_SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION_
The contents of the previous sections may be briefly summarised.
I. The objections to the authenticity and genuineness of Daniel do not
arise, as is falsely asserted, from any _a-priori_ objection to admit
to the full the reality either of miracles or of genuine prediction.
Hundreds of critics who have long abandoned the attempt to maintain the
early date of Daniel believe both in miracles and prophecy.
II. The grounds for regarding the Book as a pseudepigraph are many
and striking. The very Book which would most stand in need of
overwhelming evidence in its favour is the one which furnishes the
most decisive arguments against itself, and has the least external
testimony in its support.
III. The historical errors in which it abounds tell overwhelmingly
against it. There was no deportation in the third year of Jehoiakim;
there was no King Belshazzar; the Belshazzar son of Nabunaid was not
a son of Nebuchadrezzar; the names Nebuchad_n_ezzar and Abed-nego are
erroneous in form; there was no "Darius the Mede" who preceded Cyrus
as king and conqueror of Babylon, though there was a later Darius,
the son of Hystaspes, who conquered Babylon; the demands and decrees
of Nebuchadrezzar are unlike anything which we find in history, and
show every characteristic of the Jewish Haggada; and the notion that a
faithful Jew could become President of the Chaldean Magi is impossible.
It is not true that there were only two Babylonian kings--there were
five: nor were there only four Persian kings--there were twelve.
Xerxes seems to be confounded alike with Darius Hystaspis and Darius
Codomannus as the last king of Persia. All correct accounts of the
reign, even of Antiochus Epiphanes, seem to end about B.C. 164, and the
indications in vii. 11-14, viii. 25, xi. 40-45, do not seem to accord
with the historic realities of the time indicated.
IV. The philological peculiarities of the Book are no less unfavourable
to its genuineness. The Hebrew is pronounced by the majority of
experts to be of a later character than the time assumed for it. The
Aramaic is not the Babylonian East-Aramaic, but the later Palestinian
West-Aramaic. The word _Kasdîm_ is used for "diviners," whereas at the
period of the Exile it was a national name. Persian words and titles
occur in the decrees attributed to Nebuchadrezzar. At least three Greek
words occur, of which one is certainly of late origin, and is known to
have been a favourite instrument with Antiochus Epiphanes.
V. There are no traces of the existence of the Book before the second
century B.C.,[214] although there are abundant traces of the other
books--Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Second Isaiah--which belong to the period
of the Exile. Even in Ecclesiasticus, while Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
and the twelve Minor Prophets are mentioned (Ecclus. xlviii. 20-25,
xlix. 6-10), not a syllable is said about Daniel, and that although
the writer erroneously regards prophecy as mainly concerned with
_prediction_. Jesus, son of Sirach, even goes out of his way to say
that no man like Joseph had risen since Joseph's time, though the story
of Daniel repeatedly recalls that of Joseph, and though, if Dan. i.-vi.
had been authentic history, Daniel's work was far more marvellous and
decisive, and his faithfulness more striking and continuous, than that
of Joseph. The earliest trace of the Book is in an imaginary speech of
a book written about B.C. 100 (1 Macc. ii. 59, 60).
VI. The Book was admitted by the Jews into the Canon; but so far
from being placed where, if genuine, it would have had a right to
stand--among the four Great Prophets---it does not even receive
a place among the twelve Minor Prophets, such as is accorded to
the much shorter and far inferior Book of Jonah. It is relegated
to the _Kethubîm_, side by side with such a book as Esther. If it
originated during the Babylonian Exile, Josephus might well speak
of its "undeviating prophetic accuracy."[215] Yet this absolutely
unparalleled and even unapproached foreteller of the minute future is
not allowed by the Jews any place at all in their prophetic Canon!
In the LXX. it is treated with remarkable freedom, and a number of
other _Haggadoth_ are made a part of it. It resembles Old Testament
literature in very few respects, and all its peculiarities are such
as abound in the later apocalypses and Apochrypha.[216] Philo, though
he quotes so frequently both from the Prophets and the Hagiographa,
does not even allude to the Book of Daniel.
VII. Its author seems to accept for himself the view of his age that
the spirit of genuine prophecy had departed for evermore.[217] He
speaks of himself as a student of the older prophecies, and alludes
to the Scriptures as an authoritative Canon--_Hassepharîm_, "_the_
books." His views and practices as regards three daily prayers
towards Jerusalem (vi. 11); the importance attached to Levitical
rules about food (i. 8-21); the expiatory and other value attached
to alms and fasting (iv. 24, ix. 3, x. 3); the angelology involving
even the names, distinctions, and rival offices of angels; the form
taken by the Messianic hope; the twofold resurrection of good and
evil,--are all in close accord with the standpoint of the second
century before Christ as shown distinctly in its literature.[218]
VIII. When we have been led by decisive arguments to admit the real
date of the Book of Daniel, its place among the Hagiographa confirms
all our conclusions. The Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa
represent, as Professor Sanday has pointed out, three layers or
stages in the history of the collection of the Canon. If the Book
of Chronicles was not accepted among the Histories (which were
designated "The Former Prophets"), nor the Book of Daniel among the
Greater or Lesser Prophets, the reason was that, at the date when the
Prophets were formally collected into a division of the Canon, these
books were not yet in existence, or at any rate had not been accepted
on the same level with the other books.[219]
IX. All these circumstances, and others which have been mentioned,
have come home to earnest, unprejudiced, and profoundly learned critics
with so irresistible a force, and the counter-arguments which are
adduced are so little valid, that the defenders of the genuineness are
now an ever-dwindling body, and many of them can only support their
basis at all by the hypothesis of interpolations or twofold authorship.
Thus C. v. Orelli[220] can only accept a modified genuineness, for
which he scarcely offers a single argument; but even he resorts to the
hypothesis of a late editor in the Maccabean age who put together the
traditions and general prophecies of the real Daniel. He admits that
without such a supposition--by which it does not seem that we gain
much--the Book of Daniel is wholly exceptional, and without a single
analogy in the Old Testament. And he clearly sees that all the rays of
the Book are focussed in the struggle against Antiochus as in their
central point,[221] and that the best commentary on the prophetic
section of the Book is the First Book of Maccabees.[222]
X. It may then be said with confidence that the critical view has
finally won the day. The human mind will in the end accept that theory
which covers the greatest number of facts, and harmonises best with
the sum-total of knowledge. Now, in regard to the Book of Daniel,
these conditions appear to be far better satisfied by the supposition
that the Book was written in the second century than in the sixth. The
history, imperfect as to the pseudepigraphic date, but very precise
as it approaches B.C. 176-164, the late characteristics which mark
the language, the notable silence respecting the Book from the sixth
to the second century, and its subsequent prominence and the place
which it occupies in the _Kethubîm_, are arguments which few candid
minds can resist. The critics of Germany, even the most moderate, such
as Delitzsch, Cornill, Riehm, Strack, C. v. Orelli, Meinhold, are
unanimous as to the late date of, at any rate, the prophetic section of
the Book; and even in the far more conservative criticism of England
there is no shadow of doubt on the subject left in the minds of such
scholars as Driver, Cheyne, Sanday, Bevan, and Robertson Smith. Yet,
so far from detracting from the value of the Book, we add to its real
value and to its accurate apprehension when we regard it, not as the
work of a prophet in the Exile, but of some faithful _Chasîd_ in
the days of the Seleucid tyrant, anxious to inspire the courage and
console the sufferings of his countrymen. Thus considered, the Book
presents some analogy to St. Augustine's _City of God_. It sets forth,
in strong outlines, and with magnificent originality and faith, the
contrast between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdoms of our God
and of His Christ, to which the eternal victory has been foreordained
from the foundation of the world. In this respect we must compare it
with the Apocalypse. Antiochus Epiphanes was an anticipated Nero.
And just as the agonies of the Neronian persecutions wrung from the
impassioned spirit of St. John the Divine those visions of glory and
that denunciation of doom, in order that the hearts of Christians in
Rome and Asia might be encouraged to the endurance of martyrdom, and to
the certain hope that the irresistible might of their weakness would
ultimately shake the world, so the folly and fury of Antiochus led the
holy and gifted Jew who wrote the Book of Daniel to set forth a similar
faith, partly in _Haggadoth_, which may, to some extent, have been
drawn from tradition, and partly in prophecies, of which the central
conception was that which all history teaches us--namely, that "for
every false word and unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for
lust and vanity, the price has to be paid at last, not always by the
chief offenders, but paid by some one. Justice and truth alone endure
and live. Injustice and oppression may be long-lived, but doomsday
comes to them at last."[223] And when that doom has been carried to its
ultimate issues, then begins the Kingdom of the Son of Man, the reign
of God's Anointed, and the inheritance of the earth by the Saints of
God.
FOOTNOTES:
[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.
PART II
_COMMENTARY ON THE HISTORIC SECTION_
CHAPTER I
_THE PRELUDE_
"His loyalty he kept, his faith, his love."--MILTON.
The first chapter of the Book of Daniel serves as a beautiful
introduction to the whole, and strikes the keynote of faithfulness to
the institutions of Judaism which of all others seemed most important
to the mind of a pious Hebrew in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes.
At a time when many were wavering, and many had lapsed into open
apostasy, the writer wished to set before his countrymen in the most
winning and vivid manner the nobleness and the reward of obeying God
rather than man.
He had read in 2 Kings xxiv. 1, 2, that Jehoiakim had been a vassal
of Nebuchadrezzar for three years, which were not, however, the
first three years of his reign, and then had rebelled, and been
subdued by "bands of the Chaldeans" and their allies. In 2 Chron.
xxxvi. 6 he read that Nebuchadrezzar had "bound Jehoiakim in fetters
to carry him to Babylon."[224] Combining these two passages, he
seems to have inferred, in the absence of more accurate historical
indications, that the Chaldeans had besieged and captured Jerusalem
in the third year of Jehoiakim. That the date is erroneous there
can hardly be a question, for, as already stated,[225] neither
Jeremiah, the contemporary of Jehoiakim, nor the Book of Kings, nor
any other authority, knows anything of any siege of Jerusalem by the
Babylonian King in the third year of Jehoiakim. The Chronicler, a
very late writer, seems to have heard some tradition that Jehoiakim
had been taken captive, but he does not date this capture; and in
Jehoiakim's third year the king was a vassal, not of Babylon, but of
Egypt. Nabopolassar, not Nebuchadrezzar, was then King of Babylon.
It was not till the following year (B.C. 605), when Nebuchadrezzar,
acting as his father's general, had defeated Egypt at the Battle of
Carchemish, that any siege of Jerusalem would have been possible.
Nor did Nebuchadrezzar advance against the Holy City even after the
Battle of Carchemish, but dashed home across the desert to secure
the crown of Babylon on hearing the news of his father's death. The
only two considerable Babylonian deportations of which we know were
apparently in the eighth and nineteenth years of Nebuchadrezzar's
reign. In the former Jehoiachin was carried captive with ten thousand
citizens (2 Kings xxiv. 14-16; Jer. xxvii. 20); in the latter
Zedekiah was slain, and eight hundred and thirty-two persons carried
to Babylon (Jer. lii. 29; 2 Kings xxv. 11).[226]
There seems then to be, on the very threshold, every indication of
an historic inaccuracy such as could not have been committed if the
historic Daniel had been the true author of this Book; and we are
able, with perfect clearness, to point to the passages by which
the Maccabean writer was misled into a mistaken inference.[227] To
him, however, as to all Jewish writers, a mere variation in a date
would have been regarded as a matter of the utmost insignificance.
It in no way concerned the high purpose which he had in view, or
weakened the force of his moral fiction. Nor does it in the smallest
degree diminish from the instructiveness of the lessons which he has
to teach to all men for all time. A fiction which is true to human
experience may be as rich in spiritual meaning as a literal history.
Do we degrade the majesty of the Book of Daniel if we regard it as a
_Haggada_ any more than we degrade the story of the Prodigal Son when
we describe it as a Parable?
The writer proceeds to tell us that, after the siege,
Nebuchadrezzar--whom the historic Daniel could never have called
by the erroneous name Nebuchad_n_ezzar--took Jehoiakim (for this
seems to be implied), with some of the sacred vessels of the Temple
(comp. v. 2, 3), into the land of Shinar,[228] "to the house of his
god." This god, as we learn from Babylonian inscriptions, was Bel or
Bel-merodach, in whose temple, built by Nebuchadrezzar, was also "the
treasure-house of his kingdom."[229]
Among the captives were certain "of the king's seed, and of the
princes" (_Parthemîm_).[230] They were chosen from among such boys as
were pre-eminent for their beauty and intelligence, and the intention
was to train them as pages in the royal service, and also in such a
knowledge of the Chaldean language and literature as should enable
them to take their places in the learned caste of priestly diviners.
Their home was in the vast palace of the Babylonian King, of which
the ruins are now called Kasr. Here they may have seen the hapless
Jehoiachin still languishing in his long captivity.
They are called "children," and the word, together with the context,
seems to imply that they were boys of the age of from twelve to
fourteen. The king personally handed them over to the care of
Ashpenaz,[231] the Rabsaris, or "master of the eunuchs," who held
the position of lord high chamberlain.[232] It is probably implied
that the boys were themselves made eunuchs, for the incident seems
to be based on the rebuke given by Isaiah to the vain ostentation
of Hezekiah in showing the treasures of his temple and palace to
Merodach-baladan: "Behold the days come, that all that is in thine
house ... shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith
the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou
shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the
palace of the King of Babylon."[233]
They were to be trained in the learning (lit. "the book") and
language of Chaldea for three years; at the end of which period they
were to be admitted into the king's presence, that he might see how
they looked and what progress they had made. During those three years
he provided them with a daily maintenance of food and wine from his
table. Those who were thus maintained in Eastern courts were to be
counted by hundreds, and even by thousands, and their position was
often supremely wretched and degraded, as it still is in such Eastern
courts. The wine was probably imported. The food consisted of meat,
game, fish, joints, and wheaten bread. The word used for "provision"
is interesting. It is _path-bag_, and seems to be a transliteration,
or echo of a Persian word, _patibaga_ (Greek ποτίβαζις), a name
applied by the historian Deinon (B.C. 340) to barley bread and "mixed
wine in a golden egg from which the king drinks."[234]
But among these captives were four young Jews named Daniel, Hananiah,
Mishael, and Azariah.
Their very names were a witness not only to their nationality, but to
their religion. Daniel means "God is my judge"; Hananiah, "Jehovah is
gracious"; Mishael (perhaps), "who is equal to God?"[235] Azariah,
"God is a helper."
It is hardly likely that the Chaldeans would have tolerated the
use of such names among their young pupils, since every repetition
of them would have sounded like a challenge to the supremacy of
Bel, Merodach, and Nebo. It was a common thing to change names in
heathen courts, as the name of Joseph had been changed by the
Egyptians to Zaphnathpaaneah (Gen. xli. 45), and the Assyrians
changed the name of Psammetichus II. into _Nebo-serib-ani_, "Nebo
save me." They therefore made the names of the boys echo the names
of the Babylonian deities. Instead of "God is my judge," Daniel
was called Belteshazzar, "protect Thou his life."[236] Perhaps the
prayer shows the tender regard in which he was held by Ashpenaz.
Hananiah was called Shadrach, perhaps Shudur-aku, "command of Aku,"
the moon-deity; Mishael was called Meshach, a name which we cannot
interpret;[237] and Azariah, instead of "God is a help," was called
Abed-nego, a mistaken form for Abed-nebo, or "servant of Nebo."[238]
Even in this slight incident there may be an allusion to Maccabean
days. It appears that in that epoch the apostate Hellenising Jews
were fond of changing their names into Gentile names, which had a
somewhat similar sound. Thus Joshua was called "Jason," and Onias
"Menelaus."[239] This was done as part of the plan of Antiochus to
force upon Palestine the Greek language. So far the writer may have
thought the practice a harmless one, even though imposed by heathen
potentates. Such certainly was the view of the later Jews, even of
the strictest sect of the Pharisees. Not only did Saul freely adopt
the name of Paul, but Silas felt no scruple in being called by the
name Sylvanus, though that was the name of a heathen deity.
It was far otherwise with acquiescence in the eating of heathen
meats, which, in the days of the Maccabees, was forced upon many
of the Jews, and which, since the institution or reinstitution of
Levitism after the return from the Exile, had come to be regarded as
a deadly sin. It was during the Exile that such feelings had acquired
fresh intensity. At first they do not seem to have prevailed.
Jehoiachin was a hero among the Jews. They remembered him with
intense love and pity, and it does not seem to have been regarded as
any stain upon his memory that, for years together, he had, almost in
the words of Dan. i. 5, received a daily allowance from the table of
the King of Babylon.[240]
In the days of Antiochus Epiphanes the ordinary feeling on this subject
was very different, for the religion and nationality of the Jews were
at stake. Hence we read: "Howbeit many in Israel were fully resolved
and confirmed in themselves not to eat any unclean thing. Wherefore
they chose rather to die, that they might not be defiled with meats,
that they might not profane the holy covenant: so then they died."[241]
And in the Second Book of Maccabees we are told that on the king's
birthday Jews "were constrained by bitter constraint to eat of the
sacrifices," and that Eleazar, one of the principal scribes, an aged
and noble-looking man, preferred rather to be tortured to death,
"leaving his death for an example of noble courage, and a memorial
of value, not only unto young men, but unto all his nation."[242] In
the following chapter is the celebrated story of the constancy and
cruel death of seven brethren and their mother, when they preferred
martyrdom to tasting swine's flesh. The brave Judas Maccabæus, with
some nine companions, withdrew himself into the wilderness, and
"lived in the mountains after the manner of beasts with his company,
who fed on herbs continually, lest they should be partakers of the
pollution." The tone and object of these narratives are precisely the
same as the tone and object of the stories in the Book of Daniel; and
we can well imagine how the heroism of resistance would be encouraged
in every Jew who read those narratives or traditions of former days
of persecution and difficulty. "This Book," says Ewald, "fell like a
glowing spark from a clear heaven upon a surface which was already
intensely heated far and wide, and waiting to burst into flames."[243]
It may be doubtful whether such views as to ceremonial defilement were
already developed at the beginning of the Babylonian Captivity.[244]
The Maccabean persecution left them ingrained in the habits of the
people, and Josephus tells us a contemporary story which reminds us
of that of Daniel and his companions. He says that certain priests,
who were friends of his own, had been imprisoned in Rome, and that
he endeavoured to procure their release, "especially because I was
informed that they were not unmindful of piety towards God, but
supported themselves with figs and nuts," because in such eating of
dry food (ξηροφαγία, as it was called) there was no chance of heathen
defilement.[245] It need hardly be added that when the time came to
break down the partition-wall which separated Jewish particularism
from the universal brotherhood of mankind redeemed in Christ, the
Apostles--especially St. Paul--had to show the meaningless nature of
many distinctions to which the Jews attached consummate importance.
The Talmud abounds in stories intended to glorify the resoluteness
with which the Jews maintained their stereotyped Levitism; but Christ
taught, to the astonishment of the Pharisees and even of the disciples,
that it is not what entereth into a man which makes him unclean, but
the unclean thoughts which come from within, from the heart.[246] And
this He said, καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα--_i.e._, abolishing thereby
the Levitic Law, and "making all meats clean." Yet, even after this, it
required nothing less than that Divine vision on the tanner's roof at
Joppa to convince Peter that he was not to call "common" what God had
cleansed,[247] and it required all the keen insight and fearless energy
of St. Paul to prevent the Jews from keeping an intolerable yoke upon
their own necks, and also laying it upon the necks of the Gentiles.[248]
The four princely boys--they may have been from twelve to fourteen
years old[249]--determined not to share in the royal dainties, and
begged the Sar-hassarîsîm to allow them to live on pulse and water,
rather than on the luxuries in which--for them--lurked a heathen
pollution. The eunuch not unnaturally demurred. The daily rations were
provided from the royal table. He was responsible to the king for the
beauty and health, as well as for the training, of his young scholars;
and if Nebuchadrezzar saw them looking more meagre or haggard[250] than
the rest of the captives and other pages, the chamberlain's head might
pay the forfeit.[251] But Daniel, like Joseph in Egypt, had inspired
affection among his captors; and since the prince of the eunuchs
regarded him "with favour and tender love," he was the more willing to
grant, or at least to connive at, the fulfilment of the boy's wish. So
Daniel gained over the Melzar (or steward?),[252] who was in immediate
charge of the boys, and begged him to try the experiment for ten days.
If at the end of that time their health or beauty had suffered, the
question might be reconsidered.
So for ten days the four faithful children were fed on water, and on
the "seeds"--_i.e._, vegetables, dates, raisins, and other fruits,
which are here generally called "pulse."[253] At the end of the ten
days--a sort of mystic Persian week[254]--they were found to be
fairer and fresher than all the other captives of the palace.[255]
Thenceforth they were allowed without hindrance to keep the customs
of their country.
Nor was this all. During the three probationary years they continued
to flourish intellectually as well as physically. They attained to
conspicuous excellence "in all kinds of books and wisdom," and Daniel
also had understanding in all kinds of dreams and visions, to which
the Chaldeans attached supreme importance.[256] The Jews exulted in
these pictures of four youths of their own race who, though they
were strangers in a strange land, excelled all their alien compeers
in their own chosen fields of learning. There were already two such
pictures in Jewish history,--that of the youthful Moses, learned in
all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and a great man and a prince among
the magicians of Pharaoh; and that of Joseph, who, though there were
so many Egyptian diviners, alone could interpret dreams, whether in
the dungeon or at the foot of the throne. A third picture, that of
Daniel at the court of Babylon, is now added to them, and in all
three cases the glory is given directly, not to them, but to the God
of heaven, the God of their fathers.
At the close of the three years the prince of the eunuchs brought
all his young pages into the presence of the King Nebuchadrezzar.
He tested them by familiar conversation,[257] and found the four
Jewish lads superior to all the rest. They were therefore chosen
"to stand before the king"--in other words, to become his personal
attendants. As this gave free access to his presence, it involved a
position not only of high honour, but of great influence. And their
superiority stood the test of time. Whenever the king consulted them
on matters which required "wisdom of understanding," he found them
not only better, but "ten times better," than all the "magicians" and
"astrologers" that were in all his realm.[258]
The last verse of the chapter, "And Daniel continued even unto the
first year of King Cyrus," is perhaps a later gloss, for it appears
from x. 1 that Daniel lived, at any rate, till the _third_ year of
Cyrus. Abn Ezra adds the words "continued in _Babylon_," and Ewald
"at the king's court." Some interpret "continued" to mean "remained
alive." The reason for mentioning "the first year of Cyrus" may be to
show that Daniel survived the return from the Exile,[259] and also
to mark the fact that he attained a great age. For if he were about
fourteen at the beginning of the narrative, he would be eighty-five
in the first year of Cyrus. Dr. Pusey remarks: "Simple words, but
what a volume of tried faithfulness is unrolled by them! Amid all the
intrigues indigenous at all times in dynasties of Oriental despotism,
amid all the envy towards a foreign captive in high office as a
king's councillor, amid all the trouble incidental to the insanity
of the king and the murder of two of his successors, in that whole
critical period for his people, Daniel _continued_."[260]
The domestic anecdote of this chapter, like the other more splendid
narratives which succeed it, has a value far beyond the circumstances
in which it may have originated. It is a beautiful moral illustration
of the blessings which attend on faithfulness and on temperance,
and whether it be an _Haggada_ or an historic tradition, it equally
enshrines the same noble lesson as that which was taught to all time
by the early stories of the Books of Genesis and Exodus.[261]
It teaches the crown and blessing of faithfulness. It was the
highest glory of Israel "to uplift among the nations the banner of
righteousness." It matters not that, in this particular instance,
the Jewish boys were contending for a mere ceremonial rule which in
itself was immaterial, or at any rate of no eternal significance.
Suffice it that this rule presented itself to them in the guise of
a _principle_ and of a sacred duty, exactly as it did to Eleazar
the Scribe, and Judas the Maccabee, and the Mother and her seven
strong sons in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. They regarded it as
a duty to their laws, to their country, to their God; and therefore
upon them it was sacredly incumbent. And they were faithful to
it. Among the pampered minions and menials of the vast Babylonian
palace--undazzled by the glitter of earthly magnificence, untempted
by the allurements of pomp, pleasure, and sensuous indulgence--
"Amid innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,
Their loyalty they kept, their faith, their love."
And because God loves them for their constancy, because they remain
pure and true, all the Babylonian varletry around them learns the
lesson of simplicity, the beauty of holiness. Amid the outpourings
of the Divine favour they flourish, and are advanced to the highest
honours. This is one great lesson which dominates the historic
section of this Book: "Them that honour Me I will honour, and they
that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed." It is the lesson of
Joseph's superiority to the glamour of temptation in the house of
Potiphar; of the choice of Moses, preferring to suffer affliction
with the people of God rather than all the treasures of Egypt and
"to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter"; of Samuel's stainless
innocence beside the corrupting example of Eli's sons; of David's
strong, pure, ruddy boyhood as a shepherd-lad on Bethlehem's hills.
It is the anticipated story of that yet holier childhood of Him
who--subject to His parents in the sweet vale of Nazareth--blossomed
"like the flower of roses in the spring of the year, and as lilies by
the water-courses." The young human being who grows up in innocence
and self-control grows up also in grace and beauty, in wisdom and
"in favour with God and man." The Jews specially delighted in these
pictures of boyish continence and piety, and they lay at the basis of
all that was greatest in their national character.
But there also lay incidentally in the story a warning against
corrupting luxury, the lesson of the need for, and the healthfulness of,
"The rule of not too much by temperance taught."
"The love of sumptuous food and delicious drinks is never good," says
Ewald, "and with the use of the most temperate diet body and soul can
flourish most admirably, as experience had at that time sufficiently
taught."
To the value of this lesson the Nazarites among the Jews were a
perpetual witness. Jeremiah seems to single them out for the special
beauty which resulted from their youthful abstinence when he writes
of Jerusalem, "Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter
than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing
was of sapphires."[262]
It is the lesson which Milton reads in the story of Samson,--
"O madness! to think use of strongest wines
And strongest drinks our chief support of health,
When God, with these forbidden, made choice to rear
His mighty champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook!"
It is the lesson which Shakespeare inculcates when he makes the old
man say in _As You Like It_,--
"When I was young I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
Nor did not with unblushful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore mine age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, yet kindly."
The writer of this Book connects intellectual advance as well as
physical strength with this abstinence, and here he is supported even
by ancient and pagan experience. Something of this kind may perhaps
lurk in the ἄριστον μὲν ὕδωρ of Pindar; and certainly Horace saw that
gluttony and repletion are foes to insight when he wrote,--
"Nam corpus onustum
Hesternis vitiis animum quoque prægravat una,
Atque affigit humo divinæ particulam auræ."[263]
Pythagoras was not the only ancient philosopher who recommended and
practised a vegetable diet, and even Epicurus, whom so many regard as
"The soft garden's rose-encircled child,"
placed over his garden door the inscription that those who came
would only be regaled on barley-cakes and fresh water, to satisfy,
but not to allure, the appetite.
But the grand lesson of the picture is meant to be that the fair
Jewish boys were kept safe in the midst of every temptation to
self-indulgence, because they lived as in God's sight: and "he that
holds himself in reverence and due esteem for the dignity of God's
image upon him, accounts himself both a fit person to do the noblest
and godliest deeds, and much better worth than to deject and defile,
with such debasement and pollution as Sin is, himself so highly
ransomed and ennobled to a new friendship and filial relation with
God."[264]
FOOTNOTES:
[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 Ash_k_enaz 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 Ab_r_iesri, "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_.
CHAPTER II
_THE DREAM-IMAGE OF RUINED EMPIRES_
"With thee will I break in pieces rulers and captains."--JER.
li. 23.
The Book of Daniel is constructed with consummate skill to teach the
mighty lessons which it was designed to bring home to the minds of
its readers, not only in the age of its first appearance, but for
ever. It is a book which, so far from being regarded as unworthy
of its place in the Canon by those who cannot accept it as either
genuine or authentic, is valued by many such critics as a very noble
work of inspired genius, from which all the difficulties are removed
when it is considered in the light of its true date and origin. This
second chapter belongs to all time. All that might be looked upon as
involving harshnesses, difficulties, and glaring impossibilities,
if it were meant for literal history and prediction, vanishes when
we contemplate it in its real perspective as a lofty specimen of
imaginative fiction, used, like the parables of our Blessed Lord, as
the vehicle for the deepest truths. We shall see how the imagery of
the chapter produced a deep impress on the imagination of the holiest
thinkers--how magnificent a use is made of it fifteen centuries later
by the great poet of mediæval Catholicism.[265] It contains the germs
of the only philosophy of history which has stood the test of time.
It symbolises that ultimate conviction of the Psalmist that "God is
the Governor among the nations." No other conviction can suffice to
give us consolation amid the perplexity which surrounds the passing
phases of the destinies of empires.
The first chapter serves as a keynote of soft, simple, and delightful
music by way of overture. It calms us for the contemplation of the
awful and tumultuous scenes that are now in succession to be brought
before us.
The model which the writer has had in view in this _Haggadah_ is the
forty-first chapter of the Book of Genesis. In both chapters we have
magnificent heathen potentates--Pharaoh of Egypt, and Nebuchadrezzar
of Babylon. In both chapters the kings dream dreams by which they
are profoundly troubled. In both, their spirits are saddened. In
both, they send for all the _Chakamîm_ and all the _Chartummîm_ of
their kingdoms to interpret the dreams. In both, these professional
magicians prove themselves entirely incompetent to furnish the
interpretation. In both, the failure of the heathen oneirologists is
emphasised by the immediate success of a Jewish captive. In both, the
captives are described as young, gifted, and beautiful. In both, the
interpretation of the king's dream is rewarded by the elevation to
princely civil honours. In both, the immediate elevation to ruling
position is followed by life-long faithfulness and prosperity.
When we add that there are even close verbal resemblances between
the chapters, it is difficult not to believe that the one has been
influenced by the other.
The dream is placed "in the second year of the reign of
Nebuchadnezzar." The date is surprising; for the first chapter has
made Nebuchadrezzar a king of Babylon after the siege of Jerusalem
"in the third year of Jehoiakim"; and setting aside the historic
impossibilities involved in that date, this scene would then fall in
the _second_ year of the probation of Daniel and his companions, and
at a time when Daniel could only have been a boy of fifteen.[266]
The apologists get over the difficulty with the ease which suffices
superficial readers who are already convinced. Thus Rashi says
"_the second year of Nebuchadnezzar_," meaning "_the second year
after the destruction of the Temple_," _i.e._, his twentieth year!
Josephus, no less arbitrarily, makes it mean "the second year
after the devastation of Egypt."[267] By such devices anything may
stand for anything. Hengstenberg and his school, after having made
Nebuchadrezzar a king, conjointly with his father--a fact of which
history knows nothing, and indeed seems to exclude--say that the
second year of his reign does not mean the second year after he
became king, but the second year of his independent rule after the
death of Nabopolassar. This style of interpretation is very familiar
among harmonists, and it makes the interpretation of Scripture
perpetually dependent on pure fancy. It is perhaps sufficient to
say that Jewish writers, in works meant for spiritual teaching,
troubled themselves extremely little with minutiæ of this kind. Like
the Greek dramatists, they were unconcerned with details, to which
they attached no importance, which they regarded as lying outside
the immediate purpose of their narrative. But if any explanation be
needful, the simplest way is, with Ewald, Herzfeld, and Lenormant, to
make a slight alteration in the text, and to read "in the _twelfth_"
instead of "in the _second_ year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar."
There was nothing strange in the notion that God should have
vouchsafed a prophetic dream to a heathen potentate. Such instances
had already been recorded in the case of Pharaoh (Gen. xli.), as
well as of his chief courtiers (Gen. xl.); and in the case of
Abimelech (Gen. xx. 5-7). It was also a Jewish tradition that it
was in consequence of a dream that Pharaoh Necho had sent a warning
to Josiah not to advance against him to the Battle of Megiddo.[268]
Such dreams are recorded in the cuneiform inscriptions as having
occurred to Assyrian monarchs. Ishtar, the goddess of battles, had
appeared to Assur-bani-pal, and promised him safety in his war
against Teumman, King of Elam; and the dream of a seer had admonished
him to take severe steps against his rebel brother, the Viceroy of
Babylon. Gyges, King of Lydia, had been warned in a dream to make
alliance with Assur-bani-pal. In Egypt Amên-meri-hout had been warned
by a dream to unite Egypt against the Assyrians.[269] Similarly
in Persian history Afrasiab has an ominous dream, and summons all
the astrologers to interpret it; and some of them bid him pay no
attention to it.[270] Xerxes (Herod., iii. 19) and Astyages (Herod.,
i. 108) have dreams indicative of future prosperity or adversity. The
fundamental conception of the chapter was therefore in accordance
with history[271]--though to say, with the _Speaker's Commentary_,
that these parallels "_endorse the authenticity_ of the Biblical
narratives," is either to use inaccurate terms, or to lay the
unhallowed fire of false argument on the sacred altar of truth. It
is impossible to think without a sigh of the vast amount which would
have to be extracted from so-called "orthodox" commentaries, if such
passages were rigidly reprobated as a dishonour to the cause of God.
Nebuchadrezzar then--in the second or twelfth year of his
reign--dreamed a dream, by which (as in the case of Pharaoh) his
spirit was troubled and his sleep interrupted.[272] His state of
mind on waking is a psychological condition with which we are
all familiar. We awake in a tremor. We have seen something which
disquieted us, but we cannot recall what it was; we have had a
frightful dream, but we can only remember the terrifying impression
which it has left upon our minds.
Pharaoh, in the story of Joseph, remembered his dreams, and
only asked the professors of necromancy to furnish him with its
interpretation. But Nebuchadrezzar is here represented as a rasher
and fiercer despot, not without a side-glance at the raging folly
and tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes. He has at his command an army
of priestly prognosticators, whose main function it is to interpret
the various omens of the future. Of what use were they, if they
could not be relied upon in so serious an exigency? Were they to be
maintained in opulence and dignity all their lives, only to fail him
at a crisis? It was true that he had forgotten the dream, but it was
obviously one of supreme importance; it was obviously an intimation
from the gods: was it not clearly their duty to say what it meant?
So Nebuchadrezzar summoned together the whole class of Babylonian
augurs in all their varieties--the _Chartummîm_, "magicians,"
or book-learned;[273] the _Ashshaphîm_, "enchanters";[274] the
_Mekashaphîm_, "sorcerers";[275] and the _Kasdîm_, to which the
writer gives the long later sense of "dream-interpreters," which had
become prevalent in his own day.[276] In later verses he adds two
further sections of the students--the _Khakhamîm_, "wise men," and
the _Gazerîm_, or "soothsayers." Attempts have often been made, and
most recently by Lenormant, to distinguish accurately between these
classes of magi, but the attempts evaporate for the most part into
shadowy etymologies.[277] It seems to have been a literary habit
with the author to amass a number of names and titles together.[278]
It is a part of the stateliness and leisureliness of style which he
adopts, and he gives no indication of any sense of difference between
the classes which he enumerates, either here or when he describes
various ranks of Babylonian officials.
When they were assembled before him, the king informed them that he
had dreamed an important dream, but that it produced such agitation
of spirit as had caused him to forget its import.[279] He plainly
expected them to supply the failure of his memory, for "a dream not
interpreted," say the Rabbis, "is like a letter not read."[280]
Then spake the Chaldeans to the king, and their answer follows in
Aramaic (_Aramîth_), a language which continues to be used till the
end of chap. vii. The Western Aramaic, however, here employed could
not have been the language in which they spoke, but their native
Babylonian, a Semitic dialect more akin to Eastern Aramaic. The word
_Aramîth_ here, as in Ezra iv. 7, is probably a gloss or marginal
note, to point out the sudden change in the language of the Book.
With the courtly phrase, "O king, live for ever," they promised to
tell the king the interpretation, if he would tell them the dream.
"That I cannot do," said the king, "for it is gone from me.
Nevertheless, if you do not tell me both the dream and its
interpretation, you shall be hacked limb by limb, and your houses
shall be made a dunghill."[281]
The language was that of brutal despotism such as had been customary
for centuries among the ferocious tyrants of Assyria. The punishment
of dismemberment, dichotomy, or death by mutilation was common
among them, and had constantly been depicted on their monuments. It
was doubtless known to the Babylonians also, being familiar to the
apathetic cruelty of the East. Similarly the turning of the houses of
criminals into draught-houses was a vengeance practised among other
nations.[282] On the other hand, if the "Chaldeans" arose to the
occasion, the king would give them rewards and great honours. It is
curious to observe that the Septuagint translators, with Antiochus
in their mind, render the verse in a form which would more directly
remind their readers of Seleucid methods. "If you fail," they make
the king say, "you shall be made an example, and your goods shall be
forfeited to the crown."[283]
With "nervous servility" the magi answer to the king's extravagantly
unreasonable demand, that he must tell them the dream before they
can tell him the interpretation. Ewald is probably not far wrong in
thinking that a subtle element of irony and humour underlies this
scene. It was partly intended as a satirical reflection on the mad
vagaries of Epiphanes.
For the king at once breaks out into fury, and tells them that they
only want to gain (lit. "buy") time;[284] but that this should not
avail them. The dream had evidently been of crucial significance and
extreme urgency; something important, and perhaps even dreadful, must
be in the air. The very _raison d'être_ of these thaumaturgists and
stargazers was to read the omens of the future. If the stars told of
any human events, they could not fail to indicate something about the
vast trouble which overshadowed the monarch's dream, even though he
had forgotten its details. The king gave them to understand that he
looked on them as a herd of impostors; that their plea for delay was
due to mere tergiversation;[285] and that, in spite of the lying and
corrupt words which they had prepared in order to gain respite "till
the time be changed"[286]--that is, until they were saved by some
"lucky day" or change of fortune[287]--there was but one sentence
for them, which could only be averted by their vindicating their own
immense pretensions, and telling him his dream.
The "Chaldeans" naturally answered that the king's request was
impossible. The adoption of the Aramaic at this point may be partly
due to the desire for local colouring.[288] No king or ruler in the
world had ever imposed such a test on any _Kartum_ or _Ashshaph_ in
the world.[289] No living man could possibly achieve anything so
difficult. There were some gods whose dwelling _is_ with flesh; they
tenant the souls of their servants. But it is not in the power of
these genii to reveal what the king demands; they are limited by the
weakness of the souls which they inhabit.[290] It can only be done by
those highest divinities whose dwelling is not with flesh, but who
"haunt
The lucid interspace of world and world,"
and are too far above mankind to mingle with their thoughts.[291]
Thereupon the unreasonable king was angry and very furious, and the
decree went forth that the magi were to be slain _en masse_.
How it was that Daniel and his companions were not summoned to
help the king, although they had been already declared to be "ten
times wiser" than all the rest of the astrologers and magicians put
together, is a feature in the story with which the writer does not
trouble himself, because it in no way concerned his main purpose.
Now, however, since they were prominent members of the magian guild,
they are doomed to death among their fellows. Thereupon Daniel sought
an interview with Arioch, "the chief of the bodyguard,"[292] and
asked with gentle prudence why the decree was so harshly urgent. By
Arioch's intervention he gained an interview with Nebuchadrezzar, and
promised to tell him the dream and its interpretation, if only the
king would grant him a little time--perhaps but a single night.[293]
The delay was conceded, and Daniel went to his three companions, and
urged then to join in prayer that God would make known the secret
to them and spare their lives. Christ tells us that "if two shall
agree on earth as touching anything that they ask, it shall be done
for them."[294] The secret was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the
night, and he blessed "the God of heaven."[295] Wisdom and might
are His. Not dependent on "lucky" or "unlucky" days, He changeth
the times and seasons;[296] He setteth down one king and putteth up
another. By His revelation of deep and sacred things--for the light
dwelleth with Him--He had, in answer to their common prayer, made
known the secret.[297]
Accordingly Daniel bids Arioch not to execute the magians, but to go
and tell the king that he will reveal to him the interpretation of
his dream.
Then, by an obvious verbal inconsistency in the story, Arioch
is represented as going with haste to the king, with Daniel, and
saying that _he_ had found a captive Jew who would answer the king's
demands. Arioch could never have claimed any such merit, seeing that
Daniel had already given his promise to Nebuchadrezzar in person,
and did not need to be described. The king formally puts to Daniel
the question whether he could fulfil his pledge; and Daniel answers
that, though none of the _Khakhamîm_, _Ashshaphîm_, _Chartummîm_, or
_Gazerîm_[298] could tell the king his dream, yet there is a God in
heaven--higher, it is implied, than either the genii or those whose
dwelling is not with mortals--who reveals secrets, and has made known
to the king what shall be in the latter days.[299]
The king, before he fell asleep, had been deeply pondering the issues
of the future; and God, "the revealer of secrets,"[300] had revealed
those issues to him, not because of any supreme wisdom possessed by
Daniel, but simply that the interpretation might be made known.[301]
The king had seen[302] a huge gleaming, terrible colossus of many
colours and of different metals, but otherwise not unlike the huge
colossi which guarded the portals of his own palace. Its head was
of fine gold; its torso of silver; its belly and thighs of brass;
its legs of iron; its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.[303]
But while he gazed upon it as it reared into the sunlight, as though
in mute defiance and insolent security, its grim metallic glare, a
mysterious and unforeseen fate fell upon it.[304] The fragment of a
rock broke itself loose, not with hands, smote the image upon its
feet of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces. It had now nothing
left to stand upon, and instantly the hollow multiform monster
collapsed into promiscuous ruins.[305] Its shattered fragments became
like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, and the wind swept them
away;[306] but the rock, unhewn by any earthly hands, grew over the
fragments into a mountain that filled the earth.
That was the haunting and portentous dream; and this was its
interpretation:--
The head of gold was Nebuchadrezzar himself, the king of what Isaiah
had called "the golden city"[307]--a King of kings, ruler over the
beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and the children of
men.[308]
After him should come a second and an inferior kingdom, symbolised
by the arms and heart of silver.
Then a third kingdom of brass.
Finally a fourth kingdom, strong and destructive as iron. But in this
fourth kingdom was an element of weakness, symbolised by the fact
that the feet are partly of iron and partly of weak clay. An attempt
should be made, by intermarriages, to give greater coherency to these
elements; but it should fail, because they could not intermix. In the
days of these kings, indicated by the ten toes of the image, swift
destruction should come upon the kingdoms from on high; for the King of
heaven should set up a kingdom indestructible and eternal, which should
utterly supersede all former kingdoms. "The intense nothingness and
transitoriness of man's might in its highest estate, and the might of
God's kingdom, are the chief subjects of this vision."[309]
Volumes have been written about the four empires indicated by the
constituents of the colossus in this dream; but it is entirely
needless to enter into them at length. The vast majority of the
interpretations have been simply due to _a-priori_ prepossessions,
which are arbitrary and baseless. The object has been to make the
interpretations fit in with preconceived theories of prophecy, and
with the traditional errors about the date and object of the Book
of Daniel. If we first see the irresistible evidence that the Book
appeared in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, and then observe that
all its earthly "predictions" culminate in a minute description of
his epoch, the general explanation of the four empires, apart from
an occasional and a subordinate detail, becomes perfectly clear. In
the same way the progress of criticism has elucidated in its general
outlines the interpretation of the Book which has been so largely
influenced by the Book of Daniel--the Revelation of St. John. The
all-but-unanimous consensus of the vast majority of the sanest and
most competent exegetes now agrees in the view that the Apocalypse
was written in the age of Nero, and that its tone and visions were
predominantly influenced by his persecution of the early Christians,
as the Book of Daniel was by the ferocities of Antiochus against
the faithful Jews. Ages of persecution, in which plain-speaking was
impossible to the oppressed, were naturally prolific of apocalyptic
cryptographs. What has been called the "futurist" interpretation
of these books--which, for instance, regards the fourth empire of
Daniel as some kingdom of Antichrist as yet unmanifested--is now
universally abandoned. It belongs to impossible forms of exegesis,
which have long been discredited by the boundless variations of
absurd conjectures, and by the repeated refutation of the predictions
which many have ventured to base upon these erroneous methods. Even
so elaborate a work as Elliott's _Horæ Apocalypticæ_ would now be
regarded as a curious anachronism.
That the first empire, represented by the head of gold, is the
Babylonian, concentrated in Nebuchadrezzar himself, is undisputed,
because it is expressly stated by the writer (ii. 37, 38).
Nor can there be any serious doubt, if the Book be one coherent
whole, written by one author, that by the fourth empire is meant,
as in later chapters, that of Alexander and his successors--"_the
Diadochi_," as they are often called.
For it must be regarded as certain that the four elements of the
colossus, which indicate the four empires as they are presented to the
imagination of the heathen despot, are closely analogous to the same
four empires which in the seventh chapter present themselves as wild
beasts out of the sea to the imagination of the Hebrew seer. Since the
fourth empire is there, beyond all question, that of Alexander and his
successors, the symmetry and purpose of the Book prove conclusively
that the fourth empire here is also the Græco-Macedonian, strongly
and irresistibly founded by Alexander, but gradually sinking to utter
weakness by its own divisions, in the persons of the kings who split
his dominion into four parts. If this needed any confirmation, we find
it in the eighth chapter, which is mainly concerned with Alexander
the Great and Antiochus Epiphanes; and in the eleventh chapter,
which enters with startling minuteness into the wars, diplomacy, and
intermarriages of the Ptolemaic and Seleucid dynasties. In viii. 21 we
are expressly told that the strong he-goat is "the King of Grecia,"
who puts an end to the kingdoms of Media and Persia. The arguments of
Hengstenberg, Pusey, etc., that the Greek Empire was a civilising and
an ameliorating power, apply at least as strongly to the Roman Empire.
But when Alexander thundered his way across the dreamy East, he was
looked upon as a sort of shattering levin-bolt. The interconnexion
of these visions is clearly marked even here, for the juxtaposition
of iron and miry clay is explained by the clause "they shall mingle
themselves with the seed of men:[310] but they shall not cleave one
to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay." This refers to the
same attempts to consolidate the rival powers of the Kings of Egypt
and Syria which are referred to in xi. 6, 7, and 17. It is a definite
allusion which becomes meaningless in the hands of those interpreters
who attempt to explain the iron empire to be that of the Romans.
"That the _Greek_ Empire is to be the last of the Gentile empires
appears from viii. 17, where the vision is said to refer to 'the time
of the end.' Moreover, in the last vision of all (x.-xii.), the rise
and progress of the Greek Empire are related with many details, _but
nothing whatever_ is said of any subsequent empire. Thus to introduce
the Roman Empire into the Book of Daniel is to set at naught the
plainest rules of exegesis."[311]
The reason of the attempt is to make the termination of the
prophecy coincide with the coming of Christ, which is then--quite
unhistorically--regarded as followed by the destruction of the fourth
and last empire. But the interpretation can only be thus arrived at
by a falsification of facts. For the victory of Christianity over
Paganism, so decisive and so Divine, was in no sense a destruction of
the Roman Empire. In the first place that victory was not achieved
till three centuries after Christ's advent, and in the second place
it was rather a continuation and defence of the Roman Empire than its
destruction. The Roman Empire, in spite of Alaric and Genseric and
Attila, and because of its alliance with Christianity, may be said to
have practically continued down to modern times. So far from being
regarded as the shatterers of the Roman Empire, the Christian popes and
bishops were, and were often called, the _Defensores Civitatis_. That
many of the Fathers, following many of the Rabbis, regarded Rome as the
iron empire, and the fourth wild beast, was due to the fact that until
modern days the science of criticism was unknown, and exegesis was
based on the shifting sand.[312] If we are to accept their authority on
this question, we must accept it on many others, respecting views and
methods which have now been unanimously abandoned by the deeper insight
and advancing knowledge of mankind. The influence of Jewish exegesis
over the Fathers--erroneous as were its principles and fluctuating
as were its conclusions--was enormous. It was not unnatural for the
later Jews, living under the hatred and oppression of Rome, and still
yearning for the fulfilment of Messianic promises, to identify Rome
with the fourth empire. And this seems to have been the opinion of
Josephus, whatever that may be worth. But it is doubtful whether it
corresponds to another and earlier Jewish tradition. For among the
Fathers even Ephræm Syrus identifies the _Macedonian_ Empire with the
fourth empire, and he may have borrowed this from Jewish tradition.
But of how little value were early conjectures may be seen in the fact
that, for reasons analogous to those which had made earlier Rabbis
regard Rome as the fourth empire, two mediæval exegetes so famous as
Saadia the Gaon and Abn Ezra had come to the conclusion that the fourth
empire was--the Mohammedan![313]
Every detail of the vision as regards the fourth kingdom is minutely
in accord with the kingdom of Alexander. It can only be applied
to Rome by deplorable shifts and sophistries, the untenability of
which we are now more able to estimate than was possible in earlier
centuries. So far indeed as the _iron_ is concerned, that might by
itself stand equally well for Rome or for Macedon, if Dan. vii. 7, 8,
viii. 3, 4, and xi. 3 did not definitely describe the conquests of
Alexander. But all which follows is meaningless as applied to Rome,
nor is there anything in Roman history to explain any division of
the kingdom (ii. 41), or attempt to strengthen it by intermarriage
with other kingdoms (ver. 43). In the divided Græco-Macedonian
Empires of the Diadochi, the dismemberment of one mighty kingdom
into the four much weaker ones of Cassander, Ptolemy, Lysimachus,
and Seleucus began immediately after the death of Alexander (B.C.
323). It was completed as the result of twenty-two years of war after
the Battle of Ipsus (B.C. 301). The marriage of Antiochus Theos to
Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy Philadelphus (B.C. 249, Dan. xi. 6),
was as ineffectual as the later marriage of Ptolemy V. (Epiphanes)
to Cleopatra, the daughter of Antiochus the Great (B.C. 193), to
introduce strength or unity into the distracted kingdoms (xi. 17, 18).
The two legs and feet are possibly meant to indicate the two most
important kingdoms--that of the Seleucidæ in Asia, and that of
the Ptolemies in Egypt. If we are to press the symbolism still
more closely, the ten toes may shadow forth the ten kings who are
indicated by the ten horns in vii. 7.
Since, then, we are told that the first empire represents
Nebuchadrezzar by the head of gold, and since we have incontestably
verified the fourth empire to be the Greek Empire of Alexander and
his successors, it only remains to identify the intermediate empires
of silver and brass. And it becomes obvious that they _can_ only be
the Median and the Persian. That the writer of Daniel regarded these
empires as distinct is clear from v. 31 and vi.
It is obvious that the silver is meant for the Median Empire,
because, closely as it was allied with the Persian in the view of the
writer (vi. 9, 13, 16, viii. 7), he yet spoke of the two as separate.
The rule of "Darius the Mede," not of "Cyrus the Persian," is, in his
point of view, the "other smaller kingdom" which arose after that of
Nebuchadrezzar (v. 31). Indeed, this is also indicated in the vision
of the ram (viii. 3); for it has two horns, of which the higher and
stronger (the Persian Empire) rose up after the other (the Median
Empire); just as in this vision the Persian Empire represented by the
thighs of brass is clearly stronger than the Median Empire, which,
being wealthier, is represented as being of silver, but is smaller
than the other.[314] Further, the second empire is represented later
on by the second beast (vii. 5), and the three ribs in its mouth may
be meant for the three satrapies of vi. 2.
It may then be regarded as a certain result of exegesis that the four
empires are--(1) the Babylonian; (2) the Median; (3) the Persian; (4)
the Græco-Macedonian.
But what is the stone cut without hands which smote the image upon
his feet? It brake them in pieces, and made the collapsing _débris_
of the colossus like chaff scattered by the wind from the summer
threshing-floor. It grew till it became a great mountain which filled
the earth.
The meaning of the image being first smitten upon its _feet_ is that
the overthrow falls on the iron empire.
All alike are agreed that by the mysterious rock-fragment the writer
meant the Messianic Kingdom. The "mountain" out of which (as is
here first mentioned) the stone is cut is "the Mount Zion."[315] It
commences "_in the days of these kings_." Its origin is not earthly,
for it is "cut without hands." It represents "a kingdom" which "shall
be set up by the God of heaven," and shall destroy and supersede all
the kingdoms, and shall stand for ever.
Whether a personal Messiah was definitely prominent in the mind of
the writer is a question which will come before us when we consider
the seventh chapter. Here there is only a Divine Kingdom; and that
this is the dominion of Israel seems to be marked by the expression,
"the kingdom shall not be left to another people."
The prophecy probably indicates the glowing hopes which the writer
conceived of the future of his nation, even in the days of its direst
adversity, in accordance with the predictions of the mighty prophets
his predecessors, whose writings he had recently studied. Very few
of those predictions have as yet been literally fulfilled; not one
of them was fulfilled with such immediateness as the prophets
conceived, when they were "rapt into future times." To the prophetic
vision was revealed the glory that should be hereafter, but not the
times and seasons, which God hath kept in His own power, and which
Jesus told His disciples were not even known to the Son of Man
Himself in His human capacity.
Antiochus died, and his attempts to force Hellenism upon the Jews
were so absolute a failure, that, in point of fact, his persecution
only served to stereotype the ceremonial institutions which--not
entirely _proprio motu_, but misled by men like the false high
priests Jason and Menelaus--he had attempted to obliterate. But the
magnificent expectations of a golden age to follow were indefinitely
delayed. Though Antiochus died and failed, the Jews became by no
means unanimous in their religious policy. Even under the Hasmonæan
princes fierce elements of discord were at work in the midst of
them. Foreign usurpers adroitly used these dissensions for their own
objects, and in B.C. 37 Judaism acquiesced in the national acceptance
of a depraved Edomite usurper in the person of Herod, and a section
of the Jews attempted to represent _him_ as the promised Messiah![316]
Not only was the Messianic prediction unfulfilled in its literal
aspect "in the days of these kings,"[317] but even yet it has by no
means received its complete accomplishment. The "stone cut without
hands" indicated the kingdom, not--as most of the prophets seem to
have imagined when they uttered words which meant more than they
themselves conceived--of the literal Israel, but of that ideal Israel
which is composed, not of Jews, but of Gentiles. The divinest side of
Messianic prophecy is the expression of that unquenchable hope and of
that indomitable faith which are the most glorious outcome of all that
is most Divine in the spirit of man. That faith and hope have never
found even an ideal or approximate fulfilment save in Christ and in His
kingdom, which is now, and shall be without end.
But apart from the Divine predictions of the eternal sunlight visible
on the horizon over vast foreshortened ages of time which to God
are but as one day, let us notice how profound is the symbolism of
the vision--how well it expresses the surface glare, the inward
hollowness, the inherent weakness, the varying successions, the
predestined transience of overgrown empires. The great poet of
Catholicism makes magnificent use of Daniel's image, and sees its
deep significance. He too describes the ideal of all earthly empire
as a colossus of gold, silver, brass, and iron, which yet mainly
rests on its right foot of baked and brittle clay. But he tells us
that every part of this image, except the gold, is crannied through
and through by a fissure, down which there flows a constant stream of
tears.[318] These effects of misery trickle downwards, working their
way through the cavern in Mount Ida in which the image stands, till,
descending from rock to rock, they form those four rivers of hell,--
"Abhorrèd Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;
Cocytus, named of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage."[319]
There is a terrible grandeur in the emblem. Splendid and venerable
looks the idol of human empire in all its pomp and pricelessness. But
underneath its cracked and fissured weakness drop and trickle and
stream the salt and bitter runnels of misery and anguish, till the
rivers of agony are swollen into overflow by their coagulated scum.
* * * * *
It was natural that Nebuchadrezzar should have felt deeply impressed
when the vanished outlines of his dream were thus recalled to him
and its awful interpretation revealed. The manner in which he
expresses his amazed reverence may be historically improbable, but
it is psychologically true. We are told that "he fell upon his face
and worshipped Daniel," and the word "worshipped" implies genuine
adoration. That so magnificent a potentate should have lain on his
face before a captive Jewish youth and adored him is amazing.[320] It
is still more so that Daniel, without protest, should have accepted,
not only his idolatrous homage, but also the offering of "an oblation
and sweet incense."[321] That a Nebuchadrezzar should have been thus
prostrate in the dust before their young countryman would no doubt be
a delightful picture to the Jews, and if, as we believe, the story
is an unconnected _Haggada_, it may well have been founded on such
passages as Isa. xlix. 23, "Kings shall bow down to thee with their
faces toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet";[322]
together with Isa. lii. 15, "Kings shall shut their mouths at him:
for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which
they had not heard shall they perceive."
But it is much more amazing that Daniel, who, as a boy, had been so
scrupulous about the Levitic ordinance of unclean meats, in the scruple
against which the _gravamen_ lay in the possibility of their having
been offered to idols,[323] should, as a man, have allowed himself
to be treated exactly as the king treated his idols! To say that he
accepted this worship because the king was not adoring _him_, but the
God whose power had been manifested in him,[324] is an idle subterfuge,
for that excuse is offered by all idolaters in all ages. Very different
was the conduct of Paul and Barnabas when the rude population of Lystra
wished to worship them as incarnations of Hermes and Zeus. The moment
they heard of it they rent their clothes in horror, and leapt at once
among the people, crying out, "Sirs, why do ye such things? We also
are men of like passions with you, and are preaching unto you that ye
should turn from these vain ones unto the Living God."[325]
That the King of Babylon should be represented as at once
acknowledging the God of Daniel as "a God of gods," though he was a
fanatical votary of Bel-merodach, belongs to the general plan of the
Book. Daniel received in reward many great gifts, and is made "ruler
of all the wise men of Babylon, and chief of the governors [_signîn_]
over all the wise men of Babylon." About his acceptance of the civil
office there is no difficulty; but there is a quite insuperable
historic difficulty in his becoming a chief magian. All the wise men
of Babylon, whom the king had just threatened with dismemberment
as a pack of impostors, were, at any rate, a highly sacerdotal and
essentially idolatrous caste. That Daniel should have objected to
particular kinds of food from peril of defilement, and yet that he
should have consented to be chief hierarch of a heathen cult, would
indeed have been to strain at gnats and to swallow camels!
And so great was the distinction which he earned by his
interpretation of the dream, that, at his further request, satrapies
were conferred on his three companions; but he himself, like
Mordecai, afterwards "sat in the gate of the king."[326]
FOOTNOTES:
[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_."
CHAPTER III
_THE IDOL OF GOLD, AND THE FAITHFUL THREE_
"Every goldsmith is put to shame by his molten image: for his
molten image is vanity, and there is no breath in them. They are
vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they
shall perish."--JER. li. 17, 18.
"The angel of the Lord encampeth around them that fear Him, and
shall deliver them."--PSALM xxxiv. 7.
"When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt;
neither shall the flame kindle upon thee."--ISA. xliii. 2.
Regarded as an instance of the use of historic fiction to inculcate
the noblest truths, the third chapter of Daniel is not only superb in
its imaginative grandeur, but still more in the manner in which it
sets forth the piety of ultimate faithfulness, and of that
"Death-defying utterance of truth"
which is the essence of the most heroic and inspiring forms of
martyrdom. So far from slighting it, because it does not come before
us with adequate evidence to prove that it was even intended to
be taken as literal history, I have always regarded it as one of
the most precious among the narrative chapters of Scripture. It is
of priceless value as illustrating the deliverance of undaunted
faithfulness--as setting forth the truth that they who love God and
trust in Him must love Him and trust in Him even till the end, in
spite not only of the most overwhelming peril, but even when they
are brought face to face with apparently hopeless defeat. Death
itself, by torture or sword or flame, threatened by the priests and
tyrants and multitudes of the earth set in open array against them,
is impotent to shake the purpose of God's saints. When the servant of
God can do nothing else against the banded forces of sin, the world,
and the devil, he at least can die, and can say like the Maccabees,
"Let us die in our simplicity!" He may be saved from death; but even
if not, he must prefer death to apostasy, and will save his own
soul. That the Jews were ever reduced to such a choice during the
Babylonian exile there is no evidence; indeed, all evidence points
the other way, and seems to show that they were allowed with perfect
tolerance to hold and practise their own religion.[327] But in the
days of Antiochus Epiphanes the question which to choose--martyrdom
or apostasy--became a very burning one. Antiochus set up at Jerusalem
"the abomination of desolation," and it is easy to understand what
courage and conviction a tempted Jew might derive from the study
of this splendid defiance. That the story is of a kind well fitted
to haunt the imagination is shown by the fact that Firdausi tells
a similar story from Persian tradition of "a martyr hero who came
unhurt out of a fiery furnace."[328]
This immortal chapter breathes exactly the same spirit as the
forty-fourth Psalm.
"Our heart is not turned back,
Neither our steps gone out of Thy way:
No, not when Thou hast smitten us into the place of dragons,
And covered us with the shadow of death.
If we have forgotten the Name of our God,
And holden up our hands to any strange god,
Shall not God search it out?
For He knoweth the very secrets of the heart."
"Nebuchadnezzar the king," we are told in one of the stately overtures
in which this writer rejoices, "made an image of gold, whose height was
threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits, and he set it up
in the plains of Dura, in the province of Babylon."
No date is given, but the writer may well have supposed or have
traditionally heard that some such event took place about the
eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar's reign, when he had brought to
conclusion a series of great victories and conquests.[329] Nor are we
told whom the image represented. We may imagine that it was an idol of
Bel-merodach, the patron deity of Babylon, to whom we know that he did
erect an image;[330] or of Nebo, from whom the king derived his name.
When it is said to be "of gold," the writer, in the grandiose character
of his imaginative faculty, may have meant his words to be taken
literally, or he may merely have meant that it was gilded, or overlaid
with gold.[331] There were colossal images in Egypt and in Nineveh,
but we never read in history of any other gilded image ninety feet high
and nine feet broad.[332] The name of the plain or valley in which it
was erected--Dura--has been found in several Babylonian localities.[333]
Then the king proclaimed a solemn dedicatory festival, to which he
invited every sort of functionary, of which the writer, with his
usual πύργωσις and rotundity of expression, accumulates the eight
names. They were:--
1. The Princes, "satraps," or wardens of the realm.[334]
2. The Governors[335] (ii. 48).
3. The Captains.[336]
4. The Judges.[337]
5. The Treasurers or Controllers.[338]
6. The Counsellors.[339]
7. The Sheriffs.[340]
8. All the Rulers of the Provinces.
Any attempts to attach specific values to these titles are failures.
They seem to be a catalogue of Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian
titles, and may perhaps (as Ewald conjectured) be meant to represent
the various grades of three classes of functionaries--civil,
military, and legal.
Then all these officials, who with leisurely stateliness are named
again, came to the festival, and stood before the image. It is not
improbable that the writer may have been a witness of some such
splendid ceremony to which the Jewish magnates were invited in the
reign of Antiochus Epiphanes.[341]
Then a herald (_kerooza_[342]) cried aloud[343] a proclamation "to
all peoples, nations, and languages." Such a throng might easily have
contained Greeks, Phœnicians, Jews, Arabs, and Assyrians, as well as
Babylonians. At the outburst of a blast of "boisterous janizary-music"
they are all to fall down and worship the golden image.
Of the six different kinds of musical instruments, which, in his
usual style, the writer names and reiterates, and which it is
neither possible nor very important to distinguish, three--the harp,
psaltery, and bagpipe--are Greek; two, the horn and sackbut, have
names derived from roots found both in Aryan and Semitic languages;
and one, "the pipe," is Semitic. As to the list of officials, the
writer had added "and all the rulers of the provinces"; so here he
adds "and all kinds of music."[344]
Any one who refused to obey the order was to be flung, the same
hour, into the burning furnace of fire. Professor Sayce, in his
_Hibbert Lectures_, connects the whole scene with an attempt, first
by Nebuchadrezzar, then by Nabunaid, to make Merodach--who, to
conciliate the prejudices of the worshippers of the older deity Bel,
was called Bel-merodach--the chief deity of Babylon. He sees in the
king's proclamation an underlying suspicion that some would be found
to oppose his attempted centralisation of worship.[345]
The music burst forth, and the vast throng all prostrated themselves,
except Daniel's three companions, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego.
We naturally pause to ask where then was Daniel? If the narrative
be taken for literal history, it is easy to answer with the
apologist that he was ill; or was absent; or was a person of too
much importance to be required to prostrate himself; or that "the
Chaldeans" were afraid to accuse him. "_Certainly_," says Professor
Fuller, "had this chapter been the composition of a pseudo-Daniel, or
the record of a fictitious event, Daniel would have been introduced
and his immunity explained." Apologetic literature abounds in such
fanciful and valueless arguments. It would be just as true, and just
as false, to say that "certainly," if the narrative were historic,
his absence would have been explained; and all the more because he
was expressly elected to be "in the gate of the king." But if we
regard the chapter as a noble _Haggada_, there is not the least
difficulty in accounting for Daniel's absence. The separate stories
were meant to cohere to a certain extent; and though the writers of
this kind of ancient imaginative literature, even in Greece, rarely
trouble themselves with any questions which lie outside the immediate
purpose, yet the introduction of Daniel into this story would have
been to violate every vestige of verisimilitude. To represent
Nebuchadrezzar worshipping Daniel as a god, and offering oblations to
him on one page, and on the next to represent the king as throwing
him into a furnace for refusing to worship an idol, would have
involved an obvious incongruity. Daniel is represented in the other
chapters as playing his part and bearing his testimony to the God of
Israel; this chapter is separately devoted to the heroism and the
testimony of his three friends.
Observing the defiance of the king's edict, certain Chaldeans, actuated
by jealousy, came near to the king and "accused" the Jews.[346]
The word for "accused" is curious and interesting. It is literally
"_ate the pieces of the Jews_,"[347] evidently involving a metaphor
of fierce devouring malice.[348] Reminding the king of his decree,
they inform him that three of the Jews to whom he has given such high
promotion "thought well not to regard thee; thy god will they not
serve, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."[349]
Nebuchadrezzar, like other despots who suffer from the vertigo of
autocracy, was liable to sudden outbursts of almost spasmodic fury.
We read of such storms of rage in the case of Antiochus Epiphanes, of
Nero, of Valentinian I., and even of Theodosius. The double insult to
himself and to his god on the part of men to whom he had shown such
conspicuous favour transported him out of himself. For Bel-merodach,
whom he had made the patron god of Babylon, was, as he says in one
of his own inscriptions, "the Lord, the joy of my heart in Babylon,
which is the seat of my sovereignty and empire." It seemed to him
too intolerable that this god, who had crowned him with glory and
victory, and that he himself, arrayed in the plenitude of his
imperial power, should be defied and set at naught by three miserable
and ungrateful captives.
He puts it to them whether it was their set purpose[350] that they
would not serve his gods or worship his image. Then he offers them a
_locus pœnitentiæ_. The music should sound forth again. If they would
then worship--but if not, they should be flung into the furnace,--"and
who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?"
The question is a direct challenge and defiance of the God of Israel,
like Pharaoh's "And who is Jehovah, that I should obey His voice?"
or like Sennacherib's "Who are they among all the gods that have
delivered their land out of my hand?"[351] It is answered in each
instance by a decisive interposition.
The answer of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego is truly magnificent
in its unflinching courage. It is: "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need
to answer thee a word concerning this.[352] If our God whom we serve
be able to deliver us, He will deliver us from the burning fiery
furnace, and out of thy hand, O king. But if not,[353] be it known
unto thee, O king,[354] that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship
the golden image which thou hast set up."
By the phrase "if our God be able" no doubt as to God's _power_ is
expressed. The word "able" merely means "able in accordance with His
own plans."[355] The three children knew well that God can deliver, and
that He has repeatedly delivered His saints. Such deliverances abound
on the sacred page, and are mentioned in the Dream of Gerontius:--
"Rescue him, O Lord, in this his evil hour,
As of old so many by Thy mighty power:--
Enoch and Elias from the common doom;
Noe from the waters in a saving home;
Abraham from th' abounding guilt of Heathenesse,
Job from all his multiform and fell distress;
Isaac, when his father's knife was raised to slay;
Lot from burning Sodom on its judgment-day;
Moses from the land of bondage and despair;
Daniel from the hungry lions in their lair;
David from Golia, and the wrath of Saul;
And the two Apostles from their prison-thrall."
But the willing martyrs were also well aware that in many cases it
has _not_ been God's purpose to deliver His saints out of the peril
of death; and that it has been far better for them that they should
be carried heavenwards on the fiery chariot of martyrdom. They were
therefore perfectly prepared to find that it was the will of God
that they too should perish, as thousands of God's faithful ones had
perished before them, from the tyrannous and cruel hands of man; and
they were cheerfully willing to confront that awful extremity. Thus
regarded, the three words "_And if not_" are among the sublimest
words uttered in all Scripture. They represent the truth that
the man who trusts in God will continue to say even to the end,
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." They are the triumph
of faith over all adverse circumstances. It has been the glorious
achievement of man to have attained, by the inspiration of the
breath of the Almighty, so clear an insight into the truth that the
voice of duty must be obeyed to the very end, as to lead him to defy
every combination of opposing forces. The gay lyrist of heathendom
expressed it in his famous ode,--
"Justum et tenacem propositi virum
Non civium ardor prava jubentium
Non vultus instantis tyranni
Mente quatit solidâ."
It is man's testimony to his indomitable belief that the things of
sense are not to be valued in comparison to that high happiness which
arises from obedience to the law of conscience, and that no extremities
of agony are commensurate with apostasy. This it is which, more than
anything else, has, in spite of appearances, shown that the spirit of
man is of heavenly birth, and has enabled him to unfold