FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Commentary which passes as that of Saadia the Gaon is said to be spurious. His genuine Commentary only exists in manuscript.

[2] Dan. ii. 48.

[3] Dan. v. 29, vi. 2.

[4] Dan. vi. 28. There is a Daniel of the sons of Ithamar in Ezra viii. 2, and among those who sealed the covenant in Neh. x. 6.

[5] For a full account of the Agada (also called Agadtha and Haggada), I must refer the reader to Hamburger's Real-Encyklopädie für Bibel und Talmud, ii. 19-27, 921-934. The first two forms of the words are Aramaic; the third was a Hebrew form in use among the Jews in Babylonia. The word is derived from נָגַד, "to say" or "explain." Halacha was the rule of religious praxis, a sort of Directorium Judaicum: Haggada was the result of free religious reflection. See further Strack, Einl. in den Thalmud, iv. 122.

[6] Fabricius, Cod. Pseudepigr. Vet. Test., i. 1124.

[7] Jos., Antt., X. xi. 7. But Pseudo-Epiphanius (De Vit. Dan., x.) says: Γέγονε τῶν ἐξόχων τῆς βασιλικῆς ὑπηρεσίας. So too the Midrash on Ruth, 7.

[8] Jos., Antt., X. x. 6.

[9] Yoma, f. 77.

[10] Berachôth, f. 31.

[11] Sanhedrin, f. 93. Midrash Rabba on Ruth, 7, etc., quoted by Hamburger, Real-Encyclopädie, i. 225.

[12] Kiddushin, f. 72, 6; Hershon, Genesis acc. to the Talmud, p. 471.

[13] Bel and the Dragon, 33-39. It seems to be an old Midrashic legend. It is quoted by Dorotheus and Pseudo-Epiphanius, and referred to by some of the Fathers. Eusebius supposes another Habakkuk and another Daniel; but "anachronisms, literary extravagances, or legendary character are obvious on the face of such narratives. Such faults as these, though valid against any pretensions to the rank of authentic history, do not render the stories less effective as pieces of Haggadic satire, or less interesting as preserving vestiges of a cycle of popular legends relating to Daniel" (Rev. C. J. Ball, Speaker's Commentary, on Apocrypha, ii. 350).

[14] Höttinger, Hist. Orientalis, p. 92.

[15] Ezra viii. 2; Neh. x. 6. In 1 Chron. iii. 1 Daniel is an alternative name for David's son Chileab—perhaps a clerical error. If so, the names Daniel, Mishael, Azariah, and Hananiah are only found in the two post-exilic books, whence Kamphausen supposes them to have been borrowed by the writer.

[16] No valid arguments can be adduced in favour of Winckler's suggestion that Ezek. xxviii. 1-10, xiv. 14-20, are late interpolations. In these passages the name is spelt דָּנִּאֵל; not, as in our Book, דָנִיֵאל.

[17] Isa. xxxix. 7.

[18] See Rosenmüller, Scholia, ad loc.

[19] Ezek., p. 207.

[20] Herzog, R. E., s.v.

[21] Ewald, Proph. d. Alt. Bund., ii. 560; De Wette, Einleit., § 253.

[22] So Von Lengerke, Dan., xciii. ff.; Hitzig, Dan., viii.

[23] He is followed by Bunsen, Gott in der Gesch., i. 514.

[24] Reuss, Heil. Schrift., p. 570.

[25] Ignat., Ad Magnes, 3 (Long Revision: see Lightfoot, ii., § ii., p. 749). So too in Ps. Mar. ad Ignat., 3. Lightfoot thinks that this is a transference from Solomon (l.c., p. 727).

[26] See Ezek. xxix. 17.

[27] See Zech. ii. 6-10; Ezek. xxxvii. 9, etc.

[28] See Hag. ii. 6-9, 20-23; Zech. ii. 5-17, iii. 8-10; Mal. iii. 1.

[29] Ezra (i. 1) does not mention the striking prophecies of the later Isaiah (xliv. 28, xlv. 1), but refers to Jeremiah only (xxv. 12, xxix. 10).

[30] Dan. x. 1-18, vi. 10.

[31] Ezra i. 5.

[32] D'Herbelot, l.c.

[33] Matt. xxiv. 15; Mark xiii. 14. There can be of course no certainty that the "spoken of by Daniel the prophet" is not the comment of the Evangelist.

[34] See Elliott, Horæ Apocalypticæ, passim.

[35] Kranichfeld, Das Buch Daniel, p. 4.

[36] See Ezra iv. 7, vi. 18, vii. 12-26.

[37] "The term 'Chaldee' for the Aramaic of either the Bible or the Targums is a misnomer, the use of which is only a source of confusion" (Driver, p. 471). A single verse of Jeremiah (x. 11) is in Aramaic: "Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods who made not heaven and earth shall perish from the earth and from under heaven." Perhaps Jeremiah gave the verse "to the Jews as an answer to the heathen among whom they were" (Pusey, p. 11).

[38] אֲרָמִית; LXX., Συριστι—i.e., in Aramaic. The word may be a gloss, as it is in Ezra iv. 7 (Lenormant). See, however, Kamphausen, p. 14. We cannot here enter into minor points, such as that in ii.-vi. we have אֲלוּ for "see," and in vii. 2, 3, אֲרוּ; which Meinhold takes to prove that the historic section is earlier than the prophetic.

[39] Driver, p. 471; Nöldeke, Enc. Brit., xxi. 647; Wright, Grammar, p. 16. Ad. Merx has a treatise on Cur in lib. Dan. juxta Hebr. Aramaica sit adhibita dialectus, 1865; but his solution, "Scriptorem omnia quæ rudioribus vulgi ingeniis apta viderentur Aramaice præposuisse" is wholly untenable.

[40] Auberlen, Dan., pp. 28, 29 (E. Tr.).

[41] Einleit., § 383.

[42] Cheyne, Enc. Brit., s.v. "Daniel."

[43] כתבו. See 2 Esdras xiv. 22-48: "In forty days they wrote two hundred and four books."

[44] Baba-Bathra, f. 15, 6: comp. Sanhedrin, f. 83, 6.

[45] Yaddayim, iv.; Mish., 5.

[46] See Rau, De Synag. Magna., ii. 66 ff.; Kuenen, Over de Mannen der Groote Synagoge, 1876; Ewald, Hist. of Israel, v. 168-170 (E. Tr.); Westcott, s.v. "Canon" (Smith's Dict., i. 500).

[47] Yaddayim, iii.; Mish., 5; Hershon, Treasures of the Talmud, pp. 41-43.

[48] Hershon (l.c.) refers to Shabbath, f. 14, 1.

[49] Herzog, l.c.; so too König, Einleit., § 387: "Das Hebr. der B. Dan. ist nicht blos nachexilisch sondern auch nachchronistisch." He instances ribbo (Dan. xi. 12) for rebaba, "myriads" (Ezek. xvi. 7); and tamîd, "the daily burnt offering" (Dan. viii. 11), as post-Biblical Hebrew for 'olath hatamîd (Neh. x. 34), etc. Margoliouth (Expositor, April 1890) thinks that the Hebrew proves a date before b.c. 168: on which view see Driver, p, 483.

[50] Lit. of Old Test., pp. 473-476.

[51] Das Buch Dan., iii.

[52] See Glassius, Philol. Sacr., p. 931; Ewald, Die Proph. d. A. Bundes, i. 48; De Wette, Einleit., § 347.

[53] Ezekiel always uses the correct form (xxvi. 7, xxix. 18, xxx. 10). Jeremiah uses the correct form except in passages which properly belong to the Book of Kings.

[54] Nöldeke, Semit. Spr., p. 30; Driver, p. 472; König, p. 387.

[55] Driver, p. 472, and the authorities there quoted; as against McGill and Pusey (Daniel, pp. 45 ff., 602 ff.). Dr. Pusey's is the fullest repertory of arguments in favour of the authenticity of Daniel, many of which have become more and more obviously untenable as criticism advances. But he and Keil add little or nothing to what had been ingeniously elaborated by Hengstenberg and Hävernick. For a sketch of the peculiarities in the Aramaic see Behrmann, Daniel, v.-x. Renan (Hist. Gén. des Langues Sém., p. 219) exaggerates when he says, "La langue des parties chaldénnes est beaucoup plus basse que celle des fragments chaldéens du Livre d'Esdras, et s'incline beaucoup vers la langue du Talmud."

[56] Meinhold, Beiträge, pp. 30-32; Driver, p. 470.

[57] Speaker's Commentary, vi. 246-250.

[58] New Series, iii. 124.

[59] E.g., הדם, "limb"; רז, "secret"; פתגם, "message." There are no Persian words in Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, or Malachi; they are found in Ezra and Esther, which were written long after the establishment of the Persian Empire.

[60] The change of n for l is not uncommon: comp. βέντιον, φίντατος, etc.

[61] The word שָׂבֽכָא, Sab'ka, also bears a suspicious resemblance to σαμβύκη, but Athenæus says (Deipnos., iv. 173) that the instrument was invented by the Syrians. Some have seen in kārôz (iii. 4, "herald") the Greek κήρυξ, and in hamnîk, "chain," the Greek μανιάκης: but these cannot be pressed.

[62] It is true that there was some small intercourse between even the Assyrians and Ionians (Ja-am-na-a) as far back as the days of Sargon (b.c. 722-705); but not enough to account for such words.

[63] Sayce, Contemp. Rev., December 1878.

[64] Some argue that in this passage συμφωνία means "a concert" (comp. Luke xv. 25); but Polybius mentions it with "a horn" (κεράτιον). Behrmann (p. ix) connects it with σίφων, and makes it mean "a pipe."

[65] Pusey says all he can on the other side (pp. 23-28), and has not changed the opinion of scholars (pp. 27-33). Fabre d'Envieu (i. 101) also desperately denies the existence of any Greek words. On the other side see Derenbourg, Les Mots grecs dans le Livre biblique de Daniel (Mélanges Graux, 1884).

[66] Orient. u. Exeg. Bibliothek, 1772, p. 141. This view was revived by Lagarde in the Göttingen Gel. Anzeigen, 1891.

[67] Daniel neu Übersetz. u. Erklärt., 1808; Köhler, Lehrbuch, ii. 577. The first who suspected the unity of the Book because of the two languages was Spinoza (Tract-historicopol, x. 130 ff.). Newton (Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse, i. 10) and Beausobre (Remarques sur le Nouv. Test., i. 70) shared the doubt because of the use of the first person in the prophetic (Dan. vii.-xii.) and the third in the historic section (Dan. i.-vi.). Michaelis, Bertholdt, and Reuss considered that its origin was fragmentary; and Lagarde (who dated the seventh chapter a.d. 69) calls it "a bundle of flyleaves." Meinhold and Strack, like Eichhorn, regard the historic section as older than the prophetic; and Cornill thinks that the Book was put together in great haste. Similarly, Graf (Der Prophet Jeremia) regards the Aramaic verse, Jer. x. 11, as a marginal gloss. Lagarde argues, from the silence of Josephus about many points, that he could not have had the present Book of Daniel before him (e.g., Dan. vii. or ix.-xii.); but the argument is unsafe. Josephus seems to have understood the Fourth Empire to be the Roman, and did not venture to write of its destruction. For this reason he does not explain "the stone" of Dan. ii. 45.

[68] By De Wette, Schrader, Hitzig, Ewald, Gesenius, Bleek, Delitzsch, Von Lengerke, Stähelin, Kamphausen, Wellhausen, etc. Reuss, however, says (Heil. Schrift., p. 575), "Man könnte auf die Vorstellung kommen das Buch habe mehr als einen Verfasser"; and König thinks that the original form of the book may have ended with chap. vii. (Einleit., § 384).

[69] Beiträge, 1888. See too Kranichfeld, Das Buch Daniel, p. 4. The view is refuted by Budde, Theol. Lit. Zeitung, 1888, No. 26. The conjecture has often occurred to critics. Thus Sir Isaac Newton, believing that Daniel wrote the last six chapters, thought that the six first "are a collection of historical papers written by others" (Observations, i. 10).

[70] Einleit., p. 6.

[71] Other critics who incline to one or other modification of this view of the two Daniels are Tholuck, d. A.T. in N.T., 1872; C. v. Orelli, Alttest. Weissag., 1882; and Strack.

[72] Hengstenberg also points to verbal resemblances between ii. 44 and vii. 14; iv. 5 and vii. 1; ii. 31 and vii. 2; ii. 38 and vii. 17, etc. (Genuineness of Daniel, E. Tr., pp. 186 ff.).

[73] A Short Commentary, p. 8.

[74] Acts xvii. 26, 27.

[75] See Hitzig, p. xii; Auberlen, p. 41.

[76] Reuss says too severely, "Die Schilderungen aller dieser Vorgänge machen keinen gewinnenden Eindruck.... Der Stil ist unbeholfen, die Figuren grotesk, die Farben grell." He admits, however, the suitableness of the Book for the Maccabean epoch, and the deep impression it made (Heil. Schrift. A. T., p. 571).

[77] See iii. 2, 3, 5, 7; viii. 1, 10, 19; xi. 15, 22, 31, etc.

[78] Exod. xv. 20; Judg. iv. 4.

[79] 1 Sam. x. 5; 1 Chron. xxv. 1, 2, 3.

[80] 2 Kings iii. 15.

[81] Jer. xxix. 26; 1 Sam. xviii. 10, xix. 21-24.

[82] 2 Kings ix. 11. See Expositor's Bible, Second Book of Kings, p. 113.

[83] On this subject see Ewald, Proph. d. A. Bundes, i. 6; Novalis, Schriften, ii. 472; Herder, Geist der Ebr. Poesie, ii. 61; Knobel, Prophetismus, i. 103. Even the Latin poets were called prophetæ, "bards" (Varro, De Ling. Lat., vi. 3). Epimenides is called "a prophet" in Tit. i. 12. See Plato, Tim., 72, a.; Phædr., 262, d.; Pind., Fr., 118; and comp. Eph. iii. 5, iv. 11.

[84] Dan. ix. 6, 10. So conscious was the Maccabean age of the absence of prophets, that, just as after the Captivity a question is postponed "till there should arise a priest with the Urim and Thummin," so Judas postponed the decision about the stones of the desecrated altar "until there should come a prophet to show what should be done with them" (1 Macc. iv. 45, 46, ix. 27, xiv. 41). Comp. Song of the Three Children, 15; Psalm lxxiv. 9; Sota, f. 48, 2. See infra, Introd., chap. viii.

[85] Dan. ix. 2, hassepharîm, τὰ βίβλια.

[86] Ewald, Proph. d. A. B., p. 10. Judas Maccabæus is also said to have "restored" (ἐπισυνήγαγε) the lost (διαπεπτωκότα) sacred writings (2 Macc. ii. 14).

[87] Smith's Dict. of the Bible, i. 501. The daily lesson from the Prophets was called the Haphtarah (Hamburger, Real-Encycl., ii. 334).

[88] On this subject see Kuenen, The Prophets, iii. 95 ff.; Davison, On Prophecy, pp. 34-67; Herder, Hebr. Poesie, ii. 64; De Wette, Christl. Sittenlehre, ii. 1.

[89] Joël, Notizen, p. 7.

[90] Thus Dr. Pusey says: "The Book of Daniel is especially fitted to be a battle-field between faith and unbelief. It admits of no half-measures. It is either Divine or an imposture. To write any book under the name of another, and to give it out to be his, is, in any case, a forgery dishonest in itself, and destructive of all trustworthiness. But the case of the Book of Daniel, if it were not his, would go far beyond even this. The writer, were he not Daniel, must have lied on a frightful scale. In a word, the whole Book would be one lie in the Name of God." Few would venture to use such language in these days. It is always a perilous style to adopt, but now it has become suicidal. It is founded on an immense and inexcusable anachronism. It avails itself of an utterly false misuse of the words "faith" and "unbelief," by which "faith" becomes a mere synonym for "that which I esteem orthodox," or that which has been the current opinion in ages of ignorance. Much truer faith may be shown by accepting arguments founded on unbiassed evidence than by rejecting them. And what can be more foolish than to base the great truths of the Christian religion on special pleadings which have now come to wear the aspect of ingenious sophistries, such as would not be allowed to have the smallest validity in any ordinary question of literary or historic evidence? Hengstenberg, like Pusey, says in his violent ecclesiastical tone of autocratic infallibility that the interpretation of the Book by most eminent modern critics "will remain false so long as the word of Christ is true—that is, for ever." This is to make "the word of Christ" the equivalent of a mere theological blindness and prejudice! Assertions which are utterly baseless can only be met by assertions based on science and the love of truth. Thus when Rupprecht says that "the modern criticism of the Book of Daniel is unchristian, immoral, and unscientific," we can only reply with disdain, Novimus istas ληκύθους. In the present day they are mere bluster of impotent odium theologicum.

[91] Gen. xli.

[92] See Lenormant, La Divination, p. 219.

[93] Jer. xxix. 22. The tenth verse of this very chapter is referred to in Dan. ix. 2. The custom continued in the East centuries afterwards. "And if it was known to a Roman writer (Quintus Curtius, v. 1) in the days of Vespasian, why" (Mr. Bevan pertinently asks) "should it not have been known to a Palestinian writer who lived centuries earlier?" (A. A. Bevan, Short Commentary, p. 22).

[94] Avodah-Zarah, f. 3, 1; Sanhedrin, f. 93, 1; Pesachim, f. 118, 1; Eiruvin, f. 53, 1.

[95] Jer. lii. 28-30. These were in the reign of Jehoiachin.

[96] Jer. xlvi. 2: comp. Jer. xxv. The passage of Berossus, quoted in Jos., Antt. X. xi. 1, is not trustworthy, and does not remove the difficulty.

[97] The attempts of Keil and Pusey to get over the difficulty, if they were valid, would reduce Scripture to a hopeless riddle. The reader will see all the latest efforts in this direction in the Speaker's Commentary and the work of Fabre d'Envieu. Even such "orthodox" writers as Dorner, Delitzsch, and Gess, not to mention hosts of other great critics, have long seen the desperate impossibility of these arguments.

[98] Balatsu-utsur, "protect his life." The root balâtu, "life," is common in Assyrian names. The mistake comes from the wrong vocalisation adopted by the Massorets (Meinhold, Beiträge, p. 27).

[99] Schrader dubiously connects it with matstsara, "guardian."

[100] Lenormant, p. 182, regards it as a corruption of Ashbenazar, "the goddess has pruned the seed" (??); but assumed corruptions of the text are an uncertain expedient.

[101] On these see Rob. Smith, Cambr. Journ. of Philol., No. 27, p. 125.

[102] Juv., Sat., x. 96: "Cum grege Chaldæo"; Val. Max., iii. 1; Cic., De Div., i. 1, etc.

[103] Keilinschr., p. 429; Meinhold, p. 28.

[104] Isa. xxiii. 13; Jer. xxv. 12; Ezek. xii. 13; Hab. i. 6.

[105] Jos., Antt., XI. viii. 5.

[106] Isa. xlix. 23.

[107] Isa. lx. 14.

[108] Acts xii. 22, 23.

[109] Acts xiv. 11, 12, xxviii. 6.

[110] See Jer. xxxix. 3. And if he held this position, how could he be absent in chap. iii.?

[111] Namely, the words for "satraps," "governors," "counsellors," and "judges," as well as the courtiers in iii. 24. Bleek thinks that to enhance the stateliness of the occasion the writer introduced as many official names as he knew.

[112] Supra, p. 23.

[113] Athen., Deipnos., iv. 175.

[114] The Persian titles in iii. 24 alone suffice to indicate that this could not be Nebuchadrezzar's actual decree. See further, Meinhold, pp. 30, 31. We are evidently dealing with a writer who introduces many Persian words, with no consciousness that they could not have been used by Babylonian kings.

[115] The writer of Daniel was evidently acquainted with the Book of Ezekiel. See Delitzsch in Herzog, s.v. "Daniel," and Driver, p. 476.

[116] See iv. 16, 25-30.

[117] Preserved by Jos.: comp. Ap., I. 20.

[118] The phrase is common enough: e.g., in Jos., Antt., X. xi. 1 (comp. c. Ap., I. 19); and a similar phrase, ἐμπεσὼν εἰς ἀῤῥωστίαν, is used of Antiochus Epiphanes in 1 Macc. vi. 8.

[119] Præp. Ev., ix. 41. Schrader (K. A. T., ii. 432) thinks that Berossus and the Book of Daniel may both point to the same tradition; but the Chaldee tradition quoted by the late writer Abydenus errs likewise in only recognising two Babylonish kings instead of four, exclusive of Belshazzar. See, too, Schrader, Jahrb. für Prot. Theol., 1881, p. 618.

[120] Dan. v. 11. The emphasis seems to show that "son" is really meant—not grandson. This is a little strange, for Jeremiah (xxvii. 7) had said that the nations should serve Nebuchadrezzar, "and his son, and his son's son"; and in no case was Belshazzar Nebuchadrezzar's son's son, for his father Nabunaid was an usurping son of a Rab-mag.

[121] Schrader, p. 434 ff.; and in Riehm, Handwörterb., ii. 163; Pinches, in Smith's Bibl. Dict., i. 388, 2nd edn. The contraction into Belshazzar from Bel-sar-utsur seems to show a late date.

[122] That the author of Daniel should have fallen into these errors is the more remarkable because Evil-merodach is mentioned in 2 Kings xxv. 27; and Jeremiah in his round number of seventy years includes three generations (Jer. xxvii. 7). Herodotus and Abydenus made the same mistake. See Kamphausen, pp. 30, 31.

[123] Herod., i. 191. See Rawlinson, Herod., i. 434.

[124] Xen., Cyrop., VII. v. 3.

[125] Antt., X. xi. 2. In c. Ap., I. 20, he calls him Nabonnedus.

[126] This is now supposed to mean "grandson by marriage," by inventing the hypothesis that Nabunaid married a daughter of Nebuchadrezzar. But this does not accord with Dan. v. 2, 11, 22; and so in Baruch i. 11, 12.

[127] 2 Kings xxv. 27.

[128] Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the Monuments, p. 527.

[129] I need not enter here upon the confusion of the Manda with the Medes, on which see Sayce, Higher Criticism and Monuments, p. 519 ff.

[130] Winer, Realwörterb., s.v. "Darius."

[131] So Bertholdt, Von Lengerke, Auberlen. It is decidedly rejected by Schrader (Riehm, Handwörterb., i. 259). Even Cicero said, "Cyrus ille a Xenophonte non ad historiæ fidem scriptus est" (Ad Quint. Fratr., Ep. i. 3). Niebuhr called the Cyropædia "einen elenden und läppischen Roman" (Alt. Gesch., i. 116). He classes it with Télémaque or Rasselas. Xenophon was probably the ultimate authority for the statement of Josephus (Antt., X. xi. 4), which has no weight. Herodotus and Ktesias know nothing of the existence of any Cyaxares II., nor does the Second Isaiah (xlv.), who evidently contemplates Cyrus as the conqueror and the first king of Babylon. Are we to set a professed romancer like Xenophon, and a late compiler like Josephus, against these authorities?

[132] T. W. Pinches, in Smith's Bibl. Dict., i. 716, 2nd edn. Into this theory are pressed the general expressions that Darius "received the kingdom" and was "made king," which have not the least bearing on it. They may simply mean that he became king by conquest, and not in the ordinary course—so Rosenmüller, Hitzig, Von Lengerke, etc.; or perhaps the words show some sense of uncertainty as to the exact course of events. The sequence of Persian kings in Seder Olam, 28-30, and in Rashi on Dan. v. 1, ix. 1, is equally unhistorical.

[133] This is supported by the remark that this three-months viceroy "appointed governors in Babylon"!

[134] Herod., iii. 89; Records of the Past, viii. 88.

[135] See, too, Meinhold (Beiträge, p. 46), who concludes his survey with the words, "Sprachliche wie sachliche Gründe machen es nicht nur wahrscheinlich sondern gewiss dass an danielsche Autorschaft von Dan. ii.-vi., überhanpt an die Entstehung zur Zeit der jüdischen Verbannung nicht zu denken ist." He adds that almost all scholars believe the chapters to be no older than the age of the Maccabees, and that even Kahnis (Dogmatik, i. 376) and Delitzsch (Herzog, s.v. "Dan.") give up their genuineness. He himself believes that these Aramaic chapters were incorporated by a later writer, who wrote the introduction.

[136] Sayce. l.c., p. 529.

[137] Kamphausen, p. 45.

[138] Sayce, l.c. The author of the Book of Daniel seems only to have known of three kings of Persia after Cyrus (xi. 2). But five are mentioned in the Old Testament—Cyrus, Darius, Artaxerxes, Xerxes, and Darius III. (Codomannus, Neh. xii. 22). There were three Dariuses and three Artaxerxes, but he only knows one of each name (Kamphausen, p. 32). He might easily have overlooked the fact that the Darius of Neh. xii. 22 was a wholly different person from the Darius of Ezra vi. 1.

[139] Literally, as in margin, "most high things" or "places."

[140] In iv. 5, 6; and elohîn means "gods" in the mouth of a heathen ("spirit of the holy gods").

[141] Elohîn occurs repeatedly in chap. ix., and in x. 12, xi. 32, 37.

[142] It only occurs in Dan. ix.

[143] The description of God as "the Ancient of Days" with garments white as snow, and of His throne of flames on burning wheels, is found again in the Book of Enoch, written about b.c. 141 (Enoch xiv.).

[144] See Dan. xii. 2. Comp. Jos., B. J., II. viii. 14; Enoch xxii. 13, lx. 1-5, etc.

[145] Comp. Smend, Alttest. Relig. Gesch., p. 530. For references to angels in Old Testament see Job i. 6, xxxviii. 7; Jer. xxiii. 18; Psalm lxxxix. 7; Josh. v. 13-15; Zech. i. 12, iii. 1. See further Behrmann, Dan., p. xxiii.

[146] Dan. iv. 14, ix. 21, x. 13, 20.

[147] See Enoch lxxi. 17, lxviii. 10, and the six archangels Uriel, Raphael, Reguel, Michael, Saragael, and Gabriel in Enoch xx.-xxxvi. See Rosh Hashanah, f. 56, 1; Bereshîth Rabba, c. 48; Hamburger, i. 305-312.

[148] Berachôth, f. 31; Dan. vi. 11. Comp. Psalm lv. 18; 1 Kings viii. 38-48.

[149] 1 Macc. i. 62; Dan. i. 8; 2 Macc. v. 27, vi. 18-vii. 42.

[150] Introd., p. 477. Comp. 2 Esdras xiii. 41-45, and passim; Enoch xl., xlv., xlvi., xlix., and passim; Hamburger, Real-Encycl., ii. 267 ff. With "the time of the end" and the numerical calculations comp. 2 Esdras vi. 6, 7.

[151] Roszmann, Die Makkabäische Erhebung, p. 45. See Wellhausen, Die Pharis. u. d. Sadd., 77 ff.

[152] Among these critics are Delitzsch, Riehm, Ewald, Bunsen, Hilgenfeld, Cornill, Lücke, Strack, Schürer, Kuenen, Meinhold, Orelli, Joël, Reuss, König, Kamphausen, Cheyne, Driver, Briggs, Bevan, Behrmann, etc.

[153] Renan, History of Israel, iv. 354. He adds, "L'essence du genre c'est le pseudonyme, ou si l'on veut l'apocryphisme" (p. 356).

[154] Lagarde, Gott. Gel. Anzieg., 1891, pp. 497-520, stands almost, if not quite, alone in arguing that Dan. vii. was not written till a.d. 69, and that the "little horn" is meant for Vespasian. The relation of the fourth empire of Dan. vii. to the iron part of the image in Dan. ii. refutes this view: both can only refer to the Greek Empire. Josephus (Antt., X. xi. 7) does not refer to Dan. vii.; but neither does he to ix.-xii., for reasons already mentioned. See Cornill, Einleit., p. 262.

[155] Stanley, Life of Arnold, p. 505.

[156] Schürer, Hist. of the Jew. People, iii. 24 (E. Tr.).

[157] On the close resemblance between Daniel and other apocryphal books see Behrmann, Dan., pp. 37-39; Dillmann, Das Buch Henoch. For its relation to the Book of Baruch see Schrader, Keilinschriften, 435 f. Philo does not allude to Daniel.

[158] Any apparently requisite modification of these words will be considered hereafter.

[159] On Revelations, vol. i., p. 408 (E. Tr.).

[160] "Dient bei ihnen die Zukunft der Gegenwart, und ist selbst fortgesetzte Gegenwart" (Behrmann, Dan., p. xi).

[161] See M. de Pressensé, Hist. des Trois Prem. Siècles, p. 283.

[162] See some admirable remarks on this subject in Ewald, Die Proph. d. Alt. Bund., i. 23, 24; Winer, Realwörterb., s.v. "Propheten" Stähelin, Einleit., § 197.

[163] Comp. Enoch i. 2.

[164] Ewald, Die Proph., i. 27; Michel Nicolas, Études sur la Bible, pp. 336 ff.

[165] Comp. Mic. iii. 12; Jer. xxvi. 1-19; Ezek. i. 21. Comp. xxix. 18, 19.

[166] Deut. xviii. 10.

[167] System der christlichen Lehre, p. 66.

[168] E.g., in the case of Josiah (1 Kings xiii. 2).

[169] De Coronâ, 73: ἰδεῖν τὰ πράγματα ἀρχόμενα καὶ προαισθέσθαι καὶ προειπεῖν τοῖς ἄλλοις.

[170] The symbolism of numbers is carefully and learnedly worked out in Bähr's Symbolik: cf. Auberlen, p. 133. The several fulfilments of the prophesied seventy years' captivity illustrate this.

[171] Hengstenberg, On Revelations, p. 609.

[172] All these particulars may be found, without any allusion to the Book of Daniel, in the admirable article on the Apocrypha by Dean Plumptre in Dr. Smith's Dict. of the Bible.

[173] Ewald, Gesch. Isr., iv. 541.

[174] "Et non tam Danielem ventura dixisse quam illum narrasse præterita" (Jer.).

[175] "Ad intelligendas autem extremas Danielis partes multiplex Græcorum historia necessaria est" (Jer., Proæm. Explan. in Dan. Proph. ad f.). Among these Greek historians he mentions eight whom Porphyry had consulted, and adds, "Et si quando cogimur litterarum sæcularium recordari ... non nostræ est voluntatis, sed ut dicam, gravissimæ necessitatis." We know Porphyry's arguments mainly through the commentary of Jerome, who, indeed, derived from Porphyry the historic data without which the eleventh chapter, among others, would have been wholly unintelligible.

[176] Hävernick is another able and sincere supporter; but Droysen truly says (Gesch. d. Hellenismus, ii. 211), "Die Hävernickschen Auffassung kann kein vernunftiger Mensch bestimmen."

[177] See Grimm, Comment., zum I. Buch der Makk., Einleit., xvii.; Mövers in Bonner Zeitschr., Heft 13, pp. 31 ff.; Stähelin, Einleit., p. 356.

[178] Iren., Adv. Hæres., iv. 25; Clem., Strom. i. 21, § 146; Tert., De Cult. Fæm., i. 3; Jerome, Adv. Helv., 7; Ps. August., De Mirab., ii. 32, etc.

[179] Baba Bathra, f. 13b, 14b.

[180] See Oehler, s.v. "Kanon" (Herzog, Encycl.).

[181] Rau, De Synag. Magna., ii. 66.

[182] On Daniel, p. 195.

[183] "Even after the Captivity," says Bishop Westcott, "the history of the Canon, like all Jewish history up to the date of the Maccabees, is wrapped in great obscurity. Faint traditions alone remain to interpret results which are found realised when the darkness is first cleared away" (s.v. "Canon," Smith's Dict. of Bible).

[184] See König, Einleit., § 80, 2.

[185] "In propheta Daniele Septuaginta interpretes multum ab Hebraica veritate discordant" (Jerome, ed. Vallarsi, v. 646). In the LXX. are first found the three apocryphal additions. For this reason the version of Theodotion was substituted for the LXX., which latter was only rediscovered in 1772 in a manuscript in the library of Cardinal Chigi.

[186] On the Authenticity of Daniel, pp. 159, 290 (E. Tr.).

[187] Psalms of Sol. xvii. 36, xviii. 8, etc. See Fabric., Cod. Pseudep., i. 917-972; Ewald, Gesch. d. Volkes Isr., iv. 244.

[188] Even Auberlen says (Dan., p. 3, E. Tr.), "If prophecy is anywhere a history of the future, it is here."

[189] See Vitringa, De defectu Prophetiæ post Malachiæ tempora Obss. Sacr., ii. 336.

[190] Demonstr. Evang., viii.

[191] Of the Jews, the LXX. translators seem to make the seventy weeks end with Antiochus Epiphanes; but in Jerome's day they made the first year of "Darius the Mede" the terminus a quo, and brought down the terminus ad quem to Hadrian's destruction of the Temple. Saadia the Gaon and Rashi reckon the seventy weeks from Nebuchadrezzar to Titus, and make Cyrus the anointed one of ix. 25. Abn Ezra, on the other hand, takes Nehemiah for "the anointed one." What can be based on such varying and undemonstrable guesses? See Behrmann, Dan., p. xliii.

[192] Hippolytus, Fragm. in Dan. (Migne, Patr. Græc., x.).

[193] See Bevan, pp. 141-145.

[194] Jacob Perez of Valentia accounted for this by the hatred of the Jews for Christianity! (Diestel, Gesch. d. A.T., p. 211).

[195] Comp. Luke xxiv. 44; Acts xxviii. 23; Philo, De Vit. Cont., 3. See Oehler in Herzog, s.v. "Kanon."

[196] Jos. c. Ap., I. 8.

[197] Opp. ed. Migne, ii. 1260: Εἰς τοσαύτην ἀναισχυντίαν ἤλασαν ὡς καὶ τοῦ χόρου τῶν προφήτων τοῦτον ἀποσχοινίζειν. He may well add, on his view of the date, εἰ γὰρ ταῦτα τῆς προφητείας ἀλλότρια, τίνα προφητείας τὰ ἴδια;

[198] Megilla, 3, 1. Josephus, indeed, regards apocalyptic visions as the highest form of prophecy (Antt., X. xi. 7); but the great Rabbis Kimchi, Maimonides, Joseph Albo, etc., are strongly against him. See Behrmann, p. xxxix.

[199] It has been described as "ein Versteck für Belesenheit, und ein grammatischer Monstrum."

[200] Hengstenberg, p. 209.

[201] Matt. xxiv. 15; Mark xiii. 14.

[202] 1 Cor. ii. 9; Eph. v. 11.

[203] Hengstenberg's reference to 1 Peter i. 10-12, 1 Thess. ii. 3, 1 Cor. vi. 2, Heb. xi. 12, deserve no further notice.

[204] Jos., Antt., XI. viii. 5.

[205] There is nothing to surprise us in this circumstance, for Ptolemy III. (Jos. c. Ap., II. 5) and Antiochus VII. (Sidetes, Antt., XIII. viii. 2), Marcus Agrippa (id., XVI. ii. 1), and Vitellius (id., XVIII. v. 3) are said to have done the same. Comp. Suet., Aug., 93; Tert., Apolog., 6; and other passages adduced by Schürer, i., § 24.

[206] Jahn, Hebr. Commonwealth, § 71; Hess, Gesch., ii. 37; Prideaux, Connection, i. 540 ff.

[207] Dict. of Bible, s.v. "Jaddua." See Schürer, i. 187; Van Dale, Dissert. de LXX. Interpr., 68 ff.

[208] This part of the story is a mere doublet of that about Cyrus and the prophecies of Isaiah (Antt., XI. i. 2).

[209] Mal. iii. 1. LXX., ἐξαίφνης; Vulg., statim; but it is rather "unawares" (unversehens).

[210] That the fourth empire could not be the Roman has long been seen by many critics, as far back as Grotius, L'Empereur, Chamier, J. Voss, Bodinus, Becmann, etc. (Diestel, Gesch. A. T., p. 523).

[211] See Hamburger, Real-Encycl., s.v. "Geheimlehre," ii. 265. The "Geheimlehre" (Heb., Sithrî Thorah) embraces a whole region of Jewish literature, of which the Book of Daniel forms the earliest beginning. See Dan. xii. 4-9. The phrases of Dan. vii. 22 are common in the Zohar.

[212] "Plötzlich bei Antiochus IV. angekommen hört alle seine Wissenschaft auf, so dass wir, den Kalendar in den Hand, fast den Tag angeben können wo dies oder jenes niedergeschrieben worden ist" (Reuss, Gesch. d. Heil. Schrift., § 464).

[213] For arguments in favour of this view see Cornill, Theol. Stud. aus Ostpreussen, 1889, pp. 1-32, and Einleit., p. 261. He reckons twelve generations, sixty-nine "weeks," from the destruction of Jerusalem to the murder of the high priest Onias III.

[214] It is alluded to about b.c. 140 in the Sibylline Oracles (iii. 391-416), and in 1 Macc. ii. 59, 60.

[215] Jos., Antt., X. xi. 7.

[216] Ewald (Hist. of Israel, v. 208) thinks that the author had read Baruch in Hebrew, because Dan. ix. 4-19 is an abbreviation of Baruch i. 15-ii. 17.

[217] Psalm lxxiv. 9; 1 Macc. iv. 46, ix. 27, xiv. 41.

[218] See Cornill, Einleit., pp. 257-260.

[219] Sanday, Inspiration, p. 101. The name of "Earlier Prophets" was given to the two Books of Samuel, of Kings, and of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; and the twelve Minor Prophets (the latter regarded as one book) were called "The Later Prophets." Cornill places the collection of the Prophets into the Canon about b.c. 250.

[220] Alttestament. Weissagung, pp. 513-530 (Vienna, 1882).

[221] "Alle strahlen des Buches sich in dieser Epoche als in ihrem Brennpunkte vereinigen" (C. v. Orelli, p. 514).

[222] Compare the following passages: Unclean meats, 1 Macc. i. 62-64, "Many in Israel were fully resolved not to eat any unclean thing," etc.; 2 Macc. vi. 18-31, vii. 1-42. The decrees of Nebuchadrezzar (Dan. iii. 4-6) and Darius (Dan. vi. 6-9) with the proceedings of Antiochus (1 Macc. i. 47-51). Belshazzar's profane use of the Temple vessels (Dan. v. 2) with 1 Macc. i. 23; 2 Macc. v. 16, etc.

[223] Froude, Short Studies, i. 17.

[224] Comp. Jer. xxii. 18, 19, xxxvi. 30.

[225] See supra, p. 45.

[226] Jeremiah (lii. 28-30) mentions three deportations, in the seventh, eighteenth, and twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar; but there are great difficulties about the historic verification, and the paragraph (which is of doubtful genuineness) is omitted by the LXX.

[227] The manner in which the maintainers of the genuineness get over this difficulty is surely an instance of such special pleading as can convince no unbiassed inquirer. They conjecture (1) that Nebuchadrezzar had been associated with his father, and received the title of king before he really became king; (2) that by "came to Jerusalem and besieged it" is meant "set out towards Jerusalem, so that (ultimately) he besieged it"; (3) and that a vague and undated allusion in the Book of Chronicles, and a vague, unsupported, and evidently erroneous assertion in Berossus—quoted by Josephus, Antt., X. xi. 1; c. Ap., I. 19, who lived some two and a half centuries after these events, and who does not mention any siege of Jerusalem—can be so interpreted as to outweigh the fact that neither contemporary histories nor contemporary records know anything of this supposed deportation. Jeremiah (xxv. 1) says correctly that "the fourth year of Jehoiakim" was "the first year of Nebuchadrezzar"; and had Jerusalem been already captured and plundered, it is impossible that he should not have alluded to the fact in that chapter. An older subterfuge for "explaining" the error is that of Saadia the Gaon, Abn Ezra, Rashi, etc., who interpret "the third year of Jehoiakim" to mean "the third year after his rebellion from Nebuchadrezzar," which is not only impossible in itself, but also contradicts Dan. ii. 1.

[228] Shinar is an archaism, supposed by Schrader to be a corruption of Sumir, or Northern Chaldea (Keilinschr., p. 34); but see Hommel, Gesch. Bab. u. Assyr., 220; F. Delitzsch, Assyr. Gram., 115. The more common name in the exilic period was Babel (Jer. li. 9, etc.) or Eretz Kasdim (Ezek. xii. 13).

[229] On this god—Marduk or Maruduk (Jer. l. 2)—comp. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 7. See Schrader, K. A. T., pp. 273, 276; and Riehm, Handwörterb., ii. 982.

[230] This seems to be a Persian word, fratama, "first." It is only found in Esther. Josephus says that the four boys were connected with Zedekiah (Antt., X. x. 1). Comp. Jer. xli. 1.

[231] Dan. i. 3; LXX., Ἀβιεσδρί. The name is of quite uncertain derivation. Lenormant connects it with Abai-Istar, "astronomer of the goddess Istar" (La Divination, p. 182). Hitzig sees in this strange rendering Abiesdri the meaning "eunuch." A eunuch could have no son to help him, so that his father is his help ('ezer). Ephræm Syrus, in his Commentary, preserves both names (Schleusner, Thesaurus, s.v. Ἀβιέσερ). We find the name Ashkenaz in Gen. x. 3. Theodot. has Ἀσφανέζ. Among other guesses Lenormant makes Ashpenaz = Assa-ibni-zir. Dr. Joel (Notizen zum Buche Daniel, p. 17) says that since the Vulgate reads Abriesri, "ob nicht der Wort von rechts zu links gelesen müsste?"

[232] Called in i. 7-11 the Sar-hassarîsîm (comp. Jer. xxxix. 3; Gen. xxxvii. 36, marg.; 2 Kings xviii. 17; Esther ii. 3). This officer now bears the title of Gyzlar Agha.

[233] Isa. xxxix. 6, 7.

[234] Athen., Deipnos, xi. 583. See Bevan, p. 60; Max Müller in Pusey, p. 565. How Professor Fuller can urge the presence of these Persian words in proof of the genuineness of Daniel (Speaker's Commentary, p. 250) I cannot understand. For Daniel does not seem to have survived beyond the third year of the Persian dominion, and it is extremely difficult to suppose that all these Persian words, including titles of Nebuchadrezzar's officials, were already current among the Babylonians. On the other hand, Babylonian words seem to be rare, though Daniel is represented as living nearly the whole of a long life in Babylon. There is no validity in the argument that these words could not have been known in the days of the Maccabees, "for half of them are common in Syria, though the oldest extant Syriac writers are later by three centuries than the time of the Maccabees" (Bevan, p. 41).

[235] The name Daniel occurs among Ezra's contemporaries in Ezra viii. 2; Neh. x. 7, and the other names in Neh. viii. 4, x. 3, 24; 1 Esdras ix. 44.

[236] Balatsu-utsur. The name in this form had nothing to do with Bel, as the writer of Daniel seems to have supposed (Dan. iv. 5), nor yet with Beltis, the wife of Bel. See supra, p. 47. Comp. the names Nabusarutsur, Sinsarutsur, Assursarutsur. Also comp. Inscr. Semit., ii. 38, etc. Pseudo-Epiphanius says that Nebuchadrezzar meant Daniel to be co-heir with his son Belshazzar.

[237] F. Delitzsch calls Meshach vox hybrida. Neither "Shadrach" nor "Meshach" occurs on the monuments. "That the imposition of names is a symbol of mastership over slaves is plain" (S. Chrys., Opp., iii. 21; Pusey, p. 16). Comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 34 (Egyptians); xxiv. 17 (Babylonians); Ezra v. 14, Esther ii. 7 (Persians).

[238] Comp. Obadiah, Abdiel, Abdallah, etc. Schrader says, p. 429: "The supposition that Nebo was altered to Nego, out of a contumelious desire (which Jews often displayed) to alter, avoid, and insult the names of idols, is out of place, since the other names are not altered."

[239] Jos., Antt., XII. v. 1; Derenbourg, Palestine, p. 34; Ewald, Hist., v. 294 (E. Tr.); Munk, Palestine, p. 495, etc.

[240] See Ewald, Gesch. Isr., vi. 654. "They shall eat unclean things in Assyria" (Hosea ix. 3). "The children of Israel shall eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles" (Ezek. iv. 13, 14).

[241] 1 Macc. i. 62, 63.

[242] 2 Macc. vi. 18-31. Comp. the LXX. addition to Esther iv. 14, v. 4, where she is made to plead before God that she had not tasted of the table of Haman or of the king's banquet. So Judith takes "clean" bread with her into the camp of Holofernes (Judith x. 5), and Judas and his followers live on herbs in the desert (2 Macc. v. 27). The Mishnah even forbids to take the bread, oil, or milk of the heathen.

[243] Prophets of the O. T., p. 184 (E. Tr.).

[244] Mr. Bevan says that the verb for "defile" (גאל), as a ritual term for the idea of ceremonial uncleanness, is post-exilic; the Pentateuch and Ezekiel used טמא (Comment., p. 61). The idea intended is that the three boys avoided meat which might have been killed with the blood and offered to idols, and therefore was not Kashar (Exod. xxxiv. 15).

[245] Jos., Vit., iii. Comp. Isa. lii. 11.

[246] Mark vii. 19 (according to the true reading and translation).

[247] Acts x. 14.

[248] 1 Cor. xi. 25. This rigorism was specially valued by the Essenes and Therapeutæ. See Derenbourg, Palestine, note, vi.

[249] Plato, Alcib., i. 37; Xen., Cyrop., i. 2. Youths entered the king's service at the age of seventeen.

[250] Lit. "sadder." LXX., σκυθρωποί.

[251] LXX., κινδυνεύσω τῷ ἰδίῳ τραχήλῳ.

[252] Perhaps the Assyrian matstsara, "guardian" (Delitzsch). There are various other guesses (Behrmann, p. 5).

[253] Heb., זֵרֹעִים; LXX., σπέρματα; Vulg., legumina. Abn Ezra took the word to mean "rice." Comp. Deut. xii. 15, 16; 1 Sam. xvii. 17, 18. Comp. Josephus (Vit., iii.), who tells us how the Jewish priests, prisoners in Rome, fed on σύκοις καὶ καρύοις.

[254] Ewald, Antiquities, p. 131 f.

[255] Pusey (p. 17) quotes from Chardin's notes in Harmer (Obs., lix.): "I have remarked that the countenance of the Kechicks (monks) are, in fact, more rosy and smooth than those of others, and that those who fast much are, notwithstanding, very beautiful, sparkling with health, with a clear and lively countenance."

[256] The Chartummîm are like the Egyptian ἱερογραμματεῖς. It is difficult to conceive that there was less chance of pollution in being elaborately trained in heathen magic and dream-interpretation than in eating Babylonian food. But this was, so to speak, extra fabulam. It did not enter into the writer's scheme of moral edification. If, however, the story is meant to imply that these youths accepted the heathen training, though (as we know from tablets and inscriptions) the incantations, etc., in which it abounded were intimately connected with idolatry, and were entirely unharmed by it, this may indicate that the writer did not disapprove of the "Greek training" which Antiochus tried to introduce, so far as it merely involved an acquaintance with Greek learning and literature. This is the view of Grätz. If so, the writer belonged to the more liberal Jewish school which did not object to a study of the Chokmath Javanîth, or "Wisdom of Javan" (Derenbourg, Palestine, p. 361).

[257] LXX., ἐλάλησε μετ' αὐτῶν. Considering the normal degradation of pages at Oriental courts, of which Rycaut (referred to by Pusey, p. 18) "gives a horrible account," their escape from the corruption around them was a blessed reward of their faithfulness. They may now have been seventeen, the age for entering the king's service (Xen., Cyrop., I. ii. 8). On the ordinary curse of the rule of eunuchs at Eastern courts see an interesting note in Pusey, p. 21.

[258] On the names see Gesenius, Isaiah, ii. 355.

[259] Alluded to in ix. 25.

[260] Daniel, pp. 20, 21.

[261] Comp. Gen. xxxix. 21; 1 Kings viii. 50; Neh. i. 1; Psalm cvi. 46.

[262] Lam. iv. 7.

[263] Hor., Sat., II. ii. 77.

[264] Milton, Reason of Church Government.

[265] Dante, Inferno, xiv. 94-120.

[266] The Assyrian and Babylonian kings, however, only dated their reigns from the first new year after their accession.

[267] Antt., X. x. 3.

[268] 2 Chron. xxxv. 21. See The Second Book of Kings, p. 404 (Expositor's Bible).

[269] See Professor Fuller, Speaker's Commentary, vi. 265.

[270] Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i. 39.

[271] The belief that dreams come from God is not peculiar to the Jews, or to Egypt, or Assyria, or Greece (Hom., Il., i. 63; Od., iv. 841), or Rome (Cic., De Div., passim), but to every nation of mankind, even the most savage.

[272] Dan. ii. 1: "His dreaming brake from him." Comp. vi. 18; Esther vi. 1: Jerome says, "Umbra quædam, et, ut ita dicam, aura somnii atque vestigium remansit in corde regis, ut, referentibus aliis posset reminisci eorum quæ viderat."

[273] Gen. xli. 8; Schrader, K. A. T., p. 26; Records of the Past, i. 136.

[274] The word is peculiar to Daniel, both here in the Hebrew and in the Aramaic. Pusey calls it "a common Syriac term, representing some form of divination with which Daniel had become familiar in Babylonia" (p. 40).

[275] Exod. vii. 11; Deut. xviii. 10; Isa. xlvii. 9, 12. Assyrian Kashshapu.

[276] As in the rule "Chaldæos ne consulito." See supra, p. 48.

[277] The equivalents in the LXX., Vulgate, A.V., and other versions are mostly based on uncertain guess-work. See E. Meyer, Gesch. d. Alterth., i. 185; Hommel, Gesch. Bab. u. Assyr., v. 386; Behrmann, p. 2.

[278] E.g., iii. 2, 3, officers of state; iii. 4, 5, etc., instruments of music; iii. 21, clothes.

[279] ii. 5: "The dream is gone from me," as in ver. 8 (Theodotion, ἀπέστη). But the meaning may be the decree (or word) is "sure": for, according to Nöldeke, azda is a Persian word for "certain." Comp. Esther vii. 7; Isa. xlv. 23.

[280] Berachôth, f. 10, 2. This book supplies a charm to be spoken by one who has forgotten his dream (f. 55, 2).

[281] Dan. ii. 5, iii. 29. Theodot., εἰς ἀπωλείαν ἔσεσθε. Lit. "ye shall be made into limbs." The LXX. render it by διαμελίζομαι, membratim concidor, in frusta fio. Comp. Matt. xxiv. 51; Smith's Assur-bani-pal, p. 137. The word haddam, "a limb," seems to be of Persian origin—in modern Persian andam. Hence the verb hadîm in the Targum of 1 Kings xviii. 33. Comp. 2 Macc. i. 16, μέλη ποιεῖν.

[282] Comp. Ezra vi. 11; 2 Kings x. 27; Records of the Past, i. 27, 43.

[283] In iii. 96, καὶ ἡ οἰκία αὐτοῦ δημευθήσεται. Comp. 2 Macc. iii. 13: "But Heliodorus, because of the king's commandment, said, That in anywise it must be brought into the king's treasury."

[284] LXX. Theodot., καιρὸν ἐξαγοράζετε (not in a good sense, as in Eph. v. 16; Col. iv. 5).

[285] Theodot., συνέθεσθε. Cf. John ix. 22.

[286] Theodot., ἔως οὗ ὁ καιρὸς παρέλθῃ.

[287] Esther iii. 7.

[288] The word Aramîth may be (as Lenormant thinks) a gloss, as in Ezra iv. 7.

[289] A curious parallel is adduced by Behrmann (Daniel, p. 7). Rabia-ibn-nazr, King of Yemen, has a dream which he cannot recall, and acts precisely as Nebuchadrezzar does (Wüstenfeld, p. 9).

[290] See Lenormant, La Magie, pp. 181-183.

[291] LXX., ii. 11: εἰ μή τις ἄγγελος.

[292] Lit. "chief of the slaughter-men" or "executioners." LXX., ἀρχιμάγειρος. The title is perhaps taken from the story, which in this chapter is so prominently in the writer's mind, where the same title is given to Potiphar (Gen. xxxvii. 36). Comp. 2 Kings xxv. 8; Jer. xxxix. 9. The name Arioch has been derived from Erî-aku, "servant of the moon-god" (supra, p. 49), but is found in Gen. xiv. 1 as the name of "the King of Ellasar." It is also found in Judith i. 6, "Arioch, King of the Elymæans." An Erim-akû, King of Larsa, is found in cuneiform.

[293] If Daniel went (as the text says) in person, he must have been already a very high official. (Comp. Esther v. 1; Herod., i. 99.) If so, it would have been strange that he should not have been consulted among the magians. All these details are regarded as insignificant, being extraneous to the general purport of the story (Ewald, Hist., iii. 194).

[294] Matt. xviii. 19. The LXX. interpolate a ritual gloss: καὶ παρήγγειλε νηστείαν καὶ δέησιν καὶ τιμωρίαν ζητῆσαι παρὰ τοῦ Κυρίου.

[295] The title is found in Gen. xxiv. 7, but only became common after the Exile (Ezra i. 2, vi. 9, 10; Neh. i. 5, ii. 4).

[296] Comp. Dan. vii. 12; Jer. xxvii. 7; Acts i. 7,χρόνοι ἢ καιροί; 1 Thess. v. 1; Acts xvii. 26, ὁρίσας προτεταγμένους καιρούς.

[297] With the phraseology of this prayer comp. Psalm xxxvi. 9, xli., cxxxix. 12; Neh. ix. 5; 1 Sam. ii. 8; Jer. xxxii. 19; Job xii. 22.

[298] Here the new title Gazerîm, "prognosticators," is added to the others, and is equally vague. It may be derived from Gazar, "to cut"—that is, "to determine."

[299] Comp. Gen. xx. 3, xli. 25; Numb. xxii. 35.

[300] Comp. Gen. xli. 45.

[301] Dan. ii. 30: "For their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king" (A.V.). But the phrase seems merely to be one of the vague forms for the impersonal which are common in the Mishnah. The R.V. and Ewald rightly render it as in the text.

[302] Here we have (ver. 31) aloo! "behold!" as in iv. 7, 10, vii. 8; but in vii. 2, 5, 6, 7, 13, we have aroo!

[303] In the four metals there is perhaps the same underlying thought as in the Hesiodic and ancient conceptions of the four ages of the world (Ewald, Hist., i. 368). Comp. the vision of Zoroaster quoted from Delitzsch by Pusey, p. 97: "Zoroaster saw a tree from whose roots sprang four trees of gold, silver, steel, and brass; and Ormuzd said to him, 'This is the world; and the four trees are the four "times" which are coming.' After the fourth comes, according to Persian doctrine, Sosiosh, the Saviour." Behrmann refers also to Bahman Yesht (Spiegel, Eran. Alterth., ii. 152); the Laws of Manu (Schröder, Ind. Litt., 448); and Roth (Mythos von den Weltaltern, 1860).

[304] Much of the imagery seems to have been suggested by Jer. li.

[305] Comp. Rev. xx. 11: καὶ τόπος οὐχ εὑρέθη αὐτοῖς.

[306] Psalm i. 4, ii. 9; Isa. xli. 15; Jer. li. 33, etc.

[307] Isa. xiv. 4.

[308] King of kings. Comp. Ezek. xxvi. 7; Ezra vii. 12; Isa. xxxvi. 4. It is the Babylonian Shar-sharrâni, or Sharru-rabbu (Behrmann). The Rabbis tried (impossibly) to construe this title, which they thought only suitable to God, with the following clause. But Nebuchadrezzar was so addressed (Ezek. xxvi. 7), as the Assyrian kings had been before him (Isa. x. 8), and the Persian kings were after him (Ezra vii. 12). The expression seems strange, but comp. Jer. xxvii. 6, xxviii. 14. The LXX. and Theodotion mistakenly interpolate ἰχθύες τῆς θαλάσσης.

[309] Pusey, p. 63.

[310] Comp. Jer. xxxi. 27.

[311] Bevan, p. 66.

[312] The interpretation is first found, amid a chaos of false exegesis, in the Epistle of Barnabas, iv. 4, § 6.

[313] See Bevan, p. 65.

[314] On the distinction in the writer's mind between the Median and Persian Empires see v. 28, 31, vi. 8, 12, 15, ix. 1, xi. 1, compared with vi. 28, x. 1. In point of fact, the Persians and Medians were long spoken of as distinct, though they were closely allied; and to the Medes had been specially attributed the forthcoming overthrow of Babylon: Jer. li. 28, "Prepare against her the nations with the kings of the Medes." Comp. Jer. li. 11, and Isa. xiii. 17, xxi. 2, "Besiege, O Media."

[315] See Isa. ii. 2, xxviii. 16; Matt. xxi. 42-44. "Le mot de Messie n'est pas dans Daniel. Le mot de Meshiach, ix. 26, désigne l'autorité (probablement sacerdotale) de la Judée" (Renan, Hist., iv. 358).

[316] See Kuenen, The Prophets, iii.

[317] No kings have been mentioned, but the ten toes symbolise ten kings. Comp. vii. 24.

[318] Dante, Inferno, xiv. 94-120.

[319] Milton, Paradise Lost, ii. 575.

[320] It may be paralleled by the legendary prostrations of Alexander the Great before the high priest Jaddua (Jos., Antt., XI. viii. 5), and of Edwin of Deira before Paulinus of York (Bæda, Hist., ii. 14-16).

[321] Isa. xlvi. 6. The same verbs, "they fall down, yea they worship," are there used of idols.

[322] Comp. Isa. lx. 14: "The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet."

[323] Comp. Rom. xiv. 23; Acts xv. 29; Heb. xiii. 9; 1 Cor. viii. 1; Rev. ii. 14, 20.

[324] So Jerome: "Non tam Danielem quam in Daniele adorat Deum, qui mysteria revelavit." Comp. Jos., Antt., XI. viii. 5, where Alexander answers the taunt of Parmenio about his προσκύνησις of the high priest: οὐ τοῦτον προσεκύνησα, τὸν δὲ Θεόν.

[325] Acts xiv. 14, 15.

[326] Esther iii. 2. Comp. 1 Chron. xxvi. 30. This corresponds to what Xenophon calls αἱ ἐπὶ τὰς θύρας φοιτήσεις, and to our "right of entrée."

[327] The false prophets Ahab and Zedekiah were "roasted in the fire" (Jer. xxix. 22), which may have suggested the idea of this punishment to the writer; but it was for committing "lewdness"—"folly," Judg. xx. 6—in Israel, and for adultery and lies, which were regarded as treasonable. In some traditions they are identified with the two elders of the Story of Susanna. Assur-bani-pal burnt Samas-sum-ucin, his brother, who was Viceroy of Babylon (about b.c. 648), and Te-Umman, who cursed his gods (Smith, Assur-bani-pal, p. 138). Comp. Ewald, Prophets, iii. 240. See supra, p. 44.

[328] Malcolm, Persia, i. 29, 30.

[329] Both in Theodotion and the LXX. we have ἔτους ὀκτωκαιδεκάτου. The siege of Jerusalem was not, however, finished till the nineteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar (2 Kings xxv. 8). Others conjecture that the scene occurred in his thirty-first year, when he was "at rest in his house, and flourishing in his palace" (Dan. iv. 4).

[330] Records of the Past, v. 113. The inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar are full of glorification of Marduk (Merodach), id., v. 115, 135, vii. 75.

[331] Comp. Isa. xliv. 9-20. Mr. Hormuzd Rassan discovered a colossal statue of Nebo at Nimroud in 1853. Shalmanezer III. says on his obelisk, "I made an image of my royalty; upon it I inscribed the praise of Asshur my master, and a true account of my exploits." Herodotus (i. 183) mentions a statue of Zeus in Babylon, on which was spent eight hundred talents of gold, and of another made of "solid gold" twelve ells high.

[332] By the apologists the "image" or "statue" is easily toned down into a bust on a hollow pedestal (Archdeacon Rose, Speaker's Commentary, p. 270). The colossus of Nero is said to have been a hundred and ten feet high, but was of marble. Nestle (Marginalia, 35) quotes a passage from Ammianus Marcellinus, which mentions a colossal statue of Apollo reared by Antiochus Epiphanes, to which there may be a side-allusion here.

[333] Schrader, p. 430: Dur-Yagina, Dur-Sargina, etc. LXX., ἐν πεδίῳ τοῦ περιβόλου χώρας Βαβυλωνίας.

[334] LXX. and Vulg., satrapæ. Comp. Ezra viii. 36; Esther iii. 12. Supposed to be the Persian Khshatra-pāwan (Bevan, p. 79).

[335] Signî, Babylonian word (Schrader, p. 411).

[336] LXX., τοπάρχαι. Comp. Pechah, Ezra v. 14. An Assyrian word (Schrader, p. 577).

[337] LXX., ἡγούμενοι. Perhaps the Persian endarzgar, or "counsellor."

[338] LXX., διοικηταί. Comp. Ezra vii. 21; but Grätz thinks there is a mere scribe's mistake for the gadbarî of vv. 24 and 27.

[339] This word is perhaps the old Persian dàtabard.

[340] The word is found here alone. Perhaps "advisers." On these words see Bevan, p. 79; Speaker's Commentary, pp. 278, 279; Sayce, Assyr. Gr., p. 110.

[341] Ewald, Prophets, v. 209; Hist., v. 294.

[342] The word has often been compared with the Greek κήρυξ, but the root is freely found in Assyrian inscriptions (Karaz, "an edict").

[343] Comp. Rev. xviii. 2, ἔκραξεν ἐν ἰσχύϊ.

[344] See supra, p. 22. The qar'na (horn, κέρας) and sab'ka (σαμβύκη) are in root both Greek and Aramean. The "pipe" (mash'rôkîtha) is Semitic. Brandig tries to prove that even in Nebuchadrezzar's time these three Greek names (even the symphonia) had been borrowed by the Babylonians from the Greeks; but the combined weight of philological authority is against him.

[345] See Hibbert Lectures, chap. lxxxix., etc.

[346] Comp. vi. 13, 14.

[347] Akaloo Qar'tsîhîn.

[348] It is "found in the Targum rendering of Lev. xix. 16 for a talebearer, and is frequent as a Syriac and Arabic idiom" (Fuller).

[349] Jerome emphasises the element of jealousy, "Quos prætulisti nobis et captivos ac servos principes fecisti, ii elati in superbiam tua præcepta contemnunt."

[350] The phrase is unique and of uncertain meaning.

[351] Exod. v. 2; Isa. xxxvi. 20; 2 Chron. xxxii. 13-17.

[352] Dan. iii. 16. LXX., οὐ χρείαν ἔχομεν; Vulg., non oportet nos. To soften the brusqueness of the address, in which the Rabbis (e.g., Rashi) rejoice, the LXX. add another Βασιλεῦ.

[353] Jerome explains "But if not" by Quodsi noluerit; and Theodoret by εἴτε οὖν ῥύεται εἴτε καὶ μή.

[354] iii. 18. LXX., καὶ τότε φανερόν σοι ἔσται. Tert., from the Vet. Itala, "tunc manifestum erit tibi" (Scorp., 8).

[355] Comp. Gen. xix. 22: "I cannot do anything until thou be come thither."

[356] Cremation prevailed among the Accadians, and was adopted by the Babylonians (G. Bertin, Bab. and Orient. Records, i. 17-21). Fire was regarded as the great purifier. In the Catacombs the scene of the Three Children in the fire is common. They are painted walking in a sort of open cistern full of flames, with doors beneath. The Greek word is κάμινος (Matt. xiii. 42), "a calcining furnace."

[357] It seems very needless to introduce here, as Mr. Deane does in Bishop Ellicott's commentary, the notion of the seven Maskîm or demons of Babylonian mythology. In the Song of the Three Children the flames stream out forty-nine (7 × 7) cubits. Comp. Isa. xxx. 26.

[358] The meaning of these articles of dress is only conjectural: they are—(1) Sarbālîn, perhaps "trousers," LXX. σαραβάροι, Vulg. braccæ; (2) Patîsh, LXX. τιάραι, Vulg. tiaræ; (3) Kar'bla, LXX. περικνημῖδες, Vulg. calceamenta. It is useless to repeat all the guesses. Sarbala is a "tunic" in the Talmud, Arab. sirbal; and some connect Patîsh with the Greek πέτασος. Judging from Assyrian and Babylonian dress as represented on the monuments, the youths were probably clad in turbans (the Median καυνάκη), an inner tunic (the Median κάνδυς), an outer mantle, and some sort of leggings (anaxurides). It is interesting to compare with the passage the chapter of Herodotus (i. 190) about the Babylonian dress. He says they wore a linen tunic reaching to the feet, a woollen over-tunic, a white shawl, and slippers. It was said to be borrowed from the dress of Semiramis.

[359] Chald., haddab'rîn; LXX., οἱ φίλοι τοῦ βασιλέως.

[360] The A.V., "like the Son of God," is quite untenable. The expression may mean a heavenly or an angelic being (Gen. vi. 2; Job i. 6). So ordinary an expression does not need to be superfluously illustrated by references to the Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, but they may be found in Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, 128 and passim.

[361] LXX., ὁ Θεὸς τῶν θεῶν, ὁ ὕψιστος. Comp. 2 Macc. iii. 31; Mark v. 7; Luke viii. 28; Acts xvi. 17, from which it will be seen that it was not a Jewish expression, though it often occurs in the Book of Enoch (Dillmann, p. 98).

[362] So in Persian history the Prince Siawash clears himself from a false accusation in the reign of his father Kai Kaoos by passing through the fire (Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i. 38).

[363] Comp. Psalm xvi. 12: "We went through fire and water, and Thou broughtest us out into a safe place."

[364] Comp. Gen. xxiv. 7; Exod. xxiii. 20; Deut. xxxvi. 1. The phrase applied to Joshua the high priest (Zech. iii. 2), "Is not this a brand plucked out of the burning?" originated the legend that, when the false prophets Ahab and Zedekiah had been burnt by Nebuchadrezzar (Jer. xxix. 22), Joshua had been saved, though singed. This and other apocryphal stories illustrate the evolution of Haggadoth out of metaphoric allusions.

[365] πνεῦμα νότιον διασύριζον, "a dewy wind, whistling continually."

[366] Song of the Three Children, 23-27.

[367] Vay. Rab., xxv. 1 (Wünsche, Bibliotheca Rabbinica).

[368] Ecclus. xviii. 16: "Shall not the dew assuage the heat?"

[369] Speaker's Commentary, on the Apocrypha, ii. 305-307.

[370] Jos., Antt., XII. iii. 3; Jahn, Hebr. Commonwealth, § xc.

[371] Comp. 1 Macc. i. 41, 42: "And the king [Antiochus Epiphanes] wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people, and every one should leave his laws."

[372] Isa. xxvi. 9.

[373] Professor Fuller follows them in supposing that the decree is really a letter written by Daniel, as is shown by the analogy of similar documents, and the attestation (!) of the LXX. (ἀρχὴ τῆς ἐπιστολῆς). He adds, "The undertone of genuineness which makes itself so inobtrusively felt to the Assyrian scholar when reading it, is quite sufficient to decide the question of authenticity"! Such remarks are meant only for a certain circle of readers already convinced. If they were true, it would be singular that scarcely one living Assyriologist accepts the authenticity of Daniel; and Mr. Bevan calls this "a narrative which contains scarcely anything specifically Babylonian."

[374] See Jos. c. Ap., I. 20, ἐμπεσὼν εἰς ἀῤῥωστίαν, μετηλλάξατο τὸν βίον (of Nebuchadrezzar); and I. 19 of Nabopolassar.

[375] Præp. Ev., lx. 41.

[376] I follow the better readings which Mr. Bevan adopts from Von Gutschmid and Toup.

[377] Comp. Ezra iv. 7, vii. 12.

[378] If Nebuchadrezzar wrote this edict, he must have been very familiar with the language of Scripture. See Deut. vi. 22; Isa. viii. 18; Psalm lxxviii. 12-16, cvi. 2; Mic. iv. 7, etc.

[379] Heykal, "palace"; Bab., ikallu. Comp. Amos viii. 3. See the palace described in Layard, Nineveh and Babylon.

[380] A mistake of the writer. See supra, p. 129.

[381] Rab-chartummaya.

[382] Herod., i. 108.

[383] עִיר. Comp. Mal. ii. 12 (perhaps "the watchman and him that answereth"). LXX., ἄγγελος; Theodot., ἐγρήγορος.

[384] Comp. Deut. xxxiii. 2; Zech. xiv. 5; Psalm lxxxix. 6; Job v. 1, etc.

[385] The LXX., in its free manipulation of the original, adds that the king saw the dream fulfilled. In one day the tree was cut down, and its destruction completed in one hour.

[386] Comp. Zech. xiv. 5; Psalm lxxxix. 6.

[387] See Job xv. 15.

[388] Dr. A. Kohut, Die jüdische Angelologie, p. 6, n. 17.

[389] For a full examination of the subject see Oehler, Theol. of the O. T., § 59, pp. 195 ff.; Schultz, Alttest. Theol., p. 555; Hamburger, Real-Encycl., i., s.v. "Engel"; Professor Fuller, Speaker's Commentary, on the Apocrypha, Tobit, i., 171-183.

[390] Sayce, Records of the Past, ix. 140.

[391] The number seven is not, however, found in all texts.

[392] The Jewish tradition admits that the names of the angels came from Persia (Rosh Hashanah, f. 56, 1; Bereshîth Rabba, c. 48; Riehm, R. W. B., i. 381).

[393] Descent of Ishtar, Records of the Past, i. 141. Botta found seven rude figures buried under the thresholds of doors.

[394] The Targum understands it "for a moment."

[395] The wish was quite natural. It is needless to follow Rashi, etc., in making this an address to God, as though it were a prayer to Him that ruin might fall on His enemy Nebuchadrezzar. Comp. Ov., Fast., iii. 494: "Eveniat nostris hostibus ille color."

[396] Records of the Past, i. 133.

[397] Mark v. 3.

[398] Bevan, p. 92.

[399] In the Mishnah often Shamayîm; N. T., ἡ βασίλεια τῶν οὐρανῶν.

[400] Or, as in A.V. and Hitzig, "if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity"; but Ewald reads arukah, "healing" (Isa. lviii. 8), for ar'kah.

[401] Baba Bathra, f. 4, 1.

[402] Berachôth, f. 10, 2; f. 57, 2.

[403] Theodot., τὰς ἁμαρτίας σου ἐν ἐλεημοσύναις λύτρωσαι; Vulg., peccata tua eleemosynis redime. Comp. Psalm cxii. 9. This exaltation of almsgiving is a characteristic of later Judaism (Ecclus. iv. 5-10; Tobit iv. 11).

[404] Comp. Prov. x. 2, xvi. 6; Sukka, f. 49, 2. The theological and ethical question involved is discussed by Calvin, Instt., iii. 4; Bellarmine, De Pœnitent., ii. 6 (Behrmann).

[405] It is now called Kasr, but the Arabs call it Mujelibé, "The Ruined."

[406] Birs-Nimrod (Grote, Hist. of Greece, III., chap. xix.; Layard, Nin. and Bab., chap. ii.).

[407] Arist., Polit., III. i. 12. He says that three days after its capture some of its inhabitants were still unaware of the fact.

[408] Acts xii. 20-23; Jos., Antt., XIV. viii. 2.

[409] For further information on this subject I may refer to my paper on "Rabbinic Exegesis," Expositor, v. 362-378. The fact that there are slight variations in spelling Nebuchadnezzar and Antiochus Epiphanes is of no importance.

[410] Psalm cxxiii. 1. See Eurypides, Bacchæ, 699.

[411] Exod. xvii. 16.

[412] Psalm cxlv. 13.

[413] Isa. xxiv. 21, xl. 15, 17. For the "host of heaven" (στρατία οὐράνιος, Luke ii. 13) see Isa. xl. 26; Job. xxxviii. 7; 1 Kings xxii. 19; Enoch xviii. 14-16; Matt. xi. 25.

[414] Isa. xliii. 13, xlv. 9; Psalm cxxxv. 6; Job ix. 12; Eccles. viii. 4. The phrase for "to reprove" is literally "to strike on the hand," and is common in later Jewish writers.

[415] Dan. ii. 38.

[416] Psalm xxxiii. 4.

[417] Exod. xviii. 11.

[418] The question has already been fully discussed (supra, pp. 54-57). The apologists say that—

1. Belshazzar was Evil-merodach (Niebuhr, Wolff, Bishop Westcott, Zöckler, Keil, etc.), as the son of Nebuchadrezzar (Dan. v. 2, 11, 18, 22), and his successor (Baruch i. 11, 12, where he is called Balthasar, as in the LXX.). The identification is impossible (see Dan. v. 28, 31); for Evil-merodach (b.c. 561) was murdered by his brother-in-law Neriglissar (b.c. 559). Besides, the Jews were well acquainted with Evil-merodach (2 Kings xxv. 27; Jer. lii. 31.)

2. Belshazzar was Nabunaid (St. Jerome, Ewald, Winer, Herzfeld, Auberlen, etc.). But the usurper Nabunaid, son of a Rab-mag, was wholly unlike Belshazzar; and so far from being slain, he was pardoned, and sent by Cyrus to be Governor of Karmania, in which position he died.

3. Belshazzar was the son of Nabunaid. But though Nabunaid had a son of the name he was never king. We know nothing of any relationship between him and Nebuchadrezzar, nor does Cyrus in his records make the most distant allusion to him. The attempt to identify Nebuchadrezzar with an unknown Marduk-sar-utsur, mentioned in Babylonian tablets, breaks down; for Mr. Boscawen (Soc. Bibl., in § vi., p. 108) finds that he reigned before Nabunaid. Further, the son of Nabunaid perished, not in Babylon, but in Accad.

[419] See 1 Macc. i. 21-24. He "entered proudly into the sanctuary, and took away the golden altar, and the candlestick of light, and all the vessels thereof, and the table of the shewbread, and the pouring vessels, and the vials, and the censers of gold.... He took also the silver and the gold, and the precious vessels: also he took the hidden treasures which he found," etc. Comp. 2 Macc. v. 11-14; Diod. Sic., XXXI. i. 48. The value of precious metals which he carried off was estimated at one thousand eight hundred silver talents—about £350,000 (2 Macc. v. 21).

[420] The LXX. says "two thousand." Comp. Esther i. 3, 4. Jerome adds, "Unusquisque secundum suam bibit ætatem."

[421] Ezek. xxiii. 15.

[422] Herod., i. 191, v. 18; Xen., Cyrop., V. ii. 28; Q. Curt., V. i. 38. Theodotion, perhaps scandalised by the fact, omits the wives, and the LXX. omits both wives and concubines.

[423] Layard, Nin. and Bab., ii. 262-269.

[424] Athen., Deipnos, iv. 145. See the bas-relief in the British Museum of King Assur-bani-pal drinking wine with his queen, while the head of his vanquished enemy, Te-Umman, King of Elam, dangles from a palm-branch full in his view, so that he can feast his eyes upon it. None others are present except the attendant eunuchs.

[425] Dan. iii. 29.

[426] The Babylonians were notorious for drunken revels. Q. Curt., V. i., "Babylonii maxime in vinum et quæ ebrietatem sequuntur, effusi sunt."

[427] Dan. i. 2. Comp. 1 Macc. i. 21 ff.

[428] 2 Macc. iii.

[429] Psalm lv. 15.

[430] Ewald.

[431] Comp. Dan. iii. 7.

[432] See Layard, Nin. and Bab., ii. 269.

[433] A word of uncertain origin. The Talmud uses it for the word למפדס (the Greek λαμπάς).

[434] "Hollow." Heb., pas; Theodot., ἀστραγάλους; Vulg., articulos. The word may mean "palm" of the hand, or sole of the foot (Bevan).

[435] Psalm lxix. 23. "Bands"—lit. "fastenings"; Theodot., συνδεσμοί; Vulg., compages.

[436] Comp. Ezek. vii. 17, and the Homeric λύτο γούνατα, Od., iv. 703; Ov., Met., ii. 180, "genua intremuere timore."

[437] Doubtless suggested by Gen. xli. 42 (comp. Herod., iii. 20; Xen., Anab., I. ii. 27; Cyrop., VIII. v. 18), as other parts of Daniel's story recall that of Joseph. Comp. Esther vi. 8, 9. The word for "scarlet" or red-purple is argona. The word for "chain" (Q'rî. ham'nîka) is in Theodotion rendered μανιάκης, and occurs in later Aramaic. The phrase rendered "third ruler" is very uncertain. The inference drawn from it in the Speaker's Commentary—that Nabunaid was king, and Belshazzar second ruler—is purely nugatory. For the Hebrew word taltî cannot mean "third," which would be תְּלִיתַי. Ewald and most Hebraists take it to mean "rule, as one of the board of three." For "triumvir" comp. vi. 2.

[438] 1 Kings xv. 13. She is precariously identified by the apologists with the Nitocris of Herodotus; and it is imagined that she may have been a daughter of Nebuchadrezzar, married to Nabunaid before the murder of Neriglissar.

[439] Isa. xliv. 25.

[440] The word Qistrîn, "knots," may mean "hard questions"; but Mr. Bevan (p. 104) thinks there may be an allusion to knots used as magic spells. (Comp. Sen., Œdip., 101, "Nodosa sortis verba et implexos dolos.") He quotes Al-Baidawi on the Koran, lxiii. 4, who says that "a Jew casts a spell on Mohammed by tying knots in a cord, and hiding it in a well." But Gabriel told the prophet to send for the cord, and at each verse of the Koran recited over it a knot untied itself. See Records of the Past, iii. 141; and Duke, Rabb. Blumenlehre, 231.

[441] So Elisha, 2 Kings v. 16.

[442] The Menê is repeated for emphasis. In the Upharsîn (ver. 25) the u is merely the "and," and the word is slightly altered, perhaps to make the paronomasia with "Persians" more obvious. According to Buxtorf and Gesenius, peras, in the sense of "divide," is very rare in the Targums.

[443] Journal Asiatique, 1886. (Comp. Nöldeke, Ztschr. für Assyriologie, i. 414-418; Kamphausen, p. 46.) It is M. Clermont-Ganneau who has the credit of discovering what seems to be the true interpretation of these mysterious words. M'nê (Heb. Maneh) is the Greek μνᾶ, Lat. mina, which the Greeks borrowed from the Assyrians. Tekel (in the Targum of Onkelos tîkla) is the Hebrew shekel. In the Mishnah a half-mina is called peras, and an Assyrian weight in the British Museum bears the inscription perash in the Aramaic character. (See Bevan, p. 106; Schrader, s.v. "Mene" in Riehm, R.W.B.) Peres is used for a half-mina in Yoma, f. 4, 4; often in the Talmud; and in Corp. Inscr. Sem., ii. 10 (Behrmann).

[444] The word occurs in Perez Uzza. There still, however, remain some obviously unexplored mysteries about these words. Paronomasia, as I showed long ago in other works, plays a noble and profound part in the language of emotion; and that the interpretation should here be made to turn upon it is not surprising by any means. We find it in the older prophets. Thus in Jer. i. 11, 12: "What seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten My word to perform it." The meaning here depends on the resemblance in Hebrew between shaqeed, "an almond tree" ("a wakeful, or early tree"), and shoqeed, "I will hasten," or "am wakeful over."

And that the same use of plays on words was still common in the Maccabean epoch we see in the Story of Susanna. There Daniel plays on the resemblance between σχῖνος, "a mastick tree," and σχίσει, "shall cut thee in two"; and πρῖνος, "a holm oak," and πρίσαι, "to cut asunder." We may also point to the fine paronomasia in the Hebrew of Isa. v. 7, Mic. i. 10-15, and other passages. "Such a conceit," says Mr. Ball, "may seem to us far-fetched and inappropriate; but the Oriental mind delights in such lusus verborum, and the peculiar force of all such passages in the Hebrew prophets is lost in our version because they have not been preserved in translation."

As regards the Medes, they are placed after the Persians in Isa. xxi. 2, Esther i. 3, but generally before them.

[445] LXX., ἔδωκεν ἐξουσίαν αὐτῳ τοῦ τρίτου μέρους; Theodot., ἄρχοντα τρίτον. See supra, p. 210.

[446] The LXX. evidently felt some difficulty or followed some other text, for they render it, "And Artaxerxes of the Medes took the kingdom, and Darius full of days and glorious in old age." So, too, Josephus (Antt., X. xi. 4), who says that "he was called by another name among the Greeks."

[447] Cyrop., I. v. 2.

[448] Antt., X. xi. 4. This was the view of Vitringa, Bertholdt, Gesenius, Winer, Keil, Hengstenberg, Hävernick, etc.

[449] Ad. Q. Fratr., i. 8.

[450] The view of Niebuhr and Westcott.

[451] See Herod., i. 109. The Median Empire fell b.c. 559; Babylon was taken about b.c. 539. It is regarded as "important" that a late Greek lexicographer, long after the Christian era, makes the vague and wholly unsupported assertion that the "Daric" was named after some Darius other than the father of Xerxes! See supra, pp. 57-60.

[452] Lam. iv. 7.

[453] Isa. xliv. 25, 26.

[454] Isa. xliii. 2.

[455] Ezek. xxxi. 2-15.

[456] Prov. xvi. 18.

[457] Isa. x. 33.

[458] Isa. xlvii. 13.

[459] Isa. xxi. 2.

[460] The word is a cabalistic cryptogram—an instance of Gematria—for Babel.

[461] Jer. li. 28-57.

[462] Psalm lvii. 4.

[463] Psalm lviii. 6.

[464] Lam. iii. 53.

[465] Isa. liv. 17.

[466] Sanhedrin, f. 93, 1. See another story in Vayyikra Rabba, c. xix.

[467] Bereshîth Rabba, § 68.

[468] The LXX. says 127, and Josephus (Antt., X. xi. 4) says 360 (comp. Esther i. 1, viii. 9, ix. 3). Under Darius, son of Hystaspes, there were only twenty divisions of the empire (Herod., iii. 89).

[469] Dan. vi. 2: "Of whom Daniel was"—not "first," as in A.V., but "one," R.V.

[470] Matt. xix. 29.

[471] 1 Cor. iv. 2.

[472] Dan. vi. 6, char'ggishoo; Vulg., surripuerunt regi; A.V. marg., "came tumultuously." The word is found in the Targum in Ruth i. 19 (Bevan).

[473] The den (goob or gubba) seems to mean a vault. The Hebrew word for "pit" is boor.

[474] See Layard, Nin. and Bab., i. 335, 447, 475; Smith, Hist. of Assur-bani-pal, xxiv.

[475] The chamber was perhaps supposed to be a ὑπερῷον on the roof. The "kneeling" in prayer (as in 1 Kings viii. 54; 2 Chron. vi. 13; Ezra ix. 5) is in the East a less common attitude than standing. See 1 Sam. i. 26; Mark xi. 25; Luke xviii. 11: but see Neh. viii. 6; Gen. xxiv. 26.

The Temple, and Jerusalem, was the Kibleh, or sacred direction of devotion (1 Kings viii. 44; Ezek. viii. 16; Psalm v. 7, xxviii. 2, lv. 17, etc.).

[476] Comp. Mark vi. 26.

[477] Theodot., ἀγωνιζόμενος.

[478] Esther i. 19, viii. 8.

[479] "Courage, till to-morrow" (ἕως πρωῒ θάῤῥει), adds the LXX.

[480] Comp. Lam. iii. 53. Seal-rings are very ancient (Herod., i. 195). It is useless to speculate on the construction of the lion-pit. The only opening mentioned seems to have been at the top; but there must necessarily have been side-openings also.

[481] Theodot., ἐκοιμήθη ἄδειπνος. Daniel, on the other hand, in the apocryphal Haggada, gets his dinner miraculously from the Prophet Habakkuk.

[482] Heb., dachavān; R.V., "instruments of music"; R.V. marg., "dancing-girls"; Gesenius, Zöckler, etc., "concubines."

[483] Theodot., τὸ πρωῒ ἐν τῷ φωτί.

[484] Comp. Dan. iii. 8; Psalm xxxiv. 7-10; Acts xii. 11.

[485] Comp. Esther ix. 13, 14; Josh. vii. 24; 2 Sam. xxi. 1-6. The LXX. modifies the savagery of the story by making the vengeance fall only on the two young men who were Daniel's fellow-presidents. But comp. Herod., iii. 119; Am. Marcell., xxiii. 6; and "Ob noxam unius omnis propinquitas perit," etc.

[486] Psalm xxix. 1, x. 16, etc. Professor Fuller calls it "a Mazdean colouring in the language"!

[487] Except in the heading of chap. x.

[488] In the opinion of Lagarde and others this chapter—which is not noticed by Josephus, and which Meinhold thinks cannot have been written by the author of chap. ii., since it says nothing of the sufferings or deliverance of Israel—did not belong to the original form of the Book. Lagarde thinks that it was written a.d. 69, after the persecution of the Christians by Nero.

[489] St. Ephræm Syrus says, "The sea is the world." Isa. xvii. 12, xxvii. 1, xxxii. 2. But compare Dan. vii. 17; Ezek. xxix. 3; Rev. xiii. 1, xvii. 1-8, xxi. 1.

[490] In the vision of the colossus in ii. 41-43 stress is laid on the division of the fourth empire into stronger and weaker elements (iron and clay). That point is here passed over.

[491] A.V., "the thrones were cast down."

[492] In ii. 35, 44, the four empires are represented as finally destroyed.

[493] A.V. marg., "high ones"—i.e., things or places.

[494] Not kingdoms, as in viii. 8.

[495] Comp. Rev. xii. 14; Luke iv. 25; James v. 17.

[496] Isa. xxvii. 1, li. 9; Ezek. xxix. 3, xxxii. 2.

[497] Comp. Job xxxviii. 16, 17; Isa. viii. 7, xvii. 12.

[498] Comp. Dan. ii. 38. Jeremiah had likened Nebuchadrezzar both to the lion (iv. 7, xlix. 19, etc.) and to the eagle (xlviii. 40, xlix. 22). Ezekiel had compared the king (xvii. 3), and Habakkuk his armies (i. 8), as also Jeremiah (iv. 13; Lam. iv. 19), to the eagle (Pusey, p. 690). See too Layard, Nin. and Bab., ii. 460. For other beast-symbols see Isa. xxvii. 1, li. 9; Ezek. xxix. 3; Psalm lxxiv. 13.

[499] Comp. Jer. iv. 7, 13, xlix. 16; Ezek. xvii. 3, 12; Hab. i. 8; Lam. iv. 19.

[500] The use of enôsh—not eesh—indicates chastening and weakness.

[501] Ewald.

[502] Isa. xiii. 17; Jer. li. 11, 28. Aristotle, H. N., viii. 5, calls the bear πάμφαγος, "all-devouring." A bear appears as a dream-symbol in an Assyrian book of auguries (Lenormant, Magie, 492).

[503] Dan. v. 28, 31, vi. 8, 12, 15, 28, viii. 20, ix. 1, xi. 1.

[504] The composite beast of Rev. xiii. 2 combines leopard, bear, and lion.

[505] Comp. viii. 4-8.

[506] Battle of the Granicus, b.c. 334; Battle of Issus, 333; Siege of Tyre, 332; Battle of Arbela, 331; Death of Darius, 330. Alexander died b.c. 323.

[507] This was the interpretation given by the great father Ephræm Syrus in the first century. Hitzig, Kuenen, and others count from Alexander the Great, and omit Ptolemy Philometor.

[508] Dan. xi. 21.

[509] Appian, Syr., 45; Liv., xli. 24. The story of his attempt to rob the Temple at Jerusalem, rendered so famous by the great picture of Raphael in the Vatican stanze, is not mentioned by Josephus, but only in 2 Macc. iii. 24-40. In 4 Macc. it is told, without the miracle, of Apollonius. There can be little doubt that something of the kind happened, but it was perhaps due to an imposture of the Jewish high priest.

[510] Porphyry interpreted the three kings who succumbed to the little horn to be Ptolemy Philometor, Ptolemy Euergetes II., and Artaxias, King of Armenia. The critics who begin the ten kings with Alexander the Great count Seleucus IV. (Philopator) as one of the three who were supplanted by Antiochus. Von Gutschmid counts as one of the three a younger brother of Demetrius, said to have been murdered by Antiochus (Müller, Fr. Hist. Græc., iv. 558).

[511] Comp. viii. 23.

[512] Comp. λαλεῖν μέγαλα (Rev. xiii. 5); Hom., Od., xvi. 243.

[513] Comp. xi. 36.

[514] Jos., B. J., I. i. 2, VI. x. 1. In Antt., XII. v. 3, Josephus says he took Jerusalem by stratagem.

[515] Jahn, Hebr. Commonwealth, § xciv.; Ewald, Hist. of Isr., v. 293-300.

[516] 2 Macc. iv. 9-15: "The priests had no courage to serve any more at the altar, but despising the Temple, and neglecting the sacrifices, hastened to be partakers of the unlawful allowance in the place of exercise, after the game of Discus ... not setting by the honours of their fathers, but liking the glory of the Grecians best of all."

[517] 1 Macc. i. 29-40; 2 Macc. v. 24-26; Jos., Antt., XII. v. 4. Comp. Dan. xi. 30, 31. See Schürer, i. 155 ff.

[518] Jerome, Comm. in Dan., viii., ix.; Tac., Hist., v. 8; 1 Macc. i. 41-53; 2 Macc. v. 27, vi. 2; Jos., Antt., XII. v. 4.

[519] 1 Macc. ii. 41-64, iv. 54; 2 Macc. vi. 1-9, x. 5; Jos., Antt., XII. v. 4; Dan. xi. 31.

[520] Maccabee perhaps means "the Hammerer" (comp. the names Charles Martel and Malleus hæreticorum). Simeon was called Tadshî, "he increases" (? Gk., Θασσίς).

[521] The numbers vary in the records.

[522] Prideaux, Connection, ii. 212. Comp. Rev. xii. 14, xi. 2, 3.

[523] John x. 22.

[524] On the death of Antiochus see 1 Macc. vi. 8; 2 Macc. ix.; Polybius, xxxi. 11; Jos., Antt., XII. ix. 1, 2.

[525] Polybius, De Virt. et Vit., Exc. Vales, p. 144; Q. Curtius, v. 13; Strabo, xi. 522; Appian, Syriaca, xlvi. 80; 1 Macc. vi.; 2 Macc. ix.; Jos., Antt., XII. ix. 1; Prideaux, ii. 217; Jahn, Hebr. Commonwealth § xcvi.

[526] Dan. vii. 26.

[527] Dan. vii. 12. This is only explicable at all—and then not clearly—on the supposition that the fourth beast represents Alexander and the Diadochi. See even Pusey, p. 78.

[528] Ezek. i. 26; Psalm l. 3. Comp. the adaptation of this vision in Enoch xlvi. 1-3.

[529] Isa. l. 11, lx. 10-12, lxvi. 24, Joel iii. 1, 2. See Rev. i. 13. In the Gospels it is not "a son of man," but generally ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. Comp. Matt. xvi. 13, xxiv. 30; John xii. 34; Acts vii. 56; Justin, Dial. c. Tryph., 31.

[530] Comp. Mark xiv. 62; Rev. i. 7; Hom., Il., v. 867, ὁμοῦ νεφέεσσιν.

[531] Comp. Ezek. i. 26.

[532] It is so understood by the Book of Enoch; the Talmud (Sanhedrin, f. 98, 1); the early father Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph., 31, etc. Some of the Jewish commentators (e.g., Abn Ezra) understood it of the people of God, and so Hofmann, Hitzig, Meinhold, etc. See Behrmann, Dan., p. 48.

[533] Dan. iv. 3, 34, vi. 26. See Schürer, ii. 247; Wellhausen, Die Pharis. u. Sadd., 24 ff.

[534] Dan. vii. 16, 22, 23, 27.

[535] Zech. ix. 9.

[536] See Schürer, ii. 138-187, "The Messianic Hope": he refers to Ecclus. xxxii. 18, 19, xxxiii. 1-11, xl. 13, l. 24; Judith xvi. 12; 2 Macc. ii. 18; Baruch ii. 27-35; Tobit xiii, 11-18; Wisdom iii. 8, v. 1, etc. The Messianic King appears more distinctly in Orac. Sibyll., iii.; in parts of the Book of Enoch (of which, however, xlv.-lvii. are of unknown date); and the Psalms of Solomon. In Philo we seem to have traces of the King as well as of the kingdom. See Drummond, The Jewish Messiah, pp. 196 ff.; Stanton, The Jewish and Christian Messiah, pp. 109-118.

[537] Ezra vi. 2; Neh. i. 1; Herod., v. 49; Polyb., v. 48. A supposed tomb of Daniel has long been revered at Shushan.

[538] Pers., baru; Skr., bura; Assyr., birtu; Gk., βάρις. Comp. Æsch., Pers., 554; Herod., ii. 96.

[539] Theodot., οὐβάλ; Ewald, Stromgebiet—a place where several rivers meet. The Jews prayed on river-banks (Acts xvi. 13), and Ezekiel had seen his vision on the Chebar (Ezek. i. 1, iii. 15, etc.); but this Ulai is here mentioned because the palace stood on its bank. Both the LXX. and Theodotion omit the word Ulai.

[540] "Susianam ab Elymaide disterminat amnis Eulæus" (Plin., H. N., vi. 27).

[541] See Loftus, Chaldæa, p. 346, who visited Shush in 1854; Herzog, R. E., s.v. "Susa." A tile was found by Layard at Kuyunjik representing a large city between two rivers. It probably represents Susa. Loftus says that the city stood between the Choaspes and the Kopratas (now the Dizful).

[542] The Latin word for "to butt" is arietare, from aries, "a ram." It butts in three directions (comp. Dan. vii. 5). Its conquests in the East were apart from the writer's purpose. Crœsus called the Persians ὑβρισταί, and Æschylus ὑπέρκομποι ἄγαν, Pers., 795 (Stuart). For horns as the symbol of strength see Amos vi. 13; Psalm lxxv. 5.

[543] Unicorns are often represented on Assyrio-Babylonian sculptures.

[544] 1 Macc. i. 1-3; Isa. xli. 2; Hosea xiii. 7, 8; Hab. i. 6.

[545] Fury (chemah), "heat," "violence"—also of deadly venom (Deut. xxxii. 24).

[546] A.V., "four notable horns"; but the word chazoth means literally "a sight of four"—i.e., "four other horns" (comp. ver. 8). Grätz reads achēroth; LXX., ἕτερα τέσσαρα (comp. xi. 4).

[547] Lit. "out of littleness."

[548] Hatstsebî. Comp. xi. 45; Ezek. xx. 6; Jer. iii. 19; Zech. vii. 14; Psalm cvi. 24. The Rabbis make the word mean "the gazelle" for fanciful reasons (Taanîth, 69, a).

[549] The physical image implies the war against the spiritual host of heaven, the holy people with their leaders. See 1 Macc. i. 24-30; 2 Macc. ix. 10. The Tsebaoth mean primarily the stars and angels, but next the Israelites (Exod. vii. 4).

[550] So in the Hebrew margin (Q'rî), followed by Theodoret and Ewald; but in the text (Kethîbh) it is, "by him the daily was abolished"; and with this reading the Peshito and Vulgate agree. Hattamîd, "the daily" sacrifice; LXX., ἐνδελεχισμός; Numb. xxviii. 3; 1 Macc. i. 39, 45, iii. 45.

[551] The Hebrew is here corrupt. The R.V. renders it, "And the host was given over to it, together with the continual burnt offering through transgression; and it cast down truth to the ground, and it did its pleasure and prospered."

[552] Dan. viii. 13. I follow Ewald in this difficult verse, and with him Von Lengerke and Hitzig substantially agree; but the text is again corrupt, as appears also in the LXX. It would be useless here to enter into minute philological criticism. "How long?" (comp. Isa. vi. 11).

[553] LXX., φελμωνί; nescio quis (Vulg., viri).

[554] Comp. for the expression xii. 6.

[555] We find no names in Gen. xxxii. 30; Judg. xiii. 18. For the presence of angels at the vision comp. Zech. i. 9, 13, etc. Gabriel means "man of God." In Tobit iii. 17 Raphael is mentioned; in 2 Esdras v. 20, Uriel. This is the first mention of any angel's name. Michael is the highest archangel (Weber, System., 162 ff.), and in Jewish angelology Gabriel is identified with the Holy Spirit (Ruach Haqqodesh). As such he appears in the Qurân, ii. 91 (Behrmann).

[556] Ben-Adam (Ezek. ii. 1).

[557] Comp. Isa. xiv. 9: "All the great goats of the earth." A ram is a natural symbol for a chieftain.—Hom., Il., xiii. 491-493; Cic., De Div., i. 22; Plut., Sulla, c. 27; Jer. l. 8; Ezek. xxxiv. 17; Zech. x. 3, etc. See Vaux, Persia, p. 72.

[558] "Strength of face" (LXX., ἀναιδὴς προσώπῳ; Deut. xxviii. 50, etc.). "Understanding dark sentences" (Judg. xiv. 12; Ezek. xvii. 2: comp. v. 12).

[559] The meaning is uncertain. It may mean (1) that he is only strong by God's permission; or (2) only by cunning, not by strength.

[560] Comp. 2 Macc. iv. 9-15: "The priests had no courage to serve any more at the altar, but despising the Temple, and neglecting the sacrifices, hastened to be partakers of the unlawful allowance in the place of exercise ... not setting by the honours of their fathers, but liking the glory of the Grecians best of all."

[561] Not merely the angelic prince of the host (Josh. v. 14), but God—"Lord of lords."

[562] Comp. Esther i. 2. Though the vision took place under Babylon, the seer is strangely unconcerned with the present, or with the fate of the Babylonian Empire.

[563] It is said to be the national emblem of Macedonia.

[564] He is called "the King of Javan"—i.e., of the Ionians.

[565] Isa. v. 26-29. Comp. 1 Macc. i. 3.

[566] The fury of the he-goat represents the vengeance cherished by the Greeks against Persia since the old days of Marathon, Thermopylæ, Salamis, Platæa, and Mycale. Persia had invaded Greece under Mardonius (b.c. 492), under Datis and Artaphernes (b.c. 490), and under Xerxes (b.c. 480).

[567] 1 Macc. vi. 1-16; 2 Macc. ix. 9; Job vii. 6; Prov. xxvi. 20.

[568] So Diodorus Siculus (Exc. Vales., p. 293); Justin, xxxii. 2; Jer. in Dan., xi.; Strabo, xvi. 744.

[569] Aurel. Vict., De Virr. Illustr., c. liv.

[570] He conquered Egypt b.c. 170 (1 Macc. i. 17-20).

[571] See 1 Macc. iii. 29-37.

[572] Comp. Ezek. xx. 6, "which is the glory of all lands"; Psalm l. 2; Lam. ii. 15.

[573] 1 Macc. i. 24-30. Dr. Pusey endeavours, without even the smallest success, to show that many things said of Antiochus in this book do not apply to him. The argument is based on the fact that the characteristics of Antiochus—who was a man of versatile impulses—are somewhat differently described by different authors; but here we have the aspect he presented to a few who regarded him as the deadliest of tyrants and persecutors.

[574] See Hamburger, ii. 334 (s.v. "Haftara").

[575] Comp. ὀργὴ μεγάλη (1 Macc. i. 64; Isa. x. 5, 25, xxvi. 20; Jer. l. 5; Rom. ii. 5, etc.).

[576] Comp. xi. 21.

[577] Comp. ii. 34, xi. 45. Antiochus died of a long and terrible illness in Persia. Polybius (xxxi. 11) describes his sickness by the word δαιμονήσας. Arrian (Syriaca, 66) says φθίνων ἐτελεύτησε. In 1 Macc. vi. 8-16 he dies confessing his sins against the Jews, but there is another story in 2 Macc. ix. 4-28.

[578] Ver. 27, "I was gone" (or, "came to an end") "whole days." With this ἔκστασις comp. ii. 1, vii. 28; Exod. xxxiii. 20; Isa. vi. 5; Luke ix. 32; Acts ix. 4, etc. Comp. xii. 8; Jer. xxxii. 14, and (contra) Rev. xxii. 10.

[579] In ver. 26 the R.V. renders "it belongeth to many days to come."

[580] Comp. Gen. i. 5; 2 Cor. xi. 25. The word tamîd includes both the morning and evening sacrifice (Exod. xxix. 41). Pusey says (p. 220), "The shift of halving the days is one of those monsters which have disgraced scientific expositions 'of Hebrew.'" Yet this is the view of such scholars as Ewald, Hitzig, Kuenen, Cornill, Behrmann. The latter quotes a parallel: "vgl. im Hildebrandsliede sumaro ente wintro sehstie = 30 Jahr."

[581] Matt. xxiv. 22.

[582] "These five passages agree in making the final distress last during three years and a fraction: the only difference lies in the magnitude of the fraction" (Bevan, p. 127).

[583] 1 Macc. iv. 41-56; 2 Macc. x. 1-5.

[584] See on this period Diod. Sic., Fr., xxvi. 79; Liv., xlii. 29; Polyb., Legat., 71; Justin, xxxiv. 2; Jer., Comm. in Dan., xi. 22; Jahn, Hebr. Commonwealth, § xciv.; Prideaux, Connection, ii. 146.

[585] Connection, ii. 188.

[586] Gesch. d. V. Isr., i. 155.

[587] Some of these dates are uncertain, and are variously given by different authorities.

[588] Achashverosh, Esther viii. 10; perhaps connected with Kshajârsha, "eye of the kingdom" (Corp. Inscr. Sem., ii. 125).

[589] By "the books" is here probably meant the Thorah or Pentateuch, in which the writer discovered the key to the mystic meaning of the seventy years. It was not in the two sections of Jeremiah himself (called, according to Kimchi, Sepher Hamattanah and Sepher Hagalon) that he found this key. Jeremiah is here Yir'myah, as in Jer. xxvii.-xxix. See Jer. xxv. 11; Ezek. xxxvii. 21; Zech. i. 12. In the Epistle of Jeremy (ver. 2) the seventy years become seven generations (Χρόνος μακρὸς ἕως ἑππὰ γενεῶν). See too Dillman's Enoch, p. 293.

[590] Dan., p. 146. Comp. a similar usage in Aul. Gell., Noct. Att., iii. 10, "Se jam undecimam annorum hebdomadem ingressum esse"; and Arist., Polit., vii. 16.

[591] See Fritzsche ad loc.; Ewald, Hist. of Isr., v. 140.

[592] The writer of 2 Chron. xxxv. 17, 18, xxxvi. 21, 22, evidently supposed that seventy years had elapsed between the destruction of Jerusalem and the decree of Cyrus—which is only a period of fifty years. The Jewish writers were wholly without means for forming an accurate chronology. For instance, the Prophet Zechariah (i. 12), writing in the second year of Darius, son of Hystaspes (b.c. 520), thinks that the seventy years were only then concluding. In fact, the seventy years may be dated from b.c. 606 (fourth year of Jehoiakim); or b.c. 598 (Jehoiachin); or from the destruction of the Temple (b.c. 588); and may be supposed to end at the decree of Cyrus (b.c. 536); or the days of Zerubbabel (Ezra v. 1); or the decree of Darius (b.c. 518, Ezra vi. 1-12).

[593] Lev. xxv. 2, 4.

[594] 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21. See Bevan, p. 14.

[595] See Cornill, Die Siebzig Jahrwochen Daniels, pp. 14-18.

[596] The LXX. and Theodotion, with a later ritual bias, make the fasting a means towards the prayer: εὑρεῖν προσευχὴν καὶ ἔλεος ἐν νηστείαις.

[597] Ewald, p. 278. The first part (vv. 4-14) is mainly occupied with confessions and acknowledgment of God's justice; the last part (vv. 15-19) with entreaty for pardon: confessio (vv. 4-14); consolatio (vv. 15-19) (Melancthon).

[598] Besides the parallels which follow, it has phrases from Exod. xx. 6; Deut. vii. 21, x. 17; Jer. vii. 19; Psalm xliv. 16, cxxx. 4; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 15, 16. Mr. Deane (Bishop Ellicott's Commentary, p. 407) thus exhibits the details of special resemblances:—

Dan. ix.	Ezra ix.	Neh. ix.	Baruch.
Verse.	Verse.	Verse.
4	7	32	—
5	7	33, 34	i. 11
6	7	32, 33	—
7	6, 7	32, 33	i. 15-17
8	6, 7	33	—
9	—	17	—
13	—	—	ii. 7
14	15	33	—
15	—	10	ii. 11
18	—	—	ii. 19
19	—	—	ii. 15

[599] ix. 13 (Heb.). Comp. Exod. xxxii. 13; 1 Sam. xiii. 12; 1 Kings xiii. 6, etc.

[600] Comp. Jer. xxxii. 17-23; Isa. lxiii. 11-16.

[601] ix. 21. LXX., τάχει φερόμενος; Theodot., πετόμενος; Vulg., cito volans; A.V. and R.V., "being made to fly swiftly"; R.V. marg., "being sore wearied"; A.V. marg., "with weariness"; Von Lengerke, "being caused to hasten with haste." The verb elsewhere always connotes weariness. If that be the meaning here, it must refer to Daniel. If it here means "flying," it is the only passage in the Old Testament where angels fly; but see Isa. vi. 2; Psalm civ. 4, etc. The wings of angels are first mentioned in the Book of Enoch, lxi.; but see Rev. xiv. 6—cherubim and seraphim have wings.

[602] In the time of the historic Daniel, as in the brief three and a half years of Antiochus, the tamîd had ceased.

[603] ix. 23. Heb., eesh hamudôth; Vulg., vir desideriorum, "a man of desires"; Theodot., ἀνὴρ ἐπιθυμιῶν. Comp. x. 11, 19, and Jer. xxxi. 20, where "a pleasant child" is "a son of caresses"; and the "amor et deliciæ generis humani" applied to Titus; and the names David, Jedidiah, "beloved of Jehovah." The LXX. render the word ἐλεεινός, "an object of pity."

[604] Daniel used Shabuîm for weeks, not Shabuôth.

[605] In ver. 24 the Q'rî and Kethîbh vary, as do also the versions.

[606] For charoots, "moat" (Ewald), the A.V. has "wall," and in the marg. "breach" or "ditch." The word occurs for "ditches" in the Talmud. The text of the verse is uncertain.

[607] Perhaps because neither Jason nor Menelaus (being apostate) were regarded as genuine successors of Onias III.

[608] Numb. xiv. 34; Lev. xxvi. 34; Ezek. iv. 6.

[609] Comp. Jer. xxxii. 11, 44.

[610] See Isa. xlvi. 3, li. 5, liii. 11; Jer. xxiii. 6, etc.

[611] For the anointing of the altar see Exod. xxix. 36, xl. 10; Lev. viii. 11; Numb. vii. 1. It would make no difference in the usus loquendi if neither Zerubbabel's nor Judas's altar was actually anointed.

[612] It is only used thirteen times of the Debhîr, or Holiest Place.

[613] 1 Macc. iv. 54.

[614] Theodot., ἕως χριστοῦ ἡγουμένου.

[615] Saadia the Gaon, Rashi, Von Lengerke, Hitzig, Schürer, Cornill.

[616] Hag. i. 1; Zech. iii. 1; Ezra iii. 2. Comp. Ecclus. xlv. 24; Jos., Antt., XII. iv. 2, προστάτης; and see Bevan, p. 156.

[617] We see from Zech. i. 12, ii. 4, that even in the second year of Darius Hystaspis Jerusalem had neither walls nor gates; and even in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the wall was still broken down and the gates burnt (Neh. i. 3).

[618] LXX., ἀποσταθήσεται χρίσμα καὶ οὐκ ἔσται; Theodot., ἐξολεθρευθήσεται χρίσμα καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν αὐτῷ; Aquil., ἐξ. ἠλειμμένος καὶ οὐχ ὑπάρξει αὐτῷ.

[619] See xi. 22. Von Lengerke, however, and others refer it to Seleucus Philopator, murdered by Heliodorus (b.c. 175).

[620] Syr. Aquil., οὐχ ὑπάρξει αὐτῷ; Theodot., καὶ οὔκ ἐστιν ἐν αῦτῳ; LXX., καὶ οὐκ ἔσται; Vulg., "Et non erit ejus populus qui eum negaturus est." The A.V. "and not for himself" is untenable. It would have been וְלֹא לוֹ. See Pusey, p. 182, n.

[621] Steudel, Hofmann. So too Cornill, p. 10: "Ein frommer Jude das Hoher Priesterthum mit Onias für erloschen ansah."

[622] Comp. ואין לו and חניו (Joël, Notizen, p. 21).

[623] Jos., Antt., XII. v. 4; 1 Macc. i. 29-40.

[624] Here again the meaning is uncertain; and Grätz, altering the reading, thinks that it should be, "He shall abolish the covenant [with God] for the many"; or, "shall cause the many to transgress the covenant."

[625] Dan. ix. 27. Heb., Zebach oo-minchah, "the bloody and unbloody offering."

[626] The special allusion, whatever it may precisely mean, is found under three different designations: (i) In viii. 13 it is called happeshang shomeem; Gk., ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., peccatum desolationis. (ii) In ix. 27 (comp. ix. 31) it is shiqqootsîm m'shomeem; Gk., βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., abominatio desolationis. (iii) In xii. 11 it is shiqqoots shomeem; Gk., τὸ βδέλυγμα ἐρημώσεως; Vulg., abominatio in desolationem. Some traditional fact must (as Dr. Joël says) have underlain the rendering "of desolation" for "of the desolator." In xi. 31 Theodotion has ἠφανισμένων, "of things done away with," for ἐρημωσέων. The expression with which the New Testament has made us so familiar is found also in 1 Macc. i. 51 (comp. 1 Macc. vi. 7): "they built the abomination of desolation upon the altar." There "the abomination" seems clearly to mean a smaller altar for heathen sacrifice to Zeus, built on the great altar of burnt offering. Perhaps the writer of Daniel took the word shomeem, "desolation," as a further definition of shiqqoots, "abomination," from popular speech; and it may have involved a reference to Lev. xxvi. 15-31: "If ye shall despise My statutes ... I will even appoint over you terror ... and I will make your cities waste, and appoint your sanctuaries unto desolation." The old Jewish exegetes referred the prophecy to Antiochus Epiphanes; Josephus and later writers applied it to the Romans. Old Christian expositors regarded it as Messianic; but even Jerome records nine different views of commentators, many of them involving the grossest historic errors and absurdities. Of Post-Reformation expositors down to the present century scarcely two agree in their interpretations. At the present day modern critics of any weight almost unanimously regard these chapters, in their primary significance, as vaticinia ex eventu, as some older Jewish and Christian exegetes had already done. Hitzig sarcastically says that the exegetes have here fallen into all sorts of shiqqootsîm themselves.

[627] Comp. πτερύγιον (Matt. iv. 5).

[628] Kuenen, Hist. Crit. Onderzook., ii. 472.

[629] Any one who thinks the inquiry likely to lead to any better results than those here indicated has only to wade through Zöckler's comment in Lange's Bibelwerk ("Ezekiel and Daniel," i. 186-221). It is hard to conceive any reading more intolerably wearisome; and at the close it leaves the reader in a state of more hopeless confusion than before. The discussion also occupies many pages of Pusey (pp. 162-231); but neither in his hypothesis nor any other are the dates exact. He can only say, "It were not of any account if we could not interpret these minor details. De minimis non curat lex." On the view that the seventy weeks were to end with the advent of Christ we ask: (1) Why do no two Christian interpreters agree about the interpretation? (2) Why did not the Apostles and Evangelists refer to so decisive an evidence?

[630] On this, however, we may remark with Cornill, "Eine Apokalypse, deren ἀποκαλύψεις unenthülbar sind, wäre ein nonsens, eine contradictio in adjecto" (Die Siebzig Jahrwochen, p. 3). The indication was obviously meant to be understood, and to the contemporaries of the writer, familiar with the minuter facts of the day, it probably was perfectly clear.

[631] Luke ii. 25, 26, 38; Matt. xxiv. 15. Comp. 2 Thess. ii.; Jos., Antt., X. xxii. 7.

[632] "Scio de hac quæstione ab eruditissimis viris varie disputatum et unumquemque pro captu ingenii sui dixisse quod senserat" (Jer. in Dan., ix.). In other words, there was not only no received interpretation in St. Jerome's day, but the comments of the Fathers were even then a chaos of arbitrary guesses.

[633] Pusey makes out a table of the divergent interpretation of the commentators, whom, in his usual ecclesiastical fashion, he charitably classes together as "unbelievers," from Corrodi and Eichhorn down to Herzfeld. But quite as striking a table of divergencies might be drawn up of "orthodox" commentators.

[634] Thus Eusebius, without a shadow of any pretence at argument makes the last week mean seventy years! (Dem. Evan., viii.).

[635] Jost (Gesch. d. Judenthums, i. 99) contents himself with speaking of "die Liebe zu prophetischer Auffassung der Vergangenheit, mit möglichst genauen Zahlenagaben, befriedigt, die uns leider nicht mehr verständlich erscheinen."

[636] In Clem. Alex., Strom., i. 21.

[637] Cornill, p. 14; Bevan, p. 54.

[638] Schürer, Hist. of Jewish People, iii. 53, 54 (E. Tr.). This is also the view of Graf, Nöldeke, Cornill, and many others. In any case we must not be misled into an impossible style of exegesis of which Bleck says that "bei ihr alles möglich ist und alles für erlaubt gilt."

[639] The LXX. date it in "the first year of Cyrus," perhaps an intentional alteration (i. 21). We see from Ezra, Nehemiah, and the latest of the Minor Prophets that there was scarcely even an attempt to restore the ruined walls of Jerusalem before b.c. 444.

[640] Lit. "great warfare." It will be seen that the A.V. and R.V. and other renderings vary widely from this; but nothing very important depends on the variations. Instead of taking the verbs as imperatives addressed to the reader, Hitzig renders, "He heeded the word, and gave heed to the vision."

[641] Lit. "weeks of days" (Gen. xli. 1; Deut. xxi. 13: "years of days").

[642] "Bread of desires" is the opposite of "bread of affliction" in Deut. xvi. 3. Comp. Gen. xxvii. 25; Isa. xxii. 13, etc.

[643] Comp. Amos vi. 6; Ruth iii. 3; 2 Sam. xii. 20, xiv. 2.

[644] He fasted from Abib 3 to 24. The festival of the New Moon might prevent him from fasting on Abib 1, 2.

[645] Hiddekel ("the rushing") occurs only in Gen. ii. 14. It is the Assyrian idiglat.

[646] For the girdle see Ezek. xxiii. 15. Ewald (with the Vulg., Chald., and Syriac) regards Uphaz as a clerical error for Ophir (Psalm xlv. 9). LXX., Μωφάζ (Jer. x. 9, where alone it occurs). The LXX. omit it here. Vulg., Auro obrizo.

[647] Heb., eben tarshish (Exod. xxviii. 2); Vulg., crysolithus; R.V. and A.V., "beryl" (Ezek. i. 16). Comp. Skr., tarisha, "the sea."

[648] Theodot., τὰ σκέλη; LXX., οἱ πόδες (Rev. i. 15)—lit. "foot-hold"; Vulg., quæ deorsum sunt usque ad pedes.

[649] This description of the vision follows Ezek. i. 16-24, ix. 2, and is followed in Rev. i. 13-15. The "deep murmur" is referred to the sound of the sea by St. John; A.V., "the voice of a multitude"; LXX., θόρυβος. Comp. Isa. xiii. 4; Ezek. xliii. 2.

[650] Rashi guesses that they were Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

[651] Comp. Acts ix. 7, xxii. 11.

[652] Comp. Hab. iii. 16; Dan. viii. 18.

[653] Lit. "shook" or "caused me to tremble upon my knees and the palms of my hand."

[654] x. 11. LXX., ἄνθρωπος ἐλεεινὸς εἶ; Tert., De Jejun., 7, "homo es miserabilis" (sc., "jejunando").

[655] The protecting genius of Persia (Isa. xxiv. 21; Psalm lxxxii.; Ecclus. xvii. 17).

[656] Michael, "who is like God" (Jude 9; Rev. xii. 7).

[657] Heb., nôthartî. "I came off victorious," or "obtained the precedence" (Luther, Gesenius, etc.); "I was delayed" (Hitzig); "I was superfluous" (Ewald); "Was left over" (Zöckler); "I remained" (A.V.); "Was not needed" (R.V. marg.). The LXX. and Theodoret seem to follow another text.

[658] LXX., "with the army of the king of the Persians."

[659] Again the text and rendering are uncertain.

[660] So Hitzig and Ewald. The view that they are distinct persons is taken by Zöckler, Von Lengerke, etc. Other guesses are that the "man clothed in linen" is the angel who called Gabriel (viii. 16); or Michael; or "the angel of the Covenant" (Vitringa); or Christ; or "he who letteth" (ὁ κατέχων, 2 Thess. ii. 7), whom Zöckler takes to be "the good principle of the world-power."

[661] Thus in the LXX. (Dent, xxxii. 8) we read of angels of the nations. See too Isa. xlvi. 2; Jer. xlvi. 25. Comp. Baruch iv. 7; Ecclus. xvii. 17; Frankel, Vorstudien, p. 66.

[662] Daniel, p. 162.

[663] On this chapter see Smend, Zeitschr. für Alttest. Wissenschaft, v. 241.

[664] Ewald, Prophets, v. 293 (E. Tr.).

[665] Doubtless the three mentioned in Ezra iv. 5-7: Ahasuerus (Xerxes), Artaxerxes, and Darius.

[666] Heb., Hakkôl—lit. "the all." There were probably Jews in his army (Jos. c. Ap., I. 22: comp. Herod., vii. 89).

[667] Zöckler met the difficulty by calling the number four "symbolic," a method as easy as it is profoundly unsatisfactory.

[668] Herod., iii. 96, iv. 27-29.

[669] Q. Curt., X. v. 35.

[670] See Grote, xii. 133. Alexander had a natural son, Herakles, and a posthumous son, Alexander, by Roxana. Both were murdered—the former by Polysperchon. See Diod. Sic., xix. 105, xx. 28; Pausan., ix. 7; Justin, xv. 2; Appian, Syr., c. 51.

[671] The King of the Negeb (comp. Isa. xxx. 6, 7). LXX., Egypt. Ptolemy assumed the crown about b.c. 304.

[672] See Stade, Gesch., ii. 276. Seleucus Nicator was deemed so important as to give his name to the Seleucid æra (1 Macc. i. 10, ἔτη βασιλείας Ἑλλήνων).

[673] Diod. Sic., xix. 55-58; Appian, Syr., c. 52. He ruled from Phrygia to the Indus, and was the most powerful of the Diadochi. The word one is not expressed in the Hebrew: "but as for one of his captains." There may be some corruption of the text. Seleucus can scarcely be regarded as a vassal of Ptolemy, but of Alexander.

[674] Appian, Syr., c. 55; Polyænus, viii. 50; Justin, xxvii. 1. See Herzberg, Gesch. v. Hellas u. Rom., i. 576. Dates are not certain.

[675] Jer., ad loc. (Dan. xi. 6).

[676] The rendering is much disputed, and some versions, punctuating differently, have, "his seed [i.e., his daughter] shall not stand." Every clause of the passage has received varying interpretations.

[677] Polyb., v. 58.

[678] Heb., nasîkîm; LXX., τὰ χωνευτά; Vulg., sculptilia.

[679] Herodotus (iii. 47) says that he ordered the images to be burnt. On the Marmor Adulitanum, Ptolemy Euergetes boasted that he had united Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Persia, Susiana, Media, and all countries as far as Bactria under his rule. The inscription was seen at Adules by Cosmas Indicopleustes, and recorded by him (Wolf u. Buttmann, Museum, ii. 162).

[680] R.V. marg., "He shall continue more years than the King of the North." Ptolemy Euergetes died b.c. 247; Seleucus Kallinikos, b.c. 225. It must be borne in mind that in almost every clause the readings, renderings, and interpolations vary. I give what seem to be the best attested and the most probable.

[681] Justin, xxvii. 2.

[682] See 3 Macc. i. 2-8; Jos., B. J., IV. xi. 5. The Seleucid army lost ten thousand foot, three hundred horse, five elephants, and more than four thousand prisoners (Polyb., v. 86).

[683] Justin says (xxx. i): "Spoliasset regem Antiochum si fortunam virtute juvisset."

[684] Chāzôn, "the vision." Grätz renders it, "to cause the Law to totter"; but this cannot be right.

[685] E.g., Joseph, and his son Hyrcanus.

[686] Polyb., xxviii. 1; Liv., xxxiii. 19; Jos., Antt., XII. iii. 4. See St. Jerome, ad loc.

[687] Vulg., terra inclyta; but in viii. 9, fortitudo.

[688] In the choice of the Hebrew words qatsîn cher'patho lo, Dr. Joël suspects a sort of anagram of Cornelius Scipio, like the ἀπὸ μέλιτος for Ptolemy, and the ἵον Ἥρας for Arsione in Lycophron; but the real meaning and rendering of the verse are highly uncertain.

[689] Liv., xii. 19: "Otiosum, nullisque admodum rebus gestis nobilitatum."

[690] 2 Macc. iii. 7 ff. The reading and rendering are very uncertain.

[691] Joël, Notizen, p. 16.

[692] See Jost, i. 110.

[693] Vulg., vilissimus et indignus decore regio; R.V., "to whom they had not given the honour of a kingdom"; Ewald, "upon him shall not be set the splendour of a kingdom." Dr. Joël sees in nibzeh a contemptuous paronomasia on "Epiphanes" (Notizen, p. 17).

[694] Dan. viii. 22; 2 Macc. v. 25.

[695] Jos., Antt., XII. v. 1.

[696] Jerome, amicitias simulans.

[697] See 1 Macc. iii. 30; 1 Macc. i. 19; Polyb., xxvii. 17; Diod. Sic., xxx. 22. What his unkingly stratagems were we do not know.

[698] Liv., xliv. 19: "Antiochus per honestam speciem majoris Ptolemæi reducendi in regnum," etc.

[699] Or "Paunch." He was so called from his corpulence. Comp. the name Mirabeau, Tonneau.

[700] 2 Macc. v. 5-21; 1 Macc. i. 20-24.

[701] The LXX. render this ἥξουσι Ῥωμαῖοι. Comp. Numb. xxiv. 24; Jerome, Trieres et Romani. On "Chittim" (Gen. x. 4) see Jos., Antt., I. vi. 1.

[702] Polyb., xxix. 11; Appian, Syr., 66; Liv., xlv. 12; Vell. Paterc., i. 10. According to Polybius (xxxi. 5), Epiphanes, by his crafty dissimulation, afterwards completely hoodwinked the ambassador Tiberius Gracchus.

[703] 2 Macc. vi. 2. Our best available historical comments on this chapter are to be found in the two books of Maccabees.

[704] 1 Macc. ii. 42, iii. 11, iv. 14, vii. 13; 2 Macc. xiv. 6.

[705] Diod. Sic, xxxi. 1; 1 Macc. i. 43. Polybius (xxxi. 4) says "he committed sacrilege in most of the temples" (τὰ πλεῖστα τῶν ἱερῶν).

[706] Jahn (Heb. Com., § xcii.) sees in the words "neither shall he regard the desire of women" an allusion to his exclusion of women from the festival at Daphne. Some explain the passage by his robbery of the Temple of Artemis or Aphrodite in Elymais (Polyb., xxxi. 11; Appian, Syr., 66; 1 Macc. vi. 1-4; 2 Macc. ix. 2). All is vague and uncertain.

[707] Polyb., xxvi. 10; 2 Macc. vi. 2; Liv., xii. 20. The Hebrew Eloah Mauzzîm is understood by the LXX., Theodotion, the Vulgate, and Luther to be a god called Mauzzim (Μαωζείμ). See Herzog, Real-Encycl., s.v. "Meussin." Cicero (c. Verr., vii. 72) calls the Capitol arx omnium nationum. The reader must judge for himself as to the validity of the remark of Pusey (p. 92), that "all this is alien from the character of Antiochus."

[708] R.V. The translation is difficult and uncertain.

[709] The LXX. here render this expression (which puzzled them, and which they omit in vv. 16, 41) by θέλησις. Theodot., τὴν γῆν τοῦ Σαβαείμ.

[710] Ewald takes these for metaphoric designations of the Hellenising Jews. Some (e.g., Zöckler) understand these verses as a recapitulation of the exploits of Antiochus. The whole clause is surrounded by historic uncertainties.

[711] The origin of the name Maccabee still remains uncertain. Some make it stand for the initials of the Hebrew words, "Who among the gods is like Jehovah?" in Exod. xv. 11; or of Mattathias Kohen (priest), Ben-Johanan (Biesenthal). Others make it mean "the Hammerer" (comp. Charles Martel). See Jost, i. 116; Prideaux, ii. 199 (so Grotius, and Buxtorf, De Abbreviaturis).

[712] Vulg., Aphadno. The LXX. omit it. Theodot., Apadano; Symm., "his stable."

[713] Porphyry says that "he pitched his tent in a place called Apedno, between the Tigris and Euphrates"; but even if these rivers should be called seas, they have nothing to do with the Holy Mountain. Apedno seems to be a mere guess from the word אפדן, "palace" or "tent," in this verse. See Jer. xliii. 10 (Targum). Roland, however, quotes Procopius (De ædif. Justiniani, ii. 4) as authority for a place called Apadnas, near Amida, on the Tigris. See Pusey, p. 39.

[714] Jahn, § xcv.

[715] 2 Macc. ix.; Jos., Antt., XII. ix. 1, 2; Milman, Hist. of the Jews, ii. 9. Appian describes his lingering and wasting illness by the word φθίνων (Syriaca, 66).

[716] See too Joel ii. 2.

[717] Enoch xc. 16.

[718] Rev. xvi. 14, xix. 19.

[719] Comp. Matt. xxiv. 6, 7, 21, 22.

[720] Such is the reading of the LXX., Vulgate, Peshitta, Symmachus, etc.

[721] Zech. xiv. 1-7.

[722] Comp. vii. 10: "And the books were opened."

[723] Mal. iii. 16.

[724] Rev. xx. 12-15. Compare too Phil. iv. 3: "With Clement also, and the rest of my fellow-workers, whose names are in the book of life."

[725] "Many sleepers in the land of dust" seems to mean the dead. Comp. Jer. li. 39; Psalm xxii. 29; 1 Thess. iv. 14; Acts vii. 60. For "shame" see Jer. xxiii. 40. The word for "abhorrence" only occurs in Isa. lxvi. 24. The allusion seems to be to the ἀνάστασις κρίσεως (John v. 29), the δεύτερος θάνατος of Rev. xx. 14. Comp. Enoch xxii.

[726] Isa. lxvi. 24.

[727] It is certain that the doctrine of the Resurrection acquired more clearness in the minds of the Jews at and after the period of the Exile; nor is there anything derogatory to the workings of the Spirit of God which lighteth every man, in the view which supposes that they may have learnt something on this subject from the Babylonians and Assyrians. See the testimonies of St. Peter and St. Paul as to some degree of Ethnic inspiration in Acts x. 34, 35, xvii. 25-31.

[728] See Ezek. xxxvii. 1-4.

[729] Theodoret says that "many" means "all," as in Rom. v. 15; but there it is "the many," and the parallel is altogether defective. Hofmann gets over the difficulty by rendering it, "And in multitudes shall they arise." Many commentators explain it not of the final but of some partial resurrection. Few will now be content with such autocratic remarks as that of Calvin: "Multos hic ponit pro omnibus ut certum est."

[730] Lit. "those that justify the multitude." Comp. Isa. liii. 11, and see Dan. xi. 33-35.

[731] Matt. xiii. 43; 1 Cor. xv. 41; Rev. ii. 28.

[732] Comp. Zech. iv. 10. This sense cannot be rigidly established.

[733] He refers to 1 Macc. i. 9, which says of the successors of Alexander, καὶ ἐπλήθυναν κακὰ ἐν τῃ γῃ.

[734] Jerome guesses that they are the angels of Persia and Greece. The word הַיְאר lit. "the canal," is often used of the Nile.

[735] The LXX. reads καὶ εἷπα, "and I said," making Daniel the speaker (so too the Vulgate); but the form of the passage is so closely analogous to viii. 13, as to leave no doubt that here too "one saint is speaking to another saint."

[736] Comp. Gen. xiv. 22; Deut. xxxii. 40, "For I lift up My hand unto heaven, and say, I live for ever"; Ezek. xx. 5, 6, etc.

[737] Those who can rest content with such exegesis may explain this to imply that "the reign of antichrist will be divided into three periods—the first long, the second longer, the third shortest of all," just as the seventy weeks of chap. ix. are composed of 7 × 62 × 1.

[738] By way of comment see 1 Macc. v.; 2 Macc. viii.

[739] לֵךְ is encouraging, as in ver. 13.

[740] Comp. Rev. xxii. 11.

[741] The small heathen altar to Zeus was built by Antiochus upon the great altar of burnt offering on Kisleu 15, b.c. 168. The revolt of Mattathias and his seven sons began b.c. 167. Judas the Maccabee defeated the Syrian generals Apollonius, Seron, and Gorgias b.c. 166, and Lysias at Beth-sur in b.c. 165. He cleansed and rededicated the Temple on Kisleu 25, b.c. 165.

[742] The "time, times, and a half." The 1,290 days, 1,335 days and the 1,150 days, and the 2,300 days of viii. 14 all agree in indicating three years with a shorter or longer fraction. It will be observed that in each case there is a certain reticence or vagueness as to the terminus ad quem. It is interesting to note that in Rev. xi. 2, 3, the period of 42 months = 1,260 days = 3½ years of months of 30 days with no intercalary month.