Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 4:12 - 4:12

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 4:12 - 4:12


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

(4:9)

At the same time the tree abounded with leaves and fruit, so that birds and beasts found shadow, protection, and nourishment from it. שָׁגִיא, neither great nor many, but powerful, expressing the quantity and the greatness of the fruit. The בֵּהּ the Masoretes have rightly connected with לְכֹלָּא, to which it is joined by Maqqeph. The meaning is not: food was in it, the tree had food for all (Häv., Maur., and others), but: (it had) food for all in it, i.e., dwelling within its district (Kran., Klief.). The words, besides, do not form an independent sentence, but are only a further view of the שָׁגִיא (Kran.), and return in the end of the verse into further expansion, while the first and the second clauses of the second hemistich give the further expansion of the first clause in the verse. אַטְלֵל, umbram captavit, enjoyed the shadow; in Targg. The Aphel has for the most part the meaning obumbravit. The Kethiv יְדֻרוּן is not to be changed, since the צִפֳּרִין is gen. comm. The Keri is conform to Dan 4:18, where the word is construed as fem. The expression all flesh comprehends the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven, but is chosen with reference to men represented under this image. For the tree, mighty, reaching even to the heavens, and visible over the whole earth, is an easily recognised symbol of a world-ruler whose power stretches itself over the whole earth. The description of the growth and of the greatness of the tree reminds us of the delineation of Pharaoh and his power under the figure of a mighty cedar of Lebanon, cf. Eze 31:3., also Eze 17:22., Eze 19:10. The comparison of the growth of men to the growth of the trees is every frequent in biblical and other writings.