Daniel 1:2

And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2) Part of the vessels.—Literally, from one point to another. He did not take them all at once, but on different occasions. (On Shinar, see Note, Genesis 10:10.)

His god—i.e., Bel-Merodach, who was originally an Accadian deity, the signification of the second part of the name being “he that measures the path of the sun.” The planet Jupiter was worshipped under this name. He was the tutelary god of Babylon, and to his honour Nebuchadnezzar dedicated a temple. For a further description of this deity see Bar 6:14-15.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:1-7 Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, took Jerusalem, and carried whom and what he pleased away. From this first captivity, most think the seventy years are to be dated. It is the interest of princes to employ wise men; and it is their wisdom to find out and train up such. Nebuchadnezzar ordered that these chosen youths should be taught. All their Hebrew names had something of God in them; but to make them forget the God of their fathers, the Guide of their youth, the heathen gave them names that savoured of idolatry. It is painful to reflect how often public education tends to corrupt the principles and morals.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand - Jehoiakim was taken captive, and it would seem that there was an intention to convey him to Babylon 2 Chronicles 36:6, but that for some cause he was not removed there, but died at Jerusalem 2 Kings 24:5-6, though he was not honorably buried there, Jeremiah 22:19; Jeremiah 36:30. In the second book of Chronicles 2 Chronicles 36:6, it is said that "Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and bound Jehoiakim in fetters, to take him to Babylon." Jahn supposes that an error has crept into the text in the book of Chronicles, as there is no evidence that Jehoiakim was taken to Babylon, but it appears from 2 Kings 24:1-2, that Jehoiakim was continued in authority at Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar three years, and then rebelled against him, and that then Nebuchadnezzar sent against him "bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it." There is no necessity of supposing an error in the text in the account in the book of Chronicles. It is probable that Jehoiakim was taken, and that the "intention" was to take him to Babylon, according to the account in Chronicles, but that, from some cause not mentioned, the purpose of the Chaldean monarch was changed, and that he was placed again over Judah, under Nebuchadnezzar, according to the account in the book of Kings, and that he remained in this condition for three years until he rebelled, and that then the bands of Chaldeans, etc., were sent against him. It is probable that at this time, perhaps while the siege was going on, he died, and that the Chaldeans dragged his dead body out of the gates of the city, and left it unburied, as Jeremiah had predicted, Jeremiah 22:19; Jeremiah 36:30.

With part of the vessels of the house of God - 2 Chronicles 36:7. Another portion of the vessels of the temple at Jerusalem was taken away by Nebuchadnezzar, in the time of Jehoiachin, the successor of Jehoiakim, 2 Chronicles 36:10. On the third invasion of Palestine, the same thing was repeated on a more extensive scale, 2 Kings 24:13. At the fourth and final invasion, under Zedekiah, when the temple was destroyed, all its treasures were carried away, 2 Kings 25:6-20. A part of these treasures were brought back under Cyrus, Ezra 1:7; the rest under Darius, Ezra 6:5. Why they were not "all" taken away at first does not appear, but perhaps Nebuchadnezzar did not then intend wholly to overthrow the Hebrew nation, but meant to keep them tributary to him as a people. The temple was not at that time destroyed, but probably he allowed the worship of Jehovah to be celebrated there still, and he would naturally leave such vessels as were absolutely necessary to keep up the services of public worship.

Which he carried into the land of Shinar - The region around Babylon. The exact limits of this country are unknown, but it probably embraced the region known as Mesopotamia - the country between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. The derivation of the name "Shinar" is unknown. It occurs only in Genesis 10:10; Genesis 11:2; Genesis 14:1, Genesis 14:9; Joshua 7:21; Isaiah 11:11; Daniel 1:2; Zechariah 5:11.

To the house of his god - To the temple of Bel, at Babylon. This was a temple of great magnificence, and the worship of Bel was celebrated there with great splendor. For a description of this temple, and of the god which was worshipped there, see the notes at Isaiah 46:1. These vessels were subsequently brought out at the command of Belshazzar, at his celebrated feast, and employed in the conviviality and revelry of that occasion. See Daniel 5:3.

And he brought the vessels into the treasure-house of his god - It would seem rom this that the vessels had been taken to the temple of Bel, or Belus, in Babylon, not to be used in the worship of the idol, but to be laid up among the valuable treasures there. As the temples of the gods were sacred, and were regarded as inviolable, it would be natural to make them the repository of valuable spoils and treasures. Many of the spoils of the Romans were suspended around the walls of the temples of their gods, particularly in the temple of Victory. Compare Eschenberg, "Manual of Class." Literally, pt. iii. Sections 149, 150.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. Shinar—the old name of Babylonia (Ge 11:2; 14:1; Isa 11:11; Zec 5:11). Nebuchadnezzar took only "part of the vessels," as he did not intend wholly to overthrow the state, but to make it tributary, and to leave such vessels as were absolutely needed for the public worship of Jehovah. Subsequently all were taken away and were restored under Cyrus (Ezr 1:7).

his god—Bel. His temple, as was often the case among the heathen, was made "treasure house" of the king.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

In this expedition Nebuchadnezzar carried away some of the vessels of the temple, and some captives, among whom was Daniel and his friends. These vessels he carried into the house of his god; which god was Baal or Bel, and Nebo, Isaiah 46:1; which words they put into the names of their kings and favourites, of which more afterward. These vessels as spoils he put in the house of his god, for his honour, because he thought he had gotten his victory by the help of his idol god, 1 Samuel 31:9,10, as the Philistines did, Judges 16:23,24; whereas the text saith the Lord gave all into his hand, Daniel 1:2. The executioners of God’s wrath upon God’s sinful people have other thoughts than God hath about that, Isaiah 10:5-16.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand,.... And the city of Jerusalem too, or he could not have took the king, and so the Syriac version renders it,

and the Lord delivered it into his hands, and Jehoiakim, &c.: this was from the Lord, because of his sins, and the sins of his ancestors, and of his people; or otherwise the king of Babylon could not have taken the city, nor him, because of the great power of the Jews, as Jacchiades observes:

with part of the vessels of the house of God; not all of them; for some, as Saadliah says, were hid by Josiah and Jeremiah, which is not to be depended on; however, certain it is that all were not carried away, because we read of some of the vessels of the temple being carried away afterwards, in Jeconiah's time, 2 Kings 24:13, and still there were some left, as the pillars, sea, bases, and other vessels, which were to be carried away, and were carried away by the king of Babylon, in Zedekiah's time, Jeremiah 27:19,

which he carried into the land of Shinar, to the house of his god; which Jarchi understands both of the men that were carried captive, and the vessels that were taken out of the temple; but the latter seem only to be intended, since of men Jehoiakim is only spoken of before; and it does not appear he was ever carried into Babylon; but it is certain the vessels of the temple were carried thither; which is meant by the land of Shinar, where Babylon stood, and where the tower of Babel was built, Genesis 10:2, the same, as Grotius thinks, with the Singara of Pliny (s) and Ptolemy (t). So the Targum of Onkelos, on Genesis 10:10, interprets the land of Shinar the land of Babylon; likewise the Jerusalem Targum on Genesis 10:10, and the Targum of Jonathan on Genesis 11:2, Zechariah 5:11, only on Genesis 10:10, he paraphrases it the land of Pontus. So Hestiaeus (u) an ancient Phoenician writer, calls Shinar Sennaar of Babylonia. It seems to have its name from which signifies to "shake out"; because from hence the men of the flood, as Saadiah says, or the builders of Babel, were shook out by the Lord, and were scattered over the face of the earth. And as the tower of Babel itself, very probably, was built for idolatrous worship, for which reason the Lord was so displeased with the builders of it; so in this same place, or near it, now stood an idol's temple, where the king of Babylon, and the inhabitants thereof, worshipped, here called "the house of his gods" (w), as it may be rendered; for the Babylonians worshipped more gods than one; there were Rach, Shach and Nego, from whom Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, are supposed to have their names given them by the Chaldeans, Daniel 1:7. Rach is thought to be the sun, whose priests were called Rachiophantae, observers of the sun; Shach, to which Sheshach is referred by some, Jeremiah 51:41, for which a feast was kept once a year for five days, when servants had the rule and government of their masters; and Nego either was worshipped for the sun, or some star, so called from its brightness. Venus was also had in veneration with the Babylonians, whom they called Mylitta; in whose temple many acts of uncleanness and filthiness were committed, as Herodotus (x) relates. And, besides these, there were Merodach, Nebo, and Bel; of which see Isaiah 46:1, the latter seems to have been their chief deity, and who was called Jupiter Belus; and with whom were the goddesses Juno and Rhea. And in the city of Babylon stood the temple of Bel, or Jupiter Belus, which was extant in the times of Herodotus, and of which he gives an account (y), and is this:

"the temple of Jupiter Belus had gates of brass; it was four hundred and forty yards on every side, and was foursquare. In the midst of the temple was a solid tower, two hundred and twenty yards in length and breadth; upon which another temple was placed, and so on to eight. The going up them was without, in a winding about each tower; as you went up, in the middle, there was a room, and seats to rest on. In the last tower was a large temple, in which was a large bed splendidly furnished, and a table of gold set by it; but there was no statue there; nor did any man lie there in the night; only one woman, a native of the place, whom the god chose from among them all, as the Chaldean priests of this deity say.''

Diodorus Siculus says (z) it was of an extraordinary height, where the Chaldeans made observations on the stars, and could take an exact view of the rise and setting of them; it was all made of brick and bitumen, at great cost and expense. Here the vessels of the sanctuary were brought by Nebuchadnezzar, to the praise and glory of his idols, as Jarchi and Jacchiades observe; to whom he imputed the victory he had obtained over the Jews. Even these

he brought into the treasure house of his god; very probably this was the chapel Herodotus (a) speaks of, where was a large golden statue of Jupiter sitting, and a large golden table by it, and a golden throne and steps, reckoned by the Chaldeans at eight hundred talents of gold. And Diodorus Siculus (b) relates that there were three golden statues, of Jupiter, Juno, and Rhea. That of Jupiter was as one standing on his feet, and, as it were, walking, was forty feet in length, and weighed a thousand Babylonian talents (computed three millions and a half of our money). That of Rhea was of the same weight, sitting upon a throne of gold, and two lions standing at her knees; and near to them serpents of a prodigious size, made of silver, which weighed thirty talents. That of Juno was a standing statue, weighing eight hundred talents; in her right hand she held the head of a serpent, and in her left a sceptre set with precious stones; and there was a golden table, common to them all, forty feet long, fifteen broad, and of the weight of fifty talents. Moreover, there were two bowls of thirty talents, and as many censers of three hundred talents, and three cups of gold; that which was dedicated to Jupiter weighed a thousand two hundred Babylonian talents, and the other six hundred. Here all the rich things dedicated to their god were laid up, and here the king of Babylon brought the treasures and rich vessels he took out of the temple of Jerusalem; and to this agrees the testimony of Berosus (c), who says, that with the spoils of war Nebuchadnezzar took from the Jews and neighbouring nations, he adorned the temple of Belus. The riches of this temple, according to historians, are supposed to be above one and twenty millions sterling (d), even of those only which Diodorus Siculus gives an account of, as above.

(s) Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 24. (t) Geograph. l. 5. c. 18. (u) Apud Joseph. Antiqu. l. 1. c. 4. sect. 3.((w) "domum deorum suorum", Cocceius, Michaelis. (x) Clio, sive l. 1. c. 199. (y) Ibid. c. 181. (z) Biblioth. 1. 2. p. 98. Ed. Rhodoman. (a) Clio, sive l. 1. c. 183. (b) Biblioth. I. 2. p. 98. (c) Apud Joseph. Antiqu. l. 10. c. 11. sect. 1.((d) Vid. Rollin's Ancient History, vol. 2. p. 70. and Universal History, vol. 4. p. 409.

Geneva Study Bible

And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of {b} Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.

(b) Which was a plain by Babylon, where the temple of their great god was, and is here taken for Babylon.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. gave into his hand Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and part, &c.] To ‘give into the hand’ as Jdg 3:10; Jeremiah 20:4; Jeremiah 21:7; Jeremiah 22:25, and frequently. The expression is a strong one, and seems to imply that the writer had in view a defeat, and not merely a timely submission.

the house of God] A frequent expression in late writers for the Temple (e.g. 2 Chronicles 3:3; 2 Chronicles 4:19; 2 Chronicles 5:1; 2 Chronicles 5:14; 2 Chronicles 7:5): earlier writers say nearly always ‘the house of Jehovah’ (e.g. 1 Kings 7:40; 1 Kings 7:45; 1 Kings 7:48; 1 Kings 7:51).

which he carried] and he brought them. The pron. (as the text stands: see below, p. 4) refers to the vessels.

Shinar] properly Shin‘ar, a Hebrew name for Babylonia (Genesis 10:10; Genesis 11:2; Genesis 14:1; Genesis 14:7; Joshua 7:21; Isaiah 11:11; Zechariah 5:11), here, no doubt, an old expression revived. The explanation of the name is uncertain, as nothing directly parallel has been found hitherto in the Inscriptions. According to some Assyriologists there are grounds for supposing it to be a dialectic variation of Shumer, the name given in the Inscriptions to South Babylonia[174]; but this explanation is not accepted by all scholars[175].

[174] As in the common title of the Assyrian kings, ‘King of Shumer and Akkad’ (Akkad being North Babylonia): so Delitzsch, Paradies (1881), p. 198, Assyr. Gramm. (1889), § 49a, Rem.; Schrader, KAT. 2 p. 118 f.; Prince, p. 58.

[175] Cf. Dillmann on Genesis 10:10. Sayce, Patriarchal Palestine, p. 67 f., connects the name with Sangar, a district a little W. of Nineveh.

to the house (i.e. temple) of his god] If any stress is to be laid upon the particular deity intended, it would be Marduk (the Merodach of Jeremiah 50:2), the patron-god of Babylon. According to 2 Chronicles 36:7, the vessels which Nebuchadnezzar brought to Babylon in the reign of Jehoiakim were placed by him in his palace[176]. But see the next note.

[176] See, however, Ezra 1:7; Ezra 5:14, though the gold and silver vessels mentioned here may be those carried away by Nebuchadnezzar with Jehoiachin (Jeremiah 27:16 [see Daniel 1:20, and cf. 2 Kings 24:13], Jeremiah 28:3), or Zedekiah (2 Kings 25:14-15).

and the vessels he brought, &c.] In the Heb. ‘the vessels’ is emphatic by its position, and would naturally imply that something different had been mentioned before. As the verse stands, the clause is almost tautologous with the preceding one: at all events, if the ‘treasure house of his god’ be really a place distinct from the ‘house of his god,’ the correction is attached very awkwardly. Ewald supposed that some words had fallen out, and proposed to read ‘Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with the noblest of the land, and part,’ &c. Certainly the transportation of captives is presupposed in Daniel 1:3; but the insertion of these words does not relieve the awkwardness of Daniel 1:2. It is better, with Marti, to reject the preceding words, ‘(in) the house of his god,’ as a gloss, intended originally to define the position of the ‘treasure house’ of clause b, which has found its way into the text in a wrong place[177]. Still, the author’s Hebrew is often far from elegant, and the anomalous wording of the verse is possibly original.

[177] The words were not, it seems, in the original LXX. (see Swete, footnote).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - And the Lord gave Jehoiakim King of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure-house of his god. The Greek versions of this verse agree with each other and with the Msssoretic text, save that the Septuagint has Κυρίου instead of Θεοῦ in the end of the first clause, and omits οἴκου. The Syriac Version omits the statement that it was "part" of the vessels of the house of God that was taken. It is to be observed that our translators have not printed the word "Lord" in capitals, but in ordinary type, to indicate that the word in the original is not the sacred covenant name usually written in English "Jehovah," but Adonai. That the Lord gave Jehoiakim into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar does not prove that Jerusalem was captured by him. Far from it, the natural deduction is rather that he did not capture the city, although he captured the king. Thus in 2 Kings 17:4 we are told that Shalmaneser shut up Hoshea "and bound him in prison;" in the following verse we are informed that the King of Assyria "besieged Samaria three years." That is to say, after Shalmaneser had captured Hoshea the king, he had still to besiege the city. A similar event occurred earlier in the history of Judah and Israel. When Joash of Israel defeated Amaziah and took him prisoner, he proceeded then to Jerusalem. The city opened its gates to the conqueror, and he carried off all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and of the king's house, and all the vessels of the house of the Lord, and a large number of hostages, and then returned north. Something like this seems to have occurred now. The king was taken by the Babylonians, and the city submitted and ransomed the king by handing over a portion of the vessels of the house of the Lord. The city, however, was not taken by assault. Miqtzath, "part of," occurs also in Nehemiah 7:70 in this sense: we have it three times later in this chapter- vers. 5, 15, and 18; but in these cases it means "end." A word consonantally the same occurs in the sense before us in Judges 18:2, translated "coasts." Gesenius would write the word miqq tzath, and regard mi as representing the partitive preposition min. He would therefore translate, "He took some from the numbtr of the vessels." Kranichfeld objects to Hitzig's assertion that קאת means "a part," and is followed by Keil and Zockler in regarding it, as a short form of the phrase, "from end to end," equivalent to the whole, thus making miqtzath mean "a portion from the whole." The omission from the Syriac of the words which indicate that the vessels taken were only a portion of those in the house of the Lord, shows how natural it was to imagine that the deportation was total, and therefore we may lay the more emphasis on its presence as proving that the temple was not plundered, but these vessels were the ransom paid for the freedom of the king. Several times had the treasures of the house of God been taken away. In the days of Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:26) Shishak, acting probably as the ally of Jeroboam, took away all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and of the king's house, "he even took away all." It may be doubted whether Jerusalem was captured (2 Chronicles 12:7); certainly the name of Jerusalem has not been identified in the list of captured towns on the wall of the temple at Karnak. We have referred to the case of Joash and Amaziah. The succession of the phrases," Jehoiakim King of Judah," and "part of the vessels of the house of God," is remarked by Ewald as being abrupt, and he would insert," together with the noblest of the land." There is, however, no trace of any such omission to be found in the versions. It is possible that this chapter may be the work of the early collector and editor, and that he condensed this portion as well as, not unlikely, translated it from Aramaic into Hebrew. Captives certainly were taken as well as booty, as is implied by the rest of the narrative. Which he carried into the land of Shinar to, the house of his god. There is no word in the Hebrew corresponding to" which." The literal rendering is, "And he carried them," etc. It has been the subject of discussion whether we are to maintain that it is asserted here that Jeboiakim, along with the vessels and unmentioned captives, were carried to Babylon. Professor Bevan admits that it is doubtful. Were we dependent merely on grammar, certainly the probability, though not the certainty, would be that the plural suffix was intended to cover Jehoi-skim, but the conclusion forced on us by logic is different. He "carried them (יְבִיאֵם) to the house of his god." This seems to imply that only the vessels are spoken cf. So strongly is this felt by Hitzig ('Das Buch Daniel,' 5) that he would regard the phrase, "the house of his god," as in apposition to "the land of Shinar,' and refers to two passages in Hosea (Hosea 8:1; Hosea 9:15) in which "house" is, he alleges, used for "land." Irrespective of the fact that these two instances occur in highly wrought poetical passages, and that to argue from the sense of a word in poetry to its sense in plain prose is unsafe, there is no great plausibility in his interpretation of these passages. He regards the last clause as contrasted with the earlier: while the captives were brought "into the land of Shinar," the vessels were brought into "the treasure-house of his god" - an argument in which there is plausibility were there not the extreme awkwardness of using בית, "house," first in the extended sense of "country," and then in the restricted sense of "temple." The last clause is rather to be looked upon as rhetorical climax. The land of Shinar is used for Babylonia four times in the Book of Genesis, twice in the portion set apart as Jehovist by Canon Driver; the remaining instances are in ch. 14, both as the kingdom of Amraphel, which Canon Driver relegates to a special source. In the first instance (Genesis 10:10) it is the laud in which Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh were. In the next instance (ch. 11.) it is the place in which the Tower of Babel is built. The name is applied to Babylonia in Isaiah 11. and Zechariah 5:11. One of the titles which the kings of Babylon assumed regularly was "King of Sumir and Accad." From the connection of Shinar and Accad in Genesis 10:20 we may deduce that "Shinar" is the Hebrew equivalent for "Sumir." It is not further removed from its original than is "Florence" from "Firenze," or "Leghorn" from "Livorno," or, to take a French instance, "Londres" from "London." The ingenious derivation of "Shiner" from שני, "two," and אר, "a river," which, however, implies the identification of ע and א, may have occasioned the modification, the more so as it was descriptive of Babylonia; hence the name "Aram-Naharaim," and its translation "Mesopotamia," applied to the tract between the Euphrates and the Tigris, north of Babylonia. In the Greek versions it becomes Σεναάρ. It is omitted by Paulus Tellensis. The treasure-house of his god. The word rendered "god" here is the plural form, which is usually restricted to the true God, otherwise it is usually translated as "gods" To quote a few from many instances, Jephtha uses the word in the plural form of Chemosh (Judges 11:24), Elijah applies it to Baal (1 Kings 18:27), it is used of Nisroch (2 Kings 19:37) In Ezra 1:7 we have this same word translated plural in regard to the place in which Nebuchadnezzar had deposited the vessels of the house of God. In translating the verse before us, the Peshitta renders path-coroh, "his idol" This suits the translation of the LXX. εἰδωλείῳ. Paulus Tellensis renders it in the plural, "idols." The god in whose treasure-house the vessels of the house of God in Jerusalem were placed would necessarily be Merodach, whom Nebuchadnezzar worshipped, almost to the exclusion of any other. The treasure-house of his god. Temples had not many precious gifts bestowed upon them by their worshippers which were not taken by needy monarchs; nevertheless, the treasures of kingdoms were often deposited in a temple, to be under the protection of its god. The temple of Bel-Merodach in Babylon was a structure of great magnificence. Herodotus (1:181) gives a description, which is in the main confirmed by Strabe (16:5): "In the midst of the sacred area is a strong tower built a stadium in length and breadth; upon this tower is another raised, and another upon it, till there are eight towers. There is a winding ascent made about all the towers. In the middle of the ascent there is a resting-place, where are seats on which those ascending may sit and rest. In the last tower is a spacious shrine, and in it a huge couch beautifully bespread, and by its side is placed a table of gold. No statue has been set up here, nor does any mortal pass the night here." There are still remains of a structure which suits to some extent the description here given, but investigators are divided whether to regard Birs Nimroud or Babil as most properly representing this famous temple of Bel-Merodach. In the "Standard Inscription" Nebuchadnezzar appears to refer to this temple, which he calls E-temen-ana-ki," the house of heaven and earth." He says, among other matters concerning it, that he "stored up inside it silver and gold and precious stones, and placed there the treasure-house of his kingdom." This amply explains why the vessels of the house of God were taken to the temple of Bel-Merodach. The fact is mentioned that the vessels of the house of God were carried to Babylon, and, as a climax, "and he placed them in the treasure-house of his god." We know what befell the statue of Dagon when the ark of God was placed in its presence, and the Jew, remembering this, relates awestruck the fact that these sacred vessels were placed in the temple of Bel. If no such disaster befell Bel-Merodach as befell Dagon, yet still the handwriting on the wall which appeared when these vessels were used to add to the splendour of the royal banquet, and which told the doom of the Chaldean monarchy, may be looked upon as the sequel to this act of what would necessarily appear to a Jew supreme sacrilege. Daniel 1:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"The Lord gave Jehoiakim into his hands" corresponds with the words in 2 Kings 24:1, "he became his servant," and with 2 Chronicles 36:6, "and he bound him in fetters." "And part of the vessels of the house of God." מקצת without the Dag. forte, meaning properly from the end of extremity, is abbreviated from קצה עד מקּצה, cf. Jeremiah 25:33; Genesis 47:21; Exodus 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 קצת of itself never means a part" (Kran.). As to the statement of the text, cf. 2 Chronicles 36:7. These vessels he brought (commanded to be brought) into the land of Shinar, i.e., Babylonia (Genesis 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 Daniel 1:2, while Hitz. and Kran., with many older interpreters, refer the suffix in יביאם to Jehoiakim, and also to the vessels, on account of the express contrast in the following words, ואת־הכּלים (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 Daniel 1:3, and not only supposed, as Hitz. alleges, and it was not necessary that it should be expressed in Daniel 1:2. The application of the suffix to Jehoiakim or the Jewish youths who were carried captive is excluded by the connection of יביאם with אלהיו בּית, into the house of his god. But the assertion that בּית, house, here means country, is not proved from Hosea 8:1; Hosea 9:15, nor is warranted by such passages as Exodus 29:45; Numbers 35:34; Ezekiel 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 אלהיו בּית the temple is to be understood, the preposition אל would stand before it, for which Zechariah 11:13; Isaiah 37:23; Genesis 45:25 are appealed to. But such passages have been referred to without observing that in them the preposition אל stands only before living objects, where it is necessary, but not before inanimate objects, such as בּית, where the special object of the motion is with sufficient distinctness denoted by the accusative. The words following, ואת־הכּלים, 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.