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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 1:2 - 1:2
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“The Lord gave Jehoiakim into his hands” corresponds with the words in 2Ki 24:1, “he became his servant,” and with 2Ch 36:6, “and he bound him in fetters.” “And part of the vessels of the house of God.” מִקְצַת without the Dag. forte, meaning properly from the end of extremity, is abbreviated from קָצֶה עַד מִקָּצֶה, cf. Jer 25:33; Gen 47:21; Exo 26:28, and shows that “that which was found from end to end contributed its share; meaning that a great part of the whole was taken, although קְצָת of itself never means a part” (Kran.). As to the statement of the text, cf. 2Ch 36:7. These vessels he brought (commanded to be brought) into the land of Shinar, i.e., Babylonia (Gen 10:10), into the temple of his god, i.e., Bel, and indeed into the treasure-house of this temple. Thus we understand the meaning of the two latter clauses of Dan 1:2, while Hitz. and Kran., with many older interpreters, refer the suffix in יְבִיאֵם to Jehoiakim, and also to the vessels, on account of the express contrast in the following words, וְאֶת־הַכֵּלִים (Kran.), and because, if it is not stated here, it is nowhere else mentioned that Nebuchadnezzar carried away men also (Hitz.). But the latter fact is expressly affirmed in Dan 1:3, and not only supposed, as Hitz. alleges, and it was not necessary that it should be expressed in Dan 1:2. The application of the suffix to Jehoiakim or the Jewish youths who were carried captive is excluded by the connection of יְבִיאֵם with אֱלֹהָיו בֵּית, into the house of his god. But the assertion that בַּיִת, house, here means country, is not proved from Hos 8:1; Hos 9:15, nor is warranted by such passages as Exo 29:45; Num 35:34; Eze 37:27, etc., where mention is made of God's dwelling in the land. For God's dwelling in the land is founded on the fact of His gracious presence in the temple of the land, and even in these passages the word land does not stand for the word house. Equally unfounded is the further remark, that if by the expression אֱלֹהָיו בֵּית the temple is to be understood, the preposition אֶל would stand before it, for which Zec 11:13; Isa 37:23; Gen 45:25 are appealed to. But such passages have been referred to without observing that in them the preposition אֶל stands only before living objects, where it is necessary, but not before inanimate objects, such as בַּיִת, where the special object of the motion is with sufficient distinctness denoted by the accusative. The words following, וְאֶת־הַכֵּלִים, fall in not as adversative, but explicative: and indeed (or, namely) the vessels brought he into the treasure-house of his god - as booty. The carrying away of a part of the vessels of the temple and a number of the distinguished Jewish youth to Babylon, that they might be there trained for service at the royal court, was a sign and pledge of the subjugation of Judah and its God under the dominion of the kings and the gods of Babylon. Both are here, however, mentioned with this design, that it might be known that Daniel and his three friends, of whom this book gives further account, were among these youths, and that the holy vessels were afterwards fatal (Daniel 5) to the house of the Babylonian king.