Lange Commentary - Daniel

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Lange Commentary - Daniel


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THE BOOK

of the

PROPHET DANIEL

___________________

THEOLOGICALLY AND HOMILETICALLY EXPOUNDED

by

Dr. OTTO ZÖCKLER,

Professor Of Theology In The University Of Greifswald, Prussia

TRANSLATED, ENLARGED, AND EDITED

by

JAMES STRONG, S.T.D.,

Professor Of Exegetical Theology In Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N.J.

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THE PROPHET DANIEL

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INTRODUCTION

§ 1. The Book of Daniel, Considered as a Prototype of the Canonical Apocalypse

The peculiarities of the book of Daniel, which explain, on the one hand, its position in the Jewish canon among the historical Hagiographa, and, on the other, its being classed in the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Luther, with the writings of the greater prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, are both internal and external. They arise chiefly from the circumstance that the writer lived and wrought in Babylonia, not as a member of the community of exiled Jews, but as a naturalized Babylonian at the court of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors—not, like Ezekiel, discharging priestly functions among his people, but performing duty as an officer of the state and chief of the Magi. He was thus possessed of honors and emoluments akin to those of Joseph, his patriarchal prototype, at the court of the Egyptian Pharaoh; but his removal, at a later date, from his prominent position, and his death, not long after the overthrow of the Chaldæan dynasty by the Persians, prevented his exerting a decisive influence on the welfare of his people.

The book of Daniel’s prophecies owes its origin to a period of the deepest national misery of the people of God—a time of the profoundest degradation and confusion, which finds its only parallel in the condition of Israel, when, wholly separated from its native soil, it languished in Egypt, the ignominious “house of bondage” and oppressive “iron furnace” (Deu_5:6; Deu_4:20; 1Ki_8:51; Jer_11:4); but this earlier period has its counterpart here, not only retrospectively as regards the severity of the judgment and humiliation, but also prospectively as respects the abundance of gracious visitation, and the wonderful displays of the Divine power, love, and faithfulness. Both the humiliation and the glory present in the humiliation are revealed in these prophecies. The first or historical division of the book records chiefly the miracles by which the grace of God was magnified in those who remained faithful during years of apostasy, suffering, and banishment. The comfortless condition and utter degeneracy of the nation are seen principally in the second part, the visions and prophetical pictures of which describe the present and immediate future as a period of severe oppression, universal apostasy, and unquestioned supremacy of the world-powers arrayed against God, at the close of which period the Messianic æra of salvation is finally introduced. According to this division the whole consists of two books—one of narratives (chap 1–6), and the other of visions (chap 7–12)—which are about equal in length. This circumstance forms a marked peculiarity of Daniel, as compared with the other prophetical books of the Old Testament, which sometimes interweave the historical element with the prophetical (e.g., Amos, Isa., Jer., etc.), and at others, either reduce the former to narrow limits (e.g., Joel, Micah, Zechariah, etc.), or bring it into such prominence as to exclude the office of the seer (Jonah). This balance between narrative and prophecy, which exists only in Daniel, has its explanation in the origin of the book in a strange land and in a time of exile—circumstances which forbade an arrangement in direct and perfect harmony with the form of prophetical literature in general. These circumstances also serve to account for peculiarities in the language of the book; for its composition, to the extent of about one-half in Hebrew, and the remainder (Dan_2:4 b. Daniel 7) in the Aramæan or Chaldee idiom, which gradually, and as a consequence of the Babylonian captivity and of the Persian supremacy, became the language of the Palestinian Jews, is due solely to its origin, not only in a time of exile, but among the scenes of the exile, and at the court of the barbarous conquerors. The historical book of Ezra, which appeared immediately at the close of the exile, is the only one of the Old-Testament Scriptures which shares this peculiarity of language, while the prophetical books (e.g., Jeremiah, which originated at the time of the exile and when its author was in constant intercourse with the Babylonians), merely contain isolated Aramæan words or paragraphs (see especially Jer_10:11).

The peculiar literary traits and theological contents of this book, especially in its second or prophetical part, likewise find their explanation in its origin among the scenes of the captivity. The prophecies of Daniel, conveyed generally in the form of dreams and visions, and nowhere enforced by inspired addresses or exhortations, and concerning themselves chiefly, if not exclusively, with the fate of the all-controlling world-power, on the one hand, and, on the other, with the final triumph of the Messianic kingdom of God, are thus distinguished from the earlier prophetical writings by peculiarities which mark the book as the pattern for the so-called apocalyptic prophecies. In ordinary prophecies the people of God had usually occupied the foreground of vision, while the world-powers by which they were threatened, were only noticed incidentally, and made the objects of “burdens” or threatening prophecies, as isolated representatives of the spirit that opposes God. Daniel, on the contrary, takes his position in the heart of that world-power, which had overthrown and subjugated all the nations of the East, and among them the chosen race. From this point of vision he foretells the rise of a new world-kingdom, which shall destroy the present empire, to be followed, in turn, by another and still greater power, and so on to the end, when an eternal kingdom of truth and righteousness shall be established on their ruins, by the direct interference of the God of heaven. The result of all earthly development, and the succession of judgments visited on the enemies of God’s people, closing with the Messianic or general judgment, form the subject of this prophecy; and the grandeur of its field of vision, compassing all history and embracing the world, together with the visional clothing of its teaching and the profound symbolism of its eschatological descriptions, constitute the features which stamp it as an apocalypse, in distinction from all earlier prophecy. Within the Old Testament, this form of prophetical writing is approached by the closing chapters of Ezekiel (40–48), but it is directly represented only in the former half of Zechariah (Daniel 1-8), where the model found in Daniel was probably copied. In the New Testament it is found, if we except certain brief sections in the Gospels and Pauline epistles (the eschatological discourse in Matthew 24, 25, and parallel passages, and 2 Thessalonians 2), only in the Revelation of St. John, which is a direct copy and continuation of the prophecies of Daniel.

These peculiarities, as numerous as they are apparent and significant, explain why the book of Daniel was separated [in the Hebrew Bible] from the other prophets and placed among the Hagiographa, when the Old-Testament canon was formed. Its internal features, consisting in an embrace of all history with an eschatological aim, joined to a visional and symbolical dress, which stamp it as the model of all Biblical (and extra-Biblical or apocryphal) apocalypse, would not of themselves have compelled such a separation; since many of the later prophetical writings display clear transitions in matter and form to the field of apocalypse, and permit the distinction between this ripest fruit of Scriptural prophetical development and prophecy in the narrower sense, to appear as the result of the gradual growth. The decisive reason for the disposition made of this book, must be found in its peculiar division into historical and prophetical parts, and in its composition in Hebrew and Aramaic. This appears with irrefragable certainty from its assignment to a place immediately before Ezra, the only other book in the canon which frames in Chaldee a section of considerable extent between the Hebrew portions of its text.

An additional circumstance, which may have contributed to placing the present book among the Hagiographa, was the [presumed] revision of its prophetical portion, apparently by a pious seer of Maccabæan times, who sought to establish as exact a relation as was possible between the prophecy and its historical fulfillment, as observed by him. This later revision, which affected especially the contents of chapters 10–12, will be considered below, in connection with the question of genuineness and integrity.

Note 1.—With reference to the circumstances of the times—so deplorable in their condition and yet so full of displays of Divine grace and wonderful providences—to which the book of Daniel owes its origin, Hävernick, in the introduction to his commentary (page 16 et seq.), is especially thorough and instructive. He justly disputes the opinion of Winer, de Wette, Leo, (Jüdische Geschichte, p. 183), and others, according to which the situation of the captive Jews was not one of especial hardship. “The shame there inflicted on Israel was not exactly insignificant, when it could inspire pious and faithful men with a holy revenge, and lead them to invoke the Divine indignation on their tormentors! Remember the 137th Psalm and the audacious desecration of the Temple vessels by Belshazzar, as Daniel 5. records, which lead to the conclusion that such conduct was of frequent occurrence. Even martyrs to the truth, cheerful and undismayed while testifying that Jehovah alone is God and none beside Him, are revealed in the history of Daniel and his friends (Daniel 3, 6); to which event the observation and experience of the wise preacher perhaps refer, when he remarks that ‘there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness’ (Ecc_7:15). When we consider the internal state of the nation in this period, we find further abundant reason for complaint, because of Israel’s sin and misery. Ezekiel addressed the people with earnest censure, because they listened to his words, but refused to obey them, when he condemned their ways (Eze_33:30, sq.), in which they dishonored God among the heathen, and continued to murder, work abomination, and violate chastity, until men asked, ‘Are these the people of the Lord, that are gone forth out of His land?’ (Eze_33:26; Eze_36:20-21; cf. Ezekiel 34). Where, indeed, could greater opportunity be found for indulgence in heathen customs by the Israelites, who were at all times excessively addicted to idolatry, than in Babylon, which was notorious as the home of luxury and idolatry? Hence, we must deplore the profound sense of sin, and of being forsaken by God, which is so clearly revealed, not only in the destruction of the temple, and the expulsion of Israel from the holy land, but also in the lack of prophecy (cf. Sam. Dan_2:9; Psa_74:9); and which finds its most striking expression in the prayer of Daniel, uttered before the Lord in the name of the people, toward the end of the captivity. A different class, who preferred the condition of the exile to the hairy garment of the prophet and the rigorous service of Jehovah, would doubtless enjoy their situation. If there were no other proof of this, it would appear from the fact that many preferred to remain in Babylon at the close of the exile. But the fate of these apostate souls, who, by the Divine decree, were at this exact juncture separated and cast out as dregs from the healthy and pious portion of the nation, was none the less deplorable on that account.”… Further, page 20: “But the wretched and outcast nation was, and still continued to be, the people of His covenant, and, therefore, despite their low estate, the elect and favorite nation of the Lord. They were not merely to continue until the days of their great destiny were fulfilled, but, for Jehovah’s sake, they were to be glorified among the heathen. As, therefore, He had always afforded them miraculous aid in seasons of great tribulation, so extraordinary signs and events, that transcended the ordinary course of nature, now occurred and secured the good of Israel while they alarmed the Gentiles; but at the same time these pointed forward, without exception, to the future realization of the great plan of salvation, whose end is the redemption of sinful man … Prophecies and wonders were the gracious means with which Jehovah overwhelmed Israel and compelled it to abide by Him, but through which, also, the determined apostates who would not turn to God, were finally cut out, so that a purified people, which agreed in confessing Israel’s God at least in outward form, could return to the land of its fathers,” etc.—This view of the time of Daniel and its significance, which is held by orthodox exegetes, with few exceptions (see particularly Auberlen, Der Propliet Daniel, etc., 2d ed., p. 26 et seq.) is rejected by rationalists, inasmuch, as has already been remarked, they do not admit that Israel’s condition during the captivity was especially deplorable and fallen, nor acknowledge the historical character of the narratives respecting the wonderful displays of Divine power and grace, which are recorded in this book. And yet another collection of prophecies, whose origin in the time of the exile and at Babylon is considered by rationalistic critics to be an incontrovertible fact, substantiates the view in question concerning the conditions of the time which underlie our book, in all its bearings, and in many respects, even in its smallest details. The second part of the prophet Isaiah—whether with the modern critics, we consider it as the “Pseudo-Isaiah” or “the exilian Isaiah,” or admit its genuineness and therewith its thoroughly prophetic character—describes the condition of the exiled nation in Babylon, as well as the striking contrast between their religious and national ruin and wickedness, and the miracles by which the grace of God was magnified in them, in precisely the same colors as does the book of Daniel, and therefore serves to establish the authenticity of the contents of this book in an impressive manner. Isaiah’s lamentations because of the turning of many to idolatry (Isa_46:6, etc.; Isa_57:5, etc.; Isa_60:3, etc.); because of unrighteousness, wanton revelry, and violence (Isa_56:11; Isa_58:2, etc.; Isa_59:3, etc); because of the discouragement and lack of faith among even the best of the exiles (Isa 60:27; Isa_49:24; Isa_51:12, etc.; Isa_45:9, etc.) and on account of the rebellious disposition and insolent stubbornness of the masses (Isa_48:4; Isa_8:10; Isa_63:17; Isa_64:7, etc.)—all these merely recapitulate in detail what is briefly comprehended in Daniel’s priestly confession and penitential prayer in the affecting language of bitter lamentation. Furthermore, the manner in which the deutero-Isaiah refers to the marvellous power and majesty of Jehovah, as revealed in wonderful signs of every sort (Isa_44:6; Isa_45:11), in multitudes of prophecies and promises that have been realized (Isa_41:21 et seq.; Isa_43:9 et seq.; Isa_44:7 et seq.; Isa_45:19; Isa_45:21; Isa_46:10; Isa_49:3 et seq.), and in the humiliation and destruction of heathen idols and their worshippers, touches closely upon the corresponding descriptions in both parts of Daniel, the historical as well as the prophetical and symbolical (see especially Dan_2:47; Dan_3:28; Dan_4:31 et seq.; Dan_6:27 et seq.; Dan_7:13 et seq.; Dan_9:24 et seq.). The relations of God’s people to their heathen oppressors and their gods, on the one hand, and to their covenant God, Jehovah, and His displays of grace and promises of deliverance, on the other, are described by both prophets with substantially the same result; and there remains only this difference, that the mode of statement employed lay Isaiah, accords with the older usage of spoken and written prophetical language, while Daniel illustrates the fate of kingdoms in the present and future from a decidedly apocalyptic point of view. The following note treats specifically of this important difference between our prophet and his earlier predecessors.

Note 2.—The relation of Daniel, as the original representative of Scriptural apocalypse, to the earlier prophets, is considered in an especially instructive manner by Auberlen (Der Prophet. Daniel, etc., p. 2 sq.): “The prophets generally occupy an intro-Israelitish standpoint, from whence they view the future of God’s kingdom. The congregation of His people constantly occupies the foreground with them, and the world-powers enter their range of vision only as they interfere in the present or immediate future of God’s people.… The contrary holds with Daniel. Himself separated from the holy land and nation, and living and discharging duty as a high official at the Babylonian and Persian courts, he presents the development of the world-power at the outset as the chief object of his prophecies, and the kingdom of God is relegated significantly to the background. If the other prophets glance occasionally from their post in Zion to the south, the north, or the east, as one or another world-kingdom is presented to their vision, Daniel, from the heart of the world-power, overlooks its entire development, and not until his glance has penetrated through all its changing forms does he rest in Zion, recognizing her affliction and punishment, but also her triumph and exaltation. The prophecies of Daniel no longer relate merely to single and contemporaneous world-kingdoms of greater or less importance; but rather the period of universal monarchies has begun, which rise in succession to universal conquest, and in whose deportment, the worldly principle that opposes the reign of God is revealed in steadily-increasing power and hostility. Intimately connected with this is the further peculiarity of Daniel, that his prophecies contain a much greater wealth of historical and political detail than those of all other prophets. While prophecy generally, viewing the near and the distant in perspective, is accustomed to regard the entire future from an eschatological point of view as the coming of the kingdom of God, Daniel, on the contrary, sees spread before him substantially the future history of the world which must transpire before the advent of the kingdom. Hence results the special form of prophecy which is peculiar to him alone. If this were in any case a history of the future, it would be with so him.” The idea, that the notice in detail of the several features of progress in the future development of the world-power and its relations to God’s people, is a final chief peculiarity of Daniel’s prophecies, is based principally on the contents of Daniel 11, which Auberlen regards as written throughout by Daniel and soon after the captivity. We believe ourselves warranted in holding a different view respecting this chapter, which is the chief support for the assumption of a continued series of the most special predictions, and therefore prefer to accept a revision in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, by a pious apocalyptic investigator. Hence we charge the thorough description of the kingdoms of the Seleucidæ down to that tyrant, to the account of the modifying agency of this interpolator. We are not led to this view, either by a preconceived opinion that the Spirit of prophecy is incapable of producing such special predictions, or by a one-sided reference to the analogy of the remaining prophetical books of the Old Testament, which contain no such detailed descriptions of the future; but the decisive circumstance which arouses our suspicion concerning the assumption that Daniel 11 is throughout and in all its details a proper prediction, and which even directly forbids it, is the fact that the Revelation of St. John, besides our book the only independent and more comprehensive production of the canonical apocalypse, everywhere presents only ideal pictures of the future. We admit that the prophet, borne by the Spirit of prophecy, would, at the point in question, receive many surprisingly exact disclosures respecting the future history of the God-opposed world-power and its hostility towards the people of God, because we regard Daniel, the “vir desideriorum” (Dan_10:11), as pre-eminent in zeal and successful effort, among the Old-Testament prophets who, according to 1Pe_1:11, searched “what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify.” But precisely because he was only a searcher of the future and could be no more than this, we are compelled to reject everything that transforms his prophecy from a Divinely inspired picture of the future into a detailed, and painfully exact history of the future, and we therefore charge this portion to the account of the reviser. Daniel is and remains for us a “prophetic light for the times devoid of revelation, during which Israel was given into the hands of the heathen,” a “light that was designed to illumine the night of five hundred years from the Captivity to Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, for the understanding ones in Israel” (Auberlen, p. 80); but we cannot assume that the clear prophetic light which emanated from him was intended to penetrate to the smallest corners and most gloomy recesses of the history of God’s people which was, for him, yet future. But if we can assent to Auberlen’s description of the canonical apocalypses as prophetical disclosures, intended to. “serve the congregation of God’s people as lights during the times of the Gentiles (Luk_21:24) in which there is no revelation,” only on the condition that we conceive their light in an ideal sense, and as corresponding to the fundamental law in the Divine revelation of gradual and mediate disclosure, we are none the less compelled on the other hand to reject decidedly a special feature, admitted by Lücke, Hilgenfeld, and others, into their conception of the idea of apocalypse, a conception which otherwise conforms approximately to that of Auberlen. We refer to the idea of pseudonymity, concerning which Lücke (Einleitung in die Offenbarung Johannis und die sogenannte apokalyptische Literatur, 2d ed., p. 47 sq.) asserts that it is necessarily connected with the other two distinguishing features of apocalyptic prophecy, its eschatological, and its comprehensive character that covers all history, since only later writers who cunningly related the prophecies to the past and invented additions to the older prophets, were capable of such all-embracing vision. The one-sidedness and rashness of this assertion likewise appear from the mode of origin and the literary peculiarities of the Revelation by St. John, this most important and significant of apocalypses, against which no more unjust criticism can be offered than that of a pseudonymic origin; and not less from the notorious authenticity of the former half of the book of Zechariah (Daniel 1-8), the remaining apocalyptic composition that has been admitted to the Old-Testament canon, and which may be regarded as the earliest imitation of Daniel. We can yield our assent to the charge of forgery as regards this form of writing, in so far only as it applies to the apocryphal apocalypses, and are therefore in accord with Hilgenfeld (Die jüdische Apokalyptik in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, 1857, p. 5 sq.)—whose view diverges somewhat from that of Lücke—no further than as he excepts the Johannean apocalypse from the canon of Lücke, which stamps pseudonymity as the invariable mark of apocalyptic literature; but to this exception we add the two apocalypses of the canonical Old Testament. For the more special consideration of the relations of Daniel to the apocryphal and pseudepigraphical apocalypses, which were mainly framed on its model, see below, §11.

Note 3.—With respect to the Chaldaic idiom in Daniel 2-7, which we represented above as a principal reason for leading the framers of the canon to assign to Daniel a place among the Hagiographa, and in the immediate neighborhood of Ezra, we remark in general, (1) that this dialect, which gradually became the current language of the Palestinian Jews, was the eastern-Aramæan or Babylonian, a purely Shemitic idiom, which, as the popular tongue of the Babylonians, must be carefully distinguished from the ìְùׁåֹï ëַּùְׂãִּéí , mentioned in Dan_1:4, the latter being the court language of Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldæan dynasty, and comprehending numerous Aryan or Turanian elements. This follows from Dan_2:4; Isa_36:11; and Ezr_4:7, where documents and speeches in this dialect are designated as such by the term àֲøָîִéú (Luther [and English version]: “Syriac,” rather Aramaic), while the “tongue of the Chaldeans” ( ì×ëַּùְׂãִּéí ) mentioned in Dan_1:4 is not again referred to, and is clearly distinguished from the ordinary Aramæan language as a peculiar dialect, current among the warrior and priestly caste then dominant in Babylon (possibly identical with those perpetuated in the Assyrio-Babylonish cuneiform inscriptions) by the manner in which it is there introduced; for Daniel and his companions would hardly have been obliged to undergo a regular course of instruction in the common Aramæan or Babylonian language, as it should be called, instead of Chaldee, which is less exact. Compare below, on chapter Dan_1:4. (2) The Aramæan of chapters 2–7 includes numerous Hebraisms, as the Hebrew of the remaining chapters Chaldaizes many expressions; a circumstance that can hardly be explained, except on the supposition of an intermingling of both dialects in the popular language, which may have begun at the time of the frequent Assyrian invasions, at first among the ten tribes, and later gradually extended also to Judah, and to which the strongly Aramaizing Hebrew of the prophet Ezekiel, most intimately related to the Hebrew of Daniel, bears testimony. (3) The co-existence of the Hebrew and Aramæan, as dialects spoken and understood by the people, is substantiated further by the circumstance that our author could venture to express most of his narratives and predictions in the latter tongue; a feature that is repeated only in the book of Ezra, which was written a century later, while Isaiah (nearly two hundred years before Daniel) admits no Aramaic expressions into his text in a passage which would have afforded a suitable opportunity (Isa_36:11; cf. 2Ki_18:26), and even Jeremiah contents himself with employing a brief Aramaic sentence (Jer_10:11; compare the use of single words in Aram in earlier books, e.g., Gen_31:47; 2Ki_5:12). (4) The Aramaic idiom of Daniel corresponds closely to that of the book of Ezra and of Jer_10:11, both in its grammatical and its lexical features. Its wealth of older words (e.g., ùְׁôַøְôָּøָç instead of the later ùְׁôַø , òֲìåֹäִé for the later òַìÎ àֲôֵé , úַּçְúּåֹäé for the later îִìְøָà , ùִׂéí èְòֵí for the later ôָּ÷ִéã , ëָּìÎ÷ִáֵì - ãִּé , for the later àַøֵé òַì ëֵּê , ðְøָìִé for ÷ִìְ÷ַìְúָä etc.) and its general grammatical peculiarities (where the forms, ìְäֹï , ìְëֹï instead of the apparently more ancient ìְäֹí , ìְëֹí , which are found in Ezra, form the only exceptions) create the impression of a much higher antiquity than is represented by the otherwise closely related Chaldee of the Targums, which were composed about the beginning of the Christian æra. (5) Of the seven notorious Parseeisms, or words derived from the Persian, which are found in the Aramaic portion of our book, only àַæְãָּà occurs in the Targums, while it has two others ( ôִּúְâַּí and ôַּéְúְּîִéí ) in common with the Chaldaizing Hebrew of the book of Esther and the Chaldee of Ezra, and a fourth ( âִּæְáַø ) occurs at least in the Chald. Ezra. There is thus in this respect also a more remarkable lingual relationship between Daniel and Ezra, than between them and the Chaldee Targums, and the position assigned to our book between Esther and Ezra on the forming of the canon, is fully justified by this consideration. We shall endeavor to show, in connection with the question of genuineness, that the weight of these lingual peculiarities, which point so decisively to the composition of this book during the period immediately preceding and following the captivity, is in no wise diminished by the occurrence in its Chaldee text of several phrases evidently derived from the Greek. We were only concerned in this connection, to show that the lingual peculiarities of the book formed a principal motive for its collocation with the Hagiographa, instead of its being placed in the series of prophetical books. Compare Hengstenberg, Die Authentie des Daniel, etc., p. 297 sq.; Hävernick, Einleitung ins A. T., II. 2, 482 et seq.; Zündel, Kritische Untersuchungen über die. Abfassungszit des Buches Daniel, p. 239 et seq. Concerning its place after Esther and before Ezra, compare in addition, Delitzsch, Art. “Daniel,” in Herzog’s Real-Encycl., III. Dan 272: “The book of Daniel stands between Esther and Ezra, because Esther, for a sufficient reason, is the last of the five Megilloth (festival volumes), and because the principal contents of Daniel belong to the time before Ezra and Nehemiah.” Accordingly, this book was regarded as belonging among the historical Hagiographa (in view of its really historical character throughout the first half), and it was placed at the head of these books, because of its lingual relationship with Ezra, and also because of its pre-eminently holy and inspired character. This arrangement is not chronological, indeed, for in this respect the Chronicles should precede, and Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther follow in their order. But considerations of a different nature prevailed, on the whole, in the collocation of these final constituents of the Old-Testament canon. The following section will illustrate one of the leading considerations which enable us, definitely to understand the position of this book, in connection with its remarks on the call of Daniel to the prophetic office.

§
2. The Personal Relations of the Prophet

The name Daniel ( ãָּðִéּàֵì , Dan_1:6; also defective, ãָּðִàֵì in Eze_14:14; Eze_14:20; Eze_28:3), which signifies “judge of God, judge who pronounces judgment in the name of God,” belongs to two persons besides our prophet in Old-Testament history, of whom one was a son of David (1Ch_3:1), and the other a Levite of the house of Ithamar. The latter flourished but little later than our prophet, according to Ezr_8:2; Neh_10:7, and has, on that account, been identified with him by the Septuagint in the apocryphal additions to the book of Daniel, as well as by several recent critics. The difference in time is, however, too considerable to admit of this opinion; and the fact that among the contemporaries of the priest Daniel were found a Mishael (Neh_8:4), Hananiah, and Azariah (Neh_10:3; Neh_10:24), must be regarded as a mere accident, from which, in view of the notorious frequency of these names, the conclusion cannot be drawn, that the Daniel of our book, together with his three pious associates, are the creatures of a fictitious collocation and pre-dating of those persons, who lived almost a century later (compare the arguments against Bleek in note 1).

According to chapter Dan_1:3, Daniel seems to have been of royal descent, and therefore born at Jerusalem. The passage in chapter Dan_9:24, however, will hardly serve in proof of this (Harenberg and other expositors), since Jerusalem might have been termed the “holy city” by Daniel, even if he belonged to any other city or tribe of the holy land, He was, at any rate, of high birth, and, together with three other noble Jewish youths, was in early life transported to Babylon in the first deportation under Jehoiakim, in order to become, a page at the Chaldæan court. Here their Hebrew names were changed for others of Chaldæan origin, and Hananiah received the name of Shadrach, Mishael that of Meshach, and Azariah that of Abednego, while Daniel was known as Belteshazzar ( áֵּìְèְùַׁàöּø ). This name, if explained solely according to the Shemitic analogy, seems to be synonymous with “Beli princeps,” or “princeps, cui Belus favet” ( áֵּìְùַׁàöַּø ), and therefore likewise indicates the princely rank of Daniel. That he bore in addition the probably Persian name of Sheshbazzar, by which Zerubbabel was known at the court of Cyrus (Ezr_1:8), rests on an unsupported Rabbinical tradition, which is found in Rashi and several later writers, and which seems to have grown out of a false etymological interpretation of ùׁùׁáöø as=“who was in six-fold tribulation.”

The instruction in the wisdom of the Chaldee magians and in the manners of the court, which Daniel received in Babylon under the supervision of the chief eunuch, Ashpenaz, did not prevent him from observing the injunctions of the Mosaic law in regard to food and drink, with conscientious care, and from astonishing the officials who had him in charge by the almost miraculous effects produced in his appearance through this ascetic course, in which his three friends participated (Dan_1:8-10). But marked as were these effects of his piety, his fame was increased still further by the extraordinary proofs of his prudence, wisdom, and learning, which he manifested at an early period, especially in the interpretation of dreams, visions, etc. This extended his reputation beyond the bounds of Babylon before he had attained maturity, and must even have made his name proverbial among his countrymen at least, as designating a marvel of Wisdom 10 Only thus can we explain the fact that Ezekiel, his contemporary, although considerably older in years, refers to Daniel in several passages of his prophecies (which were brought to a close in B. C. 572, that is, about the middle of the captivity), as a model of pious wisdom, and in two instances classes him with Noah and Job, the great wise men of antiquity (Ezek. 14:14, 28; Eze_28:3; compare note 2).

That Daniel was not merely trained under the oversight of the chief eunuch, or chief palace official (“prince of the eunuchs”) of Nebuchadnezzar, but also himself became a eunuch in the proper sense, and was trained in that capacity, is an ancient Jewish tradition, which appears to rest on a combination of Dan_1:3 et seq. with the prophecy of Isaiah to Hezekiah (Isa_39:7, where ñøéñéí was held to designate actual eunuchs). It is, however, without any historical support, either in the book of Daniel itself, or in other Old-Testament records; and Eze_14:20 seems even to directly contradict this tradition, since it ascribes sons and daughters to him, as it does also to Noah and Job. But it could not be otherwise than welcome to the ascetically disposed Jews of later times, as well as to many church fathers and Roman Catholic expositors, to discover in Daniel a eunuch, even though an involuntary one, and an example of perpetual virginity. Hence the Targums report this tradition (on Est_4:5, in connection with the mention of Hatach, the Persian eunuch who was appointed to serve Esther), as do others of the more ancient rabbins (Pseudo-Epiphanius, Vitœ Prophet., c. 10, ἦí ἀíὴñ óþöñùí ὥóôå äïêåῖí ôïὺò Ἰïõäáßïõò åéíáé óðÜäïíôá ). Of later rabbins, e.g., Rashi ad Dan_1:21 (but not Ibn-Ezra, ad Dan_1:3); of church fathers, Origen (Hom. IV in Ezech.), Jerome (Adv. Jovin. Dan_1:1; Comm. in Jes. 39:7; in Dan_1:3), John Damascenus (De fide orthod. iv. 25); of later Roman Catholics, Cornelius à Lapide, Huetius, and others, hold to this tradition. [It is also strongly confirmed by the well-known usages of Oriental courts, in which eunuchs are admitted to privileges allowed to none others, especially in personal offices near the king. Haman, indeed, was not of this class in the book of Ezra, but Nehemiah was doubtless such in the Persian court. In the light of this circumstance, the dietetic regimen imposed upon Daniel and his three companions had a sanitary reason, and their voluntary temperance may actually have had a good effect during their period of convalescence after the operation. The reference to Daniel in Ezekiel does not so explicitly allude to children as to invalidate this conclusion, being merely an implication of kindred.]

After three years of training and instruction, in which early period the apocryphal narrative in the interpolated Daniel of the Septuagint places the celebrated decision in favor of Susannah, who was unjustly condemned to death, as an instance of the extraordinary wisdom of the youthful prophet, Daniel and his three companions entered on their duties at the court of Nebuchadnezzar. Through the miraculous aid of the enlightening grace of God, he was enabled to interpret a remarkable dream of the king, in consequence of which he was promoted to the royal favor, as was Joseph at the court of Pharaoh, until he became the most influential official in the province of Babylonia, and chief of the caste of magians (Dan_2:48 et seq.). He appears to have occupied this important position until the close of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, although the narrative of the persecution of Daniel’s friends and fellow-worshippers, contained in Daniel 3, and that of his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s second dream and of the madness of that king, which is found in Daniel 4, warrant the opinion that his glory was not without an occasional but transitory eclipse in the course of that protracted period.

Under Belshazzar, the son and (possibly not immediate, but rather third or fourth) successor of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel regained the royal favor and influential position of which he had been temporarily deprived. After having been entirely forgotten, he succeeded in interpreting an extraordinary appearance which had alarmed the king, but the prophetic meaning of which, relating to his approaching overthrow by the Persian world-power, none of the magians were able to reveal. The great honors with which Belshazzar rewarded him immediately before his fall (enrobing in purple, placing a chain of gold about his neck, and proclaiming him the third ruler in the kingdom) remained to him under the first Medo-Persian ruler, Darius the Mede (Cyaxeres). This monarch appointed him one of the three princes who were placed over all the one hundred and twenty governors of his kingdom; and he even thought to place him over his whole realm (as minister of state or grand-vizier) Dan_6:1-4. For this reason, the other princes and governors, moved with envy, sought to destroy Daniel by bringing his steadfast adherence to the faith of his fathers into conflict with the established religion of Persia, or rather with an extraordinary decree of the king, which provided that during the space of one month the honor of Divine worship should be rendered only to him, the ruler of the kingdom. As Daniel persisted in the regular discharge of his religious duties, and, according to the custom of pious Jews, offered prayer at an open window, and with his face turned toward Jerusalem, three times in each day, he became subject to the fearful penalty imposed by the king, of being devoured by lions. The wondrous care of God, however, preserved him unharmed through the night which he spent in their den, and, in consequence, he rose still higher in the favor of the king, while his accusers were thrown into the den, and perished by the death they had designed for him. When Cyrus assumed the sole government over the Medo-Persian world-kingdom, after the two years reign of Darius the Mede, the dignities and honors of Daniel were continued to him. He therefore survived the expiration of the Babylonian Captivity and the beginning of Israel’s return to the holy land (see Dan_1:21), which ensued on the accession of that king, “the anointed of the Lord” (Isa_45:1); and although the book of his prophecies records nothing of his agency in restoring his people to their land, his indirect influence was probably not unimportant. The closing series of his prophecies (Daniel 10-12) which disclose the future history of Israel down to the erection of Messiah’s kingdom on the ruins of the world-powers, testify that in spirit he cherished a warm sympathy for the physical and moral welfare of his people.

He died probably soon after receiving and recording these final revelations, which he himself places in the third year of the reign of Cyrus; but when, and under what circumstances, his death occurred is unknown. The attempts to state his circumstances at the close of life, together with the time and manner of his death, which are found in Jewish and Arabic authors, and also in church fathers, are based on empty traditions which are wholly without support. We class among these the statement of Josephus (Antiq. Jud. X. 11, 7) that Daniel immortalized himself as early as the reign of Darius the Mede by building a splendid royal castle of marble at Ecbatana, which was still standing and in the charge of a Jewish priest in the time of Josephus; also the Jewish-oriental legend, perhaps derived from Dan_1:21, and Ezr_8:2, concerning his return to Palestine among the first exiles under Zerubbabel (D’Herbelot, Bibl. Orient., p. 288); further, the statement of Pseudo-Epiphanius, that he died at Babylon and was buried in the royal tomb; the statement, perhaps, of later origin, but more widely circulated than the one last mentioned, which is held by Abdul-faraj and Benj. of Tudela, that he died in Shushan—a tradition upon which rests the still practised adoration of the reputed tomb of the prophet in that city, in which Jews and Christians are said to participate, as well as Moslems (see Ausland, 1853, p. 600); and finally the Romish tradition, which is to the effect that Daniel died as a martyr, and which commemorates him on the 21st of July (cf. Stadler and Heim, Vollst. Heiligen-Lexikon, vol. 1, p. 722 ss.).

The above historical notices concerning Daniel show, that by reason of his relations to the Babylonian, and later to the Medo-Persian dynasties, as well as on account of his growth to maturity and continued dwelling and labors in a foreign land, he occupies an entirety exceptional position among the Old-Testament prophets—a position that makes it seem really doubtful whether the prophetic office was his proper and chief vocation. In any case, he appears as much a Chaldæan wise man as an Israelitish prophet, and thus intervenes between the Old-Testament prophetism and the position of the Divinely enlightened seers among the nations that bordered on Israel, who were supernaturally chosen to be the bearers of Messianic prophecies, as in the case of Balaam in the time of Moses, and the Eastern magi on the threshold of New-Testament times. For this reason chiefly, it would seem, he was regarded by the framers of the canon as not belonging to the class of prophets in the narrower sense, but as more directly included among the writers of the Hagiographa (compare note 3).

Note 1.—Bleek, in Einleitung ins A. Test., 2d ed., p. 010, remarks with reference to the persons mentioned in Ezr_8:2, and Neh_8:4; Neh_10:3; Neh_10:7; Neh_10:24, under the names of Daniel, Mishael, Hananiah, and Azariah: “This coincidence of names with those of the heroic believers represented in our book may be accidental, but nevertheless is remarkable, since it exists with reference to the entire four, and the names Daniel and Michael occur but rarely elsewhere. The time, indeed, in which the four contemporaries of Ezra and Nehemiah flourished is later than that of Daniel and his friends, as about 160 years elapsed between the third year of Jehoiakim and the reading of the book of the law by Ezra; but still, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the composer of this book (who, according to Bleek, lived and wrote in the time of the Maccabees, about B. C. 167) borrowed the names of his faithful heroes from those four men. We cannot tell whether a more intimate acquaintance with their history and experience in Babylon led him to select their names.” (Similarly De Wette, Einleitung ins A. T., p. 360 et seq.) To us the supposition of Bleek seems about as vague a combination as the familiar attempts of Strauss to find in the names of Gospel history, Jacob, Joseph, Mary, and Elizabeth, mythical reproductions of the corresponding names in the primitive Scripture history, or to find the origin of the historical Lazarus in the Gospel of St. John, in the purely imaginary person of this name in the parabolical narrative found in Luk_16:19 et seq. (Leben Jesu, etc., 1804, p. 477 et seq.). The impossibility of identifying the four contemporaries of Ezra with our prophet and his friends appears from (1) the fact that, according to Dan_1:21, which passage could not possibly have been known to the mythical writer, Daniel lived only to the beginning of the reign of Cyrus; (2) that the names Azariah, Daniel, and Hananiah, which are enumerated in Neh_10:2-28, among the great number of names of leaders, priests, and Levites, who engaged to observe the law, became so unimportant and are so widely separated that only the most reckless arbitrariness or chance could associate them precisely as intimate companions, who filled a distinguished position at the royal court of Babylon as wise men and confessors; (3) that the name Mishael (Neh_8:4), in the list of those who stood on the left hand of Ezra while he read the law, occupies a no less isolated position; (4) that the identity of Daniel, of the sons of Ithamar, who is mentioned in Ezr_8:2, with the priest or Levite of the same name, who is noticed in Neh_10:7, is, at any rate, extremely doubtful, since their surroundings are wholly dissimilar; (5) that what is recorded in Daniel 1, 3, particularly the report concerning the Babylonian names conferred on them (Dan_1:7) bears too thoroughly the stamp of historical reminiscence to admit of the hypothesis of a later invention, for the purpose of exalting those obscure names, which were almost forgotten among the number of names in the book of Nehemiah.

Note 2.—The three-fold reference of Ezekiel to Daniel has been regarded by many modern critics as irreconcilable with the historical existence of a magian and prophet of this name, since in two instances (Eze_14:14; Eze_14:20) Ezekiel places Daniel between Noah and Job, and since he clearly seems to treat him as a personage belonging to the earliest antiquity in those passages as well as in Eze_28:3. On this account, they have either questioned the genuineness of these passages in Ezekiel (e.g., Bernstein, in Tzschirner’s Analekten, Dan_1:3, p. 10), or given up the historical character of the exilian Daniel, and considered him a purely poetic invention like Job, or a wise man belonging to the patriarchal or primitive period of Israelitish history. The latter hypothesis especially has been received with favor, and has been variously developed by Bleek, Hitzig, Ewald, and Bunsen. According to Bleek (in Schleierm. n. Lücke’s Theolgischer Zeitschrift, III. 1822, p. 283 et seq., and in Einl. ins A. T., p. 608 et seq.), we are not led by the manner in which he is mentioned to think of a person who shared in the Babylonian captivity with Ezekiel, but much rather, to conceive of a long-familiar personage of primitive times, who was historically connected with events in the experience of Israel, or, which is more probable, since we know no more concerning him, who was like Job, a mere product of the poetic fancy. From the manner in which Ezekiel refers to him, it is barely conceivable that he should have been, as the Daniel of our book is represented, a Jewish exile and contemporary with Ezekiel.” De Wette (Einl. ins A. T., p. 361) and Von Lengerke (Das Buch Daniel ausgel., p. 93 et seq.) likewise limit the choice to either a “man belonging to the gray antiquity” or to a purely imaginary personage. Hitzig, on the other hand, regards the Daniel of Ezekiel 14 as not, indeed, created by the writer, like Job, but still as the “child of tradition” like Noah and Melchizedek, and finds an intimate correspondence, amounting almost to identity, of our Daniel with the mysterious royal and priestly personage of the latter, who is assumed to be a junior contemporary of Noah—a relation which exists especially in respect of his name ( ãðøàì , “divine judge,” nearly synonymous with, îìëøöã÷ , “king of righteousness.” Kurzgef. exeget. Handbuch zu Daniel, p. 8). Ewald, again (Die Propheten des Alten Bundes, vol. II. Appendix, p. 562 et seq), considers the Daniel mentioned by Ezekiel as having been descended from one of the ten tribes, and as having lived and prophesied at the heathen court of Nineveh, a hundred years before the Babylonian Captivity. To this participator in the Assyrian captivity were attributed prophetic oracles respecting the world-kingdoms, by an unknown Jewish author of the times of Alexander the Great or the earliest Seleucidæ, which were modified by a later writer, in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, from whom they received their present form. Bunsen (Gott in der Geschichte, I. 514 et seq.) agrees in the main with the first part of this hypothesis. The historical Daniel lived at the royal court in Nineveh soon after the deportation of the Israelites by Shalmaneser; the fantastic representations of animals on the palaces of Nimrud and Khorsabad, which have become known to us through the researches of Botta and Layard, served as models for his visional descriptions of the world-kingdoms under the form of various imaginary animals, in chapters 7 and 8; and the originator of the present book transformed the prophet of Nineveh by mistake into a Babylonian. Compare below, § 4, note 1. Two earlier opponents of the genuineness of this book, Bertholdt and Kirmss, endorse the opinion of Ewald and Bunsen, that Daniel was a real person of historical times; but instead of assigning this wise man, whom Ezekiel celebrates, to an earlier age, they make him the contemporary of that prophet, living at the court of Babylon. The author of this book, who belonged to a much later period, and derived his entire knowledge of Daniel from Ezekiel, merely clothed him in a mythical dress, etc. (Bertholdt, Daniel, etc., I. p. 7; Einleit. ins A. T., p. 1506; Kirmss, Commentatio historico-critica exhibens descriptionem et censuram recentiorum de Daniel libro opinionum, Jen. 1828, p. 59 et seq.); in like manner also Winer in the Realwörterb., Art. “Daniel” (1, p. 247).

The more recent defenders of the genuineness of Daniel’s prophecies are in immediate correspondence with the arguments raised by these latter critics in support of the possibility of Daniel’s contemporary existence with Ezekiel, despite the peculiar manner in which he is mentioned in Ezekiel 14, 28. Hengstenberg especially (Die Authentie des Daniel, p. 70 et seq.) shows in a most discerning way that the chronological difficulty is of no importance, since Daniel must have been thirty years old when Ezekiel 14 was composed, and since the rewards and honors conferred on him by Nebuchadnezzar must have been received at least ten years before that period; and further, that the book of Daniel itself (in such passages as Dan_1:17; Dan_1:20; Dan_2:47; Dan_4:5; Dan_5:11) testifies to the extraordinary and early-developed wisdom, by which this pious youth was distinguished, and with reference to which Ezekiel was already enabled to point the contemporary king of Tyre to him as a model of exalted wisdom and Divine illumination (Eze_28:3). The position assigned to Daniel between Noah and Job in Eze_14:14; Eze_14:20, proves nothing whatever concerning his patriarchal age; rather, Job is placed at the end of the series because he was a less suitable example for the immediate purpose of Ezekiel, than Noah and Daniel, the preachers of righteousness in the midst of a godless world. In general agreement with this view of Hengstenberg are, Hävernick (Komm. zu Ezechiel, p. 206 et seq.; Neue Untersuchungen über Daniel, p. 23 et seq.; Einl. ins A. T., 2:2, 455), Kliefoth (Das Buch Ezechiels übersetzt und erklürt, p. 177 et seq.; and Das Buch Daniels, p. 31 et seq.), Delitzsch (in Herzog’s Real-Encykl., s. v. Daniel), and Zündel (Krit. Untersuchungen, etc., p. 258 et seq.). These later apologists, however, justly declare Hengstenberg’s explanation of the circumstance that Daniel is placed between Noah and Job to be inadequate, and therefore endeavor to find a more appropriate explanation of this fact, which at the first blush seems so strange. Hävernick and Kliefoth assume a climax: “Noah saved himself and his family; Daniel was still able to provide for his friends, Dan_2:17-18; Job, despite his uprightness, could not even save his children.” Delitzsch explains the arrangement of names by assuming that Ezekiel “mentions first a righteous man belonging to the ancient world, next, a righteous man belonging to the present world, and lastly, a righteous man who belongs to the ideal world;” for Job is “presented to the eyes of Israel as a righteous man only in the book of Job, which, although not without a historical basis, is not historical, but rather poetical and didactic.” Finally, Zündel seeks to explain this arrangement of names by the observation, that Daniel occupied a “thoroughly analogous central and universal position among his contemporaries,” so to speak, as a mediator between God and His people, by virtue of which, as formerly did Noah and Job, he presented his uprightness and piety before God, in a reconciling and atoning way, when His anger was aroused because of the sins of His people. None of these attempts at explanation are entirely satisfactory to us; but that of Delitzsch seems to be the most adequate and plausible, because the most simple and unconstrained. But may not euphonic considerations have contributed to the arrangement of the three names ðç , ãðéàì and àéåá , in like manner as such considerations appear to have prevailed in other enumerations of proper names? e.g., of the three sons of Noah (Gen_6:9; Gen_9:18, etc.), among which Ham, although the youngest of the three, is always placed before Japheth; of the three daughters of Job (Job_42:14), etc. As examples of the neglect of chronological order in the enumeration of names, compare, in addition, Eccles., Daniel 49, where Josiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zerubbabel, Joshua, and Nehemiah (vs. 16–20) are placed before Enoch, Joseph, Seth, Shem, and Adam; also Heb_11:32 (Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel); Jude 5:9 et seq. (Moses, Cain, Balaam, Korah, Enoch); Mat_16:14 (John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah). The last of these examples is especially instructive, since it shows that living persons might be classed with persons of similar character belonging to the earliest antiquity without any regard to chronological sequence. [The fact that Daniel is thus associated by Ezekiel, a nearly contemporary writer, with an undoubtedly historical personage, Noah, has always been held to be a strong proof of his actual existence. The same holds true of Job, as mentioned in the same connection. Compare Jam_5:11. Indeed, the introduction of a purely mythical name in such a matter-of-fact connection would be irrelevant and nugatory.]

Note 3.—On the peculiarity of the prophetic character of Daniel, as constituting a principal reason for referring this book among the Hagiographa, see Delitzsch, p. Dan 272: “The book of Daniel was placed among the Hagiographa, because he was not a prophet by virtue of his office and calling, although, like David and Solomon, he possessed the gift of prophecy.” Origen remarks correctly: “Non si quis prophetat, ideo propheta est. Ac profecto si quis propheta est, is quidem prophetat, sed vero qui prophetat, non continue etiam est propheta.” The genuineness of the book is therefore not compromised by its position among the Hagiographa. Compare also Auberlen, Daniel, p. 30 et seq.: “We may also refer to his instruction in the wisdom of the Chaldæan Magi; for the Holy Scriptures show that the mysterious knowledge and arts of the heathen were not an empty boast, e.g., in the case of the Egyptian sorcerers who opposed Moses. The wise men who were led by the star to seek after the new-born king of the Jews, were such Chaldee Magians, which clearly shows that they were not deprived of all truth, and in connection with which we may even inquire whether a tradition may not have been transmitted among them which had emanated from Daniel, their chief, who had received such remarkable disclosures concerning this king of the Jews, reaching even to the time of his appearing? The circumstance, that in his youth he was instructed during three years in this wisdom of the Chaldæans, doubtless had the effect on the prophet himself, to develop the prophetic tendency which was natural to him, and to make him at home in these mysterious regions (Dan_1:4-5; Dan_1:17). It must have afforded him an education similar to that which Moses derived from his training at the Egyptian court, or that drawn by the modern theologian from the study of philosophy. He learned, however, nothing of importance from the Chaldæans, but rather soon excelled them all ten-fold in wisdom.” Further, compare the same, page 34 et seq., where, conforming to the Rabbins, the isolated position of Daniel, the apocalyptist, among the other Old-Testament prophets, is explained and interpreted to mean that while he did not possess the øåּçַ ðְáåּàָä or proper prophetic Spirit, he nevertheless partook of the <