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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 4:16 - 4:16
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(4:13)
Here the angel declares by what means Nebuchadnezzar shall be brought into this condition. His heart shall be changed from a man's heart, according to the following passage, into the heart of a beast. מִן שַׁנִּא, to change, to make different from, so that it is no longer what it was. The Kethiv אֲנוֹשָׁא is the Hebr. form for the Chald. אֲנָשָשׁא of the Keri, here, as in v. 14, where along with it also stands the Hebr. plur. form אֲנָשִׁים. אֲנוֹשָׁא stands here for the abbreviated comparison frequent in Hebr., אֲנוֹשָׁא מִן לְבַב, and the 3rd pers. plur. יְשַׁנּוֹן impers. for the passive. לְבַב is the heart, the centre of the intelligent soul-life. The heart of man is dehumanized when his soul becomes like that of a beast; for the difference between the heart of a man and that of a beast has its foundation in the difference between the soul of a man and the soul of a beast (Delitzsch, bibl. Psych. p. 252). And seven times shall pass over him, viz., during the continuance of the circumstances described; i.e., his condition of bondage shall last for seven times. Following the example of the lxx and of Josephus, many ancient and recent interpreters, down to Maur., Hitz., and Kran., understood by the word עִדָּנִין years, because the times in Dan 7:25; Dan 12:7, are also years, and because in Dan 4:29 mention is made of twelve months, and thereby the time is defined as one year. But from Dan 4:29 the duration of the עִדָּנִין cannot at all be concluded, and in Dan 7:25 and Dan 12:7 the times are not years. עִדָּן designates generally a definite period of time, whose length or duration may be very different. Seven is the “measure and signature of the history of the development of the kingdom of God, and of all the factors and phenomena significant for it” (Lämmert's “Revision of the biblical Symbolical Numbers” in the Jahrbb.f. deutsche Theol. ix. p. 11); or as Leyrer, in Herzog's Realencykl. xviii. p. 366, expresses himself, “the signature for all the actions of God, in judgment and in mercy, punishments, expiations, consecrations, blessings, connected with the economy of redemption, perfecting themselves in time.” Accordingly, “seven times” is the duration of the divine punishment which was decreed against Nebuchadnezzar for purposes connected with the history of redemption. Whether these times are to be understood as years, months, or weeks, is not said, and cannot at all be determined. The supposition that they were seven years “cannot well be adopted in opposition to the circumstance that Nebuchadnezzar was again restored to reason, a thing which very rarely occurs after so long a continuance of psychical disease” (J. B. Friedreich, Zur Bibel. Naturhist., anthrop. u. med. Fragmente, i. p. 316).