3. The test of the faith of Daniel’s three friends in the fiery furnace.

DANIEL 3:1–30

1Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose [its] height was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof [its breadth] six cubits: he set it up in 2the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. Then [And] Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the princes [satraps], the governors, and the captains [pashas], the judges, the treasurers, the counsellors, the sheriffs [lawyers], and all the rulers of the provinces,1 to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. 3Then the princes, the governors, and captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, were gathered together unto the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and they stood [were standing] 4before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then [And] a herald cried aloud [with might], To you it is commanded [lit, they are saying], O [lit. The] 5people, nations [nations, peoples], and languages.2 That at what time [the time that] ye hear [shall hear] the sound of the cornet [horn], flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer [symphony], and all kinds of music, ye fall down and 6worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up: and whose [lit. who that] falleth not [lit. shall not fall] down and worshippeth, shall the same hour [lit, in it the moment] be cast into the midst of a [or, the] burning fiery furnace [lit. oven of fire the blazing]. 7Therefore at that [lit, in it the] time, when [lit, as that] all the people heard [nations were hearing] the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of music,3 all the people, the nations, and the languages, fell [were falling] down and worshipped [worshipping] the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. 8Wherefore at that time certain Chaldæans [lit, men Casdim] came near and accused the 9Jews. They spake [were answering], and said [were saying] to the king Nebuchadnezzar, O [lit. The] king, live for eDaniel 3:10Thou, O king, hast made a decree, that every man that shall hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image; 11and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth 12that he should be cast into the midst of a burning, fiery furnace. There are certain Jews, whom thou hast set over the affairs [work] of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: these men, O king, have not regarded thee [set account upon thee]; they serve not thy gods, nor worship 13the golden image which thou hast set up. Then Nebuchadnezzar, in his rage and fury, commanded [said] to bring [cause to come] Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Then they brought these men [these men were brought] before 14the king. Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said unto them, Is it true [of purpose], O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego? do not ye [, that ye do not] serve my 15gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now, if ye be ready, that at what time [the time that] ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made, well: but [and] if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour [moment] into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that [he] God that shall deliver you out of my hands? 16Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are 17not careful [needing] to answer thee [return thee answer] in this matter. If it be so, our God [If it be that our God] whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of thy 18hand, O king.4 But [And] if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve [are not serving] thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. 19Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: therefore he spake, and commanded that they should heat [to heat] the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated [lit. above that any one was ever seen to heat it]. 20And he commanded the most mighty men [lit. men, heroes of might] that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and [so as] to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. 21Then these men were bound in their coats [shirts, or trowsers, or mantles], their hosen [coats, or tunics], and their hats [cloaks, or turbans,] and their other garments, and were cast into the midst 22of the burning fiery furnace. Therefore, because [lit. from that] the king’s commandment [word] was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that look up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego.5 23And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. 24Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and spake and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?6 They answered and said unto the king, True,7 O king. 25He answered and said, Lo, I8 see four men loose [loosed], walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt [harm is not with them]; and the form [appearance] of the fourth is like the Son of God [a son of the gods]. 26Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth [door] of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, ye servants of the most high God, come [go] forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came [went] forth of [from] the midst of the fire. 27And the princes, [the] governors, and [the] captains, and the king’s counsellors, being gathered together, saw [or, were gathered and saw] these men, upon [over] whose bodies the fire had no power [did not rule], nor was a [the] hair of their head singed, neither were [had] their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had 28passed on them. Then Nebuchadnezzar spake and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed9 the king’s word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve or worship any god except their own God. 29Therefore I make a decree [And from me is a decree made], That every people, nation, and language, which [shall] speak anything amiss10 against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, shall be cut [made] in pieces, and their houses11 shall be made a dunghill [or, sink]; because there is no other god that can deliver after [like] this sort. 30Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, in the province of Babylon.

EXEGETICAL REMARKS

Daniel 3:1, 2. The erection of the image, and the command to attend its dedication. Nebuchadnezzar the king made (had made) an image of gold. Properly “made” (עֲבַד), similar to the repeated phrase in the following: “he set it up,” instead of “he caused it to be set up” (Daniel 3:1 b, 2, 3, 5, 7, 12, etc.), or to Daniel 3:24, “we cast three men into the fire,” instead of “had them cast in.”—The Heb. text does not state when the image was made. According to the Septuagint and Theodotion, who are followed by the Syriac hexaplar version, it was prepared ἔτους ὀκτωκαιδεκάτου Ναβουχοδόνοσορ, hence at about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem (cf. 2 Kings 25:8; Jer. 52:12), and after the accomplished subjection to Chaldæa of all the nations from India to Ethiopia (cf. the additions in the Sept. to Daniel 3:2 and 3). The incident appears at all events to belong to this later period of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, since Daniel 3:4 b, 7 b, 29 a, mention many “peoples, nations, and languages,” as being subject to him, and it was possibly a feature connected with a feast in commemoration of his victories (cf. Herodot. IV. 88). The impression of Jehovah’s power and greatness which he had formerly received in consequence of Daniel’s interpretation of his dream, appears therefore to have been long obliterated. He not only causes the colossal image subsequently described to be erected in honor of some Babylonian national god, but with arrogant presumption he challenges a conflict (see Daniel 3:15).—An image of gold. צְלֵם certainly designates in this place, as well as in Daniel 2:31, a statue in the human form, and more particularly, the image of a god, as appears from Daniel 3:12, 18, 28. It was not therefore a statue of Nebuchadnezzar himself. A marked disproportion seems to have existed in its dimensions, on the supposition that it represented an upright human form, since its height is given at sixty cubits, and its breadth or thickness at only six cubits, while the normal height and breadth of a person in an upright posture are as 6:1, not as 10:1. For this reason the צְלֵם has been held to have been in part a mere idol column, similar to the Egyptian obelisks, or, which is certainly more appropriate, analogous to the Amyclæan Apollo, which formed, according to Pausanius (Lacon. III. 19, 2), a slender column provided with head, arms, and feet, in the human form. So Münter, Relig. der Babylonier, p. 59; Hengstenberg, p. 95; and more recently Kranichfeld, who refers to the colossus of Rhodes, the height of which was seventy cubits, also to the Egyptian κολλοσσοὶ μεγάλοι and ἀνδρόσφογγες mentioned by Herodotus (II. 175), and to the image of the sun mentioned by Pliny (H. N. 24:18), which reached a height of 110 feet, in addition to the Apollo of Amyclæ. [“צְלֵם is properly an image in human likeness, and excludes the idea of a mere pillar or obelisk, for which מַצֵּבָה would have been the appropriate word. Yet … as to the upper part—the head, countenance, arms, breast—it may have been in the form of a man, and the lower part may have been formed like a pillar.”—Keil.] We might be content with this, or refer in addition to the remarkably tall and slender forms of individual persons on Egyptian wall-paintings and also on Assyrian and Babylonian sculptures (cf. the copies in Wilkinson’s Manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians, and Layard’s works on Nineveh and Babylon [German by Th. Zenker]—in the latter, e.g., the colossal sitting figure on plate XXII. A), if it were not still more suitable to regard the statement of the height of sixty cubits as a synecdoche, designating both the image and its pedestal, and to allow to the latter perhaps twenty-four, and to the former thirty-six cubits, which assumption clearly results in an entirely well-proportioned shape of the statue. If therefore, the צְלֵם proper was limited to a height of about thirty six feet, it would compare with the statue of Belus, which, according to Diodor. II. 9, was erected by Semiramis on the summit of the great temple of Bel at Babylon (probably the present “Birs Nimroud”), and attained a height of forty feet; but it can hardly be directly identified (with Bertholdt) with that statue of Bel, nor yet with the one mentioned by Herodotus (I. 183), which measured twelve cubits in height. Not only was it erected outside of the temple area of Babylon, and possibly even at a considerable distance from the city itself (see infra), but it is also extremely questionable whether an image of Bel must be assumed in this case, since the Babylonians were devoted to the zealous worship of numerous gods. Entirely too artificial is the opinion of Hofmann (Weiss, und Erfüllung, I. 277), Zündel, and Kliefoth, that the image was designed by Nebuchadnezzar to represent the world-power he had founded, in harmony with the religious (cosmical) conceptions of heathenism—as indicated (according to Kliefoth) particularly by the numbers six and sixty.—The expression דּי־דְהַב does not compel us to assume that the image was composed throughout of solid gold; for in Ex. 37:25 et seq. an altar of wood, and merely covered with plates of gold, is designated simply as מִזְבַּה־ הַזָּהָב; and Isa. 40:19; 41:7; Jer. 10:3–5 indicate plainly that the images of Babylonian idols especially were usually composed of wood with an outside covering of gold. The construction of this image by no means, therefore, involved an immoderate expenditure, as J. D. Michaelis supposed; and the gold required to cover its surface may have been less, in weight and value, than the amount required (800 talents) for the construction of the statue of Bel already referred to as mentioned by Herodotus, whose height was twelve cubits, and for the tables and chairs which accompanied it; and also less than the amount expended on the statue of Bel mentioned by Diodorus, which reached a height of forty cubits, and cost, as is reported, 1,000 talents. The relative unimportance of this image, which is thus so easy to conceive, deprives the argumentum ex silentio of all its force, as against the credibility of the narrative, which Von Lengerke and Hitzig have assigned to it, on the ground of its not being mentioned by profane authors. Finally, it is thoroughly inconsequent and ridiculous to discover, with Bleek (in Schleierm., Lücke. etc.; Theol. Zeitschr., 1822,III, p. 259; cf. Einl. ins A. T., § 265), an imaginary prototype of the βδέλυγμα ἑρημώσεως of Antiochus Epiphanes, which was assigned by pseudo-Daniel to the æra of the captivity; for according to 1 Macc. 1:54, 59, this βδέλ. was not a statue at all, but an altar of small size, erected on the altar of burnt offerings at Jerusalem (cf. Hengstenberg, p. 86).—Whose height was threescore oubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits. פְּתָי, properly “breadth,” but here signifying both breadth and thickness, cf. Ez. 6:3. The cubits (אַמִּין.) were probably the royal cubits of the Babylonians (Herod. 1:178), and not smaller than the ordinary cubits (Gesen., Thesaur., p. 112s.). Instead of πήχεων ἐξήχοντα as a statement of the height, the Septuagint has πήχεων ἑξ, which reading some have endeavored to defend, e. g., Michaelis, Eichhorn, etc.; but is it probably not even an ancient attempt to provide an easier reading, and must be considered merely as the error of a copyist, if not as a typographical error of the Ed. princeps of Simon de Magistris; see Bugati, in Hävernick on this passage.—He set it up (caused it to be set up) in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. בִּקְעָא, like the corresponding Hebrew term, does not designate a narrow valley enclosed by mountains, but a low and level tract, a plain; hence a majority of moderns read “in the plain of Dura.” The location of this plain is not entirely certain; but it was probably east of the Tigris and near Apollonia in the province of Sittacene, where a town by the name of Dura was situated, according to Polyb. V. 52, and Ammian, XXV. 6, 9. The Δοῦρα (otherwise Dor) near Cæsarea Palæst. on the Mediterranean, mentioned in Polyb. V. 66, and the town of that name situated, according to Polyb. V. 48; Ammian, XXIII. 5, 8, near Circesium at the entrance of the Chaboras into the Euphrates, which was too far northward to have been included in the province of Babylon,12 cannot possibly be intended here. [“We must, without doubt, much rather seek for this plain in the neighborhood of Babylon, where, according to the statement of Jul. Oppert (Expédit. Scientifique en Mésopotamie, I. 238 ff.), there are at present to be found in the S.S.E. of the ruins representing the former capital a row of mounds which bear the name of Dura; and at the end of them, along with two larger mounds, there is a smaller one named el-Mohattat (=la coline obliquée), which forms a square six metres high, with a basis of fourteen metres, wholly built of unburned bricks, and which shows so surprising a resemblance to a colossal statue with its pedestal, that Oppert believes this little mound to be the remains of the golden image erected by Nebuchadnezzar.”—Keil.] The Sept., which probably regarded the plain here referred to as identical with the plain of Shinar, Gen. 11:2, and which could find no town bearing the name of Dura within its limits, has conceived the name דּיּרָא to be an appellative, and rendered it by ἐν πεδἱῳ τοῦ περιβόλου (cf. דּוּר, circumire, in orbem ire); in which, however, they were more nearly correct than is Hitzig, who assumes that his pseudo-Daniel adopted the name of the plain from the earlier designation (Daniel 2:45) of the mountain, טוּרא.

Daniel 3:2. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together, etc. This service was probably performed by couriers (רצים, who were doubtless employed in similar duties at the Babylonian court, as well as at the Persian (Esth. 10:15; 8:14), and even at the courts of Saul (1 Sam. 11:7) and of Hezekiah (2 Chron. 30:6, 10).—The princes, the governors,and the captains. Among the seven classes of officials enumerated, these three are shown to have been more immediately related to each other by the וּ before פַּחֲוָתָא. Their members were executive officers of superior rank, who combined both civil and military functions in their range of duties, and who may have been substantially on a par with the executive officials connected with the ministry of the interior in a modern state, while the four succeeding classes were probably connected with the departments of finance and justice. (1) The אַחַשֶׁדַּרְפְּנִין were naturally satraps (cf. kshatrapâwan on the cuneiform inscriptions at Behitun, which, according to Haug [in Ewald’s Bibl. Jahrb., 5:153] is equivalent to “protector of the country,” and according to Lassen [Zeitschr. für Kunde des Morgenl., VI. 1, 18] is f synonymous with “guardian of the warriors of the host;” cf. also the Zend shôithrapaiti and the Sanscr. kshathrapa)—the superior executive officers of the several provinces, vice or sub-kings to the sovereign (cf. the מַלְכִין, Isa. 10:8; Gen. 14:1, 2, with the מֶלֶךְ מַלְכַיָּא, Dan. 2:37, Ezra 7:12), and therefore mentioned at the head of the body of officials. The fact that the title of these chief administrators of provinces is Persian does not demonstrate that their office was entirely confined to the time of the Achæmenidian Persian empire, or that it was even created by Darius Hystaspis (Herod. III. 89 ss.); for Xenophon (Cyrop. VIII. 6, 1) dates its existence back to the time of Cyrus, and Berosus (in Josephus, c. Apion, 1,19; Ant. X. 11, 1) designates Necho already as a τεταγμένος σατράπης of Nabopolassar, which is hardly to be considered a gross anachronism, but rather as an indication of the relation of Necho as a vassal to Babylon. Consequently, the author cannot be charged with a historical error, either in this connection, or in Daniel 6:2 et seq., where he refers to the satraps of Darius the Mede. The אהשׁדרפנין must be regarded rather, as one of the Persian elements of the writer’s Chaldee idiom, the number of which, according to the Introd. § 1, note 3, must have been considerable, even at an early period (cf. on Daniel 2:4); and the early intrusion of such into the language and range of conception among the Chaldæans, is no more remarkable than is the mention of the רַב־מָג, Jer. 39:3, as a Chaldæan officer. The Septuagint, however, renders the term by σατράπαι only here and in Daniel 6:2, 4, while in Daniel 3:3 and 27 it has ὔπατοι, in Ezra 8:36 διοικηταί, in Esth. 8:9 οἰκονόμοι, and in Esth. 9:3 τύραννοι, These variations indicate that the conception of a definite office was no longer connected with the title, at the time when that version was made.—(2) According to the observations on Daniel 2:48, the סִגְנִין were “superintendents, administrators” generally; in this case naturally not endowed with spiritual functions, but rather performing secular duties under the satraps, and finally employed chiefly in military rather than in civil offices (cf. the סְגָנִים of Babylon, mentioned together with the גִּבּוֹרִים, Jer. 51:57). The Septuagint appears to have conceived of these Signin, in harmony with this view, as being “præfects of the host, or commanders of the provinces;” for they render the term in this instance by στρατηγοί (as in Daniel 3:3 and often, twelve times in all), while they translate it elsewhere by τοπάρχαι (Daniel 3:27), ἡγούμενοι (Daniel 2:48), or ἄρχοντες.—(3) פַּהֲוָתָא (Heb. פַּחוֹת from פֶּחָה), In view of the probably Indo-Germanic derivation of this term (cf. Sanscr. paksha, “side,” Prakr. pakkha, modern Persian and Turkish pasha) it properly designates “those who are stationed on the sides or flanks, adjutants,” and then governors, or the representatives of a sovereign in a designated field of administration, provincial præfects. The governors whom Solomon placed over his provinces outside of Palestine, already bore this title (1 Kings 10:15; 2 Chron. 9:14), also the governors of the Syrian king Benhadad (1 Kings 20:24); the corresponding officers among the Syrians (Isa. 36:9; 2 Kings 18:24), Chaldæans (Ezek. 26:6, 23; Jer. 51:23) and Persians (Esth. 8:9; 9:3); and especially the Persian governors of Judæa subsequent to the captivity (Hag. 1:1, 14; 2:2, 21; Neh. 5:14, 18, etc.) Among the nations last mentioned, who employed satraps as the chief præfects of provinces, the פֶּחָה was merely a subordinate to those officers (and more purely civil than military in his official character, as appears from the position of Zerub-babel and Nehemiah, according to Haggai and Neh. 50:100); but in the kingdoms of Solomon and Benhadad the פַּחוֹת seem to have been equal in rank to the later satraps, and therefore were chief governors. In this place and Daniel 3:3 the Septuagint translates τοπάρχαι; in Daniel 3:27, ἀρχιπατριῶται (i.e., chief of a nationality).—(4)According to the Sept. the אֲדַרְגָּזְרַיָּא are “overseers” generally (ὑπατοι), while most moderns regard them as “chief judges or discerners.” Ewald defines them as “chief star-gazers, or augurs of the first-class” (!), and Hitzig, as “directors, upon whom devolves the decision of matters, or magistrates.” The term, which occurs only in this place, appears to be a genuine Aramaic compound, from אֶדֶר, glory, dignity, and גִּזַר. to decide (cf. Daniel 2:27), and therefore probably designates a class of officers with whom rested the final decision, particularly in regard to the economical or financial administration of the provinces [possibly=the modern Oriental viziers]. The class which follows next in order obliges this restriction of the offices of the אֲדַרְגָּזְרַיָּא,—(5) גְּדָבְרַיָּא. “the treasurers.” These officers do not probably differ from the גִּזַּבְרִין, Ezra 7:21 (cf. 1:8), which term signifies γαζοφύλακες, “managers of the public treasury” (cf. Sept. διοικηταί, and is possibly related to the Pers. gaitha, modern Pets, genj, “treasure” (cf. gaza). Ewald’s assertion that גְּדָבַר is synonymous with הֲדָבַר, Daniel 3:24, 27, and signifies a “bearer of power,” or “exalted prince of the empire” (analogous to the old-Pers. chudvâr, from chad, “God, authorization”), is without adequate support.—(6) The דְּתָבְרַיָּא are clearly the “learned in the law,” or the “guardians of the law.” The first element of the word is evidently דָּת, “the law” (cf. Pers. data, from da,. “to give”), to which the Pers. ending vâr is annexed. Cf. the Pehlvi word datouber (Armen. datavor), “judges.”—(7) The unmistakable connection of תִּפְתָּיֵּא (like No. 4, a hapax leg.) with the Arab. ftah (cf. the Turkish mufti, chief judge) marks this class of officers as “dispensers of justice, lawyers, judges” in the strict sense (not “præfecti” as the Vulgate has it, or “οἱ ἐπʼ ἐξουσιῶν”, as it is rendered by Theodotion, in each case because of a failure to apprehend the true meaning.—And all the rulers of the provinces; i.e., all the remaining officials who administrated the affairs of provinces. On שִׁלְטוֹן, “ruler, high official,” cf. Eccles. 8:4, and also the verb אשלט, Daniel 2:48. The præfect of the bodyguard, mentioned in Daniel 2:14, is not necessarily included among these remaining rulers, since only the officers of the provinces are more immediately referred to in this connection (against Kranichfeld). Von Lengerke is guilty of a gross impropriety, when he finds here “another extravagance, since the empire could not in the meantime be left without an administration.” It is not necessary to stretch כֹּל so unreasonably in this case, as to make it indicate the presence of all the government officials without exception (cf. 1 Sam. 28:4, and generally Kranichfeld on the passage).—To come to the dedication of the image, etc. חֲוֻכָה, the feast of dedication, religious dedicatory services, with which were connected sacrifices, the burning of incense, sacrificial feasts, etc. Cf. Ezra 6:16, where the same expression is employed with reference to the dedication of the second temple.

Daniel 3:3–7. The dedication. And they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had (caused to be) set up. The Keri has קימין instead of קָאמִין, as it substitutes דָּיְרִין for דָּארִין in Daniel 2:38, according to the usage of the Targums.— לָקְבֵל, “before, opposite,” which is employed here and in Ezra 4:16, instead of the usual Chaldee form לָקְבֵל (Daniel 5:1,4,10; Ezra 6:13), is a Syriasm in the pronunciation, similar to that in וּצְֽרִר. Gen. 37:25, which is used instead of וּצְָרִי

Daniel 3:4. Then a herald cried aloud. כָּרוֹז and the corresponding verb כְּרַז “to proclaim publicly” (Daniel 3:29), are not exactly Aramaic adaptations of the Greek terms κῆρυξ, κηρύττειν (Bertholdt and others), but are without doubt radically related to them, and also to the Sanscr. krus, old-Pers. khresio, “one who calls or screams” (mod. Pers. gris-ten; cf. the German kreischen); while on the other hand, they are also related to קרא “to call.”— בְּחַיִל, mightily, with a loud voice, as in Daniel 4:11; 5:7, and as in the Heb. בַכֹהַ, Psa. 29:4; Isa. 40:9.—To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages. אָמְרִין, properly “they say” (are saying), a very common idiom in the Chaldee, expressing an impersonal sense, or more directly, serving as a substitute for the impersonal passive construction (Winer, § 49, 3). The collocation of עַמְמַיָּא (“peoples, nations”), אֻמַָּיּא (“tribes,” a more limited conception than the preceding; cf. also in the Heb., e.g. Psa. 111:6 with Gen. 25:16), and לִשָּׁנַיָּא (“tongues,” “peoples having a common language;” cf. the Heb. לָשׁוֹן Isa. 66:18; Zech. 8:23), recurs again in Daniel 3:7, 29, and 31, and, indeed, often in the book of Daniel (5:19; 6:26; 7:14). This formula, which combines in a solemn triad “all the nations in the empire, however distantly related they may be, or however great may be the diversity between themselves or their constituent elements,” and which exhorts them to give attention, was probably stereotyped in the official edicts of the Chaldæan realm, whose motley aggregate of languages and nations would give rise to such comprehensive phrases more readily than would the character of any other empire of antiquity. The proclamation, of course, is not addressed to all the individuals of the various nations, tribes, etc., but only to their representatives who were actually present. [“The proclamation of the herald refers not only to all who were present, since besides the officers there certainly was present a great crowd of people from all parts of the kingdom, as M. Geier has rightly remarked, so that the assembly consisted of persons of various races and languages. אֻמַּיָּא denotes tribes of people, as the Hebr. אֻמּוֹת ,אֻמָּה, Gen. 25:16, denotes the several tribes of Ishmael, and in Num. 25:15, the separate tribes of Midianites; and is thus not so extensive in its import as עַמִּין, peoples. לִשָּׁנַיָּא, corresponding to הַלְּשֹׁנוֹת, Isa. 66:18, designates (see Gen. 10:5, 20, 31) communities of men of the same language, and is not a tautology, since the distinctions of nation and of language are in the course of history frequently found. The placing together of the three words denotes all nations, however they may have widely branched off into tribes with different languages, and expresses the sense that no one in the whole kingdom should be exempted from the command.”—Keil.]

Daniel 3:5. At what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, etc. As in the case of religious dedicatory festivals among the Israelites (Psa. 30:1; Neh. 12:27; 1 Macc. 4:54), so at the dedication of this heathen statue, there was no lack of music and song (cf. Ex. 32:18 et seq.). This is an especially natural feature, since the Babylonians, as well as the ancient Assyrians, appear, as a people, to have been unusually addicted to music, in view of the testimony afforded by numerous historical records of a positive character; cf. Isa. 14:11; Psa. 137:2; Herodotus, I. 191 (the χορεύειν of the Babylonians during the capture of their city by Cyrus); Curtius, V. 3 (Alexander welcomed on his entrance into Babylon, by “artifices cum fidibus sui generis—laudes regum canere soliti”). Additional evidence is found in the representations of musicians with various instruments, on the monumental edifices of Nineveh and Babylon.—The names of the six instruments here enumerated are in the singular, not as indicating that only one of each kind was at hand, but as a generic designation of the entire class to which it belonged. Hence, there is no impropriety in rendering them in the plural “the cornets, flutes,” etc. [“קַרְנָא, horn, is the tuba of the ancients, the קֶרֶן or שׁוֹפָר of the Hebr.; see Josh. 6:5. מַשְׁרוֹקִיתָא, from שָׁרַק, to hiss or whistle, is the reed-flute, translated by the Sept. and Theodotion σύριγξ the shepherd’s or Pan’s pipe, which consisted of several reeds of different thickness and length bound together, and according to a Greek tradition (Pollux, IV. 9, 15), was invented by two Medes.”—Keil. “It is uncertain whether the horn intended was straight, like the Assyrian, or curved, like the Roman cornu and lituus. The pipe was probably the double instrument, played at the end, which was familiar to the Susianians and Assyrians. The harp would seem to have resembled the later harp of the Assyrians; but it had fewer strings, if we may judge from a representation upon a cylinder. Like the Assyrian, it was carried under the arm, and was played with both hands, one on either side of the strings” (Rawlinson, Five Monarchies, III. 20).] —The harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer. For the opinion that of the names of the four instruments here mentioned, which several expositors hold to be derived without exception from the Greek, probably but two are really taken from that language, see the Introd. § 7. See ibid, note 2. concerning the possibility of an importation of musical instruments and their names from Greece, even prior to the time of Daniel. It is yet to be noticed in this connection: (1) that instead of the Kethib קיתרס, which is to be pronounced either as קִיתְרֹס, or קִירָרס, the Keri has the shortened form קִתרֹס which appears to have been in general use in later times. The Syriac affords repeated examples of the conversion of the Greek ending ιζ into וֹס (Gesen. Thes., p. 1215), so that in this direction the derivation of the term from the Gr. κίθαρις seems certainly to be secured. However, see the Introd., as above.—(2) The σαμβύκη, which Strabo notices (10:3, 7) as being of foreign origin, and whose invention is attributed by Clemens Alex. (Strom. I. 76) to the Troglodytes, might possibly be explained in analogy with the Sanscrit cambuka, “bivalve, muscle.” The form סַבְכָּא, however, appears rather to point to the Shemitic root סבךְ, “to weave.”—(3) The orthography of פְּסַנְתְּרִין is not fixed; in Daniel 3:7 the name is written with ט instead of ת, and in Daniel 3:10 and 15 it is pointed with—under תּ. The numerous changes of the Greek ending ιον into ין— which are found in the later Chaldee, and of which סַנְהֶדְרִין=συνέδριον is the most familiar (Gesen. Thesaur., p. 1116), indicate the identity of this instrument with the ψαληριον, [“It was an instrument like a harp, which, according to Augustine (on Psa. 32. [33.] 2 and Psa. 42. [43.] 4) was distinguished from the cithara in this particular, that while the strings of the cithara passed over the sounding-board, those of the psalterion(or organon) were placed under it. Such harps are found on Egyptian (see Roselini) and also on Assyrian monuments (cf. Layard, Ninev. and Bab., plate XIII. 4).”—Keil. “In Egypt they have an instrument, evidently of the same name, santir (Lane, Mod. Eg., p. 77), which is a species of dulcimer, is stringed, and is beaten with two small sticks.”—Stuart.]—(4) V. 10 has the softer סִיפֹנְיָה instead of סוּמְפּוֹנְיָה; a form which points back no less certainly than does(the more usual term, to the Greek συμφωνια, since the sound υ is intermediate between וּ and י— Its rendering by “bagpipe” (Germ. Sackpfeife, Dudelsack) has a sufficient support in Polyb. XXXI. 4, in Saadias on this passage, and in the Italian sampogna. In addition, the name συμφωνία (Jerome, “consonantia”) is exceedingly suitable for an instrument consisting of two pipes which are passed through a leathern bag, from which their ends protrude equally above and below—the lower of which pipes, when played with the fingers like a flute, emits in screaming tones the sounds breathed into the upper and increased in force by passing through the bag (cf. Winer, Reaw. II, p. 123). We must therefore reject its interpretation by עוּגָב, “Pandean pipes” in the Heb. translation of the passage; further, its rendering as “a drum” by Isidore (Origg. III. 21); the derivation of the word by Hävernick from סוּף, “a reed;” that by Paulus from סְפִינָה, “a ship,” “the covering of a ship” (cf. a resonant frame), etc. [Stuart adduces the instrument called summarah, described and figured by Lane (Mod. Eg., II. 81, 82), still commonly used in Egypt by the boatmen, and giving two symphonious sounds, being double.]—And all kinds of music. A comprehensive supplemental phrase, similar to that which follows the names of the officers in Daniel 3:2. [By the addition “this pompous language of the world-ruler and of the herald of his power is well expressed.”—Keil.] זְמָרָא does not designate either instrumental music or “song” (Hitz.) as distinct from each other, but music in general; cf. the Sept. and Theodotion: καὶ παντὸς γένους μουσικῶν. The expression therefore does not refer to various melodies, nor to different parts of vocal music; but it does not, on the other hand, exclude such music from the ceremony; cf. the Targ. Gen. 4:21; Ez. 33:22.—Ye (shall) fall down and worship the golden image, etc. Kranichfeld observes correctly (on Daniel 3:6): “The homage which the king required to be rendered to his god (cf. on Daniel 3:14) on the occasion of this great national festival in honor of their victories (cf. on Daniel 3:1), was regarded as a test of the loyalty of the officers to the king himself, and especially in the case of those who belonged to subjugated nations. The victory of a heathen king over other tribes and nations was considered a triumph of his gods over their gods (1 Kings 20:23, 28; 2 Chron. 28:23; Isa. 36:18–20, etc.); and hostile kingdoms included the gods of their opponents among their foes, and in contrast with the usual tolerance and indifference of heathenism in regard to the worship of the gods, they refused them reverence, so long as neither party believed that its cause was lost. Thus, for instance, the different foes of the Assyrian empire are characterized on an inscription of Tiglath-pilesar as those who ‘refuse to reverence’ the god of Asshur, as the lord of Tiglath-pilesar. Opposition to the gods of a kingdom was therefore equivalent to hostility against the realm. The same inscription represents Tiglath-pilesar, for this reason, as directly imposing on the conquered nations the worship of Asshur’s god; they must prostrate themselves before this offended god, and -thus render their tribute (Pusey, Daniel, p. 444 ss.). This will illustrate the baselessness of Von Lengerke’s assertion that religious compulsion was unknown among the ancient Asiatic nations, and that they never enforced a recognition of the gods from unwilling persons. What has been remarked, serves to show that, on the contrary, an expression of homage toward the national divinity was always required, and even insisted on, whenever the political supremacy of a realm was in question; and this would be observed especially in the case of officers, upon whose loyalty the security of the realm of such divinity might depend. If Nebuchadnezzar was concerned, on the celebration of the nation’s triumph before us, to secure a recognition of his right, as the supreme ruler, to the allegiance of his subjects, and especially to the homage of the officials to whom was entrusted the administration of his empire, it follows that the compulsory requirement to do homage to the national god of his kingdom, was, in this instance, a necessary measure, aiming simply at the preservation of the realm.”

Daniel 3:6, And whoso falleth not down …. shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. מָן־דִּי, quicunque, synonymous with מָח־דִּי, Daniel 2:28 (cf. Daniel 3:11; Daniel 4:14)— בַּהּ־שַׁעְתָּא, in the same hour, literally “in it, the hour;” the suffix, which anticipates the connected noun, is annexed to the preposition; cf. Daniel 3:7, 8, 15; 4:30, 33, and also the instances in which, additionally, the preposition is itself repeated before the noun, e.g. בֵּהּ בְּלֵילְיָא Daniel 5:30; cf. Daniel 5:12. [“The frequent pleonastic use, in the later Aramaic, of the union of a preposition with a suffix anticipating the following noun, has in the Bibl. Chald. generally a certain emphasis, for the pronominal suffix is manifestly used demonstratively, in the sense, ‘even this’.—Keil.] שָׁעָח, after the Arabic, is literally, “the quickly expiring, the quickly passing,” hence a moment, in which sense the term is often found in the Targums (=Hebr. רָגַע). In Daniel it always has the meaning of “hour,” as appears especially from Daniel 4:16 [19]. [The passage here referred to, however, does not support this later or Rabbinical import to the word, which is therefore here, as elsewhere in Daniel, to be rendered moment.] The word does not seem to be related to the verb שָׁעָה “to see;” the root from which it is derived signifies in the Arabic “celeriter ire, currere.”—אַתּוּן ,according to the Arabic, literally, “a furrow, excavation” (whence probably: a lime pit), designates an excavated smelting furnace in the form of a pit, a fire pit, which sense is also expressed in the corresponding Ethiop. אַתּוֹן, and by the originally synonymous, but not essentially related Heb. תַּנּוּר. The smelting furnace here referred to, however, being designed for the infliction of the death penalty on criminals by means of fire, was arranged according to Daniel 3:22 and 26, so that at least one, if not more of its sides, rose as perpendicular (or inclined) surfaces above the earth, analogous to the construction of our lime-kilns and furnaces, and probably also to the brickkiln (מַלְבּן) at Tahpanhes in Egypt, which is referred to in Jer. 43:9 et seq. The principal opening, by which fuel and other materials designed for burning (or smelting) were introduced into the furnace, was above (see Daniel 3:22); a second, for the removal of slag, cinders, etc., or the molten metal, was arranged below, in one of the sides, and permitted persons standing before the furnace to observe the material in its interior (the תְּרַע Daniel 3:26; cf. Daniel 3:24, 25). The passage Jer. 29:22 (“The Lord make thee like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire”) attests that the Babylonians were accustomed to burn condemned criminals, and perhaps prisoners of war in such furnaces, even prior to the time of Daniel. The Moabites employed the same method of inflicting capital punishment, according to Am. 2:1, as did also the Israelites, according to the Keri of 2 Sam. 12:31. [“That burning was not an unusual punishment in the East is sufficiently known. As to the Persians, see Brissonius. De Reg. Pers., II. cap. 216.… Chardin (who was in Persia A. D. 1671–7) relates that in a time of scarcity, two furnaces were kept burning a whole month, in order to consume such as exacted more than the lawful price of food (Voyages, VI. p. 118).”—Stuart.] The genitive clause נוּרָא יָקִידְתָּא, “of the burning fire,” exemplifies the terribly cruel and frightful character of the threatened punishment.

Daniel 3:7. Therefore at that time when all the people heard the sound of the cornet, etc. [“בֵּהּזִמְנָא, (cf. also Daniel 3:8) is interchanged with בְּעִדָּנָא, at the time (Daniel 3:5 and 15); but it is to be distinguished from בַּהּ־שַׁעְתָּא, at the same moment, Daniel 3:6 and 15, for שָׁעָא, or שָׁעָח, has in the Bib. Chald. only the meaning instant, moment (cf. Daniel 4:16, 30; 5:5), and acquires the signification short time, hour, first in the Targ. and Rabbins.”—Keil.] Only five, instead of six, sorts of musical instruments are here mentioned; but the omission of the סוּמְפֹּנְיָּא hardly be designed, as appears from Daniel 3:10 and 15. It is probably to be attributed to the haste of the writer, which also caused the orthography of פסנטריו with ט instead of ת in this passage, and only here.

Daniel 3:8–12. The companions of Daniel charged with transgressing the royal command. Wherefore at that time certain Chaldæans came near, etc. “Wherefore,” i.e., in view of the worship rendered by all the people, excepting only the Jews, to the idol image. Daniel does not mention that it was refused by the Jews, leaving it to be inferred, as a matter of course.—And accused (or slandered) the Jews (cf. Daniel 6:25); literally, “and ate the pieces (of flash) of the Jews”—a phrase found also in the Arabic and the Syriac, which expresses both the murder caused by the slanderous tongue, and the gloating over the fragmentary remains of the victim. Cf. the German “Jemanden kurz und klein machen, an ihrn kein gutes Haar lassen.” It appears from the indefinite “Chaldæan men” that the malicious informers were not specifically Chaldæan priests or wise men (this would have been indicated by פּשְׂדִּין merely, cf. Daniel 2:2), but people generally, who were of Chaldæan descent. [“That which was odious in their report was, that they used the instance of disobedience to the king’s command on the part of the Jewish officers as an occasion of removing them from their offices,— that their denunciation of them arose from their envying the Jews their position of influence, as in Daniel 6:5 (4), ff.”—Keil]

Daniel 3:9. O king, live for ever. Cf. Daniel 2:4.

Daniel 3:12. There are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon. A clear reference to the close of the preceding section (Daniel 2:49). The mention of their exalted official rank was designed to emphasize the dangerous feature connected with the disobedience of such men to the royal command, and also to direct attention to the blackness of their ingratitude toward their royal benefactor.—These men, O king, have not regarded thee; i.e., thy commands, אִלֵּךְ “these,” is peculiar to the Biblical Chaldee of Daniel and Ezra, and is not found in the Targums, which have אִלֵּין or אֵלֶּה instead (Winer, § 9. p. 29).—They serve not thy god, nor worship the golden image, etc. The former of these charges is related to the latter as the general to the particular; the general lack of reverence for the gods of Babylon on the part of the three men, which had been formerly observed, was now demonstrated by a flagrant example. Because of this evident relation to each other between the two clauses—a relation that is again brought out in the parallel Daniel 3:18 (and possibly in Daniel 3:14; see on the passage)—the Kethib לֵאלָהָיךְ “thy gods.” must be preferred to the Keri לֵאלָהָךְ “thy god;” which has been the case accordingly, in Theodotion and the Vulgate. Compare, although it is superfluous, Daniel 3:28 b, where לְכָל־ אֱלָהּ shows clearly that a number of gods were in question. [“The Chaldæans knew the three Jews, who were so placed as to be well known, and at the same time envied, before this. They had long known that they did not worship idols; but on this occasion, when their religion made it necessary for the Jews to disobey the king’s command, they made use of their knowledge.”—Hitzig. It is barely possible that the proposal of erecting such an idolatrous image and requiring the whole realm, and especially the public officials to adore it, originated, as in chap. 6. with some such malicious and envious enemies of Judaism.]—Why was not Daniel included in this charge of the Chaldæans? To this question that so readily presents itself, no answer can be given that will be sufficiently assured to exclude all others; but we are not on that account compelled (with 5. Lengerke) to find here a new improbability, and a testimony against the credibility of the book. Daniel might be omitted from the number of the accused, (1) because he was too firmly established in the favor of the king, to justify the attempt of a slanderer to destroy him (Calvin, Hävernick, etc.); (2) because he was absent on business, or sick (Luderwald, Jahn); (3) because his position, as chief of the magian caste, would remove him from the gaze of the multitude, and would also relieve him from the obligation of prostrating himself before the idol, which more immediately affected the secular officials (see on Daniel 3:2, Kranichfeld). All of these explanations are admissible; and very possibly any two of the reasons adduced might combine to cause his absence, e. g. Nos. 1 and 2, or 2 and 3. The opinion of Hengstenberg however (with whom Hitzig agrees), that according to Daniel 2:49, Daniel filled no office of superior power and influence in the state, but that he at once transferred to his three friends the dignity of a viceroy which was offered to him and contented himself with the spiritual rank of chief of the Magi, cannot be entertained. See to the contrary Daniel 2:48, 49, where it was shown that, together with this spiritual dignity, Daniel must have possessed considerable influence in the political field, although not bearing the title of a recognized officer of the state. [“But the circumstance that Daniel, if he were present, did not exert himself in behalf of his three friends, may be explained from the quick execution of Babylonian justice; provided some higher reason did not determine him confidently to commit the decision of the matter to the Lord his God.”—Keil.]

Daniel 3:13–15. The accused summoned to renounce Jehovah. Then Nebuchadnezzar in rage and fury commanded to bring, etc. בִּרְגַז וַחֲמָא The use of the synonymous terms expresses the violence of the king’s rage. The Inf. Aphel לְהַ־ְףָרָה “to let them be brought,” is found also in Daniel 5:2,13.—Then they brought these men before the king; rather, “Then these men were brought before the king.” הֵיתָיוּ is not to be taken transitively, “they brought these men” (Chr. B. Michaelis, etc.); nor is it to be explained as a Hebraizing Hophal form (Buxt., Hävernick, 5. Lengerke). It is rather a passive form of the Aphel after the manner of the Hebrew [Hophal], of which the 3d pers. masc. sing, is הֵיתִי the fem. חֵיתַית (Daniel 6:18), while the regular participle with a passive signification would be מֵיתַי and the active partic. Aphel מֵיתֵי (cf. Hitzig and Kranichfeld on this passage).

Daniel 3:14. Of purpose (marg.), O Shadrach … do ye not serve my god? The plural לֵאלָהַי “my gods,” is perhaps admissible here, in analogy with Daniel 3:12 and 18 (Hitzig); but in this instance the singular is especially suitable, as referring directly to the image of the idol immediately before them; and there is no Keri, in this case, recommending the plural—הַצְדָא literally, “Was it design?”—a combination of the interrogative הֲ with צְדָא, a noun that occurs in no other place, but which may be explained by “fraudulent design, evil purpose” [contumacy] on the analogy of the Hebrew צְדִיָּה (Num. 35:20, 21). The question, “Does an evil purpose lead you to refuse to serve my god”? evidently has a substantial basis in the situation as described; for these men had by no means presented themselves at once in the festive assembly, as is shown by the command to “bring them.” Despite their official station, they had rather endeavored to avoid any participation in the ceremonies. Nothing could therefore be more natural than the question of the king, as to whether their absence was grounded on an actual disobedience or evil design, or not. The usual interpretation of חַצְדָא is therefore to be retained, and the departures from it must be rejected; e.g., the rendering of Hävernick (“Is it because ye mock, or despise my gods, that ye do not worship them?”), and by Fürst and Kranichfeld (who conceive הצדא as an adverbial Aphel noun, from צְדַא, and thus avoid the interrogative sense of the clause entirely: “In mockery ye not serve my god !”). [The interpretation of the Engl. Bible. “Is it true,” is not only unsustained by the etymological signification of the word, but at variance with the circumstances of the case; for their absence was a matter of fact, and their declining to worship was only a question of inadvertence or setted determination. “The king, seemingly with more than usual moderation, first inquires into the truth of the accusation.” (Rather he first opens the way for the most favorable construction of the omission.) “He probably suspected the accusers of envious motives, and was desirous of sparing these Hebrews on whom he had bestowed special favors.”—Stuart.]

Daniel 3:15. Now if ye be ready that at what time …. ye worship; i.e. “at the time … to worship. This conditional clause of a positive character may be readily completed from the negative conditional clause which immediately follows, whose apodosis involves the contrary of the thought here required; hence, e.g., “nothing shall be done to you; ye shall escape the death by fire.” The same construction [aposiopesis] occurs in Ex. 32:32; Luke 13:9. It is also frequent in the classics, e.g., Homer, Il. 1:135; Plato, Protag. 15; and likewise in the Arabic.—כְּעַו, at the beginning of the sentence, corresponds to the Heb. וְעַתָּה; the Vulgate renders it correctly by “Nunc ergo.”—And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hand? Not exactly a direct blasphemy of the God of the Jew (Hitzig), but still a challenge addressed to Him in a presumptuous spirit and with a haughty sense of superior power; cf. Isa. 37:10; and supra, on Daniel 3:1.

Daniel 3:16–18. The steadfast confession of the three Jews. Shadrach …. answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, etc. Thus the Masoretic punctuation, which, however, is departed from by all the ancient translations. The Septuagint introduces a βασιλεῦ, “O king,” before the vocative Nebuchadnezzar, and Theodotion and the Vulgate connect the name of the king with the preceding dative case, and therefore place the Athnach under נְבוּכ׳. But there is no ground for either of these variations: for while on the one hand, the boldness of the reply is indicated at the be ginning by the word לְמַלְכָּא, the direct address by name, on the other hand, conveys an emphasis and solemnity that fully comport with the situation. The vocative מַלְכָּא in Daniel 3:17 shows that the form of this address, which contains merely the name of the king, and omits the royal title, was not designed as an expression of contempt. Cf. Daniel 3:14, where Nebuchadnezzar likewise addresses the three Hebrews simply by name.—We are not careful to answer thee in this matter, i.e., it is not necessary. The primary emphasis falls on אְנַחְנָא, as appears from the words הֵי אִיתַי אְֵלָהָנָא at the beginning of the next verse. Hence the sense is, “It is not we that are compelled to answer thee (i.e., to manage our case before thee), but if our God can deliver us,” etc. On הַשְׁחִיי cf. Daniel 4:16; 5:25. The root חֲשַׁח is foreign to the language of the Targums. but is found in the Syriac, where it signifies “to be useful, suitable,” while in the Bibl. Chaldee it expresses the idea of being necessary (e.g., Ezra 6:9; cf. חַשְׁחוּת “need,” Ezra 7:20), or of standing in need of (as in this place).—עַל־דְּנָה, “upon this,” is connected with the following פתגם, by the Sept., Theodotion, Vulgate, Hävernick, etc.: “to answer thee upon this word (or matter);” but in that case פתגם must be in the Stat, emphaticus, despite the preceding demonstrative; cf. Daniel 4:15; 2:32; Ezra 6:11.—פרּגם is a word unquestionably borrowed from the Persian (cf. the Introd. § 1, note 3), but found also in the later Hebrew of the book of Ecclesiastes (see on Ecc. 8:11). It is compounded from the Zend preposition paiti (= prati, πρός) and the verb gam, “to go,” and accordingly, signifies “what is going forward, a message” (cf. mod. Pers. paiam, “a messenger,” and the Armen. patgam, “a message”), from which results the further meaning of “a command, edict, word.” The latter is the sense in this place. The idea of “answer” results from its connection with the verb חֲתִיב, “to give back.”

Daniel 3:17. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us; rather, “If our God whom we serve, can save us.” חֵן is not the Heb. הֵן or חִנֵּה, and cannot be rendered by ecce enim, with the Vulgate, nor by a causal γάρ, with the Sept. It corresponds rather, as always in Daniel, to the Heb. אִם, “if,” and is here, as in Daniel 3:15, in contrast with a חֵו לָא (see Daniel 3:17). In this case, however, the conditional clause is followed by its apodosis. which begins, as the athnach correctly indicates, with the words מִף־אַתּוּן. יָכִל, “to be able,” does not, of course, refer to the ability of God, as limited by any bounds whatever, but as ethically conditioned (cf. Gen. 19:29). The pious Jews were not probably concerned to maintain the perfection of the Divine power in opposition to the king, but at the most, their own worthiness to find mercy at the hands of the Almighty (cf. Daniel 2:18; 6:22; 9:15–19),—and perhaps not even this,—for the whole may have been spoken from the point of view occupied by the heathen hearers of the three Hebrews, who certainly doubted Jehovah’s ability to save His servants. In order to refer these opponents, and above all the king himself, with all possible emphasis to the test of experience, upon which everything depended, the Jews employ the words, “If our God—can save” (thus corresponding to Daniel 3:17), although it would have been more in harmony with their Israelitish consciousness to say, “If He will save” (cf. Hitzig on this passage). [“There lies in the answer, ‘If our God will save us, then …. and if not, know, O king, that we will not serve thy gods,’ neither audacity, nor a superstitious expectation of some miracle, (Daniel 3:17), nor fanaticism (Daniel 3:18), as Berth., 5. Leng., and Hitz. maintain, but only the confidence of faith and a humble submission to the will of God.”—Keil. In the most extreme event they prefer death to idolatry.]

Daniel 3:19–23. The execution. Then …. and the form (the expression) of his visage was changed against Shadrach, etc. The A. V. is literal. The Kethib אֶשְׁתַּנִּו is conformed to the Genit. אַנְפּוֹהִי. while the Keri אֶשְׁתַּנִי agrees with the Nom. sing. צְלֵם. The former construction, as being more rare and difficult, is to be considered genuine.—Seven times more than it was wont to be heated; thus Bertholdt, Gesenius, and others, in agreement with the A. V. But חֲזִי, passive part. of חזה, “to see,” is constantly used in the Targums in the sense of “suitable, appropriate” (literally, “what has been selected as appropriate,” quod conveniens visum est), and the construction with לְ, c. Infinit., shows that the same signification is required here. Therefore, “seven times beyond its appropriate heating;” i.e., seven times more than was necessary (παῤ ὃ ἔδει, Sept). [The sense thus yielded, however, is more inept than the other, and the impersonal construction of the former verb (חזה), together with the active form of the latter (למזיהּ), rather favors the same rendering. In either case the ultimate thought is the unusually intense fire.]—The command to heat the furnace exactly seven times beyond its proper measure, has a parallel in judicial procedures and limitations, where seven as a number indicates a full atonement or satisfaction, cf. Lev. 26:18–24; Deut. 38:7 et seq.; Prov. 6:31; Matt. 18:21 et seq.; and perhaps passages like Isa. 11:15; 30:26; Psa. 12:7, etc. This judicial bearing of the number seven, which was familiar to all the ancient Oriental nations and current among them, is the only respect in which the number is here employed, and it affords the only explanation of the phrase as used by the Babylonian king. Kranichfeld’s remark is less appropriate, when he observes that the number seven serves in this instance to express the idea of intensity, because here, “where a notorious injury had been inflicted on the national divinity,” no other than a pre-eminently sacred number would be adequate; but this may be admitted rather than the general opinion that in this case seven was “merely the indefinite expression of around number” (Hävernick, etc.)

Daniel 3:20. And he commanded the most mighty men … in his army. בְּחַיְלֵהּ must not be limited to the life or body guards, against which view the comprehensive and indefinite signification of the term חיל is, in itself, a sufficient testimony; but in addition, the selection of executioners from the army is seen to be well grounded and capable of an easy explanation, in view of the fact that the task was not without danger, and would require the services of especially trustworthy men; and the presence of the troops at a religious ceremony is not strange, since a great festive procession was one of its features.—To bind Shadrach …. and to (rather “in order to”) cast them into the burning fiery furnace. The second inf. לְמִרְמֵא is subordinated to the first, לְכַפַּתם, as more directly pointing out the special design.

Daniel 3:21. Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, etc; rather, their undergarments, coats, etc. The haste, as here implied, with which the sentence was executed, is in strong contrast with the direction given immediately before, to heat the furnace more intensely than usual; for the newly added fuel would require time before it could burn with sufficient force, in a furnace of considerable size. But the rage of an inflamed Oriental despot allows itself no time in which to quietly consider all the circumstances connected with any given case.—Three articles of clothing are specified as belonging to the costume of the three Hebrews, which may have constituted the distinguishing features of their official dress; and upon these follows the generalizing וּלְבוּשֵׁיהךֹן, “and their (other) garments” (cf. Daniel 3:2 and 5) [as “coverings for the feet and the head” (Keil)]. There would be no need to mention such a variety of garments in the case of men of inferior rank.—(1) The סַרְבָּלִין were probably long and closely-fitting under-garments, that covered the whole body (shirts, tunics); for the word is most readily explained by comparison with the Chald. quadril. verb סַרְבֵּל, texit, operuit. It occurs in the Syriac and the Talmuds, with the signification of pallium (hence “mantles”—Luther, Gesenius, and many others); and in the Arabic, where it becomes serbal, it designates a long under-garment for females, indusium mulieris. Others, among moderns, especially Hävernick, 5. Lengerke, and Hitzig, identify סַרְבֵּל with the Pers. shalwár, Chald. שַׁרְוָל, and therefore translate it by “hosen,” justifying this opinion by an appeal to Symmachus, the Vulgate, and also to Hesychius, Suidas, etc. (who explain the later Greek σαράβαρα by τὰ περὶ τὰς κνημῖδας ἐνδύματα, βρακία, σκελεαί). But the Pers. shalwâr appears to differ fundamentally from our word, and to be related to shul, “the hip” (Sanscr. khura, Latin crus), while it bears no relation to the Zend sáravâro, “covering for the head” (from sára, “head,” and vri, “to cover”) in either sound or signification. The Greek σαράβαρα (Mid. Age saraballa), in the sense of “hosen,” seems, on the other hand, to owe this interpretation to the Arabic sarawîl “a covering for the thighs,” and also to the Pers. shalvár; but this sense was not attributed to it by the earliest Greek translators. Theodotion, indeed, renders סַרְבָּלין by σαράβαρα, but reserves the interpretation by “hosen” for the third garment, כַּרְבְּלָן, which he translates περικνημῖδες; while the Sept. (and Aquila) evidently failed to comprehend the meaning of סרבלין, since it renders it in this place by ὑποδήματα, but adopts σαράβαρα in Daniel 3:27. Upon the whole, the first named garment in this passage is probably identical with the κιθὼν ποδηνεκὴς λίνεος, which Herodotus (i. 195) describes as the innermost garment worn by the Babylonians.—(2) The פַּשִישִׁין, or, as the Keri prefers, פַּטְשִׁין, were not “hammers,” of course, although the root פטשׁ, “to spread, extend” (cf. פשט, “to spread out”), is probably the same from which פַּטִּישׁ, “a hammer,” is derived; cf. the Gr. πατάσσω, “to strike.” According to the Hebrew translator of the Chaldee sections of Daniel, פְּטִישׁ in this place corresponds to the Heb. כֻּתֹכֶת, and therefore designates a wider and more flowing under-garment than the סַרְבָּל, which answers to the second, woolen tunic (εἰρίνεος κιθών), which the Babylonians wore, cf. Herod. 1. c. The derivation from the Arabic fuds, “a spider, fine web,” according to which the word would rather designate the innermost, closest, and finest garmant (Hitzig), seems too precarious, because of the harsh t-sound. The identification of the word with the Gr. πέτασος, “a hat, covering for the head” (Bertholdt), is entirely too far-fetched, since πέτασος was used by the Greeks exclusively to designate the head-covering of the ἔφηβοι, and since the Chaldee language was certainly able to command other than Greek terms with which to designate the Oriental turban (e.g., in Ezek. 23:15 we find טְבּוּלִים). The same reference of פְּטִישׁ back to πέτασος seems to underlie the τιάραις, by which the Sept., Theodotion, and Theodoret render the word in this passage.—(3) The כַּרְבְּלָא appears to have been the third Babylonian garment mentioned by Herodotus, the χλανίδιον λευκόν, which was worn over the two κιθῶνες; for this word is based on the quadril. verb כִּרְבֵּל, “to gird, wind about,” which is also found in the later Hebrew, cf. 1 Chron. 15:27, מְכֻרְבָּל בִּמְעִיל בּוּע. [According to Rawlinson (Five Monarchies, iii. 2 sq.), the ordinary Babylonian dress of the lower orders of men, was “but one garment, a tunic, generally ornamented with a diagonal fringe, and reaching from the shoulder to a little above the knee. It was confined round the waist by a belt.” The head and feet were bare. The richer persons are represented on the cylinders as having “a fillet or head-band, not a turban, round the head. They wear generally the same sort of a tunic as the others, but over it they have a long robe, shaped like a modern dressing-gown, except that it has no sleeves, and does not cover the right shoulder. In a few cases only, we see underneath this open gown a long under-dress or robe, such as that described by Herodotus.” “In lieu of the long robe reaching to the feet, which seems to have been the ordinary costume of the higher classes, we observe sometimes a shorter but still a similar garment—a sort of coat without sleeves, fringed down both sides, and reaching a little below the knee.” “With rare exceptions the Babylonians are represented with bare feet on the monuments.” “The girdle was an essential feature of Babylonian costumes, common to high and low.” “The dress of the priests was a long robe or gown, flounced and striped, over which they seem to have worn an open jacket of a similar character. A long scarf or ribbon depended from behind down their backs. They carried on their heads an elaborate crown or mitre” (ib.).]—The garments which are specially mentioned, are accordingly referred to in the order of their succession from within outward, “under-garments, coats, mantles”—a climax which serves to indicate that because of the excessive haste under which this transaction took place, the victims were not relieved of their under, nor even of their outer garments. [Or, as Keil suggests, “in the easily inflammable nature of these materials, namely, of the fine long linen gown (cf. Herod.), we have perhaps to seek the reason on account of which the accused were bound in their clothes.”]

Daniel 3:22, 23. Because the king’s command was urgent, or furious. “Because” (כָּל קְבֵל דְּנָח) refers to what has preceded, and the clause מִן־דִּי וגו׳ (=Heb. מֵאֲשֶׁר, “therefore”) points out this reference more fully; “because” is therefore equivalent to “namely because,” and the וְ before אַתּוּנָא expresses the consequence: “and because in consequence the furnace was in the mean time exceedingly heated up.” With regard to מַחְצְפָח “strict, raging” (not “hurried”) see on Daniel 2:15.—The flame of the fire slew those men that took up, etc. It is not stated how and at what portion of the furnace the death of these executioners took place, nor could it be demonstrated with any degree of probability; but it is not difficult to assume that, owing to the excessive violence of the fire, a strong draught of air, while sweeping through the compressed flames, might blow them in the direction of the executioners on their issuing from the upper opening of the furnace, while leaving the three victims unharmed at the bottom of the furnace, and continuing to burn above their heads without attacking them. The deliverance of the condemned Hebrews is still miraculous, even on this assumption, and the contrast between the extraordinary strictness of the means employed, and the security of the followers of Jehovah in the face of the rage of men, which is so strongly emphasized by our book (and also by the “Song of the three children,” Daniel 3:46–50), is still a notable fact. Cf. the Dog-ethical remarks, No. 3. [“If the three were brought up to the furnace, it must have had a mouth above, through which the victims could be cast into it. When heated to an ordinary degree, this could be done without danger to the men who performed this service; but in the present case the heat of the fire was so great that the servants themselves perished by it. This circumstance also is mentioned to show the greatness of the miracle by which the three were preserved unhurt in the midst of the furnace. The same thing is intended by the repetition of the word מִכַפְּסִין, bound, Daniel 3:23, which, moreover, is purposely placed at the close of the passage to prepare for the contrast שְׁרִין, at liberty, free from the bonds, Daniel 3:25.”—Keil.]—The Sept., and also Theodotion and the Vulg., influenced probably by an already existing Hebrew or Greek tradition (see Introd. § 11), introduce after Daniel 3:23 the apocryphal fragment, “The prayer of Azariah and Song of the three children” (προσευχὴ Αζαρίου καὶ ὺμνος τῶν τριῶν), which is broken by a shorter narrative section (Daniel 3:46–50, or also Daniel 3:22–26), devoted to a detailed description of the subject of Daniel 3:22, 23, and containing especially the statement, that the turning aside of the flames from the three men was due to an angel of the Lord.

Daniel 3:24–26. The liberation of the three men from the furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, viz.: from the chair on which he had been seated opposite the side-door of the furnace, and from whence he had witnessed the execution. He did not seat himself in that position after the victims were cast into the furnace, for the purpose of gloating over their tortures (Hitzig); but, as a king, he was doubtless seated before (although all others might be standing), and his position probably enabled him to see the inside of the furnace, in whose immediate vicinity his chair was placed. It is not necessary to assume that his seat was so near the opening of the furnace, that he could view the interior perfectly, and thus observe the three men together with their heavenly protector; for his words in Daniel 3:25 may be readily explained on the hypothesis of a merely spiritual or visional sight.—Spake, and said to his counsellors. The חַדָּ‍ֽנְרִין are councillors of state or ministers, consiliarii, socii in judicio (Sept. φίλοι; Theodot. μελιστᾶνες; Vulg. and Syr. optimates). The word is scarcely the Chaldee דָּ‍ֽבְרִין, “leaders,” with the prefixed Hebrew article ה which in this instance, like the Arabic article in “Alcoran,” “Almanac,” has become inseparably united to the word (Gesenius); but the ח, must probably be regarded as an organic element of the first half of this compound word (as it must be considered), whether that part be traced back to the Sanscr. sahas, “power” (Hitzig), or it be compared with the Pers. hamd, “judgment, counsel” (5. Bohlen, Kranichfeld). The second half בָּר is, without doubt, the Pers. vār, “possessor, owner,” as in דְּרָבְרִין and נְּדָבְרִין, Daniel 3:2. In regard to Ewald’s attempt to identify the terms הֲדָבַר and גְּדָבַר directly, see supra, on Daniel 3:2. Compare generally the repeated mention of these prominent royal officials, in Daniel 3:27; Daniel 4:33; 6:8.

Daniel 3:25. Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire. מַהְלְכִין is a regular part. Aphel, as in 4:34; Cf. the Chaldaizing מַחְלְכִים in the Heb. of Zech. 3:7. In opposition to Hitzig, who regards the form as a metamorphosed part. Pael, basing his opinion on Daniel 4:26, see Kranichfeld on this passage.—And the form of the fourth is like the son of God; rather “like a son of the gods.” It is by no means necessary to believe that this vision of the king which revealed to him this “son of the gods” בַּר־אֱלָהִין, of plural אלהין in Daniel 3:12 and 18) in company with the three Jews, was an objective seeing. It must be observed, that here as well as in Daniel 3:28, where the son of the gods is designated as the “angel” of the God of the Jews, Daniel does not himself attest his appearance, nor does he refer to additional witnesses, but in each case mentions the king only as the authority for the occurrence of the event. Kranichfeld’s hypothesis that the king employed the term “angel” (מלאךְ) in the second reference to the son of the gods, in consequence of the instruction (which is to be read between the lines after Daniel 3:27) imparted to him meanwhile by the rescued Jews, is unnecessary, and without support in the context. From his heathen Babylonian point of view the king could readily characterize an appearance from the celestial world which he fancied he had seen, either as a “son” or a “messenger” of the gods (or of one of the gods—for only thus would he conceive of the national God of the Jews, despite Daniel 3:26). That theogonic ideas were unknown to the ancient Babylonians, and that the expression “a son of the gods” must therefore be regarded as a conception of Hellenistic origin, which was foreign to the Orient until after the march of Alexander, as Bertholdt asserts, is wholly untrue; and it is with entire justice that Hengstenberg (p. 159 et seq.) while opposing it, refers to the marriage between Bel and Mylitta and to their offspring. On the conception of a messenger of the gods, compare also the god Nebo, the “writer of the gods,” who corresponds fully to the Greek Hermes. The Sept., however, renders even the בַּר־אֱלָחִין of this verse by ἄγγελος θεοῦ, and thus avoids all reference to heathen conceptions.

Daniel 3:26. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace. On תְּרַע, see on Daniel 3:6—Ye servants of the most high God. The king thus designates the national God of the Jews from his heathen stand-point, because he has just received an overpowering impression of His greatness, and therefore regards Him as mightier than all his Babylonian divinities. Cf. אְָלָהּ אֱלָהִין, Daniel 2:47; also the Gr. ῦψιστος θεός, as applied to Zeus by Pindar, Nem. 1:90.—אֱלָא עִלָּיָא corresponds exactly to the Hebrew אֵל עֶלְיוֹן, Gen. 14:18. Instead of עִלָּיָּא the Keri has עַלָּאָח in this place, Daniel 4:14, and nine times elsewhere in the book—substituting the later form, which is usual in the Targums, for the more ancient; Cf. the similar Keris in Daniel 2:5 and 40.

Daniel 3:27–30. The effect of this incident. And the princes …. being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, etc.; literally, that the fire had possessed no power over their bodies,—an antiptosis, like Gen. 1:3. The Chaldee of the Targums constantly substitutes גּוּשְׁמָא, a fuller form, and analogous to the Syriac, for the נֶּשָׁם, גִּשְׁמָא, “body,” of Daniel.—Neither were their coats (under-garments) changed. The mention of this particular article of clothing only, as being uninjured, might lead to the conclusion that the remaining, or outer garments, had actually been harmed by the fire; but that the writer intended no such toning down of the marvelous nature of the event, is shown by the words, “nor the smell of fire had passed upon them.” The pointing of the expression “on them” (בְּהוֹן) refers indeed, to the persons themselves, but it furnishes an indirect testimony to the preservation of their clothing that is unmistakable; and the testimony of the passage as a whole, relating to their bodies, hair, and under-clothing, and also to the absence of any odor of the burning, constitutes a gradation analogous to that of Daniel 3:21. Only one of the four garments there referred to is here mentioned, and the first is selected, in order to recall that enumeration.

Daniel 3:28. Blessed be the God of Shadrach, etc. The doxology corresponds in form with those recorded in Daniel 4:31 et seq. and 6:26 et seq., but is addressed to Jehovah himself, in a precatory or explanatory form, Cf. Gen. 9:26; Luke 1:68.—That trusted in Him, and have changed the king’s word; rather, “and transgressed the king’s command.” The וּ before מִלַּת is illative: “and in consequence,” or, “and by reason of their trust, they transgressed the king’s command;” Cf. supra on Daniel 3:22. שְׁנָא מִלַּת מַלְכָּא is, literally, “to change the word of the king, to alter it (criminally).” The same idiom occurs in Ezra 6:11; cf. חַלֹף חק, Isa. 24:5.—And yielded their bodies; Cf. Acts 15:26: ἀνθρώποις παραδεδωκόι τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ κυρίου

Daniel 3:29. Therefore, I make a decree; literally, “And by me is issued a decree.” שִׂים טְעֵם as in Daniel 3:9, and also in Ezra 6:11, which latter passage is upon the whole very similar to this (e.g., because of its use of the phrase שְׁנָא מלת מ׳), but is not for this reason to be regarded as the model, from which the alleged pseudo-Daniel copied in this place (as Hitzig contends). The writer of this book displays too thorough an acquaintance with the Chaldee, to warrant the assumption of its composition by the process of a laborious and clumsy compilation of extracts taken from Ezra and other ancient documents; and in addition, nothing is more probable than that royal edicts should employ stereotyped phrases to enforce obedience to law, threaten punishments, etc.—whether the respective kings were Chaldæns or Persians (cf. also Kranichfeld on this passage).—Which speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, etc. The Kethib שָׁלָה, a Hebraized form for שָׁלָא is not to be changed, with Hitzig, into שֵׁלָה (= שְׁאֵלָה = דָּבָר “anything whatever”), nor to be replaced by the Keri שָׁלוּ, which is used in the Kethib of Daniel 6:5; Ezra 4:22; 6:9. שָׁלָח, “a fault, single error, offence,” “is rather a concrete term, which is related to the abstract שָׁלוּ, “error,” precisely as the Heb. כְּלִמָּח, “a disgraceful thing,” is to כְּלִמוּת (Jer. 23:40), “disgrace.” or the Chaldee מַלְכָּה (Dan. 5:12) to מַלְכוּ, etc.—Shall be cut in pieces. This threat, which was evidently a stereotyped formula in royal edicts, and in view of the customs of Oriental despots might also be employed with reference to minor offences, has already been explained in Daniel 2:5.—Because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort. Thus also, among recent expositors, Kranichfefd, who takes כִּדְנָה = οῦτως, ita; cf. Sept., Theodotion, Vulg., in a feminine sense. The masculine form, however, which accords better with the syntax and the context, is sufficiently supported by Daniel 2:43; 6:29. Therefore, “that can deliver as He can.”—Then the king made Shadrach, ……, to prosper (marg.) in the province of Babylon. חַצְלַח is not intransitive, as in Daniel 6:29, but has a transitive signification, “to bless,” and is accompanied by לְ of the person prospered, as in the Heb. of Neh. 1:11; 2:20; Cf. Gen. 39:23; 2 Chron. 26:5. The reference to “the province of Babylon” indicates the nature of this blessing or prospering, viz.: as a repeated endowment with a position of exalted dignity and power; Cf. Daniel 2:49. The expression “made to prosper” is therefore equivalent to “gave prosperity and great power.”

ETHICO-FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES RELATED TO THE HISTORY OF SALVATION, APOLOGETICAL REMARKS, AND HOMILETICAL SUGGESTIONS

1. General preliminary observation.—A correct estimate of the foregoing section imperatively requires the recognition of the peculiarities of the style of writing employed. That style will serve in a greater degree than any other of the first six chapters, to exemplify the repeated observations in the Introduction respecting the “theocratic chronicling style” of our prophet (cf. Introd. § 4, note 2; § 9, note 1). The whole of the event described is considered emphatically in the light of the strictest theocratic pragmatism. It is Jehovah who preserves His devoted confessors in the midst of the flames. The heathen executors of the barbarous decree, and not they, are destroyed. The tyrant, at first blasphemous and presumptuously defiant, is compelled to humble himself, and reverently to acknowledge the superior power of the only true God, in the end. At the same time, the narrative possesses a peculiar breadth and minuteness of detail, combined with a condensed brevity and force that recall the lapidary style of records relating to the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. Observe the frequent repetition of identical formulas, and of changes and series of names (including both appellatives and proper names). The phrase, “The image which king Nebuchadnezzar had caused to be set up,” is found no less than ten times in the first fifteen verses; three times we meet the expression “not serve the gods (or “the god”) of the king, nor worship the golden image erected by him,” and the characteristic triad “peoples, tribes, and tongues” recurs as often, as does also the triad of officials, “satraps, governors, and præfects.” The sounding list of official titles, “satraps, governors, præfects, chief-judges, treasurers, judges, lawyers,” is repeated at least once; the names of the six instruments, “the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer” three times (on Daniel 3:6, where the “dulcimer” is omitted, see the exegetical remarks); while the proper names Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego recur no less than thirteen times. The explanation of this extraordinary wealth in repetitions, is evidently not to be sought in the careless style of the writer, but in his well-defined intention to impart a solemn and weighty character to the narrative. This hypothesis, however, which is supported by the frequent use of a similar style by both earlier and later writers of the Old-Testament Scriptures,—e.g., by the Elohist in the Pentateuch, among the former, and by the writer of the books of Chronicles among the latter—is not of itself sufficient to explain the numerous repetitions. It will be necessary to assume, in addition, a designed imitation of the solemn phrases and stereotyped formulas employed in the official documents and records of the Babylonian empire, on the part of our prophetic author. The propriety of this method was already apparent in the preceding chapter, in view of the repeated expression, “The decree has been published by me” (Daniel 3:5 and 8); and also with regard to the triad “scribes, conjurers, and Chaldæans” (Daniel 3:2 and 10), and in the phrases repeated in this chapter, although not found in the former: “O king, live for ever,” and “ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses be made dunghills” (cf. 2:4 with 3:9, and 2:5 with 3:29). The fact that such stereotyped formulas and repeated phrases in an unchanged form are considerably more numerous in this chapter, than in either the chapters that precede or the three narrative sections that follow, indicates that the writer preferred the documentary and chronicling style in this connection, because the subject-matter afforded greater inducements than any other for this choice, and possibly also because he had a special inclination to narrate the event in question in the manner of a theocratic chronicler.—The peculiar coloring of the style of narration in this section unquestionably affords an evidence of especial significance, for the hypothesis postulated in the Introd. § 4, note 2 (in agreement with Kranichfeld), which assumes that the writer recorded the events contained in chap. 2–5 at different times (although not without regard to their relation to each other), and in the form of a diary.

2. Apologetical.—The foregoing remarks contain features that testify to the authenticity and historical accuracy of the narrative; but a far more forcible evidence is found in the strong contrast between the situation and circumstances of the persecuted Hebrews who steadfastly clung to their faith, as here related, and the similar fortunes of pious Jews in the Asmonæan age. According to Bertholdt, Bleek, 5. Lengerke, Hitzig, etc, the motive that inspired the alleged historical fictions of the pseudo-Daniel, was derived from the tribulations of the latter period; but at that time Israel endured the barbarous persecutions inflicted on account of its faith in Jehovah while established on its own native soil; whereas here, the suffering is imposed while in a foreign land and in captivity, and merely upon three individual representatives, who are penally prosecuted on the ground of the slanderous accusations of envious persons or of politico-religious opponents, who charge them with hostility to the national gods of Babylon. In the former case the heathen despot attempted to carry into effect a general system of persecution which aimed at the extirpation of the worship of Jehovah (1 Macc. 1:41 et seq.); while here an occasional denunciation incites a single act of heathen intolerance, which is immediately followed by the recognition and adoration of the God of Israel as a pre-eminently powerful divinity, as in a former instance (cf. Daniel 2:46 with 3:28 et seq.). In that case the furious religious intolerance of the persecuting tyrant is opposed by the fanatical defiance of the desperate Jewish confessors,13 while the confession of the three persecuted Hebrews in this case, Daniel 3:17 and 18, reveals no trace of fanatical excitement; it presents, on the contrary, “so moderate a reflection on the interference of God for the purpose of delivering His servants, that it concedes the possibility of a refusal, on the part of God, to deliver in the present exigency,—for which reason the Sept. felt constrained, in the spirit of its time, to guard against the possible mistake that a doubt of the Divine ability to save is here implied” (see on the passage). Finally, while the barbarous custom of inflicting the death-penalty by means of fire, and in large smelting-furnaces, prevailed at the period of the Chaldæan supremacy, as is certified by Jer. 29:22 (cf. 43:9 et seq.; Cf. above, on Daniel 3:6), the books of the Maccabees, which describe so many modes of capital punishment as inflicted on the Jews of his time by Antiochus Epiphanes (see 1 Macc. 1:50, 57, 60 et seq.; 2:38; 2 Macc. 7.), make no mention whatever of this. The burning of isolated fugitives in caverns, where they had concealed themselves in order to observe the Sabbath (2 Macc. 6:11), was an unpremeditated device, and therefore entirely different from the predetermined punishment by means of the fiery furnace.—Even Hitzig recognizes the weight of the numerous differences in the situation, as here indicated—to which must be added the extreme contrast between the golden image on the plain of Dura, and the βδέλυγμα ἐρημώσεως of Antiochus (1 Macc. 1:54; see above, on Daniel 3:1)—but assumes that the compiler purposely avoided an exact adaptation of his types to the circumstances and facts of his time, in order to prevent any suspicion that his work was invented for a purpose (p. 43, “Ought a type to correspond so exactly as to arouse suspicion?”) He thus attributes to our author an art in concealing his aim, a gift of refined simulation, a practised cunning and adroitness, that might excel even the efforts of modern pseudological tendency writers. But while these, and similar charges of such a critical tendency in the book, are unworthy, and establish nothing, the manifold expositions of details of the narrative which have been deemed necessary by the modern criticism, are no less so. No improbability can be discovered in the statement of the dimensions of the golden image, giving its height at sixty cubits and its thickness at six (Daniel 3:1), or in the remark that all the high officials of the realm were summoned to the dedication of the image [(Daniel 3:2, 3), which is unquestionably to be taken in a relative sense; nor yet in the mention of certain Grecian instruments (Daniel 3:5, 7, 10, 15), or in the occurrence of the title of “satrap” among those pertaining to political dignitaries (Daniel 3:2, 3, 27). We have already furnished the necessary explanation of these features, and also have accounted for the circumstance that Daniel was absent from the ceremony (see on Daniel 3:12), that the garments of the three martyrs are referred to by names that belong, as is asserted, to a post-Babylonian (Persian or Greek) age, and finally, that the decree directed against the blasphemers of the God of these Jews (Daniel 3:29) is couched in terms that are considered extravagantly severe.

3. The miracle.—The strongest objections, of course, are raised by opponents against the deliverance of the three condemned Hebrews out of the fiery furnace, while at the same time the executioners are destroyed by the flames. Hitzig holds that “the claim of this narrative to a historical character is unworthy of consideration. Its correctness would not only involve that the nature of an element was changed, but also that the flames had at the same time demonstrated (Daniel 3:22) and denied (Daniel 3:27) their power to consume; and a reference to the angel (Daniel 3:28, 25) does not improve the matter.”—Our exegetical remarks have already pointed out that the case is not really so desperate. Traces of a certain co-operation of natural laws in the wonderful event are by no means wanting from the text, despite its evident aim to emphasize the extraordinary and supernatural features of the incident, rather than to modify them. The excessive heating of the furnace which the king had commanded, the reckless haste in executing his commands, which his rage demanded, and even the circumstances that the flames issuing from the upper opening should seize upon and destroy the persons employed in the execution—all these taken together make it possible, up to a certain point, to conceive how the condemned persons might remain uninjured, and afterward, on their leaving the furnace, be without even the odor of fire upon them. Nebuchadnezzar believed himself able to testify that the efficient or cooperating cause of this deliverance was the visible appearance of an angel which was observed at the same time by several witnesses, probably because, in his fearful excitement and conscientious terror, he really saw in vision a fourth person of celestial form in company with the three victims. The writer, however, does not personally assert such an objective entrance of an angel on the arena, because he neither aims to positively establish the fact, nor yet to explain the philosophy of the event taken as a whole. Without seeking out secondary causes of the deliverance of the Hebrews, he contents himself with simply certifying to the extraordinary event itself, which was probably reported to him, as absent at the time, by his delivered friends in person; and his added remarks, of a religious and practical nature, refer merely to the unmistakable interference of his God, whom he represents, after the manner of the older theocratic writers, as working directly and without the mediation of angels. A narrator of the Maccabæan period who possessed a mania for miracles, would exaggerate the marvelous element of the event far more conspicuously, would describe the terrible rage of the flames in colors much more glowing, and would introduce, not one, but a multitude of angels as instrumental deliverers. An approximate idea of the description of the event in question which such a writer would have furnished may be gained from a comparison of Daniel 3:46–50 of the apocryphal “Prayer of Azariah and song of the three children;” although the embellishment and description of the event attempted in that connection are still within the bounds of reason, and would doubtless be surpassed by a religious-tendency writer of the Maccabæan period. On the other hand, a writer at the beginning of the exile, although influenced by an extravagant mania for miracles and inclined to angelolatry, was not necessarily without a real belief in miracles, but rather, might possess a firm and living confidence in the power of God to work miracles for the deliverance and exaltation of His faithful ones. This is apparent in numerous expressions of the exilian Isaiah,14 and of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who assert miraculous displays of Jehovah’s power and grace, in the proper sense, and also express conceptions of the Divine government of the world, and particularly of his direction of the theocratical people in the past, present, and future, which are, to say the least, decidedly supranaturalistic; Cf. Introd., § 1, note 1; § 9, note 1. The shallowness and triteness of the reasoning is thus apparent, on which Hitzig, p. 44, formulates his conclusion: “A belief in miracles, such as the writer confesses, could not arise and flourish in the night of the exile, in the days of discouragement and despondency, nor yet in the centuries of servitude (Ezra 9:9) subsequent to Cyrus. The deliverance from the fiery furnace expresses a supranaturalism entirely different from that manifested in the additions of the reviser in Lev. 25:21; 20:20; Ex. 34:2, 4 (?), and seems to be indicative of the enthusiasm, the increased power of faith, and the boundless imagination of the Maccabæan epoch.”

4. The ethical and religions importance of the miracle is found substantially in the consequent Divine confirmation and rewarding of the steadfast faith, by which the three Hebrews had glorified the name of God before the heathen monarch and his court. As they had confessed Him, so He now acknowledges them; as they had glorified His name by the confession of their faith, so He now magnifies Himself in them by a glorious display of His power, and of His infinite superiority over all the gods of the heathen. It is a miracle of deliverance, analogous to those witnessed by Noah at the flood, by Lot at the burning of Sodom, and by Israel at the passage of the Red Sea and of the Jordan; but it is none the less, on that account, a type of the deliverance which the recording prophet should himself experience when, at a much later period, his unwavering devotion to Jehovah had brought him to the lion’s den, as well as of the rescue of a Peter from the dungeon of Herod, of a Paul from the jail at Philippi, and of other miraculous events of the Apostolic age. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews therefore classes this event among the Old-Testament trials of faith that were followed by marvelous results, when, near the close of his glorious Catalogus testium fidei Veteris Testamenti (Daniel 11:33), and immediately after the allusion to Daniel in the lion’s den, he refers to his three companions with the words, they “quenched the violence of fire” (ἔσβεσαν δύναμν πυρός). In the same sense, and in a similar connection, the first book of the Maccabees had already adduced the wonderful occurrence, observing with reference to Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael, that they πιστεὐσαντες ἐσώθησαν ἐκ φλογός,—a primitive attestation of the fact, with which, as has been indicated in a former connection, the assumption of its invention in the Asmonæan period, can hardly be made to consist (Introd., § 6). The dogmatic importance of this miraculous event is, however, decidedly overestimated, when it is assumed, with several church fathers, e.g., Tertullian, Irenæus, Hilary. Augustine, etc, and also with Carpzov, Joh. Gerhard (in the Bibl. Vimar.), Joach. Lange, etc., that the appearance in company with the three men was an actual objective fact, and further, that it was not merely an angel, but the personal Logos that was made flesh in Jesus Christ. Jerome is far more correct when he rejects, as being improbable, the idea that the Son of God should have appeared to the godless king Nebuchadnezzar, and therefore assumes that the appearance of the delivering angel was only a typical prefiguration of the Redeemer: “Cœterum in typo prœfigurat iste angelus sive ‘filius Dei’ Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, qui ad fornacem descendit inferni, in quo causœ peccatorum et justorum animœ tenebantur, ut absque exustione et noxa sui eos, qui tenebantur inclusi, vinculis mortis liberaret.” His remark (on Daniel 3:1) on the relation of this event to the Messianic mission of Israel in the midst of the pre-Christian world of nations, is also worthy of note: “Datur autem per occasionem captivorum barbaris nationibus salutis occasio; ut qui primum per Danielis revelationem potentiam cognoverant unius Dei, in trium puerorum quoque fortitudine discant mortem contemnere et idola nan colere.”

5. Homiletical suggestions. Melancthon has correctly specified the points of practical importance in his observations: 1, on Daniel 3:1, “Exemplum humanœ cœcitatis et audaciœ instituentis noves cultus sine verbo Dei, quos hic ostendit se Deus reprobare;” 2, on Daniel 3:12 “Quod oporteat mandatum Dei anteferre omnibus rebus humanis, potestati, legibus humanis, paci, tranquillitati vitœ nostrœ;” 3, on Daniel 3:16–18: “Qualis debeat esse fides de corporali liberatione, videlicet cum conditione, si Deo placet;” 4, on Daniel 3:22 et seq.: “Glorificatio piorum contra blasphemiam, et pœna impiorum, prœsertim satellitum, qui alieni furoris ministri sunt;” 5, on Daniel 3:25 et seq.: “Conversio regis, sequens concionem et glorificationem piorum.” He also finely develops several of these points. Thus, he remarks on Daniel 3:1 et seq.: “Consider that not only the one Nebuchadnezzar is here intended, but all idolaters in general. As Nebuchadnezzar, with fearful temerity, but still under the impression that he was acting religiously, establishes a new cultus, so have many acted at other periods. A majority of states protect idolatry; and even within the church godless popes found dynasties, and seek to confirm them by the successive introduction of new forms of worship.…. Consider, therefore, how great is the guilt of the popes and princes, who defend ceremonies and traditions that contradict the Word of God, such as the Mass, monasticism, etc.” Cf. M. Geier: “The great lords often put forth greater efforts to introduce false religions than to protect the true.… It is a false opinion that all the subjects of a state must adhere to one and the same religion. Thence result so many bloody plans to effect by force what cannot be required with a good conscience.” Melancthon observes, on Daniel 3:17, 18: “All the Divine promises require us to believe both that God can and that He will aid; but with reference to His will the following distinction must be observed; God will bestow on us the forgiveness of sins, justification, and eternal life, for He has positively declared His readiness to do this (John 3:36; 1 John 5:11). Faith in this must therefore shine everywhere upon our pathway before us, and govern our expectations of various external blessings and supports. But the latter must ever be subject to the condition, ‘If it please God, He will now deliver me,’—a condition that in no wise conflicts with the essence of faith, but that exhorts us to obedience, to prayer, to patient waiting for aid, and to humble submission to the only wise decree of God.” Cf. Starke: “In need and danger men are cheerfully to submit to the will of God, and are not to prescribe to Him in relation to His aid and deliverance. Their motto must always be, ‘Thy will be done’ (Matt. 26:39; Cf. Jas. 4:15”). On Daniel 3:23 et seq., Cf. Melancthon: “Though the deliverance be long delayed, in order that we may be tried, we dare not cease to call upon the Lord, because supplication is never in vain. For … God always aids, either by immediately imparting comfort and diminishing the evil, or by granting a fortunate escape from the tribulation” (1 Cor. 10:13). Cf. Osiander: “God has assigned a limit to all tribulations and persecutions. If it appears to be too distant, consider that the affliction is light and but for a moment, yea, that it secures an eternal glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). On Daniel 3:28 et seq., Melancthon: “Learn from this that it is the office of princes to suppress godless teaching and customs, and to provide for truly pious instruction and worship. For the government is the guardian and protector of the whole moral law; it cannot change and renew men’s hearts, but it must forbid and prevent idolatry, blasphemy, immoral religious services, etc, as well as murder, theft, and the like. For, although a civil government is not enrolled in the service of the Holy Spirit, it is nevertheless the servant of the external moral law, and the responsibility rests upon it, as a distinguished member of the church (membrum prœcipuum Ecclesiœ), to aid and protect the other members in maintaining the true faith.” [“The moral effect of this transaction must have been all the greater because it was the final outcome of a public conflict between the king’s god and Jehovah of Hosts. Nor let us fail to note that here, as usual, an unseen hand made the wrath of man work out the praise of God.”—Cowles].

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4. The royal report concerning Nebuchadnezzar’s dream relating to his unfitness to govern, and its fulfillment

DANIEL 3:31–4:34 [English Bible, Chap. 4.]

1Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all people, nations [tribes], and languages, that dwell in all the earth;15 Peace be multiplied unto you.16 2I thought it good17 to shew the signs and wonders that the high God hath wrought toward [with] 3me. How great are his signs!18 and how mighty are his wonders! his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,19 and his dominion is from generation to generation [with age and age].

4I Nebuchadnezzar was at rest [tranquil] in my house, and flourishing [green] in my palace. 5I saw a dream which made [, and it would make] me afraid,20 and the thoughts upon my bed [came], and the visions of my head troubled 6[would trouble] me. Therefore [And] made I a decree21 to bring in all the wise men of Babylon before me, that they might make known unto me [make me know] the interpretation of the dream. 7Then came in the magicians, the astrologers, the Chaldæans, and the soothsayers;22 and I told the dream before them; but [and] they did not make known unto me the interpretation thereof. 8But [And] at the last Daniel came in before me, (whose name was Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god, and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods), 9and before him I told the dream, saying, O Belteshazzar, master of the magicians, because I23 know that the spirit of the holy gods is in thee, and no secret troubleth [is burdensome to] thee, tell me the visions of my dream that I have seen, and the interpretation thereof.

10Thus [And these] were the visions of my head in [on] my bed: I saw, and, behold, a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great. 11The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached [would reach] unto 12heaven [the heavens], and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth. The leaves thereof were [Its foliage was] fair, and the fruit24 thereof much, and in it was meat [food] for all [the whole]: the beasts [living creature] of the field had [might have] shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt [might dwell] in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was [might be] fed of it. 13I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and, behold, a watcher and a holy one came down from heaven [the heavens]. 14He cried aloud [with might], and said thus, Hew [cut] down the tree, and cut [lop] off his [its] branches, shake off his leaves [its foliage], and scatter his [its] fruit: let the beasts get away [living creature 15flee] from under it, and the fowls from his [its] branches. Nevertheless, leave the stump of his [its] roots in the earth, even [and] with a band of iron and brass in the tender grass of the field; and let it [him] be wet with the dew of heaven [the heavens], and let his portion be with the beasts [living creature] in the grass 16[herbage] of the earth. Let his heart be changed25 from man’s [mankind], and let a beast’s heart26 be given unto him: and let seven times pass over him. 17This matter [The rescript] is by the decree [decision] of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones; to the intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men [mankind], and giveth [will give] it to whomsoever he will [may please], and setteth [will set] up over it the basest [low] of men.

18This dream I king Nebuchadnezzar have seen. Now [And] thou, O Belteshazzar, declare the interpretation thereof; forasmuch as all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to make known unto me [make me know] the interpretation: but [and] thou art able [capable]; for the spirit of the holy gods is in thee.

19Then Daniel (whose name was Belteshazzar) was astonished for [as] one hour, and his thoughts troubled [would trouble] him. The king spake and said, Belteshazzar, let not the dream, or [and] the interpretation thereof, trouble thee. Belteshazzar answered and said, My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies. 20The tree that thou sawest, which grew, and was strong, whose height reached [would reach] unto the 21heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth; whose leaves were [and its foliage was] fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all [the whole]; under which [it] the beasts [living creature] of the field dwelt [might dwell], and upon whose [its] branches the fowls of the heaven had their habitation [might abide]: 22it is thou, O king, that art [hast] grown and become strong: for [and] thy greatness is [has] grown, and reacheth unto heaven [the heavens], and thy dominion to the end of the earth. 23And whereas the king saw a watcher and a holy one coming down from heaven [the heavens], and saying. Hew [cut] the tree down, and destroy it; yet leave the stump of the roots thereof in the earth, even [and] with a band of iron and brass in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven [the heavens], and let his portion be with 24the beasts [living creature] of the field, till seven times pass over him; this is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree [decision] of the Most High, which is [has] come upon my lord the king: 25That they shall drive thee from men,27 and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts [living creature] of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grâss [the herbage] as oxen, and they shall wet thee with [from] the dew of heaven [the heavens], and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men 26[mankind], and giveth [will give] it to whomsoever he will [may please]. And whereas they commanded [said] to leave the stump of the tree roots [roots of the tree]; thy kingdom shall be sure [standing] unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule. 27Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to [pitying] the poor; if it may be a lengthening of [to] thy tranquillity.

28All this [The whole] came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of 29twelve months he walked in [was walking on] the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. 30The king spake and said, Is not this [the] great Babylon that I28 have built for the house of the kingdom,29 by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty? 31While the word was in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven [the heavens], saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken,30 The kingdom is [has] departed from thee. 32And they shall drive thee from men,31 and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts [living creature] of the field: they shall make thee to eat grass [the herbage] as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until [that] thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men [mankind], and giveth [will give] it to whomsoever he will [may please]. [In] 33The same hour was the thing [word] fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men [mankind,], and did [would] eat grass [the herbage] as oxen, and his body was [would be] wet with [from] the dew of heaven [the heavens], till [that] his hairs [hair] were [had] grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.

34And at the end of the days, I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven [the heavens], and mine understanding [knowledge] returned [would return] unto [upon] me; and I blessed the Most High; and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom 35is from generation to generation [with age and age]: and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven [the heavens], and among the inhabitants of the earth; and [there is] none [who] can stay [lay hold of] his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? 36At the same time my reason [knowledge] returned [would return] unto [upon] me; and, for [as to] the glory of my kingdom, mine honour and brightness returned unto [would return upon] me; and my counsellors and my lords sought [would seek] unto me; and I was established in [upon] my 37kingdom; and excellent majesty was added unto me. Now32 I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven [the heavens], all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.

CRITICAL AND GRAMMATICAL NOTES

[The numerical division of the verses in chap. 4 differs in the English Bible from that in the original text, as the latter annexes the first three verses of this narrative to chap. 3, and consequently begins its chap. 4 with Daniel 3:4 of the English Bible.]

EXEGETICAL REMARKS

Daniel 3:31–33 [Engl. 4:1–3]. The introduction to the edict. Nebuchadnezzar the king unto all the people, nations, and languages, etc. On the triad “people, tribes, and tongues,” see on Daniel 3:4. As it there occurs in the public proclamation of a herald, so here in a royal edict in writing, and at the very beginning. This probably induced the persons who in a former age arranged the division [of the Hebrew text] into chapters, to include the introduction of this edict in the preceding section; but such an arrangement is obviously inadmissible and incorrect, in view of the evident relation of Daniel 3:31–33 to the statements commencing with Daniel 4:1, and in view also of the considerable interval of time that appears to have elapsed between the events of the third and those of the fourth chapter (cf. on Daniel 3:1, and see Daniel 4:26 et seq.). A certain relation, however, exists between the subject of the present section and that of the preceding, inasmuch as both record experiences of the exalted greatness and power of God, such as had come to the king in the course of events that partook of the supernatural to a greater or smaller extent.—Like this edict of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, so an open letter (manifesto) of the Persian king Artaxerxes, in Ezra 7:12, begins with a solemn wish for the welfare of the people, immediately after the names of the king and of the person addressed.—Is Nebuchadnezzar in person to be regarded as the immediate composer of the proclamation? Such a conclusion is opposed (1) by the frequent indications of an intimate acquaintance with theocratic modes of thought and expression which are found in the document, and especially in the beginning and the end (cf. e.g., the doxology in Daniel 3:33; 4:31; with Psa. 72:4 et seq.; Psa. 145:13, and also with Dan. 7:14, 27; Cf. further, the description of the infinite greatness of God in Daniel 4:32, with Isa. 24:21; 40:17; 41:12, 24, 29; 43:13; 45:9; Job 9:12; 21:22, etc.); (2) by the broad and circumstantial character of the narrative, resulting from the many repetitions (cf. e.g., the repetition of identical or entirely similar turns in the sentences of Daniel 4:6, 15 and of 5:5; in 4:17–23 and in Daniel 3:17–23; in 4:30 and in Daniel 3:12 and 22; in 4:31 and in 3:33, etc.), which it has in common with the remaining narrative sections, thus indicating by its style that Daniel was its author; (3) by Daniel 4:25–30, where the king is referred to in the third person, while elsewhere the first person is constantly employed; (4) by the designation of the palace as being located “at Babylon,” Daniel 4:26, which is positively inconsistent with the assumption that Nebuchadnezzar composed the proclamation in person, but indicates, as clearly as could possibly be required, that the writer was not a Babylonian, or, at least, that he wrote chiefly for other than Babylonians, and that he even adopted their modes of thought. No substantial difficulty can be raised against the hypothesis that Daniel was the writer, and that he composed the proclamation by direction of the king soon after the conclusion of the events to which it refers. The peculiarly heathen forms of thought and expression which occur beside the Jewish-theocratic (especially in Daniel 4:5, 6, 10, 14, 15, and 20), find a sufficient explanation in the consideration that the writer employed, although a decided theocrat, would be obliged to adhere as closely as possible to the king’s habits of thought and the range of his conception in the framing of an official document to be published in the royal name—otherwise it would fail to receive his approval. This view, which has recently been represented by Kranichfeld especially, is at any rate more simple and natural than the assumption, which becomes necessary on the supposition that Nebuchadnezzar in person composed the writing, that its theocratic coloring resulted from the instruction derived by the king from his intercourse with Daniel (Calvin, Hävernick, Hengstenberg, etc.). Upon our hypothesis, moreover, it becomes easy to comprehend why the writer should occasionally pass from the first to the third person (Daniel 3:25–30). If Nebuchadnezzar be conceived as the author, the explanation of this feature can only be found in the supposition that the report of the king is interrupted to admit of an abbreviated statement by Daniel (Calvin), or in the assumption that “Nebuchadnezzar considered it improper to report his insanity in person” (Hengstenberg, Maurer, etc.), or finally, in the admission that Daniel 3:25 is still due to Nebuchadnezzar, while Daniel 3:26–30 are regarded as a parenthesis inserted by Daniel (Hävernick; see to the contrary infra, on Daniel 3:25).33 —Peace be multiplied to you; literally, “increase richly, be richly imparted to you;” Cf. Ezra 4:22. יִשְׁגֵּא corresponds exactly to πληθυνθείη in the analogous formulas of greeting, 1 Pet. 1:2; 2 Pet. 1:2; Jude 2; Clem. Rom. 1; 1 Cor. 1:1.

Daniel 3:32 [4:2], I thought it good to show (to you) the signs and wonders, etc; i.e., “it pleases me.”—וְתִמְהַיָּא אָתַיָּא, in the Heb. trans., אוֹתוֹת וְנוֹרָאוֹת; Cf. the well-known similar combination וּמוֹפְתִים אוֹתוֹת, Isa. 8:18 (Greek σημεῖα και τέρατα). The somewhat indefinite and general term אַת, “a sign, token,” receives the special signification of “miraculous sign” (portentum) from its combination with תְּמַה, “a wonder, wonderful thing.” The same combination occurs in 3:33 [4:3], and also in Daniel 6:28.—שְׁפַר קֳדָמַי, pulcrum est coram me, i.e., visum est mihi, placuit mihi (Vulg.); Cf. 4:24; 6:2.

Daniel 3:33 [4:31. How great are His signs, etc. כְּמָה, quantopere, a strengthening of the simple כְּ, quam. The exclamation does not by any means deny that signs and wonders were also performed by the Babylonian gods, but asserts the incomparable greatness of the miracles of Jehovah—a thought which Daniel might express as well as Nebuchadnezzar.—His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, etc. The same doxology occurs also at the close of Daniel 4:31, with but little change. Cf. Psa. 145:13.

Footnotes:

[1][These are apparently technical terms for various classes of officers, who are carefully distinguished and graded, and may be represented as follows:

 Satraps,

 Provinces.

I.

Prœfects,

Governmental,

Districts.

 Pashas.

 Metropolis.

 Viziers,

 Executive.

II.

Treasurers.

Courtly,

Financial.

 Judges,

Legal,

On the bench.

III.

Lawyers,

 At the bar

IV.

—Superintendents.

—Functional

—General.]

[2][There is in these three terms likewise clearly a gradation downwards: nations, tribes, dialects.]

[3][In these names of musical instruments, some borrowed from foreign languages, and all more or less uncertain of import, there are nevertheless traces of classification:

I.

Cornet,

Wind

Simple.

 Flute.

 Keyed.

 Guitar,

  

II.

Lyre,

String,

Gradually more complex.

 Harp.

  

III. —Bagpipe.—Wind—Compound.

IV —All sorts.—General.]

[4][אֲכַלוּ קרְצֵיהוֹן דּי, lit., ate their pieces of, i.e., slandered; conf. English “backbite.”]

[The Masoretic interpunction requires us to punctuate thus: to deliver its; from the burning fiery furnace and from thy hand, O king, he will deliver.]

[5][The position of the term for the executioners is very emphatic in the original: literally, …. those men, who lifted. … the flame of the fire killed them.]

[6][The order of the words in the original is emphatic: “Was it not three men we cast into [to] the midst of the fire—bound?” This last was an additional circumstance of wonder.

[7]— יַצִּיבָא, may be the fem. or the “definite state;” in either case it is emphatic, i. q., “the truth.”

[8]—The pronoun, being expressed, is emphatic, i. q., “I myself.” The others appear to have been so situated as not to observe this fact, or did not notice it.

[9]—שַׁנִּיו being in Pael so far as the form is concerned, is simply transitive; but the context gives it the sense of contravene, common in the cognate Syriac.

[10]—שָׁלָה Keri שָׁלוּ something astray, an error or wrong word, i.e., detraction.

[11]בַּיְתֵהּ his house, i.e., the house of any individual so doing.]

[12]Cf. generally, Rawlinson, Journal of the R. Geogr. Society, x., p. 93.

[13]The martyrs in 2 Macc. 7:9 address the Syrian king as: “Thou accursed man.” and in Daniel 3:34 of the same chapter they denounce him thus: “Thou godless man, and of all others most wicked, be not lifted up without a cause, nor puffed up with uncertain hopes, lifting up thy hand against the servants of God; for thou has not yet escaped the judgment of Almighty God, who seeth all things.” How different is the language of the three Hebrews, Daniel 3:16, 18! cf. upon the whole, Zündel, Krit. Unterss., p. 72 et seq.

[14][The author by this epithet probably refers to the pseudo-Isaiah assumed to have written the latter chapters of that book—an unnecessary and unwarranted distinction.]

[15][The customary phrase: sends this greeting, is to be mentally supplied.

[16]Literally. May your peace (i.e., prosperity) be increased.

[17]Literally, It has seemed good before me. The order in the original is also emphatic: The signs and wonders. .… I (have) thought it good to show.

[18]The same emphatic order is observed in this and the following clause: His signs how, (literally, as what) great (literally, very great, a reduplicated form)! etc.

[19]Literally, a kingdom of eternity.

[20]וִידַחַּלִנַּנִי is the fut. Pael, with נ epenthelic, as usual in these forms. The tense seems to express the continued effect on the speaker’s mind.

[21]Literally, From me was made a decree.

[22]The terms employed for these various classes of conjurers are the same as those in Daniel 2:2, except the last, but they are named in a somewhat different order.

[23]The pronoun, being expressed, is somewhat emphatic.

[24]אִוְבֵּהּ from אֵב by resolution of the dagesh.

[25]Literally, Let them change his heart from the man.

[26]Literally, a heart of the living creature.

[27]Literally, And thee they are driving from mankind (the man).

[28]The pronoun, being expressed, is somewhat emphatic.

[29]Both nouns being anarthrous, the meaning is a royal residence.

[30]Literally, they are saying.

[31]Literally, and from mankind (the man) thee they are driving.

[32]The particle כְּעָן is emphatic = At this time, in contrast with his former impiety.]

[33][The author’s arguments for the original composition of this passage by Daniel are plausible, but not quite conclusive. It would seem that all the Chaldee portions of this book are substantially extracts from the archives of the Chaldæan realm, and this portion has more than ordinary marks of having been such a document. The record of the facts would doubtless be made as a part of the annals of the empire, such as we know were wont to be preserved by the monarchs of the great East (Esther 6:1). written doubtless by the official scribe or historiographer in the vernacular or court language. This account we may readily conceive Nebuchadnezzar on his recovery from insanity would be anxious to revise, and he would naturally select Daniel as his secretary in publishing an authorized statement of the matter. This view accounts for the mixture of theocratic and heathen sentiments contained in this extraordinary confession of royal humiliation. Well might Daniel recur to this scene in his bold rebuke of Belshazzar’s impiety, Daniel 5:18 et seq. The explanation of the Jewish coloring of parts of this chapter by the hypothesis of a later interpolation of the Maccabæan age, is amply refuted by Stuart and Keil (see likewise our author’s apologetical remarks [No. 3] appended to this chapter). These writers both adduce, as corroboration of the account of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness, the statement of Abydenus in the fragments preserved by Eusebius (Prœp. Evang., ix. 42, and Chron. Armen., ed. Aucher, I. p. 59), that the Chaldæan monarch was seized with a preternatural frenzy (κατασχεθείη θεῶὅτεω δή. … θεοπίσαι) while walking on the top of his royal tower at Babylon.]

 Daniel 4:1–6 [4–9]. The king’s dream. Inability of the Magians to interpret it. I Nebuchadnezzar was at rest in mine house. “At rest,” i.e., in the undisturbed possession of my kingdom, which, according to Daniel 4:19, extended to the end of the earth; “in my house,” i.e., in the abode of peace, not in the field in order to prosecute warlike enterprises. Both expressions therefore refer to the later period of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, when his wars (probably including that against Tyre, Ezek. 29:17) were ended, and he was able to devote himself to the affairs of peace, and especially to the erection of the great edifices at Babylon, to which Daniel 4:27, and also Berosus, in Josephus, c. Apion, I. 19, refer. The time of this dream is therefore still later than that indicated by Daniel 3:1.—And flourishing in my palace. רַעֲנַן, “green,” not שַׁלְאֲנָן, “quiet” (as the analogy of Job 21:23 might perhaps lead us to expect), is the term employed by Nebuchadnezzar perhaps because he already recalls at this point the fresh and strongly flourishing tree (Daniel 4:7 et seq.), by which he was symbolized in the dream vision. Such a prefatory use of a characteristic feature in the symbolic vision was the more appropriate, since the comparison of fortunate and healthful conditions in life with the verdure of trees was exceedingly common throughout the Orient, and especially so in the Old Testament usage of language; Cf. Psa. 1:3; 37:35; 52:10; 92:13 et seq.; Prov. 11:28; Hos. 14:7; Ezek. 47:12 (see upon this thought, my Theologia naturalis, p. 495 et seq,). For the rest, רַעֲנַן belongs to the somewhat numerous class of words which fell into disuse in the later Aramæism; Cf. Pusey, Daniel, p. 599–606.

Daniel 4:2 [5]. I saw a dream which made me afraid. The abrupt connection, without ו or בֵּאדַיִן indicates the alarming influence which the suddenly transpiring dream exercised over the king, who had previously spent his time in peace; Cf. Job 4:20, and also the numerous antithetic asyndeta in the Proverbs (Introd. to Prov. of Sol., § 14).—And thoughts upon my bed, viz.: “came to me, arose in me;” an independent clause, which must not be connected with the final verb יבהלנני, but which is rather to be regarded as a parallel to הֵלֶם חֲזֵית, exactly as וְחֶזְוֵי וגו׳ is parallel to וִידַחֲלִנַּנִי in the former half of the verse. The assumption of such a parallelism is not, however, to be strained to the point of regarding (with Kranichf.) the “thoughts” as the details of the vision itself; for they, like the רַעְיוֹנֵי לִבְבָךְ in Daniel 2:29, were probably the troubled reflections of the king on awaking from his slumber, and while meditating on the nature of his dream (Von Lengerke; Cf. supra, on Daniel 2:29).—The הַרְהֹרִין (= the חִרהוּרִין of the Targums) seem, however, to be identical with the Armen. chorhurd, “a thought,” and the word, therefore, is perhaps of Indo-Germanic derivation (thus Hitzig, at any rate; but Ewald, p. 477, objects; Cf. also Gesenius and Dietrich, s. v. הרר)—And visions of my head troubled me. Exactly similar to Daniel 7:15 b. The “visions of the head” are the several fancies or images of the dream, as in Daniel 2:28.

Daniel 4:3 [6]. Therefore made I a decree. The same words occur in Daniel 3:29; Cf. Daniel 2:5.—In regard to לְחַנְעָלָה, see on 2:25.—Observe that, in this instance, where the contents of the dream were not forgotten by the king, nor regarded as being especially marvellous, the condition of the king while demanding an interpretation of the dream is very different from that described in Daniel 2:5—a circumstance that strongly endorses the credibility of the narrative.

Daniel 4:4 [7]. Then came in all the magicians, etc. Concerning the various classes of the wise men of Babylon, four of which are here specially referred to, see on Daniel 2:2.—Instead of עָלְלִין (read עָ‍ֽלְלִין), the participle of עָלַל, “to go in,” the Keri in this place has עָלִּיי (cf. chap. Daniel 4:8), which is contracted from עַלְלִין, a form that shortens the initial —ָ to—ַ; with the latter cf., e.g., חַשְׁחִין, Daniel 3:16.

Daniel 4:5 [8]. But at the last Daniel came in before me. The Kethib אָ‍ֽחְָרֵין is a form with an undeniably adverbial signification (=“at last, postremo”—not adjective: “the last, postremus,” as Hitzig prefers), that does not occur in the later Chaldee, and is replaced by the Keri אָֽחֳחָן (or אָֽחֳרֵן). It is rather to be regarded as an extension of the sing. adjective formation אָחֳרְי, than as an irregular plural in which the e-sound has taken the place of —ַי (see Olshausen, Lehrb. der hebr. Sprache, p. 208).—The עַד preceding is the familiar conjunction “until” (Ezra 4:21; 5:5); the whole expression דעד אחרן, “until at last,” is an adverbial phrase similar to מִן יַצִּיב, Daniel 2:8.—Whose name is Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god. Cf. on Daniel 1:7. This thoroughly heathen reference to the name of Daniel is immediately followed by a reference to his person, which indicates the feature that had inspired the heathen king with confidence in his superior power and understanding, and, through this, with a faint conception of the nature of that Deity to whom he owed such power and wisdom. From this affirmation “that the spirit of the holy gods is in thee,” which is repeated in Daniel 4:6 [9] and 15 [18], it follows that Nebuchadnezzar had by no means forgotten what he had learned upon two previous occasions respecting the eminent prophetic gifts of Daniel, and his direct intercourse with the only true God. The expression does not, indeed, have an orthodox look from a theocratic or Old Testament point of view; but it is only to the half a heathen sentiment, similar to the remarks by Pharoah in praise of Joseph, Gen. 41:38.—קַדִּשִׁין is probably not an epitheton ornans of the gods in general, but rather a special designation of the ἀγαθοδαίμονες in distinction from the destructive divinities (Kranichf.).

Daniel 4:6 [9]. O Belteshazzar. master of the magicians, רַב חַרְטֻמַּיּא. This title differs only in form and not in substance from that of “chief president of all the wise men of Babylon,” which dignity was conferred on Daniel, Daniel 2:48. It was by no means necessary that Daniel, as the possessor of this exalted dignity, should at once and without ceremony present himself before the king with the remaining חכימין. The more independent position which he occupies, according to this passage, is rather in entire harmony with chap. 3, where he is absent from a large assembly of the officials of the royal court, and also with chap. Daniel 4:10 et seq., where it is represented that his character as the chief magian was lost sight of by Nebuchadnezzar’s successors, but not that he had been deprived of that dignity. Among the various answers to the question as to why Daniel was not at once summoned before the king to interpret the dream, instead of being subsequently introduced, the one here indicated, which refers to the freedom of his official station, is certainly the most simple and appropriate, since various features of our book appear to conflict with the assumption that he occupied a political or priestly station in the proper sense (cf. on Daniel 2:49; 3:12; and on 8:2). Consequently we prefer this explanation to the many which have been attempted, e.g., that of Jahn, that “custom required that the chief of the magians should not be summoned at the first;” that of Füller, which considers Daniel as being, in fact, an officer of the state (chief satrap) rather than a magian; that of Hävernick, that “the haste with which the terrified king caused the wise men to be summoned” caused the overlooking of Daniel at the outset; that of Kranichfeld, which argues that Nebuchadnezzar, who already surmised the relation of the image of the fallen tree in his dream to his royal person, dreaded the harsher judgment and sterner prophecy of evil to be expected from Daniel, the prophet of Jehovah, exactly as Ahab, in 1 Kings 22:8 et seq., summoned the heathen wise men and seers into his presence, before he turned to the proper source, etc. J. D. Michaelis, however, observes with entire correctness, that a certain and trustworthy answer to that question would require a more exact acquaintance with all the facts of the history than we are able to command.1 —And that no secret troubleth thee. אְַנַס signifies in the Targums “to sweep away, to apply force,” but here “to cause difficulty or trouble;” Cf. the Heb. אָנַס, “to compel,” Esth. 1:8.

Daniel 4:7–14 [10–17]. Subject of the king’s dream. Thus were the visions of my head, etc.; literally, “And (concerning) the visions of my head upon my bed; I saw;” an abrupt and detached clause similar to Daniel 7:17–23.—In relation to “vision of my head,” see on Daniel 4:2.—And behold, a tree (stood) in the midst of the earth. אִילָן, unlike the corresponding Heb. אֵלוֹן, does not signify an “oak” in particular, but “tree” generally; Cf. δοῦς and robur. The position of this tree, “in the midst of the earth,” indicates its great importance for the whole earth, and its destiny to develop an unlimited growth in every direction (cf. Daniel 4:8). The tree thus occupies a central position that corresponds to its exceeding height. The symbolizing of the mighty Babylonian king by a tree recalls the description by Ezekiel, Daniel 21:3 et seq., which was probably not known to Nebuchadnezzar, but with which Daniel, the narrator of his dream, must have been acquainted. It also suggests a reference to Ezek. 17:22; 19:10 et seq.; and, among the earlier prophets, to Isa. 2:13; 6:13; 14:12; Jer. 22:15; Am. 2:9 (cf. also the passages cited above, on Daniel 4:1). The especial fondness of the ancient Orientals for the illustration of the growth or decline of human greatness and power by the figure of a growing or fallen tree, is shown by Hävernick in the parallels he adduces from Herodotus (3:19; the dream of Xerxes; 6:37; the threat of Crœsus to destroy the town of Lampsacus like a pine tree; Cf. also 1:108; the dream of Astyages respecting his daughter Mandane), from Arabic writers (Antara’s Moallaka, v. 51, 56; Reiske on Tarafa, proleg., p. 47), from the later Mohammedan traditions (Mohammed’s comparison of a Moslem to an evergreen palm in Sunna, according to v. Hammer, Fundgruben des Orients, I. 152), and from Turkish history and literature (the prophetic dream of Osman 1., according to Murajea d’Ohsson, Allgem. Schilderung des ottoman. Reichs, p. 273 et seq.). Cf. further, with reference to the general use of this tree-symbolism among the Greeks, the interesting work of Bötticher: Baumkultus der Hellenen (Leips., 1858).

Daniel 4:8 [11]. The tree grew and was strong, “became great and strong;” thus, correctly, Chr. B. Michaelis, Hitzig, and Kranichfeld. The finite verbs רְבָה and תְּקִף do not designate a fixed, but a becoming state; hence Nabuchadnezzar sees the tree growing and becoming greater than it was in Daniel 4:7 [10].—And the height thereof reached unto heaven, like the tower of Babel, Gen. 11:4, or the δένδρεα οὐραυομήκεα, Herod. 2:138. Observe the imperfect יִמְֹטֵא, which here takes the place of the perfect, and indicates the heaven-aspiring tendency of the slowly developing tree.—And the sight thereof to the end of all the earth; rather, “its extent” or circumference. חֲזוֹתֵהּ does not signify “its visibility” (Vulg., Syr., de Wette, and many moderns), but “its outlook, its circumference, its extent” (the Sept. and Theodotion are correct, so far as the sense is concerned: τὸ κῦτος αὐτοῦ, its bulging, extension); the contrast with רוּמֵהּ would itself require this interpretation.

Daniel 4:9 [12]. The leaves (branches) thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much. עָפְיֵהּ, properly its branching, its crown, as אנְבֵּהּ is the aggregate of its fruit. Bertholdt, von Lengerke, and others, render incorrectly “and its fruit was large” (i.e., it bore a large, thick kind of fruit); for there was no reason to mention such a quality of the tree. The immediate connection shows that the great quantity of fruit, instead of its size, was here referred to.—And it was meat for all, rather, “and food for all (was found) on it.” לְכֹלָּא, “for all,” i.e., for all who lived under its shelter—an exemplification and more circumstantial exposition of שַׂגִּיא. It is, however immaterial to the sense of the passage as a whole, whether בֵּחּ be construed with מָזון by neglecting the makkeph between לְכֹלָּא and בֵּהּ, as a majority of expositors, including ourselves, translate, or whether we translate, as Kranichfeld [and Keil], with regard to the makkeph: “and food was found for all on it,” i.e., for all the birds that nestled on it. The masora evidently requires this rendering here, while in Daniel 4:18 [21], where the makkeph is wanting from between לְכֹלָּא and בְּהּ, it observes the other construction.—The beasts of the field had shadow under it. תּטְלֵל, umbram egit spent in the shadow. The aphel of טלל (“obumbrare, to overshadow, protect”), which, in the language of the Targums, is generally transitive, like the Heb. הַצְלֵּל, 1 Chron. 4:3, is here intransitive by virtue of its Niphal signification.—And the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof; Cf. Matt. 13:32, and the parallel passages. The masculine יְדֻרוּן has its explanation in the fact that צִפֲּרִין is of the common gender; the Keri יְדֻרָן construes the word in the feminine, in analogy with יִשְׁכְּנָן, Daniel 4:18 [21].—And all flesh was led of it. “All flesh,” i.e., not merely all the birds, but also all the beasts of the field, and, in short, all the animals living on and under the tree, thus imaging all of the human race that were united under the sceptre of Nebuchadnezzar; Cf. Daniel 4:19 [22].

Daniel 4:10 [13]. I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed; a formula designed to prepare for the new and remarkably sudden turn of the hitherto quietly transpiring dream.—A watcher and holy one came down from heaven. וְקַדִּישׁ עיר, obviously a hendiadys for “a holy watcher, a watcher who is holy.” עיר, the pass. part. of עוּר, expergefieri, designates a “watchful one, one who watches” (cf. עַר, Cant. 5:2; Mal. 2:12), in this place more particularly a celestial watcher, an angel who from heaven watches over the fortunes of men. Thus Aquila, Symm., and the Sept.: ἐγρήγορος; also a scholium in the Cod. Alex, on the εἴρ [a transfer of עִיר] of Theodotion (ἐγρήγορος καὶ ἀγρυπῶν); also Polychronius: τὸ ὰγρυπνον καὶ ἄγγελος, and Jerome: “Significat angelos, quod semper vigilent et ad Dei imperium sint parati.” By the addition of the modifying וְקַדִּישׁ the עִיר mentioned in this place is expressly classed with the good or holy watchers of heaven, and thus is distinguished from the κακοδαίμονες, in which light the Babylonians regarded a number of their astral gods (see Gesenius on Isa., II. 334 et seq.), and also from the ἐγρήγοροι of the book of Enoch, who are described as bad angels and as inimical to men. The expression “decree (determination, counsel) of the watchers” points strongly to the conclusion that the עִירִין of our book are identical with the θεοὶ βουλαῖοι of the Babylonians in Diodor., 2:30—i.e., with the thirty-six inferior gods associated as counsellors (deos) with the five superior planetary gods; but the entire correspondence of this feature to the Babylonian doctrine of the gods does not exclude the existence, at the same time, of a certain analogy or essential relation of the “watchers” with the Amesha-cpenta of the Parsees, nor even that the supposed etymology of Amesha-cpenta = non connivens sanctus (thus Bopp, who is, however, contradicted, e.g., by Burnouf) might be asserted in its support. But that עִור וְקַדִּישׁ is “merely a translation of Amshaspand” is an arbitrary dictum of Hitzig, which is opposed by the possibly post-Babylonian age of the name Amesha-cpenta (this does not occur at all in the oldest portion of the Zendavesta), and which lacks all scientific support, to an extent equal to the identification of עִיר with עִיר, “a messenger” (Isa. 18:2; 57:9), as was attempted by several older expositors, e.g., Michaelis (in Castell. Lex. Syr., p. 649), cf., however, Häver-nick and Kranichfeld on this passage, and also Hengstenberg, Christologie des Alten Testaments, III. 2, 74 et seq.

Daniel 4:11 [14]. He cried aloud and said thus. “Aloud,” exactly like the royal herald, in Daniel 3:4; cf. 10:16; Isa. 58:1, etc.—Hew down the tree and cut off its branches. The command is addressed to the servants of the angel, who were perhaps inferior angels, and whose presence the rapidly transpiring dream presumes without further explanation; Cf. Matt. 8:9, and the parallel passages. Isidorus Pelusiota already is correct (Epp. I. 2. n. 177): ἁγίους δὲ ἔφησεν τοὺς τὸ δένδρον ἐκτέμνειν προσταχθέντας ἀγγέλους. [Perhaps Keil rather is correct, who suggests that “the plur. is to be regarded as impersonal: the tree shall be cut down.”]—Shake (strip) off its leaves, literally, “cause them to fall off.” אַתַּרןּ (instead of אַתִּרוּ after the analogy of verbs third gutt.), the aphel of נְתַר, which designates the falling of faded leaves or blossoms from the tree, in the Targums, Psa. 1:3; Isa. 40:8; Joel 1:10.—Scatter its fruit; contemptuously, as if it were of no value, and as if it were not worth the trouble of gathering. The consequence, that the animals, who were hitherto sheltered by the tree, were now likewise scattered, and driven far asunder—a lively image of subjects alarmed by the fall of their sovereign—is indicated in what follows.

Daniel 4:12 [15]. Nevertheless, leave the stump of its roots in the earth. עִקָּר, the still thrifty stump, like מַעֶבֶת, Isa. 6:13, or גֶּזַע, Isa. 11:1; Job 14:8. The ultimate sprouting of this root-stump (cf. Job 14:7–9), which was allowed to remain in the earth, typified, as appears from Daniel 4:23 [26] compared with Daniel 4:33 [36], the restoration of Nebuchadnezzar from his sickness; but not the continued supremacy of his dynasty, as Hävernick interprets, since עִקָּר in this passage obviously designates an individual, Nebuchadnezzar himself, instead of the whole race of Chaldæan rulers.—Even with a band of iron and brass; rather, “but in fetters of iron and brass,” Supply “shall he lie, or be;” or even “shall he be left” (שְׁבֻקוּהִי). The figure of a tree is now dropped; in the stead of a vegetable organism that necessarily clings to the ground there is presented, obviously with regard to the bestializing of Nebuchadnezzar, an animal organism, which, while naturally capable of unimpeded motion and of an individual and independent participation in life, is for the present forcibly restrained. There is thus a partial transition from the figure to the fact (as is frequently the case in the comparisons and allegories of our Lord, e.g., Mark 4:28; Luke 12:46; Matt. 22:13; John 10:11 et seq.), or at least an approximation of the figurative representation to the actual conditions of the event typified. This fact is misunderstood as soon as the attempt is made, with Von Lengerke, to conceive of the fetters of iron as fastened on the root-stump, “in order to prevent it from cracking and splitting,” and also when it is assumed, with Jerome and others, that an actual binding of Nebuchadnezzar as a furiosus, who required to be fettered like all maniacs, is asserted at this early stage. The literal conception of the idea “to fetter” is inappropriate on either method. The “fetters of iron and brass” symbolize the chains of darkness and coarse bestiality in which the mind of the king was held during an extended period. Cf. expressions like “chains of darkness,” Wisd. 17:17; 2 Pet. 2:4, and figurative descriptions, such as Psa. 107:10; 116:16; 149:8; Job 36:8. Kranichfeld observes correctly: “A more forcible binding of his sovereign aims for himself, exceeding the disgrace of that which might be applied to a prisoner of war, could scarcely happen to the king, than was that to which he was compelled to submit according to Daniel 4:22 [25] and 29 [31], in the form of a beastly restraint on his understanding, and of an actual expulsion from the society in which he moved. And since binding in fetters of iron and brass is a metaphor as common as it is in this instance a striking figure of the deplorable condition to which the Babylonian universal monarch was reduced; since, moreover, the towering height of the tree in the dream is of itself sufficient to establish the selection of an expression to indicate the corresponding contrast of a severe and servile compulsion, the explanation of the figure does not require the combination of this expression proposed by Hitzig with an assonant kedan, Syr., ‘to bind.’ taken from the name of Nebuchadnezzar. This is the more obvious because of the consideration that no reference is made to the name in other portions of the description, although, by a repeated use of the k in nebuk (Nebuch), it might to the Hebrew sound portentously like the Arabic inbaka, “turbata mente fuit.” For the Talmudic animal with an ingrown tree which resembled man in form and language, adne sadeh (Buxt. Lex. Chald., p. 34), may be explained, as by Hitzig, without any doubt whatever, from the אַדְנֶ of the name Nebuchadnezzar much more readily than that really fabulous creature would have allowed itself to be fabricated, had not the self-authenticated description of Daniel (Daniel 4:12, 13 [15, 16], in connection with the otherwise familiar אֲדָנֵי, the heliotropum which moves its leaves (see Buxt., l. c.), furnished the material.”—In the tender grass of the field, etc. This lying in the grass and being exposed to the dews of heaven is as applicable to the stump of the tree as to Nebuchadnezzar, the maniac; Cf. Daniel 4:20 [23] et seq.—Concerning the reading דִּתְאָא, for which Daniel 4:20 [23] substitutes דִּתִאָח (corresponding to the Hebraizing Keris in Daniel 5:39; 6:1), cf. Hitzig and Kranichfeld on this passage.—And let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth. Cf. Daniel 4:30 [33], “and did eat grass as oxen.” The figure has been departed from entirely in this place, and a feature of the interpretation is anticipated. חֲכִָק, “portion.” occurs also in Daniel 4:20 [23] and Ezra 4:16. The Targums have חוּלַּק instead. Concerning the not local, but telic signification of בְּ, “in or of the grass,” cf. e.g., Joshua 22:25; 2 Sam. 20:1.

Daniel 4:13 [16]. Let his heart be changed from a man’s; literally, “they shall change from (that of) a man” (מִן־אֲנָשָׁא = מִלֵּב אֱנוֹשׁ, as Ibn Ezra correctly adds). Cf. the similar brevilo-queutiœ in Daniel 1:10; 7:20, etc., and concerning the active signification of יְשַׁנוֹן (for which the angels addressed in שְׁבֻקוּ serve as an indefinite subject), Cf. supra, on Daniel 3:4. “His heart,” i.e., his faculties of conception and desire, or, if it be preferred, his consciousness; Cf. Daniel 4:29, 30 [32, 33]. The Hebraizing form אֲנוֹשָׁא here and in Daniel 4:14 [17] is perhaps to be rejected in favor of the more correct Chaldee אֲנָשָׁא; Cf. Daniel 4:22, 29, 30 [25, 32, 33]; Daniel 5:21; 7:13, etc. [—And let a beast’s heart be given unto him. “The heart of a 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).”—Keil.]—And let seven times pass over him, properly, “change over him;” הֲלַף, a select word for “to pass over, expire,” præterire, præterlabi. It may be seriously doubted whether the term עֲלוֹהִי, “over him,” was chosen with a special reference to “the stars succeeding each other in the heavenly heights above the tormented one, which were to indicate the duration of his affliction” (Kranichfeld), although the mystical phrase “seven times” may contain a certain reference to the astrology of the Chaldæans. The seven עִדָּנִין are seven years, as appears from Daniel 7:25, compared with 12:7 (thus the Sept., Josephus, Ibn-Ezra, Rashi, etc.),—not seven months (as Saadia Gaon, Dorotheus, Pseudo-Epiphanius, etc., held) or seven half-years (Theodoret). עִדָּן, in itself equivalent to “juncture, emergency,” receives in this place and Daniel 7:25, the sense of מוֹעֵד or זְמַן, “a point of time,” from the context. The duration of the king’s punishment as extending over seven years is explained here, as in Daniel 3:19, by the fact that a judicial retribution is concerned; and the heavy weight of punishment which Jehovah caused to be announced with solemn emphasis to the king was accordingly inflicted, Daniel 4:25, 29 [28, 32]. The number seven is. however, not to be pressed literally, to the extent of assuming that the duration of the king’s sickness covered exactly seven times 365 days, which would do violence to the always prophetically-ideal pragmatism of the history. Cf. infra, on Daniel 7:25.2

Daniel 4:14 [17]. This matter (message) is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones. The parallelismus membrorum in which the solemn and elevated speech proceeds, shows that the ‎‎‎‎͏͏קַדִּישִׁין are here also, as in Daniel 4:10 [13], identical with the קִירִין. The terms פִּתְנָּם and שְׁאֵלָא are likewise synonymous, but do not, as Hitzig holds, signify “matter” (concern) and “circumstance,” but, in harmony with their etymology and the sense of פתגם in Daniel 3:16, must be rendered “word” (message, announcement) and “demand” (command); cf. the Heb. שְׁאֵלָה, “a request, desire,” Judg. 8:24; 1 Kings 2:16; Job. 6:8; Esth. 5:6, 8, etc. Entirely too artificial and contradictory of the unquestionable sense of גְּזֵרָא, “a decision, resolution” (and also of מֵאמַר, “a decision”), is the attempt of Kranichfeld to vindicate the signification “a request, petition,” for שְׁאֵלָא, which is based on the idea of a petition such as the watchers, as inferior θεοὶ βουλαῑοι (see on Daniel 4:10 [13]), were obliged to address to their superiors, the five planetary gods. But the עִירִין appear nevertheless to be advisory deities, inasmuch as they are only עִירִין, and not אֱלָהִין, and inasmuch as the supreme decision in their college rests, according to Daniel 4:21 [24], with the “Most High” (עִלָיָא). Cf. the representation of a great subordinate council of the Deity as composed of angels in 1 Kings 22:19 et seq.; Job 2:1 et seq.; and also, with reference to the specifically Babylonian idea of a decision in the council of the deity, Diodor. 2:30: οἱ δ̓οὐ̄ν Χαλδαῖοι—φάσιν τὴν τῶν ὅλων τάξιν καὶ διακόσμησιν θεία τινὶ προνοία γεγονέναι, καὶ νῦν ἕκαστα τῶν ἐν οὐρανῶ γινομένων οὐχ ὡς ἔτυχεν οὐδ̓ αὐτομάτως, ἀλλ̓ ὡρισμένη τινὶ καὶ βεβαίως κεκυρωμένη θεῶν κρίσει συντελεῖσθαι; further, the familiar picture near Kazwini, which represents Bel as a judge and surrounded by genii (Gesen., on Isa., 2:337). Before מֵאמַר, “a decree,” the instrumental בְּ must be supplied from the preceding. The variation וּבְמֵאמַר is, therefore, correctly supplied in the interpretation.—To the intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth, etc. עַד־דִּבְרַת דְּי is to be rendered, either “until, to the circumstance, that” = “until that” (donec, Vulg.), or, with Hitzig, in harmony with Daniel 2:30, and with the ἵνα γνῶσιν of Theodotion, עַל־דִּבְרַת דִּי, “to the end that.” The latter may perhaps be preferred, because of the ease of mistaking עַל for עַד, and because of the fact that עַד־דִּבְרַת does not occur elsewhere.3 Daniel 4:22 [25], which directly substitutes תִּנְדַּע for the יִנְדְּעוּן of this verse, shows that Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler of the earth, is not excluded from the number of the “living” who are to recognize the authority of the Most High, but rather, that he especially is included.—And setteth up (rather, “can set up”) over it the basest of men. שְׁפַל אֲנָשִׁים, “the humblest of men,” is grammatically a. general conception conveying the idea of the superlative, as in 2 Chron. 21:17, the Heb. קְטן בָּנָיו; Cf. Winer, Chald. Gramm., § 58, 2. The assertion of Hitzig, that by this humblest of men, an Israelite, or even the Israelitish Messiah (בַּר אֱנָשׁ, Daniel 7:13), is designated as successor to the great world-monarch, is without support from the context. The thought of a person of the lowest rank, rather, was naturally suggested to the mind of the dreaming king, because the fall of himself, the most exalted man, was concerned.—For the opinion that the imperfects יִתְּנִנַּהּ and יְקִים in this place express the idea of ability—“is able to confer, can exalt”—cf. Daniel 2:47, where גָּלֵה רָזִין also designates that Being who is able to reveal secrets. [—“The Kethib עליה is shortened from עֲלֵיהָא, and in the Keri is yet further shortened by the rejection of the י; cf. Daniel 5:21; 7:4 sq., etc.”—Keil.]

Daniel 4:15 [18]. Daniel required to interpret the dream. This dream I king Nebuchadnezzar have seen. The demonstrative דְּנָה is placed first for emphasis, thus corresponding to the disturbing and exciting subject of the dream. The predicative rendering, “This is the dream, which,” etc., is opposed by the rule that the relative cannot be omitted after the designated noun (Winer, § 41, 4).—Declare the interpretation thereof. פִּשְׁרֵא, is a softened form for פִּשְׁרֵהּ, “its interpretation,” in this place, Daniel 4:16 [19], and chap. Daniel 4:8. This view is confirmed by the Peshito, while Theodotion and the Vulgate have פִּשְׁרָא, which reading is still represented among moderns, e.g., by Hitzig.—On the close of the verse, Cf. 6 [9].

Daniel 4:16–24 [19–27]. The interpretation. Then Daniel.… was astonished for (about) one hour. On the reading אֶשְׁתּוֹמַם instead of אִשְׁת׳, Cf. Winer, § 25, 2. Several MSS. have בְּשִׁעַה instead of כִּשָׁעָח, but this reading conflicts with the usage of the context, and also with the testimony of the ancient translators (Theodot., Vulg., Syr., and probably with the Sept.). Concerning the etymology of שָׁעָה, “hour,” which is certainly to be taken here in the literal sense, Cf. on Daniel 3:6.4 That the astonished gazing of Daniel continued “about an hour,” is mentioned by the author from a motive (viz., in order to indicate the greatness of his astonishment) similar to that from which the book of Job records the sympathetic mourning and silence of the three friends during seven days (Job 2:13). Hitzig observes correctly: “He meditates on the interpretation, and is astonished when he perceives it, because he wishes well to the king, and probably, also, because Nebuchadnezzar might receive the prophecy ungraciously, and might take vengeance on him (as Ahab did on Micaiah, 1 Kings 22:26, 27). His confusion is depicted on his countenance; which causes the king to observe that he has found the interpretation, and to invite him in encouraging terms to impart it freely.” It cannot really be comprehended how it is possible, in the face of so unsought for, and, in itself, probable a historical situation, to establish the hypothesis of a conventional forgery in the Maccabæan age.—[“That Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4:16 [19]) in his account speaks in the third person does not justify the conclusion either that another spoke of him, and that thus the document is not genuine (Hitzig), nor yet the conclusion that this verse includes a historical notice introduced as an interpolation into the document; for similar forms of expression are often found in such documents; Cf. Ezra 7:13–15; Esth. 8:7, 8.”—Keil.]—My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies! i.e., Would that the dream concerned thine enemies, and that its interpretation related to thy foes rather than to thee! Instead of the Kethib מָרְאִי (a regular formation from מָרֵא, Daniel 2:47; Daniel 4:23), the Keri has, here and in Daniel 4:21 [24], the shorter form מָרִי, which corresponds to the usage of the later Chaldee. The following עָר, “an enemy,” is likewise peculiar to the pre-targumistic Chaldee.

Daniel 4:17 [20]. The tree that thou sawest, which grew, and was strong; rather, “of which thou sawest that it was great and strong.” The second דִּי is subordinated to the first in דִּי הֲזַיְתָ, and is therefore to be rendered as a conjunction, not as a relative pronoun coordinated with the first. The ensuing description of the tree, in Daniel 4:17 and 18 [20 and 21], and likewise of the Divine sentence of judgment pronounced on it in Daniel 4:20 [23], are repeated verbally from Daniel 4:7 and 13 [10 and 16], although with abbreviations and unessential variations.

Daniel 4:19 [22]. It is thou, O king, that art grown and become strong, etc.; i.e., “that art become great and strong.” The following וּרְבוּתָךְ רְבָת, etc., is loosely connected with the relative clause דִּי רְבַיְתָּ וְגו׳ The Keri offers the smoother form רְבַת instead of רְבַיְתָ, and in the following, the third pers. fern. מְטַת instead of מִטְאַת = מְטָאת; Cf. also Daniel 4:21 [24].—Concerning the remarkable addition by the Sept. to Daniel 4:19 [22], cf., e.g., Eth.-fund. principles, No. 3 [below].

Daniel 4:21 [24]. This is the interpretation (of it), O king;—the conclusion to the lengthy antecedent clause, Daniel 4:20 [23].—And this is the decree of the Most High which is come (determined) upon my lord the king. In regard to מְטָא עַל, cf. the Heb. בּוֹא על, Gen. 34:27; Job 2:11. The preterite מְטַת represents the decree as already decided on, and, therefore, as unavoidable, and certain to be executed on the king.

Daniel 4:22 [25]. They shall drive thee from men, literally, “and thee shall they drive,” etc. The וְ in וְלָךְ is consecutive: “and thus shall they drive thee.” The impersonal active טָרְדִין is exactly similar to אָמְרִין, Daniel 3:4, and infra, Daniel 4:28 [31]. The agents of the punishment, who are not designated, are the inferior angels, as with יְשַׁנּוֹן, Daniel 4:13 [16], and as in Daniel 4:28 [31].5

Daniel 4:23 [26]. And whereas they commanded to leave the stump of the tree roots; “they” = the heavenly watchers, of whom one only spoke, Daniel 4:10–14 [13–17]; but that one was the representative of the entire community of angels.—Thy kingdom shall (again) be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known, etc קַיָּם neither signifies “to continue” (Theodotion, Vulg., Dereser, von Lengerke, etc.), nor “to be preserved” (Bertholdt), but rather, “to arise, stand, be firm,” and here, in view of the context, “to again be firm” (Hitz., Kranichf.). מִן־דִּי in this place is not inferential—“since, because,”—as in Daniel 3:22, but instead relates to time, “as soon as,” and designates a juncture following the period included in עַד דִּי, Daniel 4:21, 29 [24, 32]—hence at the close of the seven years.—That the heavens do rule, viz.: over the kingdoms of men, Cf. Daniel 4:14 [17] and 22 [25]. “The heavens” is here used to designate God, instead of “the Most High.” The expression must be regarded as an abbreviation of the phrase “the God of heaven,” which was employed on former occasions (chap: 2:18, 37, 44), or of “the King of heaven” (4:34), which is synonymous with the former, or also of “the Lord of heaven” (Daniel 4:23). There is nothing untheocratic and polytheistic in the expression, even though the Chinese designate their god as heaven, and though the same usage prevailed among the ancient Persians (Herod, 1:131), the Greeks (Ζεύς = Sanscr. jâus, “heaven”), and the Romans (Deus; Divus, Jovis, etc.). Even in the New Testament the βασιλεἰα τῶν οὐρανῶν is identical with the βασιλ. τοῦ θεοῦ, and the Talmudists (e.g., Nedarim, ix. 10; x. 13, etc.; Buxtorf, Lex. Chald., col. 2440), as well as the Jews of a much earlier period (according to Juvenal, Sat., XIV. 96 et seq., and Diodorus in Photius, Bibl., XL.), generally designated God directly as “heaven,” indicating thereby that they attributed to Him the sole dominion over the heavenly world, and denied that other gods were associated with Him (cf. Psa. 115:16).

Daniel 4:24 [27]. Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee. לָהֵן, “wherefore,” as in Daniel 2:6. In regard to שְׁפַר, Cf. on Daniel 3:32. The term is here construed with עַל, as in that passage and Daniel 6:2, with קֳדָם, by which the persuasiveness of the remarks is increased (cf. מָב with עַל, Ezra 5:17), and by which the desire of Daniel to aid the king, if possible, in averting the impending danger and punishment, becomes more apparent than would be the case if the more courteous phrase שְׁפַר קֳדָמָיךְ had been employed. From this truly theocratic standpoint, the prophet persists in holding it possible to turn aside the punishment threatened in the dream, similar to Isaiah (38:1 et seq.) and Jeremiah (18:7 et seq.) in analogous cases; Cf. Joel 2:12 et seq.; Am. 7:3, 6; Jonah 3:5 et seq.; 2 Kings 20:1 et seq.6 —And break off thy sins by righteousness; rather, “purchase thy deliverance from thy sins,” etc. The ancient translators justly regard חֲטָיָךְ as plural; Cf. the parallel עֲוַיָּתָךְ. The suffix in חֲטָיָךְ, instead of חֲטָיָיךְ, is defective, similar to that in רַעְיוֹנָךְ, Daniel 5:10. The word is derived from the Stat, emphat. חֲטָרֵא of a singular חַטִי (= Heb. חֵטְא, cf. Olshausen, Lehrb., p. 283).—פְּרַק, properly “to break” (cf. Sanscr. prak, Lat. frango, Germ, brechen), designates, similar to the Heb. פרק in passages like Psa. 136:24; Sam. 5:8, etc., a “tearing out” of a matter from its former position or relations, and hence, a “liberating, redeeming, or purchase” (cf. 2 Sam. 7:23; Isa. 35:9, 10, where פרק is used for גאל or פדה, exsolvere, redimere). The Sept. and Theodot. therefore render it correctly by λύτρωσαι, the Vulg. redime, and Syr., Saad., Ibn Ezra, Berth., de Wette, Hitzig, etc., in a similar manner. On the other hand, Rashi, Geier, Starke, Dereser, Hävernick, von Len-gerke, Kranichfeld, etc., prefer the idea of casting off, casting away, as it is found in Gen. 37:40, and accordingly interpret: “lay off thy sins” (Häv.), or “break off thy sins, give them up” (Kranichfeld). But in the usage of the Chaldee language, and especially in that of the Targums, פרק constantly and undeniably bears the sense of redeeming by purchase (e.g., a birthright, a field, the daughter of Jephthah, Judg. 11:35); and the rather broad conception, admitting, as it does, of an application to many and diverse relations, by no means requires that the object to be redeemed should be desirable to the purchaser, and possess value for him. Rather, the remark of von Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, i. 519,) is correct: “The sins are not under restraint, but, instead, they enslave. The idea of Daniel, therefore, is that the king should deliver himself from the sins that involve him in guilt and slavery, by practising righteousness and mercy for the future, instead of persisting in the arbitrary and tyrannical course to which he had hitherto been addicted.”7 Cf. Melancthon also, in the Apology (Art. III., p. 112), where the “redime” of the Vulgate is retained, but the supposed interpretation is decidedly rejected, as favoring the doctrines of work-righteousness insisted on by the Jewish and Roman Catholic exegesis (see Eth.-fund. principles, etc., No. 2 [below]). This interpretation, however, does not result from any possible rendering of the imper. פְּרַק, but from the incorrect explanation of צִדְקָח by “doing good, alms,” which is found in numerous expositors, from Jerome to Hitzig; and the latter rendering is not justified, either by Psa. 37:21, nor by a comparison with extravagant laudations of works of mercy in Ecclus. 3:28; 29:12; Tob. 4:10; 12:9, etc. The only interpretation of צִדְקָה allowed by the context and general usage is “righteous deportment” to be observed by the king toward his subjects, in contrast with his former tyranny and arbitrary domination. In the parallel member, “mercy toward the poor” is intimately connected with this, as being the second leading virtue in rulers, which virtue the king is exhorted to cultivate (cf. Hofm., as above). The historical situation, rather than the usage, indicates that, in connection herewith, the עֲנִיִּין are to be sought for principally in the number of the poor Israelites, the theocratically wretched (עֲנִיִּים), who were languishing in exile and captivity. The usage would admit of a different rendering of the עֲנִיִּין.8 —If it may be a lengthening of thy tranquility; rather, “if thy prosperity shall be durable.” This is the external motive addressed to the king, to induce him to heed the warning of the theocratic seer. The conditional language is very decided; הֵן, “if,” is no more to be taken in the dubious sense of εἰ ἄρα (Acts 8:22) in this passage than in Daniel 3:17.—אַרְכָּא is not “forbearance, forgiveness,” but “duration, continuance;” Cf. Jer. 15:15; Ecc. 8:12.

Daniel 4:25–30 [28–33]. The fulfilment. All this came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar. Hävernick regards these words as still belonging to the royal proclamation, while all that follows, to Daniel 4:30 [33], is a parenthesis inserted by the prophet (see supra, on Daniel 3:31). But this hypothesis renders it impossible to observe unity of the report, which must obviously be preserved, since the theocratic coloring apparent in these verses may elsewhere be frequently noticed (supra), and since a detailed statement of the infliction of the threatened punishment is required in order to give point to the report. This does not make it inconceivable that Daniel, the writer of the report as a whole, should in this connection relegate the royal subject, who had hitherto been spoken of in the first person, to the background, and that he should describe the Divine judgment executed on the king from his own theocratic point of view.9

Daniel 4:26 [29]. At the end of twelve months he walked upon (marg.) the palace of the kingdom of Babylon; rather, “the royal palace at Babylon.” In relation to the time indicated, “at the end of twelve months,” Kranichfeld observes: “When the important incident of the dream was a year old, and on that account its recollection naturally exercised the imagination of the king with special force, he gave himself up, despite the Divine warning, to the proudest exaltation of self, which indicated that he was neither controlled by religious piety in general, nor by reverence for the God of the Jews in particular,” etc. It appears to us that this is seeking too much in that designation of time. It is simply a historical circumstance that exactly twelve months elapsed between the dream and its fulfilment, and at the same time an illustration of the simple accuracy and concrete truth of the narrative.10 —“Upon the royal palace,” i.e., upon its flat roof; Cf. 2 Sam. 11:2. The proud king, who has employed the respite of twelve months in nursing his tyrannical superciliousness, instead of improving it by repenting and working righteousness, wishes, by actual observation from this elevated spot, to assure himself of the condition of his royal power, and to feast himself with looking on the gigantic metropolis of the world which he had created. His thoughts are similar to those of another, in Schiller’s Glocke (the Bell):

“The splendor of the house

Stands firm as earth’s foundations

Against the power of evil,” etc.

The “walking along” (מְהַלֵּךְ הֲוָא; cf. מְהַלְכִין בְּגֵוָה, Daniel 4:34 [37]) likewise indicates his conceited arrogance and pride; cf. the Germ. “einherstol ziren” (strutting along).—The mention of the location, “at Babylon,” does not at all compel the assumption of a Palestinian origin of the book, or of any particular part of it, as even Hitzig acknowledges. It merely indicates that the author was not a constant resident in the city of Babylon, and that his narrative was composed for readers who were chiefly, or without exception, strangers in Babylon (however long they might have been detained in that city against their will). These features are suited to the view that Daniel was the writer of the document before us, as thoroughly as they militate against the idea that Nebuchadnezzar was its immediate author; Cf. supra, on Daniel 3:31.11

Daniel 4:27 [30]. Is not this (the) great Babylon that I have built, etc. “The great” (רַבְּתָא) was evidently a standing title of Babylon, with its circumference of 480 stadia (Herod. 1:191), its colossal walls, its 25 gates on either side of the immense square, its 676 districts filled with houses of several stories each, its hanging gardens on the Euphrates, its gigantic temples and palaces, etc. Cf. Herod., 1. c.; Diodor. ii. 5 et seq.; Aristotle’s Polit., 3:2; Philostratus, i. 18; Curtius, 6:1 et seq.; also Starke’s Synopsis on this passage; Wattenbach, Nineve und Babylon (Heidelberg, 1868); and Alfred Maury, Nineve et Babylone, in the Revue des deux Mondes, 1868, March 15, p. 470 ss.; [also Rawlinson’s Five Ancient Monarchies, I. 510 et seq.]. For this reason many other authors apply the predicate ἡ μεγάλη to that city; e.g., the Apocalyptist John, Rev. 14:8; 16:19 (cf. also Isa. 13:19; 14:4; 47:3, 4); and Strabo (50:16.), who applies to it the stanza: ἔρημία μεγάλη εστὶν ἡ μεγάλη πόλις, Cf. Pausanius, Arcad., p. 509, who describes Babylon as a city ἤντινα εἰ̄δε πόλεω τῶν τότε μεγίστην ἥλιος. Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon might certainly be designated as “the great city” with as much propriety as formerly Nineveh (cf. Gen. 10:11, 12; Jonah 1:2; 3:2; 4:11), and far more justly than, e.g., Hamath (see Amos 6:2; חֲמַת רַבָּח), or Diospolis (Διόσπολις ἡ μεγάην, Inscr. 4717), or Ephesus, Smyrna, Peragmos, Nicomedia, and other cities of a later period in Asia Minor (cf. Rheinwald, Komment. zum Br. an die Philipper, p. 3 et seq.).—That I have built for the house (or seat) of the kingdom. The A. V. is literal. The expression is equivalent, in modern idiom, to “the royal capital and seat of government.” The מַלְכוּ of the whole empire was to have its seat, its residence, in that metropolis (Kranichf.). Cf. the reference to Bethel as a מַמְלָכָה, in AM. 7:13. “That I have built;” i.e., that I have developed and completed. On בְּנָא, otherwise בָּנָה, in this signification, Cf. 2 Kings 14:22; 2 Chron. 11:5, 6; and see the Chaldæan historians Berosus, Abydenus, and Megasthenes, in Josephus. Ant, x. 11, 1; c: Apion, 1:19; and in Eusebius, Chron., 1:59, with reference to the numerous edifices erected in Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar; also Bochart, Phaleg, p. 263 et seq., where Nebuchadnezzar’s services in beautifying the city and increasing its architectural greatness are compared with those of Augustus in Rome, which justified his well-known remark, “se marmoream relinquere, quam lateritiam accepisset” (Suetonius, Aug., c. 29).12 —For the honor of my majesty; לִיקַר הַדְרִי; Cf. the similar constructions in Deut. 5:33, 17; Zech. 11:13; and with reference to the preceding expression, “by the might of my power,” Cf. passages like Isa. 40:26; Eph. 1:19; Col. 1:11, etc.

Daniel 4:28 [31]. While the word was in the king’s mouth. The Divine punishment follows closely after the vain and presumptuous exclamation (cf. Isa. 28:4); exactly as in the poem by Schiller quoted above, where it is added:

“For no eternal bond can be

With the fates that rule our destiny,

And misfortune’s pace is swift.”—

There fell a voice from heaven. Observe the agreement between the prophetic description in the dream, Daniel 4:10 [13] and 11 [14], and the fulfilment twelve months later. The words נָהִת מִן שְׁמַיָּא, which are employed in the former passage, are here echoed by נְעַל (cf. Isa. 9:7), which still more strongly emphasizes the suddenness with which the judicial sentence is promulgated; and עָרֵא בְהַיִל in that place is here repeated by the characteristic קָל, which recalls the analogies in Deut. 4:33, 36; Matt. 3:17; John 12:28; Acts 9:4; 5:13, etc. The record, although sufficiently circumstantial, is but a summary, and affords no trustworthy indications to show whether this φωνὴ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ was produced by the mediation of psychological or of physical causes. The leading fact to be observed is merely that the powerfully excited king was compelled to recollect the warning formerly conveyed in the dream, by what he now heard, whether by a purely subjective mode of perception, or whether objective agencies were at the same time employed.—O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; The kingdom is departed from thee. The perf. עַדָת is employed, because he who was degraded to the level of the brute by the most fearful of mental maladies, was at once and directly incapacitated for his position and office as ruler as a matter of course. In regard to אָמְרִין, “they say,” see on Daniel 4:22 [25]; concerning Daniel 4:29 [32] see ibid., and on Daniel 4:14 [17].

Daniel 4:30 [33] The same hour (hence immediately; cf. on Daniel 3:6) was the thing (or word) fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. סָפַת, literally, “came to end;” for the end of a prophecy is its coming to pass, by which it ceases to be prophecy (Hitzig); cf. כלה, Daniel 12:7; Ezra 1:1. etc.—Concerning the lycanthropy of Nebuchadnezzar, see Introd., § 8, note 1, and the literature there adduced.—Till his hairs were grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws; literally, “like eagles—like birds” (כְּצִפֲּרִין—כְּנִשְׁרִין), a comparatio compendiaria, with which the Stat, const, after the particle of comparison has been omitted, as with מִן in Daniel 4:13 [16], and as in Isa. 9:3; Joshua 5:36, and also in the classics (e.g., Il., 17, 51; Juvenal, Sat. 4, 71, etc.).

Daniel 4:31–34 [34–37]. The restoration of Nebuchadnezzar, and his ascription of praise to God. And (rather “but”) at the end of the days, i.e., of the period of seven years, Daniel 4:13, 22, 29 [16, 25, 32].—I.… lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, namely, as seeking help from thence, as supplicating the God of heaven (see on Daniel 4:23 [26]; cf. Psa. 123:1 et seq.; 25:5, etc.13 —And mine understanding returned unto me; or, taking the ו as illative, “so that mine understanding returned.” The prayer of the hitherto maniac king was thus shown to be anything rather than a “flagrant inconsequence,” as Von Lengerke. Hitzig, and others characterize it. On the contrary, it produced the beneficial effect of delivering the penitent king from his disease, and of restoring him to the society and the mode of life of civilized people. Cf. Pusey and Kranichfeld on this passage, in relation to the inclination to prayer, or to other religious manifestations and observances, which has frequently been observed in the case of maniacs afflicted with lycanthropy. In the case before us, where the period of insanity and punishment imposed by God had, at any rate, expired, the prayerful looking up to heaven by the humbled king could not possibly result in less than the elevation of the sufferer from his brutal condition to manhood—from the state of one lying helplessly on the ground, and looking earthward in his debasement, to the dignity and bearing of man, who is formed in the image of God, that is to say, to the normal form of man, of which Ovid sings (Metam., i. 85 ss.):

“Pronaque cum spectent animalia cœtera terram,

Os homini sublime dedit, cœlumque videre

Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.”—

And I praised and honored him that liveth forever. Cf. 6:27; 12:7; and also, in relation to the latter half of the verse, Daniel 3:33. [“The first thought he entertained was to thank God, to praise him as the ever-living One, and to recognize the eternity of His sway. Nebuchadnezzar acknowledges and praises God as the ‘ever-living One,’ because He had again given to him his life, which had been lost in his mad-ness.”—Keil.]

Daniel 4:32 [35]. And all the inhabitants of the earth are (to be) reputed as nothing, that is, “in comparison to Him.” The partic. חֲשִׁיבִין must be regarded in this place as the part. fut. pass., and is not, therefore, to be explained (in analogy with Isa. 40:17) by, “are reputed as nothing by Him” (Hävern., Kranichf., etc.). [“The eternity of the supremacy of God includes His omnipotence as opposed to the weakness of the inhabitants of earth” (Keil).] כְּלָה instead of כְּלָא may be regarded as the error of a copyist, who thought to correct a supposed כֻּלָּא (that is אַרְעָא)by substituting כֻּלָּה. Or “לָה for לָא, is an archaism, conforming to the pregnant character of the negation, similar to לֹח for לֹא, Deut. 3:11” (Kranichf.). [The final ח seems to be a mere Chaldaic interchange for א in the ordinary כְּלָא, as not.] The rabbinical assertion, found in Rashi and Saadia, that לָח signifies “an atom of solar dust,” is at all events to be rejected.—And he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, etc. Cf. Isa. 24:21, a passage that evidently lies at the foundation of the one before us, in which “the host on high” presents the same idea as is contained in “the army of heaven” in this place. Both refer to the innumerable companies of angels who inhabit heaven (Gen. 32:2 et seq.; Heb. 12:22 et seq.; cf. Dan. 7:10).—And none can.… say unto him, what doest thou? Cf. Isa. 43:13; and in relation to the phrase, “to stay one’s hand= to oppose him,” see the Targ. on Eccles. 8:4; Tr. Sanhedr., 100:2; also the Arabic of Hariri, p. 444.14

Daniel 4:33 [36]. And the glory of my kingdom, mine honor, and my brightness returned unto me. The ל before יְקַר serves to introduce that word as a new subject, after the former, מַנְדְּעִי (cf. Isa. 32:1; 38:16; Psa. 89:19). יְקַר “station, majesty, dignity,” such as is manifested in the look, bearing, and manners of a princely personage. הֲדַר, “splendor,” A. V. “honor” (cf. Daniel 4:27 [30]; chap. Daniel 4:18), is here contrasted with his former appearance and condition, which denied his royal state, and even his nature as a man, Daniel 4:30 [33]. זִיו is properly “brightness,” and here refers to the beauty or beaming freshness of the human countenance (cf. chap. Daniel 4:6, 9; 7:28), while הדר refers more particularly to the splendor of his robes (cf. Psa. 110:3; 29:2; 96:9; 2 Chron. 20:21).—And my counsellors and my lords sought unto me,—they, who had formerly avoided and deserted me! That בְּעָא signifies a search for one who is believed to have disappeared without leaving a trace by which to discover him, is an assumption made by Hitzig and also by a number of earlier expositors, such as Geier, Michaelis, Bertholdt, etc., which, however, is without any support whatever. The expression rather designates “a search conducing to the honor of the king, which was instituted by his former counsellors and magnates in their capacity as the council of the regency during the interim, for the purpose of officially requesting the king on his restoration to health, to resume the control of the government.” The terms הדברין (see on 3:24) and רברבנין do not, however, designate different subjects, but the same ones with reference to their several powers and dignities; cf. שַׂר וְגָדוֹל, 2 Sam. 3:28; μέγας καὶ δυνάστης, Job. 9:22.—And I was (again) established in my kingdom. חָתְקְנֵת instead of חָתְקְנֵת, because of the following accent, distinct.—And excellent majesty was added unto me; “I received still greater power” than I had formerly enjoyed; cf. Job 42:10. There are no historical authorities to show in what the additional power consisted which came to Nebuchadnezzar toward the end of his life; but the truth of this statement cannot on that account be questioned.

Daniel 4:34 [37]. Now (or therefore) I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, and extol, and honor, etc. By this doxology the close of the royal proclamation returns to the thought of the introduction, Daniel 3:32 et seq.—All whose (rather, “for all His”) works are truth, and his ways judgment. קְשׁוֹט, literally “firmness, immutability,” and hence, “faithfulness, truth” (=Heb. אֶמֶת). דִּין, literally “judgment,” procedure strictly conformed to justice (=Heb. מִשְׁפָּט): Cf. Jer. 9:23; 22:13.—And those that walk in pride, he is able to abase. cf. Isa. 10:33; 13:11; 25:11; 1 Sam. 22:7; Psa. 18:28; Luke 1:51 et seq.—In relation to the enlargement of this doxology of Nebuchadnezzar which is found in the Sept. in this place, see the Eth.-fund. principles, etc., No. 3 [below].

ETHICO FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES RELATED TO THE HISTORY OF SALVATION, APOLOGETICAL REMARKS, AND HOMILETICAL SUGGESTIONS

According to the remarks on Daniel 3:31 [4:1], the authorship of this section is divided between Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel, with the distinction that the former is conceived as the moral originator and ordainer of the edict, while the latter is its writer. But, at the same time, both the heathen king and the theocratic prophet are so exclusively the active (or suffering) characters of the narrative, that every observation of dogmatic or apologetical importance must be derived from the conduct of one or the other of these two persons. We therefore direct our attention

1. To Nebuchadnezzar,—with reference to whose seizure by lycanthropic mania, as being credible on general grounds, and also as being attested by extra-biblical authorities, the necessary explanation has been given in the Introd. (§ 8, note 1). We now direct attention to the act of profound self-abasement which the king performed by publishing, of his own impulse, a report respecting his protracted disease of several years’ duration, and also respecting its causes and his final cure. This involves no improbability on psychological, political, or religious grounds. (1) From a psychological point of view, the report became necessary, because a spirit of repentance and of sincere self-abasement had really come over the proud monarch, and because he had been led to recognize with all emphasis that the humiliation, as wearisome as it was deeply painful to his consciousness, was a righteous punishment inflicted on him by the only true God, even though a genuine, durable, and fruit-bearing conversion might not have been accomplished in his case. On the nature of this sincere and profoundly realized humiliation of the king, which, however, was inadequate to secure his admission to a gracious state, or to formal membership in the congregation of God’s people under the Old Covenant, cf. Calvin on Daniel 4:34: “Hic est modus omnis humiliationis; sed careret profectu illa humiliatio, nisi Dominus postea regeret nos spiritu mansuetudinis. Et ita Nebucadnezar hic non complectitur gratiam Dei, quœ tamen digna erat non vulgari elogio et prœdicatione; sed non descripsit etiam in hoc edicto quicquid posset requiri ab homine pio et qui edoctus fuerit diu in schola Dei, sed tamen ostendit se multum profecisse sub Dei ferulis, quum tribuit illi summam potentiam (c. iii. 32, 33; c. iv. 31 ss.), deinde conjungit justitiœ laudem et rectitudinis (c. iv. 34) et sese interea fatetur reum et testatur justam fuisse pœnam, quœ divinitus irrogata fuit.”—(2) In a political aspect, also, the edict became necessary, since, as appears from Daniel 4:33, circumstances required that at the end of the king’s illness a proclamation should be issued, certifying that the monarch in person was about to resume the government, and to supersede the regency of the interim, composed of his “counsellors and lords,” who had hitherto administered the affairs of the state. The king had no need to dread the effect of such an explanation on his people, even though it involved much that was humiliating to him; but it is by no means recorded that he caused it to be promulgated in the public places and on the streets by the lips of a herald (as was the case with the edict in Daniel 3:4 et seq.), nor even that it was at any time brought into public notice in writing. (3) Finally, the document involves no considerable difficulty in a religious point of view, inasmuch as the partly heathen and partly Israelitish faith of the Babylonian king, in other words, that syncretism which amalgamated all religions, and which so frequently appears in the history of the rulers of the period of the captivity, is clearly manifested, as has already been shown on Daniel 3:31 [4:1]. Accordingly, even Hitzig finds it to be entirely credible that Nebuchadnezzar as a newly or only partially converted person should “acknowledge a god as his god (Daniel 4:5), and even other holy gods (Daniel 4:6, 15), in addition to the Highest God.” The statement by the same critic that it is strange that “after this stern experience Nebuchadnezzar should not have liberated the Jews, the captive servants of the Highest God, as the history shows he did not,” is without any foundation; for, according to Daniel 4:1 compared with Daniel 4:27 and 31, the event did not transpire until near the close of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, and we cannot tell what he would have done had he lived any considerable time after his recovery (which was certainly not the case, according to Berosus, in Josephus, c. Apion, I, 20), nor yet what political relations, combinations, or considerations may have prevented the immediate execution of a plan to restore the Jews to their country, which may already have been prepared.

2. So far as the conduct of Daniel is concerned, the characteristic feature of the two-fold position which he occupied at the Chaldæan court as a prophet of Jehovah and chief of the Magians, is prominently exhibited in a manner that affords a highly favorable testimony for the credibility of the narrative as a whole. The Jewish wise man, who is dignified by an honorary office rather than burdened with definite official functions, e.g., with sacerdotal duties, is permitted to be absent at first, on the occasion when the interpreters of dreams or Magians were summoned before the king, because he was allowed a greater freedom of action in general (see on Daniel 4:6). It was not, probably, without producing a feeling of profound injury that when he finally appeared the king addressed the servant of the living God (Daniel 4:5, 6) in a thoroughly heathen manner as “Belteshazzar,” after the name of his god (i.e., the idol Bel), according to Calvin’s just remark, “Non dubium est, qulin hoc nomen graviter vulneraverit animum prophetœ.” He did not, however, renounce his allegiance and devotion to the royal personage who was his benefactor, and who, in case he would receive and be guided by the prophet’s counsel, might so easily become the benefactor and liberator of, the entire people of God. When the king had related to him the dream, so prophetic of misfortune, he gave way to trouble and sympathetic sorrow “about an hour” (Daniel 4:16), and the words by which he at length introduced the interpretation, invoked a blessing on the king coupled with the wish that the fate which threatened the monarch might rather overtake his foes. Cf. Calvin again: “Daniel exponit (Daniel 4:16), cur ita fuerit attonitus, nempe quia cuperet averti tam horribilem pœnam a regis persona. Etsi enim merito eum potuit detestari, tamen reveritus est potestatem divinitus ei traditam. Discamus igitur exemplo prophetœ, bene precari pro inimicis nostris, qui cupiunt nos perdere, maxime vero precari pro tyrannis, si Deo placeat subjici nos eorum libidini;—alioquin non tantum illis, sed etiam Deo ipsi sumus rebelles. cæterum altera ex parte ostendit Daniel, se non frangi ullo misericordiœ affectu, neque etiam molliri, quo minus pergat in sua vocatione.”—The manner in which Daniel succeeded in uniting the strictest theocratic fidelity towards God with this devotion to his sovereign, is seen partly in the unconcealed directness and the categorical plainness with which he announced the most degrading and humiliating punishment to the king, in Daniel 4:22 [25], and partly in the warning or epilogue, Daniel 4:24 [27], with which he concluded his interpretation. In this epilogue the fundamental dogmatic and ethical ideas of the entire section concentrate and crowd together in pregnant significance. The exposition of this passage has shown that the course which Daniel here recommends, with a noble frankness and an impressive fervor, is none other than that which should be followed by every pious ruler who is faithful in his office, and in brief, that it comprehends the sum of princely virtues. Hence, those expositors who find that this passage recommends and prescribes work righteous conduct, and especially the giving of alms, as in itself meritorious, do violence to the words. Such expositors are the Rabbins, who generally ascribe an almost magical virtue to alms-giving, and who press every possible passage of Scripture to support their view, especially those containing the term צְדָקָח, which is by them rendered “well doing, alms-giving” (cf. Buxtorf, Lex. p. 1,891 et sq.); further, the Roman Catholic exegetes, who are accustomed, since Bellarmine’s detailed exposition of this passage (l. II. pœnitentia, c. 6; cf. 50:4. 100:6), to employ it as one of the principal proof-texts for their anti-evangelical theory of justification and sanctification (in connection with which they declare, of course, that the rendering of the Vulgate: “peccata tua eleemosynis redime”, is the only correct translation); finally, nearly all the rational istic expositors, from Griesinger and Bertholdt down to Gesenius, de Wette, and Hitzig, who, while defending the translation by Jerome above referred to, and while referring to apocryphal passages like Ecclus. 3:28; 29:12; Tob. 4:7 et seq.; 12:9 et seq.; 14:10 et seq., endeavor to find here a work-righteous “morality of the later Judaism,” and therefore a certain indication of the composition of the book subsequent to the exile. Grotius already pointed out that even on the adoption of the faulty Vulgate exegesis, which makes צדקח equivalent to eleemosynæ, the passage does not necessarily yield a sense favorable to Pelagianism: “Neque offendere quemquam potest, quod operibus pœnitentiœ, in quibus excellunt eleemosynœ, tribuatur id, quod pœnitentiœ proprie conuenit; est enim talis metonymia aut synecdoche frequens.” Still better Melancthon, in the Apolog. Conf. Aug. art. iii. p. 112 R: “Non volebat Daniel regem tantum eleemosynam largiri, sed totam pœnitentiam complectitur, quum ait: Redime peccata tua eleemosynis,’ i. e.: redime peccata tua mutatione cordis et operum. Hic autem et fides requiritur.… . Ac verba Danielis in sua lingua clarius de tota pœnitentia loquuntur et clarius promissionem efferunt: ‘Peccata tua per justitiam redime, et iniquitates tuas beneficiis erga pauperes.’ Hœc verba prœcipiunt de tota pœnitentia; jubent enim, ut Justus fiat, deinde ut bene operetur, ut, quod regis officium erat, miseros adversus injuriam defendat. Justitia autem est fides in corde,” etc. He expresses himself similarly in his comment on the passage (Opp. ed. Bretschneider, vol. xiii. p. 843 ss.), where he pays no attention to the false rendering of צדקח in the Vulgate; as does also Calvin in his commentary and the Inst. rel. Chr., III. 4, 31, 36, and among the later Protestant expositors especially Carpzov, De eleemosynis Judœorum (in his Apparat. historicus in the Critica Sacra, p. 726 ss.). In all the conduct of Daniel, therefore, as described in this section, nothing can be discovered which is at variance with the proper deportment of a witness to the faith and a highly enlightened seer of the Old Covenant in the presence of a heathen ruler of the world. To this deportment in practical life corresponds also the tone observed by him in the composition, under the king’s direction, of the document before us, whose agreement with the theocratic modes of thought and conception has already been pointed out.

3. In an apologetic respect the disharmony must be noticed, which exists between what might have been expected from the art of a pseudological tendency-writer of Asmonæan times, and the conditions of place and time as indicated in our narrative. A careful and unbiased examination of the document with reference to the conditions of the Maccabæan period, reveals at once how empty and arbitrary is everything that has been said by Bertholdt, Bleek, Von Lengerke, Hitzig, and others, respecting the parenetic aim, calculated for the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, with which they allege it was written. “The sinner Nebuchadnezzar, who was punished for his pride and folly, was a type of the presumptuous Επιμανής, who in like manner sought improper associates, denied the kingly character, and had but recently issued a circular letter, although of an entirely different character.” This brief extract from Hitzig (p. 58) contains a whole brood of tendency-critical assumptions and captious perversions of the actual historical facts, based on the erection of false parallels. It is impossible to understand why precisely Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldæan king whose presumption was punished with lycanthropy, should be selected as a type of the proud Seleucidian Ἐπιμανής (cf. 1 Macc. 1:21, 24), when, e.g., Sennacherib (2 Kings 18:19), Saul (1 Sam. 16:14; 18:10 et seq.), or Pharaoh (Ex. 14), would have furnished a far more suitable parallel to the tyrant of the Maccabæan period, who was to be punished for presumptuous fury against God, and since, moreover, there is no lack, upon the whole, of historical examples to illustrate the proverb, “A haughty spirit goeth before a fall” (Prov. 16:18). The fact recorded by Polybius 26:10 (to which passage Hitzig explicitly refers), that Antiochus Epiphanes was a lover of improper, i.e., immoral, coarse, and riotous gatherings, certainly finds but a clumsy illustration and an exceedingly vague foreshadowing in Nebuchadnezzar’s association with the beasts of the field. The analogy is merely superficial, and that to a degree in which it dissolves into incongruity and even absurdity, whenever it is submitted to a careful examination (cf. Kranichf. p. 174 et seq.). With reference to the third parallel, that both tyrants issued circular letters, Hitzig himself concedes that the circular mentioned in 1 Macc. 1:41 et seq. was “really of a nature entirely different” from that of Nebuchadnezzar’s edict. The mere fact, therefore, that Nebuchadnezzar addressed a circular to his subjects, convinces him that it was typical of the other fact, that Epiphanes also issued such a document—as if any king whatever could reign but a single year, without publishing some manifesto, or edict, or circular, etc.! Hitzig’s treatment of Daniel 4:28 [31], (the sentence of Divine punishment denounced on Nebuchadnezzar, “The kingdom is departed from thee”), by which he endeavors to demonstrate the special time in the Maccabæan epoch during which this section originated, results in similar absurdities. He holds that the threat of an immediate overthrow, or rather of a ruin already in progress, clearly indicates that the document was composed at a time when the Asmonæans had already taken up arms and had gained the upper hand,” hence in the period designated in 1 Macc. 2:42–48; as if any real analogy existed between the punishment of a presumptuous spirit by means of a severe mental disease, and the political and religious revolt of an oppressed nation against their persecutors! and further, as if the syncretistic Chaldæan king, who admitted all religions, could by any means be placed in comparison with Antiochus, the fanatically intolerant worshipper of Zeus! How can Nebuchadnezzar, who was exhorted to mercy toward the “poor” (עֲנָיִּן, Daniel 4:24 [27], be brought into parallelism with the Syrian king, who was engaged in an open conflict with the representatives of the Theocracy (i.e., with the armed bands of Israelitish heroes inflamed with rage, who, moreover, could at that time hardly be termed the poor)?—the world-monarch of the captivity, who was punished indeed, but whose punishment led him to repent and be converted, with the incorrigibly hardened and diabolized antichrist upon the throne of the Seleucidæ, who for that very reason was regarded as hopelessly lost, and as the certain prey of eternal damnation, from a theocratic point of view? And in relation to the conduct of Daniel—where, in the theocratic state, and especially among the apocalyptists of the Maccabæan period who were enthusiasts for God, could a parallel to the prophet of this chapter be found? What servant of Jehovah in that age can be mentioned, who, like our prophet, and in analogy with the course of the Syrian captain Naaman (2 Kings 5:18), would quietly sojourn at the court and in the immediate presence of a heathen ruler; who would have counselled the king in friendship, warned him in loving earnestness, supported and comforted him, as Daniel actually did in his intercourse with the Chaldæan monarch, according to the statements of our section? Certain passages of the Talmud, (Hilchot Rozeach, 12:15; Baba Bathra, f. 4, p. 1) may serve to indicate the kind of description which the Maccabæan age would probably have given of the ancient Daniel. It is there asserted that God afterwards punished that prophet, because he had wasted good advice and instruction on the heathen Nebuchadnezzar, such as are found in Daniel 4:24! In addition, cf. the doxology appended by the Sept. to Daniel 4:34, for an illustration of the manner in which that age would have described a Nebuchadnezzar who should actually repent and turn to God. In that passage the restored king is represented as renouncing forever the heathen gods as being utterly powerless, as promising to dedicate himself and his people to the constant service of Jehovah, and as honoring and exulting the Jewish people with excessive praise!—Upon the whole cf. Kranichfeld, p. 170 et seq. and p. 203. See also Ibid., p. 175: “The situation, however, becomes no more conceivable, if, for the purpose of demonstrating the invention of this section as a sketch’ copied from the circumstances of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, its composition be placed prior to the armed revolt mentioned in 1 Macc. 2:42 et seq. and consequently in a time when Antiochus raged in unresisted power against the helpless Jews. In this case it must be allowed indeed, that the writer possessed considerable prophetic gifts, so that even Hitzig ascribes prophecy to him in relation to the final fate of Epiphanes, without characterizing it as prophecy ex eventu. The definite and unconditional prediction concerning the loss of the kingdom by means of force, Daniel 4:28 et seq., would thus be fully realized; and likewise that foretelling of a peculiar disease by which he should be brought to a humble recognition of the God of the Jews, even though it were not a disease of the mind (cf. 2 Macc. 9:5 et seq.). The total desertion to which he was actually exposed during the progress of his disease (cf. 2 Macc. 9:9) ἐπἰξένης ἐν τοῖς ὄρεσιν (ibid. Daniel 4:28) would have reflected honor on the prophetic threat of the alleged forger (cf. Dan. 4:22, 29 et seq.). But besides mistaking the nature of the disease, he has unfortunately erred with reference to the recovery, and on that very account he is compelled, according to Hitzig, to renounce the honor of composing a prophecy after the event had transpired, and that without compensation for the otherwise really wonderful prediction of the three circumstances mentioned above, whose combined fulfillment of itself assuredly deserves the distinguishing attribute of pseudo-prophecy. But there still remains the oracle of Daniel 4:23 [26], an expression on the part of a Jew regarded as a model of the patriot who is jealous because the law of his God is trodden under foot, and which is ambiguous when compared with the circumstances of the period of persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes, and therefore inconceivable in a historical point of view, since that period preceded the armed rising. Moreover, it must seem strange at the least, that the writer should content himself at the time of Epiphanes with assigning such very ordinary limits to the sinfulness and presumptuous pride of Nebuchadnezzar, while the violence done to the sanctuary of Israel is not mentioned with a single word, for instance, in Daniel 4:24 [27]; and yet it was this very act which ranked chief in importance in the eyes of Antiochus himself (cf. 1. Macc. 21–24, 36 et seq., 44 et seq.; Daniel 4:1 et seq.), and which was regarded as the most heinous crime of that tyrant, and as the principal ground for the lamentations of pious Jews in the Maccabæan period, as well as of the Divine vengeance visited on him; cf. 1 Macc. 2:8–13; 3:55, 51, 58 et seq.; 4:36 et seq.; 6:12 et seq. Such a silence in this connection with regard to so scandalous a deed is the more remarkable, since the historical books expressly record the robbery of the sanctuary perpetrated by Nebuchadnezzar, which action was known to our author, according to Daniel 1:2; cf. Daniel 4:3, as well as to his compatriots. He was not obliged therefore, as a cautious forger, to fear that he should betray his pseudonymity by the mention of the sacred edifice. How greatly the Sept. animated by the spirit and views of the Maccabæan time, must have desired to find in the words of Daniel 5:19, a condemnatory mention of the violence done to the temple by Nebuchadnezzar, and how appropriate it would seem to them, may appear from their addition to Daniel 4:19, which is certainly significant for the Asmonaaan period, and for that reason has unjustly been eliminated by Tischendorf without ceremony: ὑψώθη σοῦ ἡ καρδἰα ὑπερηφανία καὶ ἰσχύϊ ὑπὲρ τὰ πρὸς τὸν ἅγιον καὶ τὸὺ̀ς ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ. Τὰ ἔργα σοῦ ὤφθη καθότι ἐξηρήμωσας τὸν οι̇̄κον τοῦ θερῦ τοῦ ζῶντος ἐπὶ ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις τοῦ λαοῦ τοῦ ἡγιασμένου.”—The exact acquaintance of the writer with the architectural condition of Babylon (cf. the exegesis) which is apparent in Daniel 4:26 [29], and 27 [30], and is as unlooked for as it is evident, deserves to be mentioned as a circumstance of especial force as bearing against the hypothesis of a fiction in the interests of a tendency of the Maccabæan period. A Maccabæan author would scarcely have represented that his typical pseudo-Antiochus was overtaken by a fearful visitation of Divine justice in the form of an unusual disease, while walking on the roof of his own palace and within the limits of his capital. The temptation to let him encounter this fate in the place where Epiphanes succumbed to his, “in a strange land and in the desert,” would ‘have been almost irresistible (cf. 2 Macc. 9:3, 28).

4. Homiletical suggestions.—The features of practical importance in this section are concentrated in Daniel 4:24 [27], the same passage in which Daniel’s words of exhortation and warning to the king furnish the leading elements of dogmatic significance. Not merely is the counsel of Daniel, recommending the practice of the virtues belonging to a ruler who pleases God, such as the doing of works of righteousness and mercy (cf. supra. No. 2), worthy of notice and of thorough homiletical treatment; but equally so the impulse which constrains and encourages him to venture this exhortation—his faith in the willingness of God to avert the threatened punishment from the king, in case he should repent and be converted while it was yet time; his truly prophetic and theocratic conviction that God might possibly repent of His purpose, on the fulfilment of the proper conditions by the threatened person. In this connection see the prophetic parallels adduced above, and compare the remarks of Jerome on this subject: “Si prœdixit sententiam Dei, quœ non potest immutari, quomodo hortatur ad eleemosynas et misericordias pauperum, ut Dei sententia commutetur? Quod facile solvitur Ezechiæ regis exemplo, quem Isajas dixerat esse moriturum, et Ninivitarum, quibus dictum est: Adhuc quadraginta dies, et Ninive subvertetur. Et tamen ad preces Ezechiæ et Ninive Dei sententia commutata est; non vanitate judicii, sed illorum conversione qui meruere indulgentiam. Alioquin et in Jeremia loquitur Deus se mala minari super gentem; et si bona fecerit, minas clementia commutare. Rursum bona agenti se asserit polliceri, et si mala fecerit, dicit se mutare suam sententiam; non in homines sed in opera, quœ mutata sunt. Neque enim Deus hominibus, sed vitiis irascitur; quœ quum in homine non fuerint, nequaquam punit quod mutatum est.” Cf. also Melancthon, Calvin, Geier and Starke, on this passage, and further, the expositions of Biblical theologians on the Old Testament teaching concerning the repentance of God, e.g., Steudel, Theologie des A. Ts., p. 181 et seq.; Hävernick, Vorless., p. 65 et seq.; F. Majer, Was hast du wider das Alte Testament? (Stuttgart, 1864), p. 118 et seq., and Kling, in Herzog’s Real-Encykl., art. Reue, vol. 12. p. 764.—The theme derived from Daniel 4:24 [27] might therefore be formulated: “Repent of thy sin, and God will repent of the punishment threatened against thee;” or, “The aim of Divine punishment is the conversion of men; if this be attained, how gladly will He cause the punishment to cease” (Starke); or, “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful” (Luke 6:36).15

Additional points of departure for homiletical discussion and observation are afforded in Daniel 3:31–33 [4:1–3], and Daniel 4:31–34 [34–37], the introductory and closing doxologies of the report. These are particularly adapted to serve as points of connection for sermons upon the entire narrative, having the theme, “All the works of God are truth, and His ways judgment” (4:34 [37]); or, “Humble yourselves in the sight of God, and He shall lift you up” (Jas. 4:10); or, “God puts down the mighty from their seats, and exalts them of low degree” (Luke 1:52), etc. cf. especially what Theodoret observes, on Daniel 4:31: Τοσαύτην ὠφέλειαν ὁ Ναβουχοδονόσορ ἐκ τῶν συμφορῶν ἐδέξατο, ὅτι προφητικῶς περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ φρονεῑ καὶ φθέγγεται, καὶ ὡς ἐκ συμφωνίας τινὸς ἀπὸ τῆς κτίσεως πάσην σὴν ὑμνωδίαν ὔφαινει. Another homiletical text is contained in Daniel 4:3 [6] et seq., on which Cramer (in Starke) observes correctly, “If human wisdom cannot interpret and explain a dream, it is much less able to discover the secrets of God. Human reason should therefore not be permitted to be master in Divine things; for none can know what is in God, except the Spirit of God.” A still further passage of homiletical bearing is Daniel 4:26–30 [29–33], a powerful and awfully impressive illustration of the proverb, “Pride goeth before destruction” (Prov. 16:18). cf. Starke: “When a man permits the time for repentance to pass without a change of disposition, the Divine punishment overtakes him in the midst of his sins. He then learns that the threatenings of God were not idle words” (Num. 16:12, 31 et seq).

Footnotes:

[1][Keil reviews at length the various reasons assigned for not summoning Daniel at first, and concludes that it must have been because the king had in the lapse of time and varied successes meanwhile totally forgotten the former prophetical powers of the Hebrew captive. This would be natural and entirely satisfactory, but for the fact that on his very introduction into the royal presence he in here designated as one possessing divine foreknowledge, an evident allusion to his former services in that relation.]

[2][Keil, on the other hand, contends that “from Daniel 4:26 the duration of the עִדָּנִין cannot at all be concluded, and in Daniel 7:25, and 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 or Symbolical Numbers, in the Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol., ix. p. 11), or as Leyrer, in Herzog’s Realencykl,: 18. p. 366, expresses himself, ‘the signature for all the actions of God, in judgment and in mercy, punishments, expiations, consecrations, blessings, consecrated 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 that very rarely occurs, after so long a continuance of psychical disease’ (J. B. Friedrich, Zur Bibl. Naturhist., anthrop. u. med. Fragmente, I. p. 316).” This last argument, however, is of little force, in view of the evidently miraculous, or at least specially providential, character of the entire event. “C. B. Michaelis, Gesenius, Rosenmüller, Winer, Lengerke, and nearly all the critics agree that year is the probable meaning.”—Stuart. The supposed difficulty of the management of the empire during so long a period of the king’s incapacity is fairly disposed of by Stuart, by a reference to Berosus, who states that on Nebuchadnezzar’s return to his capital, after his protracted absence during his wars in Western Asia, upon his father’s death, “he took upon himself the affairs which had been managed by the Chaldees [Magi], and the royal authority which had been preserved for him by their chief” (Josephus., Antiq., 10:11, 1.) Geo. Rawlinson was inclined to find a trace of this interruption of Nebuchadnezzar’s government in the period of four years’ inactivity noted in his annals (Historical Evidences, p. 137) on the “Standard Inscription” (Herodotus, 2:485); but he has since doubted the reference (Five Monarchies, III. 60).]

[3][Keil, however, justly claims that “the change of עַד to עַל is unnecessary and arbitrary. The expression is general, because it is not yet said who is to be understood by the tree that is to be cut down. This general expression is in reality correct; for the king comes by experience to this knowledge, and so all will attach to it who consider this.”]

[4][Keil, however, insists that the term here means “as it were an instant, a moment.” But so brief a delay would seem altogether insignificant, and could have excited little surprise, or called for any urging on the part of the king. Stuart, on the other hand, regards so long a hesitation as an hour as “very improbable,” and therefore adduces the derivation of שָׁעָה(a look; Germ. augenblick, Heb. רֶגַע) as favoring the signification an instant; and in this interpretation Gesenius and Fürst both coincide.]

[5][We prefer to say, with Keil, that “the indefinite plur. form טָ‍ֽרְדִין stands instead of the passive, as the following יְטַעֲמוּן לָךְ and מְצַבְּעִין, cf. under Daniel 3:4. Thus the subject remains altogether indefinite, and one has neither to think of men who will drive him from their society, etc., nor of angels, of whom perhaps the expulsion of the ting may be predicated, but scarcely the feeding on grass and being wet with dew.”]

[6][“Daniel knew nothing of a heathen Fatum, but he knew that the judgments of God were directed against men according to their conduct, and that punishment threatened could only be averted by repentance.”—Keil.]

[7][This interpretation of פרק, however, is hardly satisfactory, for, as Keil urges, it “means to break off, to break in pieces, hence to separate, to disjoin, to put at a distance, see under Gen. 21:40. And though in the Targums פרק is used for פָּרָה ,גָּאַל, to loosen, to unbend, of redeeming, ransoming the first-born, an inheritance, or any other valuable possession, yet this use of the word by no means accords with sins as the object, because sins are not goods which one redeems or ransoms so as to retain them for his own use.” Rosenmüller likewise notes this incongruity, and adduces Exod. 32:2, as an instance, where Onkelos retains the word in the sense of breaking off (the earrings). He even declares that “Chaldee writers employ פרק simply for laying aside as in Num. 1:51.”]

[8][Daniel prudently alludes to the king’s moral obliquities only in general terms. Impiety was doubtless his most heinous offence (see Daniel 4:27 [30], 37 [40], and compare Daniel 5:22, 23), and it was indeed his failure to remember Jehovah, whom he had once been brought to recognise (Daniel 3:28), that bred and fostered his heaven-insulting arrogance. Yet Daniel doubtless hinted also at some special Sins of Nebuchadnezzar as a wilful despot. Stuart thinks “he means to designate his capricious and tyrannical behavior on some occasions when he fell into a rage; perhaps also to remind him of the heavy hand that pressed on all the captives whom he had led into exile” and still retained. This last seems especially probable from the particulars specified immediately.]

[9][Keil thus aptly refutes the view of Bertholdt, Hitzig, and others, who “find here that the author falls out of the role of the king into the narrative tone, and thus betrays the fact that some other than the king framed the edict. But this conclusion is opposed by the fact that Nebuchadnezzar from Daniel 4:31 [34] speaks of his recovery again in the first person. Thus it is beyond doubt that the change of person has its reason in the matter itself. Certainly it could not be that in this Nebuchadnezzar thought it unbecoming to speak in his own person of his madness; for, if he had had so tender a regard for his own person, he would not have published the whole occurrence in a manifesto addressed to his subjects. But the reason of his speaking of his madness in the third person, as if some other one were narrating it, lies simply in this, that in that condition he was not Ich=Ego (Kliefoth). With the return of the Ich, I, on his recovery from his madness, Nebuchadnezzar begins again to narrate in the first person.”]

[10][Keil will have it that “עָנֵח here means not simply to begin to speak, but, properly, to answer, and suggests to us a foregoing colloquy of the king with himself in his own mind” He prudently refrains, however, from inferring that Nebuchadnezzar was thinking of the very dream in question at the time.]

[11][Rather, as Keil suggests, “the addition at Babylon does not indicate that the king was then living at a distance from Babylon, as Berth., von Leng., Maurer, and others imagine, but is altogether suitable to the matter, because Nebuchadnezzar certainly had palaces outside of Babylon; but it is made with reference to the language of the king which follows regarding the greatness of Babylon.”]

[12][Abundant confirmation has been found of these enlargements and reconstructions of the edifices of Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in the excavations carried on there by Botta, Layard, and others. Most of the ancient bricks are stamped with the name of that monarch. See Rawlinson’s Herodotus, i. 412 (Am. ed.).]

[13][This raising of his eyes to heaven was “the first sign of the return of human consciousness; from which, however, we are not to conclude, with Hitzig, that before this, in his madness, he went on all-fours like an ox

[14][מְחָא בִידֵהּ in the Pael, to strike on the hand, to hinder, is derived from the custom of striking children on the hand in chastisement (Keil), or in order to check them from a proceeding.]

[15][“This noble example of manly and Christian fidelity to his sovereign is worthy of all admiration, and of course imitation. Prompted by such manifest love and in manner so respectful to the king, and yet with so much personal dignity, it must have fallen upon the king’s mind with great force.—The sin specially indicated here, unrighteous oppression of the poor, looks very probably toward the terrible exactions of labor imposed upon his defenceless subjects (some of them captives of war) in those immense public works which were, in the eyes of men, the glory of his reign. The eye of man, dazzled with so much architectural splendor, commonly fails to look down through to the crushed bodies and broken hearts, and to the hopeless, never-lifted pressure of woe which such a mass of coerced labor always signifies. Human eyes rarely see it, still more rarely make any account of it, but the Great Father sees it and can never fail to take it into most solemn account.”—Cowles.]