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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 4:17 - 4:17
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(4:14)
The divine messenger concludes his announcement with the words that the matter was unchangeably decreed, for this purpose, that men might be led to recognise the supremacy of the Most High over the kings of the earth. The first two passages have no verb, and thus the verb. substant. must be supplied. Accordingly we must not translate: by the decree of the watchers is the message, i.e., is it delivered (Kran.), nor: the decree is included in the fate, the unalterable will of Heaven (Häv.); but בdenotes the department within which the גְּזֵרָה lies, and is to be translated: “the message consists in, or rests on, the decree of the watchers.” גְּזֵרָה, the unchangeable decision, the decretum divinum, quod homini aut rebus humanis tanquam inevitabile impositum est (Buxtorf's Lex. talm. rabb. p. 419), the Fatum in which the Chaldeans believed. Regarding פִּתְגָּם see under Dan 3:16. Here the fundamental meaning, the message, that which is to happen, can be maintained. The second member is synonymous, and affirms the same thing in another way. The word, the utterance of the holy ones, i.e., the watchers (see under Dan 4:13), is שְׁאֵלְתָּא, the matter. The meaning lying in the etymon, request or question, is not here suitable, but only the derivative meaning, matter as the object of the request or inquiry. The thing meant is that which is decided regarding the tree, that it should be cut down, etc. This is so clear, that a pronoun referring to it appears superfluous.
דִּי דִּבְרַת עַד, till the matter that ... to the end that; not = דִּי עַד, Dan 4:25, because here no defining of time goes before. The changing of עַד into עַל (Hitz.) is unnecessary and arbitrary. That the living may know, etc. The expression is general, because it is not yet said who is to be understood by the tree which should be cut down. This general expression is in reality correct; for the king comes by experience to this knowledge, and so all will attain to it who consider this. The two last passages of Dan 4:14 express more fully how the Most High manifests His supremacy over the kingdom of men. The Kethiv עליה is shortened from עֲלֵיהָא, and in the Keri is yet further shortened by the rejection of the ;י cf. Dan 5:21; Dan 7:4., etc.