINT OF ITS AUTHOR 31
6. MORAL ELEMENT 34
CHAPTER III
PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORICAL SECTION 39
CHAPTER IV
GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK 63
CHAPTER V
THE THEOLOGY OF THE BOOK 67
CHAPTER VI
PECULIARITIES OF THE APOCALYPTIC AND PROPHETIC
SECTION OF THE BOOK 71
CHAPTER VII
INTERNAL EVIDENCE 78
CHAPTER VIII
EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF THE GENUINENESS UNCERTAIN
AND INADEQUATE 88
CHAPTER IX
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE AND RECEPTION INTO THE
CANON 98
CHAPTER X
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 113
PART II
_COMMENTARY ON THE HISTORIC SECTION_
CHAPTER I
THE PRELUDE 123
CHAPTER II
THE DREAM-IMAGE OF RUINED EMPIRES 141
CHAPTER III
THE IDOL OF GOLD, AND THE FAITHFUL THREE 167
CHAPTER IV
THE BABYLONIAN CEDAR, AND THE STRICKEN DESPOT 184
CHAPTER V
THE FIERY INSCRIPTION 203
CHAPTER VI
STOPPING THE MOUTHS OF LIONS 218
PART III
_THE PROPHETIC SECTION OF THE BOOK_
CHAPTER I
VISION OF THE FOUR WILD BEASTS 233
CHAPTER II
THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT 252
CHAPTER III
THE SEVENTY WEEKS 268
CHAPTER IV
INTRODUCTION TO THE CONCLUDING VISION 292
CHAPTER V
AN ENIGMATIC PROPHECY PASSING INTO DETAILS OF
THE REIGN OF ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES 299
CHAPTER VI
THE EPILOGUE 319
APPENDIX
APPROXIMATE CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES 333
GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE LAGIDÆ, PTOLEMIES,
AND SELEUCIDÆ 334
AUTHORITIES CONSULTED
COMMENTARIES AND TREATISES
The chief Rabbinic Commentaries were those of Rashi († 1105); Abn
Ezra († 1167); Kimchi († 1240); Abrabanel († 1507).[1]
The chief Patristic Commentary is that by St. Jerome. Fragments
are preserved of other Commentaries by Origen, Hippolytus, Ephræm
Syrus, Julius Africanus, Theodoret, Athanasius, Basil, Eusebius,
Polychronius, etc. (Mai, _Script. Vet. Nov. Coll._, i.).
The Scholastic Commentary attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas is spurious.
The chief Commentaries of the Reformation period are those by:--
Luther, _Auslegung d. Proph. Dan._, 1530-46 (_Opp. Germ._, vi., ed.
Walch.)
Œcolampadius, _In Dan. libri duo_. Basle, 1530.
Melancthon, _Comm. in Dan._ Wittenburg, 1543.
Calvin, _Prælect. in Dan._ Geneva, 1563.
Modern Commentaries are numerous; among them we may mention those by:--
Newton, _Observations upon the Prophecies_. London, 1733.
Bertholdt, _Daniel_. Erlangen, 1806-8.
Rosenmüller, _Scholia_. 1832.
Hävernick. 1832 and 1838.
Hengstenberg. 1831.
There are Commentaries by Von Lengerke, 1835; Maurer, 1838; Hitzig,
1850; Ewald, 1867; Kliefoth, 1868; Keil, 1869; Kranichfeld,
1868; Kamphausen, 1868; Meinhold (_Kurzgefasster Kommentar_),
1889; Auberlen, 1857; Archdeacon Rose and Prof. J. M. Fuller
(_Speaker's Commentary_), 1876; Rev. H. J. Deane (Bishop Ellicott's
_Commentary_), 1884; Zöckler (Lange's _Bibelwerk_), 1889; A. A. Bevan
(_Cambridge_), 1893; Meinhold, _Beiträge_, 1888.
The latest Commentary which has appeared is that by Hauptpastor
Behrmann, in the _Handkommentar z. Alten Testament._ Göttingen, 1894.
Discussions in the various Introductions (_Einleitungen_, etc.) by
Bleek, De Wette, Keil, Stähelin, Reuss, Cornely, Dr. S. Davidson,
Kleinert, Cornill, König, etc.
LIVES OF DANIEL
Pseudo-Epiphanius, _Opera_, ii. 243.
H. J. Deane, _Daniel_ (Men of the Bible). 1892.
THERE ARE ARTICLES ON DANIEL IN
Winer's _Realwörterbuch_, Second Edition.
Delitzsch, in Herzog's _Real-Encyclopädie_.
Graf, in Schenkel's _Bibel-Lexicon_, i. 564.
Bishop Westcott, in Dr. W. Smith's _Bible Dictionary_, New Edition.
1893.
Hamburger, _Real-Encyclopädie_, ii., _s.v._ "Geheimlehre," p. 265;
_s.vv._ "Daniel," pp. 223-225; and _Heiliges Schriftthum_.
TREATISES
Russel Martineau, _Theological Review_. 1865.
Prof. Margoliouth, _The Expositor_. April 1890.
Prof. J. M. Fuller, _The Expositor_, Third Series, vols. i., ii.
T. K. Cheyne, _Encyclopædia Britannica_, vi. 803.
Prof. Sayce, _The Higher Criticism and the Monuments_. 1894.
Prof. S. R. Driver, _Introduction to the Literature of the Old
Testament_, pp. 458-483. 1891.
Prof. S. Leathes, in _Book by Book_, pp. 241-251.
C. von Orelli, _Alttestamentliche Weissagung_, p. 454. Wien, 1882.
Meinhold, _Die Geschichtlichen Hagiographen_ (Strack and Zöckler,
_Kurzgefasster Kommentar_, 1889).
Meinhold, _Erklärung des Buches Daniels_. 1889.
TREATISES OR DISCUSSIONS BY
Dr. Pusey, _Daniel the Prophet_. 1864.
T. R. Birks, _The Later Visions of Daniel_. 1846.
Ellicott, _Horæ Apocalypticæ_. 1844.
Tregelles, _Remarks on the Prophetic Visions of Daniel_. 1852.
Hilgenfeld, _Die Propheten Ezra u. Daniel_. 1863.
Baxmann, _Stud. u. Krit._, iii. 489 ff. 1863.
Desprez, _Daniel_. 1865.
Hofmann, _Weissagung und Erfüllung_, i. 276-316.
Kuenen, _Prophets and Prophecy in Israel_, E. Tr. 1877.
Ewald, _Die Propheten des Alten Bundes_, iii. 298. 1868.
Hilgenfeld, _Die jüdische Apokalyptic_. 1857.
Lenormant, _La Divination chez les Chaldeans_. 1875.
Fabre d'Envieu, _Le livre du Prophète Daniel_. 1888.
Hebbelyuck, _De auctoritate libr. Danielis_. 1887.
Köhler, _Bibl. Geschichte_. 1893.
INSCRIPTIONS AND MONUMENTS
Babylonian, Persian, and Median inscriptions bearing on the Book of
Daniel are given by:--
Schrader, _Keilinschriften und d. A. T._, E. Tr., 1885-88; and in
_Records of the Past_. See too _Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum_.
Sayce, _The Higher Criticism_, pp. 497-537.
These inscriptions have been referred to also by Cornill, Nestle,
Nöldeke, Lagarde, etc.
HISTORIES AND OTHER BOOKS
Sketches and fragments of many ancient historians:--
Josephus, _Antiquitates Judaicæ_, ll. x., xi., xii.
The Books of Maccabees.
Prideaux, _Connection of the Old and New Testaments_, ed. Oxford. 1828.
Ewald, _Gesch. des Volkes Israel_. 1843-50.
Grätz, _Gesch. der Juden_, Second Edition. 1863.
Jost, _Gesch. d. Judenthums und seinen Sekten_, i. 90-116. Leipzig,
1857.
Herzfeld, _Gesch. des Volkes Israel_, ii. 416. 1863.
Van Oort, _Bible for Young People_, E. Tr. 1877.
Kittel, _Gesch. d. Hebräer_, ii. 1892.
Schürer, _Gesch. d. jüdischen Volkes_. Leipzig, 1890.
Jahn, _Hebrew Commonwealth_, E. Tr. 1828.
Droysen, _Gesch. d. Hellenismus_, ii. 211.
E. Meyer, _Gesch. d. Alterthums_, i.
SPECIAL TREATISES
Delitzsch, _Messianische Weissagangen_. Leipzig, 1890.
Riehm, _Die Messianische Weissagung_. Gotha, 1875.
Knabenbauer, _Comment in Daniel. prophet., Lament., et Baruch_. 1891.
Kuenen, _Religion of Israel_, E. Tr. 1874.
Bludau, _De Alex. interpe. Danielis indole_. 1891.
Nöldeke, _D. Alttest. Literatur_. 1868.
Fraidl, _Exegese d. 70 Wochen Daniels_. 1883.
Menken, _Die Monarchienbild_. 1887.
Kamphausen, _Das Buch Daniel in die neuere Geschichtsforschung_.
Leipzig, 1893.
Lennep, _De Zeventig Jaarweken van Daniel_. Utrecht, 1888.
Dr. M. Joël, _Notizen zum Buche Daniel_. Breslau, 1873.
Derenbourg, _Les Mots grecs dans le Livre biblique de Daniel_.
Mélanges Graux, 1888.
Cornill, _Die Siebzig Jahrwochen Daniels_. 1889.
Wolf, _Die Siebzig Wochen Daniels_. 1859.
Sanday, _Inspiration_ (Bampton Lectures). 1894.
Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_. 1887.
Roszmann, _Die Makkabeische Erhebung_.
J. F. Hoffmann, _Antiochus IV_. (_Epiphanes_). 1873.
_Speaker's Commentary_ on Tobit, 1, 2 Maccabees, etc. 1888.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The Commentary which passes as that of Saadia the Gaon is said to
be spurious. His genuine Commentary only exists in manuscript.
PART I
_INTRODUCTION_
Ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν περὶ τούτων ὡς εὗρον καὶ ἀνέγνων, οὕτως ἔγραψα· εἰ
δέ τις ἄλλως δοξάζειν βουλήσεται περὶ αὐτῶν ἀνέγκλητον ἐχέτω τὴν
ἐτερογνωμοσύνην.--JOSEPHUS, _Antt._, X. ii. 7.
CHAPTER I
_THE HISTORIC EXISTENCE OF THE PROPHET DANIEL_
"Trothe is the hiest thinge a man may kepe."--CHAUCER.
We propose in the following pages to examine the Book of the Prophet
Daniel by the same general methods which have been adopted in other
volumes of the Expositor's Bible. It may well happen that the
conclusions adopted as regards its origin and its place in the Sacred
Volume will not command the assent of all our readers. On the other
hand, we may feel a reasonable confidence that, even if some are
unable to accept the views at which we have arrived, and which we have
here endeavoured to present with fairness, they will still read them
with interest, as opinions which have been calmly and conscientiously
formed, and to which the writer has been led by strong conviction.
All Christians will acknowledge the sacred and imperious duty of
sacrificing every other consideration to the unbiassed acceptance of
that which we regard as truth. Further than this our readers will
find much to elucidate the Book of Daniel chapter by chapter, apart
from any questions which affect its authorship or age.
But I should like to say on the threshold that, though I am compelled
to regard the Book of Daniel as a work which, in its present form,
first saw the light in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, and though I
believe that its six magnificent opening chapters were never meant
to be regarded in any other light than that of moral and religious
_Haggadoth_, yet no words of mine can exaggerate the value which
I attach to this part of our Canonical Scriptures. The Book, as
we shall see, has exercised a powerful influence over Christian
conduct and Christian thought. Its right to a place in the Canon is
undisputed and indisputable, and there is scarcely a single book
of the Old Testament which can be made more richly "profitable
for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, completely
furnished unto every good work." Such religious lessons are eminently
suitable for the aims of the Expositor's Bible. They are not in the
slightest degree impaired by those results of archæological discovery
and "criticism" which are now almost universally accepted by the
scholars of the Continent, and by many of our chief English critics.
Finally unfavourable to the authenticity, they are yet in no way
derogatory to the preciousness of this Old Testament Apocalypse.
* * * * *
The first question which we must consider is, "What is known about
the Prophet Daniel?"
I. If we accept as historical the particulars narrated of him in
this Book, it is clear that few Jews have ever risen to so splendid
an eminence. Under four powerful kings and conquerors, of three
different nationalities and dynasties, he held a position of high
authority among the haughtiest aristocracies of the ancient world. At
a very early age he was not only a satrap, but the Prince and Prime
Minister over _all_ the satraps in Babylonia and Persia; not only a
Magian, but the Head Magian, and Chief Governor over all the wise
men of Babylon. Not even Joseph, as the chief ruler over all the
house of Pharaoh, had anything like the extensive sway exercised by
the Daniel of this Book. He was placed by Nebuchadrezzar "over the
whole province of Babylon";[2] under Darius he was President of the
Board of Three to "whom all the satraps" sent their accounts;[3] and
he was continued in office and prosperity under Cyrus the Persian.[4]
II. It is natural, then, that we should turn to the monuments and
inscriptions of the Babylonian, Persian, and Median Empires to see if
any mention can be found of so prominent a ruler. But hitherto neither
has his name been discovered, nor the faintest trace of his existence.
III. If we next search other non-Biblical sources of information, we
find much respecting him in the Apocrypha--"The Song of the Three
Children," "The Story of Susanna," and "Bel and the Dragon." But
these additions to the Canonical Books are avowedly valueless for any
historic purpose. They are romances, in which the vehicle of fiction is
used, in a manner which at all times was popular in Jewish literature,
to teach lessons of faith and conduct by the example of eminent
sages or saints.[5] The few other fictitious fragments preserved
by Fabricius have not the smallest importance.[6] Josephus, beyond
mentioning that Daniel and his three companions were of the family
of King Zedekiah,[7] adds nothing appreciable to our information. He
narrates the story of the Book, and in doing so adopts a somewhat
apologetic tone, as though he specially declined to vouch for its
historic exactness. For he says: "Let no one blame me for writing down
everything of this nature, as I find it in our ancient books: for as to
that matter, I have plainly assured those that think me defective in
any such point, or complain of my management, and have told them, in
the beginning of this history, that I intended to do no more than to
translate the Hebrew books into the Greek language, and promised them
to explain these facts, without adding anything to them of my own, or
taking anything away from them."[8]
IV. In the Talmud, again, we find nothing historical. Daniel is
always mentioned as a champion against idolatry, and his wisdom is
so highly esteemed, that, "if all the wise men of the heathen," we
are told, "were on one side, and Daniel on the other, Daniel would
still prevail."[9] He is spoken of as an example of God's protection
of the innocent, and his three daily prayers are taken as our rule
of life.[10] To him are applied the verses of Lam. iii. 55-57: "I
called upon Thy name, O Lord, out of the lowest pit.... Thou drewest
near in the day that I called: Thou saidst, Fear not. O Lord, Thou
hast pleaded the causes of my soul; Thou hast redeemed my life."
We are assured that he was of Davidic descent; obtained permission
for the return of the exiles; survived till the rebuilding of the
Temple; lived to a great age, and finally died in Palestine.[11]
Rav even went so far as to say, "If there be any like the Messiah
among the living, it is our Rabbi the Holy: if among the dead,
it is Daniel."[12] In the _Avoth_ of Rabbi Nathan it is stated
that Daniel exercised himself in benevolence by endowing brides,
following funerals, and giving alms. One of the Apocryphal legends
respecting him has been widely spread. It tells us that, when he
was a second time cast into the den of lions under Cyrus, and was
fasting from lack of food, the Prophet Habakkuk was taken by a hair
of his head and carried by the angel of the Lord to Babylon, to give
to Daniel the dinner which he had prepared for his reapers.[13] It
is with reference to this _Haggada_ that in the catacombs Daniel is
represented in the lions' den standing naked between two lions--an
emblem of the soul between sin and death--and that a youth with a pot
of food is by his side.
There is a Persian apocalypse of Daniel translated by Merx (_Archiv_,
i. 387), and there are a few worthless Mohammedan legends about him
which are given in D'Herbelot's _Bibliothèque orientale_. They only
serve to show how widely extended was the reputation which became
the nucleus of strange and miraculous stories. As in the case of
Pythagoras and Empedocles, they indicate the deep reverence which the
ideal of his character inspired. They are as the fantastic clouds
which gather about the loftiest mountain peaks. In later days he
seems to have been comparatively forgotten.[14]
These references would not, however, suffice to prove Daniel's
_historical_ existence. They might merely result from the literal
acceptance of the story narrated in the Book. From the name "Daniel,"
which is by no means a common one, and means "Judge of God," nothing
can be learnt. It is only found in three other instances.[15]
Turning to the Old Testament itself, we have reason for surprise both
in its allusions and its silences. One only of the sacred writers
refers to Daniel, and that is Ezekiel. In one passage (xxviii. 3)
the Prince of Tyrus is apostrophised in the words, "_Behold, thou
art wiser than Daniel_; there is no secret that they can hide from
thee." In the other (xiv. 14, 20) the word of the Lord declares to
the guilty city, that "though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and
Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their
righteousness"; "they shall deliver neither son nor daughter."[16]
The last words may be regarded as a general allusion, and therefore
we may pass over the circumstance that Daniel--who was undoubtedly
a eunuch in the palace of Babylon, and who is often pointed to as a
fulfilment of the stern prophecy of Isaiah to Hezekiah[17]--could
never have had either son or daughter.
But in other respects the allusion is surprising.
i. It was very unusual among the Jews to elevate their contemporaries
to such a height of exaltation, and it is indeed startling that
Ezekiel should thus place his youthful contemporary on such a
pinnacle as to unite his name to those of Noah the antediluvian
patriarch and the mysterious man of Uz.
ii. We might, with Theodoret, Jerome, and Kimchi, account for the
mention of Daniel's name at all in this connection by the peculiar
circumstances of his life;[18] but there is little probability in the
suggestions of bewildered commentators as to the reason why his name
should be placed _between_ those of Noah and Job. It is difficult,
with Hävernick, to recognise any _climax_ in the order;[19] nor can
it be regarded as quite satisfactory to say, with Delitzsch, that
the collocation is due to the fact that "as Noah was a righteous man
of the old world, and Job of the ideal world, Daniel represented
immediately the contemporaneous world."[20] If Job was a purely ideal
instance of exemplary goodness, why may not Daniel have been the same?
To some critics the allusion has appeared so strange that they have
referred it to an imaginary Daniel who had lived at the Court of
Nineveh during the Assyrian exile;[21] or to some mythic hero who
belonged to ancient days--perhaps, like Melchizedek, a contemporary
of the ruin of the cities of the Plain.[22] Ewald tries to urge
something for the former conjecture; yet neither for it nor for the
latter is there any tittle of real evidence.[23] This, however, would
not be decisive against the hypothesis, since in 1 Kings iv. 31 we
have references to men of pre-eminent wisdom respecting whom no
breath of tradition has come down to us.[24]
iii. But if we accept the Book of Daniel as literal history, the
allusion of Ezekiel becomes still more difficult to explain; for
Daniel must have been not only a contemporary of the prophet of the
Exile, but a very youthful one. We are told--a difficulty to which we
shall subsequently allude--that Daniel was taken captive in the third
year of Jehoiakim (Dan. i. 1), about the year B.C. 606. Ignatius
says that he was twelve years old when he foiled the elders; and the
narrative shows that he could not have been much older when taken
captive.[25] If Ezekiel's prophecy was uttered B.C. 584, Daniel at
that time could only have been twenty-two: if it was uttered as late
as B.C. 572,[26] Daniel would still have been only thirty-four, and
therefore little more than a youth in Jewish eyes. It is undoubtedly
surprising that among Orientals, who regard age as the chief passport
to wisdom, a living youth should be thus canonised between the
Patriarch of the Deluge and the Prince of Uz.
iv. Admitting that this pinnacle of eminence may have been due to
the peculiar splendour of Daniel's career, it becomes the less easy
to account for the total silence respecting him in the other books
of the Old Testament--in the Prophets who were contemporaneous with
the Exile and its close, like Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi; and
in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which give us the details of the
Return. No post-exilic prophets seem to know anything of the Book of
Daniel.[27] Their expectations of Israel's future are very different
from his.[28] The silence of Ezra is specially astonishing. It has
often been conjectured that it was Daniel who showed to Cyrus the
prophecies of Isaiah.[29] Certainly it is stated that he held the
very highest position in the Court of the Persian King; yet neither
does Ezra mention his existence, nor does Nehemiah--himself a high
functionary in the Court of Artaxerxes--refer to his illustrious
predecessor. Daniel outlived the first return of the exiles under
Zerubbabel, and he did not avail himself of this opportunity to
revisit the land and desolate sanctuary of his fathers which he
loved so well.[30] We might have assumed that patriotism so burning
as his would not have preferred to stay at Babylon, or at Shushan,
when the priests and princes of his people were returning to the
Holy City. Others of great age faced the perils of the Restoration;
and if he stayed behind to be of greater use to his countrymen, we
cannot account for the fact that he is not distantly alluded to in
the record which tells how "the chief of the fathers, _with all
those whose spirit God had raised_, rose up to go to build the House
of the Lord which is in Jerusalem."[31] That the difficulty was felt
is shown by the Mohammedan legend that Daniel _did_ return with
Ezra,[32] and that he received the office of Governor of Syria, from
which country he went back to Susa, where his tomb is still yearly
visited by crowds of adoring pilgrims.
v. If we turn to the New Testament, the name of Daniel only occurs in
the reference to "the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel
the prophet."[33] The Book of Revelation does not name him, but is
profoundly influenced by the Book of Daniel both in its form and in
the symbols which it adopts.[34]
vi. In the Apocrypha Daniel is passed over in complete silence among
the lists of Hebrew heroes enumerated by Jesus the son of Sirach. We
are even told that "neither was there a man born like unto Joseph, a
leader of his brethren, a stay of the people" (Ecclus. xlix. 15). This
is the more singular because not only are the achievements of Daniel
under four heathen potentates greater than those of Joseph under one
Pharaoh, but also several of the stories of Daniel at once remind us of
the story of Joseph, and even appear to have been written with silent
reference to the youthful Hebrew and his fortunes as an Egyptian slave
who was elevated to be governor of the land of his exile.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Dan. ii. 48.
[3] Dan. v. 29, vi. 2.
[4] Dan. vi. 28. There is a Daniel of the sons of Ithamar in Ezra
viii. 2, and among those who sealed the covenant in Neh. x. 6.
[5] For a full account of the _Agada_ (also called _Agadtha_ and
_Haggada_), I must refer the reader to Hamburger's _Real-Encyklopädie
für Bibel und Talmud_, ii. 19-27, 921-934. The first two forms of the
words are Aramaic; the third was a Hebrew form in use among the Jews
in Babylonia. The word is derived from נָגַד, "to say" or "explain."
_Halacha_ was the rule of religious praxis, a sort of Directorium
Judaicum: _Haggada_ was the result of free religious reflection. See
further Strack, _Einl. in den Thalmud_, iv. 122.
[6] Fabricius, _Cod. Pseudepigr. Vet. Test._, i. 1124.
[7] Jos., _Antt._, X. xi. 7. But Pseudo-Epiphanius (_De Vit. Dan._,
x.) says: Γέγονε τῶν ἐξόχων τῆς βασιλικῆς ὑπηρεσίας. So too the
_Midrash_ on Ruth, 7.
[8] Jos., _Antt._, X. x. 6.
[9] _Yoma_, f. 77.
[10] _Berachôth_, f. 31.
[11] _Sanhedrin_, f. 93. _Midrash Rabba_ on Ruth, 7, etc., quoted by
Hamburger, _Real-Encyclopädie_, i. 225.
[12] _Kiddushin_, f. 72, 6; Hershon, _Genesis acc. to the Talmud_, p.
471.
[13] Bel and the Dragon, 33-39. It seems to be an old Midrashic
legend. It is quoted by Dorotheus and Pseudo-Epiphanius, and referred
to by some of the Fathers. Eusebius supposes another Habakkuk and
another Daniel; but "anachronisms, literary extravagances, or
legendary character are obvious on the face of such narratives. Such
faults as these, though valid against any pretensions to the rank
of authentic history, do not render the stories less effective as
pieces of Haggadic satire, or less interesting as preserving vestiges
of a cycle of popular legends relating to Daniel" (Rev. C. J. Ball,
_Speaker's Commentary_, on Apocrypha, ii. 350).
[14] Höttinger, _Hist. Orientalis_, p. 92.
[15] Ezra viii. 2; Neh. x. 6. In 1 Chron. iii. 1 Daniel is an
alternative name for David's son Chileab--perhaps a clerical error.
If so, the names Daniel, Mishael, Azariah, and Hananiah are only
found in the two post-exilic books, whence Kamphausen supposes them
to have been borrowed by the writer.
[16] No valid arguments can be adduced in favour of Winckler's
suggestion that Ezek. xxviii. 1-10, xiv. 14-20, are late
interpolations. In these passages the name is spelt דָּנִּאֵל; not,
as in our Book, דָנִיֵאל.
[17] Isa. xxxix. 7.
[18] See Rosenmüller, _Scholia_, _ad loc._
[19] _Ezek._, p. 207.
[20] Herzog, _R. E._, _s.v._
[21] Ewald, _Proph. d. Alt. Bund._, ii. 560; De Wette, _Einleit._, §
253.
[22] So Von Lengerke, _Dan._, xciii. ff.; Hitzig, _Dan._, viii.
[23] He is followed by Bunsen, _Gott in der Gesch._, i. 514.
[24] Reuss, _Heil. Schrift._, p. 570.
[25] Ignat., _Ad Magnes_, 3 (Long Revision: see Lightfoot, ii., §
ii., p. 749). So too in _Ps. Mar. ad Ignat._, 3. Lightfoot thinks
that this is a transference from Solomon (_l.c._, p. 727).
[26] See Ezek. xxix. 17.
[27] See Zech. ii. 6-10; Ezek. xxxvii. 9, etc.
[28] See Hag. ii. 6-9, 20-23; Zech. ii. 5-17, iii. 8-10; Mal. iii. 1.
[29] Ezra (i. 1) does not mention the striking prophecies of the
later Isaiah (xliv. 28, xlv. 1), but refers to Jeremiah only (xxv.
12, xxix. 10).
[30] Dan. x. 1-18, vi. 10.
[31] Ezra i. 5.
[32] D'Herbelot, _l.c._
[33] Matt. xxiv. 15; Mark xiii. 14. There can be of course no
certainty that the "spoken of by Daniel the prophet" is not the
comment of the Evangelist.
[34] See Elliott, _Horæ Apocalypticæ_, _passim_.
CHAPTER II
_GENERAL SURVEY OF THE BOOK_
1. THE LANGUAGE
Unable to learn anything further respecting the professed author of
the Book of Daniel, we now turn to the Book itself. In this section
I shall merely give a general sketch of its main external phenomena,
and shall chiefly pass in review those characteristics which, though
they have been used as arguments respecting the age in which it
originated, are not absolutely irreconcilable with the supposition of
_any_ date between the termination of the Exile (B.C. 536) and the
death of Antiochus Epiphanes (B.C. 164).
I. First we notice the fact that there is an interchange of the first
and third person. In chapters i.-vi. Daniel is mainly spoken of in
the third person: in chapters vii.-xii. he speaks mainly in the first.
Kranichfeld tries to account for this by the supposition that
in chapters i.-vi. we practically have extracts from Daniel's
diaries,[35] whereas in the remainder of the Book he describes his
own visions. The point cannot be much insisted upon, but the mention
of his own high praises (_e.g._, in such passages as vi. 4) is
perhaps hardly what we should have expected.
II. Next we observe that the Book of Daniel, like the Book of Ezra[36]
is written partly in the sacred Hebrew, partly in the vernacular
Aramaic, which is often, but erroneously, called Chaldee.[37]
The first section (i. 1-ii. 4_a_) is in Hebrew. The language changes
to Aramaic after the words, "Then spake the Chaldeans to the king _in
Syriac_" (ii. 4_a_);[38] and this is continued to vii. 28. The eighth
chapter begins with the words, "In the third year of the reign of
King Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel"; and
here the Hebrew is resumed, and is continued till the end of the Book.
The question at once arises why the two languages were used in the
same Book.
It is easy to understand that, during the course of the seventy years'
Exile, many of the Jews became practically bilingual, and would be able
to write with equal facility in one language or in the other.
This circumstance, then, has no bearing on the date of the Book. Down
to the Maccabean age some books continued to be written in Hebrew.
These books must have found readers. Hence the knowledge of Hebrew
cannot have died away so completely as has been supposed. The notion
that after the return from the Exile Hebrew was at once superseded
by Aramaic is untenable. Hebrew long continued to be the language
normally spoken at Jerusalem (Neh. xiii. 24), and the Jews did not
bring back Aramaic with them to Palestine, but found it there.[39]
But it is not clear why the linguistic _divisions_ in the Book were
adopted. Auberlen says that, after the introduction, the section
ii. 4_a_-vii. 28 was written in Chaldee, because it describes the
development of the power of the world from a world-historic point
of view; and that the remainder of the Book was written in Hebrew,
because it deals with the development of the world-powers in their
relation to Israel the people of God.[40] There is very little to
be said in favour of a structure so little obvious and so highly
artificial. A simpler solution of the difficulty would be that which
accounts for the use of Chaldee by saying that it was adopted in
those parts which involved the introduction of Aramaic documents.
This, however, would not account for its use in chap. vii., which
is a chapter of visions in which Hebrew might have been naturally
expected as the vehicle of prophecy. Strack and Meinhold think that
the Aramaic and Hebrew parts are of different origin. König supposes
that the Aramaic sections were meant to indicate special reference to
the Syrians and Antiochus.[41] Some critics have thought it possible
that the Aramaic sections were once written in Hebrew. That the text
of Daniel has not been very carefully kept becomes clear from the
liberties to which it was subjected by the Septuagint translators. If
the Hebrew of Jer. x. 11 (a verse which only exists in Aramaic) has
been lost, it is not inconceivable that the same may have happened to
the Hebrew of a section of Daniel.[42]
The Talmud throws no light on the question. It only says that--
i. "The men of the Great Synagogue wrote"[43]--by which is perhaps
meant that they "edited"--"the Book of Ezekiel, the Twelve Minor
Prophets, the Book of Daniel, and the Book of Ezra";[44] and that--
ii. "The Chaldee passages in the Book of Ezra and the Book of Daniel
_defile the hands_."[45]
The first of these two passages is merely an assertion that the
preservation, the arrangement, and the admission into the Canon of
the books mentioned was due to the body of scribes and priests--a
very shadowy and unhistorical body--known as the Great Synagogue.[46]
The second passage sounds startling, but is nothing more than an
authoritative declaration that the Chaldee sections of Daniel and
Ezra are still parts of Holy Scripture, though not written in the
sacred language.
It is a standing rule of the Talmudists that _All Holy Scripture
defiles the hands_--even the long-disputed Books of Ecclesiastes and
Canticles.[47] Lest any should misdoubt the sacredness of the Chaldee
sections, they are expressly included in the rule. It seems to have
originated thus: The eatables of the heave offerings were kept in close
proximity to the scroll of the Law, for both were considered equally
sacred. If a mouse or rat happened to nibble either, the offerings and
the books became defiled, and therefore defiled the hands that touched
them.[48] To guard against this hypothetical defilement it was decided
that _all_ handling of the Scriptures should be followed by ceremonial
ablutions. To say that the Chaldee chapters "defile the hands" is the
Rabbinic way of declaring their Canonicity.
Perhaps nothing certain can be inferred from the philological
examination either of the Hebrew or of the Chaldee portions of the
Book; but they seem to indicate a date not earlier than the age of
Alexander (B.C. 333). On this part of the subject there has been a
great deal of rash and incompetent assertion. It involves delicate
problems on which an independent and a valuable opinion can only be
offered by the merest handful of living scholars, and respecting
which even these scholars sometimes disagree. In deciding upon
such points ordinary students can only weigh the authority and the
arguments of specialists who have devoted a minute and lifelong study
to the grammar and history of the Semitic languages.
I know no higher contemporary authorities on the date of Hebrew
writings than the late veteran scholar F. Delitzsch and Professor
Driver.
1. Nothing was more beautiful and remarkable in Professor Delitzsch
than the open-minded candour which compelled him to the last to
advance with advancing thought; to admit all fresh elements of
evidence; to continue his education as a Biblical inquirer to the
latest days of his life; and without hesitation to correct, modify,
or even reverse his previous conclusions in accordance with the
results of deeper study and fresh discoveries. He wrote the article
on Daniel in Herzog's _Real-Encyclopädie_, and in the first edition
of that work maintained its genuineness; but in the later editions
(iii. 470) his views approximate more and more to those of the Higher
Criticism. Of the Hebrew of Daniel he says that "it attaches itself
here and there to Ezekiel, and also to Habakkuk; in general character
it resembles the Hebrew of the Chronicler who wrote shortly before
the beginning of the Greek period (B.C. 332), and as compared either
with the ancient Hebrew, or with the Hebrew of the _Mishnah_ is full
of singularities and harshnesses of style."[49]
So far, then, it is clear that, if the Hebrew mainly resembles that
of B.C. 332, it is hardly likely that it should have been written
_before_ B.C. 536.
Professor Driver says, "The Hebrew of Daniel in all distinctive
features resembles, not the Hebrew of Ezekiel, or even of Haggai and
Zechariah, but that of the age subsequent to Nehemiah"--whose age
forms the great turning-point in Hebrew style.
He proceeds to give a list of linguistic peculiarities in support of
this view, and other specimens of sentences constructed, not in the
style of classical Hebrew, but in "the later uncouth style" of the
Book of Chronicles. He points out in a note that it is no explanation
of these peculiarities to argue that, during his long exile, Daniel
may have partially forgotten the language of his youth; "for this
would not account for the resemblance of the new and decadent idioms
to those which appeared in Palestine independently two hundred and
fifty years afterwards."[50] Behrmann, in the latest commentary on
Daniel, mentions, in proof of the late character of the Hebrew:
(1) the introduction of Persian words which could not have been
used in Babylonian before the conquest of Cyrus (as in i. 3, 5, xi.
45, etc.); (2) many Aramaic or Aramaising words, expressions, and
grammatical forms (as in i. 5, 10, 12, 16, viii. 18, 22, x. 17, 21,
etc.); (3) neglect of strict accuracy in the use of the Hebrew tenses
(as in viii. 14, ix. 3 f., xi. 4 f., etc.); (4) the borrowing of
archaic expressions from ancient sources (as in viii. 26, ix. 2, xi.
10, 40, etc.); (5) the use of technical terms and periphrases common
in Jewish apocalypses (xi. 6, 13, 35, 40, etc.).[51]
2. These views of the character of the Hebrew agree with those of
previous scholars. Bertholdt and Kirms declare that its character
differs _toto genere_ from what might have been expected had the Book
been genuine. Gesenius says that the language is even more corrupt
than that of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi. Professor Driver says
the _Persian_ words _presuppose_ a period after the Persian Empire
had been well established; the _Greek_ words _demand,_ the _Hebrew
supports_, and the _Aramaic permits_ a date after the conquest of
Palestine by Alexander the Great. De Wette and Ewald have pointed
out the lack of the old passionate spontaneity of early prophecy; the
absence of the numerous and profound paronomasiæ, or plays on words,
which characterised the burning oratory of the prophets; and the
peculiarities of the style--which is sometimes obscure and careless,
sometimes pompous, iterative, and artificial.[52]
3. It is noteworthy that in this Book the name of the great
Babylonian conqueror, with whom, in the narrative part, Daniel
is thrown into such close connexion, is invariably written in
the absolutely erroneous form which his name assumed in later
centuries--Nebuchad_n_ezzar. A contemporary, familiar with the
Babylonian language, could not have been ignorant of the fact that
the only correct form of the name is Nebuchad_r_ezzar--_i.e._,
_Nebu-kudurri-utsur_, "Nebo protect the throne."[53]
4. But the erroneous form Neduchad_n_ezzar is not the only one which
entirely militates against the notion of a contemporary writer.
There seem to be other mistakes about Babylonian matters into which
a person in Daniel's position could not have fallen. Thus the
name Belteshazzar seems to be connected in the writer's mind with
Bel, the favourite deity of Nebuchadrezzar; but it can only mean
_Balatu-utsur_, "his life protect," which looks like a mutilation.
Abed-_nego_ is an astonishingly corrupt form for Abed-_nabu_, "the
servant of Nebo." Hammelzar, Shadrach, Meshach, Ashpenaz, are
declared by Assyriologists to be "out of keeping with Babylonian
science." In ii. 48 _signîn_ means a civil ruler;--does not imply
Archimagus, as the context seems to require, but, according to
Lenormant, a high civil officer.
5. The _Aramaic_ of Daniel closely resembles that of Ezra. Nöldeke
calls it a Palestinian or Western Aramaic dialect, later than that of
the Book of Ezra.[54] It is of earlier type than that of the Targums
of Jonathan and Onkelos; but that fact has very little bearing on
the date of the Book, because the differences are slight, and the
resemblances manifold, and the Targums did not appear till after the
Christian Era, nor assume their present shape perhaps before the
fourth century. Further, "recently discovered inscriptions have shown
that many of the forms in which the Aramaic of Daniel differs from
that of the Targums were actually in use in neighbouring countries
down to the first century A.D."[55]
6. Two further philological considerations bear on the age of the Book.
i. One of these is the existence of no less than fifteen _Persian_
words (according to Nöldeke and others), especially in the Aramaic
part. These words, which would not be surprising after the complete
establishment of the Persian Empire, are surprising in passages which
describe Babylonian institutions before the conquest of Cyrus.[56]
Various attempts have been made to account for this phenomenon.
Professor Fuller attempts to show, but with little success, that
some of them may be Semitic.[57] Others argue that they are amply
accounted for by the Persian trade which, as may be seen from the
_Records of the Past_,[58] existed between Persia and Babylonia as
early as the days of Belshazzar. To this it is replied that some of
the words are not of a kind which one nation would at once borrow
from another,[59] and that "no Persian words have hitherto been found
in Assyrian or Babylonian inscriptions prior to the conquest of
Babylon by Cyrus, except the name of the god Mithra."
ii. But the linguistic evidence unfavourable to the genuineness
of the Book of Daniel is far stronger than this, in the startling
fact that it contains at least three Greek words. After giving the
fullest consideration to all that has been urged in refutation of
the conclusion, this circumstance has always been to me a strong
confirmation of the view that the Book of Daniel in its present form
is not older than the days of Antiochus Epiphanes.
Those three Greek words occur in the list of musical instruments
mentioned in iii. 5, 7, 10, 15. They are: קיתרם, _kitharos_, κίθαρις,
"harp"; פסנתרין, _psanterîn_, ψαλτήριον, "psaltery";[60] סומפניא,
_sūmpōnyāh_, συμφωνία, A.V. "dulcimer," but perhaps "bagpipes."[61]
Be it remembered that these musical instruments are described as
having (B.C. 550). Now, this is the date at which Pisistratus was
tyrant at Athens, in the days of Pythagoras and Polycrates, before
Athens became a fixed democracy. It is just conceivable that in
those days the Babylonians might have borrowed from Greece the word
_kitharis_.[62] It is, indeed, supremely _unlikely_, because the harp
had been known in the East from the earliest days; and it is at least
as probable that Greece, which at this time was only beginning to sit
as a learner at the feet of the immemorial East, borrowed the idea
of the instrument from Asia. Let it, however, be admitted that such
words as _yayîn_, "wine" (οἶνος), _lappid_, "a torch" (λαμπάς), and a
few others, _may_ indicate some early intercourse between Greece and
the East, and that some commercial relations of a rudimentary kind
were existent even in prehistoric days.[63]
But what are we to say of the two other words? Both are derivatives.
_Psalterion_ does not occur in Greek before Aristotle (d. 322); nor
_sumphonia_ before Plato (d. 347). In relation to music, and probably
as the name of a musical instrument, _sumphonia_ is first used by
Polybius (xxvi. 10, § 5, xxxi. 4, § 8), and _in express connexion_
with the festivities of the very king with whom the apocalyptic
section of Daniel is mainly occupied--Antiochus Epiphanes.[64] The
attempts of Professor Fuller and others to derive these words from
Semitic roots are a desperate resource, and cannot win the assent of
a single trained philologist. "These words," says Professor Driver,
"could not have been used in the Book of Daniel, unless it had been
written after the dissemination of Greek influence in Asia through
the conquest of Alexander the Great."[65]
2. THE UNITY OF THE BOOK
The _Unity_ of the Book of Daniel is now generally admitted. No one
thought of questioning it in days before the dawn of criticism, but
in 1772 Eichhorn and Corrodi doubted the genuineness of the Book.
J. D. Michaelis endeavoured to prove that it was "a collection of
fugitive pieces," consisting of six historic pictures, followed by four
prophetic visions.[66] Bertholdt, followed the erroneous tendency of
criticism which found a foremost exponent in Ewald, and imagined the
possibility of detecting the work of many different hands. He divided
the Book into fragments by nine different authors.[67]
Zöckler, in Lange's _Bibelwerk_, persuaded himself that the old
"orthodox" views of Hengstenberg and Auberlen were right; but he
could only do this by sacrificing the authenticity of parts of the
Book, and assuming more than one redaction. Thus he supposes that
xi. 5-39 are an interpolation by a writer in the days of Antiochus
Epiphanes. Similarly, Lenormant admits interpolations in the _first_
half of the Book. But to concede this is practically to give up the
Book of Daniel as it now stands.
The _unity_ of the Book of Daniel is still admitted or assumed
by most critics.[68] It has only been recently questioned in two
directions.
Meinhold thinks that the Aramaic and historic sections are older
than the rest of the Book, and were written about B.C. 300 to convert
the Gentiles to monotheism.[69] He argues that the apocalyptic
section was written later, and was subsequently incorporated with
the Book. A somewhat similar view is held by Zöckler,[70] and some
have thought that Daniel could never have written of himself in
such highly favourable terms as, _e.g._, in Dan. vi. 4.[71] The
first chapter, which is essential as an introduction to the Book,
and the seventh, which is apocalyptic, and is yet in Aramaic,
create objections to the acceptance of this theory. Further, it is
impossible not to observe a certain unity of style and parallelism
of treatment between the two parts. Thus, if the prophetic section
is mainly devoted to Antiochus Epiphanes, the historic section seems
to have an allusive bearing on his impious madness. In ii. 10, 11,
and vi. 8, we have descriptions of daring Pagan edicts, which might
be intended to furnish a contrast with the attempts of Antiochus to
_suppress_ the worship of God. The feast of Belshazzar may well be
a "reference to the Syrian despot's revelries at Daphne." Again, in
ii. 43--where the mixture of iron and clay is explained by "they
shall mingle themselves with the seed of men"--it seems far from
improbable that there is a reference to the unhappy intermarriages
of Ptolemies and Seleucidæ. Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy II.
(Philadelphus), married Antiochus II. (Theos), and this is alluded
to in the vision of xi. 6. Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus III.
(the Great), married Ptolemy V. (Epiphanes), which is alluded to
in xi. 17.[72] The style seems to be stamped throughout with the
characteristics of an individual mind, and the most cursory glance
suffices to show that the historic and prophetic parts are united
by many points of connexion and resemblance. Meinhold is quite
unsuccessful in the attempt to prove a sharp contrast of views
between the sections. The interchange of persons--the _third_ person
being mainly used in the first seven chapters, and the first person
in the last five--may be partly due to the final editor; but in any
case it may easily be paralleled, and is found in other writers, as
in Isaiah (vii. 3, xx. 2) and the Book of Enoch (xii.).
But it may be said in general that the authenticity of the Book is
now rarely defended by any competent critic, except at the cost of
abandoning certain sections of it as interpolated additions; and as
Mr. Bevan somewhat caustically remarks, "the defenders of Daniel
have, during the last few years, been employed chiefly in cutting
Daniel to pieces."[73]
3. THE GENERAL TONE OF THE BOOK
The general tone of the Book marks a new era in the education and
progress of the Jews. The lessons of the Exile uplifted them from
a too narrow and absorbing particularism to a wider interest in the
destinies of humanity. They were led to recognise that God "has made
of one every nation of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,
having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their
habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after
Him, and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us."[74] The
standpoint of the Book of Daniel is larger and more cosmopolitan in
this respect than that of earlier prophecy. Israel had begun to mingle
more closely with other nations, and to be a sharer in their destinies.
Politically the Hebrew race no longer formed a small though independent
kingdom, but was reduced to the position of an entirely insignificant
sub-province in a mighty empire. The Messiah is no longer the Son of
David, but the Son of Man; no longer only the King of Israel, but of
the world. Mankind--not only the seed of Jacob--fills the field of
prophetic vision. Amid widening horizons of thought the Jews turned
their eyes upon a great past, rich in events, and crowded with the
figures of heroes, saints, and sages. At the same time the world seemed
to be growing old, and its ever-deepening wickedness seemed to call
for some final judgment. We begin to trace in the Hebrew writings the
colossal conceptions, the monstrous imagery, the daring conjectures,
the more complex religious ideas, of an exotic fancy.[75]
"The giant forms of Empires on their way
To ruin, dim and vast,"
begin to fling their weird and sombre shadows over the page of sacred
history and prophetic anticipation.
4. THE STYLE OF THE BOOK
The style of the Book of Daniel is new, and has very marked
characteristics, indicating its late position in the Canon. It is
rhetorical rather than poetic. "Totum Danielis librum," says Lowth,
"e poetarum censu excludo."[76] How widely does the style differ
from the rapt passion and glowing picturesqueness of Isaiah, from
the elegiac tenderness of Jeremiah, from the lyrical sweetness of
many of the Psalms! How very little does it correspond to the three
great requirements of poetry, that it should be, as Milton so finely
said, "simple, sensuous, passionate"! A certain artificiality of
diction, a sounding oratorical stateliness, enhanced by dignified
periphrases and leisurely repetitions, must strike the most casual
reader; and this is sometimes carried so far as to make the movement
of the narrative heavy and pompous.[77] This peculiarity is not
found to the same extent in any other book of the Old Testament
Canon, but it recurs in the Jewish writings of a later age. From the
apocryphal books, for instance, the poetical element is with trifling
exceptions, such as the Song of the Three Children, entirely absent,
while the taste for rhetorical ornamentation, set speeches, and
dignified elaborateness is found in many of them.
This evanescence of the poetic and impassioned element separates
Daniel from the Prophets, and marks the place of the Book among
the Hagiographa, where it was placed by the Jews themselves. In all
the great Hebrew seers we find something of the ecstatic transport,
the fire shut up within the bones and breaking forth from the
volcanic heart, the burning lips touched by the hands of seraphim
with a living coal from off the altar. The word for prophet (_nabî_,
_Vates_) implies an inspired singer rather than a soothsayer or
seer (_roeh_, _chozeh_). It is applied to Deborah and Miriam[78]
because they poured forth from exultant hearts the pæan of victory.
Hence arose the close connexion between music and poetry.[79]
Elisha required the presence of a minstrel to soothe the agitation
of a heart thrown into tumult by the near presence of a revealing
Power.[80] Just as the Greek word μάντις, from μαίνομαι, implies a
sort of madness, and recalls the foaming lip and streaming hair of
the spirit-dilated messenger, so the Hebrew verb _naba_ meant, not
only to proclaim God's oracles, but to be inspired by His possession
as with a Divine frenzy.[81] "Madman" seemed a natural term to apply
to the messenger of Elisha.[82] It is easy therefore to see why
the Book of Daniel was not placed among the prophetic rolls. This
_vera passio_, this ecstatic elevation of thought and feeling, are
wholly wanting in this earliest attempt at a philosophy of history.
We trace in it none of that "blasting with excess of light," none
of that shuddering sense of being uplifted out of self, which marks
the higher and earlier forms of prophetic inspiration. Daniel is
addressed through the less exalted medium of visions, and in his
visions there is less of "the faculty Divine." The instinct--if
instinct it were and not knowledge of the real origin of the
Book--which led the "Men of the Great Synagogue" to place this Book
among the _Ketubhîm_, not among the Prophets, was wise and sure.[83]
5. THE STANDPOINT OF THE AUTHOR
"In Daniel öffnet sich eine ganz neue Welt."--EICHHORN,
_Einleit._, iv. 472.
The author of the Book of Daniel seems naturally to place himself on a
level lower than that of the prophets who had gone before him. He does
not count himself among the prophets; on the contrary, he puts them
far higher than himself, and refers to them as though they belonged
to the dim and distant past (ix. 2, 6). In his prayer of penitence he
confesses, "Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets,
which spake in Thy Name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers";
"Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His
laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets." Not once
does he use the mighty formula "Thus saith Jehovah"--not once does he
assume, in the prophecies, a tone of high personal authority. He shares
the view of the Maccabean age that prophecy is dead.[84]
In Dan. ix. 2 we find yet another decisive indication of the late
age of this writing. He tells us that he "understood by books" (more
correctly, as in the A.V., "by _the_ books"[85]) "the number of the
years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet."
The writer here represents himself as a humble student of previous
prophets, and this necessarily marks a position of less freshness and
independence. "To the old prophets," says Bishop Westcott, "Daniel
stands in some sense as a commentator." No doubt the possession of
those living oracles was an immense blessing, a rich inheritance; but
it involved a danger. Truths established by writings and traditions,
safe-guarded by schools and institutions, are too apt to come to men
only as a power from without, and less as "a hidden and inly burning
flame."[86]
By "_the_ books" can hardly be meant anything but some approach to
a definite Canon. If so, the Book of Daniel in its present form can
only have been written subsequently to the days of Ezra. "The account
which assigns a collection of books to Nehemiah (2 Macc. ii. 13),"
says Bishop Westcott, "is in itself a confirmation of the general
truth of the gradual formation of the Canon during the Persian
period. The various classes of books were completed in succession;
and this view harmonises with what must have been the natural
development of the Jewish faith after the Return. The persecution of
Antiochus (B.C. 168) was for the Old Testament what the persecution
of Diocletian was for the New--the final crisis which stamped the
sacred writings with their peculiar character. The king sought
out the Books of the Law (1 Macc. i. 56) and burnt them; and the
possession of a 'Book of the Covenant' was a capital crime. According
to the common tradition, the proscription of the Law led to the
public use of the writings of the prophets."[87]
* * * * *
The whole _method_ of Daniel differs even from that of the later
and inferior prophets of the Exile--Haggai, Malachi, and the second
Zechariah. The Book is rather an apocalypse than a prophecy: "the
eye and not the ear is the organ to which the chief appeal is made."
Though symbolism in the form of visions is not unknown to Ezekiel
and Zechariah, yet those prophets are far from being apocalyptic in
character. On the other hand, the grotesque and gigantic emblems of
Daniel--these animal combinations, these interventions of dazzling
angels who float in the air or over the water, these descriptions of
historical events under the veil of material types seen in dreams--are
a frequent phenomenon in such late apocryphal writings as the Second
Book of Esdras, the Book of Enoch, and the præ-Christian Sibylline
oracles, in which talking lions and eagles, etc., are frequent.
Indeed, this style of symbolism originated among the Jews from their
contact with the graven mysteries and colossal images of Babylonian
worship. The Babylonian Exile formed an epoch in the intellectual
development of Israel fully as important as the sojourn in Egypt.
It was a stage in their moral and religious education. It was the
psychological preparation requisite for the moulding of the last phase
of revelation--that apocalyptic form which succeeds to theophany
and prophecy, and embodies the final results of national religious
inspiration. That the apocalyptic method of dealing with history in a
religious and an imaginative manner naturally arises towards the close
of any great cycle of special revelation is illustrated by the flood
of apocalypses which overflowed the early literature of the Christian
Church. But the Jews clearly saw that, as a rule, an apocalypse is
inherently inferior to a prophecy, even when it is made the vehicle
of genuine prediction. In estimating the grades of inspiration the
Jews placed highest the inward illumination of the Spirit, the Reason,
and the Understanding; next to this they placed dreams and visions;
and lowest of all they placed the accidental auguries derived from
the _Bath Qôl_. An apocalypse may be of priceless value, like the
Revelation of St. John; it may, like the Book of Daniel, abound in the
noblest and most thrilling lessons; but in intrinsic dignity and worth
it is always placed by the instinct and conscience of mankind on a
lower grade than such outpourings of Divine teachings as breathe and
burn through the pages of a David and an Isaiah.
6. THE MORAL ELEMENT
Lastly, among these salient phenomena of the Book of Daniel we are
compelled to notice the absence of the predominantly moral element
from its prophetic portion. The author does not write in the tone
of a preacher of repentance, or of one whose immediate object it
is to ameliorate the moral and spiritual condition of his people.
His aims were different.[88] The older prophets were the ministers
of dispensations between the Law and the Gospel. They were, in the
beautiful language of Herder,--
"Die Saitenspiel in Gottes mächtigen Händen."
Doctrine, worship, and consolation were their proper sphere. They
were "_oratores Legis_, _advocati patriæ_." In them prediction is
wholly subordinate to moral warning and instruction. They denounce,
they inspire: they smite to the dust with terrible invective; they
uplift once more into glowing hope. The announcement of events yet
future is the smallest part of the prophet's office, and rather
its sign than its substance. The highest mission of an Amos or an
Isaiah is not to be a prognosticator, but to be a religious teacher.
He makes his appeals to the conscience, not to the imagination--to
the spirit, not to the sense. He deals with eternal principles, and
is almost wholly indifferent to chronological verifications. To
awaken the death-like slumber of sin, to fan the dying embers of
faithfulness, to smite down the selfish oppressions of wealth and
power, to startle the sensual apathy of greed, were the ordinary
and the noblest aims of the greater and the minor prophets. It was
their task far rather to _forth-tell_ than to _fore-tell_; and if
they announce, in general outline and uncertain perspective, things
which shall be hereafter, it is only in subordination to high ethical
purposes, or profound spiritual lessons. So it is also in the
Revelation of St. John. But in the "prophetic" part of Daniel it is
difficult for the keenest imagination to discern any deep moral, or
any special doctrinal significance, in all the details of the obscure
wars and petty diplomacy of the kings of the North and South.
In point of fact the Book of Daniel, even as an apocalypse, suffers
severely by comparison with that latest canonical Apocalypse of the
Beloved Disciple which it largely influenced. It is strange that
Luther, who spoke so slightingly of the Revelation of St. John,
should have placed the Book of Daniel so high in his estimation.
It is indeed a noble book, full of glorious lessons. Yet surely it
has but little of the sublime and mysterious beauty, little of the
heart-shaking pathos, little of the tender sweetness of consolatory
power, which fill the closing book of the New Testament. Its imagery
is far less exalted, its hope of immortality far less distinct and
unquenchable. Yet the Book of Daniel, while it is one of the earliest,
still remains one of the greatest specimens of this form of sacred
literature. It inaugurated the new epoch of "apocalyptic" which in
later days was usually pseudepigraphic, and sheltered itself under the
names of Enoch, Noah, Moses, Ezra, and even the heathen Sibyls. These
apocalypses are of very unequal value. "Some," as Kuenen says, "stand
comparatively high; others are far below mediocrity." But the genus to
which they belong has its own peculiar defect. They are works of art:
they are not spontaneous; they smell of the lamp. A fruitless and an
unpractical peering into the future was encouraged by these writings,
and became predominant in some Jewish circles. But the Book of Daniel
is incomparably superior in every possible respect to Baruch, or the
Book of Enoch, or the Second Book of Esdras; and if we place it for
a moment by the side of such books as those contained in the _Codex
Pseudepigraphus_ of Fabricius, its high worth and Canonical authority
are vindicated with extraordinary force. How lofty and enduring are the
lessons to be learnt alike from its historic and predictive sections we
shall have abundant opportunities of seeing in the following pages. So
far from undervaluing its teaching, I have always been strongly drawn
to this Book of Scripture. It has never made the least difference in my
reverent acceptance of it that I have, for many years, been convinced
that it cannot be regarded as literal history or ancient prediction.
Reading it as one of the noblest specimens of the Jewish Haggada or
moral Ethopœia, I find it full of instruction in righteousness, and
rich in examples of life. That Daniel was a real person, that he lived
in the days of the Exile, and that his life was distinguished by the
splendour of its faithfulness I hold to be entirely possible. When we
regard the stories here related of him as moral legends, possibly based
on a groundwork of real tradition, we read the Book with a full sense
of its value, and feel the power of the lessons which it was designed
to teach, without being perplexed by its apparent improbabilities, or
worried by its immense historic and other difficulties.
The Book is in all respects unique, a writing _sui generis_; for
the many imitations to which it led are but imitations. But, as the
Jewish writer Dr. Joël truly says, the unveiling of the secret as to
the real lateness of its date and origin, so far from causing any
loss in its beauty and interest, enhance both in a remarkable degree.
It is thus seen to be the work of a brave and gifted anonymous author
about B.C. 167, who brought his piety and his patriotism to bear
on the troubled fortunes of his people at an epoch in which such
piety and patriotism were of priceless value. We have in its later
sections no voice of enigmatic prediction, foretelling the minutest
complications of a distant secular future, but mainly the review of
contemporary events by a wise and an earnest writer whose faith and
hope remained unquenchable in the deepest night of persecution and
apostasy.[89] Many passages of the Book are dark, and will remain
dark, owing partly perhaps to corruptions and uncertainties of the
text, and partly to imitation of a style which had become archaic,
as well as to the peculiarities of the apocalyptic form. But the
general idea of the Book has now been thoroughly elucidated, and the
interpretation of it in the following pages is accepted by the great
majority of earnest and faithful students of the Scriptures.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Kranichfeld, _Das Buch Daniel_, p. 4.
[36] See Ezra iv. 7, vi. 18, vii. 12-26.
[37] "The term 'Chaldee' for the Aramaic of either the Bible or
the Targums is a misnomer, the use of which is only a source of
confusion" (Driver, p. 471). A single verse of Jeremiah (x. 11) is in
Aramaic: "Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods who made not heaven
and earth shall perish from the earth and from under heaven." Perhaps
Jeremiah gave the verse "to the Jews as an answer to the heathen
among whom they were" (Pusey, p. 11).
[38] אֲרָמִית; LXX., Συριστι--_i.e._, in Aramaic. The word may be a
gloss, as it is in Ezra iv. 7 (Lenormant). See, however, Kamphausen, p.
14. We cannot here enter into minor points, such as that in ii.-vi. we
have אֲלוּ for "see," and in vii. 2, 3, אֲרוּ; which Meinhold takes to
prove that the historic section is earlier than the prophetic.
[39] Driver, p. 471; Nöldeke, _Enc. Brit._, xxi. 647; Wright,
_Grammar_, p. 16. Ad. Merx has a treatise on _Cur in lib. Dan. juxta
Hebr. Aramaica sit adhibita dialectus_, 1865; but his solution,
"Scriptorem omnia quæ rudioribus vulgi ingeniis apta viderentur
Aramaice præposuisse" is wholly untenable.
[40] Auberlen, _Dan._, pp. 28, 29 (E. Tr.).
[41] _Einleit._, § 383.
[42] Cheyne, _Enc. Brit._, _s.v._ "Daniel."
[43] כתבו. See 2 Esdras xiv. 22-48: "In forty days they _wrote_ two
hundred and four books."
[44] _Baba-Bathra_, f. 15, 6: comp. _Sanhedrin_, f. 83, 6.
[45] _Yaddayim_, iv.; _Mish._, 5.
[46] See Rau, _De Synag. Magna._, ii. 66 ff.; Kuenen, _Over de Mannen
der Groote Synagoge_, 1876; Ewald, _Hist. of Israel_, v. 168-170 (E.
Tr.); Westcott, _s.v._ "Canon" (Smith's _Dict._, i. 500).
[47] _Yaddayim_, iii.; _Mish._, 5; Hershon, _Treasures of the
Talmud_, pp. 41-43.
[48] Hershon (_l.c._) refers to _Shabbath_, f. 14, 1.
[49] Herzog, _l.c._; so too König, _Einleit._, § 387: "Das Hebr. der
B. Dan. ist nicht blos nachexilisch sondern auch nachchronistisch."
He instances _ribbo_ (Dan. xi. 12) for _rebaba_, "myriads" (Ezek.
xvi. 7); and _tamîd_, "the daily burnt offering" (Dan. viii. 11),
as post-Biblical Hebrew for _'olath hatamîd_ (Neh. x. 34), etc.
Margoliouth (_Expositor_, April 1890) thinks that the Hebrew proves a
date before B.C. 168: on which view see Driver, p, 483.
[50] _Lit. of Old Test._, pp. 473-476.
[51] _Das Buch Dan._, iii.
[52] See Glassius, _Philol. Sacr._, p. 931; Ewald, _Die Proph. d. A.
Bundes_, i. 48; De Wette, _Einleit._, § 347.
[53] Ezekiel always uses the correct form (xxvi. 7, xxix. 18, xxx.
10). Jeremiah uses the correct form except in passages which properly
belong to the Book of Kings.
[54] Nöldeke, _Semit. Spr._, p. 30; Driver, p. 472; König, p. 387.
[55] Driver, p. 472, and the authorities there quoted; as against
McGill and Pusey (_Daniel_, pp. 45 ff., 602 ff.). Dr. Pusey's is
the fullest repertory of arguments in favour of the authenticity of
Daniel, many of which have become more and more obviously untenable
as criticism advances. But he and Keil add little or nothing to what
had been ingeniously elaborated by Hengstenberg and Hävernick. For a
sketch of the peculiarities in the Aramaic see Behrmann, _Daniel_,
v.-x. Renan (_Hist. Gén. des Langues Sém._, p. 219) exaggerates when
he says, "La langue des parties chaldénnes est beaucoup plus basse
que celle des fragments chaldéens du Livre d'Esdras, et s'incline
_beaucoup_ vers la langue du Talmud."
[56] Meinhold, _Beiträge_, pp. 30-32; Driver, p. 470.
[57] _Speaker's Commentary_, vi. 246-250.
[58] New Series, iii. 124.
[59] _E.g._, הדם, "limb"; רז, "secret"; פתגם, "message." There are
no Persian words in Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, or Malachi; they
are found in Ezra and Esther, which were written long after the
establishment of the Persian Empire.
[60] The change of _n_ for _l_ is not uncommon: comp. βέντιον,
φίντατος, etc.
[61] The word שָׂבֽכָא, _Sab'ka_, also bears a suspicious resemblance
to σαμβύκη, but Athenæus says (_Deipnos._, iv. 173) that the
instrument was invented by the Syrians. Some have seen in _kārôz_
(iii. 4, "herald") the Greek κήρυξ, and in _hamnîk_, "chain," the
Greek μανιάκης: but these cannot be pressed.
[62] It is true that there was _some_ small intercourse between even
the Assyrians and Ionians (Ja-am-na-a) as far back as the days of
Sargon (B.C. 722-705); but not enough to account for such words.
[63] Sayce, _Contemp. Rev._, December 1878.
[64] Some argue that in this passage συμφωνία means "a concert"
(comp. Luke xv. 25); but Polybius mentions it with "a horn"
(κεράτιον). Behrmann (p. ix) connects it with σίφων, and makes it
mean "a pipe."
[65] Pusey says all he can on the other side (pp. 23-28), and has
not changed the opinion of scholars (pp. 27-33). Fabre d'Envieu (i.
101) also desperately denies the existence of any Greek words. On the
other side see Derenbourg, _Les Mots grecs dans le Livre biblique de
Daniel_ (Mélanges Graux, 1884).
[66] _Orient. u. Exeg. Bibliothek_, 1772, p. 141. This view was
revived by Lagarde in the _Göttingen Gel. Anzeigen_, 1891.
[67] _Daniel neu Übersetz. u. Erklärt._, 1808; Köhler, _Lehrbuch_,
ii. 577. The first who suspected the unity of the Book because of the
two languages was Spinoza (_Tract-historicopol_, x. 130 ff.). Newton
(_Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse_,
i. 10) and Beausobre (_Remarques sur le Nouv. Test._, i. 70) shared
the doubt because of the use of the first person in the prophetic
(Dan. vii.-xii.) and the third in the historic section (Dan. i.-vi.).
Michaelis, Bertholdt, and Reuss considered that its origin was
fragmentary; and Lagarde (who dated the seventh chapter A.D. 69)
calls it "a bundle of flyleaves." Meinhold and Strack, like Eichhorn,
regard the historic section as older than the prophetic; and Cornill
thinks that the Book was put together in great haste. Similarly,
Graf (_Der Prophet Jeremia_) regards the Aramaic verse, Jer. x. 11,
as a marginal gloss. Lagarde argues, from the silence of Josephus
about many points, that he could not have had the present Book of
Daniel before him (_e.g._, Dan. vii. or ix.-xii.); but the argument
is unsafe. Josephus seems to have understood the Fourth Empire to be
the Roman, and did not venture to write of its destruction. For this
reason he does not explain "the stone" of Dan. ii. 45.
[68] By De Wette, Schrader, Hitzig, Ewald, Gesenius, Bleek,
Delitzsch, Von Lengerke, Stähelin, Kamphausen, Wellhausen, etc.
Reuss, however, says (_Heil. Schrift._, p. 575), "Man könnte auf die
Vorstellung kommen das Buch habe mehr als einen Verfasser"; and König
thinks that the original form of the book may have ended with chap.
vii. (_Einleit._, § 384).
[69] _Beiträge_, 1888. See too Kranichfeld, _Das Buch Daniel_, p. 4.
The view is refuted by Budde, _Theol. Lit. Zeitung_, 1888, No. 26.
The conjecture has often occurred to critics. Thus Sir Isaac Newton,
believing that Daniel wrote the last six chapters, thought that the
six first "are a collection of historical papers written by others"
(_Observations_, i. 10).
[70] _Einleit._, p. 6.
[71] Other critics who incline to one or other modification of this
view of the _two_ Daniels are Tholuck, _d. A.T. in N.T._, 1872; C. v.
Orelli, _Alttest. Weissag._, 1882; and Strack.
[72] Hengstenberg also points to verbal resemblances between ii. 44
and vii. 14; iv. 5 and vii. 1; ii. 31 and vii. 2; ii. 38 and vii. 17,
etc. (_Genuineness of Daniel_, E. Tr., pp. 186 ff.).
[73] _A Short Commentary_, p. 8.
[74] Acts xvii. 26, 27.
[75] See Hitzig, p. xii; Auberlen, p. 41.
[76] Reuss says too severely, "Die Schilderungen aller dieser
Vorgänge machen keinen gewinnenden Eindruck.... Der Stil ist
unbeholfen, die Figuren grotesk, die Farben grell." He admits,
however, the suitableness of the Book for the Maccabean epoch, and
the deep impression it made (_Heil. Schrift. A. T._, p. 571).
[77] See iii. 2, 3, 5, 7; viii. 1, 10, 19; xi. 15, 22, 31, etc.
[78] Exod. xv. 20; Judg. iv. 4.
[79] 1 Sam. x. 5; 1 Chron. xxv. 1, 2, 3.
[80] 2 Kings iii. 15.
[81] Jer. xxix. 26; 1 Sam. xviii. 10, xix. 21-24.
[82] 2 Kings ix. 11. See Expositor's Bible, _Second Book of Kings_,
p. 113.
[83] On this subject see Ewald, _Proph. d. A. Bundes_, i. 6; Novalis,
_Schriften_, ii. 472; Herder, _Geist der Ebr. Poesie_, ii. 61;
Knobel, _Prophetismus_, i. 103. Even the Latin poets were called
_prophetæ_, "bards" (Varro, _De Ling. Lat._, vi. 3). Epimenides
is called "a prophet" in Tit. i. 12. See Plato, _Tim._, 72, A.;
_Phædr._, 262, D.; Pind., _Fr._, 118; and comp. Eph. iii. 5, iv. 11.
[84] Dan. ix. 6, 10. So conscious was the Maccabean age of the
absence of prophets, that, just as after the Captivity a question
is postponed "till there should arise a priest with the Urim and
Thummin," so Judas postponed the decision about the stones of the
desecrated altar "until there should come a prophet to show what
should be done with them" (1 Macc. iv. 45, 46, ix. 27, xiv. 41).
Comp. Song of the Three Children, 15; Psalm lxxiv. 9; _Sota_, f. 48,
2. See _infra_, Introd., chap. viii.
[85] Dan. ix. 2, _hassepharîm_, τὰ βίβλια.
[86] Ewald, _Proph. d. A. B._, p. 10. Judas Maccabæus is also said to
have "restored" (ἐπισυνήγαγε) the lost (διαπεπτωκότα) sacred writings
(2 Macc. ii. 14).
[87] Smith's _Dict. of the Bible_, i. 501. The daily lesson from the
Prophets was called the _Haphtarah_ (Hamburger, _Real-Encycl._, ii.
334).
[88] On this subject see Kuenen, _The Prophets_, iii. 95 ff.;
Davison, _On Prophecy_, pp. 34-67; Herder, _Hebr. Poesie_, ii. 64; De
Wette, _Christl. Sittenlehre_, ii. 1.
[89] Joël, _Notizen_, p. 7.
CHAPTER III
_PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORIC SECTION_
No one can have studied the Book of Daniel without seeing that, alike
in the character of its miracles and the minuteness of its supposed
predictions, it makes a more stupendous and a less substantiated
claim upon our credence than any other book of the Bible, and a
claim wholly different in character. It has over and over again been
asserted by the uncharitableness of a merely traditional orthodoxy
that inability to accept the historic verity and genuineness of the
Book arises from secret faithlessness, and antagonism to the admission
of the supernatural. No competent scholar will think it needful to
refute such calumnies. It suffices us to know before God that we are
actuated simply by the love of truth, by the abhorrence of anything
which in us would be a pusillanimous spirit of falsity. We have too
deep a belief in the God of the Amen, the God of eternal and essential
verity, to offer to Him "the unclean sacrifice of a lie." An error
is not sublimated into a truth even when that lie has acquired a
quasi-consecration, from its supposed desirability for purposes of
orthodox controversy, or from its innocent acceptance by generations
of Jewish and Christian Churchmen through long ages of uncritical
ignorance. Scholars, if they be Christians at all, can have no possible
_a-priori_ objection to belief in the supernatural. If they believe,
for instance, in the Incarnation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, they believe in the most mysterious and unsurpassable of all
miracles, and beside that miracle all minor questions of God's power or
willingness to manifest His immediate intervention in the affairs of
men sink at once into absolute insignificance.
But our belief in the Incarnation, and in the miracles of Christ,
rests on evidence which, after repeated examination, is to us
overwhelming. Apart from all questions of personal verification, or
the Inward Witness of the Spirit, we can show that this evidence
is supported, not only by the existing records, but by myriads of
external and independent testimonies. The very same Spirit which
makes men believe where the demonstration is decisive, compels them
to refuse belief to the literal verity of unique miracles and unique
predictions which come before them without any convincing evidence.
The narratives and visions of this Book present difficulties on
every page. They were in all probability never intended for anything
but what they are--_Haggadoth_, which, like the parables of Christ,
convey their own lessons without depending on the necessity for
accordance with historic fact.
Had it been any part of the Divine will that we should accept these
stories as pure history, and these visions as predictions of events
which were not to take place till centuries afterwards, we should
have been provided with some aids to such belief. On the contrary,
in whatever light we examine the Book of Daniel, the evidence _in
its favour_ is weak, dubious, hypothetical, and _a priori_; while
the evidence _against_ it acquires increased intensity with every
fresh aspect in which it is examined. The Book which would make the
most extraordinary demands upon our credulity if it were meant for
history, is the very Book of which the genuineness and authenticity
are decisively discredited by every fresh discovery and by each new
examination. There is scarcely one learned European scholar by whom
they are maintained, except with such concessions to the Higher
Criticism as practically involve the abandonment of all that is
essential in the traditional theory.
And we have come to a time when it will not avail to take refuge in
such transferences of the discussions in _alteram materiam_, and such
purely vulgar appeals _ad invidiam_, as are involved in saying, "Then
the Book must be a forgery," and "an imposture," and "a gross lie." To
assert that "to give up the Book of Daniel is to betray the cause of
Christianity,"[90] is a coarse and dangerous misuse of the weapons of
controversy. Such talk may still have been excusable even in the days
of Dr. Pusey (with whom it was habitual); it is no longer excusable
now. Now it can only prove the uncharitableness of the apologist, and
the impotence of a defeated cause. Yet even this abandonment of the
sphere of honourable argument is only one degree more painful than the
tortuous subterfuges and wild assertions to which such apologists as
Hengstenberg, Keil, and their followers were long compelled to have
recourse. Anything can be proved about anything if we call to our aid
indefinite suppositions of errors of transcription, interpolations,
transpositions, extraordinary silences, still more extraordinary
methods of presenting events, and (in general) the unconsciously
disingenuous resourcefulness of traditional harmonics. To maintain that
the Book of Daniel, as it now stands, was written by Daniel in the days
of the Exile is to cherish a belief which can only, at the utmost,
be extremely uncertain, and which must be maintained in defiance of
masses of opposing evidence. There can be little intrinsic value in a
determination to believe historical and literary assumptions which can
no longer be maintained except by preferring the flimsiest hypotheses
to the most certain facts.
My own conviction has long been that in these _Haggadoth_, in which
Jewish literature delighted in the præ-Christian era, and which
continued to be written even till the Middle Ages, there was not the
least pretence or desire to deceive at all. I believe them to have
been put forth as moral legends--as avowed fiction nobly used for
the purposes of religious teaching and encouragement. In ages of
ignorance, in which no such thing as literary criticism existed, a
popular _Haggada_ might soon come to be regarded as historical, just
as the Homeric lays were among the Greeks, or just as Defoe's story
of the Plague of London was taken for literal history by many readers
even in the seventeenth century.
Ingenious attempts have been made to show that the author of this
Book evinces an intimate familiarity with the circumstances of the
Babylonian religion, society, and history. In many cases this is the
reverse of the fact. The instances adduced in favour of any knowledge
except of the most general description are entirely delusive. It
is frivolous to maintain, with Lenormant, that an exceptional
acquaintance with Babylonian custom was required to describe
Nebuchadrezzar as consulting diviners for the interpretation of a
dream! To say nothing of the fact that a similar custom has prevailed
in all nations and all ages from the days of Samuel to those of
Lobengula, the writer had the prototype of Pharaoh before him, and
has evidently been influenced by the story of Joseph.[91] Again, so
far from showing surprising acquaintance with the organisation of
the caste of Babylonian diviners, the writer has made a mistake in
their very name, as well as in the statement that a faithful Jew,
like Daniel, was made the chief of their college![92] Nor, again, was
there anything so unusual in the presence of women at feasts--also
recognised in the _Haggada_ of Esther--as to render this a sign of
extraordinary information. Once more, is it not futile to adduce the
allusion to punishment by burning alive as a proof of insight into
Babylonian peculiarities? This punishment had already been mentioned
by Jeremiah in the case of Nebuchadrezzar. "Then shall be taken up
a curse by all the captivity of Judah which are in Babylon, saying,
The Lord make thee like Zedekiah and like Ahab" (two false prophets),
"_whom the King of Babylon roasted in the fire_."[93] Moreover, it
occurs in the Jewish traditions which described a miraculous escape
of exactly the same character in the legend of Abraham. He, too, had
been supernaturally rescued from the burning fiery furnace of Nimrod,
to which he had been consigned because he refused to worship idols in
Ur of the Chaldees.[94]
When the instances _mainly_ relied upon prove to be so evidentially
valueless, it would be waste of time to follow Professor Fuller
through the less important and more imaginary proofs of accuracy
which his industry has amassed. Meanwhile the feeblest reasoner will
see that while a writer may easily be accurate in general facts, and
even in details, respecting an age long previous to that in which
he wrote, the existence of violent errors as to matters with which a
contemporary must have been familiar at once refutes all pretence of
historic authenticity in a book professing to have been written by an
author in the days and country which he describes.
Now such mistakes there seem to be, and not a few of them, in the pages
of the Book of Daniel. One or two of them can perhaps be explained
away by processes which would amply suffice to show that "yes" means
"no," or that "black" is a description of "white"; but each repetition
of such processes leaves us more and more incredulous. If errors be
treated as corruptions of the text, or as later interpolations, such
arbitrary methods of treating the Book are practically an admission
that, as it stands, it cannot be regarded as historical.
I. We are, for instance, met by what seems to be a remarkable error
in the very first verse of the Book, which tells us that "_In the
third year of Jehoiakim, King of Judah_, came Nebuchad_n_ezzar"--as
in later days he was incorrectly called--"King of Babylon, unto
Jerusalem, and besieged it."
It is easy to trace whence the error sprang. Its source lies in a
book which is the latest in the whole Canon, and in many details
difficult to reconcile with the Book of Kings--a book of which the
Hebrew resembles that of Daniel--the Book of Chronicles. In 2 Chron.
xxxvi. 6 we are told that Nebuchad_n_ezzar came up against Jehoiakim,
and "bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon"; and also--to
which the author of Daniel directly refers--that he carried off some
of the vessels of the House of God, to put them in the treasure-house
of his god. In this passage it is _not_ said that this occurred "_in
the third year_ of Jehoiakim," who reigned eleven years; but in 2
Kings xxiv. 1 we are told that "in his days Nebuchad_n_ezzar came
up, and Jehoiakim _became his servant three years_." The passage in
Daniel looks like a confused reminiscence of the "three years" with
"the third year of Jehoiakim." The elder and better authority (the
Book of Kings) is silent about any deportation having taken place in
the reign of Jehoiakim, and so is the contemporary Prophet Jeremiah.
But in any case it seems impossible that it should have taken place
so early as the _third year_ of Jehoiakim, for at that time he was a
simple vassal of the King of Egypt. If this deportation took place in
the reign of Jehoiakim, it would certainly be singular that Jeremiah,
in enumerating three others, in the seventh, eighteenth, and
twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar,[95] should make no allusion to
it. But it is hard to see how it could have taken place before Egypt
had been defeated in the Battle of Carchemish, and that was not till
B.C. 597, the _fourth_ year of Jehoiakim.[96] Not only does Jeremiah
make no mention of so remarkable a deportation as this, which as the
earliest would have caused the deepest anguish, but, in the _fourth_
year of Jehoiakim (Jer. xxxvi. 1), he writes a roll to threaten evils
which are still future, and in the _fifth_ year proclaims a fast in
the hope that the imminent peril may even yet be averted (Jer. xxxvi.
6-10). It is only after the violent obstinacy of the king that the
destructive advance of Nebuchadrezzar is finally prophesied (Jer.
xxxvi. 29) as something which has not yet occurred.[97]
II. Nor are the names in this first chapter free from difficulty.
Daniel is called Belteshazzar, and the remark of the King of
Babylon--"whose name was Belteshazzar, _according to the name of
my god_"--certainly suggests that the first syllable is (as the
Massorets assume) connected with the god Bel. But the name has
nothing to do with Bel. No contemporary could have fallen into such
an error;[98] still less a king who spoke Babylonian. Shadrach _may_
be _Shudur-aku_, "command of Aku," the moon-god; but Meshach is
inexplicable; and Abed-nego is a strange corruption for the obvious
and common Abed-nebo, "servant of Nebo." Such a corruption could
hardly have arisen till Nebo was practically forgotten. And what is
the meaning of "the _Melzar_" (Dan. i. 11)? The A.V. takes it to
be a proper name; the R.V. renders it "the steward." But the title
is unique and obscure.[99] Nor can anything be made of the name of
Ashpenaz, the prince of the eunuchs, whom, in one manuscript, the
LXX. call Abiesdri.[100]
III. Similar difficulties and uncertainties meet us at every step.
Thus, in the second chapter (ii. 1), the dream of Nebuchadrezzar
is fixed in the _second_ year of his reign. This does not seem to
be in accord with i. 3, 18, which says that Daniel and his three
companions were kept under the care of the prince of the eunuchs for
three years. Nothing, of course, is easier than to invent harmonistic
hypotheses, such as that of Rashi, that "the second year _of the
reign of Nebuchadrezzar_" has the wholly different meaning of "the
second year after _the destruction of the Temple_"; or as that of
Hengstenberg, followed by many modern apologists, that Nebuchadrezzar
had previously been associated in the kingdom with Nabopolassar, and
that this was the second year of his independent reign. Or, again,
we may, with Ewald, read "the twelfth year." But by these methods we
are not taking the Book as it stands, but are supposing it to be a
network of textual corruptions and conjectural combinations.
IV. In ii. 2 the king summons four classes of hierophants to
disclose his dream and its interpretation. They are the magicians
(_Chartummîm_), the enchanters (_Ashshaphîm_), the sorcerers
(_Mechashsh'phîm_), and the Chaldeans (_Kasdîm_).[101] The
_Chartummîm_ occur in Gen. xli. 8 (which seems to be in the writer's
mind); and the _Mechashsh'phîm_ occur in Exod. vii. 11, xxii. 18;
but the mention of _Kasdîm_, "Chaldeans," is, so far as we know, an
immense anachronism. In much later ages the name was used, as it was
among the Roman writers, for wandering astrologers and quacks.[102]
But this degenerate sense of the word was, so far as we can judge,
wholly unknown to the age of Daniel. It never once occurs in this
sense on any of the monuments. Unknown to the Assyrian-Babylonian
language, and only acquired long after the end of the Babylonian
Empire, such a usage of the word is, as Schrader says, "an indication
of the post-exilic composition of the Book."[103] In the days of
Daniel "Chaldeans" had no meaning resembling that of "magicians" or
"astrologers." In every other writer of the Old Testament, and in all
contemporary records, _Kasdîm_ simply means the Chaldean nation, and
_never_ a learned caste.[104] This single circumstance has decisive
weight in proving the late age of the Book of Daniel.
V. Again, we find in ii. 14, "Arioch, the chief of the executioners."
Schrader precariously derives the name from _Eri-aku_, "servant of
the moon-god"; but, however that may be, we already find the name as
that of a king Ellasar in Gen. xiv. 1, and we find it again for a
king of the Elymæans in Judith i. 6. In ver. 16 Daniel "went in and
desired of the king" a little respite; but in ver. 25 Arioch tells
the king, as though it were a sudden discovery of his own, "I have
found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the
king the interpretation." This was a surprising form of introduction,
after we have been told that the king himself had, by personal
examination, found that Daniel and his young companions were "_ten
times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all
his realm_." It seems, however, as if each of these chapters was
intended to be recited as a separate _Haggada_.
VI. In ii. 46, after the interpretation of the dream, "_the King
Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded
that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him_." This
is another of the immense surprises of the Book. It is exactly the kind
of incident in which the haughty theocratic sentiment of the Jews found
delight, and we find a similar spirit in the many Talmudic inventions
in which Roman emperors, or other potentates, are represented as paying
extravagant adulation to Rabbinic sages. There is (as we shall see) a
similar story narrated by Josephus of Alexander the Great prostrating
himself before the high priest Jaddua, but it has long been relegated
to the realm of fable as an outcome of Jewish self-esteem.[105] It is
probably meant as a concrete illustration of the glowing promises of
Isaiah, that "kings and queens shall bow down to thee with their faces
towards the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet";[106] and "the
sons of them that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles
of thy feet."[107]
VII. We further ask in astonishment whether Daniel could have
accepted without indignant protest the offering of "an oblation
and sweet odours." To say that they were only offered to God in
the person of Daniel is the idle pretence of all idolatry. They
are expressly said to be offered "to Daniel." A Herod could accept
blasphemous adulations;[108] but a Paul and a Barnabas deprecate such
devotions with intense disapproval.[109]
VIII. In ii. 48 Nebuchadrezzar appoints Daniel, as a reward for
his wisdom, to rule over the whole province of Babylon, and to
be _Rab-signîn_, "chief ruler," and to be over all the wise men
(_Khakamim_) of Babylon. Lenormant treats this statement as an
interpolation, because he regards it as "_evidently_ impossible."
We know that in the Babylonian priesthood, and especially among
the sacred caste, there was a passionate religious intolerance. It
is inconceivable that they should have accepted as their religious
superior a monotheist who was the avowed and uncompromising enemy
to their whole system of idolatry. It is equally inconceivable
that Daniel should have accepted the position of a hierophant in a
polytheistic cult. In the next three chapters there is no allusion to
Daniel's tenure of these strange and exalted offices, either civil or
religious.[110]
IX. The third chapter contains another story, told in a style of
wonderful stateliness and splendour, and full of glorious lessons; but
here again we encounter linguistic and other difficulties. Thus in iii.
2, though "all the rulers of the provinces" and officers of all ranks
are summoned to the dedication of Nebuchadrezzar's colossus, there is
not an allusion to Daniel throughout the chapter. Four of the names of
the officers in iii. 2, 3, appear, to our surprise, to be Persian;[111]
and, of the six musical instruments, three--the lute, psaltery, and
bagpipe[112]--have obvious Greek names, two of which (as already
stated) are of late origin, while another, the _sab'ka_, resembles the
Greek σαμβύκη, but may have come to the Greeks from the Aramæans.[113]
The incidents of the chapter are such as find no analogy throughout the
Old or New Testament, but exactly resemble those of Jewish moralising
fiction, of which they furnish the most perfect specimen. It is
exactly the kind of concrete comment which a Jewish writer of piety
and genius, for the encouragement of his afflicted people, might have
based upon such a passage as Isa. xliii. 2, 3: "When thou walkest
through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame
kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel,
thy Saviour." Nebuchadrezzar's decree, "That every _people, nation,
and language_, which speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego, _shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall
be made a dunghill_," can only be paralleled out of the later Jewish
literature.[114]
X. In chap. iv. we have another monotheistic decree of the King of
Babylon, announcing to "all people, nations, and languages" what
"the high God hath wrought towards me." It gives us a vision which
recalls Ezek. xxxi. 3-18, and may possibly have been suggested by
that fine chapter.[115] The language varies between the third and the
first person. In iv. 13 Nebuchadrezzar speaks of "a watcher and a
holy one." This is the first appearance in Jewish literature of the
word _'ir_, "watcher," which is so common in the Book of Enoch.[116]
In ver. 26 the expression "after thou shalt have known that _the
heavens_ do rule" is one which has no analogue in the Old Testament,
though exceedingly common in the superstitious periphrases of the
later Jewish literature. As to the story of the strange lycanthropy
with which Nebuchadrezzar was afflicted, though it receives nothing
but the faintest shadow of support from any historic record, it may
be based on some fact preserved by tradition. It is probably meant
to reflect on the mad ways of Antiochus. The general phrase of
Berossus, which tells us that Nebuchadrezzar "fell into a sickness
and died,"[117] has been pressed into an historical verification of
this narrative! But the phrase might have been equally well used
in the most ordinary case,[118] which shows what fancies have been
adduced to prove that we are here dealing with history. The fragment
of Abydenus in his _Assyriaca_, preserved by Eusebius,[119] shows
that there was _some_ story about Nebuchadrezzar having uttered
remarkable words upon his palace-roof. The announcement of a coming
irrevocable calamity to the kingdom from a Persian mule, "the son of
a Median woman," and the wish that "_the alien conqueror_" might be
driven "through the desert where wild beasts seek their food, and
birds fly hither and thither," has, however, very little to do with
the story of Nebuchadrezzar's madness. Abydenus says that, "when he
had thus prophesied, he suddenly vanished"; and he adds nothing about
any restoration to health or to his kingdom. All that can be said is
that there was current among the Babylonian Jews some popular legend
of which the writer of the Book of Daniel availed himself for the
purpose of his edifying _Midrash_.
XI. When we reach the fifth chapter, we are faced by a new king,
Belshazzar, who is somewhat emphatically called the son of
Nebuchadrezzar.[120]
History knows of no such king.[121] The prince of whom it _does_ know
was never king, and was a son, not of Nebuchadrezzar, but of the
usurper Nabunaid; and between Nebuchadrezzar and Nabunaid there were
three other kings.[122]
There _was_ a Belshazzar--_Bel-sar-utsur_, "Bel protect the
prince"--and we possess a clay cylinder of his father Nabunaid, the
last king of Babylon, praying the moon-god that "my son, the offspring
of my heart, might honour his godhead, and not give himself to
sin."[123] But if we follow Herodotus, this Belshazzar never came to
the throne; and according to Berossus he was conquered in Borsippa.
Xenophon, indeed, speaks of "an impious king" as being slain in
Babylon; but this is only in an avowed romance which has not the
smallest historic validity.[124] Schrader conjectures that Nabunaid may
have gone to take the field against Cyrus (who conquered and pardoned
him, and allowed him to end his days as governor of Karamania), and
that Belshazzar may have been killed in Babylon. These are mere
hypotheses; as are those of Josephus,[125] who identifies Belshazzar
with Nabunaid (whom he calls Naboandelon); and of Babelon, who tries
to make him the same as Maruduk-shar-utsur (as though Bel was the
same as Maruduk), which is impossible, as this king reigned _before_
Nabunaid. No contemporary writer could have fallen into the error
either of calling Belshazzar "king"; or of insisting on his being "the
son" of Nebuchadrezzar;[126] or of representing him as Nebuchadrezzar's
successor. Nebuchadrezzar was succeeded by--
Evil-merodach _circ._ B.C. 561 (Avil-marduk).[127]
Nergal-sharezer " 559 (Nergal-sar-utsur).
Lakhabbashi-marudu } " 555 (an infant).
(Laborosoarchod) }
Nabunaid " 554.
Nabunaid reigned till about B.C. 538, when Babylon was taken by Cyrus.
The conduct of Belshazzar in the great feast of this chapter is
probably meant as an allusive contrast to the revels and impieties of
Antiochus Epiphanes, especially in his infamous festival at the grove
of Daphne.
XII. "That night," we are told, "Belshazzar, the Chaldean king,
was slain." It has always been supposed that this was an incident
of the capture of Babylon by assault, in accordance with the story
of Herodotus, repeated by so many subsequent writers. But on this
point the inscriptions of Cyrus have _revolutionised_ our knowledge.
"_There was no siege and capture of Babylon_; the capital of
the Babylonian Empire opened its gates to the general of Cyrus.
Gobryas and his soldiers entered the city without fighting, and
the daily services in the great temple of Bel-merodach suffered no
interruption. Three months later Cyrus himself arrived, and made his
peaceful entry into the new capital of his empire. We gather from the
contract-tablets that even the ordinary business of the place had not
been affected by the war. The siege and capture of Babylon by Cyrus
_is really a reflection into the past of the actual sieges undergone
by the city in the reigns of Darius, son of Hystaspes and Xerxes_.
It is clear, then, that the editor of the fifth chapter of the Book
of Daniel could have been as little a contemporary of the events he
professes to record as Herodotus. For both alike, the true history
of the Babylonian Empire has been overclouded and foreshortened by
the lapse of time. The three kings who reigned between Nebuchadrezzar
and Nabunaid have been forgotten, and the last king of the Babylonian
Empire has become the son of its founder."[128]
Snatching at the merest straws, those who try to vindicate the accuracy
of the writer--although he makes Belshazzar a king, which he never was;
and the son of Nebuchadrezzar, which is not the case; or his grandson,
of which there is no tittle of evidence; and his successor, whereas
four kings intervened;--think that they improve the case by urging
that Daniel was made "the third ruler in the kingdom"--Nabunaid being
the first, and Belshazzar being the second! Unhappily for their very
precarious hypothesis, the translation "third ruler" appears to be
entirely untenable. It means "one of a board of three."
XIII. In the sixth chapter we are again met by difficulty after
difficulty.
Who, for instance, was Darius the Mede? We are told (v. 30, 31) that,
on the night of his impious banquet, "Belshazzar the king of the
Chaldeans" was slain, "and Darius the Median took the kingdom, being
about threescore and two years old." We are also told that Daniel
"prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the
Persian" (vi. 28). But this Darius is not even noticed elsewhere.
Cyrus was the conqueror of Babylon, and between B.C. 538-536 there is
no room or possibility for a Median ruler.
The inference which we should naturally draw from these statements
in the Book of Daniel, and which all readers have drawn, was that
Babylon had been conquered by the Medes, and that only after the
death of a Median king did Cyrus the Persian succeed.
But historic monuments and records entirely overthrow this
supposition. Cyrus was the king of Babylon from the day that his
troops entered it without a blow. He had conquered the Medes
and suppressed their royalty. "The numerous contract-tables of
the ordinary daily business transactions of Babylon, dated as
they are month by month, and almost day by day from the reign of
Nebuchadrezzar to that of Xerxes, prove that between Nabonidus and
Cyrus _there was no intermediate ruler_." The contemporary scribes
and merchants of Babylon knew nothing of any King Belshazzar, and
they knew even less of any King Darius the Mede. No contemporary
writer could possibly have fallen into such an error.[129]
And against this obvious conclusion, of what possible avail is it for
Hengstenberg to quote a late Greek lexicographer (_Harpocration_,
A.D. 170?), who says that the coin "a daric" was named after a Darius
earlier than the father of Xerxes?--or for others to identify this
shadowy Darius the Mede with Astyages?[130]--or with Cyaxares II.
in the romance of Xenophon?[131]--or to say that Darius the Mede
is Gobryas (Ugbaru) of Gutium[132]--a Persian, and not a king at
all--who under no circumstances could have been called "the king" by
a contemporary (vi. 12, ix. 1), and whom, apparently for three months
only, Cyrus made governor of Babylon? How could a contemporary
governor have appointed "one hundred and twenty princes which should
be over the whole kingdom,"[133] when, even in the days of Darius
Hystaspis, there were only twenty or twenty-three satrapies in the
Persian Empire?[134] And how could a mere provincial viceroy be
approached by "_all the presidents of the kingdom_, the governors,
and the princes, the counsellors, and the captains," to pass a decree
that any one who for thirty days offered any prayer to God or man,
except to him, should be cast into the den of lions? The fact that
such a decree could only be made by _a king_ is emphasised in the
narrative itself (vi. 12: comp. iii. 29). The supposed analogies
offered by Professor Fuller and others in favour of a decree so
absurdly impossible--except in the admitted licence and for the high
moral purpose of a Jewish Haggada--are to the last degree futile.
In any ordinary criticism they would be set down as idle special
pleading. Yet this is only one of a multitude of wildly improbable
incidents, which, from misunderstanding of the writer's age and
purpose, have been taken for sober history, though they receive from
historical records and monuments no shadow of confirmation, and are
in not a few instances directly opposed to all that we now know to
be certain history. Even if it were conceivable that this hypothetic
"Darius the Mede" was Gobryas, or Astyages, or Cyaxares, it is plain
that the author of Daniel gives him a name and national designation
which lead to mere confusion, and speaks of him in a way which would
have been surely avoided by any contemporary.
"Darius the Mede," says Professor Sayce, "is in fact a _reflection_
into the past of _Darius the son of Hystaspes_,[135] just as the
siege and capture of Babylon by Cyrus are a reflection into the past
of its siege and capture by the same prince. The name of Darius and
the story of the slaughter of the Chaldean king go together. They
are alike derived from the unwritten history which, in the East of
to-day, is still made by the people, and which blends together in a
single picture the manifold events and personages of the past. It
is a history which has no perspective, though it is based on actual
facts; the accurate combinations of the chronologer have no meaning
for it, and the events of a century are crowded into a few years.
This is the kind of history which the Jewish _mind in the age of the
Talmud loved to adapt to moral and religious purposes_. This kind of
history then becomes as _it were a parable, and under the name of
Haggada serves to illustrate that teaching of the law_."[136]
The favourable view given of the character of the imaginary Darius
the Mede, and his regard for Daniel, may have been a confusion with
the Jewish reminiscences of Darius, son of Hystaspes, who permitted
the rebuilding of the Temple under Zerubbabel.[137]
If we look for the _source_ of the confusion, we see it perhaps in
the prophecy of Isaiah (xiii. 17, xiv. 6-22), that the _Medes_ should
be the destroyers of Babylon; or in that of Jeremiah--a prophet
of whom the author had made a special study (Dan. ix. 2)--to the
same effect (Jer. li. 11-28); together with the tradition that _a_
Darius--namely, the son of Hystaspes--_had_ once conquered Babylon.
XIV. But to make confusion worse confounded, if these chapters were
meant for history, the problematic "Darius the Mede" is in Dan. ix. 1
called "the son of Ahasuerus."
Now Ahasuerus (Achashverosh) is the same as Xerxes, and is the
_Persian_ name Khshyarsha; and Xerxes was the _son_, not the father,
of Darius Hystaspis, who was a _Persian_, not a Mede. Before Darius
Hystaspis could have been transformed into the son of his own son
Xerxes, the reigns, not only of Darius, but also of Xerxes, must have
long been past.
XV. There is yet another historic sign that this Book did not
originate till the Persian Empire had long ceased to exist. In xi.
2 the writer only knows of _four_ kings of Persia.[138] These are
evidently Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius Hystaspis, and Xerxes--whom he
describes as the richest of them. This king is destroyed by the
kingdom of Grecia--an obvious confusion of popular tradition between
the defeat inflicted on the Persians by the Republican Greeks in the
days of Xerxes (B.C. 480), and the overthrow of the Persian kingdom
under Darius Codomannus by Alexander the Great (B.C. 333).
* * * * *
These, then, are some of the apparent historic impossibilities by which
we are confronted when we regard this Book as professed history. The
doubts suggested by such seeming errors are not in the least removed
by the acervation of endless conjectures. They are greatly increased
by the fact that, so far from standing alone, they are intensified by
other difficulties which arise under every fresh aspect under which the
Book is studied. Behrmann, the latest editor, sums up his studies with
the remark that "there is an almost universal agreement that the Book,
in its present form and as a whole, had its origin in the Maccabean
age; while there is a widening impression that in its purpose it is
not an exclusive product of that period." No amount of casuistical
ingenuity can long prevail to overthrow the spreading conviction that
the views of Hengstenberg, Hävernick, Keil, Pusey, and their followers,
have been refuted by the light of advancing knowledge--which is a light
kindled for us by God Himself.
FOOTNOTES:
[90] Thus Dr. Pusey says: "The Book of Daniel is especially fitted
to be a battle-field _between faith and unbelief_. It admits of no
half-measures. It is either Divine or an imposture. To write any
book under the name of another, and to give it out to be his, is,
in any case, a forgery dishonest in itself, and destructive of all
trustworthiness. But the case of the Book of Daniel, if it were not
his, would go far beyond even this. The writer, were _he_ not Daniel,
_must_ have _lied_ on a frightful scale. In a word, the whole Book
would be one lie in the Name of God." Few would venture to use such
language in _these_ days. It is always a perilous style to adopt,
but now it has become suicidal. It is founded on an immense and
inexcusable anachronism. It avails itself of an utterly false misuse
of the words "faith" and "unbelief," by which "faith" becomes a mere
synonym for "that which I esteem orthodox," or that which has been
the current opinion in ages of ignorance. Much truer faith may be
shown by accepting arguments founded on unbiassed evidence than by
rejecting them. And what can be more foolish than to base the great
truths of the Christian religion on special pleadings which have now
come to wear the aspect of ingenious sophistries, such as would not
be allowed to have the smallest validity in any ordinary question
of literary or historic evidence? Hengstenberg, like Pusey, says in
his violent ecclesiastical tone of autocratic infallibility that
the interpretation of the Book by most eminent modern critics "will
remain false so long as the word of Christ is true--that is, for
ever." This is to make "the word of Christ" the equivalent of a mere
theological blindness and prejudice! Assertions which are utterly
baseless can only be met by assertions based on science and the love
of truth. Thus when Rupprecht says that "the modern criticism of the
Book of Daniel is unchristian, immoral, and unscientific," we can
only reply with disdain, _Novimus istas_ ληκύθους. In the present day
they are mere bluster of impotent _odium theologicum_.
[91] Gen. xli.
[92] See Lenormant, _La Divination_, p. 219.
[93] Jer. xxix. 22. The tenth verse of _this very chapter_ is
referred to in Dan. ix. 2. The custom continued in the East centuries
afterwards. "And if it was known to a Roman writer (Quintus Curtius,
v. 1) in the days of Vespasian, why" (Mr. Bevan pertinently asks)
"should it not have been known to a Palestinian writer who lived
centuries earlier?" (A. A. Bevan, _Short Commentary_, p. 22).
[94] _Avodah-Zarah_, f. 3, 1; _Sanhedrin_, f. 93, 1; _Pesachim_, f.
118, 1; _Eiruvin_, f. 53, 1.
[95] Jer. lii. 28-30. These were in the reign of Jehoiachin.
[96] Jer. xlvi. 2: comp. Jer. xxv. The passage of Berossus, quoted in
Jos., _Antt._ X. xi. 1, is not trustworthy, and does not remove the
difficulty.
[97] The attempts of Keil and Pusey to get over the difficulty,
if they were valid, would reduce Scripture to a hopeless riddle.
The reader will see all the latest efforts in this direction in
the _Speaker's Commentary_ and the work of Fabre d'Envieu. Even
such "orthodox" writers as Dorner, Delitzsch, and Gess, not to
mention hosts of other great critics, have long seen the desperate
impossibility of these arguments.
[98] _Balatsu-utsur_, "protect his life." The root _balâtu_, "life,"
is common in Assyrian names. The mistake comes from the wrong
vocalisation adopted by the Massorets (Meinhold, _Beiträge_, p. 27).
[99] Schrader dubiously connects it with _matstsara_, "guardian."
[100] Lenormant, p. 182, regards it as a corruption of Ashbenazar,
"the goddess has pruned the seed" (??); but assumed corruptions of
the text are an uncertain expedient.
[101] On these see Rob. Smith, _Cambr. Journ. of Philol._, No. 27, p.
125.
[102] Juv., _Sat._, x. 96: "Cum grege Chaldæo"; Val. Max., iii. 1;
Cic., _De Div._, i. 1, etc.
[103] _Keilinschr._, p. 429; Meinhold, p. 28.
[104] Isa. xxiii. 13; Jer. xxv. 12; Ezek. xii. 13; Hab. i. 6.
[105] Jos., _Antt._, XI. viii. 5.
[106] Isa. xlix. 23.
[107] Isa. lx. 14.
[108] Acts xii. 22, 23.
[109] Acts xiv. 11, 12, xxviii. 6.
[110] See Jer. xxxix. 3. And if he held this position, how could he
be absent in chap. iii.?
[111] Namely, the words for "satraps," "governors," "counsellors,"
and "judges," as well as the courtiers in iii. 24. Bleek thinks that
to enhance the stateliness of the occasion the writer introduced as
many official names as he knew.
[112] _Supra_, p. 23.
[113] Athen., _Deipnos._, iv. 175.
[114] The Persian titles in iii. 24 alone suffice to indicate that
this could not be Nebuchadrezzar's actual decree. See further,
Meinhold, pp. 30, 31. We are evidently dealing with a writer who
introduces many Persian words, with no consciousness that they could
not have been used by Babylonian kings.
[115] The writer of Daniel was evidently acquainted with the Book of
Ezekiel. See Delitzsch in Herzog, _s.v._ "Daniel," and Driver, p. 476.
[116] See iv. 16, 25-30.
[117] Preserved by Jos.: comp. _Ap._, I. 20.
[118] The phrase is common enough: _e.g._, in Jos., _Antt._, X. xi. 1
(comp. _c. Ap._, I. 19); and a similar phrase, ἐμπεσὼν εἰς ἀῤῥωστίαν,
_is used of Antiochus Epiphanes_ in 1 Macc. vi. 8.
[119] _Præp. Ev._, ix. 41. Schrader (_K. A. T._, ii. 432) thinks that
Berossus and the Book of Daniel may both point to the same tradition;
but the Chaldee tradition quoted by the late writer Abydenus errs
likewise in only recognising _two_ Babylonish kings instead of
_four_, exclusive of Belshazzar. See, too, Schrader, _Jahrb. für
Prot. Theol._, 1881, p. 618.
[120] Dan. v. 11. The emphasis seems to show that "son" is really
meant--not grandson. This is a little strange, for Jeremiah
(xxvii. 7) had said that the nations should serve Nebuchadrezzar,
"and his son, _and his son's son_"; and in no case was Belshazzar
Nebuchadrezzar's _son's son_, for his father Nabunaid was an usurping
son of a Rab-mag.
[121] Schrader, p. 434 ff.; and in Riehm, _Handwörterb._, ii. 163;
Pinches, in Smith's _Bibl. Dict._, i. 388, 2nd edn. The contraction
into Belshazzar from _Bel-sar-utsur_ seems to show a late date.
[122] That the author of Daniel should have fallen into these errors
is the more remarkable because Evil-merodach is mentioned in 2 Kings
xxv. 27; and Jeremiah in his round number of seventy years includes
_three_ generations (Jer. xxvii. 7). Herodotus and Abydenus made the
same mistake. See Kamphausen, pp. 30, 31.
[123] Herod., i. 191. See Rawlinson, _Herod._, i. 434.
[124] Xen., _Cyrop._, VII. v. 3.
[125] _Antt._, X. xi. 2. In _c. Ap._, I. 20, he calls him Nabonnedus.
[126] This is now supposed to mean "grandson by marriage," by
inventing the hypothesis that Nabunaid married a daughter of
Nebuchadrezzar. But this does not accord with Dan. v. 2, 11, 22; and
so in Baruch i. 11, 12.
[127] 2 Kings xxv. 27.
[128] Sayce, _The Higher Criticism and the Monuments_, p. 527.
[129] I need not enter here upon the confusion of the Manda with the
Medes, on which see Sayce, _Higher Criticism and Monuments_, p. 519 ff.
[130] Winer, _Realwörterb._, _s.v._ "Darius."
[131] So Bertholdt, Von Lengerke, Auberlen. It is decidedly rejected
by Schrader (Riehm, _Handwörterb._, i. 259). Even Cicero said,
"Cyrus ille a Xenophonte non ad historiæ fidem scriptus est" (_Ad
Quint. Fratr._, Ep. i. 3). Niebuhr called the _Cyropædia_ "einen
_elenden_ und läppischen Roman" (_Alt. Gesch._, i. 116). He classes
it with _Télémaque_ or _Rasselas_. Xenophon was probably the ultimate
authority for the statement of Josephus (_Antt._, X. xi. 4), which
has no weight. Herodotus and Ktesias know nothing of the existence of
any Cyaxares II., nor does the Second Isaiah (xlv.), who evidently
contemplates Cyrus as the conqueror and the first king of Babylon.
Are we to set a professed romancer like Xenophon, and a late compiler
like Josephus, against these authorities?
[132] T. W. Pinches, in Smith's _Bibl. Dict._, i. 716, 2nd edn. Into
this theory are pressed the general expressions that Darius "received
the kingdom" and was "made king," which have not the least bearing
on it. They may simply mean that he became king by conquest, and not
in the ordinary course--so Rosenmüller, Hitzig, Von Lengerke, etc.;
or perhaps the words show some sense of uncertainty as to the exact
course of events. The sequence of Persian kings in _Seder Olam_,
28-30, and in Rashi on Dan. v. 1, ix. 1, is equally unhistorical.
[133] This is supported by the remark that this three-months viceroy
"appointed governors in Babylon"!
[134] Herod., iii. 89; _Records of the Past_, viii. 88.
[135] See, too, Meinhold (_Beiträge_, p. 46), who concludes his
survey with the words, "Sprachliche wie sachliche Gründe machen
es _nicht nur wahrscheinlich sondern gewiss_ dass an danielsche
Autorschaft von Dan. ii.-vi., überhanpt an die Entstehung zur Zeit
der jüdischen Verbannung nicht zu denken ist." He adds that almost
all scholars believe the chapters to be no older than the age of the
Maccabees, and that even Kahnis (_Dogmatik_, i. 376) and Delitzsch
(Herzog, _s.v._ "Dan.") give up their genuineness. He himself
believes that these Aramaic chapters were _incorporated_ by a later
writer, who wrote the introduction.
[136] Sayce. _l.c._, p. 529.
[137] Kamphausen, p. 45.
[138] Sayce, _l.c._ The author of the Book of Daniel seems only
to have known of _three_ kings of Persia after Cyrus (xi. 2). But
five are mentioned in the Old Testament--Cyrus, Darius, Artaxerxes,
Xerxes, and Darius III. (Codomannus, Neh. xii. 22). There were three
Dariuses and three Artaxerxes, but he only knows one of each name
(Kamphausen, p. 32). He might easily have overlooked the fact that
the Darius of Neh. xii. 22 was a wholly different person from the
Darius of Ezra vi. 1.
CHAPTER IV
_GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK_
In endeavouring to see the idea and construction of a book there is
always much room for the play of subjective considerations. Meinhold
has especially studied this subject, but we cannot be certain that
his views are more than imaginative. He thinks that chap. ii.,
in which we are strongly reminded of the story of Joseph and of
Pharaoh's dreams, is intended to set forth God as Omniscient, and
chap. iii. as Omnipotent. To these conceptions is added in chap. iv.
the insistence upon God's All-holiness. The fifth and sixth chapters
form one conception. Since the death of Belshazzar is assigned to the
night of his banquet no edict could be ascribed to him resembling
those attributed to Nebuchadrezzar. The effect of Daniel's character
and of the Divine protection accorded to him on the mind of Darius
is expressed in the strong edict of the latter in vi. 26, 27. This
is meant to illustrate that the All-wise, Almighty, All-holy God is
the Only Living God. The consistent and homogeneous object of the
whole historic section is to set forth the God of the Hebrews as
exalting Himself in the midst of heathendom, and extorting submission
by mighty portents from heathen potentates. In this the Book offers
a general analogy to the section of the history of the Israelites in
Egypt narrated in Exod. i. 12. The culmination of recognition as to
the power of God is seen in the decree of Darius (vi. 26, 27), as
compared with that of Nebuchadrezzar in iv. 33. According to this
view, the meaning and essence of each separate chapter are given
in its closing section, and there is artistic advance to the great
climax, marked alike by the resemblances of these four paragraphs
(ii. 47, iii. 28, 29, iv. 37, vi. 26, 27), and by their differences.
To this main purpose all the other elements of these splendid
pictures--the faithfulness of Hebrew worshippers, the abasement
of blaspheming despots, the mission of Israel to the nations--are
subordinated. The chief aim is to set forth the helpless humiliation
of all false gods before the might of the God of Israel. It might be
expressed in the words, "Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have
laid waste all the nations, and cast their gods into the fire; for
they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone."
A closer glance at these chapters will show some grounds for these
conclusions.
Thus, in the second chapter, the magicians and sorcerers repudiate
all possibility of revealing the king's dream and its interpretation,
because they are but men, and the gods have not their dwelling with
mortal flesh (ii. 11); but Daniel can tell the dream because he
stands near to his God, who, though He is in heaven, yet is All-wise,
and revealeth secrets.
In the third chapter the destruction of the strongest soldiers of
Nebuchadrezzar by fire, and the absolute deliverance of the three
Jews whom they have flung into the furnace, convince Nebuchadrezzar
that no god can deliver as the Almighty does, and that therefore it
is blasphemy deserving of death to utter a word against Him.
In chap. iv. the supremacy of Daniel's wisdom as derived from God,
the fulfilment of the threatened judgment, and the deliverance of the
mighty King of Babylon from his degrading madness when he lifts up
his eyes to heaven, convince Nebuchadrezzar still more deeply that
God is not only a _Great_ God, but that no other being, man or god,
can even be compared to Him. He is the Only and the Eternal God, who
"_doeth according to His will in the army of heaven_," as well as
"among the inhabitants of the earth," and "none can stay His hand."
This is the highest point of conviction. Nebuchadrezzar confesses
that God is not only _Primus inter pares_, but the Irresistible
God, and his own God. And after this, in the fifth chapter, Daniel
can speak to Belshazzar of "the Lord of heaven" (v. 23); and as the
king's Creator; and of the nothingness of gods of silver, and gold,
and brass, and wood, and stone;--as though those truths had already
been decisively proved. And this belief finds open expression in the
decree of Darius (vi. 26, 27), which concludes the historic section.
It is another indication of this main purpose of these histories that
the plural form of the Name of God--_Elohîm_--does not once occur
in chaps. ii.-vi. It is used in i. 2, 9, 17; but not again till the
ninth chapter, where it occurs twelve times; once in the tenth (x.
12); and twice of God in the eleventh chapter (xi. 32, 37). In the
prophetic section (vii. 18, 22, 25, 27) we have "Most High" in the
plural (_'elionîn_);[139] but with reference only to the One God
(see vii. 25). But in all cases where the heathen are addressed this
plural becomes the singular (_ehlleh_, אֵלֶּה), as throughout the
first six chapters. This avoidance of so common a word as the plural
_Elohîm_ for God, because the plural form might conceivably have been
misunderstood by the heathen, shows the elaborate construction of the
Book.[140] God is called _Eloah_ Shamaîn, "God of heaven," in the
second and third chapters; but in later chapters we have the common
post-exilic phrase in the plural.[141]
In the fourth and fifth chapters we have God's Holiness first brought
before us, chiefly on its avenging side; and it is not till we have
witnessed the proof of His Unity, Wisdom, Omnipotence, and Justice,
which it is the mission of Israel to make manifest among the heathen,
that all is summed up in the edict of Darius to all people, nations,
and languages.
The omission of any express recognition of God's tender compassion
is due to the structure of these chapters; for it would hardly be
possible for heathen potentates to recognise that attribute in the
immediate presence of His judgments. It is somewhat remarkable that
the name "Jehovah" is avoided.[142] As the Jews purposely pronounced
it with wrong vowels, and the LXX. render it by κύριος, the Samaritan
by שימה, and the Rabbis by "the Name," so we find in the Book of
Daniel a similar avoidance of the awful Tetragrammaton.
FOOTNOTES:
[139] Literally, as in margin, "_most high things_" or "_places_."
[140] In iv. 5, 6; and _elohîn_ means "gods" in the mouth of a
heathen ("spirit of the holy gods").
[141] _Elohîn_ occurs repeatedly in chap. ix., and in x. 12, xi. 32, 37.
[142] It only occurs in Dan. ix.
CHAPTER V
_THE THEOLOGY OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL_
As regards the religious views of the Book of Daniel some of them at
any rate are in full accordance with the belief in the late origin of
the Book to which we are led by so many indications.[143]
I. Thus in Dan. xii. 2 (for we may here so far anticipate the
examination of the second section of the Book) we meet, for the first
time in Scripture, with a distinct recognition of the resurrection
of the individual dead.[144] This, as all know, is a doctrine of
which we only find the faintest indication in the earlier books of
the Canon. Although the doctrine is still but dimly formulated, it is
clearer in this respect than Isa. xxv. 8, xxvi. 19.
II. Still more remarkable is the special prominence of angels. It is
not God who goes forth to war (Judg. v. 13, 23), or takes personal
part in the deliverance or punishment of nations (Isa. v. 26, vii.
18). Throned in isolated and unapproachable transcendence, He uses
the agency of intermediate beings (Dan. iv. 14).[145]
In full accordance with late developments of Jewish opinion angels
are mentioned by special names, and appear as Princes and Protectors
of special lands.[146] In no other book in the Old Testament have
we any names given to angels, or any distinction between their
dignities, or any trace of their being in mutual rivalry as Princes
or Patrons of different nationalities. These remarkable features of
angelology only occur in the later epoch, and in the apocalyptic
literature to which this Book belongs. Thus they are found in the
LXX. translations of Deut. xxxii. 8 and Isa. xxx. 4, and in such
post-Maccabean books as those of Enoch and Esdras.[147]
III. Again, we have the fixed custom of three daily formal prayers,
uttered towards the Kibleh of Jerusalem. This may, possibly, have
begun during the Exile. It became a normal rule for later ages.[148]
The Book, however, like that of Jonah, is, as a whole, remarkably
free from any extravagant estimate of Levitical minutiæ.
IV. Once more, for the first time in Jewish story, we find extreme
importance attached to the Levitical distinction of clean and unclean
meats, which also comes into prominence in the age of the Maccabees,
as it afterwards constituted a most prominent element in the ideal
of Talmudic religionism.[149] Daniel and the Three Children are
vegetarians, like the Pharisees after the destruction of the Second
Temple, mentioned in _Baba Bathra_, f. 60, 2.
V. We have already noticed the avoidance of the sacred name "Jehovah"
even in passages addressed to Jews (Dan. ii. 18), though we find
"Jehovah" in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 7. Jehovah only occurs in reference to
Jer. xxv. 8-11, and in the prayer of the ninth chapter, where we also
find _Adonai_ and _Elohîm_.
Periphrases for God, like "the Ancient of Days," become normal in
Talmudic literature.
VI. Again, the doctrine of the Messiah, like these other doctrines,
is, as Professor Driver says, "taught with greater distinctness and in
a more developed form than elsewhere in the Old Testament, and with
features approximating to, though not identical with, those met with
in the earlier parts of the Book of Enoch (B.C. 100). In one or two
instances these developments may have been partially moulded by foreign
influences.[150] They undoubtedly mark a later phase of revelation
than that which is set before us in other books of the Old Testament.
And the conclusion indicated by these _special_ features in the Book
is confirmed by the _general_ atmosphere which we breathe throughout
it. The atmosphere and tone are not those of any other writings
belonging to the Jews of the Exile; it is rather that of the Maccabean
_Chasidîm_." How far the Messianic _Bar Enosh_ (vii. 13) is meant to be
_a person_ will be considered in the comment on that passage.
We shall see in later pages that the supreme value and importance
of the Book of Daniel, rightly understood, consists in this--that
"it is the first attempt at a Philosophy, or rather at a Theology of
History."[151] Its main object was to teach the crushed and afflicted
to place unshaken confidence in God.
FOOTNOTES:
[143] The description of God as "the Ancient of Days" with garments
white as snow, and of His throne of flames on burning wheels, is
found again in the Book of Enoch, written about B.C. 141 (Enoch xiv.).
[144] See Dan. xii. 2. Comp. Jos., _B. J._, II. viii. 14; Enoch xxii.
13, lx. 1-5, etc.
[145] Comp. Smend, _Alttest. Relig. Gesch._, p. 530. For references
to angels in Old Testament see Job i. 6, xxxviii. 7; Jer. xxiii. 18;
Psalm lxxxix. 7; Josh. v. 13-15; Zech. i. 12, iii. 1. See further
Behrmann, _Dan._, p. xxiii.
[146] Dan. iv. 14, ix. 21, x. 13, 20.
[147] See Enoch lxxi. 17, lxviii. 10, and the six archangels Uriel,
Raphael, Reguel, Michael, Saragael, and Gabriel in Enoch xx.-xxxvi.
See _Rosh Hashanah_, f. 56, 1; _Bereshîth Rabba_, c. 48; Hamburger,
i. 305-312.
[148] _Berachôth_, f. 31; Dan. vi. 11. Comp. Psalm lv. 18; 1 Kings
viii. 38-48.
[149] 1 Macc. i. 62; Dan. i. 8; 2 Macc. v. 27, vi. 18-vii. 42.
[150] Introd., p. 477. Comp. 2 Esdras xiii. 41-45, and _passim_;
Enoch xl., xlv., xlvi., xlix., and _passim_; Hamburger,
_Real-Encycl._, ii. 267 ff. With "the time of the end" and the
numerical calculations comp. 2 Esdras vi. 6, 7.
[151] Roszmann, _Die Makkabäische Erhebung_, p. 45. See Wellhausen,
_Die Pharis. u. d. Sadd._, 77 ff.
CHAPTER VI
_PECULIARITIES OF THE APOCALYPTIC AND
PROPHETIC SECTION OF THE BOOK_
If we have found much to lead us to serious doubts as to the
authenticity and genuineness--_i.e._, as to the literal historicity
and the real author--of the Book of Daniel in its historic section,
we shall find still more in the prophetic section. If the phenomena
already passed in review are more than enough to indicate the
impossibility that the Book could have been written by the historic
Daniel, the phenomena now to be considered are such as have sufficed
to convince the immense majority of learned critics that, in its
present form, the Book did not appear before the days of Antiochus
Epiphanes.[152] The probable date is B.C. 164. As in the Book of Enoch
xc. 15, 16, it contains history written under the form of prophecy.
Leaving minuter examination to later chapters of commentary, we will
now take a brief survey of this unique apocalypse.
I. As regards the style and method the only distant approach to it
in the rest of the Old Testament is in a few visions of Ezekiel
and Zechariah, which differ greatly from the clear, and so to
speak classic, style of the older prophets. But in Daniel we
find visions far more enigmatical, and far less full of passion
and poetry. Indeed, as regards style and intellectual force, the
splendid historic scenes of chaps. i.-vi. far surpass the visions
of vii.-xii., some of which have been described as "composite
logographs," in which the ideas are forcibly juxtaposed without care
for any coherence in the symbols--as, for instance, when _a horn_
speaks and has eyes.[153]
Chap. vii. contains a vision of four different wild beasts rising
from the sea: a lion, with eagle-wings, which afterwards becomes
semi-human; a bear, leaning on one side, and having three ribs in its
mouth; a four-winged, four-headed panther; and a still more terrible
creature, with iron teeth, brazen claws, and ten horns, among which
rises a little horn, which destroyed three of the others--it has
man's eyes and a mouth speaking proud things.
There follows an epiphany of the Ancient of Days, who destroys the
little horn, but prolongs for a time the existence of the other wild
beasts. Then comes One in human semblance, who is brought before the
Ancient of Days, and is clothed by Him with universal and eternal power.
We shall see reasons for the view that the four beasts--in
accordance with the interpretation of the vision given to Daniel
himself--represent the Babylonian, the Median, the Persian, and
the Greek empires, issuing in the separate kingdoms of Alexander's
successors; and that the little horn is Antiochus Epiphanes, whose
overthrow is to be followed immediately by the Messianic Kingdom.[154]
The vision of the eighth chapter mainly pursues the history of
the fourth of these kingdoms. Daniel sees a ram standing eastward
of the river-basin of the Ulai, having two horns, of which one is
higher than the other. It butts westward, northward, and southward,
and seemed irresistible, until a he-goat from the West, with one
horn between its eyes, confronted it, and stamped it to pieces.
After this its one horn broke into four towards the four winds of
heaven, and one of them shot forth a puny horn, which grew great
towards the South and East, and acted tyrannously against the Holy
People, and spoke blasphemously against God. Daniel hears the holy
ones declaring that its powers shall only last two thousand three
hundred evening-mornings. An angel bids Gabriel to explain the vision
to Daniel; and Gabriel tells the seer that the ram represents the
Medo-Persian and the he-goat the Greek Kingdom. Its great horn is
Alexander; the four horns are the kingdoms of his successors, the
Diadochi; the little horn is a king bold of vision and versed in
enigmas, whom all agree to be Antiochus Epiphanes.
In the ninth chapter we are told that Daniel has been meditating on the
prophecy of Jeremiah that Jerusalem should be rebuilt after seventy
years, and as the seventy years seem to be drawing to a close he
humbles himself with prayer and fasting. But Gabriel comes flying to
him at the time of the evening sacrifice, and explains to him that
the seventy years is to mean seventy _weeks_ of years--_i.e._, four
hundred and ninety years, divided into three periods of 7 + 62 + 1. At
the end of seven (_i.e._, forty-nine) years an anointed prince will
order the restoration of Jerusalem. The city will continue, though
in humiliation, for sixty-two (_i.e._, four hundred and thirty-four)
years, when "an anointed" will be cut off, and a prince will destroy
it. During half a week (_i.e._, for three and a half years) he will
cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease; and he will make a covenant
with many for one week, at the end of which he will be cut off.
Here, again, we shall have reason to see that the whole prophecy
culminates in, and is mainly concerned with, Antiochus Epiphanes.
In fact, it furnishes us with a sketch of his fortunes, which, in
connexion with the eleventh chapter, tells us more about him than we
learn from any extant history.
In the tenth chapter Daniel, after a fast of twenty-one days, sees a
vision of Gabriel, who explains to him why his coming has been delayed,
soothes his fears, touches his lips, and prepares him for the vision
of chapter eleven. That chapter is mainly occupied with a singularly
minute and circumstantial history of the murders, intrigues, wars, and
intermarriages of the Lagidæ and Seleucidæ. So detailed is it that in
some cases the history has to be reconstructed out of it. This sketch
is followed by the doings and final overthrow of Antiochus Epiphanes.
The twelfth chapter is the picture of a resurrection, and of words of
consolation and exhortation addressed to Daniel.
Such in briefest outline are the contents of these chapters, and
their peculiarities are very marked. Until the reader has studied the
more detailed explanation of the chapters separately, and especially
of the eleventh, he will be unable to estimate the enormous force of
the arguments adduced to prove the impossibility of such "prophecies"
having emanated from Babylon and Susa about B.C. 536. Long before the
astonishing enlargement of our critical knowledge which has been the
work of the last generation--nearly fifty years ago--the mere perusal
of the Book as it stands produced on the manly and honest judgment
of Dr. Arnold a strong impression of uncertainty. He said that the
latter chapters of Daniel would, if genuine, be a clear exception to
the canons of interpretation which he laid down in his _Sermons on
Prophecy_, since "there can be no reasonable spiritual meaning made
out of the kings of the North and South." "But," he adds, "I have
long thought that the greater part of the Book of Daniel is most
certainly a very late work of the time of the Maccabees; and the
pretended prophecies about the kings of Grecia and Persia, and of the
North and South, are mere history, like the poetical prophecies in
Virgil and elsewhere. In fact, you can trace distinctly the date when
it was written, because the events up to that date are given with
historical minuteness, totally unlike the character of real prophecy;
and beyond that date all is imaginary."[155]
The Book is the earliest specimen of its kind known to us. It
inaugurated a new and important branch of Jewish literature, which
influenced many subsequent writers. An apocalypse, so far as its
literary form is concerned, "claims throughout to be a supernatural
revelation given to mankind by the mouth of those men in whose names
the various writings appear." An apocalypse--such, for instance, as
the Books of Enoch, the Assumption of Moses, Baruch, 1, 2 Esdras,
and the Sibylline Oracles--is characterised by its enigmatic form,
which shrouds its meaning in parables and symbols. It indicates
persons without naming them, and shadows forth historic events under
animal forms, or as operations of Nature. Even the explanations which
follow, as in this Book, are still mysterious and indirect.
II. In the next place an apocalypse is literary, not oral. Schürer, who
classes Daniel among the oldest and most original of _pseudepigraphic
prophecies_, etc., rightly says that "the old prophets in their
teachings and exhortations addressed themselves directly to the people
first and foremost through their oral utterances; and then, but only as
subordinate to these, by written discourses as well. But now, when men
felt themselves at any time compelled by their religious enthusiasm to
influence their contemporaries, instead of directly addressing them in
person like the prophets of old, they did so by a writing purporting
to be the work of some one or other of the great names of the past, in
the hope that in this way the effect would be all the surer and all the
more powerful."[156] The Daniel of this Book represents himself, not
as a prophet, but as a humble student of the prophets. He no longer
claims, as Isaiah did, to speak in the Name of God Himself with a "Thus
saith Jehovah."
III. Thirdly, it is impossible not to notice that Daniel differs
from all other prophecies by its all-but-total indifference to the
circumstances and surroundings in the midst of which the prediction
is supposed to have originated. The Daniel of Babylon and Susa is
represented as the writer; yet his whole interest is concentrated,
not in the events which immediately interest the Jews of Babylon in
the days of Cyrus, or of Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, but deals with
a number of predictions which revolve almost exclusively about the
reign of a very inferior king four centuries afterwards. And with
this king the predictions abruptly stop short, and are followed by
the very general promise of an immediate Messianic age.
We may notice further the constant use of round and cyclic numbers,
such as three and its compounds (i. 5, iii. 1, vi. 7, 10, vii. 5,
8); four (ii., vii. 6, and viii. 8, xi. 12); seven and its compounds
(iii. 19, iv. 16, 23, ix. 24, etc.). The apocalyptic symbols of
Bears, Lions, Eagles, Horns, Wings, etc., abound in the contemporary
and later Books of Enoch, Baruch, 4 Esdras, the Assumption of Moses,
and the Sibyllines, as well as in the early Christian apocalypses,
like that of Peter. The authors of the Sibyllines (B.C. 140) were
acquainted with Daniel; the Book of Enoch breathes exactly the same
spirit with this Book, in the transcendentalism which avoids the name
Jehovah (vii. 13; Enoch xlvi. 1, xlvii. 3), in the number of angels
(vii. 10; Enoch xl. 1, lx. 2), their names, the title of "watchers"
given to them, and their guardianship of men (Enoch xx. 5). The
Judgment and the Books (vii. 9, 10, xii. 1) occur again in Enoch
xlvii. 3, lxxxi. 1, as in the Book of Jubilees, and the Testament of
the Twelve Patriarchs.[157]
FOOTNOTES:
[152] Among these critics are Delitzsch, Riehm, Ewald, Bunsen,
Hilgenfeld, Cornill, Lücke, Strack, Schürer, Kuenen, Meinhold,
Orelli, Joël, Reuss, König, Kamphausen, Cheyne, Driver, Briggs,
Bevan, Behrmann, etc.
[153] Renan, _History of Israel_, iv. 354. He adds, "L'essence du
genre c'est le pseudonyme, ou si l'on veut l'apocryphisme" (p. 356).
[154] Lagarde, _Gott. Gel. Anzieg._, 1891, pp. 497-520, stands
almost, if not quite, alone in arguing that Dan. vii. was not written
till A.D. 69, and that the "little horn" is meant for Vespasian. The
relation of the fourth empire of Dan. vii. to the iron part of the
image in Dan. ii. refutes this view: both can only refer to the Greek
Empire. Josephus (_Antt._, X. xi. 7) does not refer to Dan. vii.;
but neither does he to ix.-xii., for reasons already mentioned. See
Cornill, _Einleit._, p. 262.
[155] Stanley, _Life of Arnold_, p. 505.
[156] Schürer, _Hist. of the Jew. People_, iii. 24 (E. Tr.).
[157] On the close resemblance between Daniel and other apocryphal
books see Behrmann, _Dan._, pp. 37-39; Dillmann, _Das Buch
Henoch_. For its relation to the Book of Baruch see Schrader,
_Keilinschriften_, 435 f. Philo does not allude to Daniel.
CHAPTER VII
_INTERNAL EVIDENCE_
I. Other prophets start from the ground of the _present_, and to
exigencies of the present their prophecies were primarily directed.
It is true that their lofty moral teaching, their rapt poetry, their
impassioned feeling, had its inestimable value for all ages. But
these elements scarcely exist in the Book of Daniel. Almost the whole
of its prophecies bear on one short particular period _nearly four
hundred years after_ the supposed epoch of their delivery. What,
then, is the phenomenon they present? Whereas other prophets, by
studying the problems of the present in the light flung upon them
by the past, are enabled, by combining the present with the past,
to gain, with the aid of God's Holy Spirit, a vivid glimpse of the
immediate future, for the instruction of the living generation, the
reputed author of Daniel passes over the _immediate_ future with a
few words, and spends the main part of his revelations on a triad of
years separated by centuries from contemporary history. Occupied as
this description is with the wars and negotiations of empires which
were yet unborn, it can have had little practical significance for
Daniel's fellow-exiles. Nor could these "predictions" have been to
prove the possibility of supernatural foreknowledge,[158] since,
even after their supposed fulfilment, the interpretation of them is
open to the greatest difficulties and the gravest doubts. If to a
Babylonian exile was vouchsafed a gift of prevision so minute and so
marvellous as enabled him to describe the intermarriages of Ptolemies
and Seleucidæ four centuries later, surely the gift must have been
granted for some decisive end. But these predictions are precisely
the ones which seem to have the smallest significance. We must say,
with Semler, that no such benefit seems likely to result from this
predetermination of comparatively unimportant minutiæ as God must
surely intend when He makes use of means of a very extraordinary
character. It might perhaps be said that the Book was written,
four hundred years before the crisis occurred, to console the Jews
under their brief period of persecution by the Seleucidæ. It would
be indeed extraordinary that so curious, distant, and roundabout
a method should have been adopted for an end which, in accordance
with the entire economy of God's dealings with men in revelation,
could have been so much more easily and so much more effectually
accomplished in simpler ways. Further, unless we accept an isolated
allusion to Daniel in the imaginary speech of the dying Mattathias,
there is no trace whatever that the Book had the smallest influence
in inspiring the Jews in that terrible epoch. And the reference of
Mattathias, if it was ever made at all, may be to old tradition, and
does not allude to the prophecies about Antiochus and his fate.
But, as Hengstenberg, the chief supporter of the authenticity of the
Book of Daniel, well observes,[159] "Prophecy can never entirely
separate itself from the ground of the present, _to influence which
is always its more immediate object_, and to which therefore it must
constantly construct a bridge.[160] On this also rests all certainty of
exposition as to the future. _And that the means should be provided for
such a certainty_ is a necessary consequence of the Divine nature of
prophecy. A truly Divine prophecy cannot possibly swim in the air; nor
can the Church be left to mere guesses in the exposition of Scripture
which has been given to her as a light amid the darkness."
II. And as it does not start from the ground of the present, so too
the Book of Daniel reverses the method of prophecy with reference to
the future.
For the genuine predictions of Scripture _advance_ by slow and gradual
degrees from the uncertain and the general to the definite and the
special. Prophecy marches with history, and takes a step forward at
each new period.[161] So far as we know there is not a single instance
in which any prophet alludes to, much less dwells upon, any kingdom
which had not then risen above the political horizon.[162]
In Daniel the case is reversed: the only kingdom which was looming
into sight is dismissed with a few words, and the kingdom most dwelt
upon is the most distant and quite the most insignificant of all, of
the very existence of which neither Daniel nor his contemporaries had
even remotely heard.[163]
III. Then again, although the prophets, with their divinely
illuminated souls, reached far beyond intellectual sagacity and
political foresight, yet their hints about the future never distantly
approach to detailed history like that of Daniel. They do indeed so
far lift the veil of the Unseen as to shadow forth the outline of the
near future, but they do this only on general terms and on general
principles.[164] Their object, as I have repeatedly observed, was
mainly moral, and it was also confessedly conditional, even when no
hint is given of the implied condition.[165] Nothing is more certain
than the wisdom and beneficence of that Divine provision which has
hidden the future from men's eyes, and even taught us to regard all
prying into its minute events as vulgar and sinful.[166] Stargazing
and monthly prognostication were rather the characteristics of false
religion and unhallowed divinations than of faithful and holy souls.
Nitzsch[167] most justly lays it down as an essential condition of
prophecy that it _should not disturb man's relation to history_.
Anything like detailed description of the future would intolerably
perplex and confuse our sense of human free-will. It would drive us to
the inevitable conclusion that men are but puppets moved irresponsibly
by the hand of inevitable fate. Not one such prophecy, unless this be
one, occurs anywhere in the Bible. We do not think that (apart from
Messianic prophecies) a single instance can be given in which any
prophet distinctly and minutely predicts a future series of events of
which the fulfilment was not _near_ at hand. In the few cases when
some event, already imminent, is predicted apparently with some detail,
it is not certain whether some touches--names, for instance--may not
have been added by editors living subsequently to the occurrence of
the event.[168] That there has been at all times a gift of prescience,
whereby the Spirit of God, "entering into holy souls, has made them
sons of God and prophets," is indisputable. It is in virtue of this
high foreknowledge[169] that the voice of the Hebrew Sibyl has
"Rolled sounding onwards through a thousand years
Her deep prophetic bodiments."
Even Demosthenes, by virtue of a statesman's thoughtful experience, can
describe it as his office and duty "to see events in their beginnings,
to discern their purport and tendencies from the first, and to forewarn
his countrymen accordingly." Yet the power of Demosthenes was as
nothing compared with that of an Isaiah or a Nahum; and we may safely
say that the writings alike of the Greek orator and the Hebrew prophets
would have been comparatively valueless had they merely contained
anticipations of future history, instead of dealing with truths whose
value is equal for all ages--truths and principles which give clearness
to the past, security to the present, and guidance to the future. Had
it been the function of prophecy to remove the veil of obscurity which
God in His wisdom has hung over the destinies of men and kingdoms, it
would never have attained, as it has done, to the love and reverence of
mankind.
IV. Another unique and abnormal feature is found in the close and
accurate _chronological calculations_ in which the Book of Daniel
abounds. We shall see later on that the dates of the Maccabean
reconsecration of the Temple and the ruin of Antiochus Epiphanes are
indicated _almost to the day_. The numbers of prophecy are in all
other cases symbolical and general. They are intentional compounds
of seven--the sum of three and four, which are the numbers that
mystically shadow forth God and the world--a number which even
Cicero calls "_rerum omnium fere modus_"; and of ten, the number
of the world.[170] If we except the prophecy of the seventy years'
captivity--which was a round number, and is in no respect parallel
to the periods of Daniel--there is no other instance in the Bible of
a _chronological_ prophecy. We say no other instance, because one of
the commentators who, in writing upon Daniel, objects to the remark
of Nitzsch that the numbers of prophecy are mystical, yet observes
on the one thousand two hundred and sixty days of Rev. xii. that
the number one thousand two hundred and sixty, or three and a half
years, "has _no_ historical signification whatever, and is only to be
viewed in its relation to the number seven--viz., as symbolising the
apparent victory of the world over the Church."[171]
V. Alike, then, in style, in matter, and in what has been called by
V. Orelli its "exoteric" manner,--alike in its definiteness and its
indefiniteness--in the point from which it starts and the period at
which it terminates--in its minute details and its chronological
indications--in the absence of the moral and the impassioned
element, and in the sense of fatalism which it must have introduced
into history had it been a genuine prophecy,--the Book of Daniel
differs from all the other books which compose that prophetic canon.
From that canon it was rightly and deliberately excluded by the Jews.
Its worth and dignity can only be rationally vindicated or rightly
understood by supposing it to have been the work of an unknown
moralist and patriot of the Maccabean age.
And if anything further were wanting to complete the cogency of the
internal evidence which forces this conclusion upon us, it is amply
found in a study of those books, confessedly apocryphal, which,
although far inferior to the Book before us, are yet of value, and
which we believe to have emanated from the same era.
They resemble this Book in their language, both Hebrew and Aramaic,
as well as in certain recurring expressions and forms to be found
in the Books of Maccabees and the Second Book of Esdras;--in their
style--rhetorical rather than poetical, stately rather than ecstatic,
diffuse rather than pointed, and wholly inferior to the prophets
in depth and power;--in the use of an apocalyptic method, and the
strange combination of dreams and symbols;--in the insertion, by way
of embellishment, of speeches and formal documents which can at the
best be only semi-historical;--finally, in the whole tone of thought,
especially in the quite peculiar doctrine of archangels, of angels
guarding kingdoms, and of opposing evil spirits. In short, the Book
of Daniel may be illustrated by the Apocryphal books in every single
particular. In the adoption of an illustrious name--which is the most
marked characteristic of this period--it resembles the _additions_
to the Book of Daniel, the Books of Esdras, the Letters of Baruch
and Jeremiah, and the Wisdom of Solomon. In the imaginary and
quasi-legendary treatment of history it finds a parallel in Wisdom
xvi.-xix., and parts of the Second Book of Maccabees and the Second
Book of Esdras. As an allusive narrative bearing on contemporaneous
events under the guise of describing the past, it is closely parallel
to the Book of Judith,[172] while the character of Daniel bears the
same relation to that of Joseph, as the representation of Judith
does to that of Jael. As an ethical development of a few scattered
historical data, tending to the marvellous and supernatural, but
rising to the dignity of a very noble and important religious
fiction, it is analogous, though incomparably superior, to Bel and
the Dragon, and to the stories of Tobit and Susanna.[173]
The conclusion is obvious; and it is equally obvious that, when we
suppose the name of Daniel to have been assumed, and the assumption
to have been supported by an antique colouring, we do not for a
moment charge the unknown author--who may very well have been Onias
IV.--with any dishonesty. Indeed, it appears to us that there are
many traces in the Book--φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν--which exonerate the
writer from any suspicion of _intentional_ deception. They may have
been meant to remove any tendency to error in understanding the
artistic guise which was adopted for the better and more forcible
inculcation of the lessons to be conveyed. That the stories of Daniel
offered peculiar opportunities for this treatment is shown by the
apocryphal additions to the Book; and that the practice was well
understood even before the closing of the Canon is sufficiently
shown by the Book of Ecclesiastes. The writer of that strange
and fascinating book, with its alternating moods of cynicism and
resignation, merely adopted the name of Solomon, and adopted it
with no dishonourable purpose; for he could not have dreamed that
utterances which in page after page betray to criticism their late
origin would really be identified with the words of the son of
David a thousand years before Christ. This may now be regarded as
an indisputable, and is indeed a no longer disputed, result of all
literary and philological inquiry.
It is to Porphyry, a Neoplatonist of the third century (born at Tyre,
A.D. 233; died in Rome, A.D. 303), that we owe our ability to write a
continuous historical commentary on the symbols of Daniel. That writer
devoted the twelfth book of his Λόγοι κατὰ Χριστιανῶν to a proof that
Daniel was not written till _after_ the epoch which it so minutely
described.[174] In order to do this he collected with great learning
and industry a history of the obscure Antiochian epoch from authors
most of whom have perished. Of these authors Jerome--the most valuable
part of whose commentary is derived from Porphyry--gives a formidable
list, mentioning among others Callinicus, Diodorus, Polybius,
Posidonius, Claudius, Theo, and Andronicus. It is a strange fact that
the exposition of a canonical book should have been mainly rendered
possible by an avowed opponent of Christianity. It was the object of
Porphyry to prove that the apocalyptic portion of the Book was not a
prophecy at all.[175] It used to be a constant taunt against those who
adopt his critical conclusions that their weapons are borrowed from
the armoury of an infidel. The objection hardly seems worth answering.
"_Fas est et ab hoste doceri._" If the enemies of our religion have
sometimes helped us the better to understand our sacred books, or to
judge more correctly respecting them, we should be grateful that their
assaults have been overruled to our instruction. The reproach is wholly
beside the question. We may apply to it the manly words of Grotius:
"_Neque me pudeat consentire Porphyrio, quando is in veram sententiam
incidit._" Moreover, St. Jerome himself could not have written his
commentary, as he himself admits, without availing himself of the aid
of the erudition of the heathen philosopher, whom no less a person than
St. Augustine called "_doctissimus philosophorum_," though unhappily he
was "_acerrimus christianorum inimicus_."
FOOTNOTES:
[158] Any apparently requisite modification of these words will be
considered hereafter.
[159] _On Revelations_, vol. i., p. 408 (E. Tr.).
[160] "Dient bei ihnen die Zukunft der Gegenwart, und ist selbst
fortgesetzte _Gegenwart_" (Behrmann, _Dan._, p. xi).
[161] See M. de Pressensé, _Hist. des Trois Prem. Siècles_, p. 283.
[162] See some admirable remarks on this subject in Ewald, _Die
Proph. d. Alt. Bund._, i. 23, 24; Winer, _Realwörterb._, _s.v._
"Propheten" Stähelin, _Einleit._, § 197.
[163] Comp. Enoch i. 2.
[164] Ewald, _Die Proph._, i. 27; Michel Nicolas, _Études sur la
Bible_, pp. 336 ff.
[165] Comp. Mic. iii. 12; Jer. xxvi. 1-19; Ezek. i. 21. Comp. xxix.
18, 19.
[166] Deut. xviii. 10.
[167] _System der christlichen Lehre_, p. 66.
[168] _E.g._, in the case of Josiah (1 Kings xiii. 2).
[169] _De Coronâ_, 73: ἰδεῖν τὰ πράγματα ἀρχόμενα καὶ προαισθέσθαι
καὶ προειπεῖν τοῖς ἄλλοις.
[170] The symbolism of numbers is carefully and learnedly worked out
in Bähr's _Symbolik_: cf. Auberlen, p. 133. The _several_ fulfilments
of the prophesied seventy years' captivity illustrate this.
[171] Hengstenberg, _On Revelations_, p. 609.
[172] All these particulars may be found, without any allusion to the
Book of Daniel, in the admirable article on the Apocrypha by Dean
Plumptre in Dr. Smith's _Dict. of the Bible_.
[173] Ewald, _Gesch. Isr._, iv. 541.
[174] "Et non tam Danielem _ventura dixisse_ quam illum _narrasse
præterita_" (Jer.).
[175] "Ad intelligendas autem extremas Danielis partes multiplex
Græcorum historia necessaria est" (Jer., _Proæm. Explan. in Dan.
Proph. ad f._). Among these Greek historians he mentions _eight_ whom
Porphyry had consulted, and adds, "Et si quando cogimur litterarum
sæcularium recordari ... non nostræ est voluntatis, sed ut dicam,
_gravissimæ necessitatis_." We know Porphyry's arguments mainly
through the commentary of Jerome, who, indeed, derived from Porphyry
the historic data without which the eleventh chapter, among others,
would have been wholly unintelligible.
CHAPTER VIII
_EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF THE GENUINENESS
UNCERTAIN AND INADEQUATE_
We have seen that there are many circumstances which force upon us
the gravest doubts as to the authenticity of the Book of Daniel. We
now proceed to examine the evidence urged in its favour, and deemed
adequate to refute the conclusion that in its present form it did not
see the light before the time of Antiochus IV.
Taking Hengstenberg as the most learned reasoner in favour of the
genuineness of Daniel, we will pass in review all the positive
arguments which he has adduced.[176] They occupy no less than one
hundred and ten pages (pp. 182-291) of the English translation of his
work on the genuineness of Daniel. Most of them are tortuous specimens
of special pleading inadequate in themselves, or refuted by increased
knowledge derived from the monuments and from further inquiry. To these
arguments neither Dr. Pusey nor any subsequent writer has made any
material addition. Some of them have been already answered, and many of
them are so unsatisfactory that they may be dismissed at once.
I. Such, for instance, are _the testimony of the author himself_. In
one of those slovenly treatises which only serve to throw dust in the
eyes of the ignorant we find it stated that, "although the name of
Daniel is not prefixed to his Book, the passages in which he speaks in
the first person _sufficiently prove_ that he was the author"! Such
assertions deserve no answer. If the mere assumption of a name be a
_sufficient proof_ of the authorship of a book, we are rich indeed in
Jewish authors--and, not to speak of others, our list includes works by
Adam, Enoch, Eldad, Medad, and Elijah. "Pseudonymity," says Behrmann,
"was a very common characteristic of the literature of that day, and
the conception of literary property was alien to that epoch, and
especially to the circle of writings of this class."
II. The character of the language, as we have seen already, proves
nothing. Hebrew and Aramaic long continued in common use side by side
at least among the learned,[177] and the divergence of the Aramaic
in Daniel from that of the Targums leads to no definite result,
considering the late and uncertain age of those writings.
III. How any argument can be founded on the exact knowledge of
history displayed by local colouring we cannot understand. Were
the knowledge displayed ever so exact it would only prove that the
author was a learned man, which is obvious already. But so far from
any remarkable accuracy being shown by the author, it is, on the
contrary, all but impossible to reconcile many of his statements
with acknowledged facts. The elaborate and tortuous explanations,
the frequent "subauditur," the numerous assumptions required to
force the text into accordance with the certain historic data of the
Babylonian and Persian empires, tell far more against the Book than
for it. The methods of accounting for these inaccuracies are mostly
self-confuting, for they leave the subject in hopeless confusion, and
each orthodox commentator shows how untenable are the views of others.
IV. Passing over other arguments of Keil, Hengstenberg, etc., which
have been either refuted already, or which are too weak to deserve
repetition, we proceed to examine one or two of a more serious
character. Great stress, for instance, is laid on the reception of the
Book into the Canon. We acknowledge the canonicity of the Book, its
high value when rightly apprehended, and its rightful acceptance as a
sacred book; but this in nowise proves its authenticity. The history
of the Old Testament Canon is involved in the deepest obscurity. The
belief that it was finally completed by Ezra and the Great Synagogue
rests on no foundation; indeed, it is irreconcilable with later
historic notices and other facts connected with the Books of Ezra,
Nehemiah, Esther, and the two Books of Chronicles. The Christian
Fathers in this, as in some other cases, implicitly believed what came
to them from the most questionable sources, and was mixed up with mere
Jewish fables. One of the oldest Talmudic books, the _Pirke Aboth_, is
entirely silent on the collection of the Old Testament, though in a
vague way it connects the Great Synagogue with the preservation of the
Law. The earliest mention of the legend about Ezra is in the Second
Book of Esdras (xiv. 29-48). This book does not possess the slightest
claim to authority, as it was not completed till a century after the
Christian era; and it mingles up with this very narrative a number
of particulars thoroughly fabulous and characteristic of a period
when the Jewish writers were always ready to subordinate history to
imaginative fables. The account of the magic cup, the forty days and
forty nights' dictation, the ninety books of which seventy were secret
and intended only for the learned, form part of the very passage from
which we are asked to believe that Ezra established our existing Canon,
though the genuine Book of Ezra is wholly silent about his having
performed any such inestimable service. It adds nothing to the credit
of this fable that it is echoed by Irenæus, Clemens Alexandrinus, and
Tertullian.[178] Nor are there any external considerations which render
it probable. The Talmudic tradition in the _Baba Bathra_,[179] which
says (among other remarks in a passage of which "the notorious errors
prove the unreliability of its testimony") that the men of the Great
Synagogue _wrote_ the Books of Ezekiel, the Twelve Minor Prophets,
_Daniel_, and Ezra.[180] It is evident that, so far as this evidence
is worth anything, it rather goes _against_ the authenticity of Daniel
than for it. The _Pirke Aboth_ makes Simon the Just (about B.C. 290)
a member of this Great Synagogue, of which the very existence is
dubious.[181]
Again, the author of the forged letter at the beginning of the Second
Book of Maccabees--"the work" says Hengstenberg, "of an arrant
impostor"[182]--attributes the collection of certain books first to
Nehemiah, and then, when they had been lost, to Judas Maccabæus (2
Macc. ii. 13, 14). The canonicity of the Old Testament books does not
rest on such evidence as this,[183] and it is hardly worth while to
pursue it further. That the Book of Daniel was regarded as authentic
by Josephus is clear; but this by no means decides its date or
authorship. It is one of the very few books of which Philo makes no
mention whatever.
V. Nor can the supposed traces of the early existence of the Book be
considered adequate to prove its genuineness. With the most important
of these, the story of Josephus (_Antt._, XI. viii. 5) that the high
priest Jaddua showed to Alexander the Great the prophecies of Daniel
respecting himself, we shall deal later. The alleged traces of the Book
in Ecclesiasticus are very uncertain, or rather wholly questionable;
and the allusion to Daniel in 1 Macc. ii. 60 decides nothing, because
there is nothing to prove that the speech of the dying Mattathias is
authentic, and because we know nothing certain as to the date of the
Greek translator of that book or of the Book of Daniel. The absence of
all allusion to the _prophecies_ of Daniel is, on the other hand, a
far more cogent point against the authenticity. Whatever be the date
of the Books of Maccabees, it is inconceivable that they should offer
no vestige of proof that Judas and his brothers received any hope or
comfort from such explicit predictions as Dan. xi., had the Book been
in the hands of those pious and noble chiefs.
The First Book of Maccabees cannot be certainly dated more than
a century before Christ, nor have we reason to believe that the
Septuagint version of the Book is much older.[184]
VI. The badness of the Alexandrian version, and the apocryphal
additions to it, seem to be rather an argument for the late age and
less established authority of the Book than for its genuineness.[185]
Nor can we attach much weight to the assertion (though it is endorsed
by the high authority of Bishop Westcott) that "it is far more
difficult to explain its composition in the Maccabean period than to
meet the peculiarities which it exhibits with the exigencies of the
Return." So far is this from being the case that, as we have seen
already, it resembles in almost every particular the acknowledged
productions of the age in which we believe it to have been written.
Many of the statements made on this subject by those who defend the
authenticity cannot be maintained. Thus Hengstenberg[186] remarks that
(1) "at this time the Messianic hopes are dead," and (2) "that no great
literary work appeared between the Restoration from the Captivity and
the time of Christ." Now the facts are _precisely the reverse in each
instance_. For (i) the little book called the Psalms of Solomon,[187]
which belongs to this period, contains _the strongest and clearest
Messianic hopes_, and the Book of Enoch most closely resembles Daniel
in its Messianic predictions. Thus it speaks of the pre-existence of
the Messiah (xlviii. 6, lxii. 7), of His sitting on a throne of glory
(lv. 4, lxi. 8), and receiving the power of rule.
(ii) Still less can we attach any force to Hengstenberg's argument
that, in the Maccabean age, the gift of prophecy was believed to
have departed for ever. Indeed, that is an argument in favour of the
pseudonymity of the Book. For in the age at which--for purposes of
literary form--it is represented as having appeared the spirit of
prophecy was far from being dead. Ezekiel was still living, or had
died but recently. Zechariah, Haggai, and long afterwards Malachi,
were still to continue the succession of the mighty prophets of their
race. Now, if prediction be an element in the prophet's work, no
prophet, nor all the prophets together, ever distantly approached
any such power of minutely foretelling the events of a distant
future--even the half-meaningless and all-but-trivial events of four
centuries later, in kingdoms which had not yet thrown their distant
shadows on the horizon--as that which Daniel must have possessed, if
he were indeed the author of this Book.[188] Yet, as we have seen, he
never thinks of claiming the functions of the prophets, or speaking
in the prophet's commanding voice, as the foreteller of the message
of God. On the contrary, he adopts the comparatively feebler and more
entangled methods of the literary composers in an age when men saw
not their tokens and there was no prophet more.[189]
We must postpone a closer examination of the questions as to the
"four kingdoms" intended by the writer, and of his curious and
enigmatic chronological calculations; but we must reject at once the
monstrous assertion--excusable in the days of Sir Isaac Newton, but
which has now become unwise and even portentous--that "to reject
Daniel's prophecies would be to undermine the Christian religion,
_which is all but founded on his prophecies respecting Christ_"!
Happily the Christian religion is not built on such foundations of
sand. Had it been so, it would long since have been swept away by
the beating rain and the rushing floods. Here, again, the arguments
urged by those who believe in the authenticity of Daniel recoil with
tenfold force upon themselves. Sir Isaac Newton's observations on the
prophecies of Daniel only show how little transcendent genius in one
domain of inquiry can save a great thinker from absolute mistakes in
another. In writing upon prophecy the great astronomer was writing
on the assumption of baseless premisses which he had drawn from
stereotyped tradition; and he was also writing at an epoch when the
elements for the final solution of the problem had not as yet been
discovered or elaborated. It is as certain that, had he been living
now, he would have accepted the conclusion of all the ablest and
most candid inquirers, as it is certain that Bacon, had he now been
living, would have accepted the Copernican theory. It is _absurdly_
false to say that "the Christian religion is all but founded on
Daniel's prophecies respecting Christ." If it were not absurdly
false, we might well ask, How it came that neither Christ nor His
Apostles ever once alluded to the existence of any such argument, or
ever pointed to the Book of Daniel and the prophecy of the seventy
weeks as containing the least germ of evidence in favour of Christ's
mission or the Gospel teaching? No such argument is remotely alluded
to till long afterwards by some of the Fathers.
But so far from finding any _agreement_ in the opinions of the
Christian Fathers and commentators on a subject which, in Newton's
view, was so momentous, we only find ourselves weltering in a chaos of
uncertainties and contradictions. Thus Eusebius records the attempt of
some early Christian commentators to treat the _last_ of the seventy
weeks as representing, not, like all the rest, seven years, but seventy
years, in order to bring down the prophecy to the days of Trajan!
Neither Jewish nor Christian exegetes have ever been able to come to
the least agreement between themselves or with one another as to the
beginning or end--the _terminus a quo_ or the _terminus ad quem_--with
reference to which the seventy weeks are to be reckoned. The Christians
naturally made great efforts to make the seventy weeks end with the
Crucifixion. But Julius Africanus[190] († A.D. 232), beginning with
the twentieth year of Artaxerxes (Neh. ii. 1-9, B.C. 444), gets only
four hundred and seventy-five to the Crucifixion, and to escape the
difficulty makes the years _lunar_ years.[191]
Hippolytus[192] separates the last week from all the rest, and
relegates it to the days of Antichrist and the end of the world.
Eusebius himself refers "the anointed one" to the line of Jewish
high priests, separates the last week from the others, ends it with
the fourth year after the Crucifixion, and refers the ceasing of
the sacrifice (Deut. ix. 27) to the rejection of Jewish sacrifices
by God after the death of Christ. Apollinaris makes the seventy
weeks begin with the birth of Christ, and argues that Elijah and
Antichrist were to appear A.D. 490! None of these views found
general acceptance.[193] Not one of them was sanctioned by Church
authority. Every one, as Jerome says, argued in this direction or
that _pro captu ingenii sui_. The climax of arbitrariness is reached
by Keil--the last prominent defender of the so-called "orthodoxy" of
criticism--when he makes the weeks not such commonplace things as
"earthly chronological weeks," but Divine, symbolic, and therefore
unknown and unascertainable periods. And are we to be told that it
is on such fantastic, self-contradictory, and mutually refuting
calculations that "the Christian religion is all but founded"? Thank
God, the assertion is entirely wild.
FOOTNOTES:
[176] Hävernick is another able and sincere supporter; but Droysen
truly says (_Gesch. d. Hellenismus_, ii. 211), "Die Hävernickschen
Auffassung kann kein vernunftiger Mensch bestimmen."
[177] See Grimm, _Comment., zum I. Buch der Makk., Einleit._,
xvii.; Mövers in _Bonner Zeitschr._, Heft 13, pp. 31 ff.; Stähelin,
_Einleit._, p. 356.
[178] Iren., _Adv. Hæres._, iv. 25; Clem., _Strom._ i. 21, § 146;
Tert., _De Cult. Fæm._, i. 3; Jerome, _Adv. Helv._, 7; Ps. August.,
_De Mirab._, ii. 32, etc.
[179] _Baba Bathra_, f. 13_b_, 14_b_.
[180] See Oehler, _s.v._ "Kanon" (Herzog, _Encycl._).
[181] Rau, _De Synag. Magna._, ii. 66.
[182] _On Daniel_, p. 195.
[183] "Even after the Captivity," says Bishop Westcott, "the history of
the Canon, like all Jewish history up to the date of the Maccabees, is
wrapped in great obscurity. Faint traditions alone remain to interpret
results which are found realised when the darkness is first cleared
away" (_s.v._ "Canon," Smith's _Dict. of Bible_).
[184] See König, _Einleit._, § 80, 2.
[185] "In propheta Daniele Septuaginta interpretes multum ab Hebraica
veritate discordant" (Jerome, _ed._ Vallarsi, v. 646). In the LXX. are
first found the three apocryphal additions. For this reason the version
of Theodotion was substituted for the LXX., which latter was only
rediscovered in 1772 in a manuscript in the library of Cardinal Chigi.
[186] _On the Authenticity of Daniel_, pp. 159, 290 (E. Tr.).
[187] Psalms of Sol. xvii. 36, xviii. 8, etc. See Fabric., _Cod.
Pseudep._, i. 917-972; Ewald, _Gesch. d. Volkes Isr._, iv. 244.
[188] Even Auberlen says (_Dan._, p. 3, E. Tr.), "If prophecy is
anywhere a history of the future, it is here."
[189] See Vitringa, _De defectu Prophetiæ post Malachiæ tempora Obss.
Sacr._, ii. 336.
[190] _Demonstr. Evang._, viii.
[191] Of the Jews, the LXX. translators seem to make the seventy
weeks end with Antiochus Epiphanes; but in Jerome's day they made
the first year of "Darius the Mede" the _terminus a quo_, and
brought down the _terminus ad quem_ to Hadrian's destruction of the
Temple. Saadia the Gaon and Rashi reckon the seventy weeks from
Nebuchadrezzar to Titus, and make Cyrus the anointed one of ix. 25.
Abn Ezra, on the other hand, takes Nehemiah for "the anointed one."
What can be based on such varying and undemonstrable guesses? See
Behrmann, _Dan._, p. xliii.
[192] Hippolytus, _Fragm. in Dan._ (Migne, _Patr. Græc._, x.).
[193] See Bevan, pp. 141-145.
CHAPTER IX
_EXTERNAL EVIDENCE AND RECEPTION INTO
THE CANON_
The reception of the Book of Daniel anywhere into the Canon might be
regarded as an argument in favour of its authenticity, if the case
of the Books of Jonah and Ecclesiastes did not sufficiently prove
that canonicity, while it does constitute a proof of the value and
sacred significance of a book, has no weight as to its traditional
authorship. But in point of fact the position assigned by the Jews to
the Book of Daniel--not among the Prophets, where, had the Book been
genuine, it would have had a supreme right to stand, but only with
the Book of Esther, among the latest of the Hagiographa[194]--is a
strong argument for its late date. The division of the Old Testament
into Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa first occurs in the Prologue to
Ecclesiasticus (about B.C. 131)--"the Law, the Prophecies, and the
rest of the books."[195] In spite of its peculiarities, its prophetic
claims among those who accepted it as genuine were so strong that the
LXX. and the later translations unhesitatingly reckon the author among
the four greater prophets. If the Daniel of the Captivity had written
this Book, he would have had a far greater claim to this position among
the prophets than Haggai, Malachi, or the later Zechariah. Yet the Jews
deliberately placed the Book among the _Kethubîm_, to the writers of
which they indeed ascribe the Holy Spirit (_Ruach Hakkodesh_), but whom
they did not credit with the higher degree of prophetic inspiration.
Josephus expresses the Jewish conviction that, since the days of
Artaxerxes onwards, the writings which had appeared had not been deemed
worthy of the same reverence as those which had preceded them, because
there had occurred no unquestionable succession of prophets.[196] The
Jews who thus decided the true nature of the Book of Daniel must surely
have been guided by strong traditional, critical, historical, or other
grounds for denying (as they did) to the author the gift of prophecy.
Theodoret denounces this as "shameless impudence" ἀναισχυντίαν on their
part;[197] but may it not rather have been fuller knowledge or simple
honesty? At any rate, on any other grounds it would have been strange
indeed of the Talmudists to decide that the most minutely predictive
of the prophets--if indeed this _were_ a prophecy--wrote _without_ the
gift of prophecy.[198] It can only have been the late and suspected
appearance of the Book, and its marked phenomena, which led to its
relegation to the lowest place in the Jewish Canon. Already in 1
Macc. iv. 46 we find that the stones of the demolished pagan altar are
kept "until there should arise a prophet to show what should be done
with them"; and in 1 Macc. xiv. 41 we again meet the phrase "until
there should arise a faithful prophet." Before this epoch there is no
trace of the existence of the Book of Daniel, and not only so, but the
prophecies of the post-exilic prophets as to the future contemplate a
wholly different horizon and a wholly different order of events. Had
Daniel existed before the Maccabean epoch, it is impossible that the
rank of the Book should have been deliberately ignored. The Jewish
Rabbis of the age in which it appeared saw, quite correctly, that it
had points of affinity with other pseudepigraphic apocalypses which
arose in the same epoch. The Hebrew scholar Dr. Joel has pointed out
how, amid its immeasurable superiority to such a poem as the enigmatic
Cassandra of the Alexandrian poet Lycophron,[199] it resembles that
book in its _indirectness_ of nomenclature. Lycophron is one of the
pleiad of poets in the days of Ptolemy Philadelphus; but his writings,
like the Book before us, have probably received interpolations from
later hands. He never calls a god or a hero by his name, but always
describes him by a periphrasis, just as here we have "the King of the
North" and "the King of the South," though the name "Egypt" slips in
(Dan. xi. 8). Thus Hercules is "a three-nights' lion" (τριέσπερος
λέων), and Alexander the Great is "a wolf." A son is always "an
offshoot" (φίτυμα), or is designated by some other metaphor. When
Lycophron wants to allude to Rome, the Greek Ῥωμή is used in its sense
of "strength." The name Ptolemaios becomes by anagram ἀπὸ μέλιτος,
"from honey"; and the name Arsinoë becomes ἴον Ἥρας, "the violet of
Hera." We may find some resemblances to these procedures when we are
considering the eleventh chapter of Daniel.
It is a serious abuse of argument to pretend, as is done by
Hengstenberg, by Dr. Pusey, and by many of their feebler followers,
that "there are few books whose Divine authority is so fully
established by the testimony of the New Testament, and in particular
by our Lord Himself, as the Book of Daniel."[200] It is to the
last degree dangerous, irreverent, and unwise to stake the Divine
authority of our Lord on the maintenance of those ecclesiastical
traditions of which so many have been scattered to the winds for
ever. Our Lord, on one occasion, in the discourse on the Mount
of Olives, warned His disciples that, "when they should see the
abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing
in the holy place, they should flee from Jerusalem into the mountain
district."[201] There is nothing to prove that He Himself uttered
either the words "_let him that readeth understand_," or even
"_spoken of by Daniel the prophet_." Both of those may belong to
the explanatory narrative of the Evangelist, and the latter does
not occur in St. Mark. Further, in St. Luke (xxi. 20) there is _no_
specific allusion to Daniel at all; but instead of it we find,
"When ye see Jerusalem being encircled by armies, then know that
its desolation is near." We cannot be certain that the specific
reference to Daniel may not be due to the Evangelist. But without
so much as raising these questions, it is fully admitted that,
whether exactly in its present form or not, the Book of Daniel formed
part of the Canon in the days of Christ. If He directly refers to
it as a book known to His hearers, His reference lies as wholly
outside all questions of genuineness and authenticity as does St.
Jude's quotation from the Book of Enoch, or St. Paul's (possible)
allusions to the Assumption of Elijah,[202] or Christ's own passing
reference to the Book of Jonah. Those who attempt to drag in these
allusions as decisive critical dicta transfer them to a sphere wholly
different from that of the moral application for which they were
intended. They not only open vast and indistinct questions as to the
self-imposed limitations of our Lord's human knowledge as part of His
own voluntary "emptying Himself of His glory," but they also do a
deadly disservice to the most essential cause of Christianity.[203]
The only thing which is acceptable to the God of truth is truth; and
since He has given us our reason and our conscience as lights which
light every man who is born into the world, we must walk by these
lights in all questions which belong to these domains. History,
literature and criticism, and the interpretation of human language
do belong to the domain of pure reason; and we must not be bribed
by the misapplication of hypothetical exegesis to give them up for
the support of traditional views which advancing knowledge no longer
suffers us to maintain. It may be true or not that our Lord adopted
the title "Son of Man" (_Bar Enosh_) from the Book of Daniel;
but even if He did, which is at least disputable, that would only
show, what we all already admit, that in His time the Book was an
acknowledged part of the Canon. On the other hand, if our Lord and
His Apostles regarded the Book of Daniel as containing the most
explicit prophecies of Himself and of His kingdom, why did they never
appeal or even allude to it to prove that He was the promised Messiah?
Again, Hengstenberg and his school try to prove that the Book of
Daniel existed before the Maccabean age, because Josephus says that
the high priest Jaddua showed to Alexander the Great, in the year
B.C. 332, the prophecy of himself as the Grecian he-goat in the Book
of Daniel; and that the leniency which Alexander showed towards the
Jews was due to the favourable impression thus produced.[204]
The story, which is a beautiful and an interesting one, runs as
follows:--
On his way from Tyre, after capturing Gaza, Alexander decided to
advance to Jerusalem. The news threw Jaddua the high priest into an
agony of alarm. He feared that the king was displeased with the Jews,
and would inflict severe vengeance upon them. He ordered a general
supplication with sacrifices, and was encouraged by God in a dream to
decorate the city, throw open the gates, and go forth in procession
at the head of priests and people to meet the dreaded conqueror. The
procession, so unlike that of any other nation, went forth as soon as
they heard that Alexander was approaching the city. They met the king
on the summit of Scopas, the watch-tower--the height of Mizpah, from
which the first glimpse of the city is obtained. It is the famous
Blanca Guarda of the Crusaders, on the summit of which Richard I.
turned away, and did not deem himself worthy to glance at the city
which he was too weak to rescue from the infidel. The Phœnicians and
Chaldeans in Alexander's army promised themselves that they would
now be permitted to plunder the city and torment the high priest
to death. But it happened far otherwise. For when the king saw the
white-robed procession approaching, headed by Jaddua in his purple
and golden array, and wearing on his head the golden _petalon_, with
its inscription "Holiness to Jehovah," he advanced, saluted the
priest, and adored the Divine Name. The Jews encircled and saluted
him with unanimous greeting, while the King of Syria and his other
followers fancied that he must be distraught. "How is it," asked
Parmenio, "that you, whom all others adore, yourself adore the Jewish
high priest?" "I did not adore the high priest," said Alexander, "but
God, by whose priesthood He has been honoured. When I was at Dium in
Macedonia, meditating on the conquest of Asia, I saw this very man in
this same apparel, who invited me to march boldly and without delay,
and that he would conduct me to the conquest of the Persians." Then
he took Jaddua by the hand, and in the midst of the rejoicing priests
entered Jerusalem, where he sacrificed to God.[205] Jaddua showed him
the prediction about himself in the Book of Daniel, and in extreme
satisfaction he granted to the Jews, at the high priest's request,
all the petitions which they desired of him.
But this story, so grateful to Jewish vanity, is a transparent fiction.
It does not find the least support from any other historic source,
and is evidently one of the Jewish _Haggadoth_ in which the intense
national self-exaltation of that strange nation delighted to depict
the homage which they, and their national religion, extorted from the
supernaturally caused dread of the greatest heathen potentates. In this
respect it resembles the earlier chapters of the Book of Daniel itself,
and the numberless stories of the haughty superiority of great Rabbis
to kings and emperors in which the Talmud delights. Roman Catholic
historians, like Jahn and Hess, and older writers, like Prideaux,[206]
accept the story, even when they reject the fable about Sanballat
and the Temple on Gerizim which follows it. Stress is naturally laid
upon it by apologists like Hengstenberg; but an historian like Grote
does not vouchsafe to notice it by a single word, and most modern
writers reject it. The Bishop of Bath and Wells thinks that these
stories are "probably derived from some apocryphal book of Alexandrian
growth, in which chronology and history gave way to romance and Jewish
vanity."[207] All the historians except Josephus say that Alexander
went straight from Gaza to Egypt, and make no mention of Jerusalem or
Samaria; and Alexander was by no means "adored" by all men at that
period of his career, for he never received προσκύνησις till after his
conquest of Persia. Nor can we account for the presence of "Chaldeans"
in his army at this time, for Chaldea was then under the rule of
Babylon. Besides which, Daniel was expressly bidden, as Bleek observes,
to "seal up his prophecy till the time of the end"; and the "time of
the end" was certainly not the era of Alexander,--not to mention the
circumstance that Alexander, if the prophecies were pointed out to
him at all, would hardly have been content with the single verse or
two about himself, and would have been anything but gratified by what
immediately follows.[208]
I pass over as meaningless Hengstenberg's arguments in favour of the
genuineness of the Book from the predominance of symbolism; from the
moderation of tone towards Nebuchadrezzar; from the political gifts
shown by the writer; and from his prediction that the Messianic Kingdom
would at once appear after the death of Antiochus Epiphanes! When
we are told that these circumstances "can only be explained on the
assumption of a Babylonian origin"; that "they are directly opposed
to the spirit of the Maccabean time"; that the artifice with which
the writing is pervaded, supposing it to be a pseudepigraphic book,
"far surpasses the powers of the most gifted poet"; and that "such a
distinct expectation of the near advent of the Messianic Kingdom is
utterly without analogy in the whole of prophetic literature,"--such
arguments can only be regarded as appeals to ignorance. They are
either assertions which float in the air, or are disproved at once
alike by the canonical prophets and by the apocryphal literature of
the Maccabean age. Symbolism is the distinguishing characteristic of
apocalypses, and is found in those of the late post-exilic period.
The views of the Jews about Nebuchadrezzar varied. Some writers were
partially favourable to him, others were severe upon him. It does not
in the least follow that a writer during the Antiochian persecution,
who freely adapted traditional or imaginative elements, should
necessarily represent the old potentates as irredeemably wicked, even
if he meant to satirise Epiphanes in the story of their extravagances.
It was necessary for his purpose to bring out the better features of
their characters, in order to show the conviction wrought in them by
Divine interpositions. The notion that the Book of Daniel could only
have been written by a statesman or a consummate politician is mere
fancy. And, lastly, in making the Messianic reign begin immediately at
the close of the Seleucid persecution, the writer both expresses his
own faith and hope, and follows the exact analogy of Isaiah and all the
other Messianic prophets.
But though it is common with the prophets to pass at once from the
warnings of destruction to the hopes of a Messianic Kingdom which is
to arise immediately beyond the horizon which limits their vision,
it is remarkable--and the consideration tells strongly against the
authenticity of Daniel--that not one of them had the least glimpse
of the four successive kingdoms or of the four hundred and ninety
years;--not even those prophets _who, if the Book of Daniel were
genuine, must have had it in their hands_. To imagine that Daniel
took means to have his Book left undiscovered for some four hundred
years, and then brought to light during the Maccabean struggle, is
a grotesque impossibility. If the Book existed, it must have been
known. Yet not only is there no real trace of its existence before
B.C. 167, but the post-exilic prophets pay no sort of regard to
its detailed predictions, and were evidently unaware that any such
predictions had ever been uttered. What room is there for Daniel's
four empires and four hundred and ninety years in such a prophecy
as Zech. ii. 6-13? The pseudepigraphic Daniel possibly took the
symbolism of four horns from Zech. i. 18, 19; but there is not
the slightest connexion between Zechariah's symbol and that of
the pseudo-Daniel. If the number four in Zechariah be not a mere
number of completeness with reference to the four quarters of the
world (comp. Zech. i. 18), the four horns symbolise either Assyria,
Babylonia, Egypt, and Persia, or more generally the nations which
had then scattered Israel (Zech. ii. 8, vi. 1-8; Ezek. xxxvii. 9);
so that the following promise does not even contemplate a victorious
succession of heathen powers. Again, what room is there for Daniel's
four successive pagan empires in any natural interpretation of
Haggai's "yet a little while and I will shake all nations" (Hag. ii.
7), and in the promise that this shaking shall take place in the
lifetime of Zerubbabel (Hag. ii. 20-23)? And can we suppose that
Malachi wrote that the messenger of the Lord should "suddenly" come
to His Temple with such prophecies as those of Daniel before him?[209]
But if it be thought extraordinary that a pseudepigraphic prophecy
should have been admitted into the Canon at all, even when placed low
among the _Kethubîm_, and if it be argued that the Jews would never
have conferred such an honour on such a composition, the answer is
that even when compared with such fine books as those of Wisdom and
Jesus the Son of Sirach, the Book has a right to such a place by its
intrinsic superiority. Taken as a whole it is far superior in moral
and spiritual instructiveness to any of the books of the Apocrypha.
It was profoundly adapted to meet the needs of the age in which it
originated. It was in its favour that it was written partly in Hebrew
as well as in Aramaic, and it came before the Jewish Church under the
sanction of a famous ancient name which was partly at least traditional
and historical. There is nothing astonishing in the fact that in an
age in which literature was rare and criticism unknown it soon came
to be accepted as genuine. Similar phenomena are quite common in
much later and more comparatively learned ages. One or two instances
will suffice. Few books have exercised a more powerful influence on
Christian literature than the spurious letters of Ignatius and the
pseudo-Clementines. They were accepted, and their genuineness was
defended for centuries; yet in these days no sane critic would imperil
his reputation by an attempt to defend their genuineness. The book
of the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite was regarded as genuine and
authoritative down to the days of the Reformation, and the author
professes to have seen the supernatural darkness of the Crucifixion;
yet "Dionysius the Areopagite" did not write before A.D. 532! The power
of the Papal usurpation was mainly built on the Forged Decretals,
and for centuries no one ventured to question the genuineness and
authenticity of those gross forgeries, till Laurentius Valla exposed
the cheat and flung the tatters of the Decretals to the winds. In the
eighteenth century Ireland could deceive even the acutest critics
into the belief that his paltry Vortigern was a rediscovered play
of Shakespeare; and a Cornish clergyman wrote a ballad which even
Macaulay took for a genuine production of the reign of James II. Those
who read the Book of Daniel in the light of Seleucid and Ptolemaic
history saw that the writer was well acquainted with the events of
those days, and that his words were full of hope, consolation, and
instruction. After a certain lapse of time they were in no position to
estimate the many indications that by no possibility could the Book
have been written in the days of the Babylonian Exile; nor had it yet
become manifest that all the detailed knowledge stops short with the
close of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. The enigmatical character
of the Book, and the varying elements of its calculations, led later
commentators into the error that the fourth beast and the iron legs
of the image stood for the Roman Empire, so that they did not expect
the Messianic reign at the close of the Greek Empire, which, in the
prediction, it immediately succeeds.[210]
How late was the date before the Jewish Canon was finally settled we
see from the Talmudic stories that but for Hananiah ben-Hizkiah, with
the help of his three hundred bottles of oil burnt in nightly studies,
even the Book of Ezekiel would have been suppressed, as being contrary
to the Law (_Shabbath_, f. 13, 2); and that but for the mystic line of
interpretation adopted by Rabbi Aqiba (A.D. 120) a similar fate might
have befallen the Song of Songs (_Yaddayim_, c. iii.; _Mish._, 5).
There is, then, the strongest reason to adopt the conclusion that the
Book of Daniel was the production of one of the _Chasidîm_ towards
the beginning of the Maccabean struggle, and that its immediate
object was to warn the Jews against the apostasies of commencing
Hellenism. It was meant to encourage the faithful, who were waging
a fierce battle against Greek influences and against the mighty
and persecuting heathen forces by which they were supported.[211]
Although the writer's knowledge of history up to the time of
Alexander the Great is vague and erroneous, and his knowledge of
the period which followed Antiochus entirely nebulous, on the other
hand his acquaintance with the period of Antiochus Epiphanes is so
extraordinarily precise as to furnish our chief information on some
points of that king's reign. Guided by these indications, it is
perhaps possible to fix the exact year and month in which the Book
saw the light--namely, about January B.C. 164.[212]
From Dan. viii. 14 it seems that the author had lived till the
cleansing of the Temple after its pollution by the Seleucid King (1
Macc. iv. 42-58). For though the Maccabean uprising is only called
"a little help" (xi. 34), this is in comparison with the splendid
future triumph and epiphany to which he looked forward. It is
sufficiently clear from 1 Macc. v. 15, 16, that the Jews, even after
the early victories of Judas, were in evil case, and that the nominal
adhesion of many Hellenising Jews to the national cause was merely
hypocritical (Dan. xi. 34).
Now the Temple was dedicated on December 25th, B.C. 165; and the
Book appeared before the death of Antiochus, which the writer
expected to happen at the end of the seventy weeks, or, as he
calculated them, in June 164. The king did not actually die till the
close of 164 or the beginning of 163 (1 Macc. vi. 1-16).[213]
FOOTNOTES:
[194] Jacob Perez of Valentia accounted for this by the hatred of the
Jews for Christianity! (Diestel, _Gesch. d. A.T._, p. 211).
[195] Comp. Luke xxiv. 44; Acts xxviii. 23; Philo, _De Vit. Cont._,
3. See Oehler in Herzog, _s.v._ "Kanon."
[196] _Jos. c. Ap._, I. 8.
[197] _Opp._ ed. Migne, ii. 1260: Εἰς τοσαύτην ἀναισχυντίαν ἤλασαν
ὡς καὶ τοῦ χόρου τῶν προφήτων τοῦτον ἀποσχοινίζειν. He may well add,
on his view of the date, εἰ γὰρ ταῦτα τῆς προφητείας ἀλλότρια, τίνα
προφητείας τὰ ἴδια;
[198] _Megilla_, 3, 1. Josephus, indeed, regards apocalyptic visions
as the highest form of prophecy (_Antt._, X. xi. 7); but the great
Rabbis Kimchi, Maimonides, Joseph Albo, etc., are strongly against
him. See Behrmann, p. xxxix.
[199] It has been described as "ein Versteck für Belesenheit, und ein
grammatischer Monstrum."
[200] Hengstenberg, p. 209.
[201] Matt. xxiv. 15; Mark xiii. 14.
[202] 1 Cor. ii. 9; Eph. v. 11.
[203] Hengstenberg's reference to 1 Peter i. 10-12, 1 Thess. ii. 3, 1
Cor. vi. 2, Heb. xi. 12, deserve no further notice.
[204] Jos., _Antt._, XI. viii. 5.
[205] There is nothing to surprise us in this circumstance, for
Ptolemy III. (_Jos. c. Ap._, II. 5) and Antiochus VII. (Sidetes,
_Antt._, XIII. viii. 2), Marcus Agrippa (_id._, XVI. ii. 1), and
Vitellius (_id._, XVIII. v. 3) are said to have done the same. Comp.
Suet., _Aug._, 93; Tert., _Apolog._, 6; and other passages adduced by
Schürer, i., § 24.
[206] Jahn, _Hebr. Commonwealth_, § 71; Hess, _Gesch._, ii. 37;
Prideaux, _Connection_, i. 540 ff.
[207] _Dict. of Bible_, _s.v._ "Jaddua." See Schürer, i. 187; Van
Dale, _Dissert. de LXX. Interpr._, 68 ff.
[208] This part of the story is a mere doublet of that about Cyrus
and the prophecies of Isaiah (_Antt._, XI. i. 2).
[209] Mal. iii. 1. LXX., ἐξαίφνης; Vulg., _statim_; but it is rather
"unawares" (_unversehens_).
[210] That the fourth empire could not be the Roman has _long_ been
seen by many critics, as far back as Grotius, L'Empereur, Chamier, J.
Voss, Bodinus, Becmann, etc. (Diestel, _Gesch. A. T._, p. 523).
[211] See Hamburger, _Real-Encycl._, _s.v._ "Geheimlehre," ii. 265.
The "Geheimlehre" (Heb., _Sithrî Thorah_) embraces a whole region of
Jewish literature, of which the Book of Daniel forms the earliest
beginning. See Dan. xii. 4-9. The phrases of Dan. vii. 22 are common
in the _Zohar_.
[212] "Plötzlich bei Antiochus IV. angekommen hört alle seine
Wissenschaft auf, so dass wir, den Kalendar in den Hand, _fast den
Tag angeben können_ wo dies oder jenes niedergeschrieben worden ist"
(Reuss, _Gesch. d. Heil. Schrift._, § 464).
[213] For arguments in favour of this view see Cornill, _Theol. Stud.
aus Ostpreussen_, 1889, pp. 1-32, and _Einleit._, p. 261. He reckons
twelve generations, sixty-nine "weeks," from the destruction of
Jerusalem to the murder of the high priest Onias III.
CHAPTER X
_SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION_
The contents of the previous sections may be briefly summarised.
I. The objections to the authenticity and genuineness of Daniel do not
arise, as is falsely asserted, from any _a-priori_ objection to admit
to the full the reality either of miracles or of genuine prediction.
Hundreds of critics who have long abandoned the attempt to maintain the
early date of Daniel believe both in miracles and prophecy.
II. The grounds for regarding the Book as a pseudepigraph are many
and striking. The very Book which would most stand in need of
overwhelming evidence in its favour is the one which furnishes the
most decisive arguments against itself, and has the least external
testimony in its support.
III. The historical errors in which it abounds tell overwhelmingly
against it. There was no deportation in the third year of Jehoiakim;
there was no King Belshazzar; the Belshazzar son of Nabunaid was not
a son of Nebuchadrezzar; the names Nebuchad_n_ezzar and Abed-nego are
erroneous in form; there was no "Darius the Mede" who preceded Cyrus
as king and conqueror of Babylon, though there was a later Darius,
the son of Hystaspes, who conquered Babylon; the demands and decrees
of Nebuchadrezzar are unlike anything which we find in history, and
show every characteristic of the Jewish Haggada; and the notion that a
faithful Jew could become President of the Chaldean Magi is impossible.
It is not true that there were only two Babylonian kings--there were
five: nor were there only four Persian kings--there were twelve.
Xerxes seems to be confounded alike with Darius Hystaspis and Darius
Codomannus as the last king of Persia. All correct accounts of the
reign, even of Antiochus Epiphanes, seem to end about B.C. 164, and the
indications in vii. 11-14, viii. 25, xi. 40-45, do not seem to accord
with the historic realities of the time indicated.
IV. The philological peculiarities of the Book are no less unfavourable
to its genuineness. The Hebrew is pronounced by the majority of
experts to be of a later character than the time assumed for it. The
Aramaic is not the Babylonian East-Aramaic, but the later Palestinian
West-Aramaic. The word _Kasdîm_ is used for "diviners," whereas at the
period of the Exile it was a national name. Persian words and titles
occur in the decrees attributed to Nebuchadrezzar. At least three Greek
words occur, of which one is certainly of late origin, and is known to
have been a favourite instrument with Antiochus Epiphanes.
V. There are no traces of the existence of the Book before the second
century B.C.,[214] although there are abundant traces of the other
books--Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Second Isaiah--which belong to the period
of the Exile. Even in Ecclesiasticus, while Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
and the twelve Minor Prophets are mentioned (Ecclus. xlviii. 20-25,
xlix. 6-10), not a syllable is said about Daniel, and that although
the writer erroneously regards prophecy as mainly concerned with
_prediction_. Jesus, son of Sirach, even goes out of his way to say
that no man like Joseph had risen since Joseph's time, though the story
of Daniel repeatedly recalls that of Joseph, and though, if Dan. i.-vi.
had been authentic history, Daniel's work was far more marvellous and
decisive, and his faithfulness more striking and continuous, than that
of Joseph. The earliest trace of the Book is in an imaginary speech of
a book written about B.C. 100 (1 Macc. ii. 59, 60).
VI. The Book was admitted by the Jews into the Canon; but so far
from being placed where, if genuine, it would have had a right to
stand--among the four Great Prophets---it does not even receive
a place among the twelve Minor Prophets, such as is accorded to
the much shorter and far inferior Book of Jonah. It is relegated
to the _Kethubîm_, side by side with such a book as Esther. If it
originated during the Babylonian Exile, Josephus might well speak
of its "undeviating prophetic accuracy."[215] Yet this absolutely
unparalleled and even unapproached foreteller of the minute future is
not allowed by the Jews any place at all in their prophetic Canon!
In the LXX. it is treated with remarkable freedom, and a number of
other _Haggadoth_ are made a part of it. It resembles Old Testament
literature in very few respects, and all its peculiarities are such
as abound in the later apocalypses and Apochrypha.[216] Philo, though
he quotes so frequently both from the Prophets and the Hagiographa,
does not even allude to the Book of Daniel.
VII. Its author seems to accept for himself the view of his age that
the spirit of genuine prophecy had departed for evermore.[217] He
speaks of himself as a student of the older prophecies, and alludes
to the Scriptures as an authoritative Canon--_Hassepharîm_, "_the_
books." His views and practices as regards three daily prayers
towards Jerusalem (vi. 11); the importance attached to Levitical
rules about food (i. 8-21); the expiatory and other value attached
to alms and fasting (iv. 24, ix. 3, x. 3); the angelology involving
even the names, distinctions, and rival offices of angels; the form
taken by the Messianic hope; the twofold resurrection of good and
evil,--are all in close accord with the standpoint of the second
century before Christ as shown distinctly in its literature.[218]
VIII. When we have been led by decisive arguments to admit the real
date of the Book of Daniel, its place among the Hagiographa confirms
all our conclusions. The Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa
represent, as Professor Sanday has pointed out, three layers or
stages in the history of the collection of the Canon. If the Book
of Chronicles was not accepted among the Histories (which were
designated "The Former Prophets"), nor the Book of Daniel among the
Greater or Lesser Prophets, the reason was that, at the date when the
Prophets were formally collected into a division of the Canon, these
books were not yet in existence, or at any rate had not been accepted
on the same level with the other books.[219]
IX. All these circumstances, and others which have been mentioned,
have come home to earnest, unprejudiced, and profoundly learned critics
with so irresistible a force, and the counter-arguments which are
adduced are so little valid, that the defenders of the genuineness are
now an ever-dwindling body, and many of them can only support their
basis at all by the hypothesis of interpolations or twofold authorship.
Thus C. v. Orelli[220] can only accept a modified genuineness, for
which he scarcely offers a single argument; but even he resorts to the
hypothesis of a late editor in the Maccabean age who put together the
traditions and general prophecies of the real Daniel. He admits that
without such a supposition--by which it does not seem that we gain
much--the Book of Daniel is wholly exceptional, and without a single
analogy in the Old Testament. And he clearly sees that all the rays of
the Book are focussed in the struggle against Antiochus as in their
central point,[221] and that the best commentary on the prophetic
section of the Book is the First Book of Maccabees.[222]
X. It may then be said with confidence that the critical view has
finally won the day. The human mind will in the end accept that theory
which covers the greatest number of facts, and harmonises best with
the sum-total of knowledge. Now, in regard to the Book of Daniel,
these conditions appear to be far better satisfied by the supposition
that the Book was written in the second century than in the sixth. The
history, imperfect as to the pseudepigraphic date, but very precise
as it approaches B.C. 176-164, the late characteristics which mark
the language, the notable silence respecting the Book from the sixth
to the second century, and its subsequent prominence and the place
which it occupies in the _Kethubîm_, are arguments which few candid
minds can resist. The critics of Germany, even the most moderate, such
as Delitzsch, Cornill, Riehm, Strack, C. v. Orelli, Meinhold, are
unanimous as to the late date of, at any rate, the prophetic section of
the Book; and even in the far more conservative criticism of England
there is no shadow of doubt on the subject left in the minds of such
scholars as Driver, Cheyne, Sanday, Bevan, and Robertson Smith. Yet,
so far from detracting from the value of the Book, we add to its real
value and to its accurate apprehension when we regard it, not as the
work of a prophet in the Exile, but of some faithful _Chasîd_ in
the days of the Seleucid tyrant, anxious to inspire the courage and
console the sufferings of his countrymen. Thus considered, the Book
presents some analogy to St. Augustine's _City of God_. It sets forth,
in strong outlines, and with magnificent originality and faith, the
contrast between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdoms of our God
and of His Christ, to which the eternal victory has been foreordained
from the foundation of the world. In this respect we must compare it
with the Apocalypse. Antiochus Epiphanes was an anticipated Nero.
And just as the agonies of the Neronian persecutions wrung from the
impassioned spirit of St. John the Divine those visions of glory and
that denunciation of doom, in order that the hearts of Christians in
Rome and Asia might be encouraged to the endurance of martyrdom, and to
the certain hope that the irresistible might of their weakness would
ultimately shake the world, so the folly and fury of Antiochus led the
holy and gifted Jew who wrote the Book of Daniel to set forth a similar
faith, partly in _Haggadoth_, which may, to some extent, have been
drawn from tradition, and partly in prophecies, of which the central
conception was that which all history teaches us--namely, that "for
every false word and unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for
lust and vanity, the price has to be paid at last, not always by the
chief offenders, but paid by some one. Justice and truth alone endure
and live. Injustice and oppression may be long-lived, but doomsday
comes to them at last."[223] And when that doom has been carried to its
ultimate issues, then begins the Kingdom of the Son of Man, the reign
of God's Anointed, and the inheritance of the earth by the Saints of
God.
FOOTNOTES:
[214] It is alluded to about B.C. 140 in the Sibylline Oracles (iii.
391-416), and in 1 Macc. ii. 59, 60.
[215] Jos., _Antt._, X. xi. 7.
[216] Ewald (_Hist. of Israel_, v. 208) thinks that the author had
read Baruch in Hebrew, because Dan. ix. 4-19 is an abbreviation of
Baruch i. 15-ii. 17.
[217] Psalm lxxiv. 9; 1 Macc. iv. 46, ix. 27, xiv. 41.
[218] See Cornill, _Einleit._, pp. 257-260.
[219] Sanday, _Inspiration_, p. 101. The name of "Earlier Prophets"
was given to the two Books of Samuel, of Kings, and of Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; and the twelve Minor Prophets (the latter
regarded as one book) were called "The Later Prophets." Cornill
places the collection of the Prophets into the Canon about B.C. 250.
[220] _Alttestament. Weissagung_, pp. 513-530 (Vienna, 1882).
[221] "Alle strahlen des Buches sich in dieser Epoche als in ihrem
Brennpunkte vereinigen" (C. v. Orelli, p. 514).
[222] Compare the following passages: Unclean meats, 1 Macc. i. 62-64,
"Many in Israel were fully resolved not to eat any unclean thing,"
etc.; 2 Macc. vi. 18-31, vii. 1-42. The decrees of Nebuchadrezzar (Dan.
iii. 4-6) and Darius (Dan. vi. 6-9) with the proceedings of Antiochus
(1 Macc. i. 47-51). Belshazzar's profane use of the Temple vessels
(Dan. v. 2) with 1 Macc. i. 23; 2 Macc. v. 16, etc.
[223] Froude, _Short Studies_, i. 17.
PART II
_COMMENTARY ON THE HISTORIC SECTION_
CHAPTER I
_THE PRELUDE_
"His loyalty he kept, his faith, his love."--MILTON.
The first chapter of the Book of Daniel serves as a beautiful
introduction to the whole, and strikes the keynote of faithfulness to
the institutions of Judaism which of all others seemed most important
to the mind of a pious Hebrew in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes.
At a time when many were wavering, and many had lapsed into open
apostasy, the writer wished to set before his countrymen in the most
winning and vivid manner the nobleness and the reward of obeying God
rather than man.
He had read in 2 Kings xxiv. 1, 2, that Jehoiakim had been a vassal
of Nebuchadrezzar for three years, which were not, however, the
first three years of his reign, and then had rebelled, and been
subdued by "bands of the Chaldeans" and their allies. In 2 Chron.
xxxvi. 6 he read that Nebuchadrezzar had "bound Jehoiakim in fetters
to carry him to Babylon."[224] Combining these two passages, he
seems to have inferred, in the absence of more accurate historical
indications, that the Chaldeans had besieged and captured Jerusalem
in the third year of Jehoiakim. That the date is erroneous there
can hardly be a question, for, as already stated,[225] neither
Jeremiah, the contemporary of Jehoiakim, nor the Book of Kings, nor
any other authority, knows anything of any siege of Jerusalem by the
Babylonian King in the third year of Jehoiakim. The Chronicler, a
very late writer, seems to have heard some tradition that Jehoiakim
had been taken captive, but he does not date this capture; and in
Jehoiakim's third year the king was a vassal, not of Babylon, but of
Egypt. Nabopolassar, not Nebuchadrezzar, was then King of Babylon.
It was not till the following year (B.C. 605), when Nebuchadrezzar,
acting as his father's general, had defeated Egypt at the Battle of
Carchemish, that any siege of Jerusalem would have been possible.
Nor did Nebuchadrezzar advance against the Holy City even after the
Battle of Carchemish, but dashed home across the desert to secure
the crown of Babylon on hearing the news of his father's death. The
only two considerable Babylonian deportations of which we know were
apparently in the eighth and nineteenth years of Nebuchadrezzar's
reign. In the former Jehoiachin was carried captive with ten thousand
citizens (2 Kings xxiv. 14-16; Jer. xxvii. 20); in the latter
Zedekiah was slain, and eight hundred and thirty-two persons carried
to Babylon (Jer. lii. 29; 2 Kings xxv. 11).[226]
There seems then to be, on the very threshold, every indication of
an historic inaccuracy such as could not have been committed if the
historic Daniel had been the true author of this Book; and we are
able, with perfect clearness, to point to the passages by which
the Maccabean writer was misled into a mistaken inference.[227] To
him, however, as to all Jewish writers, a mere variation in a date
would have been regarded as a matter of the utmost insignificance.
It in no way concerned the high purpose which he had in view, or
weakened the force of his moral fiction. Nor does it in the smallest
degree diminish from the instructiveness of the lessons which he has
to teach to all men for all time. A fiction which is true to human
experience may be as rich in spiritual meaning as a literal history.
Do we degrade the majesty of the Book of Daniel if we regard it as a
_Haggada_ any more than we degrade the story of the Prodigal Son when
we describe it as a Parable?
The writer proceeds to tell us that, after the siege,
Nebuchadrezzar--whom the historic Daniel could never have called
by the erroneous name Nebuchad_n_ezzar--took Jehoiakim (for this
seems to be implied), with some of the sacred vessels of the Temple
(comp. v. 2, 3), into the land of Shinar,[228] "to the house of his
god." This god, as we learn from Babylonian inscriptions, was Bel or
Bel-merodach, in whose temple, built by Nebuchadrezzar, was also "the
treasure-house of his kingdom."[229]
Among the captives were certain "of the king's seed, and of the
princes" (_Parthemîm_).[230] They were chosen from among such boys as
were pre-eminent for their beauty and intelligence, and the intention
was to train them as pages in the royal service, and also in such a
knowledge of the Chaldean language and literature as should enable
them to take their places in the learned caste of priestly diviners.
Their home was in the vast palace of the Babylonian King, of which
the ruins are now called Kasr. Here they may have seen the hapless
Jehoiachin still languishing in his long captivity.
They are called "children," and the word, together with the context,
seems to imply that they were boys of the age of from twelve to
fourteen. The king personally handed them over to the care of
Ashpenaz,[231] the Rabsaris, or "master of the eunuchs," who held
the position of lord high chamberlain.[232] It is probably implied
that the boys were themselves made eunuchs, for the incident seems
to be based on the rebuke given by Isaiah to the vain ostentation
of Hezekiah in showing the treasures of his temple and palace to
Merodach-baladan: "Behold the days come, that all that is in thine
house ... shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith
the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou
shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the
palace of the King of Babylon."[233]
They were to be trained in the learning (lit. "the book") and
language of Chaldea for three years; at the end of which period they
were to be admitted into the king's presence, that he might see how
they looked and what progress they had made. During those three years
he provided them with a daily maintenance of food and wine from his
table. Those who were thus maintained in Eastern courts were to be
counted by hundreds, and even by thousands, and their position was
often supremely wretched and degraded, as it still is in such Eastern
courts. The wine was probably imported. The food consisted of meat,
game, fish, joints, and wheaten bread. The word used for "provision"
is interesting. It is _path-bag_, and seems to be a transliteration,
or echo of a Persian word, _patibaga_ (Greek ποτίβαζις), a name
applied by the historian Deinon (B.C. 340) to barley bread and "mixed
wine in a golden egg from which the king drinks."[234]
But among these captives were four young Jews named Daniel, Hananiah,
Mishael, and Azariah.
Their very names were a witness not only to their nationality, but to
their religion. Daniel means "God is my judge"; Hananiah, "Jehovah is
gracious"; Mishael (perhaps), "who is equal to God?"[235] Azariah,
"God is a helper."
It is hardly likely that the Chaldeans would have tolerated the
use of such names among their young pupils, since every repetition
of them would have sounded like a challenge to the supremacy of
Bel, Merodach, and Nebo. It was a common thing to change names in
heathen courts, as the name of Joseph had been changed by the
Egyptians to Zaphnathpaaneah (Gen. xli. 45), and the Assyrians
changed the name of Psammetichus II. into _Nebo-serib-ani_, "Nebo
save me." They therefore made the names of the boys echo the names
of the Babylonian deities. Instead of "God is my judge," Daniel
was called Belteshazzar, "protect Thou his life."[236] Perhaps the
prayer shows the tender regard in which he was held by Ashpenaz.
Hananiah was called Shadrach, perhaps Shudur-aku, "command of Aku,"
the moon-deity; Mishael was called Meshach, a name which we cannot
interpret;[237] and Azariah, instead of "God is a help," was called
Abed-nego, a mistaken form for Abed-nebo, or "servant of Nebo."[238]
Even in this slight incident there may be an allusion to Maccabean
days. It appears that in that epoch the apostate Hellenising Jews
were fond of changing their names into Gentile names, which had a
somewhat similar sound. Thus Joshua was called "Jason," and Onias
"Menelaus."[239] This was done as part of the plan of Antiochus to
force upon Palestine the Greek language. So far the writer may have
thought the practice a harmless one, even though imposed by heathen
potentates. Such certainly was the view of the later Jews, even of
the strictest sect of the Pharisees. Not only did Saul freely adopt
the name of Paul, but Silas felt no scruple in being called by the
name Sylvanus, though that was the name of a heathen deity.
It was far otherwise with acquiescence in the eating of heathen
meats, which, in the days of the Maccabees, was forced upon many
of the Jews, and which, since the institution or reinstitution of
Levitism after the return from the Exile, had come to be regarded as
a deadly sin. It was during the Exile that such feelings had acquired
fresh intensity. At first they do not seem to have prevailed.
Jehoiachin was a hero among the Jews. They remembered him with
intense love and pity, and it does not seem to have been regarded as
any stain upon his memory that, for years together, he had, almost in
the words of Dan. i. 5, received a daily allowance from the table of
the King of Babylon.[240]
In the days of Antiochus Epiphanes the ordinary feeling on this subject
was very different, for the religion and nationality of the Jews were
at stake. Hence we read: "Howbeit many in Israel were fully resolved
and confirmed in themselves not to eat any unclean thing. Wherefore
they chose rather to die, that they might not be defiled with meats,
that they might not profane the holy covenant: so then they died."[241]
And in the Second Book of Maccabees we are told that on the king's
birthday Jews "were constrained by bitter constraint to eat of the
sacrifices," and that Eleazar, one of the principal scribes, an aged
and noble-looking man, preferred rather to be tortured to death,
"leaving his death for an example of noble courage, and a memorial
of value, not only unto young men, but unto all his nation."[242] In
the following chapter is the celebrated story of the constancy and
cruel death of seven brethren and their mother, when they preferred
martyrdom to tasting swine's flesh. The brave Judas Maccabæus, with
some nine companions, withdrew himself into the wilderness, and
"lived in the mountains after the manner of beasts with his company,
who fed on herbs continually, lest they should be partakers of the
pollution." The tone and object of these narratives are precisely the
same as the tone and object of the stories in the Book of Daniel; and
we can well imagine how the heroism of resistance would be encouraged
in every Jew who read those narratives or traditions of former days
of persecution and difficulty. "This Book," says Ewald, "fell like a
glowing spark from a clear heaven upon a surface which was already
intensely heated far and wide, and waiting to burst into flames."[243]
It may be doubtful whether such views as to ceremonial defilement were
already developed at the beginning of the Babylonian Captivity.[244]
The Maccabean persecution left them ingrained in the habits of the
people, and Josephus tells us a contemporary story which reminds us
of that of Daniel and his companions. He says that certain priests,
who were friends of his own, had been imprisoned in Rome, and that
he endeavoured to procure their release, "especially because I was
informed that they were not unmindful of piety towards God, but
supported themselves with figs and nuts," because in such eating of
dry food (ξηροφαγία, as it was called) there was no chance of heathen
defilement.[245] It need hardly be added that when the time came to
break down the partition-wall which separated Jewish particularism
from the universal brotherhood of mankind redeemed in Christ, the
Apostles--especially St. Paul--had to show the meaningless nature of
many distinctions to which the Jews attached consummate importance.
The Talmud abounds in stories intended to glorify the resoluteness
with which the Jews maintained their stereotyped Levitism; but Christ
taught, to the astonishment of the Pharisees and even of the disciples,
that it is not what entereth into a man which makes him unclean, but
the unclean thoughts which come from within, from the heart.[246] And
this He said, καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα--_i.e._, abolishing thereby
the Levitic Law, and "making all meats clean." Yet, even after this, it
required nothing less than that Divine vision on the tanner's roof at
Joppa to convince Peter that he was not to call "common" what God had
cleansed,[247] and it required all the keen insight and fearless energy
of St. Paul to prevent the Jews from keeping an intolerable yoke upon
their own necks, and also laying it upon the necks of the Gentiles.[248]
The four princely boys--they may have been from twelve to fourteen
years old[249]--determined not to share in the royal dainties, and
begged the Sar-hassarîsîm to allow them to live on pulse and water,
rather than on the luxuries in which--for them--lurked a heathen
pollution. The eunuch not unnaturally demurred. The daily rations were
provided from the royal table. He was responsible to the king for the
beauty and health, as well as for the training, of his young scholars;
and if Nebuchadrezzar saw them looking more meagre or haggard[250] than
the rest of the captives and other pages, the chamberlain's head might
pay the forfeit.[251] But Daniel, like Joseph in Egypt, had inspired
affection among his captors; and since the prince of the eunuchs
regarded him "with favour and tender love," he was the more willing to
grant, or at least to connive at, the fulfilment of the boy's wish. So
Daniel gained over the Melzar (or steward?),[252] who was in immediate
charge of the boys, and begged him to try the experiment for ten days.
If at the end of that time their health or beauty had suffered, the
question might be reconsidered.
So for ten days the four faithful children were fed on water, and on
the "seeds"--_i.e._, vegetables, dates, raisins, and other fruits,
which are here generally called "pulse."[253] At the end of the ten
days--a sort of mystic Persian week[254]--they were found to be
fairer and fresher than all the other captives of the palace.[255]
Thenceforth they were allowed without hindrance to keep the customs
of their country.
Nor was this all. During the three probationary years they continued
to flourish intellectually as well as physically. They attained to
conspicuous excellence "in all kinds of books and wisdom," and Daniel
also had understanding in all kinds of dreams and visions, to which
the Chaldeans attached supreme importance.[256] The Jews exulted in
these pictures of four youths of their own race who, though they
were strangers in a strange land, excelled all their alien compeers
in their own chosen fields of learning. There were already two such
pictures in Jewish history,--that of the youthful Moses, learned in
all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and a great man and a prince among
the magicians of Pharaoh; and that of Joseph, who, though there were
so many Egyptian diviners, alone could interpret dreams, whether in
the dungeon or at the foot of the throne. A third picture, that of
Daniel at the court of Babylon, is now added to them, and in all
three cases the glory is given directly, not to them, but to the God
of heaven, the God of their fathers.
At the close of the three years the prince of the eunuchs brought
all his young pages into the presence of the King Nebuchadrezzar.
He tested them by familiar conversation,[257] and found the four
Jewish lads superior to all the rest. They were therefore chosen
"to stand before the king"--in other words, to become his personal
attendants. As this gave free access to his presence, it involved a
position not only of high honour, but of great influence. And their
superiority stood the test of time. Whenever the king consulted them
on matters which required "wisdom of understanding," he found them
not only better, but "ten times better," than all the "magicians" and
"astrologers" that were in all his realm.[258]
The last verse of the chapter, "And Daniel continued even unto the
first year of King Cyrus," is perhaps a later gloss, for it appears
from x. 1 that Daniel lived, at any rate, till the _third_ year of
Cyrus. Abn Ezra adds the words "continued in _Babylon_," and Ewald
"at the king's court." Some interpret "continued" to mean "remained
alive." The reason for mentioning "the first year of Cyrus" may be to
show that Daniel survived the return from the Exile,[259] and also
to mark the fact that he attained a great age. For if he were about
fourteen at the beginning of the narrative, he would be eighty-five
in the first year of Cyrus. Dr. Pusey remarks: "Simple words, but
what a volume of tried faithfulness is unrolled by them! Amid all the
intrigues indigenous at all times in dynasties of Oriental despotism,
amid all the envy towards a foreign captive in high office as a
king's councillor, amid all the trouble incidental to the insanity
of the king and the murder of two of his successors, in that whole
critical period for his people, Daniel _continued_."[260]
The domestic anecdote of this chapter, like the other more splendid
narratives which succeed it, has a value far beyond the circumstances
in which it may have originated. It is a beautiful moral illustration
of the blessings which attend on faithfulness and on temperance,
and whether it be an _Haggada_ or an historic tradition, it equally
enshrines the same noble lesson as that which was taught to all time
by the early stories of the Books of Genesis and Exodus.[261]
It teaches the crown and blessing of faithfulness. It was the
highest glory of Israel "to uplift among the nations the banner of
righteousness." It matters not that, in this particular instance,
the Jewish boys were contending for a mere ceremonial rule which in
itself was immaterial, or at any rate of no eternal significance.
Suffice it that this rule presented itself to them in the guise of
a _principle_ and of a sacred duty, exactly as it did to Eleazar
the Scribe, and Judas the Maccabee, and the Mother and her seven
strong sons in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. They regarded it as
a duty to their laws, to their country, to their God; and therefore
upon them it was sacredly incumbent. And they were faithful to
it. Among the pampered minions and menials of the vast Babylonian
palace--undazzled by the glitter of earthly magnificence, untempted
by the allurements of pomp, pleasure, and sensuous indulgence--
"Amid innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,
Their loyalty they kept, their faith, their love."
And because God loves them for their constancy, because they remain
pure and true, all the Babylonian varletry around them learns the
lesson of simplicity, the beauty of holiness. Amid the outpourings
of the Divine favour they flourish, and are advanced to the highest
honours. This is one great lesson which dominates the historic
section of this Book: "Them that honour Me I will honour, and they
that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed." It is the lesson of
Joseph's superiority to the glamour of temptation in the house of
Potiphar; of the choice of Moses, preferring to suffer affliction
with the people of God rather than all the treasures of Egypt and
"to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter"; of Samuel's stainless
innocence beside the corrupting example of Eli's sons; of David's
strong, pure, ruddy boyhood as a shepherd-lad on Bethlehem's hills.
It is the anticipated story of that yet holier childhood of Him
who--subject to His parents in the sweet vale of Nazareth--blossomed
"like the flower of roses in the spring of the year, and as lilies by
the water-courses." The young human being who grows up in innocence
and self-control grows up also in grace and beauty, in wisdom and
"in favour with God and man." The Jews specially delighted in these
pictures of boyish continence and piety, and they lay at the basis of
all that was greatest in their national character.
But there also lay incidentally in the story a warning against
corrupting luxury, the lesson of the need for, and the healthfulness of,
"The rule of not too much by temperance taught."
"The love of sumptuous food and delicious drinks is never good," says
Ewald, "and with the use of the most temperate diet body and soul can
flourish most admirably, as experience had at that time sufficiently
taught."
To the value of this lesson the Nazarites among the Jews were a
perpetual witness. Jeremiah seems to single them out for the special
beauty which resulted from their youthful abstinence when he writes
of Jerusalem, "Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter
than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing
was of sapphires."[262]
It is the lesson which Milton reads in the story of Samson,--
"O madness! to think use of strongest wines
And strongest drinks our chief support of health,
When God, with these forbidden, made choice to rear
His mighty champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook!"
It is the lesson which Shakespeare inculcates when he makes the old
man say in _As You Like It_,--
"When I was young I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
Nor did not with unblushful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore mine age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, yet kindly."
The writer of this Book connects intellectual advance as well as
physical strength with this abstinence, and here he is supported even
by ancient and pagan experience. Something of this kind may perhaps
lurk in the ἄριστον μὲν ὕδωρ of Pindar; and certainly Horace saw that
gluttony and repletion are foes to insight when he wrote,--
"Nam corpus onustum
Hesternis vitiis animum quoque prægravat una,
Atque affigit humo divinæ particulam auræ."[263]
Pythagoras was not the only ancient philosopher who recommended and
practised a vegetable diet, and even Epicurus, whom so many regard as
"The soft garden's rose-encircled child,"
placed over his garden door the inscription that those who came
would only be regaled on barley-cakes and fresh water, to satisfy,
but not to allure, the appetite.
But the grand lesson of the picture is meant to be that the fair
Jewish boys were kept safe in the midst of every temptation to
self-indulgence, because they lived as in God's sight: and "he that
holds himself in reverence and due esteem for the dignity of God's
image upon him, accounts himself both a fit person to do the noblest
and godliest deeds, and much better worth than to deject and defile,
with such debasement and pollution as Sin is, himself so highly
ransomed and ennobled to a new friendship and filial relation with
God."[264]
FOOTNOTES:
[224] Comp. Jer. xxii. 18, 19, xxxvi. 30.
[225] See _supra_, p. 45.
[226] Jeremiah (lii. 28-30) mentions _three_ deportations, in the
seventh, eighteenth, and twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar; but
there are great difficulties about the historic verification, and the
paragraph (which is of doubtful genuineness) is omitted by the LXX.
[227] The manner in which the maintainers of the genuineness get
over this difficulty is surely an instance of such special pleading
as can convince no unbiassed inquirer. They conjecture (1) that
Nebuchadrezzar had been associated with his father, and received the
title of king before he really became king; (2) that by "_came to_
Jerusalem and besieged it" is meant "_set out towards_ Jerusalem, so
that (ultimately) he besieged it"; (3) and that a vague and undated
allusion in the Book of Chronicles, and a vague, unsupported, and
evidently erroneous assertion in Berossus--quoted by Josephus,
_Antt._, X. xi. 1; _c. Ap._, I. 19, who lived some two and a half
centuries after these events, and who does not mention any siege of
Jerusalem--can be so interpreted as to outweigh the fact that neither
contemporary histories nor contemporary records know anything of this
supposed deportation. Jeremiah (xxv. 1) says correctly that "the
_fourth_ year of Jehoiakim" was "the first year of Nebuchadrezzar";
and had Jerusalem been already captured and plundered, it is
impossible that he should not have alluded to the fact in that
chapter. An older subterfuge for "explaining" the error is that of
Saadia the Gaon, Abn Ezra, Rashi, etc., who interpret "the third year
of Jehoiakim" to mean "_the third year after his rebellion_ from
Nebuchadrezzar," which is not only impossible in itself, but also
contradicts Dan. ii. 1.
[228] Shinar is an archaism, supposed by Schrader to be a corruption
of Sumir, or Northern Chaldea (_Keilinschr._, p. 34); but see Hommel,
_Gesch. Bab. u. Assyr._, 220; F. Delitzsch, _Assyr. Gram._, 115. The
more common name in the exilic period was Babel (Jer. li. 9, etc.) or
Eretz Kasdim (Ezek. xii. 13).
[229] On this god--Marduk or Maruduk (Jer. l. 2)--comp. 2 Chron.
xxxvi. 7. See Schrader, _K. A. T._, pp. 273, 276; and Riehm,
_Handwörterb._, ii. 982.
[230] This seems to be a Persian word, _fratama_, "first." It is only
found in Esther. Josephus says that the four boys were connected with
Zedekiah (_Antt._, X. x. 1). Comp. Jer. xli. 1.
[231] Dan. i. 3; LXX., Ἀβιεσδρί. The name is of quite uncertain
derivation. Lenormant connects it with Abai-Istar, "astronomer of the
goddess Istar" (_La Divination_, p. 182). Hitzig sees in this strange
rendering Abiesdri the meaning "eunuch." A eunuch could have no son
to help him, so that his father is his help (_'ezer_). Ephræm Syrus,
in his Commentary, preserves both names (Schleusner, _Thesaurus_,
_s.v._ Ἀβιέσερ). We find the name Ash_k_enaz in Gen. x. 3. Theodot.
has Ἀσφανέζ. Among other guesses Lenormant makes Ashpenaz =
Assa-ibni-zir. Dr. Joel (_Notizen zum Buche Daniel_, p. 17) says that
since the Vulgate reads Ab_r_iesri, "ob nicht der Wort von rechts zu
links gelesen müsste?"
[232] Called in i. 7-11 the Sar-hassarîsîm (comp. Jer. xxxix. 3; Gen.
xxxvii. 36, _marg._; 2 Kings xviii. 17; Esther ii. 3). This officer
now bears the title of _Gyzlar Agha_.
[233] Isa. xxxix. 6, 7.
[234] Athen., _Deipnos_, xi. 583. See Bevan, p. 60; Max Müller in
Pusey, p. 565. How Professor Fuller can urge the presence of these
Persian words in proof of the genuineness of Daniel (_Speaker's
Commentary_, p. 250) I cannot understand. For Daniel does not seem
to have survived beyond the third year of the Persian dominion, and
it is extremely difficult to suppose that all these Persian words,
including titles of Nebuchadrezzar's officials, were already current
among the Babylonians. On the other hand, _Babylonian_ words seem to
be rare, though Daniel is represented as living nearly the whole of
a long life in Babylon. There is no validity in the argument that
these words could not have been known in the days of the Maccabees,
"for half of them are common in Syria, though the oldest extant
Syriac writers are _later by three centuries_ than the time of the
Maccabees" (Bevan, p. 41).
[235] The name Daniel occurs among Ezra's contemporaries in Ezra
viii. 2; Neh. x. 7, and the other names in Neh. viii. 4, x. 3, 24; 1
Esdras ix. 44.
[236] _Balatsu-utsur._ The name in this form had nothing to do with
Bel, as the writer of Daniel seems to have supposed (Dan. iv. 5), nor
yet with Beltis, the wife of Bel. See _supra_, p. 47. Comp. the names
Nabusarutsur, Sinsarutsur, Assursarutsur. Also comp. _Inscr. Semit._,
ii. 38, etc. Pseudo-Epiphanius says that Nebuchadrezzar meant Daniel
to be co-heir with his son Belshazzar.
[237] F. Delitzsch calls Meshach _vox hybrida_. Neither "Shadrach"
nor "Meshach" occurs on the monuments. "That the imposition of names
is a symbol of mastership over slaves is plain" (S. Chrys., _Opp._,
iii. 21; Pusey, p. 16). Comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 34 (Egyptians); xxiv. 17
(Babylonians); Ezra v. 14, Esther ii. 7 (Persians).
[238] Comp. Obadiah, Abdiel, Abdallah, etc. Schrader says, p. 429: "The
supposition that Nebo was altered to Nego, out of a contumelious desire
(which Jews often displayed) to alter, avoid, and insult the names of
idols, is out of place, since the other names are not altered."
[239] Jos., _Antt._, XII. v. 1; Derenbourg, _Palestine_, p. 34;
Ewald, _Hist._, v. 294 (E. Tr.); Munk, _Palestine_, p. 495, etc.
[240] See Ewald, _Gesch. Isr._, vi. 654. "They shall eat unclean
things in Assyria" (Hosea ix. 3). "The children of Israel shall eat
their defiled bread among the Gentiles" (Ezek. iv. 13, 14).
[241] 1 Macc. i. 62, 63.
[242] 2 Macc. vi. 18-31. Comp. the LXX. addition to Esther iv. 14, v.
4, where she is made to plead before God that she had not tasted of
the table of Haman or of the king's banquet. So Judith takes "clean"
bread with her into the camp of Holofernes (Judith x. 5), and Judas
and his followers live on herbs in the desert (2 Macc. v. 27). The
_Mishnah_ even forbids to take the bread, oil, or milk of the heathen.
[243] _Prophets of the O. T._, p. 184 (E. Tr.).
[244] Mr. Bevan says that the verb for "defile" (גאל), as a ritual
term for the idea of ceremonial uncleanness, is post-exilic; the
Pentateuch and Ezekiel used טמא (_Comment._, p. 61). The idea
intended is that the three boys avoided meat which might have been
killed with the blood and offered to idols, and therefore was not
_Kashar_ (Exod. xxxiv. 15).
[245] Jos., _Vit._, iii. Comp. Isa. lii. 11.
[246] Mark vii. 19 (according to the true reading and translation).
[247] Acts x. 14.
[248] 1 Cor. xi. 25. This rigorism was specially valued by the
Essenes and Therapeutæ. See Derenbourg, _Palestine_, note, vi.
[249] Plato, _Alcib._, i. 37; Xen., _Cyrop._, i. 2. Youths entered
the king's service at the age of seventeen.
[250] Lit. "sadder." LXX., σκυθρωποί.
[251] LXX., κινδυνεύσω τῷ ἰδίῳ τραχήλῳ.
[252] Perhaps the Assyrian _matstsara_, "guardian" (Delitzsch). There
are various other guesses (Behrmann, p. 5).
[253] Heb., זֵרֹעִים; LXX., σπέρματα; Vulg., _legumina_. Abn Ezra
took the word to mean "rice." Comp. Deut. xii. 15, 16; 1 Sam. xvii.
17, 18. Comp. Josephus (_Vit._, iii.), who tells us how the Jewish
priests, prisoners in Rome, fed on σύκοις καὶ καρύοις.
[254] Ewald, _Antiquities_, p. 131 f.
[255] Pusey (p. 17) quotes from Chardin's notes in Harmer (_Obs._,
lix.): "I have remarked that the countenance of the Kechicks (monks)
are, in fact, more rosy and smooth than those of others, and that
those who fast much are, notwithstanding, very beautiful, sparkling
with health, with a clear and lively countenance."
[256] The _Chartummîm_ are like the Egyptian ἱερογραμματεῖς. It is
difficult to conceive that there was less chance of pollution in
being elaborately trained in heathen magic and dream-interpretation
than in eating Babylonian food. But this was, so to speak, _extra
fabulam_. It did not enter into the writer's scheme of moral
edification. If, however, the story is meant to imply that these
youths accepted the heathen training, though (as we know from tablets
and inscriptions) the incantations, etc., in which it abounded were
intimately connected with idolatry, and were entirely unharmed by it,
this may indicate that the writer did not disapprove of the "Greek
training" which Antiochus tried to introduce, so far as it merely
involved an acquaintance with Greek learning and literature. This is
the view of Grätz. If so, the writer belonged to the more liberal
Jewish school which did not object to a study of the _Chokmath
Javanîth_, or "Wisdom of Javan" (Derenbourg, _Palestine_, p. 361).
[257] LXX., ἐλάλησε μετ' αὐτῶν. Considering the normal degradation
of pages at Oriental courts, of which Rycaut (referred to by Pusey,
p. 18) "gives a horrible account," their escape from the corruption
around them was a blessed reward of their faithfulness. They may now
have been seventeen, the age for entering the king's service (Xen.,
_Cyrop._, I. ii. 8). On the ordinary curse of the rule of eunuchs at
Eastern courts see an interesting note in Pusey, p. 21.
[258] On the names see Gesenius, _Isaiah_, ii. 355.
[259] Alluded to in ix. 25.
[260] _Daniel_, pp. 20, 21.
[261] Comp. Gen. xxxix. 21; 1 Kings viii. 50; Neh. i. 1; Psalm cvi. 46.
[262] Lam. iv. 7.
[263] Hor., _Sat._, II. ii. 77.
[264] Milton, _Reason of Church Government_.
CHAPTER II
_THE DREAM-IMAGE OF RUINED EMPIRES_
"With thee will I break in pieces rulers and captains."--JER.
li. 23.
The Book of Daniel is constructed with consummate skill to teach the
mighty lessons which it was designed to bring home to the minds of
its readers, not only in the age of its first appearance, but for
ever. It is a book which, so far from being regarded as unworthy
of its place in the Canon by those who cannot accept it as either
genuine or authentic, is valued by many such critics as a very noble
work of inspired genius, from which all the difficulties are removed
when it is considered in the light of its true date and origin. This
second chapter belongs to all time. All that might be looked upon as
involving harshnesses, difficulties, and glaring impossibilities,
if it were meant for literal history and prediction, vanishes when
we contemplate it in its real perspective as a lofty specimen of
imaginative fiction, used, like the parables of our Blessed Lord, as
the vehicle for the deepest truths. We shall see how the imagery of
the chapter produced a deep impress on the imagination of the holiest
thinkers--how magnificent a use is made of it fifteen centuries later
by the great poet of mediæval Catholicism.[265] It contains the germs
of the only philosophy of history which has stood the test of time.
It symbolises that ultimate conviction of the Psalmist that "God is
the Governor among the nations." No other conviction can suffice to
give us consolation amid the perplexity which surrounds the passing
phases of the destinies of empires.
The first chapter serves as a keynote of soft, simple, and delightful
music by way of overture. It calms us for the contemplation of the
awful and tumultuous scenes that are now in succession to be brought
before us.
The model which the writer has had in view in this _Haggadah_ is the
forty-first chapter of the Book of Genesis. In both chapters we have
magnificent heathen potentates--Pharaoh of Egypt, and Nebuchadrezzar
of Babylon. In both chapters the kings dream dreams by which they
are profoundly troubled. In both, their spirits are saddened. In
both, they send for all the _Chakamîm_ and all the _Chartummîm_ of
their kingdoms to interpret the dreams. In both, these professional
magicians prove themselves entirely incompetent to furnish the
interpretation. In both, the failure of the heathen oneirologists is
emphasised by the immediate success of a Jewish captive. In both, the
captives are described as young, gifted, and beautiful. In both, the
interpretation of the king's dream is rewarded by the elevation to
princely civil honours. In both, the immediate elevation to ruling
position is followed by life-long faithfulness and prosperity.
When we add that there are even close verbal resemblances between
the chapters, it is difficult not to believe that the one has been
influenced by the other.
The dream is placed "in the second year of the reign of
Nebuchadnezzar." The date is surprising; for the first chapter has
made Nebuchadrezzar a king of Babylon after the siege of Jerusalem
"in the third year of Jehoiakim"; and setting aside the historic
impossibilities involved in that date, this scene would then fall in
the _second_ year of the probation of Daniel and his companions, and
at a time when Daniel could only have been a boy of fifteen.[266]
The apologists get over the difficulty with the ease which suffices
superficial readers who are already convinced. Thus Rashi says
"_the second year of Nebuchadnezzar_," meaning "_the second year
after the destruction of the Temple_," _i.e._, his twentieth year!
Josephus, no less arbitrarily, makes it mean "the second year
after the devastation of Egypt."[267] By such devices anything may
stand for anything. Hengstenberg and his school, after having made
Nebuchadrezzar a king, conjointly with his father--a fact of which
history knows nothing, and indeed seems to exclude--say that the
second year of his reign does not mean the second year after he
became king, but the second year of his independent rule after the
death of Nabopolassar. This style of interpretation is very familiar
among harmonists, and it makes the interpretation of Scripture
perpetually dependent on pure fancy. It is perhaps sufficient to
say that Jewish writers, in works meant for spiritual teaching,
troubled themselves extremely little with minutiæ of this kind. Like
the Greek dramatists, they were unconcerned with details, to which
they attached no importance, which they regarded as lying outside
the immediate purpose of their narrative. But if any explanation be
needful, the simplest way is, with Ewald, Herzfeld, and Lenormant, to
make a slight alteration in the text, and to read "in the _twelfth_"
instead of "in the _second_ year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar."
There was nothing strange in the notion that God should have
vouchsafed a prophetic dream to a heathen potentate. Such instances
had already been recorded in the case of Pharaoh (Gen. xli.), as
well as of his chief courtiers (Gen. xl.); and in the case of
Abimelech (Gen. xx. 5-7). It was also a Jewish tradition that it
was in consequence of a dream that Pharaoh Necho had sent a warning
to Josiah not to advance against him to the Battle of Megiddo.[268]
Such dreams are recorded in the cuneiform inscriptions as having
occurred to Assyrian monarchs. Ishtar, the goddess of battles, had
appeared to Assur-bani-pal, and promised him safety in his war
against Teumman, King of Elam; and the dream of a seer had admonished
him to take severe steps against his rebel brother, the Viceroy of
Babylon. Gyges, King of Lydia, had been warned in a dream to make
alliance with Assur-bani-pal. In Egypt Amên-meri-hout had been warned
by a dream to unite Egypt against the Assyrians.[269] Similarly
in Persian history Afrasiab has an ominous dream, and summons all
the astrologers to interpret it; and some of them bid him pay no
attention to it.[270] Xerxes (Herod., iii. 19) and Astyages (Herod.,
i. 108) have dreams indicative of future prosperity or adversity. The
fundamental conception of the chapter was therefore in accordance
with history[271]--though to say, with the _Speaker's Commentary_,
that these parallels "_endorse the authenticity_ of the Biblical
narratives," is either to use inaccurate terms, or to lay the
unhallowed fire of false argument on the sacred altar of truth. It
is impossible to think without a sigh of the vast amount which would
have to be extracted from so-called "orthodox" commentaries, if such
passages were rigidly reprobated as a dishonour to the cause of God.
Nebuchadrezzar then--in the second or twelfth year of his
reign--dreamed a dream, by which (as in the case of Pharaoh) his
spirit was troubled and his sleep interrupted.[272] His state of
mind on waking is a psychological condition with which we are
all familiar. We awake in a tremor. We have seen something which
disquieted us, but we cannot recall what it was; we have had a
frightful dream, but we can only remember the terrifying impression
which it has left upon our minds.
Pharaoh, in the story of Joseph, remembered his dreams, and
only asked the professors of necromancy to furnish him with its
interpretation. But Nebuchadrezzar is here represented as a rasher
and fiercer despot, not without a side-glance at the raging folly
and tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes. He has at his command an army
of priestly prognosticators, whose main function it is to interpret
the various omens of the future. Of what use were they, if they
could not be relied upon in so serious an exigency? Were they to be
maintained in opulence and dignity all their lives, only to fail him
at a crisis? It was true that he had forgotten the dream, but it was
obviously one of supreme importance; it was obviously an intimation
from the gods: was it not clearly their duty to say what it meant?
So Nebuchadrezzar summoned together the whole class of Babylonian
augurs in all their varieties--the _Chartummîm_, "magicians,"
or book-learned;[273] the _Ashshaphîm_, "enchanters";[274] the
_Mekashaphîm_, "sorcerers";[275] and the _Kasdîm_, to which the
writer gives the long later sense of "dream-interpreters," which had
become prevalent in his own day.[276] In later verses he adds two
further sections of the students--the _Khakhamîm_, "wise men," and
the _Gazerîm_, or "soothsayers." Attempts have often been made, and
most recently by Lenormant, to distinguish accurately between these
classes of magi, but the attempts evaporate for the most part into
shadowy etymologies.[277] It seems to have been a literary habit
with the author to amass a number of names and titles together.[278]
It is a part of the stateliness and leisureliness of style which he
adopts, and he gives no indication of any sense of difference between
the classes which he enumerates, either here or when he describes
various ranks of Babylonian officials.
When they were assembled before him, the king informed them that he
had dreamed an important dream, but that it produced such agitation
of spirit as had caused him to forget its import.[279] He plainly
expected them to supply the failure of his memory, for "a dream not
interpreted," say the Rabbis, "is like a letter not read."[280]
Then spake the Chaldeans to the king, and their answer follows in
Aramaic (_Aramîth_), a language which continues to be used till the
end of chap. vii. The Western Aramaic, however, here employed could
not have been the language in which they spoke, but their native
Babylonian, a Semitic dialect more akin to Eastern Aramaic. The word
_Aramîth_ here, as in Ezra iv. 7, is probably a gloss or marginal
note, to point out the sudden change in the language of the Book.
With the courtly phrase, "O king, live for ever," they promised to
tell the king the interpretation, if he would tell them the dream.
"That I cannot do," said the king, "for it is gone from me.
Nevertheless, if you do not tell me both the dream and its
interpretation, you shall be hacked limb by limb, and your houses
shall be made a dunghill."[281]
The language was that of brutal despotism such as had been customary
for centuries among the ferocious tyrants of Assyria. The punishment
of dismemberment, dichotomy, or death by mutilation was common
among them, and had constantly been depicted on their monuments. It
was doubtless known to the Babylonians also, being familiar to the
apathetic cruelty of the East. Similarly the turning of the houses of
criminals into draught-houses was a vengeance practised among other
nations.[282] On the other hand, if the "Chaldeans" arose to the
occasion, the king would give them rewards and great honours. It is
curious to observe that the Septuagint translators, with Antiochus
in their mind, render the verse in a form which would more directly
remind their readers of Seleucid methods. "If you fail," they make
the king say, "you shall be made an example, and your goods shall be
forfeited to the crown."[283]
With "nervous servility" the magi answer to the king's extravagantly
unreasonable demand, that he must tell them the dream before they
can tell him the interpretation. Ewald is probably not far wrong in
thinking that a subtle element of irony and humour underlies this
scene. It was partly intended as a satirical reflection on the mad
vagaries of Epiphanes.
For the king at once breaks out into fury, and tells them that they
only want to gain (lit. "buy") time;[284] but that this should not
avail them. The dream had evidently been of crucial significance and
extreme urgency; something important, and perhaps even dreadful, must
be in the air. The very _raison d'être_ of these thaumaturgists and
stargazers was to read the omens of the future. If the stars told of
any human events, they could not fail to indicate something about the
vast trouble which overshadowed the monarch's dream, even though he
had forgotten its details. The king gave them to understand that he
looked on them as a herd of impostors; that their plea for delay was
due to mere tergiversation;[285] and that, in spite of the lying and
corrupt words which they had prepared in order to gain respite "till
the time be changed"[286]--that is, until they were saved by some
"lucky day" or change of fortune[287]--there was but one sentence
for them, which could only be averted by their vindicating their own
immense pretensions, and telling him his dream.
The "Chaldeans" naturally answered that the king's request was
impossible. The adoption of the Aramaic at this point may be partly
due to the desire for local colouring.[288] No king or ruler in the
world had ever imposed such a test on any _Kartum_ or _Ashshaph_ in
the world.[289] No living man could possibly achieve anything so
difficult. There were some gods whose dwelling _is_ with flesh; they
tenant the souls of their servants. But it is not in the power of
these genii to reveal what the king demands; they are limited by the
weakness of the souls which they inhabit.[290] It can only be done by
those highest divinities whose dwelling is not with flesh, but who
"haunt
The lucid interspace of world and world,"
and are too far above mankind to mingle with their thoughts.[291]
Thereupon the unreasonable king was angry and very furious, and the
decree went forth that the magi were to be slain _en masse_.
How it was that Daniel and his companions were not summoned to
help the king, although they had been already declared to be "ten
times wiser" than all the rest of the astrologers and magicians put
together, is a feature in the story with which the writer does not
trouble himself, because it in no way concerned his main purpose.
Now, however, since they were prominent members of the magian guild,
they are doomed to death among their fellows. Thereupon Daniel sought
an interview with Arioch, "the chief of the bodyguard,"[292] and
asked with gentle prudence why the decree was so harshly urgent. By
Arioch's intervention he gained an interview with Nebuchadrezzar, and
promised to tell him the dream and its interpretation, if only the
king would grant him a little time--perhaps but a single night.[293]
The delay was conceded, and Daniel went to his three companions, and
urged then to join in prayer that God would make known the secret
to them and spare their lives. Christ tells us that "if two shall
agree on earth as touching anything that they ask, it shall be done
for them."[294] The secret was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the
night, and he blessed "the God of heaven."[295] Wisdom and might
are His. Not dependent on "lucky" or "unlucky" days, He changeth
the times and seasons;[296] He setteth down one king and putteth up
another. By His revelation of deep and sacred things--for the light
dwelleth with Him--He had, in answer to their common prayer, made
known the secret.[297]
Accordingly Daniel bids Arioch not to execute the magians, but to go
and tell the king that he will reveal to him the interpretation of
his dream.
Then, by an obvious verbal inconsistency in the story, Arioch
is represented as going with haste to the king, with Daniel, and
saying that _he_ had found a captive Jew who would answer the king's
demands. Arioch could never have claimed any such merit, seeing that
Daniel had already given his promise to Nebuchadrezzar in person,
and did not need to be described. The king formally puts to Daniel
the question whether he could fulfil his pledge; and Daniel answers
that, though none of the _Khakhamîm_, _Ashshaphîm_, _Chartummîm_, or
_Gazerîm_[298] could tell the king his dream, yet there is a God in
heaven--higher, it is implied, than either the genii or those whose
dwelling is not with mortals--who reveals secrets, and has made known
to the king what shall be in the latter days.[299]
The king, before he fell asleep, had been deeply pondering the issues
of the future; and God, "the revealer of secrets,"[300] had revealed
those issues to him, not because of any supreme wisdom possessed by
Daniel, but simply that the interpretation might be made known.[301]
The king had seen[302] a huge gleaming, terrible colossus of many
colours and of different metals, but otherwise not unlike the huge
colossi which guarded the portals of his own palace. Its head was
of fine gold; its torso of silver; its belly and thighs of brass;
its legs of iron; its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.[303]
But while he gazed upon it as it reared into the sunlight, as though
in mute defiance and insolent security, its grim metallic glare, a
mysterious and unforeseen fate fell upon it.[304] The fragment of a
rock broke itself loose, not with hands, smote the image upon its
feet of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces. It had now nothing
left to stand upon, and instantly the hollow multiform monster
collapsed into promiscuous ruins.[305] Its shattered fragments became
like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, and the wind swept them
away;[306] but the rock, unhewn by any earthly hands, grew over the
fragments into a mountain that filled the earth.
That was the haunting and portentous dream; and this was its
interpretation:--
The head of gold was Nebuchadrezzar himself, the king of what Isaiah
had called "the golden city"[307]--a King of kings, ruler over the
beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and the children of
men.[308]
After him should come a second and an inferior kingdom, symbolised
by the arms and heart of silver.
Then a third kingdom of brass.
Finally a fourth kingdom, strong and destructive as iron. But in this
fourth kingdom was an element of weakness, symbolised by the fact
that the feet are partly of iron and partly of weak clay. An attempt
should be made, by intermarriages, to give greater coherency to these
elements; but it should fail, because they could not intermix. In the
days of these kings, indicated by the ten toes of the image, swift
destruction should come upon the kingdoms from on high; for the King of
heaven should set up a kingdom indestructible and eternal, which should
utterly supersede all former kingdoms. "The intense nothingness and
transitoriness of man's might in its highest estate, and the might of
God's kingdom, are the chief subjects of this vision."[309]
Volumes have been written about the four empires indicated by the
constituents of the colossus in this dream; but it is entirely
needless to enter into them at length. The vast majority of the
interpretations have been simply due to _a-priori_ prepossessions,
which are arbitrary and baseless. The object has been to make the
interpretations fit in with preconceived theories of prophecy, and
with the traditional errors about the date and object of the Book
of Daniel. If we first see the irresistible evidence that the Book
appeared in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, and then observe that
all its earthly "predictions" culminate in a minute description of
his epoch, the general explanation of the four empires, apart from
an occasional and a subordinate detail, becomes perfectly clear. In
the same way the progress of criticism has elucidated in its general
outlines the interpretation of the Book which has been so largely
influenced by the Book of Daniel--the Revelation of St. John. The
all-but-unanimous consensus of the vast majority of the sanest and
most competent exegetes now agrees in the view that the Apocalypse
was written in the age of Nero, and that its tone and visions were
predominantly influenced by his persecution of the early Christians,
as the Book of Daniel was by the ferocities of Antiochus against
the faithful Jews. Ages of persecution, in which plain-speaking was
impossible to the oppressed, were naturally prolific of apocalyptic
cryptographs. What has been called the "futurist" interpretation
of these books--which, for instance, regards the fourth empire of
Daniel as some kingdom of Antichrist as yet unmanifested--is now
universally abandoned. It belongs to impossible forms of exegesis,
which have long been discredited by the boundless variations of
absurd conjectures, and by the repeated refutation of the predictions
which many have ventured to base upon these erroneous methods. Even
so elaborate a work as Elliott's _Horæ Apocalypticæ_ would now be
regarded as a curious anachronism.
That the first empire, represented by the head of gold, is the
Babylonian, concentrated in Nebuchadrezzar himself, is undisputed,
because it is expressly stated by the writer (ii. 37, 38).
Nor can there be any serious doubt, if the Book be one coherent
whole, written by one author, that by the fourth empire is meant,
as in later chapters, that of Alexander and his successors--"_the
Diadochi_," as they are often called.
For it must be regarded as certain that the four elements of the
colossus, which indicate the four empires as they are presented to the
imagination of the heathen despot, are closely analogous to the same
four empires which in the seventh chapter present themselves as wild
beasts out of the sea to the imagination of the Hebrew seer. Since the
fourth empire is there, beyond all question, that of Alexander and his
successors, the symmetry and purpose of the Book prove conclusively
that the fourth empire here is also the Græco-Macedonian, strongly
and irresistibly founded by Alexander, but gradually sinking to utter
weakness by its own divisions, in the persons of the kings who split
his dominion into four parts. If this needed any confirmation, we find
it in the eighth chapter, which is mainly concerned with Alexander
the Great and Antiochus Epiphanes; and in the eleventh chapter,
which enters with startling minuteness into the wars, diplomacy, and
intermarriages of the Ptolemaic and Seleucid dynasties. In viii. 21 we
are expressly told that the strong he-goat is "the King of Grecia,"
who puts an end to the kingdoms of Media and Persia. The arguments of
Hengstenberg, Pusey, etc., that the Greek Empire was a civilising and
an ameliorating power, apply at least as strongly to the Roman Empire.
But when Alexander thundered his way across the dreamy East, he was
looked upon as a sort of shattering levin-bolt. The interconnexion
of these visions is clearly marked even here, for the juxtaposition
of iron and miry clay is explained by the clause "they shall mingle
themselves with the seed of men:[310] but they shall not cleave one
to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay." This refers to the
same attempts to consolidate the rival powers of the Kings of Egypt
and Syria which are referred to in xi. 6, 7, and 17. It is a definite
allusion which becomes meaningless in the hands of those interpreters
who attempt to explain the iron empire to be that of the Romans.
"That the _Greek_ Empire is to be the last of the Gentile empires
appears from viii. 17, where the vision is said to refer to 'the time
of the end.' Moreover, in the last vision of all (x.-xii.), the rise
and progress of the Greek Empire are related with many details, _but
nothing whatever_ is said of any subsequent empire. Thus to introduce
the Roman Empire into the Book of Daniel is to set at naught the
plainest rules of exegesis."[311]
The reason of the attempt is to make the termination of the
prophecy coincide with the coming of Christ, which is then--quite
unhistorically--regarded as followed by the destruction of the fourth
and last empire. But the interpretation can only be thus arrived at
by a falsification of facts. For the victory of Christianity over
Paganism, so decisive and so Divine, was in no sense a destruction of
the Roman Empire. In the first place that victory was not achieved
till three centuries after Christ's advent, and in the second place
it was rather a continuation and defence of the Roman Empire than its
destruction. The Roman Empire, in spite of Alaric and Genseric and
Attila, and because of its alliance with Christianity, may be said to
have practically continued down to modern times. So far from being
regarded as the shatterers of the Roman Empire, the Christian popes and
bishops were, and were often called, the _Defensores Civitatis_. That
many of the Fathers, following many of the Rabbis, regarded Rome as the
iron empire, and the fourth wild beast, was due to the fact that until
modern days the science of criticism was unknown, and exegesis was
based on the shifting sand.[312] If we are to accept their authority on
this question, we must accept it on many others, respecting views and
methods which have now been unanimously abandoned by the deeper insight
and advancing knowledge of mankind. The influence of Jewish exegesis
over the Fathers--erroneous as were its principles and fluctuating
as were its conclusions--was enormous. It was not unnatural for the
later Jews, living under the hatred and oppression of Rome, and still
yearning for the fulfilment of Messianic promises, to identify Rome
with the fourth empire. And this seems to have been the opinion of
Josephus, whatever that may be worth. But it is doubtful whether it
corresponds to another and earlier Jewish tradition. For among the
Fathers even Ephræm Syrus identifies the _Macedonian_ Empire with the
fourth empire, and he may have borrowed this from Jewish tradition.
But of how little value were early conjectures may be seen in the fact
that, for reasons analogous to those which had made earlier Rabbis
regard Rome as the fourth empire, two mediæval exegetes so famous as
Saadia the Gaon and Abn Ezra had come to the conclusion that the fourth
empire was--the Mohammedan![313]
Every detail of the vision as regards the fourth kingdom is minutely
in accord with the kingdom of Alexander. It can only be applied
to Rome by deplorable shifts and sophistries, the untenability of
which we are now more able to estimate than was possible in earlier
centuries. So far indeed as the _iron_ is concerned, that might by
itself stand equally well for Rome or for Macedon, if Dan. vii. 7, 8,
viii. 3, 4, and xi. 3 did not definitely describe the conquests of
Alexander. But all which follows is meaningless as applied to Rome,
nor is there anything in Roman history to explain any division of
the kingdom (ii. 41), or attempt to strengthen it by intermarriage
with other kingdoms (ver. 43). In the divided Græco-Macedonian
Empires of the Diadochi, the dismemberment of one mighty kingdom
into the four much weaker ones of Cassander, Ptolemy, Lysimachus,
and Seleucus began immediately after the death of Alexander (B.C.
323). It was completed as the result of twenty-two years of war after
the Battle of Ipsus (B.C. 301). The marriage of Antiochus Theos to
Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy Philadelphus (B.C. 249, Dan. xi. 6),
was as ineffectual as the later marriage of Ptolemy V. (Epiphanes)
to Cleopatra, the daughter of Antiochus the Great (B.C. 193), to
introduce strength or unity into the distracted kingdoms (xi. 17, 18).
The two legs and feet are possibly meant to indicate the two most
important kingdoms--that of the Seleucidæ in Asia, and that of
the Ptolemies in Egypt. If we are to press the symbolism still
more closely, the ten toes may shadow forth the ten kings who are
indicated by the ten horns in vii. 7.
Since, then, we are told that the first empire represents
Nebuchadrezzar by the head of gold, and since we have incontestably
verified the fourth empire to be the Greek Empire of Alexander and
his successors, it only remains to identify the intermediate empires
of silver and brass. And it becomes obvious that they _can_ only be
the Median and the Persian. That the writer of Daniel regarded these
empires as distinct is clear from v. 31 and vi.
It is obvious that the silver is meant for the Median Empire,
because, closely as it was allied with the Persian in the view of the
writer (vi. 9, 13, 16, viii. 7), he yet spoke of the two as separate.
The rule of "Darius the Mede," not of "Cyrus the Persian," is, in his
point of view, the "other smaller kingdom" which arose after that of
Nebuchadrezzar (v. 31). Indeed, this is also indicated in the vision
of the ram (viii. 3); for it has two horns, of which the higher and
stronger (the Persian Empire) rose up after the other (the Median
Empire); just as in this vision the Persian Empire represented by the
thighs of brass is clearly stronger than the Median Empire, which,
being wealthier, is represented as being of silver, but is smaller
than the other.[314] Further, the second empire is represented later
on by the second beast (vii. 5), and the three ribs in its mouth may
be meant for the three satrapies of vi. 2.
It may then be regarded as a certain result of exegesis that the four
empires are--(1) the Babylonian; (2) the Median; (3) the Persian; (4)
the Græco-Macedonian.
But what is the stone cut without hands which smote the image upon
his feet? It brake them in pieces, and made the collapsing _débris_
of the colossus like chaff scattered by the wind from the summer
threshing-floor. It grew till it became a great mountain which filled
the earth.
The meaning of the image being first smitten upon its _feet_ is that
the overthrow falls on the iron empire.
All alike are agreed that by the mysterious rock-fragment the writer
meant the Messianic Kingdom. The "mountain" out of which (as is
here first mentioned) the stone is cut is "the Mount Zion."[315] It
commences "_in the days of these kings_." Its origin is not earthly,
for it is "cut without hands." It represents "a kingdom" which "shall
be set up by the God of heaven," and shall destroy and supersede all
the kingdoms, and shall stand for ever.
Whether a personal Messiah was definitely prominent in the mind of
the writer is a question which will come before us when we consider
the seventh chapter. Here there is only a Divine Kingdom; and that
this is the dominion of Israel seems to be marked by the expression,
"the kingdom shall not be left to another people."
The prophecy probably indicates the glowing hopes which the writer
conceived of the future of his nation, even in the days of its direst
adversity, in accordance with the predictions of the mighty prophets
his predecessors, whose writings he had recently studied. Very few
of those predictions have as yet been literally fulfilled; not one
of them was fulfilled with such immediateness as the prophets
conceived, when they were "rapt into future times." To the prophetic
vision was revealed the glory that should be hereafter, but not the
times and seasons, which God hath kept in His own power, and which
Jesus told His disciples were not even known to the Son of Man
Himself in His human capacity.
Antiochus died, and his attempts to force Hellenism upon the Jews
were so absolute a failure, that, in point of fact, his persecution
only served to stereotype the ceremonial institutions which--not
entirely _proprio motu_, but misled by men like the false high
priests Jason and Menelaus--he had attempted to obliterate. But the
magnificent expectations of a golden age to follow were indefinitely
delayed. Though Antiochus died and failed, the Jews became by no
means unanimous in their religious policy. Even under the Hasmonæan
princes fierce elements of discord were at work in the midst of
them. Foreign usurpers adroitly used these dissensions for their own
objects, and in B.C. 37 Judaism acquiesced in the national acceptance
of a depraved Edomite usurper in the person of Herod, and a section
of the Jews attempted to represent _him_ as the promised Messiah![316]
Not only was the Messianic prediction unfulfilled in its literal
aspect "in the days of these kings,"[317] but even yet it has by no
means received its complete accomplishment. The "stone cut without
hands" indicated the kingdom, not--as most of the prophets seem to
have imagined when they uttered words which meant more than they
themselves conceived--of the literal Israel, but of that ideal Israel
which is composed, not of Jews, but of Gentiles. The divinest side of
Messianic prophecy is the expression of that unquenchable hope and of
that indomitable faith which are the most glorious outcome of all that
is most Divine in the spirit of man. That faith and hope have never
found even an ideal or approximate fulfilment save in Christ and in His
kingdom, which is now, and shall be without end.
But apart from the Divine predictions of the eternal sunlight visible
on the horizon over vast foreshortened ages of time which to God
are but as one day, let us notice how profound is the symbolism of
the vision--how well it expresses the surface glare, the inward
hollowness, the inherent weakness, the varying successions, the
predestined transience of overgrown empires. The great poet of
Catholicism makes magnificent use of Daniel's image, and sees its
deep significance. He too describes the ideal of all earthly empire
as a colossus of gold, silver, brass, and iron, which yet mainly
rests on its right foot of baked and brittle clay. But he tells us
that every part of this image, except the gold, is crannied through
and through by a fissure, down which there flows a constant stream of
tears.[318] These effects of misery trickle downwards, working their
way through the cavern in Mount Ida in which the image stands, till,
descending from rock to rock, they form those four rivers of hell,--
"Abhorrèd Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;
Cocytus, named of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage."[319]
There is a terrible grandeur in the emblem. Splendid and venerable
looks the idol of human empire in all its pomp and pricelessness. But
underneath its cracked and fissured weakness drop and trickle and
stream the salt and bitter runnels of misery and anguish, till the
rivers of agony are swollen into overflow by their coagulated scum.
* * * * *
It was natural that Nebuchadrezzar should have felt deeply impressed
when the vanished outlines of his dream were thus recalled to him
and its awful interpretation revealed. The manner in which he
expresses his amazed reverence may be historically improbable, but
it is psychologically true. We are told that "he fell upon his face
and worshipped Daniel," and the word "worshipped" implies genuine
adoration. That so magnificent a potentate should have lain on his
face before a captive Jewish youth and adored him is amazing.[320] It
is still more so that Daniel, without protest, should have accepted,
not only his idolatrous homage, but also the offering of "an oblation
and sweet incense."[321] That a Nebuchadrezzar should have been thus
prostrate in the dust before their young countryman would no doubt be
a delightful picture to the Jews, and if, as we believe, the story
is an unconnected _Haggada_, it may well have been founded on such
passages as Isa. xlix. 23, "Kings shall bow down to thee with their
faces toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet";[322]
together with Isa. lii. 15, "Kings shall shut their mouths at him:
for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which
they had not heard shall they perceive."
But it is much more amazing that Daniel, who, as a boy, had been so
scrupulous about the Levitic ordinance of unclean meats, in the scruple
against which the _gravamen_ lay in the possibility of their having
been offered to idols,[323] should, as a man, have allowed himself
to be treated exactly as the king treated his idols! To say that he
accepted this worship because the king was not adoring _him_, but the
God whose power had been manifested in him,[324] is an idle subterfuge,
for that excuse is offered by all idolaters in all ages. Very different
was the conduct of Paul and Barnabas when the rude population of Lystra
wished to worship them as incarnations of Hermes and Zeus. The moment
they heard of it they rent their clothes in horror, and leapt at once
among the people, crying out, "Sirs, why do ye such things? We also
are men of like passions with you, and are preaching unto you that ye
should turn from these vain ones unto the Living God."[325]
That the King of Babylon should be represented as at once
acknowledging the God of Daniel as "a God of gods," though he was a
fanatical votary of Bel-merodach, belongs to the general plan of the
Book. Daniel received in reward many great gifts, and is made "ruler
of all the wise men of Babylon, and chief of the governors [_signîn_]
over all the wise men of Babylon." About his acceptance of the civil
office there is no difficulty; but there is a quite insuperable
historic difficulty in his becoming a chief magian. All the wise men
of Babylon, whom the king had just threatened with dismemberment
as a pack of impostors, were, at any rate, a highly sacerdotal and
essentially idolatrous caste. That Daniel should have objected to
particular kinds of food from peril of defilement, and yet that he
should have consented to be chief hierarch of a heathen cult, would
indeed have been to strain at gnats and to swallow camels!
And so great was the distinction which he earned by his
interpretation of the dream, that, at his further request, satrapies
were conferred on his three companions; but he himself, like
Mordecai, afterwards "sat in the gate of the king."[326]
FOOTNOTES:
[265] Dante, _Inferno_, xiv. 94-120.
[266] The Assyrian and Babylonian kings, however, only dated their
reigns from the first new year after their accession.
[267] _Antt._, X. x. 3.
[268] 2 Chron. xxxv. 21. See _The Second Book of Kings_, p. 404
(Expositor's Bible).
[269] See Professor Fuller, _Speaker's Commentary_, vi. 265.
[270] Malcolm, _Hist. of Persia_, i. 39.
[271] The belief that dreams come from God is not peculiar to the
Jews, or to Egypt, or Assyria, or Greece (Hom., _Il._, i. 63; _Od._,
iv. 841), or Rome (Cic., _De Div._, _passim_), but to every nation of
mankind, even the most savage.
[272] Dan. ii. 1: "His dreaming brake from him." Comp. vi. 18; Esther
vi. 1: Jerome says, "Umbra quædam, et, ut ita dicam, aura somnii
atque vestigium remansit in corde regis, ut, referentibus aliis
posset reminisci eorum quæ viderat."
[273] Gen. xli. 8; Schrader, _K. A. T._, p. 26; _Records of the
Past_, i. 136.
[274] The word is peculiar to Daniel, both here in the Hebrew and
in the Aramaic. Pusey calls it "a common Syriac term, representing
some form of divination with which Daniel had become familiar in
Babylonia" (p. 40).
[275] Exod. vii. 11; Deut. xviii. 10; Isa. xlvii. 9, 12. Assyrian
_Kashshapu_.
[276] As in the rule "_Chaldæos ne consulito_." See _supra_, p. 48.
[277] The equivalents in the LXX., Vulgate, A.V., and other versions
are mostly based on uncertain guess-work. See E. Meyer, _Gesch. d.
Alterth._, i. 185; Hommel, _Gesch. Bab. u. Assyr._, v. 386; Behrmann,
p. 2.
[278] _E.g._, iii. 2, 3, officers of state; iii. 4, 5, etc.,
instruments of music; iii. 21, clothes.
[279] ii. 5: "The dream is gone from me," as in ver. 8 (Theodotion,
ἀπέστη). But the meaning may be the decree (or word) is "sure": for,
according to Nöldeke, _azda_ is a Persian word for "_certain_." Comp.
Esther vii. 7; Isa. xlv. 23.
[280] _Berachôth_, f. 10, 2. This book supplies a charm to be spoken
by one who has forgotten his dream (f. 55, 2).
[281] Dan. ii. 5, iii. 29. Theodot., εἰς ἀπωλείαν ἔσεσθε. Lit. "ye
shall be made into limbs." The LXX. render it by διαμελίζομαι,
_membratim concidor_, _in frusta fio_. Comp. Matt. xxiv. 51; Smith's
_Assur-bani-pal_, p. 137. The word _haddam_, "a limb," seems to be of
Persian origin--in modern Persian _andam_. Hence the verb _hadîm_ in
the Targum of 1 Kings xviii. 33. Comp. 2 Macc. i. 16, μέλη ποιεῖν.
[282] Comp. Ezra vi. 11; 2 Kings x. 27; _Records of the Past_, i. 27,
43.
[283] In iii. 96, καὶ ἡ οἰκία αὐτοῦ δημευθήσεται. Comp. 2 Macc. iii.
13: "But Heliodorus, because of the king's commandment, said, That in
anywise it must be brought into the king's treasury."
[284] LXX. Theodot., καιρὸν ἐξαγοράζετε (not in a _good_ sense, as in
Eph. v. 16; Col. iv. 5).
[285] Theodot., συνέθεσθε. Cf. John ix. 22.
[286] Theodot., ἔως οὗ ὁ καιρὸς παρέλθῃ.
[287] Esther iii. 7.
[288] The word _Aramîth_ may be (as Lenormant thinks) a gloss, as in
Ezra iv. 7.
[289] A curious parallel is adduced by Behrmann (_Daniel_, p. 7).
Rabia-ibn-nazr, King of Yemen, has a dream which he cannot recall,
and acts precisely as Nebuchadrezzar does (Wüstenfeld, p. 9).
[290] See Lenormant, _La Magie_, pp. 181-183.
[291] LXX., ii. 11: εἰ μή τις ἄγγελος.
[292] Lit. "chief of the slaughter-men" or "executioners." LXX.,
ἀρχιμάγειρος. The title is perhaps taken from the story, which in this
chapter is so prominently in the writer's mind, where the same title is
given to Potiphar (Gen. xxxvii. 36). Comp. 2 Kings xxv. 8; Jer. xxxix.
9. The name Arioch has been derived from _Erî-aku_, "servant of the
moon-god" (_supra_, p. 49), but is found in Gen. xiv. 1 as the name of
"the King of Ellasar." It is also found in Judith i. 6, "Arioch, King
of the Elymæans." An Erim-akû, King of Larsa, is found in cuneiform.
[293] If Daniel went (as the text says) _in person_, he must have
been already a very high official. (Comp. Esther v. 1; Herod., i.
99.) If so, it would have been strange that he should not have been
consulted among the magians. All these details are regarded as
insignificant, being extraneous to the general purport of the story
(Ewald, _Hist._, iii. 194).
[294] Matt. xviii. 19. The LXX. interpolate a ritual gloss: καὶ
παρήγγειλε νηστείαν καὶ δέησιν καὶ τιμωρίαν ζητῆσαι παρὰ τοῦ Κυρίου.
[295] The title is found in Gen. xxiv. 7, but only became common
after the Exile (Ezra i. 2, vi. 9, 10; Neh. i. 5, ii. 4).
[296] Comp. Dan. vii. 12; Jer. xxvii. 7; Acts i. 7, χρόνοι ἢ καιροί; 1
Thess. v. 1; Acts xvii. 26, ὁρίσας προτεταγμένους καιρούς.
[297] With the phraseology of this prayer comp. Psalm xxxvi. 9, xli.,
cxxxix. 12; Neh. ix. 5; 1 Sam. ii. 8; Jer. xxxii. 19; Job xii. 22.
[298] Here the new title _Gazerîm_, "prognosticators," is added to
the others, and is equally vague. It may be derived from _Gazar_, "to
cut"--that is, "to determine."
[299] Comp. Gen. xx. 3, xli. 25; Numb. xxii. 35.
[300] Comp. Gen. xli. 45.
[301] Dan. ii. 30: "For _their_ sakes that shall make known the
interpretation to the king" (A.V.). But the phrase seems merely to
be one of the vague forms for the impersonal which are common in the
_Mishnah_. The R.V. and Ewald rightly render it as in the text.
[302] Here we have (ver. 31) _aloo!_ "behold!" as in iv. 7, 10, vii.
8; but in vii. 2, 5, 6, 7, 13, we have _aroo!_
[303] In the four metals there is perhaps the same underlying thought
as in the Hesiodic and ancient conceptions of the four ages of the
world (Ewald, _Hist._, i. 368). Comp. the vision of Zoroaster quoted
from Delitzsch by Pusey, p. 97: "Zoroaster saw a tree from whose roots
sprang four trees of gold, silver, steel, and brass; and Ormuzd said to
him, 'This is the world; and the four trees are the four "times" which
are coming.' After the fourth comes, according to Persian doctrine,
Sosiosh, the Saviour." Behrmann refers also to Bahman Yesht (Spiegel,
_Eran. Alterth._, ii. 152); the Laws of Manu (Schröder, _Ind. Litt._,
448); and Roth (_Mythos von den Weltaltern_, 1860).
[304] Much of the imagery seems to have been suggested by Jer. li.
[305] Comp. Rev. xx. 11: καὶ τόπος οὐχ εὑρέθη αὐτοῖς.
[306] Psalm i. 4, ii. 9; Isa. xli. 15; Jer. li. 33, etc.
[307] Isa. xiv. 4.
[308] King of kings. Comp. Ezek. xxvi. 7; Ezra vii. 12; Isa.
xxxvi. 4. It is the Babylonian _Shar-sharrâni_, or _Sharru-rabbu_
(Behrmann). The Rabbis tried (impossibly) to construe this title,
which they thought only suitable to God, with the following clause.
But Nebuchadrezzar was so addressed (Ezek. xxvi. 7), as the Assyrian
kings had been before him (Isa. x. 8), and the Persian kings were
after him (Ezra vii. 12). The expression seems strange, but comp.
Jer. xxvii. 6, xxviii. 14. The LXX. and Theodotion mistakenly
interpolate ἰχθύες τῆς θαλάσσης.
[309] Pusey, p. 63.
[310] Comp. Jer. xxxi. 27.
[311] Bevan, p. 66.
[312] The interpretation is first found, amid a chaos of false
exegesis, in the Epistle of Barnabas, iv. 4, § 6.
[313] See Bevan, p. 65.
[314] On the distinction in the writer's mind between the Median and
Persian Empires see v. 28, 31, vi. 8, 12, 15, ix. 1, xi. 1, compared
with vi. 28, x. 1. In point of fact, the Persians and Medians were
long spoken of as distinct, though they were closely allied; and to
the Medes had been specially attributed the forthcoming overthrow
of Babylon: Jer. li. 28, "Prepare against her the nations with the
kings of the Medes." Comp. Jer. li. 11, and Isa. xiii. 17, xxi. 2,
"Besiege, O Media."
[315] See Isa. ii. 2, xxviii. 16; Matt. xxi. 42-44. "Le _mot_ de
Messie n'est pas dans Daniel. Le mot de _Meshiach_, ix. 26, désigne
l'autorité (probablement sacerdotale) de la Judée" (Renan, _Hist._,
iv. 358).
[316] See Kuenen, _The Prophets_, iii.
[317] No kings have been mentioned, but the ten toes symbolise ten
kings. Comp. vii. 24.
[318] Dante, _Inferno_, xiv. 94-120.
[319] Milton, _Paradise Lost_, ii. 575.
[320] It may be paralleled by the legendary prostrations of Alexander
the Great before the high priest Jaddua (Jos., _Antt._, XI. viii. 5),
and of Edwin of Deira before Paulinus of York (Bæda, _Hist._, ii.
14-16).
[321] Isa. xlvi. 6. The same verbs, "they fall down, yea they
worship," are there used of idols.
[322] Comp. Isa. lx. 14: "The sons also of them that afflicted thee
shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall
bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet."
[323] Comp. Rom. xiv. 23; Acts xv. 29; Heb. xiii. 9; 1 Cor. viii. 1;
Rev. ii. 14, 20.
[324] So Jerome: "Non tam Danielem quam in Daniele adorat Deum,
qui mysteria revelavit." Comp. Jos., _Antt._, XI. viii. 5, where
Alexander answers the taunt of Parmenio about his προσκύνησις of the
high priest: οὐ τοῦτον προσεκύνησα, τὸν δὲ Θεόν.
[325] Acts xiv. 14, 15.
[326] Esther iii. 2. Comp. 1 Chron. xxvi. 30. This corresponds to
what Xenophon calls αἱ ἐπὶ τὰς θύρας φοιτήσεις, and to our "right of
_entrée_."
CHAPTER III
_THE IDOL OF GOLD, AND THE FAITHFUL THREE_
"Every goldsmith is put to shame by his molten image: for his
molten image is vanity, and there is no breath in them. They are
vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they
shall perish."--JER. li. 17, 18.
"The angel of the Lord encampeth around them that fear Him, and
shall deliver them."--PSALM xxxiv. 7.
"When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt;
neither shall the flame kindle upon thee."--ISA. xliii. 2.
Regarded as an instance of the use of historic fiction to inculcate
the noblest truths, the third chapter of Daniel is not only superb in
its imaginative grandeur, but still more in the manner in which it
sets forth the piety of ultimate faithfulness, and of that
"Death-defying utterance of truth"
which is the essence of the most heroic and inspiring forms of
martyrdom. So far from slighting it, because it does not come before
us with adequate evidence to prove that it was even intended to
be taken as literal history, I have always regarded it as one of
the most precious among the narrative chapters of Scripture. It is
of priceless value as illustrating the deliverance of undaunted
faithfulness--as setting forth the truth that they who love God and
trust in Him must love Him and trust in Him even till the end, in
spite not only of the most overwhelming peril, but even when they
are brought face to face with apparently hopeless defeat. Death
itself, by torture or sword or flame, threatened by the priests and
tyrants and multitudes of the earth set in open array against them,
is impotent to shake the purpose of God's saints. When the servant of
God can do nothing else against the banded forces of sin, the world,
and the devil, he at least can die, and can say like the Maccabees,
"Let us die in our simplicity!" He may be saved from death; but even
if not, he must prefer death to apostasy, and will save his own
soul. That the Jews were ever reduced to such a choice during the
Babylonian exile there is no evidence; indeed, all evidence points
the other way, and seems to show that they were allowed with perfect
tolerance to hold and practise their own religion.[327] But in the
days of Antiochus Epiphanes the question which to choose--martyrdom
or apostasy--became a very burning one. Antiochus set up at Jerusalem
"the abomination of desolation," and it is easy to understand what
courage and conviction a tempted Jew might derive from the study
of this splendid defiance. That the story is of a kind well fitted
to haunt the imagination is shown by the fact that Firdausi tells
a similar story from Persian tradition of "a martyr hero who came
unhurt out of a fiery furnace."[328]
This immortal chapter breathes exactly the same spirit as the
forty-fourth Psalm.
"Our heart is not turned back,
Neither our steps gone out of Thy way:
No, not when Thou hast smitten us into the place of dragons,
And covered us with the shadow of death.
If we have forgotten the Name of our God,
And holden up our hands to any strange god,
Shall not God search it out?
For He knoweth the very secrets of the heart."
"Nebuchadnezzar the king," we are told in one of the stately overtures
in which this writer rejoices, "made an image of gold, whose height was
threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits, and he set it up
in the plains of Dura, in the province of Babylon."
No date is given, but the writer may well have supposed or have
traditionally heard that some such event took place about the
eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar's reign, when he had brought to
conclusion a series of great victories and conquests.[329] Nor are we
told whom the image represented. We may imagine that it was an idol of
Bel-merodach, the patron deity of Babylon, to whom we know that he did
erect an image;[330] or of Nebo, from whom the king derived his name.
When it is said to be "of gold," the writer, in the grandiose character
of his imaginative faculty, may have meant his words to be taken
literally, or he may merely have meant that it was gilded, or overlaid
with gold.[331] There were colossal images in Egypt and in Nineveh,
but we never read in history of any other gilded image ninety feet high
and nine feet broad.[332] The name of the plain or valley in which it
was erected--Dura--has been found in several Babylonian localities.[333]
Then the king proclaimed a solemn dedicatory festival, to which he
invited every sort of functionary, of which the writer, with his
usual πύργωσις and rotundity of expression, accumulates the eight
names. They were:--
1. The Princes, "satraps," or wardens of the realm.[334]
2. The Governors[335] (ii. 48).
3. The Captains.[336]
4. The Judges.[337]
5. The Treasurers or Controllers.[338]
6. The Counsellors.[339]
7. The Sheriffs.[340]
8. All the Rulers of the Provinces.
Any attempts to attach specific values to these titles are failures.
They seem to be a catalogue of Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian
titles, and may perhaps (as Ewald conjectured) be meant to represent
the various grades of three classes of functionaries--civil,
military, and legal.
Then all these officials, who with leisurely stateliness are named
again, came to the festival, and stood before the image. It is not
improbable that the writer may have been a witness of some such
splendid ceremony to which the Jewish magnates were invited in the
reign of Antiochus Epiphanes.[341]
Then a herald (_kerooza_[342]) cried aloud[343] a proclamation "to
all peoples, nations, and languages." Such a throng might easily have
contained Greeks, Phœnicians, Jews, Arabs, and Assyrians, as well as
Babylonians. At the outburst of a blast of "boisterous janizary-music"
they are all to fall down and worship the golden image.
Of the six different kinds of musical instruments, which, in his
usual style, the writer names and reiterates, and which it is
neither possible nor very important to distinguish, three--the harp,
psaltery, and bagpipe--are Greek; two, the horn and sackbut, have
names derived from roots found both in Aryan and Semitic languages;
and one, "the pipe," is Semitic. As to the list of officials, the
writer had added "and all the rulers of the provinces"; so here he
adds "and all kinds of music."[344]
Any one who refused to obey the order was to be flung, the same
hour, into the burning furnace of fire. Professor Sayce, in his
_Hibbert Lectures_, connects the whole scene with an attempt, first
by Nebuchadrezzar, then by Nabunaid, to make Merodach--who, to
conciliate the prejudices of the worshippers of the older deity Bel,
was called Bel-merodach--the chief deity of Babylon. He sees in the
king's proclamation an underlying suspicion that some would be found
to oppose his attempted centralisation of worship.[345]
The music burst forth, and the vast throng all prostrated themselves,
except Daniel's three companions, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego.
We naturally pause to ask where then was Daniel? If the narrative
be taken for literal history, it is easy to answer with the
apologist that he was ill; or was absent; or was a person of too
much importance to be required to prostrate himself; or that "the
Chaldeans" were afraid to accuse him. "_Certainly_," says Professor
Fuller, "had this chapter been the composition of a pseudo-Daniel, or
the record of a fictitious event, Daniel would have been introduced
and his immunity explained." Apologetic literature abounds in such
fanciful and valueless arguments. It would be just as true, and just
as false, to say that "certainly," if the narrative were historic,
his absence would have been explained; and all the more because he
was expressly elected to be "in the gate of the king." But if we
regard the chapter as a noble _Haggada_, there is not the least
difficulty in accounting for Daniel's absence. The separate stories
were meant to cohere to a certain extent; and though the writers of
this kind of ancient imaginative literature, even in Greece, rarely
trouble themselves with any questions which lie outside the immediate
purpose, yet the introduction of Daniel into this story would have
been to violate every vestige of verisimilitude. To represent
Nebuchadrezzar worshipping Daniel as a god, and offering oblations to
him on one page, and on the next to represent the king as throwing
him into a furnace for refusing to worship an idol, would have
involved an obvious incongruity. Daniel is represented in the other
chapters as playing his part and bearing his testimony to the God of
Israel; this chapter is separately devoted to the heroism and the
testimony of his three friends.
Observing the defiance of the king's edict, certain Chaldeans, actuated
by jealousy, came near to the king and "accused" the Jews.[346]
The word for "accused" is curious and interesting. It is literally
"_ate the pieces of the Jews_,"[347] evidently involving a metaphor
of fierce devouring malice.[348] Reminding the king of his decree,
they inform him that three of the Jews to whom he has given such high
promotion "thought well not to regard thee; thy god will they not
serve, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."[349]
Nebuchadrezzar, like other despots who suffer from the vertigo of
autocracy, was liable to sudden outbursts of almost spasmodic fury.
We read of such storms of rage in the case of Antiochus Epiphanes, of
Nero, of Valentinian I., and even of Theodosius. The double insult to
himself and to his god on the part of men to whom he had shown such
conspicuous favour transported him out of himself. For Bel-merodach,
whom he had made the patron god of Babylon, was, as he says in one
of his own inscriptions, "the Lord, the joy of my heart in Babylon,
which is the seat of my sovereignty and empire." It seemed to him
too intolerable that this god, who had crowned him with glory and
victory, and that he himself, arrayed in the plenitude of his
imperial power, should be defied and set at naught by three miserable
and ungrateful captives.
He puts it to them whether it was their set purpose[350] that they
would not serve his gods or worship his image. Then he offers them a
_locus pœnitentiæ_. The music should sound forth again. If they would
then worship--but if not, they should be flung into the furnace,--"and
who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?"
The question is a direct challenge and defiance of the God of Israel,
like Pharaoh's "And who is Jehovah, that I should obey His voice?"
or like Sennacherib's "Who are they among all the gods that have
delivered their land out of my hand?"[351] It is answered in each
instance by a decisive interposition.
The answer of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego is truly magnificent
in its unflinching courage. It is: "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need
to answer thee a word concerning this.[352] If our God whom we serve
be able to deliver us, He will deliver us from the burning fiery
furnace, and out of thy hand, O king. But if not,[353] be it known
unto thee, O king,[354] that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship
the golden image which thou hast set up."
By the phrase "if our God be able" no doubt as to God's _power_ is
expressed. The word "able" merely means "able in accordance with His
own plans."[355] The three children knew well that God can deliver, and
that He has repeatedly delivered His saints. Such deliverances abound
on the sacred page, and are mentioned in the Dream of Gerontius:--
"Rescue him, O Lord, in this his evil hour,
As of old so many by Thy mighty power:--
Enoch and Elias from the common doom;
Noe from the waters in a saving home;
Abraham from th' abounding guilt of Heathenesse,
Job from all his multiform and fell distress;
Isaac, when his father's knife was raised to slay;
Lot from burning Sodom on its judgment-day;
Moses from the land of bondage and despair;
Daniel from the hungry lions in their lair;
David from Golia, and the wrath of Saul;
And the two Apostles from their prison-thrall."
But the willing martyrs were also well aware that in many cases it
has _not_ been God's purpose to deliver His saints out of the peril
of death; and that it has been far better for them that they should
be carried heavenwards on the fiery chariot of martyrdom. They were
therefore perfectly prepared to find that it was the will of God
that they too should perish, as thousands of God's faithful ones had
perished before them, from the tyrannous and cruel hands of man; and
they were cheerfully willing to confront that awful extremity. Thus
regarded, the three words "_And if not_" are among the sublimest
words uttered in all Scripture. They represent the truth that
the man who trusts in God will continue to say even to the end,
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." They are the triumph
of faith over all adverse circumstances. It has been the glorious
achievement of man to have attained, by the inspiration of the
breath of the Almighty, so clear an insight into the truth that the
voice of duty must be obeyed to the very end, as to lead him to defy
every combination of opposing forces. The gay lyrist of heathendom
expressed it in his famous ode,--
"Justum et tenacem propositi virum
Non civium ardor prava jubentium
Non vultus instantis tyranni
Mente quatit solidâ."
It is man's testimony to his indomitable belief that the things of
sense are not to be valued in comparison to that high happiness which
arises from obedience to the law of conscience, and that no extremities
of agony are commensurate with apostasy. This it is which, more than
anything else, has, in spite of appearances, shown that the spirit of
man is of heavenly birth, and has enabled him to unfold
"The wings within him wrapped, and proudly rise
Redeemed from earth, a creature of the skies."
For wherever there is left in man any true manhood, he has never
shrunk from accepting death rather than the disgrace of compliance
with what he despises and abhors. This it is which sends our soldiers
on the forlorn hope, and makes them march with a smile upon the
batteries which vomit their cross-fires upon them; "and so die by
thousands the unnamed demigods." By virtue of this it has been
that all the martyrs have, "with the irresistible might of their
weakness," shaken the solid world.
* * * * *
On hearing the defiance of the faithful Jews--absolutely firm in its
decisiveness, yet perfectly respectful in its tone--the tyrant was
so much beside himself, that, as he glared on Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abed-nego, his very countenance was disfigured. The furnace was
probably one used for the ordinary cremation of the dead.[356] He
ordered that it should be heated seven times hotter than it was
wont to be heated,[357] and certain men of mighty strength who were
in his army were bidden to bind the three youths and fling them into
the raging flames. So, bound in their hosen, their tunics, their
long mantles,[358] and their other garments, they were cast into the
seven-times-heated furnace. The king's commandment was so urgent, and
the "tongue of flame" was darting so fiercely from the horrible kiln,
that the executioners perished in planting the ladders to throw them
in, but they themselves fell into the midst of the furnace.
The death of the executioners seems to have attracted no
special notice, but immediately afterwards Nebuchadrezzar
started in amazement and terror from his throne, and asked his
chamberlains,[359] "Did we not cast _three_ men _bound_ into the
midst of the fire?"
"True, O king," they answered.
"Behold," he said, "I see _four_ men _loose_, walking in the midst of
the fire, and they have no hurt, and the aspect of the fourth is like
a son of the gods!"[360]
Then the king approached the door of the furnace of fire, and
called, "Ye servants of the Most High God,[361] come forth." Then
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego came out of the midst of the fire;
and all the satraps, prefects, presidents, and court chamberlains
gathered round to stare on men who were so completely untouched by
the fierceness of the flames that not a hair of their heads had been
singed, nor their hosen shrivelled, nor was there even the smell
of burning upon them.[362] According to the version of Theodotion,
the king worshipped the Lord before them, and he then published a
decree in which, after blessing God for sending His angel to deliver
His servants who trusted in Him, he somewhat incoherently ordained
that "every _people, nation, or language_ which spoke any blasphemy
against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, should _be cut
in pieces_, and _his house made a dunghill_: since there is no other
god that can deliver after this sort."
Then the king--as he had done before--promoted Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abed-nego in the province of Babylon.[363]
Henceforth they disappear alike from history, tradition, and legend;
but the whole magnificent _Haggada_ is the most powerful possible
commentary on the words of Isa. xliii. 2: "When thou walkest through
the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee."[364]
How powerfully the story struck the imagination of the Jews is shown
by the not very apposite Song of the Three Children, with the other
apocryphal additions. Here we are told that the furnace was heated
"with rosin, pitch, tow, and small wood; so that the flame streamed
forth above the furnace forty and nine cubits. And it passed through,
and burned those Chaldeans it found about the furnace. But the angel
of the Lord came down into the furnace together with Azarias and his
fellows, and smote the flame of the fire out of the oven; and made
the midst of the furnace as it had been a moist whistling wind,[365]
so that the fire touched them not at all, neither hurt nor troubled
them."[366]
In the Talmud the majestic limitations of the Biblical story are
sometimes enriched with touches of imagination, but more often
coarsened by tasteless exhibitions of triviality and rancour. Thus in
the _Vayyikra Rabba_ Nebuchadrezzar tries to persuade the youths by
fantastic misquotations of Isa. x. 10, Ezek. xxiii. 14, Deut. iv. 28,
Jer. xxvii. 8; and they refute him and end with clumsy plays on his
name, telling him that he should bark (_nabach_) like a dog, swell like
a water-jar (_cod_), and chirp like a cricket (_tsirtsir_), which he
immediately did--_i.e._, he was smitten with lycanthropy.[367]
In _Sanhedrin_, f. 93, 1, the story is told of the adulterous false
prophets Ahab and Zedekiah, and it is added that Nebuchadrezzar
offered them the ordeal of fire from which the Three Children had
escaped. They asked that Joshua the high priest might be with them,
thinking that his sanctity would be their protection. When the king
asked why Abraham, though alone, had been saved from the fire of
Nimrod, and the Three Children from the burning furnace, and yet the
high priest should have been singed (Zech. iii. 2), Joshua answered
that the presence of two wicked men gave the fire power over him, and
quoted the proverb, "Two dry sticks kindle one green one."
In _Pesachin_, f. 118, 1, there is a fine imaginative passage on the
subject, attributed to Rabbi Samuel of Shiloh:--
"In the hour when Nebuchadrezzar the wicked threw Hananiah, Mishael and
Azariah into the midst of the furnace of fire, Gorgemi, the prince of
the hail, stood before the Holy One (blessed be He!) and said, 'Lord
of the world, let me go down and cool the furnace.' 'No,' answered
Gabriel; 'all men know that hail quenches fire;[368] but I, the prince
of fire, will go down and make the furnace cool within and hot without,
and thus work a miracle within a miracle.' The Holy One (blessed be
He!) said unto him, 'Go down.' In the self-same hour Gabriel opened his
mouth and said, 'And the truth of the Lord endureth for ever.'"
Mr. Ball, who quotes these passages from Wünsche's _Bibliotheca
Rabbinica_ in his Introduction to the Song of the Three
Children,[369] very truly adds that many Scriptural commentators
wholly lack the _orientation_ derived from the study of Talmudic and
Midrashic literature which is an indispensable preliminary to a right
understanding of the treasures of Eastern thought. They do not grasp
the inveterate tendency of Jewish teachers to convey doctrine by
concrete stories and illustrations, and not in the form of abstract
thought. "_The doctrine is everything; the mode of presentation has
no independent value._" To make the story the first consideration,
and the doctrine it was intended to convey an after-thought, as we,
with our dry Western literalness are predisposed to do, is to reverse
the Jewish order of thinking, and to inflict unconscious injustice on
the authors of many edifying narratives of antiquity.
The part played by Daniel in the apocryphal Story of Susanna is
probably suggested by the meaning of his name: "Judgment of God."
Both that story and Bel and the Dragon are in their way effective
fictions, though incomparably inferior to the canonical part of the
Book of Daniel.
And the startling decree of Nebuchadrezzar finds its analogy in
the decree published by Antiochus the Great to all his subjects
in honour of the Temple at Jerusalem, in which he threatened the
infliction of heavy fines on any foreigner who trespassed within the
limits of the Holy Court.[370]
FOOTNOTES:
[327] The false prophets Ahab and Zedekiah were "roasted in the fire"
(Jer. xxix. 22), which may have suggested the idea of this punishment
to the writer; but it was for committing "lewdness"--"folly," Judg.
xx. 6--in Israel, and for adultery and lies, which were regarded as
treasonable. In some traditions they are identified with the two
elders of the Story of Susanna. Assur-bani-pal burnt Samas-sum-ucin,
his brother, who was Viceroy of Babylon (about B.C. 648), and
Te-Umman, who cursed his gods (Smith, _Assur-bani-pal_, p. 138).
Comp. Ewald, _Prophets_, iii. 240. See _supra_, p. 44.
[328] Malcolm, _Persia_, i. 29, 30.
[329] Both in Theodotion and the LXX. we have ἔτους ὀκτωκαιδεκάτου.
The siege of Jerusalem was not, however, finished till the nineteenth
year of Nebuchadrezzar (2 Kings xxv. 8). Others conjecture that the
scene occurred in his thirty-first year, when he was "at rest in his
house, and flourishing in his palace" (Dan. iv. 4).
[330] _Records of the Past_, v. 113. The inscriptions of
Nebuchadrezzar are full of glorification of Marduk (Merodach), _id._,
v. 115, 135, vii. 75.
[331] Comp. Isa. xliv. 9-20. Mr. Hormuzd Rassan discovered a colossal
statue of Nebo at Nimroud in 1853. Shalmanezer III. says on his
obelisk, "I made an image of my royalty; upon it I inscribed the
praise of Asshur my master, and a true account of my exploits."
Herodotus (i. 183) mentions a statue of Zeus in Babylon, on which was
spent eight hundred talents of gold, and of another made of "solid
gold" twelve ells high.
[332] By the apologists the "image" or "statue" is easily toned
down into a bust on a hollow pedestal (Archdeacon Rose, _Speaker's
Commentary_, p. 270). The colossus of Nero is said to have been a
hundred and ten feet high, but was of marble. Nestle (_Marginalia_,
35) quotes a passage from Ammianus Marcellinus, which mentions a
colossal statue of Apollo reared by Antiochus Epiphanes, to which
there may be a side-allusion here.
[333] Schrader, p. 430: Dur-Yagina, Dur-Sargina, etc. LXX., ἐν πεδίῳ
τοῦ περιβόλου χώρας Βαβυλωνίας.
[334] LXX. and Vulg., _satrapæ_. Comp. Ezra viii. 36; Esther iii. 12.
Supposed to be the Persian _Khshatra-pāwan_ (Bevan, p. 79).
[335] _Signî_, Babylonian word (Schrader, p. 411).
[336] LXX., τοπάρχαι. Comp. _Pechah_, Ezra v. 14. An Assyrian word
(Schrader, p. 577).
[337] LXX., ἡγούμενοι. Perhaps the Persian _endarzgar_, or "counsellor."
[338] LXX., διοικηταί. Comp. Ezra vii. 21; but Grätz thinks there is
a mere scribe's mistake for the _gadbarî_ of vv. 24 and 27.
[339] This word is perhaps the old Persian _dàtabard_.
[340] The word is found here alone. Perhaps "advisers." On these
words see Bevan, p. 79; _Speaker's Commentary_, pp. 278, 279; Sayce,
_Assyr. Gr._, p. 110.
[341] Ewald, _Prophets_, v. 209; _Hist._, v. 294.
[342] The word has often been compared with the Greek κήρυξ, but the
root is freely found in Assyrian inscriptions (_Karaz_, "an edict").
[343] Comp. Rev. xviii. 2, ἔκραξεν ἐν ἰσχύϊ.
[344] See _supra_, p. 22. The _qar'na_ (horn, κέρας) and _sab'ka_
(σαμβύκη) are in root both Greek and Aramean. The "pipe"
(_mash'rôkîtha_) is Semitic. Brandig tries to prove that even in
Nebuchadrezzar's time these three Greek names (even the _symphonia_)
had been borrowed by the Babylonians from the Greeks; but the
combined weight of philological authority is against him.
[345] See _Hibbert Lectures_, chap. lxxxix., etc.
[346] Comp. vi. 13, 14.
[347] _Akaloo Qar'tsîhîn._
[348] It is "found in the Targum rendering of Lev. xix. 16 for a
talebearer, and is frequent as a Syriac and Arabic idiom" (Fuller).
[349] Jerome emphasises the element of jealousy, "Quos prætulisti
nobis et _captivos ac servos principes fecisti_, ii _elati in
superbiam_ tua præcepta contemnunt."
[350] The phrase is unique and of uncertain meaning.
[351] Exod. v. 2; Isa. xxxvi. 20; 2 Chron. xxxii. 13-17.
[352] Dan. iii. 16. LXX., οὐ χρείαν ἔχομεν; Vulg., _non oportet
nos_. To soften the brusqueness of the address, in which the Rabbis
(_e.g._, Rashi) rejoice, the LXX. add another Βασιλεῦ.
[353] Jerome explains "But if not" by _Quodsi noluerit_; and
Theodoret by εἴτε οὖν ῥύεται εἴτε καὶ μή.
[354] iii. 18. LXX., καὶ τότε φανερόν σοι ἔσται. Tert., from the Vet.
Itala, "tunc manifestum erit tibi" (_Scorp._, 8).
[355] Comp. Gen. xix. 22: "_I cannot do anything_ until thou be come
thither."
[356] Cremation prevailed among the Accadians, and was adopted by the
Babylonians (G. Bertin, _Bab. and Orient. Records_, i. 17-21). Fire
was regarded as the great purifier. In the Catacombs the scene of the
Three Children in the fire is common. They are painted walking in a
sort of open cistern full of flames, with doors beneath. The Greek
word is κάμινος (Matt. xiii. 42), "a calcining furnace."
[357] It seems very needless to introduce here, as Mr. Deane does in
Bishop Ellicott's commentary, the notion of the seven _Maskîm_ or
demons of Babylonian mythology. In the Song of the Three Children the
flames stream out forty-nine (7 × 7) cubits. Comp. Isa. xxx. 26.
[358] The meaning of these articles of dress is only conjectural:
they are--(1) _Sarbālîn_, perhaps "trousers," LXX. σαραβάροι, Vulg.
_braccæ_; (2) _Patîsh_, LXX. τιάραι, Vulg. _tiaræ_; (3) _Kar'bla_,
LXX. περικνημῖδες, Vulg. _calceamenta_. It is useless to repeat all
the guesses. _Sarbala_ is a "tunic" in the Talmud, Arab. _sirbal_;
and some connect _Patîsh_ with the Greek πέτασος. Judging from
Assyrian and Babylonian dress as represented on the monuments, the
youths were probably clad in turbans (the Median καυνάκη), an inner
tunic (the Median κάνδυς), an outer mantle, and some sort of leggings
(_anaxurides_). It is interesting to compare with the passage the
chapter of Herodotus (i. 190) about the Babylonian dress. He says
they wore a linen tunic reaching to the feet, a woollen over-tunic, a
white shawl, and slippers. It was said to be borrowed from the dress
of Semiramis.
[359] Chald., _haddab'rîn_; LXX., οἱ φίλοι τοῦ βασιλέως.
[360] The A.V., "like the Son of God," is quite untenable. The
expression may mean a heavenly or an angelic being (Gen. vi. 2; Job
i. 6). So ordinary an expression does not need to be superfluously
illustrated by references to the Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions,
but they may be found in Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_, 128 and _passim_.
[361] LXX., ὁ Θεὸς τῶν θεῶν, ὁ ὕψιστος. Comp. 2 Macc. iii. 31; Mark
v. 7; Luke viii. 28; Acts xvi. 17, from which it will be seen that it
was not a Jewish expression, though it often occurs in the Book of
Enoch (Dillmann, p. 98).
[362] So in Persian history the Prince Siawash clears himself from
a false accusation in the reign of his father Kai Kaoos by passing
through the fire (Malcolm, _Hist. of Persia_, i. 38).
[363] Comp. Psalm xvi. 12: "We went through fire and water, and Thou
broughtest us out into a safe place."
[364] Comp. Gen. xxiv. 7; Exod. xxiii. 20; Deut. xxxvi. 1. The phrase
applied to Joshua the high priest (Zech. iii. 2), "Is not this a
brand plucked out of the burning?" originated the legend that, when
the false prophets Ahab and Zedekiah had been burnt by Nebuchadrezzar
(Jer. xxix. 22), Joshua had been saved, though singed. This and other
apocryphal stories illustrate the evolution of _Haggadoth_ out of
metaphoric allusions.
[365] πνεῦμα νότιον διασύριζον, "a dewy wind, whistling continually."
[366] Song of the Three Children, 23-27.
[367] _Vay. Rab._, xxv. 1 (Wünsche, _Bibliotheca Rabbinica_).
[368] Ecclus. xviii. 16: "Shall not the dew assuage the heat?"
[369] _Speaker's Commentary_, on the Apocrypha, ii. 305-307.
[370] Jos., _Antt._, XII. iii. 3; Jahn, _Hebr. Commonwealth_, § xc.
CHAPTER IV
_THE BABYLONIAN CEDAR, AND THE STRICKEN
DESPOT_
"Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a
fall."--PROV. xvi. 18.
Thrice already, in these magnificent stories, had Nebuchadrezzar been
taught to recognise the existence and to reverence the power of God.
In this chapter he is represented as having been brought to a still
more overwhelming conviction, and to an open acknowledgment of God's
supremacy, by the lightning-stroke of terrible calamity.
The chapter is dramatically thrown into the form of a decree
which, after his recovery and shortly before his death, the king
is represented as having promulgated to "all people, nations, and
languages that dwell in all the earth."[371] But the literary form is
so absolutely subordinated to the general purpose--which is to show
that where God's "judgments are in the earth the inhabitants of the
earth will learn righteousness,"[372]--that the writer passes without
any difficulty from the first to the third person (iv. 20-30). He
does not hesitate to represent Nebuchadrezzar as addressing all the
subject nations in favour of the God of Israel, even placing in his
imperial decree a cento of Scriptural phraseology.
Readers unbiassed by _a-priori_ assumptions, which are broken to
pieces at every step, will ask, "Is it even historically conceivable
that Nebuchadrezzar (to whom the later Jews commonly gave the title of
_Ha-Rashang_, 'the wicked') could ever have issued such a decree?"[373]
They will further ask, "Is there any shadow of evidence to show that
the king's degrading madness and recovery rest upon any real tradition?"
As to the monuments and inscriptions, they are entirely silent upon
the subject; nor is there any trace of these events in any historic
record. Those who, with the school of Hengstenberg and Pusey, think
that the narrative receives support from the phrase of Berossus that
Nebuchadrezzar "fell sick and departed this life when he had reigned
forty-three years," must be easily satisfied, since he says very
nearly the same of Nabopolassar.[374] Such writers too much assume
that immemorial prejudices on the subject have so completely weakened
the independent intelligence of their readers, that they may safely
make assertions which, in matters of secular criticism, would be set
aside as almost childishly nugatory.
It is different with the testimony of Abydenus, quoted by
Eusebius.[375] Abydenus, in his book on the _Assyrians_, quoted from
Megasthenes the story that, after great conquests, "Nebuchadrezzar"
(as the Chaldean story goes), "_when he had ascended the roof of his
palace, was inspired by some god or other_, and cried aloud, 'I,
Nebuchadrezzar, announce to you the future calamity which neither Bel
my ancestor, nor our queen Beltis, can persuade the Fates to avert.
There shall come a Persian, a mule, who shall have your own gods as
his allies, and he shall make you slaves. Moreover, he who shall help
to bring this about shall be the son of a Median woman, the boast of
the Assyrian. Would that before his countrymen perish some whirlpool
or flood might seize him and destroy him utterly;[376] or else would
that he might betake himself to some other place, and _might be
driven to the desert, where is no city nor track of men, where wild
beasts seek their food and birds fly hither and thither! Would that
among rocks and mountain clefts he might wander alone!_ And as for
me, may I, before he imagines this, meet with some happier end!'
_When he had thus prophesied, he suddenly vanished._"
I have italicised the passages which, amid immense differences, bear
a remote analogy to the story of this chapter. To quote the passage
as any proof that the writer of Daniel is narrating literal history
is an extraordinary misuse of it.
Megasthenes flourished B.C. 323, and wrote a book which contained
many fabulous stories, three centuries after the events to which
he alludes. Abydenus, author of _Assyriaca_, was a Greek historian
of still later, and uncertain, date. The writer of Daniel may have
met with their works, or, quite independently of them, he may have
learned from the Babylonian Jews that there was _some_ strange legend
or other about the death of Nebuchadrezzar. The Jews in Babylonia
were more numerous and more distinguished than those in Palestine,
and kept up constant communication with them. So far from any
historical accuracy about Babylon in a Palestinian Jew of the age
of the Maccabees being strange, or furnishing any proof that he was
a contemporary of Nebuchadrezzar, the only subject of astonishment
would be that he should have fallen into so many mistakes and
inaccuracies, were it not that the ancients in general, and the Jews
particularly, paid little attention to such matters.
Aware, then, of some dim traditions that Nebuchadrezzar at the close
of his life ascended his palace roof and there received some sort of
inspiration, after which he mysteriously disappeared, the writer,
giving free play to his imagination for didactic purposes, after the
common fashion of his age and nation, worked up these slight elements
into the stately and striking _Midrash_ of this chapter. He too makes
the king mount his palace roof and receive an inspiration; but in his
pages the inspiration does not refer to "the mule" or half-breed,
Cyrus, nor to Nabunaid, the son of a Median woman, nor to any
imprecation pronounced upon them, but is an admonition to himself;
and the imprecation which he denounced upon the future subverters of
Babylon is dimly analogous to the fate which fell on his own head.
Instead of making him "vanish" immediately afterwards, the writer
makes him fall into a beast-madness for "seven times," after which
he suddenly recovers and publishes a decree that all mankind should
honour the true God.
Ewald thinks that a verse has been lost at the beginning of the
chapter, indicating the nature of the document which follows; but it
seems more probable that the author began this, as he begins other
chapters, with the sort of imposing overture of the first verse.
Like Assur-bani-pal and the ancient despots, Nebuchadrezzar addresses
himself to "all people in the earth," and after the salutation of
peace[377] says that he thought it right to tell them "the signs and
wonders that the High God hath wrought towards me. How great are His
signs, and how mighty are His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting
kingdom, and His dominion is from generation to generation."[378]
He goes on to relate that, while he was at ease and secure in his
palace,[379] he saw a dream which affrighted him, and left a train
of gloomy forebodings. As usual he summoned the whole train of
_Khakhamîm_, _Ashshaphîm_, _Mekashshaphîm_, _Kasdîm_, _Chartummîm_,
and _Gazerîm_, to interpret his dream, and as usual they failed
to do so. Then lastly, Daniel, surnamed Belteshazzar, after Bel,
Nebuchradrezzar's god,[380] and "chief of the magicians,"[381] in
whom was "the spirit of the holy gods," is summoned. To him the king
tells his dream.
The writer probably derives the images of the dream from the
magnificent description of the King of Assyria as a spreading cedar
in Ezek. xxxi. 3-18:--
"Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and
with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was
among the thick boughs. The waters nourished him, the deep made him
to grow.... Therefore his stature was exalted above all the trees of
the field; and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became
long by reason of many waters. All the fowls of the air made their
nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of
the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all
great nations.... The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him
... nor was any tree in the garden of God like him in his beauty....
Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because thou art exalted in
stature ... I will deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the
nations.... And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him
off, and have left him. Upon the mountains and in all the valleys his
branches are broken ... and all the people of the earth are gone down
from his shadow, and have left him.... I made the nations to shake at
the sound of his fall."
We may also compare this dream with that of Cambyses narrated by
Herodotus[382]: "He fancied that a vine grew from the womb of
his daughter and overshadowed the whole of Asia.... The magian
interpreter expounded the vision to foreshow that the offspring of
his daughter would reign over Asia in his stead."
So too Nebuchadrezzar in his dream had seen a tree in the midst
of the earth, of stately height, which reached to heaven and
overshadowed the world, with fair leaves and abundant fruit,
giving large nourishment to all mankind, and shade to the beasts
of the field and fowls of the heaven. The LXX. adds with glowing
exaggeration, "The sun and moon dwelled in it, and gave light to
the whole earth. And, behold, a watcher [_'îr_][383] and a holy one
[_qaddîsh_][384] came down from heaven, and bade, Hew down, and lop,
and strip the tree, and scatter his fruit, and scare away the beasts
and birds from it, but leave the stump in the greening turf bound by
a band of brass and iron, and let it be wet with heaven's dews,"--and
then, passing from the image to the thing signified, "and let his
portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth. Let his heart
be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him, and
let seven times pass over him." We are not told to whom the mandate
is given--that is left magnificently vague. The object of this
"sentence of the watchers, and utterance of the holy ones," is that
the living may know that the Most High is the Supreme King, and can,
if He will, give rule even to the lowliest. Nebuchadrezzar, who tells
us in his inscription that "he never forgave impiety," has to learn
that he is nothing, and that God is all,--that "He pulleth down the
mighty from their seat, and exalteth the humble and meek."[385]
This dream Nebuchadrezzar bids Daniel to interpret, "because thou
hast the spirit of a Holy God in thee."
Before we proceed let us pause for a moment to notice the agents of
the doom. It is one of the never-sleeping ones--an _'îr_ and a holy
one--who flashes down from heaven with the mandate; and he is only
the mouthpiece of the whole body of the watchers and holy ones.
Generally, no doubt, the phrase means an angelic denizen of heaven.
The LXX. translates watcher by "angel." Theodotion, feeling that
there is something technical in the word, which only occurs in this
chapter, renders it by εἴρ. This is the first appearance of the term
in Jewish literature, but it becomes extremely common in later Jewish
writings--as, for instance, in the Book of Enoch. The term "a holy
one"[386] connotes the dedicated separation of the angels; for in the
Old Testament holiness is used to express consecration and setting
apart, rather than moral stainlessness.[387] The "seven watchers"
are alluded to in the post-exilic Zechariah (iv. 10): "They see with
joy the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel, even those seven, the
_eyes_ of the Lord; they run to and fro through the whole earth."
In this verse Kohut[388] and Kuenen read "watchers" (_'îrîm_) for
"eyes" (_'înîm_), and we find these seven watchers in the Book of
Enoch (chap. xx.). We see as an historic fact that the familiarity
of the Jews with Persian angelology and demonology seems to have
developed their views on the subject. It is only after the Exile
that we find angels and demons playing a more prominent part than
before, divided into classes, and even marked out by special names.
The Apocrypha becomes more precise than the canonical books, and the
later pseudepigraphic books, which advance still further, are left
behind by the Talmud. Some have supposed a connexion between the
seven watchers and the Persian _amschashpands_.[389] The _shedîm_, or
evil spirits, are also seven in number,--
"Seven are they, seven are they!
In the channel of the deep seven are they,
In the radiance of heaven seven are they!"[390]
It is true that in Enoch (xc. 91) the prophet sees "the first six
white ones," and we find six also in Ezek. ix. 2. On the other hand,
we find seven in Tobit: "I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels
which present the prayers of the saints, and which go in and out
before the glory of the Holy One."[391] The names are variously
given; but perhaps the commonest are Michael, Gabriel, Uriel,
Raphael, and Raguel.[392] In the Babylonian mythology seven deities
stood at the head of all Divine beings, and the seven planetary
spirits watched the gates of Hades.[393]
To Daniel, when he had heard the dream, it seemed so full of
portentous omen that "he was astonished for one hour."[394] Seeing
his agitation, the king bids him take courage and fearlessly
interpret the dream. But it is an augury of fearful visitation; so
he begins with a formula intended as it were to avert the threatened
consequences. "My Lord," he exclaimed, on recovering voice, "the
dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation to thine
enemies."[395] The king would regard it as a sort of appeal to the
averting deities (the Roman _Dî Averrunci_), and as analogous to the
current formula of his hymns, "From the noxious spirit may the King
of heaven and the king of earth preserve thee!"[396] He then proceeds
to tell the king that the fair, stately, sheltering tree--"it is
thou, O king"; and the interpretation of the doom pronounced upon
it is that he should be driven from men, and should dwell with the
beasts of the field, and be reduced to eat grass like the oxen, and
be wet with the dew of heaven, "and seven times shall pass over thee,
till thou shalt know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men,
and giveth it to whomsoever He will." But as the stump of the tree
was to be left in the fresh green grass, so the kingdom should be
restored to him when he had learnt that the Heavens do rule.
The only feature of the dream which is left uninterpreted is the
binding of the stump with bands of iron and brass. Most commentators
follow Jerome in making it refer to the fetters with which maniacs
are bound,[397] but there is no evidence that Nebuchadrezzar was
so restrained, and the bands round the stump are for its protection
from injury. This seems preferable to the view which explains them
as "the stern and crushing sentence under which the king is to
lie."[398] Josephus and the Jewish exegetes take the "seven times" to
be "seven years"; but the phrase is vague, and the event is evidently
represented as taking place at the close of the king's reign. Instead
of using the awful name of Jehovah, the prophet uses the distant
periphrasis of "the Heavens." It was a phrase which became common in
later Jewish literature, and a Babylonian king would be familiar with
it; for in the inscriptions we find Maruduk addressed as the "great
Heavens," the father of the gods.[399]
Having faithfully interpreted the fearful warning of the dream,
Daniel points out that the menaces of doom are sometimes conditional,
and may be averted or delayed. "Wherefore," he says, "O king, let
my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by
righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor; if
so be there may be a healing of thy error."[400]
This pious exhortation of Daniel has been severely criticised from
opposite directions.
The Jewish Rabbis, in the very spirit of bigotry and false
religion, said that Daniel was subsequently thrown into the den
of lions to punish him for the crime of tendering good advice to
Nebuchadrezzar;[401] and, moreover, the advice could not be of any
real use; "for even if the nations of the world do righteousness and
mercy to prolong their dominion, it is only sin to them."[402]
On the other hand, the Roman Catholics have made it their chief
support for the doctrine of good works, which is so severely
condemned in the twelfth of our Articles.
Probably no such theological questions remotely entered into the
mind of the writer. Perhaps the words should be rendered "break
off thy sins by righteousness," rather than (as Theodotion renders
them) "redeem thy sins by almsgiving."[403] It is, however, certain
that among the Pharisees and the later Rabbis there was a grievous
limitation of the sense of the word _tzedakah_, "righteousness,"
to mean merely almsgiving. In Matt. vi. 1 it is well known
that the reading "alms" (ἐλεημοσύνην) has in the received text
displaced the reading "righteousness" (δικαιοσύνην); and in the
Talmud "righteousness"--like our shrunken misuse of the word
"charity"--means almsgiving. The value of "alms" has often been
extravagantly exalted. Thus we read: "Whoever shears his substance
for the poor escapes the condemnation of hell" (_Nedarîm_, f. 22, 1).
In _Baba Bathra_, f. 10, 1, and _Rosh Hashanah_, f. 16, 2, we have
"_alms_ delivereth from death," as a gloss on the meaning of Prov.
xi. 4.[404]
We cannot tell that the writer shared these views. He probably meant
no more than that cruelty and injustice were the chief vices of
despots, and that the only way to avert a threatened calamity was by
repenting of them. The necessity for compassion in the abstract was
recognised even by the most brutal Assyrian kings.
* * * * *
We are next told the fulfilment of the dark dream. The interpretation
had been meant to warn the king; but the warning was soon forgotten
by one arrayed in such absolutism of imperial power. The intoxication
of pride had become habitual in his heart, and twelve months sufficed
to obliterate all solemn thoughts. The Septuagint adds that "he kept
the words in his heart"; but the absence of any mention of rewards or
honours paid to Daniel is perhaps a sign that he was rather offended
than impressed.
A year later he was walking on the flat roof of the great palace of
the kingdom of Babylon. The sight of that golden city in the zenith
of its splendour may well have dazzled the soul of its founder. He
tells us in an inscription that he regarded that city as the apple
of his eye, and that the palace was its most glorious ornament.[405]
It was in the centre of the whole country; it covered a vast space,
and was visible far and wide. It was built of brick and bitumen,
enriched with cedar and iron, decorated with inscriptions and
paintings. The tower "contained the treasures of my imperishable
royalty; and silver, gold, metals, gems, nameless and priceless, and
immense treasures of rare value," had been lavished upon it. Begun
"in a happy month, and on an auspicious day," it had been finished
in fifteen days by armies of slaves. This palace and its celebrated
hanging gardens were one of the wonders of the world.
Beyond this superb edifice, where now the hyæna prowls amid miles of
_débris_ and mounds of ruin, and where the bittern builds amid pools
of water, lay the unequalled city. Its walls were three hundred and
eighty feet high and eighty-five feet thick, and each side of the
quadrilateral they enclosed was fifteen miles in length. The mighty
Euphrates flowed through the midst of the city, which is said to
have covered a space of two hundred square miles; and on its farther
bank, terrace above terrace, up to its central altar, rose the huge
Temple of Bel, with all its dependent temples and palaces.[406] The
vast circuit of the walls enclosed no mere wilderness of houses, but
there were interspaces of gardens, and palm-groves, and orchards, and
cornland, sufficient to maintain the whole population. Here and there
rose the temples reared to Nebo, and Sin the moon-god, and Mylitta,
and Nana, and Samas, and other deities; and there were aqueducts or
conduits for water, and forts and palaces; and the walls were pierced
with a hundred brazen gates. When Milton wanted to find some parallel
to the city of Pandemonium in _Paradise Lost_, he could only say,--
"Not Babylon,
Nor great Alcairo such magnificence
Equall'd in all their glories, to enshrine
Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat
Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove
In wealth and luxury."
Babylon, to use the phrase of Aristotle, included, not a city, but a
nation.[407]
Enchanted by the glorious spectacle of this house of his royalty and
abode of his majesty, the despot exclaimed almost in the words of
some of his own inscriptions, "Is not this great Babylon that I have
built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my treasures and
for the honour of my majesty?"
The Bible always represents to us that pride and arrogant
self-confidence are an offence against God. The doom fell on
Nebuchadrezzar "while the haughty boast was still in the king's
mouth." The suddenness of the Nemesis of pride is closely paralleled
by the scene in the Acts of the Apostles in which Herod Agrippa I.
is represented as entering the theatre at Cæsarea to receive the
deputies of Tyre and Sidon. He was clad, says Josephus, in a robe of
intertissued silver, and when the sun shone upon it he was surrounded
with a blaze of splendour. Struck by the scene, the people, when he had
ended his harangue to them, shouted, "It is the voice of a god, and not
of a man!" Herod, too, in the story of Josephus, had received, just
before, an ominous warning; but it came to him in vain. He accepted the
blasphemous adulation, and immediately, smitten by the angel of God, he
was eaten of worms, and in three days was dead.[408]
And something like this we see again and again in what the late Bishop
Thirlwall called the "irony of history"--the very cases in which men
seem to have been elevated to the very summit of power only to heighten
the dreadful precipice over which they immediately fall. He mentions
the cases of Persia, which was on the verge of ruin, when with lordly
arrogance she dictated the Peace of Antalcidas; of Boniface VIII., in
the Jubilee of 1300, immediately preceding his deadly overthrow; of
Spain, under Philip II., struck down by the ruin of the Armada at the
zenith of her wealth and pride. He might have added the instances of
Ahab, Sennacherib, Nebuchadrezzar, and Herod Antipas; of Alexander the
Great, dying as the fool dieth, drunken and miserable, in the supreme
hour of his conquests; of Napoleon, hurled into the dust, first by the
retreat from Moscow, then by the overthrow at Waterloo.
"While the word was yet in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from
heaven." It was what the Talmudists alluded to so frequently as the
_Bath Qôl_, or "daughter of a voice," which came sometimes for the
consolation of suffering, sometimes for the admonition of overweening
arrogance. It announced to him the fulfilment of the dream and its
interpretation. As with one lightning-flash the glorious cedar was
blasted, its leaves scattered, its fruits destroyed, its shelter
reduced to burning and barrenness. Then somehow the man's heart was
taken from him. He was driven forth to dwell among the beasts of the
field, to eat grass like oxen. Taking himself for an animal in his
degrading humiliation he lived in the open field. The dews of heaven
fell upon him. His unkempt locks grew rough like eagles' feathers,
his uncut nails like claws. In this condition he remained till "seven
times"--some vague and sacred cycle of days--passed over him.
His penalty was nothing absolutely abnormal. His illness is
well known to science and national tradition as that form
of hypochondriasis in which a man takes himself for a wolf
(lycanthropy), or a dog (kynanthropy), or some other animal.[409]
Probably the fifth-century monks, who were known as _Boskoi_, from
feeding on grass, may have been, in many cases, half maniacs who
in time took themselves for oxen. Cornill, so far as I know, is
the first to point out the curious circumstance that a notion as
to the points of analogy between Nebuchad_n_ezzar (thus spelt) and
Antiochus Epiphanes may have been strengthened by the Jewish method
of mystic commentary known in the Talmud as _Gematria_, and in Greek
as _Isopsephism_. That such methods, in other forms, were known and
practised in early times we find from the substitution of Sheshach
for Babel in Jer. xxv. 26, li. 41, and of Tabeal (by some cryptogram)
for Remaliah in Isa. vii. 6; and of _lebh kamai_ ("them that dwell
in the midst of them") for _Kasdîm_ (Chaldeans) in Jer. li. 1. These
forms are only explicable by the interchange of letters known as
Athbash, Albam, etc. Now Nebuchadnezzar = 423:--
נ = 50; ב = 2; ו = 6; כ = 20; ד = 4; נ = 50; א = 1;
צ = 90; ר = 200 = 423.
And Antiochus Epiphanes = 423:--
א = 1; נ = 50; ט = 9; י = 10; ו = 6; כ = 20; ו = 6;
ס = 60 = . . . . . . . 162}
א = 1; פ = 70; י = 10; פ = 70; נ = 50; ס = 60 = 261} = 423.
The madness of Antiochus was recognised in the popular change of
his name from Epiphanes to Epimanes. But there were obvious points
of resemblance between these potentates. Both of them conquered
Jerusalem. Both of them robbed the Temple of its holy vessels. Both
of them were liable to madness. Both of them tried to dictate the
religion of their subjects.
What happened to the kingdom of Babylon during the interim is a point
with which the writer does not trouble himself. It formed no part
of his story or of his moral. There is, however, no difficulty in
supposing that the chief mages and courtiers may have continued to
rule in the king's name--a course rendered all the more easy by the
extreme seclusion in which most Eastern monarchs pass their lives,
often unseen by their subjects from one year's end to the other.
Alike in ancient days as in modern--witness the cases of Charles VI.
of France, Christian VII. of Denmark, George III. of England, and
Otho of Bavaria--a king's madness is not allowed to interfere with
the normal administration of the kingdom.
When the seven "times"--whether years or brief periods--were
concluded, Nebuchadrezzar "lifted up his eyes to heaven," and his
understanding returned to him. No further light is thrown on his
recovery, which (as is not infrequently the case in madness) was as
sudden as his aberration. Perhaps the calm of the infinite azure over
his head flowed into his troubled soul, and reminded him that (as the
inscriptions say) "the Heavens" are "the father of the gods."[410] At
any rate, with that upward glance came the restoration of his reason.
He instantly blessed the Most High, "and praised and honoured Him
who liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and His kingdom is from generation to generation.[411] And all
the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and He doeth
according to His will[412] in the army of heaven, and among the
inhabitants of the earth;[413] and none can stay His hand, or say
unto Him, What doest Thou?"[414]
Then his lords and counsellors reinstated him in his former majesty;
his honour and brightness returned to him; he was once more "that
head of gold" in his kingdom.[415]
He concludes the story with the words: "Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise
and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth
and His ways judgment;[416] and those that walk in pride He is able
to abase."[417]
He died B.C. 561, and was deified, leaving behind him an invincible
name.
FOOTNOTES:
[371] Comp. 1 Macc. i. 41, 42: "And the king [Antiochus Epiphanes]
wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people, and every
one should leave his laws."
[372] Isa. xxvi. 9.
[373] Professor Fuller follows them in supposing that the decree
is really a letter written by Daniel, as is shown by the analogy
of similar documents, and the attestation (!) of the LXX. (ἀρχὴ
τῆς ἐπιστολῆς). He adds, "The undertone of genuineness which makes
itself so inobtrusively felt to the Assyrian scholar when reading
it, is _quite sufficient to decide the question of authenticity_"!
Such remarks are meant only for a certain circle of readers already
convinced. If they were true, it would be singular that scarcely
one living Assyriologist accepts the authenticity of Daniel; and
Mr. Bevan calls this "a narrative which contains _scarcely anything
specifically Babylonian_."
[374] See _Jos. c. Ap._, I. 20, ἐμπεσὼν εἰς ἀῤῥωστίαν, μετηλλάξατο
τὸν βίον (of Nebuchadrezzar); and I. 19 of Nabopolassar.
[375] _Præp. Ev._, lx. 41.
[376] I follow the better readings which Mr. Bevan adopts from Von
Gutschmid and Toup.
[377] Comp. Ezra iv. 7, vii. 12.
[378] If Nebuchadrezzar wrote this edict, he must have been very
familiar with the language of Scripture. See Deut. vi. 22; Isa. viii.
18; Psalm lxxviii. 12-16, cvi. 2; Mic. iv. 7, etc.
[379] _Heykal_, "palace"; Bab., _ikallu_. Comp. Amos viii. 3. See the
palace described in Layard, _Nineveh and Babylon_.
[380] A mistake of the writer. See _supra_, p. 129.
[381] _Rab-chartummaya._
[382] Herod., i. 108.
[383] עִיר. Comp. Mal. ii. 12 (perhaps "the watchman and him that
answereth"). LXX., ἄγγελος; Theodot., ἐγρήγορος.
[384] Comp. Deut. xxxiii. 2; Zech. xiv. 5; Psalm lxxxix. 6; Job v. 1,
etc.
[385] The LXX., in its free manipulation of the original, adds that
the king saw the dream fulfilled. In one day the tree was cut down,
and its destruction completed in one hour.
[386] Comp. Zech. xiv. 5; Psalm lxxxix. 6.
[387] See Job xv. 15.
[388] Dr. A. Kohut, _Die jüdische Angelologie_, p. 6, n. 17.
[389] For a full examination of the subject see Oehler, _Theol. of
the O. T._, § 59, pp. 195 ff.; Schultz, _Alttest. Theol._, p. 555;
Hamburger, _Real-Encycl._, i., _s.v._ "Engel"; Professor Fuller,
_Speaker's Commentary_, on the Apocrypha, Tobit, i., 171-183.
[390] Sayce, _Records of the Past_, ix. 140.
[391] The number seven is not, however, found in all texts.
[392] The Jewish tradition admits that the names of the angels came
from Persia (_Rosh Hashanah_, f. 56, 1; _Bereshîth Rabba_, c. 48;
Riehm, _R. W. B._, i. 381).
[393] Descent of Ishtar, _Records of the Past_, i. 141. Botta found
seven rude figures buried under the thresholds of doors.
[394] The Targum understands it "for a moment."
[395] The wish was quite natural. It is needless to follow Rashi,
etc., in making this an address to God, as though it were a prayer
to Him that ruin might fall on His enemy Nebuchadrezzar. Comp. Ov.,
_Fast._, iii. 494: "Eveniat nostris hostibus ille color."
[396] _Records of the Past_, i. 133.
[397] Mark v. 3.
[398] Bevan, p. 92.
[399] In the _Mishnah_ often _Shamayîm_; N. T., ἡ βασίλεια τῶν οὐρανῶν.
[400] Or, as in A.V. and Hitzig, "if it may be a lengthening of thy
tranquillity"; but Ewald reads _arukah_, "healing" (Isa. lviii. 8),
for _ar'kah_.
[401] _Baba Bathra_, f. 4, 1.
[402] _Berachôth_, f. 10, 2; f. 57, 2.
[403] Theodot., τὰς ἁμαρτίας σου ἐν ἐλεημοσύναις λύτρωσαι; Vulg.,
_peccata tua eleemosynis redime_. Comp. Psalm cxii. 9. This
exaltation of almsgiving is a characteristic of later Judaism
(Ecclus. iv. 5-10; Tobit iv. 11).
[404] Comp. Prov. x. 2, xvi. 6; _Sukka_, f. 49, 2. The theological
and ethical question involved is discussed by Calvin, _Instt._, iii.
4; Bellarmine, _De Pœnitent_., ii. 6 (Behrmann).
[405] It is now called Kasr, but the Arabs call it _Mujelibé_, "The
Ruined."
[406] Birs-Nimrod (Grote, _Hist. of Greece_, III., chap. xix.;
Layard, _Nin. and Bab._, chap. ii.).
[407] Arist., _Polit._, III. i. 12. He says that three days after its
capture some of its inhabitants were still unaware of the fact.
[408] Acts xii. 20-23; Jos., _Antt._, XIV. viii. 2.
[409] For further information on this subject I may refer to my paper
on "Rabbinic Exegesis," _Expositor_, v. 362-378. The fact that there
are slight variations in spelling Nebuchad_n_ezzar and Antiochus
Epiphanes is of no importance.
[410] Psalm cxxiii. 1. See Eurypides, _Bacchæ_, 699.
[411] Exod. xvii. 16.
[412] Psalm cxlv. 13.
[413] Isa. xxiv. 21, xl. 15, 17. For the "host of heaven" (στρατία
οὐράνιος, Luke ii. 13) see Isa. xl. 26; Job. xxxviii. 7; 1 Kings
xxii. 19; Enoch xviii. 14-16; Matt. xi. 25.
[414] Isa. xliii. 13, xlv. 9; Psalm cxxxv. 6; Job ix. 12; Eccles.
viii. 4. The phrase for "to reprove" is literally "to strike on the
hand," and is common in later Jewish writers.
[415] Dan. ii. 38.
[416] Psalm xxxiii. 4.
[417] Exod. xviii. 11.
CHAPTER V
_THE FIERY INSCRIPTION_
"That night they slew him on his father's throne
He died unnoticed, and the hand unknown:
Crownless and sceptreless Belshazzar lay,
A robe of purple round a form of clay."
SIR E. ARNOLD.
In this chapter again we have another magnificent fresco-picture,
intended, as was the last--but under circumstances of aggravated
guilt and more terrible menace--to teach the lesson that "verily
there is a God that judgeth the earth."
The truest way to enjoy the chapter, and to grasp the lessons which
it is meant to inculcate in their proper force and vividness, is to
consider it wholly apart from the difficulties as to its literal
truth. To read it aright, and duly to estimate its grandeur, we must
relegate to the conclusion of the story all worrying questions,
impossible of final solution, as to whom the writer intended by
Belshazzar, or whom by Darius the Mede.[418] All such discussions
are extraneous to edification, and in no way affect either the
consummate skill of the picture or the eternal truths of which it is
the symbolic expression. To those who, with the present writer, are
convinced, by evidence from every quarter--from philology, history,
the testimony of the inscriptions, and the manifold results obtained
by the Higher Criticism--that the Book of Daniel is the work of some
holy and highly gifted _Chasîd_ in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes,
it becomes clear that the story of Belshazzar, whatever dim fragments
of Babylonian tradition it may enshrine, is really suggested by the
profanity of Antiochus Epiphanes in carrying off, and doubtless
subjecting to profane usage, many of the sacred vessels of the Temple
of Jerusalem.[419] The retribution which awaited the wayward Seleucid
tyrant is prophetically intimated by the menace of doom which
received such immediate fulfilment in the case of the Babylonian
King. The humiliation of the guilty conqueror, "Nebuchadrezzar the
Wicked," who founded the Empire of Babylon, is followed by the
overthrow of his dynasty in the person of his "son," and the capture
of his vast capital.
"It is natural," says Ewald, "that thus the picture drawn in this
narrative should become, under the hands of our author, a true
night-piece, with all the colours of the dissolute, extravagant riot of
luxurious passion and growing madness, of ruinous bewilderment, and of
the mysterious horror and terror of such a night of revelry and death."
The description of the scene begins with one of those crashing
overtures of which the writer duly estimated the effect upon the
imagination.
"Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords,
and drank wine before the thousand."[420] The banquet may have been
intended as some propitiatory feast in honour of Bel-merodach. It
was celebrated in that palace which was a wonder of the world, with
its winged statues and splendid spacious halls. The walls were rich
with images of the Chaldeans, painted in vermilion and exceeding in
dyed attire--those images of goodly youths riding on goodly horses,
as in the Panathenaic procession on the frieze of the Acropolis--the
frescoed pictures, on which, in the prophet's vision, Aholah and
Aholibah, gloated in the chambers of secret imagery.[421] Belshazzar's
princes were there, and his wives, and his concubines, whose presence
the Babylonian custom admitted, though the Persian regarded it as
unseemly.[422] The Babylonian banquets, like those of the Greeks,
usually ended by a _Kōmos_ or revelry, in which intoxication was
regarded as no disgrace. Wine flowed freely. Doubtless, as in the
grandiose picture of Martin, there were brasiers of precious metal,
which breathed forth the fumes of incense;[423] and doubtless, too,
there were women and boys and girls with flutes and cymbals, to which
the dancers danced in all the orgiastic abandonment of Eastern passion.
All this was regarded as an element in the religious solemnity; and
while the revellers drank their wine, hymns were being chanted, in
which they praised "the gods of gold and of silver, of brass, of iron,
of wood, and of stone." That the king drank wine before the thousand is
the more remarkable because usually the kings of the East banquet in
solitary state in their own apartments.[424]
Then the wild king, with just such a burst of folly and irreverence
as characterised the banquets of Antiochus Epiphanes, bethought him
of yet another element of splendour with which he might make his
banquet memorable, and prove the superiority of his own victorious
gods over those of other nations. The Temple of Jerusalem was famous
over all the world, and there were few monarchs who had not heard
of the marvels and the majesty of the God of Israel. Belshazzar,
as the "son" of Nebuchadrezzar, must--if there was any historic
reality in the events narrated in the previous chapter--have heard
of the "signs and wonders" displayed by the King of heaven, whose
unparalleled awfulness his "father" had publicly attested in edicts
addressed to all the world. He must have known of the Rab-mag Daniel,
whose wisdom, even as a boy, had been found superior to that of all
the _Chartummîm_ and _Ashshaphîm_; and how his three companions had
been elevated to supreme satrapies; and how they had been delivered
unsinged from the seven-times-heated furnace, whose flames had killed
his father's executioners. Under no conceivable circumstances could
such marvels have been forgotten; under no circumstances could they
have possibly failed to create an intense and a profound impression.
And Belshazzar could hardly fail to have heard of the dreams of the
golden image and of the shattered cedar, and of Nebuchadrezzar's
unspeakably degrading lycanthropy. His "father" had publicly
acknowledged--in a decree published "to all peoples, nations, and
languages that dwell in all the earth"--that humiliation had come
upon him as a punishment for his overweening pride. In that same
decree the mighty Nebuchadrezzar--only a year or two before, if
Belshazzar succeeded him--had proclaimed his allegiance to the King
of heaven; and in all previous decrees he had threatened "all people,
nations, and languages" that, if they spake anything amiss against
the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, they should be cut in
pieces, and their houses made a dunghill.[425] Yet now Belshazzar,
in the flush of pride and drunkenness,[426] gives his order to insult
this God with deadly impiety by publicly defiling the vessels of His
awful Temple,[427] at a feast in honour of his own idol deities!
Similarly Antiochus Epiphanes, if he had not been half mad, might have
taken warning, before he insulted the Temple and the sacred vessels
of Jerusalem, from the fact that his father, Antiochus the Great, had
met his death in attempting to plunder the Temple at Elymais (B.C.
187). He might also have recalled the celebrated discomfiture--however
caused--of Heliodorus in the Temple of Jerusalem.[428]
Such insulting and reckless blasphemy could not go unpunished. It
is fitting that the Divine retribution should overtake the king on
the same night, and that the same lips which thus profaned with this
wine the holiest things should sip the wine of the Divine poison-cup,
whose fierce heat must in the same night prove fatal to himself.
But even such sinners, drinking as it were over the pit of hell,
"according to a metaphor used elsewhere,[429] must still at the last
moment be warned by a suitable Divine sign, that it may be known
whether they will honour the truth."[430] Nebuchadrezzar had received
_his_ warning, and in the end it had not been wholly in vain. Even
for Belshazzar it might perhaps not prove to be too late.
For at this very moment[431] when the revelry was at its zenith,
when the whirl of excited self-exaltation was most intense, when
Judah's gold was "treading heavy on the lips"--the profane lips--of
satraps and concubines, there appeared a portent, which seems at
first to have been visible to the king alone.
Seated on his lofty and jewelled throne, which
"Outshone the wealth of Ormuz or of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on its kings barbaric pearl and gold,"
his eye caught _something_ visible on the white stucco of the wall
above the line of frescoes.[432] He saw it over the lights which
crowned the huge golden _Nebrashta_, or chandelier.[433] The fingers
of a man's hand were writing letters on the wall, and the king saw
the hollow of that gigantic supernatural palm.[434]
The portent astounded and horrified him. The flush of youth and of
wine faded from his cheek;--"his brightnesses were changed"; his
thoughts troubled him; the bands of his loins were loosed;[435] his
knees smote one against another in his trembling attitude,[436] as he
stood arrested by the awful sight.
With a terrible cry he ordered that the whole familiar tribe
of astrologers and soothsayers should be summoned. For though
the hand had vanished, its trace was left on the wall of the
banqueting-chamber in letters of fire. And the stricken king,
anxious to know above all things the purport of that strange writing,
proclaims that he who could interpret it should be clothed in
scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and should be one
of the triumvirs of the kingdom.[437]
It was the usual resource; and it failed as it had done in every
previous instance. The Babylonian magi in the Book of Daniel prove
themselves to be more futile even than Pharaoh's magicians with their
enchantments.
The dream-interpreters in all their divisions entered the
banquet-hall. The king was perturbed, the omen urgent, the reward
magnificent. But it was all in vain. As usual they failed, as in
every instance in which they are introduced in the Old Testament.
And their failure added to the visible confusion of the king, whose
livid countenance retained its pallor. The banquet, in all its royal
magnificence, seemed likely to end in tumult and confusion; for the
princes, and satraps, and wives, and concubines all shared in the
agitation and bewilderment of their sovereign.
Meanwhile the tidings of the startling prodigy had reached the ears
of the Gebîrah--the queen-mother--who, as always in the East, held a
higher rank than even the reigning sultana.[438] She had not been
present at--perhaps had not approved of--the luxurious revel, held
when the Persians were at the very gates. But now, in her young son's
extremity, she comes forward to help and advise him. Entering the
hall with her attendant maidens, she bids the king to be no longer
troubled, for there is a man of the highest rank--invariably, as
would appear, overlooked and forgotten till the critical moment,
in spite of his long series of triumphs and achievements--who was
quite able to read the fearful augury, as he had often done before,
when all others had been foiled by Him who "frustrateth the tokens
of the liars and maketh diviners mad."[439] Strange that he should
not have been thought of, though "the king thy father, the king, I
say, thy father, made him master of the whole college of mages and
astrologers. Let Belshazzar send for Belteshazzar, and he would untie
the knot and read the awful enigma."[440]
Then, Daniel was summoned; and since the king "has heard of him, that
the spirit of the gods is in him, and that light and understanding
and excellent wisdom is found in him," and that he is one who can
interpret dreams, and unriddle hard sentences and untie knots, he
shall have the scarlet robe, and the golden chain, and the seat among
the triumvirs, if he will read and interpret the writing.
"Let thy gifts be thine, and thy rewards to another,"[441] answered
the seer, with fearless forthrightness: "yet, O king, I will read and
interpret the writing." Then, after reminding him of the consummate
power and majesty of his father Nebuchadrezzar; and how his mind
had become indurated with pride; and how he had been stricken with
lycanthropy, "till he knew that the Most High God ruled in the
kingdom of men"; and that, in spite of all this, he, Belshazzar, in
his infatuation, had insulted the Most High God by profaning the holy
vessels of His Temple in a licentious revelry in honour of idols of
gold, silver, brass, iron, and stone, which neither see, nor know,
nor hear,--for this reason (said the seer) had the hollow hand been
sent and the writing stamped upon the wall.
And now what was the writing? Daniel at the first glance had read
that fiery quadrilateral of letters, looking like the twelve gems of
the high priest's ephod with the mystic light gleaming upon them.
+----+----+----+
| M. | N. | A. |
+----+----+----+
| M. | N. | A. |
+----+----+----+
| T. | Q. | L. |
+----+----+----+
| P. | R. | S. |
+----+----+----+
Four names of weight.[442]
+-------------------+
| A Mina. |
+-------------------+
| A Mina. |
+-------------------+
| A Shekel. |
+-------------------+
| A Half-mina.[443] |
+-------------------+
What possible meaning could there be in that? Did it need an
archangel's colossal hand, flashing forth upon a palace-wall to write
the menace of doom, to have inscribed no more than the names of four
coins or weights? No wonder that the Chaldeans could not interpret
such writing!
It may be asked why they could not even _read_ it, since the words
are evidently Aramaic, and Aramaic was the common language of trade.
The Rabbis say that the words, instead of being written from right
to left, were written κιονηδόν, "pillar-wise," as the Greeks called
it, from above downwards: thus--
+---+---+---+--+
| פ | ת | מ | מ |
+---+---+---+--+
| ר | ק | נ | נ |
+---+---+---+--+
| ס | ל | א | א |
+---+---+---+--+
Read from left to right, they would look like gibberish; read from
above downwards, they became clear as far as the reading was concerned,
though their interpretation might still be surpassingly enigmatic.
But words may stand for all sorts of mysterious meanings; and in
the views of analogists--as those are called who not only believe
in the mysterious force and fascination of words, but even in the
physiological quality of sounds--they may hide awful indications
under harmless vocables. Herein lay the secret.
A mina! a mina! Yes; but the names of the weights recall the word
_m'nah_, "hath numbered": and "God hath numbered thy kingdom and
finished it."
A shekel! Yes; _t'qilta_: "Thou hast been weighed in a balance and
found wanting."
_Peres_--a half-mina! Yes; but _p'rîsath_: "Thy kingdom has been
divided, and given to the Medes and Persians."[444]
At this point the story is very swiftly brought to a conclusion, for
its essence has been already given. Daniel is clothed in scarlet, and
ornamented with the chain of gold, and proclaimed triumvir.[445]
But the king's doom is sealed! "That night was Belshazzar, king of the
Chaldeans, slain." His name meant, "Bel! preserve thou the king!" But
Bel bowed down, and Nebo stooped, and gave no help to their votary.
"Evil things in robes of sorrow
Assailed the monarch's high estate;
Ah, woe is me! for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!
And all about his throne the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but an ill-remembered story
Of the old time entombed."
"And Darius the Mede took the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old."
As there is no such person known as "Darius the Mede," the age
assigned to him must be due either to some tradition about some
other Darius, or to chronological calculations to which we no longer
possess the key.[446]
He is called the son of _Achashverosh_, Ahasuerus (ix. 1), or Xerxes.
The apologists have argued that--
1. Darius was Cyaxares II., father of Cyrus, on the authority of
Xenophon's romance,[447] and Josephus's echo of it.[448] But the
_Cyropædia_ is no authority, being, as Cicero said, a non-historic
fiction written to describe an ideal kingdom.[449] History knows
nothing of a Cyaxares II.
2. Darius was Astyages.[450] Not to mention other impossibilities
which attach to this view, Astyages would have been far older than
sixty-two at the capture of Babylon by Cyrus. Cyrus had suppressed
the Median dynasty altogether some years before he took Babylon.
3. Darius was the satrap Gobryas, who, so far as we know, only acted
as governor for a few months. But he is represented on the contrary
as an extremely absolute king, setting one hundred and twenty princes
"over the whole kingdom," and issuing mandates to "all people,
nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth." Even if such an
identification were admissible, it would not in the least save the
historic accuracy of the writer. This "Darius the Mede" is ignored by
history, and Cyrus is represented by the ancient records as having
been the sole and undisputed king of Babylon from the time of his
conquest.[451] "Darius the Mede" probably owes his existence to a
literal understanding of the prophecies of Isaiah (xiii. 17) and
Jeremiah (li. 11, 28).
We can now proceed to the examination of the next chapter unimpeded
by impossible and half-hearted hypotheses. We understand it, and
it was meant to be understood, as a moral and spiritual parable,
in which unverified historic names and traditions are utilised for
the purpose of inculcating lessons of courage and faithfulness. The
picture, however, falls far below those of the other chapters in
power, finish, and even an approach to natural verisimilitude.
FOOTNOTES:
[418] The question has already been fully discussed (_supra_, pp.
54-57). The apologists say that--
1. Belshazzar was _Evil-merodach_ (Niebuhr, Wolff, Bishop Westcott,
Zöckler, Keil, etc.), as the son of Nebuchadrezzar (Dan. v. 2, 11,
18, 22), and his successor (Baruch i. 11, 12, where he is called
Balthasar, as in the LXX.). The identification is impossible (see
Dan. v. 28, 31); for Evil-merodach (B.C. 561) was murdered by his
brother-in-law Neriglissar (B.C. 559). Besides, the Jews were well
acquainted with _Evil-merodach_ (2 Kings xxv. 27; Jer. lii. 31.)
2. Belshazzar was Nabunaid (St. Jerome, Ewald, Winer, Herzfeld,
Auberlen, etc.). But the usurper Nabunaid, son of a Rab-mag, was wholly
unlike Belshazzar; and so far from being slain, he was pardoned, and
sent by Cyrus to be Governor of Karmania, in which position he died.
3. Belshazzar was _the son of Nabunaid_. But though Nabunaid
_had_ a son of the name he was never king. We know nothing of any
relationship between him and Nebuchadrezzar, nor does Cyrus in
his records make the most distant allusion to him. The attempt to
identify Nebuchadrezzar with an unknown Marduk-sar-utsur, mentioned
in Babylonian tablets, breaks down; for Mr. Boscawen (_Soc. Bibl._,
in § vi., p. 108) finds that he reigned _before_ Nabunaid. Further,
the son of Nabunaid perished, not in Babylon, but in Accad.
[419] See 1 Macc. i. 21-24. He "entered proudly into the sanctuary,
and took away the golden altar, and the candlestick of light, and all
the vessels thereof, and the table of the shewbread, and the pouring
vessels, and the vials, and the censers of gold.... He took also
the silver and the gold, and the precious vessels: also he took the
hidden treasures which he found," etc. Comp. 2 Macc. v. 11-14; Diod.
Sic., XXXI. i. 48. The value of precious metals which he carried off
was estimated at one thousand eight hundred silver talents--about
£350,000 (2 Macc. v. 21).
[420] The LXX. says "two thousand." Comp. Esther i. 3, 4. Jerome
adds, "Unusquisque secundum suam bibit ætatem."
[421] Ezek. xxiii. 15.
[422] Herod., i. 191, v. 18; Xen., _Cyrop._, V. ii. 28; Q. Curt., V.
i. 38. Theodotion, perhaps scandalised by the fact, omits the wives,
and the LXX. omits both wives and concubines.
[423] Layard, _Nin. and Bab._, ii. 262-269.
[424] Athen., _Deipnos_, iv. 145. See the bas-relief in the British
Museum of King Assur-bani-pal drinking wine with his queen, while the
head of his vanquished enemy, Te-Umman, King of Elam, dangles from a
palm-branch full in his view, so that he can feast his eyes upon it.
None others are present except the attendant eunuchs.
[425] Dan. iii. 29.
[426] The Babylonians were notorious for drunken revels. Q. Curt., V.
i., "Babylonii maxime in vinum et quæ ebrietatem sequuntur, effusi
sunt."
[427] Dan. i. 2. Comp. 1 Macc. i. 21 ff.
[428] 2 Macc. iii.
[429] Psalm lv. 15.
[430] Ewald.
[431] Comp. Dan. iii. 7.
[432] See Layard, _Nin. and Bab._, ii. 269.
[433] A word of uncertain origin. The Talmud uses it for the word
למפדס (the Greek λαμπάς).
[434] "Hollow." Heb., _pas_; Theodot., ἀστραγάλους; Vulg., _articulos_.
The word may mean "palm" of the hand, or sole of the foot (Bevan).
[435] Psalm lxix. 23. "Bands"--lit. "fastenings"; Theodot.,
συνδεσμοί; Vulg., _compages_.
[436] Comp. Ezek. vii. 17, and the Homeric λύτο γούνατα, _Od._, iv.
703; Ov., _Met._, ii. 180, "genua intremuere timore."
[437] Doubtless suggested by Gen. xli. 42 (comp. Herod., iii. 20;
Xen., _Anab._, I. ii. 27; _Cyrop._, VIII. v. 18), as other parts of
Daniel's story recall that of Joseph. Comp. Esther vi. 8, 9. The word
for "scarlet" or red-purple is _argona_. The word for "chain" (_Q'rî.
ham'nîka_) is in Theodotion rendered μανιάκης, and occurs in later
Aramaic. The phrase rendered "third ruler" is very uncertain. The
inference drawn from it in the _Speaker's Commentary_--that Nabunaid
was king, and Belshazzar second ruler--is purely nugatory. For the
Hebrew word _taltî_ cannot mean "third," which would be תְּלִיתַי.
Ewald and most Hebraists take it to mean "rule, as one of the board
of three." For "triumvir" comp. vi. 2.
[438] 1 Kings xv. 13. She is precariously identified by the
apologists with the Nitocris of Herodotus; and it is imagined that
she may have been a daughter of Nebuchadrezzar, married to Nabunaid
before the murder of Neriglissar.
[439] Isa. xliv. 25.
[440] The word _Qistrîn_, "knots," may mean "hard questions"; but Mr.
Bevan (p. 104) thinks there may be an allusion to knots used as magic
spells. (Comp. Sen., _Œdip._, 101, "_Nodosa_ sortis verba et _implexos_
dolos.") He quotes Al-Baidawi on the Koran, lxiii. 4, who says that
"a Jew casts a spell on Mohammed by tying knots in a cord, and hiding
it in a well." But Gabriel told the prophet to send for the cord, and
at each verse of the Koran recited over it a knot untied itself. See
_Records of the Past_, iii. 141; and Duke, _Rabb. Blumenlehre_, 231.
[441] So Elisha, 2 Kings v. 16.
[442] The _Menê_ is repeated for emphasis. In the _Upharsîn_ (ver.
25) the _u_ is merely the "and," and the word is slightly altered,
perhaps to make the paronomasia with "Persians" more obvious.
According to Buxtorf and Gesenius, _peras_, in the sense of "divide,"
is very rare in the Targums.
[443] _Journal Asiatique_, 1886. (Comp. Nöldeke, _Ztschr.
für Assyriologie_, i. 414-418; Kamphausen, p. 46.) It is M.
Clermont-Ganneau who has the credit of discovering what seems to be the
true interpretation of these mysterious words. _M'nê_ (Heb. _Maneh_)
is the Greek μνᾶ, Lat. _mina_, which the Greeks borrowed from the
Assyrians. _Tekel_ (in the Targum of Onkelos _tîkla_) is the Hebrew
_shekel_. In the _Mishnah_ a half-mina is called _peras_, and an
Assyrian weight in the British Museum bears the inscription _perash_ in
the Aramaic character. (See Bevan, p. 106; Schrader, _s.v._ "Mene" in
Riehm, _R.W.B._) _Peres_ is used for a half-mina in _Yoma_, f. 4, 4;
often in the Talmud; and in _Corp. Inscr. Sem._, ii. 10 (Behrmann).
[444] The word occurs in _Perez_ Uzza. There still, however, remain
some obviously unexplored mysteries about these words. Paronomasia,
as I showed long ago in other works, plays a noble and profound part
in the language of emotion; and that the interpretation should here
be made to turn upon it is not surprising by any means. We find it
in the older prophets. Thus in Jer. i. 11, 12: "What seest thou? And
I said, I see a rod of _an almond tree_. Then said the Lord unto me,
Thou hast well seen: for I will _hasten_ My word to perform it." The
meaning here depends on the resemblance in Hebrew between _shaqeed_,
"an almond tree" ("a wakeful, or early tree"), and _shoqeed_, "I will
hasten," or "am wakeful over."
And that the same use of plays on words was still common in the
Maccabean epoch we see in the Story of Susanna. There Daniel plays
on the resemblance between σχῖνος, "a mastick tree," and σχίσει,
"shall cut thee in two"; and πρῖνος, "a holm oak," and πρίσαι, "to
cut asunder." We may also point to the fine paronomasia in the Hebrew
of Isa. v. 7, Mic. i. 10-15, and other passages. "Such a conceit,"
says Mr. Ball, "may seem to us far-fetched and inappropriate; but the
Oriental mind delights in such _lusus verborum_, and the peculiar
force of all such passages in the Hebrew prophets is lost in our
version because they have not been preserved in translation."
As regards the Medes, they are placed _after_ the Persians in Isa.
xxi. 2, Esther i. 3, but generally _before_ them.
[445] LXX., ἔδωκεν ἐξουσίαν αὐτῳ τοῦ τρίτου μέρους; Theodot., ἄρχοντα
τρίτον. See _supra_, p. 210.
[446] The LXX. evidently felt some difficulty or followed some other
text, for they render it, "And _Artaxerxes of the Medes_ took the
kingdom, and Darius full of _days and glorious in old age_." So, too,
Josephus (_Antt._, X. xi. 4), who says that "he was called by another
name among the Greeks."
[447] _Cyrop._, I. v. 2.
[448] _Antt._, X. xi. 4. This was the view of Vitringa, Bertholdt,
Gesenius, Winer, Keil, Hengstenberg, Hävernick, etc.
[449] _Ad. Q. Fratr._, i. 8.
[450] The view of Niebuhr and Westcott.
[451] See Herod., i. 109. The Median Empire fell B.C. 559; Babylon
was taken about B.C. 539. It is regarded as "important" that a late
Greek lexicographer, long after the Christian era, makes the vague
and wholly unsupported assertion that the "Daric" was named after
some Darius other than the father of Xerxes! See _supra_, pp. 57-60.
CHAPTER VI
_STOPPING THE MOUTHS OF LIONS_
"Thou shalt tread upon the lion ... the young lion shalt thou
trample under thy feet."--PSALM xci. 13.
On the view which regards these pictures as powerful parables, rich
in spiritual instructiveness, but not primarily concerned with
historic accuracy, nor even necessarily with ancient tradition, we
have seen how easily "the great strong fresco-strokes" which the
narrator loves to use "may have been suggested to him by his diligent
study of the Scriptures."
The first chapter is a beautiful picture which serves to set forth
the glory of moderation and to furnish a vivid concrete illustration
of such passages as those of Jeremiah: "Her Nazarites were purer than
snow; they were whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in body than
rubies; their polishing was of sapphire."[452]
The second chapter, closely reflecting in many of its details the
story of Joseph, illustrated how God "frustrateth the tokens of the
liars, and maketh diviners mad; turneth wise men backward, and maketh
their knowledge foolish; confirmeth the word of His servant, and
performeth the counsel of His messengers."[453]
The third chapter gives vividness to the promise, "When thou walkest
through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame
kindle upon thee."[454]
The fourth chapter repeats the apologue of Ezekiel, in which he
compares the King of Assyria to a cedar in Lebanon with fine
branches, and with a shadowy shroud, and fair by the multitude
of his branches, so that all the trees of Eden that were in the
garden of God envied him, but whose boughs were "broken by all the
watercourses until the peoples of the earth left his shadow."[455]
It was also meant to show that "pride goeth before destruction, and
a haughty spirit before a fall."[456] It illustrates the words of
Isaiah: "Behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall lop the bough
with terror; and the high ones of stature shall be hewn down, and the
haughty shall be humbled."[457]
The fifth chapter gives a vivid answer to Isaiah's challenge: "Let
now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators,
stand up and save thee from these things which shall come upon
thee."[458] It describes a fulfilment of his vision: "A grievous
vision is declared unto thee; the treacherous dealer dealeth
treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam: besiege,
O Media."[459] The more detailed prophecy of Jeremiah had said:
"Prepare against Babylon the nations with the kings of the Medes....
The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight.... One post shall
run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the
King of Babylon that his city is taken at one end.... In their heat
I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they
shall rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the
Lord.... How is Sheshach taken![460] and how is the praise of the
whole earth surprised!... And I will make drunk her princes, and her
wise men, her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men; and they
shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose
name is the Lord of hosts."[461]
The sixth chapter puts into concrete form such passages of the
Psalmist as: "My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them
that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears
and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword";[462] and--"Break the
jaw-bones of the lions, O Lord";[463] and--"They have cut off my life
in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me"[464]:--and more generally
such promises as those in Isaiah: "No weapon that is formed against
thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in
judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of
the Lord, and their righteousness is of Me, saith the Lord."[465]
This genesis of _Haggadoth_ is remarkably illustrated by the
apocryphal additions to Daniel. Thus the History of Susanna was very
probably suggested by Jeremiah's allusion (xxix. 22) to the two false
prophets Ahab and Zedekiah, whom Nebuchadrezzar burnt.[466] Similarly
the story of Bel and the Dragon is a fiction which expounds Jer. li.
44: "And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of
his mouth that which he hath swallowed up."[467]
Hitherto the career of Daniel had been personally prosperous. We
have seen him in perpetual honour and exaltation, and he had not
even incurred--though he may now have been ninety years old--such
early trials and privations in a heathen land as had fallen to the
lot of Joseph, his youthful prototype. His three companions had been
potential martyrs; he had not even been a confessor. Terrible as
was the doom which he had twice been called upon to pronounce upon
Nebuchadrezzar and upon his kingdom, the stern messages of prophecy,
so far from involving him in ruin, had only helped to uplift him to
the supremest honours. Not even the sternness of his bearing, and
the terrible severity of his interpretations of the flaming message
to Belshazzar, had prevented him from being proclaimed triumvir, and
clothed in scarlet, and decorated with a chain of gold, on the last
night of the Babylonian Empire. And now a new king of a new dynasty
is represented as seated on the throne; and it might well have seemed
that Daniel was destined to close his days, not only in peace, but in
consummate outward felicity.
Darius the Mede began his reign by appointing one hundred and twenty
princes over the whole kingdom;[468] and over these he placed three
presidents. Daniel is one of these "eyes" of the king.[469] "Because
an excellent spirit was in him," he acquired preponderant influence
among the presidents; and the king, considering that Daniel's
integrity would secure him from damage in the royal accounts,
designed to set him over the whole realm.
But assuming that the writer is dealing, not with the real, but
with the ideal, something would be lacking to Daniel's eminent
saintliness, if he were not set forth as no less capable of martyrdom
on behalf of his convictions than his three companions had been. From
the fiery trial in which their faithfulness had been proved like
gold in the furnace he had been exempt. His life thus far had been
a course of unbroken prosperity. But the career of a pre-eminent
prophet and saint hardly seems to have won its final crown, unless
he also be called upon to mount his Calvary, and to share with all
prophets and all saints the persecutions which are the invariable
concomitants of the hundredfold reward.[470] Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abed-nego had been tested in early youth: the trial of Daniel
is reserved for his extreme old age. It is not, it could not be, a
_severer_ trial than that which his friends braved, nor could his
deliverance be represented as more supernatural or more complete,
unless it were that they endured only for a few moments the semblable
violence of the fire, while he was shut up for all the long hours
of night alone in the savage lions' den. There are, nevertheless,
two respects in which this chapter serves as a climax to those
which preceded it. On the one hand, the virtue of Daniel is of a
marked character in that it is _positive_, and not negative--in
that it consists, not in rejecting an overt sin of idolatry, but in
continuing the private duty of prayer; on the other, the decree of
Darius surpasses even those of Nebuchadrezzar in the intensity of its
acknowledgment of the supremacy of Israel's God.
Daniel's age--for by this time he must have passed the allotted limit
of man's threescore years and ten--might have exempted him from envy,
even if, as the LXX. adds, "he was clad in purple." But jealous that
a captive Jew should be exalted above all the native satraps and
potentates by the king's favour, his colleagues the presidents (whom
the LXX. calls "two young men") and the princes "_rushed_" before the
king with a request which they thought would enable them to overthrow
Daniel by subtlety. Faithfulness is required in stewards;[471] and
they knew that his faithfulness and wisdom were such that they would
be unable to undermine him in any ordinary way. There was but one
point at which they considered him to be vulnerable, and that was in
any matter which affected his allegiance to an alien worship. But
it was difficult to invent an incident which would give them the
sought-for opportunity. All polytheisms are as tolerant as their
priests will let them be. The worship of the Jews in the Exile was of
a necessarily private nature. They had no Temple, and such religious
gatherings as they held were in no sense unlawful. The problem of the
writer was to manage his _Haggada_ in such a way as to make private
prayer an act of treason; and the difficulty is met--not, indeed,
without violent improbability, for which, however, Jewish haggadists
cared little, but with as much skill as the circumstances permitted.
The phrase that they "made a tumult" or "rushed"[472] before the
king, which recurs in vi. 11 and 18, is singular, and looks as if
it were _intentionally_ grotesque by way of satire. The etiquette
of Oriental courts is always most elaborately stately, and requires
solemn obeisance. This is why Æschylus makes Agamemnon say, in answer
to the too-obsequious fulsomeness of his false wife,--
"καὶ τἀλλα, μὴ γυναικὸς ἐν τρόποις ἐμὲ
ἅβρυνε, μηδὲ βαρβάρου φωτὸς δίκην
χαμαιπετὲς βόαμα προσχάνῃς ἐμοί."
"Besides, prithee, use not too fond a care
To me, as to some virgin whom thou strivest
To deck with ornaments, whose softness looks
Softer, hung round the softness of her youth;
Ope not the mouth to me, nor cry amain
As at the footstool of a man of the East
Prone on the ground: so stoop not thou to me!"
That these "presidents and satraps," instead of trying to win the
king by such flatteries and "gaping upon him an earth-grovelling
howl," should on each occasion have "rushed" into his presence, must
be regarded either as a touch of intentional sarcasm, or, at any
rate, as being more in accord with the rude familiarities of licence
permitted to the courtiers of the half-mad Antiochus, than with the
prostrations and solemn approaches which since the days of Deïoces
would alone have been permitted by any conceivable "Darius the Mede."
However, after this tumultuous intrusion into the king's presence,
"all the presidents, governors, chief chamberlains," present to him
the monstrous but unanimous request that he would, by an irrevocable
interdict, forbid that any man should, for thirty days, ask any
petition of any god or man, on peril of being cast into the den of
lions.[473]
Professor Fuller, in the _Speaker's Commentary_, considers that "this
chapter gives a valuable as well as an interesting insight into Median
customs," because the king is represented as living a secluded life,
and keeps lions, and is practically deified! The importance of the
remark is far from obvious. The chapter presents no particular picture
of a secluded life. On the contrary, the king moves about freely, and
his courtiers seem to have free access to him whenever they choose.
As for the semi-deification of kings, it was universal throughout the
East, and even Antiochus II. had openly taken the surname of _Theos_,
the "god." Again, every Jew throughout the world must have been very
well aware, since the days of the Exile, that Assyrian and other
monarchs kept dens of lions, and occasionally flung their enemies to
them.[474] But so far as the decree of Darius is concerned, it may well
be said that throughout all history no single parallel to it can be
quoted. Kings have very often been deified in absolutism; but not even
a mad Antiochus, a mad Caligula, a mad Elagabalus, or a mad Commodus
ever dreamt of passing an interdict that no one was to prefer any
petition either to God or man for thirty days, except to himself! A
decree so preposterous, which might be violated by millions many times
a day without the king being cognisant of it, would be a proof of
positive imbecility in any king who should dream of making it. Strange,
too--though a matter of indifference to the writer, because it did
not affect his moral lesson--that Darius should not have noticed the
absence of his chief official, and the one man in whom he placed the
fullest and deepest confidence.
The king, without giving another thought to the matter, at once signs
the irrevocable decree.
It naturally does not make the least difference to the practices
or the purpose of Daniel. His duty towards God transcends his duty
to man. He has been accustomed, thrice a day, to kneel and pray to
God, with the window of his upper chamber open, looking towards the
_Kibleh_ of Jerusalem;[475] and the king's decree makes no change in
his manner of daily worship.
Then the princes "rushed" thither again, and found Daniel praying and
asking petitions before his God.
Instantly they go before the king, and denounce Daniel for his triple
daily defiance of the sacrosanct decree, showing that "he regardeth
not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed."
Their denunciations produced an effect very different from what they
had intended. They had hoped to raise the king's wrath and jealousy
against Daniel, as one who lightly esteemed his divine autocracy.
But so far from having any such ignoble feeling, the king only sees
that he has been an utter fool, the dupe of the worthlessness of his
designing courtiers.[476] All his anger was against himself for his own
folly; his sole desire was to save the man whom for his integrity and
ability he valued more than the whole crew of base plotters who had
entrapped him against his will into a stupid act of injustice. All day,
till sunset, he laboured hard to deliver Daniel.[477] The whole band
of satraps and chamberlains feel that this will not do at all; so they
again "rush" to the king to remind him of the Median and Persian law
that no decree which the king has passed can be altered.[478] To alter
it would be a confession of fallibility, and therefore an abnegation
of godhead! Yet the strenuous action which he afterwards adopted
shows that he might, even then, have acted on the principle which the
mages laid down to Cambyses, son of Cyrus, that "the king can do no
wrong." There seems to be no reason why he should not have told these
"tumultuous" princes that if they interfered with Daniel they should
be flung into the lions' den. This would probably have altered their
opinion as to pressing the royal infallibility of irreversible decrees.
But as this resource did not suggest itself to Darius, nothing could
be done except to cast Daniel into the den or "pit" of lions; but in
sentencing him the king offers the prayer, "May the God whom thou
servest continually deliver thee!"[479] Then a stone is laid over
the mouth of the pit, and, for the sake of double security, that even
the king may not have the power of tampering with it, it is sealed,
not only with his own seal, but also with that of his lords.[480]
From the lion-pit the king went back to his palace, but only to spend
a miserable night. He could take no food.[481] No dancing-women were
summoned to his harem;[482] no sleep visited his eyelids. At the first
glimpse of morning he rose,[483] and went with haste to the den--taking
the satraps with him, adds the LXX.--and cried with a sorrowful voice,
"O Daniel, servant of the living God, hath thy God whom thou servest
continually been able to deliver thee from the lions?"
And the voice of the prophet answered, "O king, live for ever! My
God sent His angel,[484] and shut the mouths of the lions, that they
should not destroy me: forasmuch as before Him innocency was found in
me; and also before thee, O king, have I committed no offence."
Thereupon the happy king ordered that Daniel should be taken up out
of the lion-pit; and he was found to be unhurt, because he believed
in his God.
We would have gladly spared the touch of savagery with which the story
ends. The deliverance of Daniel made no difference in the guilt of
his accusers. What they had charged him with was a fact, and was a
transgression of the ridiculous decree which they had caused the king
to pass. But his deliverance was regarded as a Divine judgment upon
them--as proof that vengeance should fall on them. Accordingly, not
they only, but, with the brutal solidarity of revenge and punishment
which, in savage and semi-civilised races, confounds the innocent with
the guilty, their wives and even their children were also cast into
the den of lions, and they did not reach the bottom of the pit before
"the lions got hold of them and crushed all their bones."[485] They are
devoured, or caught, by the hungry lions in mid-air.
"Then King Darius wrote to all the nations, communities, and tongues
who dwell in the whole world, May your peace be multiplied! I make
a decree, That in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear
before the God of Daniel: for He is the living God, and steadfast
for ever, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and
His dominion even unto the end. He delivereth and He rescueth, and
He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who delivered
Daniel from the power of the lions."
The language, as in Nebuchadrezzar's decrees, is purely
Scriptural.[486] What the Median mages and the Persian fire-worshippers
would think of such a decree, and whether it produced the slightest
effect before it vanished without leaving a trace behind, are questions
with which the author of the story is not concerned.
He merely adds that Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and of
Cyrus the Persian.
FOOTNOTES:
[452] Lam. iv. 7.
[453] Isa. xliv. 25, 26.
[454] Isa. xliii. 2.
[455] Ezek. xxxi. 2-15.
[456] Prov. xvi. 18.
[457] Isa. x. 33.
[458] Isa. xlvii. 13.
[459] Isa. xxi. 2.
[460] The word is a cabalistic cryptogram--an instance of
_Gematria_--for Babel.
[461] Jer. li. 28-57.
[462] Psalm lvii. 4.
[463] Psalm lviii. 6.
[464] Lam. iii. 53.
[465] Isa. liv. 17.
[466] _Sanhedrin_, f. 93, 1. See another story in _Vayyikra Rabba_,
c. xix.
[467] _Bereshîth Rabba_, § 68.
[468] The LXX. says 127, and Josephus (_Antt._, X. xi. 4) says 360
(comp. Esther i. 1, viii. 9, ix. 3). Under Darius, son of Hystaspes,
there were only twenty divisions of the empire (Herod., iii. 89).
[469] Dan. vi. 2: "Of whom Daniel was"--not "_first_," as in A.V.,
but "_one_," R.V.
[470] Matt. xix. 29.
[471] 1 Cor. iv. 2.
[472] Dan. vi. 6, _char'ggishoo_; Vulg., _surripuerunt regi_; A.V.
marg., "came tumultuously." The word is found in the Targum in Ruth
i. 19 (Bevan).
[473] The den (_goob_ or _gubba_) seems to mean a vault. The Hebrew
word for "pit" is _boor_.
[474] See Layard, _Nin. and Bab._, i. 335, 447, 475; Smith, _Hist. of
Assur-bani-pal_, xxiv.
[475] The chamber was perhaps supposed to be a ὑπερῷον on the roof. The
"kneeling" in prayer (as in 1 Kings viii. 54; 2 Chron. vi. 13; Ezra ix.
5) is in the East a less common attitude than standing. See 1 Sam. i.
26; Mark xi. 25; Luke xviii. 11: but see Neh. viii. 6; Gen. xxiv. 26.
The Temple, and Jerusalem, was the _Kibleh_, or sacred direction of
devotion (1 Kings viii. 44; Ezek. viii. 16; Psalm v. 7, xxviii. 2,
lv. 17, etc.).
[476] Comp. Mark vi. 26.
[477] Theodot., ἀγωνιζόμενος.
[478] Esther i. 19, viii. 8.
[479] "Courage, till to-morrow" (ἕως πρωῒ θάῤῥει), adds the LXX.
[480] Comp. Lam. iii. 53. Seal-rings are very ancient (Herod., i.
195). It is useless to speculate on the construction of the lion-pit.
The only opening mentioned seems to have been _at the top_; but there
must necessarily have been side-openings also.
[481] Theodot., ἐκοιμήθη ἄδειπνος. Daniel, on the other hand, in the
apocryphal _Haggada_, gets his dinner miraculously from the Prophet
Habakkuk.
[482] Heb., _dachavān_; R.V., "instruments of music"; R.V. marg.,
"dancing-girls"; Gesenius, Zöckler, etc., "concubines."
[483] Theodot., τὸ πρωῒ ἐν τῷ φωτί.
[484] Comp. Dan. iii. 8; Psalm xxxiv. 7-10; Acts xii. 11.
[485] Comp. Esther ix. 13, 14; Josh. vii. 24; 2 Sam. xxi. 1-6. The
LXX. modifies the savagery of the story by making the vengeance fall
only on the _two_ young men who were Daniel's fellow-presidents. But
comp. Herod., iii. 119; Am. Marcell., xxiii. 6; and "Ob noxam unius
omnis propinquitas perit," etc.
[486] Psalm xxix. 1, x. 16, etc. Professor Fuller calls it "a
_Mazdean_ colouring in the language"!
PART III
_THE PROPHETIC SECTION OF THE BOOK_
CHAPTER I
_VISION OF THE FOUR WILD BEASTS_
We now enter upon the second division of the Book of Daniel--the
apocalyptic. It is unquestionably inferior to the first part in
grandeur and importance as a whole, but it contains not a few great
conceptions, and it was well adapted to inspire the hopes and arouse
the heroic courage of the persecuted Jews in the terrible days of
Antiochus Epiphanes. Daniel now speaks in the first person,[487]
whereas throughout the historic section of the Book the third person
has been used.
In the form of apocalypse which he adopts he had already had partial
precursors in Ezekiel and Zechariah; but their symbolic visions were
far less detailed and developed--it may be added far more poetic and
classical--than his. And in later apocalypses, for which this served
as a model, little regard is paid to the grotesqueness or incongruity
of the symbols, if only the intended conception is conveyed. In no
previous writer of the grander days of Hebrew literature would such
symbols have been permitted as horns which have eyes and speak, or
lions from which the wings are plucked, and which thereafter stand on
their feet as a man, and have a man's heart given to them.
The vision is dated, "In the first year of Belshazzar, King of
Babylon." It therefore comes chronologically between the fourth
and fifth chapters. On the pseudepigraphic view of the Book we may
suppose that this date is merely a touch of literary verisimilitude,
designed to assimilate the prophecies to the form of those uttered
by the ancient prophets; or perhaps it may be intended to indicate
that with three of the four empires--the Babylonian, the Median, and
the Persian--Daniel had a personal acquaintance. Beyond this we can
see no significance in the date; for the predictions which are here
recorded have none of that immediate relation to the year in which
they originated which we see in the writings of Isaiah and Jeremiah.
Perhaps the verse itself is a later guess or gloss, since there are
slight variations in Theodotion and the LXX. Daniel, we are told,
both saw and wrote and narrated the dream.[488]
In the vision of the night he had seen the four winds of heaven
travailing, or bursting forth, on the great sea;[489] and from those
tumultuous waves came four immense wild beasts, each unlike the other.
The first was a lion, with four eagles' wings. The wings were plucked
off, and it then raised itself from the earth, stood on its feet like
a man, and a man's heart was given to it.
The second was like a bear, raising itself on one side, and having
three ribs between its teeth; and it is bidden to "arise and devour
much flesh."
The third is a leopard, or panther, with four wings and four heads,
to which dominion is given.
The fourth--a yet more terrible monster, which is left undescribed,
as though indescribable--has great devouring teeth of iron, and feet
that stamp and crush.[490] It has ten horns, and among them came up a
little horn, before which three of the others are plucked up by the
roots; and this horn has eyes, and a mouth speaking great things.
Then the thrones were set for the Divine judges,[491] and the Ancient
of Days seats Himself--His raiment as white snow, His hair as bright
wool, His throne of flames, His wheels of burning fire. A stream of
dazzling fire goes out before Him. Thousand thousands stand before
Him; ten thousand times ten thousand minister to Him. The judgment is
set; the books are opened. The fourth monster is then slain and burned
because of the blaspheming horn; the other beasts are suffered to live
for a season and a time, but their dominion is taken away.[492]
* * * * *
But then, in the night vision, there came "one even as a son of man"
with the clouds of heaven, and is brought before the Ancient of Days,
and receives from Him power and glory and a kingdom--an everlasting
dominion, a kingdom that shall not be destroyed--over _all people_,
nations, and languages.
Such is the vision, and its interpretation follows. The heart of
Daniel "is pierced in the midst of its sheath" by what he has seen,
and the visions of his head troubled him. Coming near to one of them
that stood by--the angelic ministrants of the Ancient of Days--he
begs for an interpretation of the vision.
It is given him with extreme brevity.
The four wild beasts represent four kings, the founders of four
successive kingdoms. But the ultimate and eternal dominion is not
to be with them. It is to be given, till the eternities of the
eternities, to "the holy ones of the Lofty One."[493]
What follows is surely an indication of the date of the Book. Daniel
is quite satisfied with this meagre interpretation, in which no
single detail is given as regards the first three world-empires,
which one would have supposed would chiefly interest the real Daniel.
His whole curiosity is absorbed in _a detail_ of the vision of the
_fourth_ monster. It is all but inconceivable that a contemporary
prophet should have felt no further interest in the destinies which
affected the great golden Empire of Babylon under which he lived, nor
in those of Media and Persia, which were already beginning to loom
large on the horizon, and should have cared only for an incident in
the story of a fourth empire as yet unheard of, which was only to be
fulfilled four centuries later. The interests of every other Hebrew
prophet are always mainly absorbed, so far as earthly things are
concerned, in the immediate or not-far-distant future. That is true
also of the author of Daniel, if, as we have had reason to see, he
wrote under the rule of the persecuting and blaspheming horn.
In his appeal for the interpretation of this symbol there are fresh
particulars about this horn which had eyes and spake very great
things. We are told that "his look was more stout than his fellows";
and that "he made war against the saints and prevailed against them,
until the Ancient of Days came. Then judgment was given to the
saints, and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom."
The interpretation is that the fourth beast is an earth-devouring,
trampling, shattering kingdom, diverse from all kingdoms; its ten horns
are ten kings that shall arise from it.[494] Then another king shall
arise, diverse from the first, who shall subdue three kings, shall
speak blasphemies, shall wear out the saints, and will strive to change
times and laws. But after "a time, two times, and a half,"[495] the
judgment shall sit, and he will be annihilated, and his dominion shall
be given for ever to the people of the saints of the Most High.
Such was the vision; such its interpretation; and there can be no
difficulty as to its general significance.
I. That the four empires, and their founders, are not identical with
the four empires of the metal colossus in Nebuchadrezzar's dream,
is an inference which, apart from dogmatic bias, would scarcely
have occurred to any unsophisticated reader. To the imagination of
Nebuchadrezzar, the heathen potentate, they would naturally present
themselves in their strength and towering grandeur, splendid and
impassive and secure, till the mysterious destruction smites them. To
the Jewish seer they present themselves in their cruel ferocity and
headstrong ambition as destroying wild beasts. The symbolism would
naturally occur to all who were familiar with the winged bulls and
lions and other gigantic representations of monsters which decorated
the palace-walls of Nineveh and Babylon. Indeed, similar imagery had
already found a place on the prophetic page.[496]
II. The turbulent sea, from which the immense beasts emerge after the
struggling of the four winds of heaven upon its surface, is the sea
of nations.[497]
III. The first great beast is Nebuchadrezzar and the Babylonian
Empire.[498] There is nothing strange in the fact that there
should be a certain transfusion or overlapping of the symbols, the
object not being literary congruity, but the creation of a general
impression. He is represented as a lion, because lions were prevalent
in Babylonia, and were specially prominent in Babylonian decorations.
His eagle-wings symbolise rapacity and swiftness.[499] But, according
to the narrative already given, a change had come over the spirit of
Nebuchadrezzar in his latter days. That subduing and softening by the
influence of a Divine power is represented by the plucking off of the
lion's eagle-wings, and its fall to earth. But it was not left to lie
there in impotent degradation. It is lifted up from the earth, and
humanised, and made to stand on its feet as a man, and a man's heart
is given to it.[500]
IV. The bear, which places itself upon one side, is the Median
Empire, smaller than the Chaldean, as the bear is smaller and less
formidable than the lion. The crouching on one side is obscure. It
is explained by some as implying that it was lower in exaltation
than the Babylonian Empire; by others that "it gravitated, as
regards its power, only towards the countries west of the Tigris and
Euphrates."[501] The meaning of the "three ribs in its mouth" is also
uncertain. Some regard the number three as a vague round number;
others refer it to the three countries over which the Median dominion
extended--Babylonia, Assyria, and Syria; others, less probably, to
the three chief cities. The command, "Arise, devour much flesh,"
refers to the prophecies of Median conquest,[502] and perhaps to
uncertain historical reminiscences which confused "Darius the Mede"
with Darius the son of Hystaspes. Those who explain this monster as
an emblem, not of the Median but of the Medo-Persian Empire, neglect
the plain indications of the Book itself, for the author regards the
Median and Persian Empires as distinct.[503]
V. The leopard or panther represents the Persian kingdom.[504] It has
four wings on its back, to indicate how freely and swiftly it soared
to the four quarters of the world. Its four heads indicate four
kings. There were indeed twelve or thirteen kings of Persia between
B.C. 536 and B.C. 333; but the author of the Book of Daniel, who of
course had no books of history before him, only thinks of the four
who were most prominent in popular tradition--namely (as it would
seem), Cyrus, Darius, Artaxerxes, and Xerxes.[505] These are the only
four names which the writer knew, because they are the only ones
which occur in Scripture. It is true that the Darius of Neh. xii.
22 is not the Great Darius, son of Hystaspes, but Darius Codomannus
(B.C. 424-404). But this fact may most easily have been overlooked in
uncritical and unhistoric times. And "power was given to it," for it
was far stronger than the preceding kingdom of the Medes.
VI. The fourth monster won its chief aspect of terribleness from
the conquests of Alexander, which blazed over the East with such
irresistible force and suddenness.[506] The great Macedonian, after his
massacres at Tyre, struck into the Eastern world the intense feeling of
terror which we still can recognise in the narrative of Josephus. His
rule is therefore symbolised by a monster diverse from all the beasts
before it in its sudden leap out of obscurity, in the lightning-like
rapidity of its flash from West to East, and in its instantaneous
disintegration into four separate kingdoms. It is with one only of
those four kingdoms of the Diadochi, the one which so terribly affected
the fortunes of the Holy Land, that the writer is predominantly
concerned--namely, the empire of the Seleucid kings. It is in that
portion of the kingdom--namely, from the Euxine to the confines of
Arabia--that the ten horns arise which, we are told, symbolise ten
kings. It seems almost certain that these ten kings are intended for:--
B.C.
1. Seleucus I. (_Nicator_)[507] 312-280
2. Antiochus I. (_Soter_) 280-261
3. Antiochus II. (_Theos_) 261-246
4. Seleucus II. (_Kallinikos_) 246-226
5. Seleucus III. (_Keraunos_) 226-223
6. Antiochus III. (_Megas_) 223-187
7. Seleucus IV. (_Philopator_) 187-176
Then followed the three kings (actual or potential) who were plucked
up before the little horn: namely--
B.C.
8. Demetrius 175
9. Heliodorus 176
10. Ptolemy Philometor 181-146
Of these three who succumbed to the machinations of Antiochus
Epiphanes, or the little horn,[508] the first, Demetrius, was the
only son of Seleucus Philopator, and true heir to the crown. His
father sent him to Rome as a hostage, and released his brother
Antiochus. So far from showing gratitude for this generosity,
Antiochus, on the murder of Seleucus IV. (B.C. 175), usurped the
rights of his nephew (Dan. xi. 21).
The second, Heliodorus, seeing that Demetrius the heir was out
of the way, poisoned Seleucus Philopator, and himself usurped the
kingdom.[509]
Ptolemy Philometor was the son of Cleopatra, the sister of Seleucus
Philopator. A large party was in favour of uniting Egypt and Persia
under his rule. But Antiochus Epiphanes ignored the compact which had
made Cœle-Syria and Phœnicia the dower of Cleopatra, and not only
kept Philometor from his rights, but would have deprived him of Egypt
also but for the strenuous interposition of the Romans and their
ambassador M. Popilius Lænas.[510]
When the three horns had thus fallen before him, the little
horn--Antiochus Epiphanes--sprang into prominence. The mention of
his "eyes" seems to be a reference to his shrewdness, cunning,
and vigilance.[511] The "mouth that spoke very great things"[512]
alludes to the boastful arrogance which led him to assume the title
of Epiphanes, or "the illustrious"--which his scornful subjects
changed into Epimanes, "the mad"--and to his assumption even of
the title Theos, "the god," on some of his coins.[513] His look
"was bigger than his fellows," for he inspired the kings of Egypt
and other countries with terror. "He made war against the saints,"
with the aid of "Jason and Menelaus, those ungodly wretches," and
"prevailed against them." He "wore out the saints of the Most High,"
for he took Jerusalem by storm, plundered it, slew eighty thousand
men, women, and children, took forty thousand prisoners, and sold
as many into slavery (B.C. 170).[514] "As he entered the sanctuary
to plunder it, under the guidance of the apostate high priest
Menelaus, he uttered words of blasphemy, and he carried off all the
gold and silver he could find, including the golden table, altar of
incense, candlesticks, and vessels, and even rifled the subterraneous
vaults, so that he seized no less than eighteen hundred talents of
gold."[515] He then sacrificed swine upon the altar, and sprinkled
the whole Temple with the broth.
Further than all this, "_he thought to change times and laws_"; and
they were "_given into his hand until a time, and two times, and
a half_." For he made a determined attempt to put down the Jewish
feasts, the Sabbath, circumcision, and all the most distinctive
Jewish ordinances.[516] In B.C. 167, two years after his cruel
devastation of the city, he sent Apollonius, his chief collector of
tribute, against Jerusalem, with an army of twenty-two thousand men.
On the first Sabbath after his arrival, Apollonius sent his soldiers
to massacre all the men whom they met in the streets, and to seize
the women and children as slaves. He occupied the castle on Mount
Zion, and prevented the Jews from attending the public ordinances
of their sanctuary. Hence in June B.C. 167 the daily sacrifice
ceased, and the Jews fled for their lives from the Holy City.
Antiochus then published an edict forbidding all his subjects in
Syria and elsewhere--even the Zoroastrians in Armenia and Persia--to
worship any gods, or acknowledge any religion but his.[517] The
Jewish sacred books were burnt, and not only the Samaritans but
many Jews apostatised, while others hid themselves in mountains and
deserts.[518] He sent an old philosopher named Athenæus to instruct
the Jews in the Greek religion, and to enforce its observance. He
dedicated the Temple to Zeus Olympios, and built on the altar of
Jehovah a smaller altar for sacrifice to Zeus, to whom he must also
have erected a statue. This heathen altar was set up on Kisleu
(December) 15, and the heathen sacrifice began on Kisleu 25. All
observance of the Jewish Law was now treated as a capital crime. The
Jews were forced to sacrifice in heathen groves at heathen altars,
and to walk, crowned with ivy, in Bacchic processions. Two women who
had braved the despot's wrath by circumcising their children were
flung from the Temple battlements into the vale below.[519]
The triumph of this blasphemous and despotic savagery was arrested,
first by the irresistible force of determined martyrdom which
preferred death to unfaithfulness, and next by the armed resistance
evoked by the heroism of Mattathias, the priest at Modin. When
Apelles visited the town, and ordered the Jews to sacrifice,
Mattathias struck down with his own hand a Jew who was preparing to
obey. Then, aided by his strong heroic sons, he attacked Apelles,
slew him and his soldiers, tore down the idolatrous altar, and with
his sons and adherents fled into the wilderness, where they were
joined by many of the Jews.
The news of this revolt brought Antiochus to Palestine in B.C. 166,
and among his other atrocities he ordered the execution by torture of
the venerable scribe Eleazar, and of the pious mother with her seven
sons. In spite of all his efforts the party of the _Chasidîm_ grew
in numbers and in strength. When Mattathias died, Judas the Maccabee
became their leader, and his brother Simon their counsellor.[520]
While Antiochus was celebrating his mad and licentious festival at
Daphne, Judas inflicted a severe defeat on Apollonius, and won other
battles, which made Antiochus vow in an access of fury that he would
exterminate the nation (Dan. xi. 44). But he found himself bankrupt,
and the Persians and Armenians were revolting from him in disgust. He
therefore sent Lysias as his general to Judæa, and Lysias assembled
an immense army of forty thousand foot and seven thousand horse, to
whom Judas could only oppose six thousand men.[521] Lysias pitched
his camp at Beth-shur, south of Jerusalem. There Judas attacked him
with irresistible valour and confidence, slew five thousand of his
soldiers, and drove the rest to flight.
Lysias retired to Antioch, intending to renew the invasion next year.
Thereupon Judas and his army recaptured Jerusalem, and restored and
cleansed and reconsecrated the dilapidated and desecrated sanctuary.
He made a new shewbread-table, incense-altar, and candlestick of gold
in place of those which Antiochus had carried off, and new vessels of
gold, and a new veil before the Holiest Place. All this was completed
on Kisleu 25, B.C. 165, about the time of the winter solstice, "on
the same day of the year on which, three years before, it had been
profaned by Antiochus, and just three years and a half--'a time, two
times, and half a time'--after the city and Temple had been desolated
by Apollonius."[522] They began the day by renewing the sacrifices,
kindling the altar and the candlestick by pure fire struck by flints.
The whole law of the Temple service continued thenceforward without
interruption till the destruction of the Temple by the Romans. It was
a feast in commemoration of this dedication--called the Encænia and
"the Lights"--which Christ honoured by His presence at Jerusalem.[523]
The neighbouring nations, when they heard of this revolt of the
Jews, and its splendid success, proposed to join with Antiochus for
their extermination. But meanwhile the king, having been shamefully
repulsed in his sacrilegious attack on the Temple of Artemis at
Elymais, retired in deep chagrin to Ecbatana, in Media. It was there
that he heard of the Jewish successes and set out to chastise
the rebels. On his way he heard of the recovery of Jerusalem, the
destruction of his heathen altars, and the purification of the
Temple. The news flung him into one of those paroxysms of fury to
which he was liable, and, breathing out threatenings and slaughter,
he declared that he would turn Jerusalem into one vast cemetery for
the whole Jewish race. Suddenly smitten with a violent internal
malady, he would not stay his course, but still urged his charioteer
to the utmost speed.[524] In consequence of this the chariot was
overturned, and he was flung violently to the ground, receiving
severe injuries. He was placed in a litter, but, unable to bear the
agonies caused by its motion, he stopped at Tabæ, in the mountains of
Parætacene, on the borders of Persia and Babylonia, where he died,
B.C. 164, in very evil case, half mad with the furies of a remorseful
conscience.[525] The Jewish historians say that, before his death,
he repented, acknowledged the crimes he had committed against the
Jews, and vowed that he would repair them if he survived. The stories
of his death resemble those of the deaths of Herod, of Galerius, of
Philip II., and of other bitter persecutors of the saints of God.
Judas the Maccabee, who had overthrown his power in Palestine, died
at Eleasa in B.C. 161, after a series of brilliant victories.
Such were the fortunes of the king whom the writer shadows forth
under the emblem of the little horn with human eyes and a mouth
which spake blasphemies, whose power was to be made transitory, and
to be annihilated and destroyed unto the end.[526] And when this wild
beast was slain, and its body given to the burning fire, the rest of
the beasts were indeed to be deprived of their splendid dominions,
but a respite of life is given them, and they are suffered to endure
for a time and a period.[527]
But the eternal life, and the imperishable dominion, which were
denied to them, are given to another in the epiphany of the Ancient
of Days. The vision of the seer is one of a great scene of judgment.
Thrones are set for the heavenly assessors, and the Almighty appears
in snow-white raiment, and on His chariot-throne of burning flame
which flashes round Him like a vast photosphere.[528] The books of
everlasting record are opened before the glittering faces of the
myriads of saints who accompany Him, and the fiery doom is passed on
the monstrous world-powers who would fain usurp His authority.[529]
But who is the "one even as a son of man," who "comes with the clouds
of heaven," and who "is brought before the Ancient of Days,"[530] to
whom is given the imperishable dominion? That he is not an angel
appears from the fact that he seems to be separate from all the ten
thousand times ten thousand who stand around the cherubic chariot. He
is not a man, but something more. In this respect he resembles the
angels described in Dan. viii. 15, x. 16-18. He has "the appearance
of a man," and is "like the similitude of the sons of men."[531]
We should naturally answer, in accordance with the multitude of
ancient and modern commentators both Jewish and Christian, that
the Messiah is intended;[532] and, indeed, our Lord alludes to the
prophecy in Matt. xxvi. 64. That the vision is meant to indicate the
establishment of the Messianic theocracy cannot be doubted. But if
we follow the interpretation given by the angel himself in answer
to Daniel's entreaty, the personality of the Messiah seems to be at
least somewhat subordinate or indistinct. For the interpretation,
without mentioning any person, seems to point only to the saints of
Israel who are to inherit and maintain that Divine kingdom which has
been already thrice asserted and prophesied. It is the "holy ones"
(_Qaddîshîn_), "the holy ones of the Most High" (_Qaddîshî Elîonîn_),
upon whom the never-ending sovereignty is conferred;[533] and who
these are cannot be misunderstood, for they are the very same as
those against whom the little horn has been engaged in war.[534]
The Messianic kingdom is here predominantly represented as the
spiritual supremacy of the chosen people. Neither here, nor in ii.
44, nor in xii. 3, does the writer separately indicate any Davidic
king, or priest upon his throne, as had been already done by so many
previous prophets.[535] This vision does not seem to have brought
into prominence the rule of any Divinely Incarnate Christ over the
kingdom of the Highest. In this respect the interpretation of the
"one even as a son of man" comes upon us as a surprise, and seems to
indicate that the true interpretation of that element of the vision
is that the kingdom of the saints is there personified; so that
as wild beasts were appropriate emblems of the world-powers, the
reasonableness and sanctity of the saintly theocracy are indicated by
a human form, which has its origin in the clouds of heaven, not in
the miry and troubled sea. This is the view of the Christian father
Ephræm Syrus, as well as of the Jewish exegete Abn Ezra; and it is
supported by the fact that in other apocryphal books of the later
epoch, as in the Assumption of Moses and the Book of Jubilees, the
Messianic hope is concentrated in the conception that the holy nation
is to have the dominance over the Gentiles. At any rate, it seems
that, if truth is to guide us rather than theological prepossession,
we must take the significance of the writer, not from the emblems of
the vision, but from the divinely imparted interpretation of it; and
there the figure of "one as a son of man" is persistently (vv. 18,
22, 27) explained to stand, not for the Christ Himself, but for "the
holy ones of the Most High,"[536] whose dominion Christ's coming
should inaugurate and secure.
The chapter closes with the words: "Here is the end of the matter. As
for me, Daniel, my thoughts much troubled me, and my brightness was
changed in me: but I kept the matter in my heart."
FOOTNOTES:
[487] Except in the heading of chap. x.
[488] In the opinion of Lagarde and others this chapter--which is
not noticed by Josephus, and which Meinhold thinks cannot have been
written by the author of chap. ii., since it says nothing of the
sufferings or deliverance of Israel--did not belong to the original
form of the Book. Lagarde thinks that it was written A.D. 69, after
the persecution of the Christians by Nero.
[489] St. Ephræm Syrus says, "The sea is the world." Isa. xvii. 12,
xxvii. 1, xxxii. 2. But compare Dan. vii. 17; Ezek. xxix. 3; Rev.
xiii. 1, xvii. 1-8, xxi. 1.
[490] In the vision of the colossus in ii. 41-43 stress is laid on
the division of the fourth empire into stronger and weaker elements
(iron and clay). That point is here passed over.
[491] A.V., "the thrones were cast down."
[492] In ii. 35, 44, the four empires are represented as finally
destroyed.
[493] A.V. marg., "high ones"--_i.e._, things or places.
[494] Not kingdoms, as in viii. 8.
[495] Comp. Rev. xii. 14; Luke iv. 25; James v. 17.
[496] Isa. xxvii. 1, li. 9; Ezek. xxix. 3, xxxii. 2.
[497] Comp. Job xxxviii. 16, 17; Isa. viii. 7, xvii. 12.
[498] Comp. Dan. ii. 38. Jeremiah had likened Nebuchadrezzar both to
the lion (iv. 7, xlix. 19, etc.) and to the eagle (xlviii. 40, xlix.
22). Ezekiel had compared the king (xvii. 3), and Habakkuk his armies
(i. 8), as also Jeremiah (iv. 13; Lam. iv. 19), to the eagle (Pusey, p.
690). See too Layard, _Nin. and Bab._, ii. 460. For other beast-symbols
see Isa. xxvii. 1, li. 9; Ezek. xxix. 3; Psalm lxxiv. 13.
[499] Comp. Jer. iv. 7, 13, xlix. 16; Ezek. xvii. 3, 12; Hab. i. 8;
Lam. iv. 19.
[500] The use of _enôsh_--not _eesh_--indicates chastening and weakness.
[501] Ewald.
[502] Isa. xiii. 17; Jer. li. 11, 28. Aristotle, _H. N._, viii.
5, calls the bear πάμφαγος, "all-devouring." A bear appears as a
dream-symbol in an Assyrian book of auguries (Lenormant, _Magie_, 492).
[503] Dan. v. 28, 31, vi. 8, 12, 15, 28, viii. 20, ix. 1, xi. 1.
[504] The composite beast of Rev. xiii. 2 combines leopard, bear, and
lion.
[505] Comp. viii. 4-8.
[506] Battle of the Granicus, B.C. 334; Battle of Issus, 333; Siege
of Tyre, 332; Battle of Arbela, 331; Death of Darius, 330. Alexander
died B.C. 323.
[507] This was the interpretation given by the great father Ephræm
Syrus in the first century. Hitzig, Kuenen, and others count from
Alexander the Great, and omit Ptolemy Philometor.
[508] Dan. xi. 21.
[509] Appian, _Syr._, 45; Liv., xli. 24. The story of his attempt to
rob the Temple at Jerusalem, rendered so famous by the great picture
of Raphael in the Vatican _stanze_, is not mentioned by Josephus,
but only in 2 Macc. iii. 24-40. In 4 Macc. it is told, without the
miracle, of Apollonius. There can be little doubt that something of
the kind happened, but it was perhaps due to an imposture of the
Jewish high priest.
[510] Porphyry interpreted the three kings who succumbed to the
little horn to be Ptolemy Philometor, Ptolemy Euergetes II., and
Artaxias, King of Armenia. The critics who begin the ten kings with
Alexander the Great count Seleucus IV. (Philopator) as one of the
three who were supplanted by Antiochus. Von Gutschmid counts as
one of the three a younger brother of Demetrius, said to have been
murdered by Antiochus (Müller, _Fr. Hist. Græc._, iv. 558).
[511] Comp. viii. 23.
[512] Comp. λαλεῖν μέγαλα (Rev. xiii. 5); Hom., _Od._, xvi. 243.
[513] Comp. xi. 36.
[514] Jos., _B. J._, I. i. 2, VI. x. 1. In _Antt._, XII. v. 3,
Josephus says he took Jerusalem by stratagem.
[515] Jahn, _Hebr. Commonwealth_, § xciv.; Ewald, _Hist. of Isr._, v.
293-300.
[516] 2 Macc. iv. 9-15: "The priests had no courage to serve any more
at the altar, but despising the Temple, and neglecting the sacrifices,
hastened to be partakers of the unlawful allowance in the place of
exercise, after the game of Discus ... not setting by the honours of
their fathers, but liking the glory of the Grecians best of all."
[517] 1 Macc. i. 29-40; 2 Macc. v. 24-26; Jos., _Antt._, XII. v. 4.
Comp. Dan. xi. 30, 31. See Schürer, i. 155 ff.
[518] Jerome, _Comm. in Dan._, viii., ix.; Tac., _Hist._, v. 8; 1
Macc. i. 41-53; 2 Macc. v. 27, vi. 2; Jos., _Antt._, XII. v. 4.
[519] 1 Macc. ii. 41-64, iv. 54; 2 Macc. vi. 1-9, x. 5; Jos.,
_Antt._, XII. v. 4; Dan. xi. 31.
[520] Maccabee perhaps means "the Hammerer" (comp. the names Charles
_Martel_ and _Malleus hæreticorum_). Simeon was called _Tadshî_, "he
increases" (? Gk., Θασσίς).
[521] The numbers vary in the records.
[522] Prideaux, _Connection_, ii. 212. Comp. Rev. xii. 14, xi. 2, 3.
[523] John x. 22.
[524] On the death of Antiochus see 1 Macc. vi. 8; 2 Macc. ix.;
Polybius, xxxi. 11; Jos., _Antt._, XII. ix. 1, 2.
[525] Polybius, _De Virt. et Vit._, Exc. Vales, p. 144; Q. Curtius,
v. 13; Strabo, xi. 522; Appian, _Syriaca_, xlvi. 80; 1 Macc. vi.; 2
Macc. ix.; Jos., _Antt._, XII. ix. 1; Prideaux, ii. 217; Jahn, _Hebr.
Commonwealth_ § xcvi.
[526] Dan. vii. 26.
[527] Dan. vii. 12. This is only explicable at all--and then not
clearly--on the supposition that the fourth beast represents
Alexander and the Diadochi. See even Pusey, p. 78.
[528] Ezek. i. 26; Psalm l. 3. Comp. the adaptation of this vision in
Enoch xlvi. 1-3.
[529] Isa. l. 11, lx. 10-12, lxvi. 24, Joel iii. 1, 2. See Rev. i.
13. In the Gospels it is not "a son of man," but generally ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ
ἀνθρώπου. Comp. Matt. xvi. 13, xxiv. 30; John xii. 34; Acts vii. 56;
Justin, _Dial. c. Tryph._, 31.
[530] Comp. Mark xiv. 62; Rev. i. 7; Hom., _Il._, v. 867, ὁμοῦ
νεφέεσσιν.
[531] Comp. Ezek. i. 26.
[532] It is so understood by the Book of Enoch; the Talmud
(_Sanhedrin_, f. 98, 1); the early father Justin Martyr, _Dial. c.
Tryph._, 31, etc. Some of the Jewish commentators (_e.g._, Abn Ezra)
understood it of the people of God, and so Hofmann, Hitzig, Meinhold,
etc. See Behrmann, _Dan._, p. 48.
[533] Dan. iv. 3, 34, vi. 26. See Schürer, ii. 247; Wellhausen, _Die
Pharis. u. Sadd._, 24 ff.
[534] Dan. vii. 16, 22, 23, 27.
[535] Zech. ix. 9.
[536] See Schürer, ii. 138-187, "The Messianic Hope": he refers to
Ecclus. xxxii. 18, 19, xxxiii. 1-11, xl. 13, l. 24; Judith xvi. 12;
2 Macc. ii. 18; Baruch ii. 27-35; Tobit xiii, 11-18; Wisdom iii.
8, v. 1, etc. The Messianic King appears more distinctly in _Orac.
Sibyll._, iii.; in parts of the Book of Enoch (of which, however,
xlv.-lvii. are of unknown date); and the Psalms of Solomon. In Philo
we seem to have traces of the King as well as of the kingdom. See
Drummond, _The Jewish Messiah_, pp. 196 ff.; Stanton, _The Jewish and
Christian Messiah_, pp. 109-118.
CHAPTER II
_THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT_
This vision is dated as having occurred in the third year of
Belshazzar; but it is not easy to see the significance of the date,
since it is almost exclusively occupied with the establishment of the
Greek Empire, its dissolution into the kingdoms of the Diadochi, and
the godless despotism of King Antiochus Epiphanes.
The seer imagines himself to be in the palace of Shushan: "As I
beheld I was in the castle of Shushan."[537] It has been supposed by
some that Daniel was really there upon some business connected with
the kingdom of Babylon. But this view creates a needless difficulty.
Shushan, which the Greeks called Susa, and the Persians Shush (now
Shushter), "the city of the lily," was "the palace" or fortress
(_bîrah_[538]) of the Achæmenid kings of Persia, and it is most
unlikely that a chief officer of the kingdom of Babylon should have
been there in the third year of the imaginary King Belshazzar, just
when Cyrus was on the eve of capturing Babylon without a blow. If
Belshazzar is some dim reflection of the son of Nabunaid (though
he never reigned), Shushan was not then subject to the King of
Babylonia. But the ideal presence of the prophet there, in vision, is
analogous to the presence of the exile Ezekiel in Jerusalem (Ezek.
xl. 1); and these transferences of the prophets to the scenes of
their operation were sometimes even regarded as bodily, as in the
legend of Habakkuk taken to the lions' den to support Daniel.
Shushan is described as being in the province of Elam or Elymais,
which may be here used as a general designation of the district in
which Susiana was included. The prophet imagines himself as standing
by the river-basin (_oobâl_[539]) of the Ulai, which shows that we
must take the words "in the castle of Shushan" in an ideal sense;
for, as Ewald says, "it is only in a dream that images and places are
changed so rapidly." The Ulai is the river called by the Greeks the
Eulæus, now the Karûn.[540]
Shushan is said by Pliny and Arrian to have been on the river Eulæus,
and by Herodotus to have been on the banks of
"Choaspes, amber stream,
The drink of none but kings."
It seems now to have been proved that the Ulai was merely a branch of
the Choaspes or Kerkhah.[541]
Lifting up his eyes, Daniel sees a ram standing eastward of the
river-basin. It has two lofty horns, the loftier of the two being the
later in origin. It butts westward, northward, and southward, and
does great things.[542] But in the midst of its successes a he-goat,
with a conspicuous horn between its eyes,[543] comes from the West
so swiftly over the face of all the earth that it scarcely seems
even to touch the ground,[544] and runs upon the ram in the fury of
his strength,[545] conquering and trampling upon him, and smashing
in pieces his two horns. But his impetuosity was short-lived, for
the great horn was speedily broken, and four others[546] rose in its
place towards the four winds of heaven. Out of these four horns shot
up a puny horn,[547] which grew exceedingly great towards the South,
and towards the East, and towards "the Glory"--_i.e._, towards the
Holy Land.[548] It became great even to the host of heaven, and cast
down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and trampled
on them.[549] He even behaved proudly against the prince of the
host, took away from him[550] "the daily" (sacrifice), polluted the
dismantled sanctuary with sacrilegious arms,[551] and cast the truth
to the ground and prospered. Then "one holy one called to another
and asked, For how long is the vision of the daily [sacrifice], and
the horrible sacrilege, that thus both the sanctuary and host are
surrendered to be trampled underfoot?"[552] And the answer is, "Until
two thousand three hundred _'erebh-bôqer_, 'evening-morning'; then
will the sanctuary be justified."
Daniel sought to understand the vision, and immediately there stood
before him one in the semblance of a man, and he hears the distant
voice of some one[553] standing between the Ulai--_i.e._, between its
two banks,[554] or perhaps between its two branches, the Eulæus and
the Choaspes--who called aloud to "Gabriel." The archangel Gabriel
is here first mentioned in Scripture.[555] "Gabriel," cried the
voice, "explain to him what he has seen." So Gabriel came and stood
beside him; but he was terrified, and fell on his face. "Observe,
thou son of man,"[556] said the angel to him; "for unto the time of
the end is the vision." But since Daniel still lay prostrate on his
face, and sank into a swoon, the angel touched him, and raised him
up, and said that the great wrath was only for a fixed time, and he
would tell him what would happen at the end of it.
The two-horned ram, he said, the _Baal-keranaîm_, or "lord of two
horns," represents the King of Media and Persia; the shaggy goat is
the Empire of Greece; and the great horn is its first king--Alexander
the Great.[557]
The four horns rising out of the broken great horn are four inferior
kingdoms. In one of these, sacrilege would culminate in the person of
a king of bold face,[558] and skilled in cunning, who would become
powerful, though not by his own strength.[559] He would prosper and
destroy mighty men and the people of the holy ones,[560] and deceit
would succeed by his double-dealing. He would contend against the
Prince of princes,[561] and yet without a hand would he be broken in
pieces.
Such is the vision and its interpretation; and though there is here
and there a difficulty in the details and translation, and though
there is a necessary crudeness in the emblematic imagery, the general
significance of the whole is perfectly clear.
The scene of the vision is ideally placed in Shushan, because the
Jews regarded it as the royal capital of the Persian dominion, and
the dream begins with the overthrow of the Medo-Persian Empire.[562]
The ram is a natural symbol of power and strength, as in Isa. lx. 7.
The two horns represent the two divisions of the empire, of which the
later--the Persian--is the loftier and the stronger. It is regarded as
being already the lord of the East, but it extends its conquests by
butting westward over the Tigris into Europe, and southwards to Egypt
and Africa, and northwards towards Scythia, with magnificent success.
The he-goat is Greece.[563] Its one great horn represents "the great
Emathian conqueror."[564] So swift was the career of Alexander's
conquests, that the goat seems to speed along without so much as
touching the ground.[565] With irresistible fury, in the great
battles of the Granicus (B.C. 334), Issus (B.C. 333), and Arbela
(B.C. 331), he stamps to pieces the power of Persia and of its
king, Darius Codomannus.[566] In this short space of time Alexander
conquers Syria, Phœnicia, Cyprus, Tyre, Gaza, Egypt, Babylonia,
Persia, Media, Hyrcania, Aria, and Arachosia. In B.C. 330 Darius was
murdered by Bessus, and Alexander became lord of his kingdom. In B.C.
329 the Greek King conquered Bactria, crossed the Oxus and Jaxartes,
and defeated the Scythians. In B.C. 328 he conquered Sogdiana. In
B.C. 327 and 326 he crossed the Indus, Hydaspes, and Akesines,
subdued Northern and Western India, and--compelled by the discontent
of his troops to pause in his career of victory--sailed down the
Hydaspes and Indus to the Ocean. He then returned by land through
Gedrosia, Karmania, Persia, and Susiana to Babylon.
There the great horn is suddenly broken without hand.[567] Alexander
in B.C. 323, after a reign of twelve years and eight months, died
as a fool dieth, of a fever brought on by fatigue, exposure,
drunkenness, and debauchery. He was only thirty-two years old.
The dismemberment of his empire immediately followed. In B.C. 322 its
vast extent was divided among his principal generals. Twenty-two years
of war ensued; and in B.C. 301, after the defeat of Antigonus and his
son Demetrius at the Battle of Ipsus, four horns are visible in the
place of one. The battle was won by the confederacy of Cassander,
Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus, and they founded four kingdoms.
Cassander ruled in Greece and Macedonia; Lysimachus in Asia Minor;
Ptolemy in Egypt, Cœle-Syria, and Palestine; Seleucus in Upper Asia.
With one only of the four kingdoms, and with one only of its kings,
is the vision further concerned--with the kingdom of the Seleucidæ,
and with the eighth king of the dynasty, Antiochus Epiphanes. In
this chapter, however, a brief sketch only of him is furnished. Many
details of the minutest kind are subsequently added.
He is called "a puny horn," because, in his youth, no one could
have anticipated his future greatness. He was only a younger son
of Antiochus III. (the Great). When Antiochus III. was defeated in
the Battle of Magnesia under Mount Sipylus (B.C. 190), his loss was
terrible. Fifty thousand foot and four thousand horse were slain on
the battlefield, and fourteen hundred were taken prisoners. He was
forced to make peace with the Romans, and to give them hostages, one
of whom was Antiochus the Younger, brother of Seleucus, who was heir
to the throne. Antiochus for thirteen years languished miserably as a
hostage at Rome. His father, Antiochus the Great, was either slain in
B.C. 187 by the people of Elymais, after his sacrilegious plundering
of the Temple of Jupiter-Belus;[568] or murdered by some of his
own attendants whom he had beaten during a fit of drunkenness.[569]
Seleucus Philopator succeeded him, and after having reigned for
thirteen years, wished to see his brother Antiochus again. He
therefore sent his son Demetrius in exchange for him, perhaps
desiring that the boy, who was then twelve years old, should enjoy
the advantage of a Roman education, or thinking that Antiochus would
be of more use to him in his designs against Ptolemy Philometor,
the child-king of Egypt. When Demetrius was on his way to Rome, and
Antiochus had not yet reached Antioch, Heliodorus the treasurer
seized the opportunity to poison Seleucus and usurp the crown.
The chances, therefore, of Antiochus seemed very forlorn. But he
was a man of ability, though with a taint of folly and madness
in his veins. By allying himself with Eumenes, King of Pergamum,
as we shall see hereafter, he suppressed Heliodorus, secured the
kingdom, and "becoming very great," though only by fraud, cruelty,
and stratagem, assumed the title of Epiphanes "the Illustrious." He
extended his power "towards the South" by intriguing and warring
against Egypt and his young nephew, Ptolemy Philometor;[570]
and "towards the Sunrising" by his successes in the direction
of Media and Persia;[571] and towards "the Glory" or "Ornament"
(_hatstsebî_)--_i.e._, the Holy Land.[572] Inflated with insolence,
he now set himself against the stars, the host of heaven--_i.e._,
against the chosen people of God and their leaders. He cast down and
trampled on them,[573] and defied the Prince of the host; for he
"Not e'en against the Holy One of heaven
Refrained his tongue blasphémous."
His chief enormity was the abolition of "the daily"
(_tamîd_)--_i.e._, the sacrifice daily offered in the Temple; and the
desecration of the sanctuary itself by violence and sacrilege, which
will be more fully set forth in the next chapters. He also seized and
destroyed the sacred books of the Jews. As he forbade the reading of
the Law--of which the daily lesson was called the _Parashah_--there
began from this time the custom of selecting a lesson from the
Prophets, which was called the _Haphtarah_.[574]
It was natural to make one of the holy ones, who are supposed to
witness this horrible iniquity,[575] inquire how long it was to be
permitted. The enigmatic answer is, "Until an evening-morning two
thousand three hundred."
In the further explanation given to Daniel by Gabriel a few more
touches are added.
Antiochus Epiphanes is described as a king "bold of visage, and
skilled in enigmas." His boldness is sufficiently illustrated by
his many campaigns and battles, and his braggart insolence has been
already alluded to in vii. 8. His skill in enigmas is illustrated
by his dark and tortuous diplomacy, which was exhibited in all his
proceedings,[576] and especially in the whole of his dealings with
Egypt, in which country he desired to usurp the throne from his
young nephew Ptolemy Philometor. The statement that "he will have
mighty strength, but not by his own strength," may either mean that
his transient prosperity was due only to the permission of God, or
that his successes were won rather by cunning than by prowess. After
an allusion to his cruel persecution of the holy people, Gabriel
adds that "without a hand shall he be broken in pieces"; in other
words, his retribution and destruction shall be due to no human
intervention, but will come from God Himself.[577]
Daniel is bidden to hide the vision for many days--a sentence which
is due to the literary plan of the Book; and he is assured that the
vision concerning the "evening-morning" was true. He adds that the
vision exhausted and almost annihilated him; but, afterwards, he
arose and did the king's business. He was silent about the vision,
for neither he nor any one else understood it.[578] Of course, had
the real date of the chapter been in the reign of Belshazzar, it was
wholly impossible that either the seer or any one else should have
been able to attach any significance to it.[579]
Emphasis is evidently attached to the "two thousand three hundred
evening-morning" during which the desolation of the sanctuary is to
continue.
What does the phrase "evening-morning" (_'erebh-bôqer_) mean?
In ver. 26 it is called "the vision concerning the evening and the
morning."
Does "evening-morning" mean a _whole_ day, like the Greek νυχθήμερον,
or _half_ a day? The expression is doubly perplexing. If the writer
meant "days," why does he not say "_days_," as in xii. 11, 12?[580]
And why, in any case, does he here use the solecism _'erebh-bôqer_
(_Abendmorgen_), and not, as in ver. 26, "evening _and_ morning"?
Does the expression mean two thousand three hundred days? or eleven
hundred and fifty days?
It is a natural supposition that the time is meant to correspond with
the three years and a half ("a time, two times, and half a time")
of vii. 25. But here again all certainty of detail is precluded by
our ignorance as to the exact length of years by which the writer
reckoned; and how he treated the month _Ve-adar_, a month of thirty
days, which was intercalated once in every six years.
Supposing that he allowed an intercalary fifteen days for three and
a half years, and took the Babylonian reckoning of twelve months
of thirty days, then three and a half years gives us twelve hundred
and seventy-five days, or, omitting any allowance for intercalation,
twelve hundred and sixty days.
If, then, "two thousand three hundred evening-morning" means two
thousand three hundred _half_ days, we have _one hundred and ten days
too many_ for the three and a half years.
And if the phrase means two thousand three hundred _full_ days, that
gives us (counting thirty intercalary days for _Ve-adar_) too little
for seven years by two hundred and fifty days. Some see in this a
mystic intimation that the period of chastisement shall for the elect's
sake be shortened.[581] Some commentators reckon seven years roughly,
from the elevation of Menelaus to the high-priesthood (Kisleu, B.C.
168: 2 Macc. v. 11) to the victory of Judas Maccabæus over Nicanor at
Adasa, March, B.C. 161 (1 Macc. vii. 25-50; 2 Macc. xv. 20-35).
In neither case do the calculations agree with the twelve hundred and
ninety or the thirteen hundred and thirty-five days of xii. 12, 13.
Entire volumes of tedious and wholly inconclusive comment have been
written on these combinations, but by no reasonable supposition
can we arrive at close accuracy. Strict chronological accuracy was
difficult of attainment in those days, and was never a matter about
which the Jews, in particular, greatly troubled themselves. We do
not know either the _terminus a quo_ from which or the _terminus ad
quem_ to which the writer reckoned. All that can be said is that it
is perfectly impossible for us to identify or exactly equiparate the
three and a half years (vii. 25), the "two thousand three hundred
evening-morning" (viii. 14), the seventy-two weeks (ix. 26), and the
twelve hundred and ninety days (xii. 11). Yet all those dates have
this point of resemblance about them, that they very roughly indicate
a space of _about_ three and a half years (more or less) as the time
during which the daily sacrifice should cease, and the Temple be
polluted and desolate.[582]
Turning now to the dates, we know that Judas the Maccabee
cleansed[583] ("justified" or "vindicated," viii. 14) the Temple on
Kisleu 25 (December 25th, B.C. 165). If we reckon back two thousand
three hundred _full_ days from this date, it brings us to B.C. 171,
in which Menelaus, who bribed Antiochus to appoint him high priest,
robbed the Temple of some of its treasures, and procured the murder
of the high priest Onias III. In this year Antiochus sacrificed a
great sow on the altar of burnt offerings, and sprinkled its broth
over the sacred building. These crimes provoked the revolt of the
Jews, in which they killed Lysimachus, governor of Syria, and brought
on themselves a heavy retribution.[584]
If we reckon back two thousand three hundred _half_-days, eleven
hundred and fifty _whole_ days, we must go back three years and
seventy days, but we cannot tell what exact event the writer had
in mind as the starting-point of his calculations. The actual time
which elapsed from the final defilement of the Temple by Apollonius,
the general of Antiochus, in B.C. 168, till its repurification was
roughly three years. Perhaps, however--for all is uncertain--the
writer reckoned from the earliest steps taken, or contemplated, by
Antiochus for the suppression of Judaism. The purification of the
Temple did not end the time of persecution, which was to continue,
first, for one hundred and forty days longer, and then forty-five
days more (xii. 11, 12). It is clear from this that the writer
reckoned the beginning and the end of troubles from different epochs
which we have no longer sufficient data to discover.
It must, however, be borne in mind that no minute certainty about the
exact dates is attainable. Many authorities, from Prideaux[585] down to
Schürer,[586] place the desecration of the Temple towards the close of
B.C. 168. Kuenen sees reason to place it a year later. Our authorities
for this period of history are numerous, but they are fragmentary,
abbreviated, and often inexact. Fortunately, so far as we are able to
see, no very important lesson is lost by our inability to furnish an
undoubted or a rigidly scientific explanation of the minuter details.
APPROXIMATE DATES, AS INFERRED BY CORNILL
AND OTHERS[587]
B.C.
Jeremiah's prophecy in Jer. xxv. 12 605
Jeremiah's prophecy in Jer. xxix. 10 594
Destruction of the Temple 586 or 588
Return of the Jewish exiles 537
Decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus (Ezra vii. 1) 458
Second decree (Neh. ii. 1) 445
Accession of Antiochus Epiphanes (August, Clinton) 175
Usurpation of the high-priesthood by Jason 175
Jason displaced by Menelaus 172(?)
Murder of Onias III. (June) 171
Apollonius defiles the Temple 168
War of independence 166
Purification of the Temple by Judas the Maccabee (December) 165
Death of Antiochus 163
FOOTNOTES:
[537] Ezra vi. 2; Neh. i. 1; Herod., v. 49; Polyb., v. 48. A supposed
tomb of Daniel has long been revered at Shushan.
[538] Pers., _baru_; Skr., _bura_; Assyr., _birtu_; Gk., βάρις. Comp.
Æsch., _Pers._, 554; Herod., ii. 96.
[539] Theodot., οὐβάλ; Ewald, _Stromgebiet_--a place where several
rivers meet. The Jews prayed on river-banks (Acts xvi. 13), and
Ezekiel had seen his vision on the Chebar (Ezek. i. 1, iii. 15,
etc.); but this Ulai is here mentioned because the palace stood on
its bank. Both the LXX. and Theodotion omit the word Ulai.
[540] "Susianam ab Elymaide disterminat amnis Eulæus" (Plin., _H.
N._, vi. 27).
[541] See Loftus, _Chaldæa_, p. 346, who visited Shush in 1854;
Herzog, _R. E._, _s.v._ "Susa." A tile was found by Layard at
Kuyunjik representing a large city between two rivers. It probably
represents Susa. Loftus says that the city stood between the Choaspes
and the Kopratas (now the Dizful).
[542] The Latin word for "to butt" is _arietare_, from _aries_, "a
ram." It butts in three directions (comp. Dan. vii. 5). Its conquests
in the East were apart from the writer's purpose. Crœsus called the
Persians ὑβρισταί, and Æschylus ὑπέρκομποι ἄγαν, _Pers._, 795 (Stuart).
For horns as the symbol of strength see Amos vi. 13; Psalm lxxv. 5.
[543] Unicorns are often represented on Assyrio-Babylonian sculptures.
[544] 1 Macc. i. 1-3; Isa. xli. 2; Hosea xiii. 7, 8; Hab. i. 6.
[545] Fury (_chemah_), "heat," "violence"--also of _deadly_ venom
(Deut. xxxii. 24).
[546] A.V., "four _notable_ horns"; but the word _chazoth_ means
literally "a sight of four"--_i.e._, "four _other_ horns" (comp. ver.
8). Grätz reads _achēroth_; LXX., ἕτερα τέσσαρα (comp. xi. 4).
[547] Lit. "out of littleness."
[548] _Hatstsebî_. Comp. xi. 45; Ezek. xx. 6; Jer. iii. 19; Zech.
vii. 14; Psalm cvi. 24. The Rabbis make the word mean "the gazelle"
for fanciful reasons (_Taanîth_, 69, _a_).
[549] The physical image implies the war against the spiritual host
of heaven, the holy people with their leaders. See 1 Macc. i. 24-30;
2 Macc. ix. 10. The _Tsebaoth_ mean primarily the stars and angels,
but next the Israelites (Exod. vii. 4).
[550] So in the Hebrew margin (_Q'rî_), followed by Theodoret and
Ewald; but in the text (_Kethîbh_) it is, "by him the daily was
abolished"; and with this reading the Peshito and Vulgate agree.
_Hattamîd_, "the daily" sacrifice; LXX., ἐνδελεχισμός; Numb. xxviii.
3; 1 Macc. i. 39, 45, iii. 45.
[551] The Hebrew is here corrupt. The R.V. renders it, "And the host
was given over _to it_, together with the continual _burnt offering_
through transgression; and it cast down truth to the ground, and it
did _its pleasure_ and prospered."
[552] Dan. viii. 13. I follow Ewald in this difficult verse, and with
him Von Lengerke and Hitzig substantially agree; but the text is again
corrupt, as appears also in the LXX. It would be useless here to enter
into minute philological criticism. "How long?" (comp. Isa. vi. 11).
[553] LXX., φελμωνί; _nescio quis_ (Vulg., _viri_).
[554] Comp. for the expression xii. 6.
[555] We find no names in Gen. xxxii. 30; Judg. xiii. 18. For the
presence of angels at the vision comp. Zech. i. 9, 13, etc. Gabriel
means "man of God." In Tobit iii. 17 Raphael is mentioned; in 2
Esdras v. 20, Uriel. This is the first mention of any angel's name.
Michael is the highest archangel (Weber, _System._, 162 ff.), and in
Jewish angelology Gabriel is identified with the Holy Spirit (_Ruach
Haqqodesh_). As such he appears in the Qurân, ii. 91 (Behrmann).
[556] Ben-Adam (Ezek. ii. 1).
[557] Comp. Isa. xiv. 9: "All the great goats of the earth." A ram is
a natural symbol for a chieftain.--Hom., _Il._, xiii. 491-493; Cic.,
_De Div._, i. 22; Plut., _Sulla_, c. 27; Jer. l. 8; Ezek. xxxiv. 17;
Zech. x. 3, etc. See Vaux, _Persia_, p. 72.
[558] "Strength of face" (LXX., ἀναιδὴς προσώπῳ; Deut. xxviii. 50,
etc.). "Understanding dark sentences" (Judg. xiv. 12; Ezek. xvii. 2:
comp. v. 12).
[559] The meaning is uncertain. It may mean (1) that he is only
strong by God's permission; or (2) only by cunning, not by strength.
[560] Comp. 2 Macc. iv. 9-15: "The priests had no courage to serve
any more at the altar, but despising the Temple, and neglecting the
sacrifices, hastened to be partakers of the unlawful allowance in the
place of exercise ... not setting by the honours of their fathers,
but liking the glory of the Grecians best of all."
[561] Not merely the angelic prince of the host (Josh. v. 14), but
God--"Lord of lords."
[562] Comp. Esther i. 2. Though the vision took place under Babylon,
the seer is strangely unconcerned with the present, or with the fate
of the Babylonian Empire.
[563] It is said to be the national emblem of Macedonia.
[564] He is called "the King of Javan"--_i.e._, of the Ionians.
[565] Isa. v. 26-29. Comp. 1 Macc. i. 3.
[566] The _fury_ of the he-goat represents the vengeance cherished by
the Greeks against Persia since the old days of Marathon, Thermopylæ,
Salamis, Platæa, and Mycale. Persia had invaded Greece under
Mardonius (B.C. 492), under Datis and Artaphernes (B.C. 490), and
under Xerxes (B.C. 480).
[567] 1 Macc. vi. 1-16; 2 Macc. ix. 9; Job vii. 6; Prov. xxvi. 20.
[568] So Diodorus Siculus (Exc. Vales., p. 293); Justin, xxxii. 2;
Jer. _in Dan._, xi.; Strabo, xvi. 744.
[569] Aurel. Vict., _De Virr. Illustr._, c. liv.
[570] He conquered Egypt B.C. 170 (1 Macc. i. 17-20).
[571] See 1 Macc. iii. 29-37.
[572] Comp. Ezek. xx. 6, "which is the glory of all lands"; Psalm l.
2; Lam. ii. 15.
[573] 1 Macc. i. 24-30. Dr. Pusey endeavours, without even the
smallest success, to show that many things said of Antiochus in
this book do not apply to him. The argument is based on the fact
that the characteristics of Antiochus--who was a man of versatile
impulses--are somewhat differently described by different authors;
but here we have the aspect he presented to a few who regarded him as
the deadliest of tyrants and persecutors.
[574] See Hamburger, ii. 334 (_s.v._ "Haftara").
[575] Comp. ὀργὴ μεγάλη (1 Macc. i. 64; Isa. x. 5, 25, xxvi. 20; Jer.
l. 5; Rom. ii. 5, etc.).
[576] Comp. xi. 21.
[577] Comp. ii. 34, xi. 45. Antiochus died of a long and terrible
illness in Persia. Polybius (xxxi. 11) describes his sickness by the
word δαιμονήσας. Arrian (_Syriaca_, 66) says φθίνων ἐτελεύτησε. In
1 Macc. vi. 8-16 he dies confessing his sins against the Jews, but
there is another story in 2 Macc. ix. 4-28.
[578] Ver. 27, "I was gone" (or, "came to an end") "whole days."
With this ἔκστασις comp. ii. 1, vii. 28; Exod. xxxiii. 20; Isa. vi.
5; Luke ix. 32; Acts ix. 4, etc. Comp. xii. 8; Jer. xxxii. 14, and
(_contra_) Rev. xxii. 10.
[579] In ver. 26 the R.V. renders "it belongeth to many days _to come_."
[580] Comp. Gen. i. 5; 2 Cor. xi. 25. The word _tamîd_ includes both
the morning and evening sacrifice (Exod. xxix. 41). Pusey says (p.
220), "The shift of halving the days is one of those monsters which
have disgraced scientific expositions 'of Hebrew.'" Yet this is the
view of such scholars as Ewald, Hitzig, Kuenen, Cornill, Behrmann.
The latter quotes a parallel: "vgl. im Hildebrandsliede _sumaro ente
wintro_ sehstie = 30 Jahr."
[581] Matt. xxiv. 22.
[582] "These five passages agree in making the final distress last
during three years and a fraction: the only difference lies in the
magnitude of the fraction" (Bevan, p. 127).
[583] 1 Macc. iv. 41-56; 2 Macc. x. 1-5.
[584] See on this period Diod. Sic., _Fr._, xxvi. 79; Liv., xlii. 29;
Polyb., _Legat._, 71; Justin, xxxiv. 2; Jer., _Comm. in Dan._, xi. 22;
Jahn, _Hebr. Commonwealth_, § xciv.; Prideaux, _Connection_, ii. 146.
[585] _Connection_, ii. 188.
[586] _Gesch. d. V. Isr._, i. 155.
[587] Some of these dates are _uncertain_, and are variously given by
different authorities.
CHAPTER III
_THE SEVENTY WEEKS_
This chapter is occupied with the prayer of Daniel, and with the
famous vision of the seventy weeks which has led to such interminable
controversies, but of which the interpretation no longer admits of
any certainty, because accurate data are not forthcoming.
The vision is dated in the first year of Darius, the son of
Achashverosh, of the Median stock.[588] We have seen already that
such a person is unknown to history. The date, however, accords
well in this instance with the literary standpoint of the writer.
The vision is sent as a consolation of perplexities suggested by
the writer's study of the Scriptures; and nothing is more naturally
imagined than the fact that the overthrow of the Babylonian Empire
should have sent a Jewish exile to the study of the rolls of his holy
prophets, to see what light they threw on the exile of his people.
He understood from "the books" the number of the years "whereof the
word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet for the accomplishing
of the desolation of Jerusalem, even seventy years."[589] Such is the
rendering of our Revisers, who here follow the A.V. ("I understood
by books"), except that they rightly use the definite article (LXX.,
ἐν ταῖς βίβλοις). Such too is the view of Hitzig. Mr. Bevan seems to
have pointed out the real meaning of the passage, by referring not
only to the Pentateuch generally, as helping to interpret the words
of Jeremiah, but especially to Lev: xxvi. 18, 21, 24, 28.[590] It was
there that the writer of Daniel discovered the method of interpreting
the "seventy years" spoken of by Jeremiah. The Book of Leviticus had
four times spoken of a sevenfold punishment--a punishment "seven
times more" for the sins of Israel. Now this thought flashed upon
the writer like a luminous principle. Daniel, in whose person he
wrote, had arrived at the period at which the literal seventy years
of Jeremiah were--on some methods of computation--upon the eve of
completion: the writer himself is living in the dreary times of
Antiochus. Jeremiah had prophesied that the nations should serve the
King of Babylon seventy years (Jer. xxv. 11), after which time God's
vengeance should fall on Babylon; and again (Jer. xxix. 10, 11), that
after seventy years the exiles should return to Palestine, since the
thoughts of Jehovah towards them were thoughts of peace and not of
evil, to give them a future and a hope.
The writer of Daniel saw, nearly four centuries later, that after
all only a mere handful of the exiles, whom the Jews themselves
compared to the chaff in comparison with the wheat, had returned
from exile; that the years which followed had been cramped, dismal,
and distressful; that the splendid hopes of the Messianic kingdom,
which had glowed so brightly on the foreshortened horizon of Isaiah
and so many of the prophets, had never yet been fulfilled; and that
these anticipations never showed fewer signs of fulfilment than in
the midst of the persecuting furies of Antiochus, supported by the
widespread apostasies of the Hellenising Jews, and the vile ambition
of such renegade high priests as Jason and Menelaus.
That the difficulty was felt is shown by the fact that the Epistle
of Jeremy (ver. 2) extends the epoch of captivity to two hundred and
ten years (7 × 30), whereas in Jer. xxix. 10 "seventy years" are
distinctly mentioned.[591]
What was the explanation of this startling apparent discrepancy
between "the sure word of prophecy" and the gloomy realities of
history?
The writer saw it in a _mystic_ or allegorical interpretation of
Jeremiah's seventy years. The prophet could not (he thought) have meant
seventy _literal_ years. The number seven indeed played its usual
mystic part in the epoch of punishment. Jerusalem had been taken B.C.
588; the first return of the exiles had been about B.C. 538. The Exile
therefore had, from one point of view, lasted forty-nine years--_i.e._,
7 × 7. But even if seventy years were reckoned from the fourth year of
Jehoiakim (B.C. 606?) to the decree of Cyrus (B.C. 536), and if these
seventy years could be made out, still the hopes of the Jews were on
the whole miserably frustrated.[592]
Surely then--so thought the writer--the real meaning of Jeremiah must
have been misunderstood; or, at any rate, only partially understood.
He must have meant, not "years," but _weeks of years_--_Sabbatical_
years. And that being so, the real Messianic fulfilments were not
to come till _four hundred and ninety years_ after the beginning
of the Exile; and this clue he found in Leviticus. It was indeed a
clue which lay ready to the hand of any one who was perplexed by
Jeremiah's prophecy, for the word שָׁבוּעַ, ἑβδομάς, means, not
only the week, but also "seven," and _the seventh year_;[593] and
the Chronicler had already declared that the reason why the land
was to lie waste for seventy years was that "the land" was "to
enjoy her Sabbaths"; in other words, that, as seventy Sabbatical
years had been wholly neglected (and indeed unheard of) during the
period of the monarchy--which he reckoned at four hundred and ninety
years--therefore it was to enjoy those Sabbatical years continuously
while there was no nation in Palestine to cultivate the soil.[594]
Another consideration may also have led the writer to his discovery.
From the coronation of Saul to the captivity of Zachariah, reckoning
the recorded length of each reign and giving seventeen years to Saul
(since the "forty years" of Acts xiii. 21 is obviously untenable),
gave four hundred and ninety years, or, as the Chronicler implies,
seventy unkept Sabbatic years. The writer had no means for an accurate
computation of the time which had elapsed since the destruction of the
Temple. But as there were four hundred and eighty years and twelve high
priests from Aaron to Ahimaaz, and four hundred and eighty years and
twelve high priests from Azariah I. to Jozadak, who was priest at the
beginning of the Captivity,--so there were twelve high priests from
Jozadak to Onias III.; and this seemed to imply a lapse of some four
hundred and ninety years in round numbers.[595]
The writer introduces what he thus regarded as a consoling and
illuminating discovery in a striking manner. Daniel coming to
understand for the first time the real meaning of Jeremiah's
"seventy years," "set his face unto the Lord God, to seek prayer and
supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes."[596]
His prayer is thus given:--
It falls into three strophes of equal length, and is "all alive
and aglow with a pure fire of genuine repentance, humbly assured
faith, and most intense petition."[597] At the same time it is the
composition of a literary writer, for in phrase after phrase it
recalls various passages of Scripture.[598] It closely resembles
the prayers of Ezra and Nehemiah, and is so nearly parallel with
the prayer of the apocryphal Baruch that Ewald regards it as an
intentional abbreviation of Baruch ii. 1-iii. 39. Ezra, however,
confesses the sins of his nation without asking for forgiveness; and
Nehemiah likewise praises God for His mercies, but does not plead for
pardon or deliverance; but Daniel entreats pardon for Israel and asks
that his own prayer may be heard. The sins of Israel in vv. 5, 6,
fall under the heads of wandering, lawlessness, rebellion, apostasy,
and heedlessness. It is one of the marked tendencies of the later
Jewish writings to degenerate into centos of phrases from the Law and
the Prophets. It is noticeable that the name Jehovah occurs in this
chapter of Daniel _alone_ (in vv. 2, 4, 10, 13, 14, 20); and that he
also addresses God as El, Elohim, and Adonai.
In the first division of the prayer (vv. 4-10) Daniel admits the
faithfulness and mercy of God, and deplores the transgressions of his
people from the highest to the lowest in all lands.
In the second part (vv. 11-14) he sees in these transgressions the
fulfilment of "the curse and the oath" written in the Law of Moses,
with special reference to Lev. xxvi. 14, 18, etc. In spite of all
their sins and miseries they had not "stroked the face" of the Lord
their God.[599]
The third section (vv. 15-19) appeals to God by His past mercies
and deliverances to turn away His wrath and to pity the reproach of
His people. Daniel entreats Jehovah to hear his prayer, to make His
face shine on His desolated sanctuary, and to behold the horrible
condition of His people and of His holy city. Not for their sakes is
He asked to show His great compassion, but because His Name is called
upon His city and His people.[600]
Such is the prayer; and while Daniel was still speaking, praying,
confessing his own and Israel's sins, and interceding before Jehovah
for the holy mountain--yea, even during the utterance of his
prayer--the Gabriel of his former vision came speeding to him in full
flight[601] at the time of the evening sacrifice.[602] The archangel
tells him that no sooner had his supplication begun than he sped on
his way, for Daniel is a dearly beloved one.[603] Therefore he bids
him take heed to the word and to the vision:--
1. Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people, and upon thy holy
city[604]--
(α) to finish (or "restrain") the transgression;
(β) to make an end of (or "seal up," Theodot. σφραγίσαι) sins;[605]
(γ) to make reconciliation for (or "to purge away") iniquity;
(δ) to bring in everlasting righteousness;
(ε) to seal up vision and prophet (Heb., _nābî_; LXX., προφήτην); and
(ζ) to anoint the Most Holy (or "a Most Holy Place"; LXX., εὐφρᾶναι
ἅγιον ἁγίων).
2. From the decree to restore Jerusalem unto the Anointed One (or
"the Messiah"), the Prince, shall be seven weeks. For sixty-two
weeks Jerusalem shall be built again with street and moat, though in
troublous times.[606]
3. After these sixty-two weeks--
(α) an Anointed One shall be cut off, and shall have no help (?) (or
"there shall be none belonging to him");[607]
(β) the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city
and the sanctuary;
(γ) his end and the end shall be with a flood, and war, and desolation;
(δ) for one week this alien prince shall make a covenant with many;
(ε) for half of that week he shall cause the sacrifice and burnt
offering to cease;
(ζ) and upon the wing of abominations [_shall come_] one that maketh
desolate;
(η) and unto the destined consummation [_wrath_] shall be poured out
upon a desolate one (?) (or "the horrible one").
Much is uncertain in the text, and much in the translation; but the
general outline of the declaration is clear in many of the chief
particulars, so far as they are capable of historic verification.
Instead of being a mystical prophecy which floated purely in the air,
and in which a week stands (as Keil supposes) for unknown, heavenly,
and symbolic periods--in which case no real information would have
been vouchsafed--we are expressly told that it was intended to give
the seer a definite, and even a minutely detailed, indication of the
course of events.
Let us now take the revelation which is sent to the perplexed mourner
step by step.
1. Seventy weeks are to elapse before any perfect deliverance is to
come. We are nowhere expressly told that _year-weeks_ are meant, but
this is implied throughout, as the only possible means of explaining
either the vision or the history. The conception, as we have seen,
would come to readers quite naturally, since _Shabbath_ meant in
Hebrew, not only the seventh day of the week, but the seventh year
in each week of years. Hence "seventy weeks" means four hundred and
ninety years.[608] Not until the four hundred and ninety _years_--the
seventy _weeks of years_--are ended will the time have come to
complete the prophecy which only had a sort of initial and imperfect
fulfilment in seventy _actual_ years.
The _precise_ meaning attached in the writer's mind to the events
which are to mark the close of the four hundred and ninety
years--namely, (α) the ending of transgression; (β) the sealing up
of sins; (γ) the atonement for iniquity; (δ) the bringing in of
everlasting righteousness; and (ε) the sealing up of the vision
and prophet (or prophecy[609])--cannot be further defined by us.
It belongs to the Messianic hope.[610] It is the prophecy of a
time which may have had some dim and partial analogies at the end
of Jeremiah's seventy years, but which the writer thought would be
more richly and finally fulfilled at the close of the Antiochian
persecution. At the actual time of his writing that era of
restitution had not yet begun.
But (ζ) another event, which would mark the close of the seventy
year-weeks, was to be "the anointing of a Most Holy."
What does this mean?
Theodotion and the ancient translators render it "_a_ Holy of
Holies." But throughout the whole Old Testament "Holy of Holies" _is
never once used of a person_, though it occurs forty-four times.[611]
Keil and his school point to 1 Chron. xxiii. 13 as an exception; but
"_Nil agit exemptum quod litem lite resolvit._"
In that verse some propose the rendering, "to sanctify, as most
holy, Aaron and his sons for ever"; but both the A.V. and the R.V.
render it, "Aaron was separated that he should sanctify _the most
holy things_, he and his sons for ever." If there be a doubt as to
the rendering, it is perverse to adopt the one which makes the usage
differ from that of every other passage in Holy Writ.
Now the phrase "most holy" is most frequently applied to the great
altar of sacrifice.[612] It is therefore natural to explain the
present passage as a reference to the reanointing of the altar of
sacrifice, primarily in the days of Zerubbabel, and secondarily by
Judas Maccabæus after its profanation by Antiochus Epiphanes.[613]
2. But in the more detailed explanation which follows, the seventy
year-weeks are divided into 7 + 62 + 1.
(a) At the end of the first seven week-years (after forty-nine years)
Jerusalem should be restored, and there should be "an Anointed, a
Prince."[614]
Some ancient Jewish commentators, followed by many eminent and
learned moderns,[615] understand this Anointed One (_Mashiach_) and
Prince (_Nagîd_) to be Cyrus; and that there can be no objection to
conferring on him the exalted title of "Messiah" is amply proved by
the fact that Isaiah himself bestows it upon him (Isa. xlv. 1).
Others, however, both ancient (like Eusebius) and modern (like
Grätz), prefer to explain the term of the anointed Jewish high
priest, Joshua, the son of Jozadak. For the term "Anointed" is given
to the high priest in Lev. iv. 3, vi. 20; and Joshua's position among
the exiles might well entitle him, as much as Zerubbabel himself, to
the title of _Nagîd_ or Prince.[616]
(β) After this restoration of Temple and priest, sixty-two weeks
(_i.e._, four hundred and thirty-four years) are to elapse, during
which Jerusalem is indeed to exist "with street and trench"--but in
the straitness of the times.[617]
This, too, is clear and easy of comprehension. It exactly corresponds
with the depressed condition of Jewish life during the Persian and
early Grecian epochs, from the restoration of the Temple, B.C. 538,
to B.C. 171, when the false high priest Menelaus robbed the Temple of
its best treasures. This is indeed, so far as accurate chronology is
concerned, an unverifiable period, for it only gives us three hundred
and sixty-seven years instead of four hundred and thirty-four:--but
of that I will speak later on. The punctuation of the original is
disputed. Theodotion, the Vulgate, and our A.V. punctuate in ver.
25, "From the going forth of the commandment" ("decree" or "word")
"that Jerusalem should be restored and rebuilt, unto an Anointed, a
Prince, are seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks." Accepting this view,
Von Lengerke and Hitzig make the seven weeks run _parallel_ with the
first seven in the sixty-two. This indeed makes the chronology a
little more accurate, but introduces an unexplained and a fantastic
element. Consequently most modern scholars, including even such
writers as Keil, and our Revisers follow the Masoretic punctuation,
and put the stop after the seven weeks, separating them entirely from
the following sixty-two.
3. After the sixty-two weeks is to follow a series of events, and all
these point quite distinctly to the epoch of Antiochus Epiphanes.
(α) Ver. 26.--An Anointed One[618] shall be cut off with all that
belongs to him.
There can be no reasonable doubt that this is a reference to
the deposition of the high priest Onias III., and his murder by
Andronicus (B.C. 171).[619] This startling event is mentioned in
2 Macc. iv. 34, and by Josephus (_Antt._, XII. v. 1), and in Dan.
xi. 22. It is added, "_and no ... to him_."[620] Perhaps the word
"helper" (xi. 45) has fallen out of the text, as Grätz supposes; or
the words may mean, "there is no [priest] for it [the people]."[621]
The A.V. renders it, "but not for himself"; and in the margin, "and
shall have nothing"; or, "and they [the Jews] shall be no more his
people." The R.V. renders it, "and shall have nothing." I believe,
with Dr. Joël, that in the Hebrew words _veeyn lô_ there may be a
sort of cryptographic allusion to the name Onias.[622]
(β) The people of the coming prince shall devastate the city and the
sanctuary (translation uncertain).
This is an obvious allusion to the destruction and massacre inflicted
on Jerusalem by Apollonius and the army of Antiochus Epiphanes (B.C.
167). Antiochus is called "the prince _that shall come_," because he
was at Rome when Onias III. was murdered (B.C. 171).[623]
(γ) "And until the end shall be a war, a sentence of desolation"
(Hitzig, etc.); or, as Ewald renders it, "Until the end of the war is
the decision concerning the horrible thing."
This alludes to the troubles of Jerusalem until the heaven-sent
Nemesis fell on the profane enemy of the saints in the miserable
death of Antiochus in Persia.
(δ) But meanwhile he will have concluded a covenant with many for one
week.[624]
In any case, whatever be the exact reading or rendering, this seems
to be an allusion to the fact that Antiochus was confirmed in his
perversity and led on to extremes in the enforcement of his attempt
to Hellenise the Jews and to abolish their national religion by the
existence of a large party of flagrant apostates. These were headed
by their godless and usurping high priests, Jason and Menelaus.
All this is strongly emphasised in the narrative of the Book of
Maccabees. This attempted apostasy lasted for one week--_i.e._, for
seven years; the years intended being probably the first seven of the
reign of Antiochus, from B.C. 175 to B.C. 168. During this period he
was aided by wicked men, who said, "Let us go and make a covenant
with the heathen round about us; for since we departed from them
we have had much sorrow." Antiochus "gave them licence to do after
the ordinances of the heathen," so that they built a gymnasium at
Jerusalem, obliterated the marks of circumcision, and were joined to
the heathen (1 Macc. i. 10-15).
(ε) For the half of this week (_i.e._, for three and a half
years) the king abolished the sacrifice and the oblation or meat
offering.[625]
This alludes to the suppression of the most distinctive ordinances of
Jewish worship, and the general defilement of the Temple after the
setting up of the heathen altar. The reckoning seems to be from the
edict promulgated some months before December, 168, to December, 165,
when Judas the Maccabee reconsecrated the Temple.
(ζ) The sentence which follows is surrounded with every kind of
uncertainty.
The R.V. renders it, "And upon the wing [or, pinnacle] of
abominations shall come [or, be] one that maketh desolate."
The A.V. has, "And for the overspreading of abominations" (or _marg._,
"with the abominable armies") "he shall make it desolate."[626]
It is from the LXX. that we derive the famous expression,
"abomination of desolation," referred to by St. Matthew (xxiv. 15:
cf. Luke xxi. 20) in the last discourse of our Lord.
Other translations are as follows:--
_Gesenius_: "Desolation comes upon the horrible wing of a rebel's
host."
_Ewald_: "And above will be the horrible wing of abominations."
_Wieseler_: "And a desolation shall arise against the wing of
abominations."
_Von Lengerke, Hengstenberg, Pusey_: "And over the edge [or,
pinnacle[627]] of abominations [cometh] the desolator";--which they
understand to mean that Antiochus will rule over the Temple defiled
by heathen rites.
_Kranichfeld and Keil_: "And a destroyer comes on the wings of
idolatrous abominations."
_Kuenen_, followed by others, boldly alters the text from _ve'al
k'naph_, "and upon the wing," into _ve'al kannô_, "and instead
thereof."[628]
"And instead thereof" (_i.e._, in the place of the sacrifice and meat
offering) "there shall be abominations."
It is needless to weary the reader with further attempts at
translation; but however uncertain may be the exact reading or
rendering, few modern commentators doubt that the allusion is to
the smaller heathen altar built by Antiochus above (_i.e._, on
the summit) of the "Most Holy"--_i.e._, the great altar of burnt
sacrifice--overshadowing it like "a wing" (_kanaph_), and causing
desolations or abominations (_shiqqootsîm_). That this interpretation
is the correct one can hardly be doubted in the light of the clearer
references to "the abomination that maketh desolate" in xi. 31
and xii. 11. In favour of this we have the almost contemporary
interpretation of the Book of Maccabees. The author of that history
directly applies the phrase "the abomination of desolation" to the
idol altar set up by Antiochus (1 Macc. i. 54, vi. 7).
(η) Lastly, the terrible drama shall end by an outpouring of wrath,
and a sentence of judgment on "the desolation" (R.V.) or "the
desolate" (A.V.).
This can only refer to the ultimate judgment with which Antiochus is
menaced.
It will be seen then that, despite all uncertainties in the text,
in the translation, and in the details, we have in these verses an
unmistakably clear foreshadowing of the same persecuting king, and
the same disastrous events, with which the mind of the writer is so
predominantly haunted, and which are still more clearly indicated in
the subsequent chapter.
Is it necessary, after an inquiry inevitably tedious, and of little
or no apparently spiritual profit or significance, to enter further
into the intolerably and interminably perplexed and voluminous
discussions as to the beginning, the ending, and the exactitude of
the seventy weeks?[629] Even St. Jerome gives, by way of specimen,
_nine_ different interpretations in his time, and comes to no
decision of his own. After confessing that all the interpretations
were individual guesswork, he leaves every reader to his own
judgment, and adds: "_Dicam quid unusquisque senserit, lectoris
arbitrio derelinquens cujus expositionem sequi debeat_."
I cannot think that the least advantage can be derived from doing so.
For scarcely any two leading commentators agree as to details;--or
even as to any fixed principles by which they profess to determine
the date at which the period of seventy weeks is to begin or is
to end;--or whether they are to be reckoned continuously, or with
arbitrary misplacements or discontinuations;--or even whether
they are not purely symbolical, so as to have no reference to
any chronological indications;[630]--or whether they are to be
interpreted as referring to one special series of events, or to
be regarded as having many fulfilments by "springing and germinal
developments." The latter view is, however, distinctly tenable. It
applies to all prophecies, inasmuch as history repeats itself; and
our Lord referred to another "abomination of desolation" which in His
days was yet to come.[631]
There is not even an initial agreement--or even the data as to an
agreement--whether the "years" to be counted are solar years of three
hundred and forty-three days, or lunar years, or "mystic" years, or
Sabbath years of forty-nine years, or "indefinite" years; or where
they are to begin and end, or in what fashion they are to be divided.
All is chaos in the existing commentaries.
As for any received or authorised interpretation, there not only is
none, but never has been. The Jewish interpreters differ from one
another as widely as the Christian. Even in the days of the Fathers,
the early exegetes were so hopelessly at sea in their methods of
application that St. Jerome contents himself, just as I have done,
with giving no opinion of his own.[632]
The attempt to refer the prophecy of the seventy weeks primarily or
directly to the coming and death of Christ, or the desolation of the
Temple by Titus, can only be supported by immense manipulations,
and by hypotheses so crudely impossible that they would have
made the prophecy practically meaningless both to Daniel and to
any subsequent reader. The hopelessness of this attempt of the
so-called "orthodox" interpreters is proved by their own fundamental
disagreements.[633] It is finally discredited by the fact that
neither our Lord, nor His Apostles, nor any of the earliest Christian
writers once appealed to the evidence of this prophecy, which, on
the principles of Hengstenberg and Dr. Pusey, would have been so
decisive! If such a proof lay ready to their hand--a proof definite
and chronological--why should they have deliberately passed it over,
while they referred to other prophecies so much more general, and so
much less precise in dates?
Of course it is open to any reader to adopt the view of Keil and
others, that the prophecy is Messianic, but only _typically_ and
_generally_ so.
On the other hand, it may be objected that the Antiochian hypothesis
breaks down, because--though it does not pretend to resort to any of
the wild, arbitrary, and I had almost said preposterous, hypotheses
invented by those who approach the interpretation of the Book with
_a-priori_ and _a-posteriori_[634] assumptions--it still does not
accurately correspond to ascertainable dates.
But to those who are guided in their exegesis, not by unnatural
inventions, but by the great guiding principles of history and
literature, this consideration presents no difficulty. Any exact
accuracy of chronology would have been far more surprising in
a writes of the Maccabean era than round numbers and vague
computations. Precise computation is nowhere prevalent in the
sacred books. The object of those books always is the conveyance of
eternal, moral, and spiritual instruction. To such purely mundane
and secondary matters as close reckoning of dates the Jewish writers
show themselves manifestly indifferent. It is possible that, if we
were able to ascertain the data which lay before the writer, his
calculations might seem less divergent from exact numbers than they
now appear. More than this we cannot affirm.
What was the date from which the writer calculated his seventy weeks?
Was it from the date of Jeremiah's first prophecy (xxv. 12), B.C.
605? or his second prophecy (xxix. 10), eleven years later, B.C.
594? or from the destruction of the first Temple, B.C. 586? or, as
some Jews thought, from the first year of "Darius the Mede"? or
from the decree of Artaxerxes in Neh. ii. 1-9? or from the birth of
Christ--the date assumed by Apollinaris? All these views have been
adopted by various Rabbis and Fathers; but it is obvious that not
one of them accords with the allusions of the narrative and prayer,
except that which makes the destruction of the Temple the _terminus
a quo_. In the confusion of historic reminiscences and the rarity of
written documents, the writer may not have consciously distinguished
this date (B.C. 588) from the date of Jeremiah's prophecy (B.C. 594).
That there were differences of computation as regards Jeremiah's
seventy years, even in the age of the Exile, is sufficiently shown by
the different views as to their termination taken by the Chronicler
(2 Chron. xxxvi. 22), who fixes it B.C. 536, and by Zechariah (Zech.
i. 12), who fixes it about B.C. 519.
As to the _terminus ad quem_, it is open to any commentator to say that
the prediction may point to many subsequent and analogous fulfilments;
but no competent and serious reader who judges of these chapters by the
chapters themselves and by their own repeated indications, can have
one moment's hesitation in the conclusion that the writer is thinking
mainly of the defilement of the Temple in the days of Antiochus
Epiphanes, and its reconsecration (in round numbers) three and a half
years later by Judas Maccabæus (December 25th, B.C. 164).
It is true that from B.C. 588 to B.C. 164 only gives us four hundred
and twenty-four years, instead of four hundred and ninety years. How
is this to be accounted for? Ewald supposes the loss of some passage
in the text which would have explained the discrepancy; and that the
text is in a somewhat chaotic condition is proved by its inherent
philological difficulties, and by the appearance which it assumes
in the Septuagint. The first seven weeks indeed, or forty-nine
years, approximately correspond to the time between B.C. 588 (the
destruction of the Temple) and B.C. 536 (the decree of Cyrus); but
the following sixty-two weeks should give us four hundred and
thirty-four years from the time of Cyrus to the cutting off of the
Anointed One, by the murder of Onias III. in B.C. 171, whereas it
only gives us three hundred and sixty-five. How are we to account for
this miscalculation to the extent of at least sixty-five years?
Not one single suggestion has ever accounted for it, or has ever
given exactitude to these computations on any tenable hypothesis.[635]
But Schürer has shown that _exactly similar mistakes of reckoning_
are made even by so learned and industrious an historian as Josephus.
1. Thus in his _Jewish War_ (VI. iv. 8) he says that there were six
hundred and thirty-nine years between the second year of Cyrus and
the destruction of the Temple by Titus (A.D. 70). Here is an error of
more than thirty years.
2. In his _Antiquities_ (XX. x.) he says that there were four hundred
and thirty-four years between the Return from the Captivity (B.C.
536) and the reign of Antiochus Eupator (B.C. 164-162). Here is an
error of more than sixty years.
3. In _Antt._, XIII. xi. 1, he reckons four hundred and eighty-one
years between the Return from the Captivity and the time of
Aristobulus (B.C. 105-104). Here is an error of some fifty years.
Again, the Jewish Hellenist Demetrius[636] reckons five hundred
and seventy-three years from the Captivity of the Ten Tribes (B.C.
722) to the time of Ptolemy IV. (B.C. 222), which is seventy years
too many. In other words, he makes as nearly as possible the same
miscalculations as the writer of Daniel. This seems to show that
there was some traditional error in the current chronology; and it
cannot be overlooked that in ancient days the means for coming to
accurate chronological conclusion were exceedingly imperfect. "Until
the establishment of the Seleucid era (B.C. 312), the Jew had no
fixed era whatsoever";[637] and nothing is less astonishing than
that an apocalyptic writer of the date of Epiphanes, basing his
calculations on uncertain data to give an allegoric interpretation to
an ancient prophecy, should have lacked the records which would alone
have enabled him to calculate with exact precision.[638]
And, for the rest, we must say with Grotius, "_Modicum nec prætor
curat, nec propheta_."
FOOTNOTES:
[588] Achashverosh, Esther viii. 10; perhaps connected with
_Kshajârsha_, "eye of the kingdom" (_Corp. Inscr. Sem._, ii. 125).
[589] By "the books" is here probably meant the Thorah or Pentateuch,
in which the writer discovered the key to the mystic meaning of the
seventy years. It was not in the two sections of Jeremiah himself
(called, according to Kimchi, _Sepher Hamattanah_ and _Sepher Hagalon_)
that he found this key. Jeremiah is here _Yir'myah_, as in Jer.
xxvii.-xxix. See Jer. xxv. 11; Ezek. xxxvii. 21; Zech. i. 12. In the
Epistle of Jeremy (ver. 2) the seventy years become seven generations
(Χρόνος μακρὸς ἕως ἑππὰ γενεῶν). See too Dillman's _Enoch_, p. 293.
[590] _Dan._, p. 146. Comp. a similar usage in Aul. Gell., _Noct.
Att._, iii. 10, "Se jam _undecimam annorum hebdomadem_ ingressum
esse"; and Arist., _Polit._, vii. 16.
[591] See Fritzsche _ad loc._; Ewald, _Hist. of Isr._, v. 140.
[592] The writer of 2 Chron. xxxv. 17, 18, xxxvi. 21, 22, evidently
supposed that seventy years had elapsed between the destruction of
Jerusalem and the decree of Cyrus--which is only a period of fifty
years. The Jewish writers were wholly without means for forming an
accurate chronology. For instance, the Prophet Zechariah (i. 12),
writing in the second year of Darius, son of Hystaspes (B.C. 520),
thinks that the seventy years were only then concluding. In fact, the
seventy years may be dated from B.C. 606 (fourth year of Jehoiakim);
or B.C. 598 (Jehoiachin); or from the destruction of the Temple (B.C.
588); and may be supposed to end at the decree of Cyrus (B.C. 536);
or the days of Zerubbabel (Ezra v. 1); or the decree of Darius (B.C.
518, Ezra vi. 1-12).
[593] Lev. xxv. 2, 4.
[594] 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21. See Bevan, p. 14.
[595] See Cornill, _Die Siebzig Jahrwochen Daniels_, pp. 14-18.
[596] The LXX. and Theodotion, with a later ritual bias, make the
_fasting_ a means towards the prayer: εὑρεῖν προσευχὴν καὶ ἔλεος ἐν
νηστείαις.
[597] Ewald, p. 278. The first part (vv. 4-14) is mainly occupied
with confessions and acknowledgment of God's justice; the last
part (vv. 15-19) with entreaty for pardon: _confessio_ (vv. 4-14);
_consolatio_ (vv. 15-19) (Melancthon).
[598] Besides the parallels which follow, it has phrases from Exod.
xx. 6; Deut. vii. 21, x. 17; Jer. vii. 19; Psalm xliv. 16, cxxx. 4; 2
Chron. xxxvi. 15, 16. Mr. Deane (Bishop Ellicott's _Commentary_, p.
407) thus exhibits the details of special resemblances:--
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| Dan. ix. | Ezra ix. | Neh. ix. | Baruch. |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
| Verse. | Verse. | Verse. | |
| 4 | 7 | 32 | -- |
| 5 | 7 | 33, 34 | i. 11 |
| 6 | 7 | 32, 33 | -- |
| 7 | 6, 7 | 32, 33 | i. 15-17 |
| 8 | 6, 7 | 33 | -- |
| 9 | -- | 17 | -- |
| 13 | -- | -- | ii. 7 |
| 14 | 15 | 33 | -- |
| 15 | -- | 10 | ii. 11 |
| 18 | -- | -- | ii. 19 |
| 19 | -- | -- | ii. 15 |
+----------+----------+----------+----------+
[599] ix. 13 (Heb.). Comp. Exod. xxxii. 13; 1 Sam. xiii. 12; 1 Kings
xiii. 6, etc.
[600] Comp. Jer. xxxii. 17-23; Isa. lxiii. 11-16.
[601] ix. 21. LXX., τάχει φερόμενος; Theodot., πετόμενος; Vulg.,
_cito volans_; A.V. and R.V., "being made to fly swiftly"; R.V.
marg., "being sore wearied"; A.V. marg., "with weariness"; Von
Lengerke, "being caused to hasten with haste." The verb elsewhere
always connotes weariness. If that be the meaning here, it must refer
to Daniel. If it here means "flying," it is the only passage in the
Old Testament where angels fly; but see Isa. vi. 2; Psalm civ. 4,
etc. The _wings of angels_ are first mentioned in the Book of Enoch,
lxi.; but see Rev. xiv. 6--cherubim and seraphim have wings.
[602] In the time of the historic Daniel, as in the brief three and a
half years of Antiochus, the _tamîd_ had ceased.
[603] ix. 23. Heb., _eesh hamudôth_; Vulg., _vir desideriorum_, "a
man of desires"; Theodot., ἀνὴρ ἐπιθυμιῶν. Comp. x. 11, 19, and Jer.
xxxi. 20, where "a pleasant child" is "a son of caresses"; and the
"_amor et deliciæ generis humani_" applied to Titus; and the names
David, Jedidiah, "beloved of Jehovah." The LXX. render the word
ἐλεεινός, "an object of pity."
[604] Daniel used _Shabuîm_ for weeks, not _Shabuôth_.
[605] In ver. 24 the _Q'rî_ and _Kethîbh_ vary, as do also the versions.
[606] For _charoots_, "moat" (Ewald), the A.V. has "wall," and in
the marg. "breach" or "ditch." The word occurs for "ditches" in the
Talmud. The text of the verse is uncertain.
[607] Perhaps because neither Jason nor Menelaus (being apostate)
were regarded as genuine successors of Onias III.
[608] Numb. xiv. 34; Lev. xxvi. 34; Ezek. iv. 6.
[609] Comp. Jer. xxxii. 11, 44.
[610] See Isa. xlvi. 3, li. 5, liii. 11; Jer. xxiii. 6, etc.
[611] For the _anointing_ of the altar see Exod. xxix. 36, xl. 10;
Lev. viii. 11; Numb. vii. 1. It would make no difference in the _usus
loquendi_ if neither Zerubbabel's nor Judas's altar was _actually_
anointed.
[612] It is only used thirteen times of the _Debhîr_, or Holiest Place.
[613] 1 Macc. iv. 54.
[614] Theodot., ἕως χριστοῦ ἡγουμένου.
[615] Saadia the Gaon, Rashi, Von Lengerke, Hitzig, Schürer, Cornill.
[616] Hag. i. 1; Zech. iii. 1; Ezra iii. 2. Comp. Ecclus. xlv. 24;
Jos., _Antt._, XII. iv. 2, προστάτης; and see Bevan, p. 156.
[617] We see from Zech. i. 12, ii. 4, that even in the second year of
Darius Hystaspis Jerusalem had neither walls nor gates; and even in
the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the wall was still broken down and
the gates burnt (Neh. i. 3).
[618] LXX., ἀποσταθήσεται χρίσμα καὶ οὐκ ἔσται; Theodot.,
ἐξολεθρευθήσεται χρίσμα καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν αὐτῷ; Aquil., ἐξ. ἠλειμμένος
καὶ οὐχ ὑπάρξει αὐτῷ.
[619] See xi. 22. Von Lengerke, however, and others refer it to
Seleucus Philopator, murdered by Heliodorus (B.C. 175).
[620] Syr. Aquil., οὐχ ὑπάρξει αὐτῷ; Theodot., καὶ οὔκ ἐστιν ἐν
αῦτῳ; LXX., καὶ οὐκ ἔσται; Vulg., "Et non erit ejus populus qui eum
negaturus est." The A.V. "and not for himself" is untenable. It would
have been לוֹ וְלֹא. See Pusey, p. 182, _n._
[621] Steudel, Hofmann. So too Cornill, p. 10: "Ein frommer Jude das
Hoher Priesterthum mit Onias für erloschen ansah."
[622] Comp. לו ואין and חניו (Joël, _Notizen_, p. 21).
[623] Jos., _Antt._, XII. v. 4; 1 Macc. i. 29-40.
[624] Here again the meaning is uncertain; and Grätz, altering the
reading, thinks that it should be, "He shall abolish the covenant
[with God] for the many"; or, "shall cause the many to transgress the
covenant."
[625] Dan. ix. 27. Heb., _Zebach oo-minchah_, "the bloody and
unbloody offering."
[626] The special allusion, whatever it may precisely mean, is found
under three different designations: (i) In viii. 13 it is called
_happeshang shomeem_; Gk., ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., _peccatum
desolationis_. (ii) In ix. 27 (comp. ix. 31) it is _shiqqootsîm
m'shomeem_; Gk., βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., _abominatio
desolationis_. (iii) In xii. 11 it is _shiqqoots shomeem_; Gk.,
τὸ βδέλυγμα ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., _abominatio in desolationem_. Some
traditional fact must (as Dr. Joël says) have underlain the rendering
"_of desolation_" for "_of the desolator_." In xi. 31 Theodotion
has ἠφανισμένων, "of things done away with," for ἐρημωσέων. The
expression with which the New Testament has made us so familiar is
found also in 1 Macc. i. 51 (comp. 1 Macc. vi. 7): "they built _the
abomination of desolation_ upon the altar." There "the abomination"
seems clearly to mean a smaller altar for heathen sacrifice to Zeus,
built on the great altar of burnt offering. Perhaps the writer of
Daniel took the word _shomeem_, "desolation," as a further definition
of _shiqqoots_, "abomination," from popular speech; and it may have
involved a reference to Lev. xxvi. 15-31: "If ye shall despise My
statutes ... I will even appoint over you terror ... and I will make
your cities waste, _and appoint your sanctuaries unto desolation_."
The old Jewish exegetes referred the prophecy to Antiochus Epiphanes;
Josephus and later writers applied it to the Romans. Old Christian
expositors regarded it as Messianic; but even Jerome records _nine_
different views of commentators, many of them involving the grossest
historic errors and absurdities. Of Post-Reformation expositors down
to the present century scarcely two agree in their interpretations.
At the present day modern critics of any weight almost unanimously
regard these chapters, in their primary significance, as _vaticinia
ex eventu_, as some older Jewish and Christian exegetes had already
done. Hitzig sarcastically says that the exegetes have here fallen
into all sorts of _shiqqootsîm_ themselves.
[627] Comp. πτερύγιον (Matt. iv. 5).
[628] Kuenen, _Hist. Crit. Onderzook._, ii. 472.
[629] Any one who thinks the inquiry likely to lead to any better
results than those here indicated has only to wade through Zöckler's
comment in Lange's _Bibelwerk_ ("Ezekiel and Daniel," i. 186-221). It
is hard to conceive any reading more intolerably wearisome; and at
the close it leaves the reader in a state of more hopeless confusion
than before. The discussion also occupies many pages of Pusey (pp.
162-231); but neither in his hypothesis nor any other are the dates
exact. He can only say, "It were not of any account if we could not
interpret these minor details. _De minimis non curat lex._" On the
view that the seventy weeks were to end with the advent of Christ
we ask: (1) Why do no two Christian interpreters agree about the
interpretation? (2) Why did not the Apostles and Evangelists refer to
so decisive an evidence?
[630] On this, however, we may remark with Cornill, "Eine Apokalypse,
deren ἀποκαλύψεις unenthülbar sind, wäre ein _nonsens_, eine
_contradictio in adjecto_" (_Die Siebzig Jahrwochen_, p. 3). The
indication was obviously _meant_ to be understood, and to the
contemporaries of the writer, familiar with the minuter facts of the
day, it probably was perfectly clear.
[631] Luke ii. 25, 26, 38; Matt. xxiv. 15. Comp. 2 Thess. ii.; Jos.,
_Antt._, X. xxii. 7.
[632] "Scio de hac quæstione ab eruditissimis viris varie disputatum
_et unumquemque pro captu ingenii sui dixisse quod senserat_" (Jer.
_in Dan._, ix.). In other words, there was not only no received
interpretation in St. Jerome's day, but the comments of the Fathers
were even then a chaos of arbitrary guesses.
[633] Pusey makes out a table of the divergent interpretation
of the commentators, whom, in his usual ecclesiastical fashion,
he charitably classes together as "unbelievers," from Corrodi
and Eichhorn down to Herzfeld. But quite as striking a table of
divergencies might be drawn up of "orthodox" commentators.
[634] Thus Eusebius, without a shadow of any pretence at argument
makes the _last week_ mean _seventy years_! (_Dem. Evan._, viii.).
[635] Jost (_Gesch. d. Judenthums_, i. 99) contents himself with
speaking of "die Liebe zu prophetischer Auffassung der Vergangenheit,
mit möglichst genauen Zahlenagaben, befriedigt, _die uns leider nicht
mehr verständlich erscheinen_."
[636] In Clem. Alex., _Strom._, i. 21.
[637] Cornill, p. 14; Bevan, p. 54.
[638] Schürer, _Hist. of Jewish People_, iii. 53, 54 (E. Tr.). This is
also the view of Graf, Nöldeke, Cornill, and many others. In any case
we must not be misled into an impossible style of exegesis of which
Bleck says that "bei ihr alles möglich ist und alles für erlaubt gilt."
CHAPTER IV
_INTRODUCTION TO THE CONCLUDING VISION_
The remaining section of the Book of Daniel forms but one vision, of
which this chapter is the Introduction or Prologue.
Daniel is here spoken of in the third person.
It is dated in the third year of Cyrus (B.C. 535).[639] We have already
been told that Daniel lived to see the first year of Cyrus (i. 21).
This verse, if accepted historically, would show that at any rate
Daniel did not return to Palestine with the exiles. Age, high rank,
and opportunities of usefulness in the Persian Court may have combined
to render his return undesirable for the interests of his people.
The date--the last given in the life of the real or ideal Daniel--is
perhaps here mentioned to account for the allusions which follow to the
kingdom of Persia. But with the great and moving fortunes of the Jews
after the accession of Cyrus, and even with the beginning of their new
national life in Jerusalem, the author is scarcely at all concerned. He
makes no mention of Zerubbabel the prince, nor of Joshua the priest,
nor of the decree of Cyrus, nor of the rebuilding of the Temple; his
whole concern is with the petty wars and diplomacy of the reign of
Antiochus Epiphanes, of which an account is given, so minute as either
to furnish us with historical materials unknown to any other historian,
or else is difficult to reconcile with the history of that king's reign
as it has been hitherto understood.
In this chapter, as in the two preceding, there are great
difficulties and uncertainties about the exact significance of some
of the verses, and textual emendations have been suggested. The
readers of the Expositor's Bible would not, however, be interested
in minute and dreary philological disquisitions, which have not
the smallest moral significance, and lead to no certain result.
The difficulties affect points of no doctrinal importance, and
the greatest scholars have been unable to arrive at any agreement
respecting them. Such difficulties will, therefore, merely be
mentioned, and I shall content myself with furnishing what appears to
be the best authenticated opinion.
The first and second verses are rendered partly by Ewald and
partly by other scholars, "_Truth is the revelation, and distress
is great;_[640] _therefore understand thou the revelation, since
there is understanding of it in the vision._" The admonition calls
attention to the importance of "the word," and the fact that reality
lies beneath its enigmatic and apocalyptic form.
Daniel had been mourning for three full weeks,[641] during which
he ate no dainty bread,[642] nor flesh, nor wine, nor did he anoint
himself with oil.[643] But in the Passover month of Abib or Nisan,
the first month of the year, and on the twenty-fourth day of that
month,[644] he was seated on the bank of the great river, Hiddekel or
Tigris,[645] when, lifting up his eyes, he saw a certain man clothed
in fine linen like a Jewish priest, and his loins girded with gold
of Uphaz.[646] His body was like chrysolite,[647] his face flashed
like lightning, his eyes were like torches of fire, his arms and feet
gleamed like polished brass,[648] and the sound of his words was as
the sound of a deep murmur.[649] Daniel had companions with him;[650]
they did not see the vision, but some supernatural terror fell upon
them, and they fled to hide themselves.[651]
At this great spectacle his strength departed, and his brightness
was changed to corruption;[652] and when the vision spoke he
fell to the earth face downwards. A hand touched him, and partly
raised him to the trembling support of his knees and the palms of
his hands,[653] and a voice said to him, "Daniel, thou greatly
beloved,[654] stand upright, and attend; for I am sent to thee." The
seer was still trembling; but the voice bade him fear not, for his
prayer had been heard, and for that reason this message had been sent
to him. Gabriel's coming had, however, been delayed for three weeks,
by his having to withstand for twenty days the prince of the kingdom
of Persia.[655] The necessity of continuing the struggle was only
removed by the arrival of Michael, one of the chief princes,[656] to
help him, so that Gabriel was no longer needed[657] to resist the
kings of Persia.[658] The vision was for many days,[659] and he had
come to enable Daniel to understand it.
Once more Daniel was terrified, remained silent, and fixed his eyes
on the ground, until one like the sons of men touched his lips, and
then he spoke to apologise for his timidity and faintheartedness.
A third time the vision touched, strengthened, blessed him, and bade
him be strong. "Knowest thou," the angel asked, "why I am come to
thee? I must return to fight against the Prince of Persia, and while
I am gone the Prince of Greece [Javan] will come. I will, however,
tell thee what is announced in the writing of truth, the book of the
decrees of heaven, though there is no one to help me against these
hostile princes of Persia and Javan, except Michael your prince."
The difficulties of the chapter are, as we have said, of a kind that
the expositor cannot easily remove. I have given what appears to be
the general sense. The questions which the vision raises bear on
matters of angelology, as to which all is purposely left vague and
indeterminate, or which lie in a sphere wholly beyond our cognisance.
It may first be asked whether the splendid angel of the opening
vision is also the being in the similitude of a man who thrice
touches, encourages, and strengthens Daniel. It is perhaps simplest
to suppose that this is the case,[660] and that the Great Prince
tones down his overpowering glory to more familiar human semblance in
order to dispel the terrors of the seer.
The general conception of the archangels as princes of the nations,
and as contending with each other, belongs to the later developments
of Hebrew opinion on such subjects.[661] Some have supposed that
the "princes" of Persia and Javan to whom Gabriel and Michael are
opposed are, not good angels, but demonic powers,--"the world-rulers
of this darkness"--subordinate to the evil spirit whom St. Paul does
not hesitate to call "the god of this world," and "the prince of
the powers of the air." This is how they account for this "war in
heaven," so that "the dragon and his angels" fight against "Michael
and his angels." Be that as it may, this mode of presenting the
guardians of the destinies of nations is one respecting which we have
no further gleams of revelation to help us.
Ewald regards the two last verses of the chapter as a sort of
soliloquy of the angel Gabriel with himself. He is pressed for
time. His coming has already been delayed by the opposition of the
guardian-power of the destinies of Persia. If Michael, the great
archangel of the Hebrews, had not come to his aid, and (so to speak)
for a time relieved guard, he would have been unable to come. But
even the respite leaves him anxious. He seems to feel it almost
necessary that he should at once return to contend against the
Prince of Persia, and against a new adversary, the Prince of Javan,
who is on his way to do mischief. Yet on the whole he will stay and
enlighten Daniel before he takes his flight, although there is no
one but Michael who aids him against these menacing princes. It is
difficult to know whether this is meant to be ideal or real--whether
it represents a struggle of angels against demons, or is merely meant
for a sort of parable which represents the to-and-fro conflicting
impulses which sway the destinies of earthly kingdoms. In any case
the representation is too unique and too remote from earth to enable
us to understand its spiritual meaning, beyond the bare indication
that God sitteth above the water-floods and God remaineth a king for
ever. It is another way of showing us that the heathen rage, and
the people imagine a vain thing; that the kings of the earth set
themselves and the rulers take counsel together; but that they can
only accomplish what God's hand and God's counsel have predetermined
to be done; and that when they attempt to overthrow the destinies
which God has foreordained, "He that sitteth in the heavens shall
laugh them to scorn, the Lord shall have them in derision." These,
apart from all complications or developments of angelology or
demonology, are the continuous lesson of the Word of God, and are
confirmed by all that we decipher of His providence in His ways of
dealing with nations and with men.
FOOTNOTES:
[639] The LXX. date it in "the _first_ year of Cyrus," perhaps an
intentional alteration (i. 21). We see from Ezra, Nehemiah, and the
latest of the Minor Prophets that there was scarcely even an attempt
to restore the ruined walls of Jerusalem before B.C. 444.
[640] Lit. "great warfare." It will be seen that the A.V. and
R.V. and other renderings vary widely from this; but nothing very
important depends on the variations. Instead of taking the verbs as
imperatives addressed to the reader, Hitzig renders, "He heeded the
word, and gave heed to the vision."
[641] Lit. "weeks of days" (Gen. xli. 1; Deut. xxi. 13: "years of
days").
[642] "Bread of desires" is the opposite of "bread of affliction" in
Deut. xvi. 3. Comp. Gen. xxvii. 25; Isa. xxii. 13, etc.
[643] Comp. Amos vi. 6; Ruth iii. 3; 2 Sam. xii. 20, xiv. 2.
[644] He fasted from Abib 3 to 24. The festival of the New Moon might
prevent him from fasting on Abib 1, 2.
[645] Hiddekel ("the rushing") occurs only in Gen. ii. 14. It is the
Assyrian _idiglat_.
[646] For the girdle see Ezek. xxiii. 15. Ewald (with the Vulg.,
Chald., and Syriac) regards Uphaz as a clerical error for Ophir
(Psalm xlv. 9). LXX., Μωφάζ (Jer. x. 9, where alone it occurs). The
LXX. omit it here. Vulg., _Auro obrizo_.
[647] Heb., _eben tarshish_ (Exod. xxviii. 2); Vulg., _crysolithus_;
R.V. and A.V., "beryl" (Ezek. i. 16). Comp. Skr., _tarisha_, "the sea."
[648] Theodot., τὰ σκέλη; LXX., οἱ πόδες (Rev. i. 15)--lit.
"foot-hold"; Vulg., _quæ deorsum sunt usque ad pedes_.
[649] This description of the vision follows Ezek. i. 16-24, ix. 2,
and is followed in Rev. i. 13-15. The "deep murmur" is referred to
the sound of the sea by St. John; A.V., "the voice of a multitude";
LXX., θόρυβος. Comp. Isa. xiii. 4; Ezek. xliii. 2.
[650] Rashi guesses that they were Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
[651] Comp. Acts ix. 7, xxii. 11.
[652] Comp. Hab. iii. 16; Dan. viii. 18.
[653] Lit. "shook" or "caused me to tremble upon my knees and the
palms of my hand."
[654] x. 11. LXX., ἄνθρωπος ἐλεεινὸς εἶ; Tert., _De Jejun._, 7, "homo
es miserabilis" (_sc._, "jejunando").
[655] The protecting genius of Persia (Isa. xxiv. 21; Psalm lxxxii.;
Ecclus. xvii. 17).
[656] Michael, "who is like God" (Jude 9; Rev. xii. 7).
[657] Heb., _nôthartî_. "I came off victorious," or "obtained the
precedence" (Luther, Gesenius, etc.); "I was delayed" (Hitzig); "I
was superfluous" (Ewald); "Was left over" (Zöckler); "I remained"
(A.V.); "Was not needed" (R.V. marg.). The LXX. and Theodoret seem to
follow another text.
[658] LXX., "with the army of the king of the Persians."
[659] Again the text and rendering are uncertain.
[660] So Hitzig and Ewald. The view that they are distinct persons
is taken by Zöckler, Von Lengerke, etc. Other guesses are that the
"man clothed in linen" is the angel who called Gabriel (viii. 16); or
Michael; or "the angel of the Covenant" (Vitringa); or Christ; or "he
who letteth" (ὁ κατέχων, 2 Thess. ii. 7), whom Zöckler takes to be
"the good principle of the world-power."
[661] Thus in the LXX. (Dent, xxxii. 8) we read of angels of the
nations. See too Isa. xlvi. 2; Jer. xlvi. 25. Comp. Baruch iv. 7;
Ecclus. xvii. 17; Frankel, _Vorstudien_, p. 66.
CHAPTER V
_AN ENIGMATIC PROPHECY PASSING INTO DETAILS
OF THE REIGN OF ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES_
"Pone hæc dici de Antiocho, quid nocet religioni
nostræ?"--HIERON. _ed._ VALLARS, v. 722.
If this chapter were indeed the utterance of a prophet in the
Babylonian Exile, nearly four hundred years before the events--events
of which many are of small comparative importance in the world's
history--which are here so enigmatically and yet so minutely
depicted, the revelation would be the most unique and perplexing in
the whole Scriptures. It would represent a sudden and total departure
from every method of God's providence and of God's manifestation of
His will to the minds of the prophets. It would stand absolutely
and abnormally alone as an abandonment of the limitations of all
else which has ever been foretold. And it would then be still more
surprising that such a reversal of the entire economy of prophecy
should not only be so widely separated in tone from the high moral
and spiritual lessons which it was the special glory of prophecy to
inculcate, but should come to us entirely devoid of those decisive
credentials which could alone suffice to command our conviction of
its genuineness and authenticity. "We find in this chapter," says
Mr. Bevan, "a complete survey of the history from the beginning
of the Persian period down to the time of the author. Here, even
more than in the earlier vision, we are able to perceive how the
account gradually becomes more definite as it approaches the latter
part of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, and how it then passes
suddenly from the domain of historical facts to that of ideal
expectations."[662] In recent days, when the force of truth has
compelled so many earnest and honest thinkers to the acceptance of
historic and literary criticism, the few scholars who are still able
to maintain the traditional views about the Book of Daniel find
themselves driven, like Zöckler and others, to admit that even if
the Book of Daniel as a whole can be regarded as the production of
the exiled seer five and a half centuries before Christ, yet in this
chapter at any rate there must be large interpolations.[663]
There is here an unfortunate division of the chapters. The first
verse of chap. xi. clearly belongs to the last verses of chap. x.
It seems to furnish the reason why Gabriel could rely on the help
of Michael, and therefore may delay for a few moments his return
to the scene of conflict with the Prince of Persia and the coming
King of Javan. Michael will for that brief period undertake the sole
responsibility of maintaining the struggle, because Gabriel has put
him under a direct obligation by special assistance which he rendered
to him only a little while previously in the first year of the Median
Darius.[664] Now, therefore, Gabriel, though in haste, will announce
to Daniel the truth.
The announcement occupies five sections.
FIRST SECTION (xi. 2-9).--Events from the rise of Alexander the
Great (B.C. 336) to the death of Seleucus Nicator (B.C. 280). There
are to be three kings of Persia after Cyrus (who is then reigning),
of whom the third is to be the richest;[665] and "when he is waxed
strong through his riches, he shall stir up the all[666] against the
realm of Javan."
There were of course many more than four kings of Persia[667]: viz.--
B.C.
Cyrus 536
Cambyses 529
Pseudo-Smerdis 522
Darius Hystaspis 521
Xerxes I. 485
Artaxerxes I. (Longimanus) 464
Xerxes II. 425
Sogdianus 425
Darius Nothus 424
Artaxerxes II. (Mnemon) 405
Artaxerxes III. 359
Darius Codomannus 336
But probably the writer had no historic sources to which to refer,
and only four Persian kings are prominent in Scripture--Cyrus,
Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes. Darius Codomannus is indeed mentioned
in Neh. xii. 22, but might have easily been overlooked, and even
confounded with another Darius in uncritical and unhistorical
times. The rich fourth king who "stirs up the all against the realm
of Grecia" might be meant for Artaxerxes I., but more probably
refers to Xerxes (Achashverosh, or Ahasuerus), and his immense and
ostentatious invasion of Greece (B.C. 480). His enormous wealth is
dwelt upon by Herodotus.[668]
Ver. 3 (B.C. 336-323).--Then shall rise a mighty king (Alexander the
Great), and shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his
will. "Fortunam solus omnium mortalium in potestate habuit," says his
historian, Quintus Curtius.[669]
Ver. 4 (B.C. 323).--But when he is at the apparent zenith of his
strength his kingdom shall be broken, and shall not descend to any of
his posterity,[670] but (B.C. 323-301) shall be for others, and shall
ultimately (after the Battle of Ipsus, B.C. 301) be divided towards
the four winds of heaven, into the kingdoms of Cassander (Greece and
Macedonia), Ptolemy (Egypt, Cœle-Syria, and Palestine), Lysimachus
(Asia Minor), and Seleucus (Upper Asia).
Ver. 5.--Of these four kingdoms and their kings the vision is only
concerned with two--the kings of the South[671] (_i.e._, the Lagidæ,
or Egyptian Ptolemies, who sprang from Ptolemy Lagos), and the kings
of the North (_i.e._, the Antiochian Seleucidæ). They alone are
singled out because the Holy Land became a sphere of contentions
between these rival dynasties.[672]
B.C. 306.--The King of the South (Ptolemy Soter, son of Lagos) shall
be strong, and shall ultimately assume the title of Ptolemy I., King
of Egypt.
But one of his princes or generals (Seleucus Nicator) shall be
stronger,[673] and, asserting his independence, shall establish a
great dominion over Northern Syria and Babylonia.
Ver. 6 (B.C. 250).--The vision then passes over the reign of
Antiochus II. (Soter), and proceeds to say that "at the end of
years" (_i.e._, some half-century later, B.C. 250) the kings of the
North and South should form a matrimonial alliance. The daughter of
the King of the South--the Egyptian Princess Berenice, daughter of
Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus), should come to the King of the North
(Antiochus Theos) to make an agreement. This agreement (marg.,
"equitable conditions") was that Antiochus Theos should divorce
his wife and half-sister Laodice, and disinherit her children, and
bequeath the throne to any future child of Berenice, who would
thus unite the empires of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ.[674]
Berenice took with her so vast a dowry that she was called "the
dowry-bringer" (φερνόφορος).[675] Antiochus himself accompanied her
as far as Pelusium (B.C. 247). But the compact ended in nothing but
calamity. For, two years after, Ptolemy II. died, leaving an infant
child by Berenice. But Berenice did "_not retain the strength of
her arm_,"[676] since the military force which accompanied her
proved powerless for her protection; nor did Ptolemy II. abide,
nor any support which he could render. On the contrary, there was
overwhelming disaster. Berenice's escort, her father, her husband,
all perished, and she herself and her infant child were murdered by
her rival, Laodice (B.C. 246), in the sanctuary of Daphne, whither
she had fled for refuge.
Ver. 7 (B.C. 285-247).--But the murder of Berenice shall be well
avenged. For "out of a shoot from her roots" stood up one in his
office, even her brother Ptolemy III. (Euergetes), who, unlike the
effeminate Ptolemy II., did not entrust his wars to his generals, but
came himself to his army. He shall completely conquer the King of the
North (Seleucus II., Kallinikos, son of Antiochus Theos and Laodice),
shall seize his fortress (Seleucia, the port of Antioch).[677]
Ver. 8 (B.C. 247).--In this campaign Ptolemy Euergetes, who earned
the title of "Benefactor" by this vigorous invasion, shall not only
win immense booty--four thousand talents of gold and many jewels,
and forty thousand talents of silver--but shall also carry back with
him to Egypt the two thousand five hundred molten images,[678] and
idolatrous vessels, which, two hundred and eighty years before (B.C.
527), Cambyses had carried away from Egypt.[679]
After this success he will, for some years, refrain from attacking
the Seleucid kings.[680]
Ver. 9 (B.C. 240).--Seleucus Kallinikos makes an attempt to avenge
the shame and loss of the invasion of Syria by invading Egypt, but he
returns to his own land totally foiled and defeated, for his fleet
was destroyed by a storm.[681]
SECOND SECTION (vv. 10-19).--Events from the death of Ptolemy
Euergetes (B.C. 247) to the death of Antiochus III. (the Great, B.C.
175). In the following verses, as Behrmann observes, there is a sort
of dance of shadows, only fully intelligible to the initiated.
Ver. 10.--The sons of Seleucus Kallinikos were Seleucus III. (Keraunos,
B.C. 227-224) and Antiochus the Great (B.C. 224-187). Keraunos only
reigned two years, and in B.C. 224 his brother Antiochus III. succeeded
him. Both kings assembled immense forces to avenge the insult of the
Egyptian invasion, the defeat of their father, and the retention
of their port and fortress of Seleucia. It was only sixteen miles
from Antioch, and being still garrisoned by Egyptians, constituted a
standing danger and insult to their capital city.
Ver. 11.--After twenty-seven years the port of Seleucia is wrested
from the Egyptians by Antiochus the Great, and he so completely
reverses the former successes of the King of the South as to conquer
Syria as far as Gaza.
Ver. 12 (B.C. 217).--But at last the young Egyptian King, Ptolemy IV.
(Philopator), is roused from his dissipation and effeminacy, advances
to Raphia (southwest of Gaza) with a great army of twenty thousand
foot, five thousand horse, and seventy-three elephants, and there,
to his own immense self-exaltation, he inflicts a severe defeat
on Antiochus, and "_casts down tens of thousands_."[682] Yet the
victory is illusive, although it enables Ptolemy to annex Palestine
to Egypt. For Ptolemy "_shall not show himself strong_," but shall,
by his supineness, and by making a speedy peace, throw away all the
fruits of his victory, while he returns to his past dissipation (B.C.
217-204).[683]
Ver. 13.--Twelve years later (B.C. 205) Ptolemy Philopator died,
leaving an infant son, Ptolemy Epiphanes. Antiochus, smarting from
his defeat at Raphia, again assembled an army which was still greater
than before (B.C. 203), and much war-material. In the intervening
years he had won great victories in the East as far as India.
Ver. 14.--Antiochus shall be aided by the fact that many--including his
ally Philip, King of Macedon, and various rebel-subjects of Ptolemy
Epiphanes--stood up against the King of Egypt and wrested Phœnicia and
Southern Syria from him. The Syrians were further strengthened by the
assistance of the "children of the violent" among the Jews, "_who shall
lift themselves up to fulfil the vision of the oracle;_[684] _but
they shall fall_." We read in Josephus that many of the Jews helped
Antiochus;[685] but the allusion to "the vision" is entirely obscure.
Ewald supposes a reference to some prophecy no longer extant. Dr. Joël
thinks that the Hellenising Jews may have referred to Isa. xix. in
favour of the plans of Antiochus against Egypt.
Vv. 15, 16.--But however much any of the Jews may have helped
Antiochus under the hope of ultimately regaining their independence,
their hopes were frustrated. The Syrian King came, besieged, and took
a well-fenced city--perhaps an allusion to the fact that he wrested
Sidon from the Egyptians. After his great victory over the Egyptian
general Scopas at Mount Panium (B.C. 198), the routed Egyptian
forces, to the number of ten thousand, flung themselves into that
city.[686] This campaign ruined the interests of Egypt in Palestine,
"the glorious land."[687] Palestine now passed to Antiochus, who took
possession "_with destruction in his hand_."
Ver. 17 (B.C. 198-195).--After this there shall again be an attempt
at "equitable negotiations"; by which, however, Antiochus hoped to
get final possession of Egypt and destroy it. He arranged a marriage
between "_a daughter of women_"--his daughter Cleopatra--and Ptolemy
Epiphanes. But this attempt also entirely failed.
Ver. 18 (B.C. 190).--Antiochus therefore "_sets his face in another
direction_," and tries to conquer the islands and coasts of Asia
Minor. But a captain--the Roman general, Lucius Cornelius Scipio
Asiaticus--puts an end to the insolent scorn with which he had spoken
of the Romans, and pays him back with equal scorn,[688] utterly
defeating him in the great Battle of Magnesia (B.C. 190), and forcing
him to ignominious terms.
Ver. 19 (B.C. 175).--Antiochus next turns his attention ("_sets his
face_") to strengthen the fortresses of his own land in the east and
west; but making an attempt to recruit his dissipated wealth by the
plunder of the Temple of Belus in Elymais, "_stumbles and falls, and
is not found_."
THIRD SECTION (vv. 20-27).--Events under Seleucus Philopator down to
the first attempts of Antiochus Epiphanes against Egypt (B.C. 170).
Ver. 20.--Seleucus Philopator (B.C. 187-176) had a character the
reverse of his father's. He was no restless seeker for glory, but
desired wealth and quietness.[689] Among the Jews, however, he had a
very evil reputation, for he sent an _exactor_--a mere tax-collector,
Heliodorus--"_to pass through the glory of the kingdom_."[690] He
only reigned twelve years, and then was "broken"--_i.e._, murdered
by Heliodorus, neither in anger nor in battle, but by poison
administered by this "tax-collector." The versions all vary, but I
feel little doubt that Dr. Joël is right when he sees in the curious
phrase _nogesh heder malkooth_, "one that shall cause a raiser of
taxes to pass over the kingdom"--of which neither Theodotion nor
the Vulgate can make anything--a cryptographic allusion to the name
_Heliodorus_;[691] and possibly the predicted fate may (by a change
of subject) also refer to the fact that Heliodorus was checked,
not by force, but by the vision in the Temple (2 Macc. v. 18, iii.
24-29). We find from 2 Macc. iv. 1 that Simeon, the governor of the
Temple, charged Onias with a trick to terrify Heliodorus. This is a
very probable view of what occurred.[692]
Ver. 21.--Seleucus Philopator died B.C. 175 without an heir. This
made room for a contemptible person, a reprobate, who had no real
claim to royal dignity,[693] being only a younger son of Antiochus
the Great. He came by surprise, "_in time of security_," and obtained
the kingdom by flatteries.[694]
Ver. 22.--Yet "_the overflowing wings of Egypt_" (or "the arms of
a flood") "_were swept away before him and broken; yea, and even
a covenanted or allied prince_." Some explain this of his nephew
Ptolemy Philometor, others of Onias III., "the prince of the
covenant"--_i.e._, the princely high priest, whom Antiochus displaced
in favour of his brother, the apostate Joshua, who Græcised his name
into Jason, as his brother Onias did in calling himself Menelaus.[695]
Ver. 23.--This mean king should prosper by deceit which he practised
on all connected with him;[696] and though at first he had but few
adherents, he should creep into power.
Ver. 24.--"_In time of security shall he come, even upon the fattest
places of the province._" By this may be meant his invasions of
Galilee and Lower Egypt. Acting unlike any of his royal predecessors,
he shall lavishly scatter his gains and his booty among needy
followers,[697] and shall plot to seize Pelusium, Naucratis,
Alexandria, and other strongholds of Egypt for a time.
Ver. 25.--After this (B.C. 171) he shall, with a "_great army_,"
seriously undertake his first invasion of Egypt, and shall be met by
his nephew Ptolemy Philometor with another immense army. In spite of
this, the young Egyptian King shall fail through the treachery of his
own courtiers. He shall be outwitted and treacherously undermined by
his uncle Antiochus. Yes! even while his army is fighting, and many
are being slain, the very men who "_eat of his dainties_," even his
favourite and trusted courtiers Eulæus and Lenæus, will be devising
his ruin, and his army shall be swept away.
Vv. 26, 27 (B.C. 174).--The Syrians and the Egyptian King, nephew
and uncle, shall in nominal amity sit at one banquet, eating from
one table;[698] but all the while they will be distrustfully
plotting against each other and "_speaking lies_" to each other.
Antiochus will pretend to ally himself with the young Philometor
against his brother Ptolemy Euergetes II.--generally known by
his derisive nickname as Ptolemy Physkon[699]--whom after eleven
months the Alexandrians had proclaimed king. But all these plots and
counter-plots should be of none effect, for the end was not yet.
FOURTH SECTION (vv. 28-35).--Events between the first attack of
Antiochus on Jerusalem (B.C. 170) and his plunder of the Temple to
the first revolt of the Maccabees (B.C. 167).
Ver. 28 (B.C. 168).--Returning from Egypt with great plunder, Antiochus
shall set himself against the Holy Covenant. He put down the usurping
high priest Jason, who, with much slaughter, had driven out his rival
usurper and brother, Menelaus. He massacred many Jews, and returned to
Antioch enriched with golden vessels seized from the Temple.[700]
Ver. 29.--In B.C. 168 Antiochus again invaded Egypt, but with none of
the former splendid results. For Ptolemy Philometor and Physkon had
joined in sending an embassy to Rome to ask for help and protection.
In consequence of this, "_ships from Kittim_"[701]--namely, the Roman
fleet--came against him, bringing the Roman commissioner, Gaius
Popilius Lænas. When Popilius met Antiochus, the king put out his
hand to embrace him; but the Roman merely held out his tablets, and
bade Antiochus read the Roman demand that he and his army should at
once evacuate Egypt. "I will consult my friends on the subject," said
Antiochus. Popilius, with infinite haughtiness and audacity, simply
drew a circle in the sand with his vine-stick round the spot on which
the king stood, and said, "You must decide before you step out of
that circle." Antiochus stood amazed and humiliated; but seeing that
there was no help for it, promised in despair to do all that the
Romans demanded.[702]
Ver. 30.--Returning from Egypt in an indignant frame of mind, he
turned his exasperation against the Jews and the Holy Covenant,
especially extending his approval to those who apostatised from it.
Ver. 31.--Then (B.C. 168) shall come the climax of horror. Antiochus
shall send troops to the Holy Land, who shall desecrate the sanctuary
and fortress of the Temple, and abolish the daily sacrifice (Kisleu
15), and set up the abomination that maketh desolate.[703]
Ver. 32.--To carry out these ends the better, and with the express
purpose of putting an end to the Jewish religion, he shall pervert
or "make profane" by flatteries the renegades who are ready to
apostatise from the faith of their fathers. But there shall be a
faithful remnant who will bravely resist him to the uttermost. "_The
people who know their God will be valiant, and do great deeds._"
Ver. 33.--To keep alive the national faith "_wise teachers of the
people shall instruct many_," and will draw upon their own heads the
fury of persecution, so that many shall fall by sword, and by flame,
and by captivity, and by spoliation for many days.
Ver. 34.--But in the midst of this fierce onslaught of cruelty they
shall be "_holpen with a little help_." There shall arise the sect
of the _Chasidîm_, or "the Pious," bound together by _Tugendbund_
to maintain the Laws which Israel received from Moses of old.[704]
These good and faithful champions of a righteous cause will indeed be
weakened by the false adherence of waverers and flatterers.
Ver. 35.--To purge the party from such spies and Laodiceans, the
teachers, like the aged priest Mattathias at Modin, and the aged
scribe Eleazar, will have to brave even martyrdom itself till the
time of the end.
FIFTH SECTION (vv. 36-45, B.C. 147-164).--Events from the beginning
of the Maccabean rising to the death of Antiochus Epiphanes.
Ver. 36.--Antiochus will grow more arbitrary, more insolent, more
blasphemous, from day to day, calling himself "God" (Theos) on his
coins, and requiring all his subjects to be of his religion,[705] and
so even more kindling against himself the wrath of the God of gods by
his monstrous utterances, until the final doom has fallen.
Ver. 37.--He will, in fact, make himself his own god, paying no regard
(by comparison) to his national or local god, the Olympian Zeus, nor to
the Syrian deity, Tammuz-Adonis, "the desire of women."[706]
"Tammuz came next behind,
Whose yearly wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer day.
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea--supposed with blood
Of Tammuz yearly wounded. The love tale
Infected Zion's daughters with like heat."
Ver. 38.--The only God to whom he shall pay marked respect shall be
the Roman Jupiter, the god of the Capitol. To this god, to Jupiter
Capitolinus, not to his own Zeus Olympios, the god of his Greek
fathers, he shall erect a temple in his capital city of Antioch, and
adorn it with gold and silver and precious stones.[707]
Ver. 39.--"_And he shall deal with the strongest fortresses by the
help of a strange god_"[708]--namely, the Capitoline Jupiter (Zeus
Polieus)--and shall crowd the strongholds of Judæa with heathen
colonists who worship the Tyrian Hercules (Melkart) and other idols;
and to these heathen he shall give wealth and power.
Ver. 40.--But his evil career shall be cut short. Egypt, under the
now-allied brothers Philometor and Physkon, shall unite to thrust at
him. Antiochus will advance against them like a whirlwind, with many
chariots and horsemen, and with the aid of a fleet.
Vv. 41-45.--In the course of his march he shall pass through
Palestine, "_the glorious land_,"[709] with disastrous injury; but
Edom, Moab, and the bloom of the kingdom of Ammon shall escape his
hand. Egypt, however, shall not escape. By the aid of the Libyans
and Ethiopians who are in his train he shall plunder Egypt of its
treasures.[710]
How far these events correspond to historic realities is uncertain.
Jerome says that Antiochus invaded Egypt a third time in B.C. 165,
the eleventh year of his reign; but there are no historic traces of
such an invasion, and most certainly Antiochus towards the close
of his reign, instead of being enriched with vast Egyptian spoils,
was struggling with chronic lack of means. Some therefore suppose
that the writer composed and published his enigmatic sketch of
these events before the close of the reign of Antiochus, and that
he is here passing from contemporary fact into a region of ideal
anticipations which were never actually fulfilled.
Ver. 43 (B.C. 165).--In the midst of this devastating invasion of
Egypt, Antiochus shall be troubled with disquieting rumours of
troubles in Palestine and other realms of his kingdom. He will set
out with utter fury to subjugate and to destroy, determining above
all to suppress the heroic Maccabean revolt which had inflicted such
humiliating disasters upon his generals, Seron, Apollonius, and
Lysias.[711]
Ver. 45 (B.C. 164).--He shall indeed advance so far as to pitch his
palatial tent[712] "_between the sea and the mountain of the High
Glory_"; but he will come to a disastrous and an unassisted end.[713]
These latter events either do not correspond with the actual history,
or cannot be verified. So far as we know Antiochus did not invade
Egypt at all after B.C. 168. Still less did he advance from Egypt,
or pitch his tent anywhere near Mount Zion. Nor did he die in
Palestine, but in Persia (B.C. 165). The writer, indeed, strong in
faith, anticipated, and rightly, that Antiochus would come to an
ignominious and a sudden end--God shooting at him with a swift arrow,
so that he should be wounded. But all accurate details seem suddenly
to stop short with the doings in the fourth section, which may refer
to the strange conduct of Antiochus in his great festival in honour
of Jupiter at Daphne. Had the writer published his book _after_
this date, he could not surely have failed to speak with triumphant
gratitude and exultation of the heroic stand made by Judas Maccabæus
and the splendid victories which restored hope and glory to the Holy
Land. I therefore regard these verses as a description rather of
ideal expectation than of historic facts.
We find notices of Antiochus in the Books of Maccabees, in Josephus,
in St. Jerome's Commentary on Daniel, and in Appian's _Syriaca_. We
should know more of him and be better able to explain some of the
allusions in this chapter if the writings of the secular historians
had not come down to us in so fragmentary a condition. The relevant
portions of Callinicus Sutoricus, Diodorus Siculus, Polybius,
Posidonius, Claudius, Theon, Andronicus, Alypius, and others are
all lost--except a few fragments which we have at second or third
hand. Porphyry introduced quotations from these authors into the
twelfth book of his _Arguments against the Christians_; but we only
know his book from Jerome's _ex-parte_ quotations. Other Christian
treatises, written in answer to Porphyry by Apollinaris, Eusebius,
and Methodius, are only preserved in a few sentences by Nicetas and
John of Damascus. The loss of Porphyry and Apollinarius is especially
to be regretted. Jerome says that it was the extraordinarily minute
correspondence of this chapter of Daniel with the history of
Antiochus Epiphanes that led Porphyry to the conviction that it only
contained _vaticinia ex eventu_.[714]
Antiochus died at Tabæ in Paratacæne on the frontiers of Persia
and Babylonia about B.C. 163. The Jewish account of his remorseful
deathbed may be read in 1 Macc. vi. 1-16: "He laid him down upon
his bed, and fell sick for grief; and there he continued many days,
for his grief was ever more and more; and he made account that he
should die." He left a son, Antiochus Eupator, aged nine, under the
charge of his flatterer and foster-brother Philip.[715] Recalling the
wrongs he had inflicted on Judæa and Jerusalem, he said: "I perceive,
therefore, that for this cause these troubles are come upon me; and,
behold, I perish through great grief in a strange land."
FOOTNOTES:
[662] _Daniel_, p. 162.
[663] On this chapter see Smend, _Zeitschr. für Alttest.
Wissenschaft_, v. 241.
[664] Ewald, _Prophets_, v. 293 (E. Tr.).
[665] Doubtless the three mentioned in Ezra iv. 5-7: Ahasuerus
(Xerxes), Artaxerxes, and Darius.
[666] Heb., _Hakkôl_--lit. "the all." There were probably Jews in his
army (_Jos. c. Ap._, I. 22: comp. Herod., vii. 89).
[667] Zöckler met the difficulty by calling the number four
"symbolic," a method as easy as it is profoundly unsatisfactory.
[668] Herod., iii. 96, iv. 27-29.
[669] Q. Curt., X. v. 35.
[670] See Grote, xii. 133. Alexander had a natural son, Herakles,
and a posthumous son, Alexander, by Roxana. Both were murdered--the
former by Polysperchon. See Diod. Sic., xix. 105, xx. 28; Pausan.,
ix. 7; Justin, xv. 2; Appian, _Syr._, c. 51.
[671] The King of the Negeb (comp. Isa. xxx. 6, 7). LXX., Egypt.
Ptolemy assumed the crown about B.C. 304.
[672] See Stade, _Gesch._, ii. 276. Seleucus Nicator was deemed so
important as to give his name to the Seleucid æra (1 Macc. i. 10, ἔτη
βασιλείας Ἑλλήνων).
[673] Diod. Sic., xix. 55-58; Appian, _Syr._, c. 52. He ruled from
Phrygia to the Indus, and was the most powerful of the Diadochi. The
word _one_ is not expressed in the Hebrew: "but as for _one_ of his
captains." There may be some corruption of the text. Seleucus can
scarcely be regarded as a vassal of Ptolemy, but of Alexander.
[674] Appian, _Syr._, c. 55; Polyænus, viii. 50; Justin, xxvii. 1. See
Herzberg, _Gesch. v. Hellas u. Rom._, i. 576. Dates are not certain.
[675] Jer., _ad loc._ (Dan. xi. 6).
[676] The rendering is much disputed, and some versions, punctuating
differently, have, "his seed [_i.e._, his daughter] shall not stand."
Every clause of the passage has received varying interpretations.
[677] Polyb., v. 58.
[678] Heb., _nasîkîm_; LXX., τὰ χωνευτά; Vulg., _sculptilia_.
[679] Herodotus (iii. 47) says that he ordered the images to be
burnt. On the Marmor Adulitanum, Ptolemy Euergetes boasted that he
had united Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Persia, Susiana, Media, and all
countries as far as Bactria under his rule. The inscription was seen
at Adules by Cosmas Indicopleustes, and recorded by him (Wolf u.
Buttmann, _Museum_, ii. 162).
[680] R.V. marg., "He shall continue more years than the King of
the North." Ptolemy Euergetes died B.C. 247; Seleucus Kallinikos,
B.C. 225. It must be borne in mind that in almost every clause the
readings, renderings, and interpolations vary. I give what seem to be
the best attested and the most probable.
[681] Justin, xxvii. 2.
[682] See 3 Macc. i. 2-8; Jos., _B. J._, IV. xi. 5. The Seleucid army
lost ten thousand foot, three hundred horse, five elephants, and more
than four thousand prisoners (Polyb., v. 86).
[683] Justin says (xxx. i): "Spoliasset regem Antiochum si fortunam
virtute juvisset."
[684] _Chāzôn_, "the vision." Grätz renders it, "to cause the Law to
totter"; but this cannot be right.
[685] _E.g._, Joseph, and his son Hyrcanus.
[686] Polyb., xxviii. 1; Liv., xxxiii. 19; Jos., _Antt._, XII. iii.
4. See St. Jerome, _ad loc._
[687] Vulg., _terra inclyta_; but in viii. 9, _fortitudo_.
[688] In the choice of the Hebrew words _qatsîn cher'patho lo_, Dr.
Joël suspects a sort of anagram of Cornelius Scipio, like the ἀπὸ
μέλιτος for Ptolemy, and the ἵον Ἥρας for Arsione in Lycophron; but
the real meaning and rendering of the verse are highly uncertain.
[689] Liv., xii. 19: "Otiosum, nullisque admodum rebus gestis
nobilitatum."
[690] 2 Macc. iii. 7 ff. The reading and rendering are very uncertain.
[691] Joël, _Notizen_, p. 16.
[692] See Jost, i. 110.
[693] Vulg., _vilissimus et indignus decore regio_; R.V., "to whom
they had not given the honour of a kingdom"; Ewald, "upon him shall
not be set the splendour of a kingdom." Dr. Joël sees in _nibzeh_ a
contemptuous paronomasia on "Epiphanes" (_Notizen_, p. 17).
[694] Dan. viii. 22; 2 Macc. v. 25.
[695] Jos., _Antt._, XII. v. 1.
[696] Jerome, _amicitias simulans_.
[697] See 1 Macc. iii. 30; 1 Macc. i. 19; Polyb., xxvii. 17; Diod.
Sic., xxx. 22. What his unkingly stratagems were we do not know.
[698] Liv., xliv. 19: "Antiochus per honestam speciem majoris
Ptolemæi reducendi in regnum," etc.
[699] Or "Paunch." He was so called from his corpulence. Comp. the
name Mirabeau, _Tonneau_.
[700] 2 Macc. v. 5-21; 1 Macc. i. 20-24.
[701] The LXX. render this ἥξουσι Ῥωμαῖοι. Comp. Numb. xxiv. 24;
Jerome, _Trieres et Romani_. On "Chittim" (Gen. x. 4) see Jos.,
_Antt._, I. vi. 1.
[702] Polyb., xxix. 11; Appian, _Syr._, 66; Liv., xlv. 12; Vell.
Paterc., i. 10. According to Polybius (xxxi. 5), Epiphanes, by his
crafty dissimulation, afterwards completely hoodwinked the ambassador
Tiberius Gracchus.
[703] 2 Macc. vi. 2. Our best available historical comments on this
chapter are to be found in the two books of Maccabees.
[704] 1 Macc. ii. 42, iii. 11, iv. 14, vii. 13; 2 Macc. xiv. 6.
[705] Diod. Sic, xxxi. 1; 1 Macc. i. 43. Polybius (xxxi. 4) says "he
committed sacrilege in most of the temples" (τὰ πλεῖστα τῶν ἱερῶν).
[706] Jahn (_Heb. Com._, § xcii.) sees in the words "neither shall he
regard the desire of women" an allusion to his exclusion of women from
the festival at Daphne. Some explain the passage by his robbery of the
Temple of Artemis or Aphrodite in Elymais (Polyb., xxxi. 11; Appian,
_Syr._, 66; 1 Macc. vi. 1-4; 2 Macc. ix. 2). All is vague and uncertain.
[707] Polyb., xxvi. 10; 2 Macc. vi. 2; Liv., xii. 20. The Hebrew
_Eloah Mauzzîm_ is understood by the LXX., Theodotion, the Vulgate,
and Luther to be a god called Mauzzim (Μαωζείμ). See Herzog,
_Real-Encycl._, _s.v._ "Meussin." Cicero (_c. Verr._, vii. 72) calls
the Capitol _arx omnium nationum_. The reader must judge for himself
as to the validity of the remark of Pusey (p. 92), that "all this is
alien from the character of Antiochus."
[708] R.V. The translation is difficult and uncertain.
[709] The LXX. here render this expression (which puzzled them, and
which they omit in vv. 16, 41) by θέλησις. Theodot., τὴν γῆν τοῦ
Σαβαείμ.
[710] Ewald takes these for metaphoric designations of the
Hellenising Jews. Some (_e.g._, Zöckler) understand these verses as
a recapitulation of the exploits of Antiochus. The whole clause is
surrounded by historic uncertainties.
[711] The origin of the name Maccabee still remains uncertain. Some
make it stand for the initials of the Hebrew words, "Who among the
gods is like Jehovah?" in Exod. xv. 11; or of Mattathias Kohen
(priest), Ben-Johanan (_Biesenthal_). Others make it mean "the
Hammerer" (comp. Charles _Martel_). See Jost, i. 116; Prideaux, ii.
199 (so Grotius, and Buxtorf, _De Abbreviaturis_).
[712] Vulg., Aphadno. The LXX. omit it. Theodot., Apadano; Symm.,
"his stable."
[713] Porphyry says that "he pitched his tent in a place called Apedno,
between the Tigris and Euphrates"; but even if these rivers should be
called seas, they have nothing to do with the Holy Mountain. Apedno
seems to be a mere guess from the word אפדן, "palace" or "tent," in
this verse. See Jer. xliii. 10 (Targum). Roland, however, quotes
Procopius (_De ædif. Justiniani_, ii. 4) as authority for a place
called Apadnas, near Amida, on the Tigris. See Pusey, p. 39.
[714] Jahn, § xcv.
[715] 2 Macc. ix.; Jos., _Antt._, XII. ix. 1, 2; Milman, _Hist. of
the Jews_, ii. 9. Appian describes his lingering and wasting illness
by the word φθίνων (_Syriaca_, 66).
CHAPTER VI
_THE EPILOGUE_
The twelfth chapter of the Book of Daniel serves as a general
epilogue to the Book, and is as little free from difficulties in the
interpretation of the details as are the other apocalyptic chapters.
The keynote, however, to their right understanding must be given
in the words "_At that time_," with which the first verse opens.
The words can only mean "the time" spoken of at the end of the last
chapter, the days of that final effort of Antiochus against the holy
people which ended in his miserable death.
"At that time," then--_i.e._, about the year B.C. 163--the guardian
archangel of Israel, "Michael, the great prince which standeth for
the children of thy people," shall stand up for their deliverance.
But this deliverance should resemble many similar crises in its
general characteristics. It should not be immediate. On the
contrary, it should be preceded by days of unparalleled disorder
and catastrophe--"a time of trouble, such as never was since there
was a nation even to that same time." We may, for instance, compare
with this the similar prophecy of Jeremiah (xxx. 4-11): "And these
are the words which the Lord spake concerning Israel and concerning
Judah. For thus saith the Lord; We have heard a voice of trembling,
of fear, and not of peace.... Alas! for that day is great, so that
none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall
be saved out of it. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the
Lord, that I will burst thy bonds.... Therefore fear thou not, O
Jacob, My servant, saith the Lord; neither be dismayed, O Israel....
For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee. For I will make a
full end of all the nations whither I have scattered thee, but I will
not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee with judgment,
and will in nowise leave thee unpunished."[716]
The general conception is so common as even to have found expression
in proverbs,--such as, "The night is darkest just before the dawn";
and, "When the tale of bricks is doubled, Moses comes." Some shadow
of similar individual and historic experiences is found also among
the Greeks and Romans. It lies in the expression θεὸς ἀπὸ μηχανῆς,
and also in the lines of Horace,--
"Nec Deus intersit nisi _dignus vindice nodus_
Intersit."
We find the same expectation in the apocryphal Book of Enoch,[717]
and we find it reflected in the Revelation of St. John,[718] where he
describes the devil as let loose and the powers of evil as gathering
themselves together for the great final battle of Armageddon before
the eternal triumph of the Lamb and of His saints. In Rabbinic
literature there was a fixed anticipation that the coming of the
Messiah must inevitably be preceded by "pangs" or "birth-throes," of
which they spoke as the משיח בלי.[719] These views may partly have
been founded on individual and national experience, but they were
doubtless deepened by the vision of Zechariah (xii.).
"Behold, a day of the Lord cometh, when thy spoil shall be divided in
the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to
battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the
women ravished; and half of the people shall go forth into captivity,
and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then
shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when He
fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon
the Mount of Olives.... And it shall come to pass in that day, that the
light shall not be light, but cold and ice:[720] but it shall be one
day that is known unto the Lord, not day and not night: but it shall
come to pass that at evening time there shall be light."[721]
The anticipation of the saintly writer in the days of the early
Maccabean uprising, while all the visible issues were still
uncertain, and hopes as yet unaccomplished could only be read by the
eyes of faith, were doubtless of a similar character. When he wrote
Antiochus was already concentrating his powers to advance with the
utmost wrath and fury against the Holy City. Humanly speaking, it
was certain that the holy people could oppose no adequate resistance
to his overwhelming forces, in which he would doubtless be able to
enlist contingents from many allied nations. What could ensue but
immeasurable calamity to the great majority? Michael indeed, their
prince, should do his utmost for them; but it would not be in his
power to avert the misery which should fall on the nation generally.
Nevertheless, they should not be given up to utter or to final
destruction. As in the days of the Assyrians the name Shear-jashub,
which Isaiah gave to one of his young sons, was a sign that "a
remnant should be left," so now the seer is assured that "thy people
shall be delivered"--at any rate "every one that shall be found
written in the book."
"Written in the book"--for all true Israelites had ever believed that
a book of record, a book of remembrance, lies ever open before the
throne of God, in which are inscribed the names of God's faithful
ones; as well as that awful book in which are written the evil deeds
of men.[722] Thus in Exodus (xxxii. 33) we read, "Whosoever hath
sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book," which tells us
of the records against the guilty. In Psalm lxix. 28 we read, "Let
them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written with
the righteous." That book of the righteous is specially mentioned
by Malachi: "Then they that feared the Lord spake one with another:
and the Lord hearkened and heard, and a book of remembrance was
written before him for them that feared the Lord and called upon
His Name."[723] And St. John refers to these books at the close
of the Apocalypse: "And I saw the dead, the great and the small,
standing before the throne; and books were opened: and another book
was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out
of the things which were written in the books, according to their
works.... And if any one was not found written in the book of life,
he was cast in the lake of fire."[724]
In the next verse the seer is told that "many of them that sleep in
the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some
to shame and everlasting abhorrence."[725]
It is easy to glide with insincere confidence over the difficulties
of this verse, but they are many.
We should naturally connect it with what goes before as a reference
to "that time"; and if so, it would seem as though--perhaps with
reminiscences of the concluding prophecy of Isaiah[726]--the writer
contemplated the end of all things and the final resurrection.[727]
If so, we have here another instance to be added to the many in
which this prophetic vision of the future passed from an immediate
horizon to another infinitely distant. And if that be the correct
interpretation, this is the earliest trace in Scripture of the
doctrine of individual immortality. Of that doctrine there was no
full knowledge--there were only dim prognostications or splendid
hopes[728]--until in the fulness of the times Christ brought life
and immortality to light. For instance, the passage here seems to be
doubly limited. It does not refer to mankind in general, but only to
members of the chosen people; and it is not said that all men shall
rise again and receive according to their works, but only that "many"
shall rise to receive the reward of true life,[729] while others
shall live indeed, but only in everlasting shame.
To them that be wise--to "the teacher,"[730] and to those that turn
the many to "righteousness"--there is a further promise of glory. They
"shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for
ever and ever." There is here, perhaps, a reminiscence of Prov. iv. 18,
19, which tells us that the way of the wicked is as darkness, whereas
the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and
more unto the perfect day. Our Lord uses a similar metaphor in his
explanation of the Parable of the Tares: "Then shall the righteous
shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."[731] We find
it once again in the last verse of the Epistle of St. James: "Let him
know, that he who hath converted a sinner from the error of his way
shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins."
But there is a further indication that the writer expected this
final consummation to take place immediately after the troubles
of the Antiochian assault; for he describes the angel Gabriel as
bidding Daniel "to seal the Book even to the time of the end." Now
as it is clear that the Book was, on any hypothesis, meant for
the special consolation of the persecuted Jews under the cruel
sway of the Seleucid King, and that then first could the Book be
understood, the writer evidently looked for the fulfilment of his
last prophecies at the termination of these troubles. This meaning
is a little obscured by the rendering, "many _shall run to and fro_,
and knowledge shall be increased." Ewald, Maurer, and Hitzig take
the verse, which literally implies movement hither and thither, in
the sense, "many shall _peruse_ the Book."[732] Mr. Bevan, however,
from a consideration of the Septuagint Version of the words, "and
knowledge shall be increased"--for which they read, "and the land be
filled with injustice"--thinks that the original rendering would be
represented by, "many shall rush hither and thither, and many shall
be the calamities." In other words, "the revelation must remain
concealed, because there is to ensue a long period of commotion and
distress."[733] If we have been convinced by the concurrence of many
irresistible arguments that the Book of Daniel is the product of the
epoch which it most minutely describes, we can only see in this verse
a part of the literary form which the Book necessarily assumed as
the vehicle for its lofty and encouraging messages.
The angel here ceases to speak, and Daniel, looking round him,
becomes aware of the presence of two other celestial beings, one of
whom stood on either bank of the river.[734] "And one said to the man
clothed in linen, which was above the waters of the river, How long
to the end of these wonders?"[735] There is a certain grandeur in the
vagueness of description, but the speaker seems to be one of the two
angels standing on either "lip" of the Tigris. "The man clothed in
linen," who is hovering in the air above the waters of the river, is
the same being who in viii. 16 wears "the appearance of a man," and
calls "from between the banks of Ulai" to Gabriel that he is to make
Daniel understand the vision. He is also, doubtless, the "one man
clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz,
his body like the beryl, his face as flashing lightning, his eyes as
burning torches, and his voice like the deep murmur of a multitude,"
who strikes such terror into Daniel and his comrades in the vision of
chap. x. 5, 6;--and though all is left uncertain, "the great prince
Michael" may perhaps be intended.
The question how long these marvels were to last, and at what period
the promised deliverance should be accomplished, was one which would
naturally have the intensest interest to those Jews who--in the
agonies of the Antiochian persecution and at the beginning of the
"little help" caused by the Maccabean uprising--read for the first time
the fearful yet consolatory and inspiring pages of this new apocalypse.
The answer is uttered with the most solemn emphasis. The Vision of the
priest-like and gold-girded angel, as he hovers above the river-flood,
"held up both his hands to heaven," and swears by Him that liveth for
ever and ever that the continuance of the affliction shall be "for a
time, times, and a half." So Abraham, to emphasise his refusal of any
gain from the King of Sodom, says that he has "_lifted up his hand_
unto the Lord, the Most High God, that he would not take from a thread
to a shoe-latchet." And in Exod. vi. 8, when Jehovah says "I did
swear," the expression means literally, "_I lifted up My hand_."[736]
It is the natural attitude of calling God to witness; and in Rev. x.
5, 6, with a reminiscence of this passage, the angel is described as
standing on the sea, and lifting his right hand to heaven to swear a
mighty oath that there should be no longer delay.
The "time, two times, and half a time" of course means three years
and a half, as in vii. 25. There can be little doubt that their
commencement is the _terminus a quo_ which is expressly mentioned in
ver. 11: "the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away." We
have already had occasion to see that three years, with a margin which
seems to have been variously computed, does roughly correspond to the
continuance of that total desecration of the Temple, and extinction of
the most characteristic rites of Judaism, which preceded the death of
Antiochus and the triumph of the national cause.
Unhappily the reading, rendering, and interpretation of the next
clause of the angel's oath are obscure and uncertain. It is rendered
in the R.V., "and when they have made an end of breaking in pieces
the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished."
As to the exact translation many scholars differ. Von Lengerke
translates it, "and when the scattering of a part of the holy people
should come to an end, all this should be ended." The Septuagint
Version is wholly unintelligible. Mr. Bevan suggests an alteration of
the text which would imply that, "when the power of the shatterer of
the holy people [_i.e._, Antiochus] should come to an end, all these
things should be ended." This no doubt would not only give a very
clear sense, but also one which would be identical with the prophecy
of vii. 25, that "they [the times and the law] shall be given unto
his hand until a time and times and half a time."[737] But if we stop
short at the desperate and uncertain expedient of correcting the
original Hebrew, we can only regard the words as implying (in the
rendering of our A.V. and R.V.) that the persecution and suppression
of Israel should proceed to their extremest limit, before the woe was
ended; and of this we have already been assured.[738]
The writer, in the person of Daniel, is perplexed by the angel's
oath, and yearns for further enlightenment and certitude. He makes
an appeal to the vision with the question, "O my lord, what shall
be the issue [or, latter end] of these things?" In answer he is
simply bidden to go his way--_i.e._, to be at peace, and leave all
these events to God,[739] since the words are shut up and sealed
till the time of the end. In other words, the Daniel of the Persian
Court could not possibly have attached any sort of definite meaning
to minutely detailed predictions affecting the existence of empires
which would not so much as emerge on the horizon till centuries after
his death. These later visions could only be apprehended by the
contemporaries of the events which they shadowed forth.
"Many," continued the angel, "shall purify themselves, and make
themselves white, and be refined; but the wicked shall do wickedly:
and none of the wicked shall understand; the teachers shall
understand."[740]
The verse describes the deep divisions which should be cleft among
the Jews by the intrigues and persecutions of Antiochus. Many would
cling to their ancient and sacred institutions, and purified by pain,
purged from all dross of worldliness and hypocrisy in the fires of
affliction, like gold in the furnace, would form the new parties
of the _Chasidîm_ and the _Anavîm_, "the pious" and "the poor."
They would be such men as the good high priest Onias, Mattathias
of Modin and his glorious sons, the scribe Eleazar, and the seven
dauntless martyrs, sons of the holy woman who unflinchingly watched
their agonies and encouraged them to die rather than to apostatise.
But the wicked would continue to be void of all understanding, and
would go on still in their wickedness, like Jason and Menelaus,
the renegade usurpers of the high-priesthood. These and the whole
Hellenising party among the Jews, for the sake of gain, plunged into
heathen practices, made abominable offerings to gods which were no
gods, and in order to take part in the naked contests of the Greek
gymnasium which they had set up in Jerusalem, deliberately attempted
to obliterate the seal of circumcision which was the covenant pledge
of their national consecration to the Jehovah of their fathers.
"And from the time that the continual burnt offering shall be taken
away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be
a thousand two hundred and ninety days."
If we suppose the year to consist of twelve months of thirty days,
then (with the insertion of one intercalary month of thirty days)
twelve hundred and ninety days is exactly three and a half years.
We are, however, faced by the difficulty that the time from the
desecration of the Temple till its reconsecration by Judas Maccabæus
seems to have been exactly three years;[741] and if that view be
founded on correct chronology, we can give no exact interpretation of
the very specific date here furnished.
Our difficulties are increased by the next clause: "Blessed is he
that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and
thirty days."
All that we can conjecture from this is that, at the close of twelve
hundred and ninety days, by the writer's reckoning from the cessation
of the daily burnt offering, and the erection of the heathen
abomination which drove all faithful Jews from the Temple, up to the
date of some marked deliverance, would be three and a half years,
but that this deliverance would be less complete and beatific than
another and later deliverance which would not occur till forty-five
days later.[742]
Reams of conjecture and dubious history and imaginative chronology
have been expended upon the effort to give any interpretation of
these precise data which can pretend to the dignity of firm or
scientific exegesis. Some, for instance, like Keil, regard the
numbers as _symbolical_, which is equivalent to the admission that
they have little or no bearing on literal history; others suppose
that they are _conjectural_, having been penned before the actual
termination of the Seleucid troubles. Others regard them as only
intended to represent _round numbers_. Others again attempt to give
them historic accuracy by various manipulations of the dates and
events in and after the reign of Antiochus. Others relegate the
entire vision to periods separated from the Maccabean age by hundreds
of years, or even into the remotest future. And none of these
commentators, by their researches and combinations, have succeeded
in establishing the smallest approach to conviction in the minds
of those who take the other views. There can be little doubt that
to the writer and his readers the passage pointed either to very
confident expectations or very well-understood realities; but for
us the exact clue to the meaning is lost. All that can be said is
that we should probably understand the dates better if our knowledge
of the history of B.C. 165-164 was more complete. We are forced to
content ourselves with their general significance. It is easy to
record and to multiply elaborate guesses, and to deceive ourselves
with the merest pretence and semblance of certainty. For reverent
and severely honest inquiries it seems safer and wiser to study and
profit by the great lessons and examples clearly set before us in the
Book of Daniel, but, as regards many of its unsolved difficulties, to
obey the wise exhortation of the Rabbis,--
"Learn to say, 'I do not know.'"
FOOTNOTES:
[716] See too Joel ii. 2.
[717] Enoch xc. 16.
[718] Rev. xvi. 14, xix. 19.
[719] Comp. Matt. xxiv. 6, 7, 21, 22.
[720] Such is the reading of the LXX., Vulgate, Peshitta, Symmachus,
etc.
[721] Zech. xiv. 1-7.
[722] Comp. vii. 10: "And the books were opened."
[723] Mal. iii. 16.
[724] Rev. xx. 12-15. Compare too Phil. iv. 3: "With Clement also,
and the rest of my fellow-workers, whose names are in the book of
life."
[725] "Many sleepers in the land of dust" seems to mean the dead.
Comp. Jer. li. 39; Psalm xxii. 29; 1 Thess. iv. 14; Acts vii. 60. For
"shame" see Jer. xxiii. 40. The word for "abhorrence" only occurs
in Isa. lxvi. 24. The allusion seems to be to the ἀνάστασις κρίσεως
(John v. 29), the δεύτερος θάνατος of Rev. xx. 14. Comp. Enoch xxii.
[726] Isa. lxvi. 24.
[727] It is certain that the doctrine of the Resurrection acquired
more clearness in the minds of the Jews at and after the period of the
Exile; nor is there anything derogatory to the workings of the Spirit
of God which lighteth every man, in the view which supposes that they
may have learnt something on this subject from the Babylonians and
Assyrians. See the testimonies of St. Peter and St. Paul as to some
degree of Ethnic inspiration in Acts x. 34, 35, xvii. 25-31.
[728] See Ezek. xxxvii. 1-4.
[729] Theodoret says that "many" means "all," as in Rom. v. 15; but
there it is "_the_ many," and the parallel is altogether defective.
Hofmann gets over the difficulty by rendering it, "And in multitudes
shall they arise." Many commentators explain it not of the final but of
some partial resurrection. Few will now be content with such autocratic
remarks as that of Calvin: "Multos hic ponit pro omnibus ut certum est."
[730] Lit. "those that justify the multitude." Comp. Isa. liii. 11,
and see Dan. xi. 33-35.
[731] Matt. xiii. 43; 1 Cor. xv. 41; Rev. ii. 28.
[732] Comp. Zech. iv. 10. This sense cannot be rigidly established.
[733] He refers to 1 Macc. i. 9, which says of the successors of
Alexander, καὶ ἐπλήθυναν κακὰ ἐν τῃ γῃ.
[734] Jerome guesses that they are the angels of Persia and Greece.
The word הַיְאר lit. "the canal," is often used of the Nile.
[735] The LXX. reads καὶ εἷπα, "and I said," making Daniel the
speaker (so too the Vulgate); but the form of the passage is so
closely analogous to viii. 13, as to leave no doubt that here too
"one saint is speaking to another saint."
[736] Comp. Gen. xiv. 22; Deut. xxxii. 40, "For I lift up My hand
unto heaven, and say, I live for ever"; Ezek. xx. 5, 6, etc.
[737] Those who can rest content with such exegesis may explain this
to imply that "the reign of _antichrist_ will be divided into three
periods--the first long, the second longer, the third shortest of all,"
just as the seventy weeks of chap. ix. are composed of 7 × 62 × 1.
[738] By way of comment see 1 Macc. v.; 2 Macc. viii.
[739] לֵךְ is encouraging, as in ver. 13.
[740] Comp. Rev. xxii. 11.
[741] The small heathen altar to Zeus was built by Antiochus upon
the great altar of burnt offering on Kisleu 15, B.C. 168. The revolt
of Mattathias and his seven sons began B.C. 167. Judas the Maccabee
defeated the Syrian generals Apollonius, Seron, and Gorgias B.C. 166,
and Lysias at Beth-sur in B.C. 165. He cleansed and rededicated the
Temple on Kisleu 25, B.C. 165.
[742] The "time, times, and a half." The 1,290 days, 1,335 days
and the 1,150 days, and the 2,300 days of viii. 14 all agree in
indicating three years with a shorter or longer fraction. It will be
observed that in each case there is a certain reticence or vagueness
as to the _terminus ad quem_. It is interesting to note that in Rev.
xi. 2, 3, the period of 42 months = 1,260 days = 3-1/2 years of
months of 30 days with no intercalary month.
APPROXIMATE CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES
B.C.
Jehoiakim 608-597
Zedekiah 597-588
Jerusalem taken 588
Death of Nebuchadrezzar 561
Evil-merodach 561
Neriglissar 559
Laborosoarchod 555
Nabunaid 555
Capture of Babylon 538
Decree of Cyrus 536
Cambyses 529
Darius, son of Hystaspes 521
Dedication of the Second Temple 516
Battle of Salamis 480
Ezra 458
Nehemiah 444
Nehemiah's reforms 428
Malachi 420
Alexander the Great invades Persia 334
Battle of Granicus 334
Battle of Issus 333
Battle of Arbela 331
Death of Darius Codomannus 330
Death of Alexander 323
Ptolemy Soter captures Jerusalem 320
Simon the Just high priest 310
Beginning of Septuagint translation 284
Antiochus the Great conquers Palestine (?) 202
B.C.
Accession of Antiochus Epiphanes 176 Dan. vii. 8, 20.
Joshua (Jason), brother of Onias III.,
gets the priesthood by bribery, and
promotes Hellenism among the Jews 174 Dan. xi. 23-24, ix. 26.
First expedition of Antiochus against
Egypt.--Murder of Onias III 171
His second expedition (?) 170
His plunder of the Temple and massacre
at Jerusalem 170 Dan. viii. 9, 10; xi. 28.
Third expedition of Antiochus 169 Dan. xi. 29, 30.
Apollonius, the general of Antiochus,
advances against Jerusalem with an
army of 22,000.--Massacre.--The
abomination of desolation in the Dan. vii. 21, 24, 25;
Temple.--Antiochus carries off some viii. 11-13, 24, 25;
of the holy vessels (1 Macc. i. 25); xi. 30-35, etc.
forbids circumcision; burns the
books of the Law; puts down the
daily sacrifice 169-8
Desecration of the Temple.--Jews
compelled to pay public honour
to false gods.--Faithfulness of
scribes and _Chasidîm_.--Revolt of
Maccabees 167 Dan. xi. 34, 35; xii. 3.
Jewish war of independence.--Death
of the priest Mattathias.--Judas
Maccabæus defeats Lysias 166
Battles of Beth-zur and Dan. vii. II, 26; viii.
Emmaus.--Purification of Temple 14; xi. 45, etc.
(Kisleu 25) 165
Death of Antiochus Epiphanes 163
Judas Maccabæus dies in battle at
Eleasa 161
GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE LAGIDÆ,
PTOLEMIES, AND SELEUCIDÆ
Seleucus Nicator,
B.C. 312-280. Ptolemy Soter (Dan. xi. 5).
| |
Antiochus I. (Soter), Ptolemy Philadelphus.
B.C. 280. |
| |
+------+----------------+ +-----------+------+
| | | |
Laodice==Antiochus II. (Theos)==Berenice. Ptolemy Euergetes,
| B.C. 260-246. | B.C. 285-247
| | (Dan. xi. 7,8).
| An infant, murdered |
+-----+-----------+ by Laodice. |
| | Ptolemy Philopator,
Seleucus II. Antiochus. B.C. 222-205
(Kallinikos), (Dan. xi. 10-12).
d. B.C. 226. |
| |
+--+------------------+ |
| | |
Seleucus III. Antiochus III. ("the Great"), |
(Keraunos). B.C. 224 (Dan. xi. 10-12, 14). |
| |
+-------------------+------------------+ |
| | | |
Seleucus Antiochus IV. Cleopatra==Ptolemy Epiphanes,
Philopator. (Epiphanes), B.C. 175. | B.C. 205-181
| | | (Dan. xi. 14).
| | +------+--------------+
Demetrius. Antiochus V., | |
B.C. 164. Ptolemy Philometor, Ptolemy
B.C. 181-146 Euergetes II.
(Dan. xi. 25-30).
For a fuller list and further identifications see Driver, pp. 461,
462, and _supra_. For the genealogical table see Mr. Deane (Bishop
Ellicott's _Commentary_, v. 402).
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"A work of no ordinary merit; indeed, it is but rare that such
exegetical power and mature scholarship are united with an ease of
style and a fertility of modern illustration that leave but little to
desire."--_Speaker._
THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE.
==Fourth Series.==
_Subscription Price_, =24s.= _Separate Volumes_, =7s. 6d.= _each_.
=The Gospel of St. John. Vol. I.=
By the =Rev. Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.=
"Dr. Dods' exposition, besides being characterised by all the literary
grace by which his previous works are distinguished, is also thoroughly
evangelical in tone, without, however, being at all narrow; while the
arguments which this portion of Scripture so powerfully suggests in
proof of the divinity of Christ are handled in such a way as will carry
them home to all who accept the narrative as authentic."--_Scotsman._
=The Acts of the Apostles. Vol. I.=
By the =Rev. Prof. G. T. STOKES, D.D.=
"One of the most valuable contributions to the history of the
Primitive Church that have appeared within recent years."--_Dundee
Advertiser._
=The Book of Leviticus=
By the =Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D.=
"The relation of law and gospel is grandly exhibited, and a difficult
portion of Holy Writ explained in detail and with power."--_Christian._
"He has certainly succeeded in investing with fresh interest this old
book of laws."--_Scotsman._
=The Book of Proverbs=
By the =Rev. R. F. HORTON, M.A., D.D.=
"Ably and freshly written."--_Church Times._
"A book which may be read by all with pleasure and profit, and which,
by ministers of all orders, may be taken as a model of one kind of
expository teaching."--_Christian World._
"The expositor has done his work in a most masterly
fashion."--_Glasgow Herald._
=The Epistles of St. James and St. Jude=
By the =Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.=, Master of University
College, Durham.
"It is even a better piece of work than his former volume on the
Pastoral Epistles. It contains everything that the student can
desire by way of introduction to the two Epistles, while for those
who read with an eye to the manufacture of sermons, or for their own
edification, the doctrinal and moral lessons are developed in a style
redolent of books, yet singularly easy and unaffected. Points of
interest abound."--_Saturday Review._
"A very able and interesting exposition.... An excellent example of
Scriptural exegesis."--_Academy._
=The Book of Ecclesiastes=
=With a New Translation.=
By the =Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D.=
"The most luminous, original, and practical exposition of
Ecclesiastes which is within the reach of ordinary English
readers."--_Speaker._
"Dr. Cox's work is likely to count as one of the most interesting
of the many interesting studies of which Ecclesiastes has been the
basis."--_Guardian._
THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE.
==Fifth Series.==
_Subscription Price_, =24s.= _Separate Volumes_, =7s. 6d.= _each_.
=The Epistles to the Thessalonians=
By the =Rev. JAMES DENNEY, D.D.=
"As an expositor we are able to say that Mr. Denney seems to have
entered very fully into the spirit of the Apostle Paul, and to have
succeeded in expressing very clearly, and impressing very forcibly, the
general meaning of the Apostle's words.... It is a very ably written
work, and one which is well calculated to make the Apostle's teaching
in these two epistles more intelligible and more telling."--_Scotsman._
=The Book of Job=
By the =Rev. R. S. WATSON, D.D.=, Author of "Gospels
of Yesterday," etc.
"Dr. Watson does not fall behind his predecessors in doing justice to
this magnificent effort of Hebrew genius or inspiration. The opening
scene on earth and the opening scene in heaven are brought before us
with graphic power, and the problem raised by the situation of Job
by the unmerited suffering of the good man stated and discussed with
much force and philosophical insight. Dr. Watson has written with
conspicuous ability and a thorough mastery of his subject."--_Scotsman._
=The Gospel of St. John. Vol. II.=
By =Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.=
"Dr. Dods appears to us always to write with clearness and
vigour.... He has the gift of lucid expression, and by means of apt
illustrations he avoids the cardinal sin of dryness, so that the
interest even of the general reader will not flag as he smoothly
glides through these chapters."--_Guardian._
=The Epistle to the Ephesians=
By the =Rev. Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.=
"Every page shows that he has made a minute and careful examination
of the text, while in every chapter there are inferences drawn and
suggestions thrown out which will find their way into many sermons.
They who know this Epistle best will be the first to acknowledge the
value of Prof. Findlay's exposition."--_Expositor._
=The Acts of the Apostles. Vol. II.=
By the =Rev. Prof. G. T. STOKES, D.D.=
"The second volume is as readable as the first, full of learning
without a spice of pedantry.... The volume is highly to be commended
for knowledge, sobriety, and manly piety."--_Saturday Review._
=The Psalms. Vol. I.=
By the =Rev. ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D.=
"Dr. Maclaren has evidently mastered his subject with the aid of the
best authorities, and has put the results of his studies before his
readers in a most attractive form; and if we add that his commentary
really helps to the better understanding of the Psalms, that, far
from degrading, it vivifies and illuminates these sublime stories,
and that it is written in a charming style, very seldom falling below
the dignity of the subject, we believe we only give it the praise
which is its due."--_Scotsman._
THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE.
==Sixth Series.==
_Subscription Price_, =24s.= _Separate Volumes_, =7s. 6d.= _each_.
=The Epistle to the Philippians=
By the =Rev. Principal RAINY, D.D.=
"A piece of good and thorough work, the work of a sound and well-read
expositor, and especially of an orthodox Scotch divine."--_London
Quarterly Review._
=The First Book of Kings=
By the =Venerable F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S.=, Archdeacon
of Westminster.
"Dr. Farrar brings his versatile literary powers to bear upon
these majestic and imposing scenes, with all his gifts of poetic
description, his wealth of quotations, and his aptitude for
picturesque comparisons."--_Guardian._
=Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther=
By the =Rev. Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A.=
"Mr. Adeney has evidently grasped the whole story with clearness and
force: his portraits are lifelike; he has all the instinct of the
expositor in high development. It is no small triumph to have done so
well with one of the least pictorial and fascinating of Old Testament
histories."--_Independent._
=The Book of Joshua=
By the =Rev. Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D.=
"We have no hesitation in saying that for every-day working purposes
expositors of the Book of Joshua will find this volume more helpful
than many more critical and modernised works.... His expositions are
usually fresh and interesting, and there is an eye for the practical
in all he writes."--_Glasgow Herald._
=The Psalms. Vol. II.=
By the =Rev. ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D.=
"The volume is as attractive as the first, and shows throughout the
same high qualities of penetration and spiritual sympathy. Its pages
give abundant evidence of care, critical study, and acquaintance with
the best that our most competent scholars have contributed to the
exposition of the Psalms."--_Critical Review._
=The Epistles of Peter=
By the =Rev. Prof. LUMBY, D.D., Cambridge.=
"A sound and finely practical commentary."--_Saturday Review._
"We have been impressed by the carefulness, fulness, and almost
minuteness of the expositions which Dr. Lumby gives in this
volume."--_Literary World._
⁂ =_For List of Volumes in the 7th and the concluding (8th) Series
see back of title._=
LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation and spelling errors have been fixed throughout.
Inconsistent hyphenation is as in the original.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Daniel" ***
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