Redeemed from earth, a creature of the skies."
For wherever there is left in man any true manhood, he has never
shrunk from accepting death rather than the disgrace of compliance
with what he despises and abhors. This it is which sends our soldiers
on the forlorn hope, and makes them march with a smile upon the
batteries which vomit their cross-fires upon them; "and so die by
thousands the unnamed demigods." By virtue of this it has been
that all the martyrs have, "with the irresistible might of their
weakness," shaken the solid world.
* * * * *
On hearing the defiance of the faithful Jews--absolutely firm in its
decisiveness, yet perfectly respectful in its tone--the tyrant was
so much beside himself, that, as he glared on Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abed-nego, his very countenance was disfigured. The furnace was
probably one used for the ordinary cremation of the dead.[356] He
ordered that it should be heated seven times hotter than it was
wont to be heated,[357] and certain men of mighty strength who were
in his army were bidden to bind the three youths and fling them into
the raging flames. So, bound in their hosen, their tunics, their
long mantles,[358] and their other garments, they were cast into the
seven-times-heated furnace. The king's commandment was so urgent, and
the "tongue of flame" was darting so fiercely from the horrible kiln,
that the executioners perished in planting the ladders to throw them
in, but they themselves fell into the midst of the furnace.
The death of the executioners seems to have attracted no
special notice, but immediately afterwards Nebuchadrezzar
started in amazement and terror from his throne, and asked his
chamberlains,[359] "Did we not cast _three_ men _bound_ into the
midst of the fire?"
"True, O king," they answered.
"Behold," he said, "I see _four_ men _loose_, walking in the midst of
the fire, and they have no hurt, and the aspect of the fourth is like
a son of the gods!"[360]
Then the king approached the door of the furnace of fire, and
called, "Ye servants of the Most High God,[361] come forth." Then
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego came out of the midst of the fire;
and all the satraps, prefects, presidents, and court chamberlains
gathered round to stare on men who were so completely untouched by
the fierceness of the flames that not a hair of their heads had been
singed, nor their hosen shrivelled, nor was there even the smell
of burning upon them.[362] According to the version of Theodotion,
the king worshipped the Lord before them, and he then published a
decree in which, after blessing God for sending His angel to deliver
His servants who trusted in Him, he somewhat incoherently ordained
that "every _people, nation, or language_ which spoke any blasphemy
against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, should _be cut
in pieces_, and _his house made a dunghill_: since there is no other
god that can deliver after this sort."
Then the king--as he had done before--promoted Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abed-nego in the province of Babylon.[363]
Henceforth they disappear alike from history, tradition, and legend;
but the whole magnificent _Haggada_ is the most powerful possible
commentary on the words of Isa. xliii. 2: "When thou walkest through
the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee."[364]
How powerfully the story struck the imagination of the Jews is shown
by the not very apposite Song of the Three Children, with the other
apocryphal additions. Here we are told that the furnace was heated
"with rosin, pitch, tow, and small wood; so that the flame streamed
forth above the furnace forty and nine cubits. And it passed through,
and burned those Chaldeans it found about the furnace. But the angel
of the Lord came down into the furnace together with Azarias and his
fellows, and smote the flame of the fire out of the oven; and made
the midst of the furnace as it had been a moist whistling wind,[365]
so that the fire touched them not at all, neither hurt nor troubled
them."[366]
In the Talmud the majestic limitations of the Biblical story are
sometimes enriched with touches of imagination, but more often
coarsened by tasteless exhibitions of triviality and rancour. Thus in
the _Vayyikra Rabba_ Nebuchadrezzar tries to persuade the youths by
fantastic misquotations of Isa. x. 10, Ezek. xxiii. 14, Deut. iv. 28,
Jer. xxvii. 8; and they refute him and end with clumsy plays on his
name, telling him that he should bark (_nabach_) like a dog, swell like
a water-jar (_cod_), and chirp like a cricket (_tsirtsir_), which he
immediately did--_i.e._, he was smitten with lycanthropy.[367]
In _Sanhedrin_, f. 93, 1, the story is told of the adulterous false
prophets Ahab and Zedekiah, and it is added that Nebuchadrezzar
offered them the ordeal of fire from which the Three Children had
escaped. They asked that Joshua the high priest might be with them,
thinking that his sanctity would be their protection. When the king
asked why Abraham, though alone, had been saved from the fire of
Nimrod, and the Three Children from the burning furnace, and yet the
high priest should have been singed (Zech. iii. 2), Joshua answered
that the presence of two wicked men gave the fire power over him, and
quoted the proverb, "Two dry sticks kindle one green one."
In _Pesachin_, f. 118, 1, there is a fine imaginative passage on the
subject, attributed to Rabbi Samuel of Shiloh:--
"In the hour when Nebuchadrezzar the wicked threw Hananiah, Mishael and
Azariah into the midst of the furnace of fire, Gorgemi, the prince of
the hail, stood before the Holy One (blessed be He!) and said, 'Lord
of the world, let me go down and cool the furnace.' 'No,' answered
Gabriel; 'all men know that hail quenches fire;[368] but I, the prince
of fire, will go down and make the furnace cool within and hot without,
and thus work a miracle within a miracle.' The Holy One (blessed be
He!) said unto him, 'Go down.' In the self-same hour Gabriel opened his
mouth and said, 'And the truth of the Lord endureth for ever.'"
Mr. Ball, who quotes these passages from Wünsche's _Bibliotheca
Rabbinica_ in his Introduction to the Song of the Three
Children,[369] very truly adds that many Scriptural commentators
wholly lack the _orientation_ derived from the study of Talmudic and
Midrashic literature which is an indispensable preliminary to a right
understanding of the treasures of Eastern thought. They do not grasp
the inveterate tendency of Jewish teachers to convey doctrine by
concrete stories and illustrations, and not in the form of abstract
thought. "_The doctrine is everything; the mode of presentation has
no independent value._" To make the story the first consideration,
and the doctrine it was intended to convey an after-thought, as we,
with our dry Western literalness are predisposed to do, is to reverse
the Jewish order of thinking, and to inflict unconscious injustice on
the authors of many edifying narratives of antiquity.
The part played by Daniel in the apocryphal Story of Susanna is
probably suggested by the meaning of his name: "Judgment of God."
Both that story and Bel and the Dragon are in their way effective
fictions, though incomparably inferior to the canonical part of the
Book of Daniel.
And the startling decree of Nebuchadrezzar finds its analogy in
the decree published by Antiochus the Great to all his subjects
in honour of the Temple at Jerusalem, in which he threatened the
infliction of heavy fines on any foreigner who trespassed within the
limits of the Holy Court.[370]
FOOTNOTES:
[327] The false prophets Ahab and Zedekiah were "roasted in the fire"
(Jer. xxix. 22), which may have suggested the idea of this punishment
to the writer; but it was for committing "lewdness"--"folly," Judg.
xx. 6--in Israel, and for adultery and lies, which were regarded as
treasonable. In some traditions they are identified with the two
elders of the Story of Susanna. Assur-bani-pal burnt Samas-sum-ucin,
his brother, who was Viceroy of Babylon (about B.C. 648), and
Te-Umman, who cursed his gods (Smith, _Assur-bani-pal_, p. 138).
Comp. Ewald, _Prophets_, iii. 240. See _supra_, p. 44.
[328] Malcolm, _Persia_, i. 29, 30.
[329] Both in Theodotion and the LXX. we have ἔτους ὀκτωκαιδεκάτου.
The siege of Jerusalem was not, however, finished till the nineteenth
year of Nebuchadrezzar (2 Kings xxv. 8). Others conjecture that the
scene occurred in his thirty-first year, when he was "at rest in his
house, and flourishing in his palace" (Dan. iv. 4).
[330] _Records of the Past_, v. 113. The inscriptions of
Nebuchadrezzar are full of glorification of Marduk (Merodach), _id._,
v. 115, 135, vii. 75.
[331] Comp. Isa. xliv. 9-20. Mr. Hormuzd Rassan discovered a colossal
statue of Nebo at Nimroud in 1853. Shalmanezer III. says on his
obelisk, "I made an image of my royalty; upon it I inscribed the
praise of Asshur my master, and a true account of my exploits."
Herodotus (i. 183) mentions a statue of Zeus in Babylon, on which was
spent eight hundred talents of gold, and of another made of "solid
gold" twelve ells high.
[332] By the apologists the "image" or "statue" is easily toned
down into a bust on a hollow pedestal (Archdeacon Rose, _Speaker's
Commentary_, p. 270). The colossus of Nero is said to have been a
hundred and ten feet high, but was of marble. Nestle (_Marginalia_,
35) quotes a passage from Ammianus Marcellinus, which mentions a
colossal statue of Apollo reared by Antiochus Epiphanes, to which
there may be a side-allusion here.
[333] Schrader, p. 430: Dur-Yagina, Dur-Sargina, etc. LXX., ἐν πεδίῳ
τοῦ περιβόλου χώρας Βαβυλωνίας.
[334] LXX. and Vulg., _satrapæ_. Comp. Ezra viii. 36; Esther iii. 12.
Supposed to be the Persian _Khshatra-pāwan_ (Bevan, p. 79).
[335] _Signî_, Babylonian word (Schrader, p. 411).
[336] LXX., τοπάρχαι. Comp. _Pechah_, Ezra v. 14. An Assyrian word
(Schrader, p. 577).
[337] LXX., ἡγούμενοι. Perhaps the Persian _endarzgar_, or "counsellor."
[338] LXX., διοικηταί. Comp. Ezra vii. 21; but Grätz thinks there is
a mere scribe's mistake for the _gadbarî_ of vv. 24 and 27.
[339] This word is perhaps the old Persian _dàtabard_.
[340] The word is found here alone. Perhaps "advisers." On these
words see Bevan, p. 79; _Speaker's Commentary_, pp. 278, 279; Sayce,
_Assyr. Gr._, p. 110.
[341] Ewald, _Prophets_, v. 209; _Hist._, v. 294.
[342] The word has often been compared with the Greek κήρυξ, but the
root is freely found in Assyrian inscriptions (_Karaz_, "an edict").
[343] Comp. Rev. xviii. 2, ἔκραξεν ἐν ἰσχύϊ.
[344] See _supra_, p. 22. The _qar'na_ (horn, κέρας) and _sab'ka_
(σαμβύκη) are in root both Greek and Aramean. The "pipe"
(_mash'rôkîtha_) is Semitic. Brandig tries to prove that even in
Nebuchadrezzar's time these three Greek names (even the _symphonia_)
had been borrowed by the Babylonians from the Greeks; but the
combined weight of philological authority is against him.
[345] See _Hibbert Lectures_, chap. lxxxix., etc.
[346] Comp. vi. 13, 14.
[347] _Akaloo Qar'tsîhîn._
[348] It is "found in the Targum rendering of Lev. xix. 16 for a
talebearer, and is frequent as a Syriac and Arabic idiom" (Fuller).
[349] Jerome emphasises the element of jealousy, "Quos prætulisti
nobis et _captivos ac servos principes fecisti_, ii _elati in
superbiam_ tua præcepta contemnunt."
[350] The phrase is unique and of uncertain meaning.
[351] Exod. v. 2; Isa. xxxvi. 20; 2 Chron. xxxii. 13-17.
[352] Dan. iii. 16. LXX., οὐ χρείαν ἔχομεν; Vulg., _non oportet
nos_. To soften the brusqueness of the address, in which the Rabbis
(_e.g._, Rashi) rejoice, the LXX. add another Βασιλεῦ.
[353] Jerome explains "But if not" by _Quodsi noluerit_; and
Theodoret by εἴτε οὖν ῥύεται εἴτε καὶ μή.
[354] iii. 18. LXX., καὶ τότε φανερόν σοι ἔσται. Tert., from the Vet.
Itala, "tunc manifestum erit tibi" (_Scorp._, 8).
[355] Comp. Gen. xix. 22: "_I cannot do anything_ until thou be come
thither."
[356] Cremation prevailed among the Accadians, and was adopted by the
Babylonians (G. Bertin, _Bab. and Orient. Records_, i. 17-21). Fire
was regarded as the great purifier. In the Catacombs the scene of the
Three Children in the fire is common. They are painted walking in a
sort of open cistern full of flames, with doors beneath. The Greek
word is κάμινος (Matt. xiii. 42), "a calcining furnace."
[357] It seems very needless to introduce here, as Mr. Deane does in
Bishop Ellicott's commentary, the notion of the seven _Maskîm_ or
demons of Babylonian mythology. In the Song of the Three Children the
flames stream out forty-nine (7 × 7) cubits. Comp. Isa. xxx. 26.
[358] The meaning of these articles of dress is only conjectural:
they are--(1) _Sarbālîn_, perhaps "trousers," LXX. σαραβάροι, Vulg.
_braccæ_; (2) _Patîsh_, LXX. τιάραι, Vulg. _tiaræ_; (3) _Kar'bla_,
LXX. περικνημῖδες, Vulg. _calceamenta_. It is useless to repeat all
the guesses. _Sarbala_ is a "tunic" in the Talmud, Arab. _sirbal_;
and some connect _Patîsh_ with the Greek πέτασος. Judging from
Assyrian and Babylonian dress as represented on the monuments, the
youths were probably clad in turbans (the Median καυνάκη), an inner
tunic (the Median κάνδυς), an outer mantle, and some sort of leggings
(_anaxurides_). It is interesting to compare with the passage the
chapter of Herodotus (i. 190) about the Babylonian dress. He says
they wore a linen tunic reaching to the feet, a woollen over-tunic, a
white shawl, and slippers. It was said to be borrowed from the dress
of Semiramis.
[359] Chald., _haddab'rîn_; LXX., οἱ φίλοι τοῦ βασιλέως.
[360] The A.V., "like the Son of God," is quite untenable. The
expression may mean a heavenly or an angelic being (Gen. vi. 2; Job
i. 6). So ordinary an expression does not need to be superfluously
illustrated by references to the Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions,
but they may be found in Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_, 128 and _passim_.
[361] LXX., ὁ Θεὸς τῶν θεῶν, ὁ ὕψιστος. Comp. 2 Macc. iii. 31; Mark
v. 7; Luke viii. 28; Acts xvi. 17, from which it will be seen that it
was not a Jewish expression, though it often occurs in the Book of
Enoch (Dillmann, p. 98).
[362] So in Persian history the Prince Siawash clears himself from
a false accusation in the reign of his father Kai Kaoos by passing
through the fire (Malcolm, _Hist. of Persia_, i. 38).
[363] Comp. Psalm xvi. 12: "We went through fire and water, and Thou
broughtest us out into a safe place."
[364] Comp. Gen. xxiv. 7; Exod. xxiii. 20; Deut. xxxvi. 1. The phrase
applied to Joshua the high priest (Zech. iii. 2), "Is not this a
brand plucked out of the burning?" originated the legend that, when
the false prophets Ahab and Zedekiah had been burnt by Nebuchadrezzar
(Jer. xxix. 22), Joshua had been saved, though singed. This and other
apocryphal stories illustrate the evolution of _Haggadoth_ out of
metaphoric allusions.
[365] πνεῦμα νότιον διασύριζον, "a dewy wind, whistling continually."
[366] Song of the Three Children, 23-27.
[367] _Vay. Rab._, xxv. 1 (Wünsche, _Bibliotheca Rabbinica_).
[368] Ecclus. xviii. 16: "Shall not the dew assuage the heat?"
[369] _Speaker's Commentary_, on the Apocrypha, ii. 305-307.
[370] Jos., _Antt._, XII. iii. 3; Jahn, _Hebr. Commonwealth_, § xc.
CHAPTER IV
_THE BABYLONIAN CEDAR, AND THE STRICKEN
DESPOT_
"Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a
fall."--PROV. xvi. 18.
Thrice already, in these magnificent stories, had Nebuchadrezzar been
taught to recognise the existence and to reverence the power of God.
In this chapter he is represented as having been brought to a still
more overwhelming conviction, and to an open acknowledgment of God's
supremacy, by the lightning-stroke of terrible calamity.
The chapter is dramatically thrown into the form of a decree
which, after his recovery and shortly before his death, the king
is represented as having promulgated to "all people, nations, and
languages that dwell in all the earth."[371] But the literary form is
so absolutely subordinated to the general purpose--which is to show
that where God's "judgments are in the earth the inhabitants of the
earth will learn righteousness,"[372]--that the writer passes without
any difficulty from the first to the third person (iv. 20-30). He
does not hesitate to represent Nebuchadrezzar as addressing all the
subject nations in favour of the God of Israel, even placing in his
imperial decree a cento of Scriptural phraseology.
Readers unbiassed by _a-priori_ assumptions, which are broken to
pieces at every step, will ask, "Is it even historically conceivable
that Nebuchadrezzar (to whom the later Jews commonly gave the title of
_Ha-Rashang_, 'the wicked') could ever have issued such a decree?"[373]
They will further ask, "Is there any shadow of evidence to show that
the king's degrading madness and recovery rest upon any real tradition?"
As to the monuments and inscriptions, they are entirely silent upon
the subject; nor is there any trace of these events in any historic
record. Those who, with the school of Hengstenberg and Pusey, think
that the narrative receives support from the phrase of Berossus that
Nebuchadrezzar "fell sick and departed this life when he had reigned
forty-three years," must be easily satisfied, since he says very
nearly the same of Nabopolassar.[374] Such writers too much assume
that immemorial prejudices on the subject have so completely weakened
the independent intelligence of their readers, that they may safely
make assertions which, in matters of secular criticism, would be set
aside as almost childishly nugatory.
It is different with the testimony of Abydenus, quoted by
Eusebius.[375] Abydenus, in his book on the _Assyrians_, quoted from
Megasthenes the story that, after great conquests, "Nebuchadrezzar"
(as the Chaldean story goes), "_when he had ascended the roof of his
palace, was inspired by some god or other_, and cried aloud, 'I,
Nebuchadrezzar, announce to you the future calamity which neither Bel
my ancestor, nor our queen Beltis, can persuade the Fates to avert.
There shall come a Persian, a mule, who shall have your own gods as
his allies, and he shall make you slaves. Moreover, he who shall help
to bring this about shall be the son of a Median woman, the boast of
the Assyrian. Would that before his countrymen perish some whirlpool
or flood might seize him and destroy him utterly;[376] or else would
that he might betake himself to some other place, and _might be
driven to the desert, where is no city nor track of men, where wild
beasts seek their food and birds fly hither and thither! Would that
among rocks and mountain clefts he might wander alone!_ And as for
me, may I, before he imagines this, meet with some happier end!'
_When he had thus prophesied, he suddenly vanished._"
I have italicised the passages which, amid immense differences, bear
a remote analogy to the story of this chapter. To quote the passage
as any proof that the writer of Daniel is narrating literal history
is an extraordinary misuse of it.
Megasthenes flourished B.C. 323, and wrote a book which contained
many fabulous stories, three centuries after the events to which
he alludes. Abydenus, author of _Assyriaca_, was a Greek historian
of still later, and uncertain, date. The writer of Daniel may have
met with their works, or, quite independently of them, he may have
learned from the Babylonian Jews that there was _some_ strange legend
or other about the death of Nebuchadrezzar. The Jews in Babylonia
were more numerous and more distinguished than those in Palestine,
and kept up constant communication with them. So far from any
historical accuracy about Babylon in a Palestinian Jew of the age
of the Maccabees being strange, or furnishing any proof that he was
a contemporary of Nebuchadrezzar, the only subject of astonishment
would be that he should have fallen into so many mistakes and
inaccuracies, were it not that the ancients in general, and the Jews
particularly, paid little attention to such matters.
Aware, then, of some dim traditions that Nebuchadrezzar at the close
of his life ascended his palace roof and there received some sort of
inspiration, after which he mysteriously disappeared, the writer,
giving free play to his imagination for didactic purposes, after the
common fashion of his age and nation, worked up these slight elements
into the stately and striking _Midrash_ of this chapter. He too makes
the king mount his palace roof and receive an inspiration; but in his
pages the inspiration does not refer to "the mule" or half-breed,
Cyrus, nor to Nabunaid, the son of a Median woman, nor to any
imprecation pronounced upon them, but is an admonition to himself;
and the imprecation which he denounced upon the future subverters of
Babylon is dimly analogous to the fate which fell on his own head.
Instead of making him "vanish" immediately afterwards, the writer
makes him fall into a beast-madness for "seven times," after which
he suddenly recovers and publishes a decree that all mankind should
honour the true God.
Ewald thinks that a verse has been lost at the beginning of the
chapter, indicating the nature of the document which follows; but it
seems more probable that the author began this, as he begins other
chapters, with the sort of imposing overture of the first verse.
Like Assur-bani-pal and the ancient despots, Nebuchadrezzar addresses
himself to "all people in the earth," and after the salutation of
peace[377] says that he thought it right to tell them "the signs and
wonders that the High God hath wrought towards me. How great are His
signs, and how mighty are His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting
kingdom, and His dominion is from generation to generation."[378]
He goes on to relate that, while he was at ease and secure in his
palace,[379] he saw a dream which affrighted him, and left a train
of gloomy forebodings. As usual he summoned the whole train of
_Khakhamîm_, _Ashshaphîm_, _Mekashshaphîm_, _Kasdîm_, _Chartummîm_,
and _Gazerîm_, to interpret his dream, and as usual they failed
to do so. Then lastly, Daniel, surnamed Belteshazzar, after Bel,
Nebuchradrezzar's god,[380] and "chief of the magicians,"[381] in
whom was "the spirit of the holy gods," is summoned. To him the king
tells his dream.
The writer probably derives the images of the dream from the
magnificent description of the King of Assyria as a spreading cedar
in Ezek. xxxi. 3-18:--
"Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and
with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was
among the thick boughs. The waters nourished him, the deep made him
to grow.... Therefore his stature was exalted above all the trees of
the field; and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became
long by reason of many waters. All the fowls of the air made their
nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of
the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all
great nations.... The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him
... nor was any tree in the garden of God like him in his beauty....
Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because thou art exalted in
stature ... I will deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the
nations.... And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him
off, and have left him. Upon the mountains and in all the valleys his
branches are broken ... and all the people of the earth are gone down
from his shadow, and have left him.... I made the nations to shake at
the sound of his fall."
We may also compare this dream with that of Cambyses narrated by
Herodotus[382]: "He fancied that a vine grew from the womb of
his daughter and overshadowed the whole of Asia.... The magian
interpreter expounded the vision to foreshow that the offspring of
his daughter would reign over Asia in his stead."
So too Nebuchadrezzar in his dream had seen a tree in the midst
of the earth, of stately height, which reached to heaven and
overshadowed the world, with fair leaves and abundant fruit,
giving large nourishment to all mankind, and shade to the beasts
of the field and fowls of the heaven. The LXX. adds with glowing
exaggeration, "The sun and moon dwelled in it, and gave light to
the whole earth. And, behold, a watcher [_'îr_][383] and a holy one
[_qaddîsh_][384] came down from heaven, and bade, Hew down, and lop,
and strip the tree, and scatter his fruit, and scare away the beasts
and birds from it, but leave the stump in the greening turf bound by
a band of brass and iron, and let it be wet with heaven's dews,"--and
then, passing from the image to the thing signified, "and let his
portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth. Let his heart
be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him, and
let seven times pass over him." We are not told to whom the mandate
is given--that is left magnificently vague. The object of this
"sentence of the watchers, and utterance of the holy ones," is that
the living may know that the Most High is the Supreme King, and can,
if He will, give rule even to the lowliest. Nebuchadrezzar, who tells
us in his inscription that "he never forgave impiety," has to learn
that he is nothing, and that God is all,--that "He pulleth down the
mighty from their seat, and exalteth the humble and meek."[385]
This dream Nebuchadrezzar bids Daniel to interpret, "because thou
hast the spirit of a Holy God in thee."
Before we proceed let us pause for a moment to notice the agents of
the doom. It is one of the never-sleeping ones--an _'îr_ and a holy
one--who flashes down from heaven with the mandate; and he is only
the mouthpiece of the whole body of the watchers and holy ones.
Generally, no doubt, the phrase means an angelic denizen of heaven.
The LXX. translates watcher by "angel." Theodotion, feeling that
there is something technical in the word, which only occurs in this
chapter, renders it by εἴρ. This is the first appearance of the term
in Jewish literature, but it becomes extremely common in later Jewish
writings--as, for instance, in the Book of Enoch. The term "a holy
one"[386] connotes the dedicated separation of the angels; for in the
Old Testament holiness is used to express consecration and setting
apart, rather than moral stainlessness.[387] The "seven watchers"
are alluded to in the post-exilic Zechariah (iv. 10): "They see with
joy the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel, even those seven, the
_eyes_ of the Lord; they run to and fro through the whole earth."
In this verse Kohut[388] and Kuenen read "watchers" (_'îrîm_) for
"eyes" (_'înîm_), and we find these seven watchers in the Book of
Enoch (chap. xx.). We see as an historic fact that the familiarity
of the Jews with Persian angelology and demonology seems to have
developed their views on the subject. It is only after the Exile
that we find angels and demons playing a more prominent part than
before, divided into classes, and even marked out by special names.
The Apocrypha becomes more precise than the canonical books, and the
later pseudepigraphic books, which advance still further, are left
behind by the Talmud. Some have supposed a connexion between the
seven watchers and the Persian _amschashpands_.[389] The _shedîm_, or
evil spirits, are also seven in number,--
"Seven are they, seven are they!
In the channel of the deep seven are they,
In the radiance of heaven seven are they!"[390]
It is true that in Enoch (xc. 91) the prophet sees "the first six
white ones," and we find six also in Ezek. ix. 2. On the other hand,
we find seven in Tobit: "I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels
which present the prayers of the saints, and which go in and out
before the glory of the Holy One."[391] The names are variously
given; but perhaps the commonest are Michael, Gabriel, Uriel,
Raphael, and Raguel.[392] In the Babylonian mythology seven deities
stood at the head of all Divine beings, and the seven planetary
spirits watched the gates of Hades.[393]
To Daniel, when he had heard the dream, it seemed so full of
portentous omen that "he was astonished for one hour."[394] Seeing
his agitation, the king bids him take courage and fearlessly
interpret the dream. But it is an augury of fearful visitation; so
he begins with a formula intended as it were to avert the threatened
consequences. "My Lord," he exclaimed, on recovering voice, "the
dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation to thine
enemies."[395] The king would regard it as a sort of appeal to the
averting deities (the Roman _Dî Averrunci_), and as analogous to the
current formula of his hymns, "From the noxious spirit may the King
of heaven and the king of earth preserve thee!"[396] He then proceeds
to tell the king that the fair, stately, sheltering tree--"it is
thou, O king"; and the interpretation of the doom pronounced upon
it is that he should be driven from men, and should dwell with the
beasts of the field, and be reduced to eat grass like the oxen, and
be wet with the dew of heaven, "and seven times shall pass over thee,
till thou shalt know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men,
and giveth it to whomsoever He will." But as the stump of the tree
was to be left in the fresh green grass, so the kingdom should be
restored to him when he had learnt that the Heavens do rule.
The only feature of the dream which is left uninterpreted is the
binding of the stump with bands of iron and brass. Most commentators
follow Jerome in making it refer to the fetters with which maniacs
are bound,[397] but there is no evidence that Nebuchadrezzar was
so restrained, and the bands round the stump are for its protection
from injury. This seems preferable to the view which explains them
as "the stern and crushing sentence under which the king is to
lie."[398] Josephus and the Jewish exegetes take the "seven times" to
be "seven years"; but the phrase is vague, and the event is evidently
represented as taking place at the close of the king's reign. Instead
of using the awful name of Jehovah, the prophet uses the distant
periphrasis of "the Heavens." It was a phrase which became common in
later Jewish literature, and a Babylonian king would be familiar with
it; for in the inscriptions we find Maruduk addressed as the "great
Heavens," the father of the gods.[399]
Having faithfully interpreted the fearful warning of the dream,
Daniel points out that the menaces of doom are sometimes conditional,
and may be averted or delayed. "Wherefore," he says, "O king, let
my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by
righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor; if
so be there may be a healing of thy error."[400]
This pious exhortation of Daniel has been severely criticised from
opposite directions.
The Jewish Rabbis, in the very spirit of bigotry and false
religion, said that Daniel was subsequently thrown into the den
of lions to punish him for the crime of tendering good advice to
Nebuchadrezzar;[401] and, moreover, the advice could not be of any
real use; "for even if the nations of the world do righteousness and
mercy to prolong their dominion, it is only sin to them."[402]
On the other hand, the Roman Catholics have made it their chief
support for the doctrine of good works, which is so severely
condemned in the twelfth of our Articles.
Probably no such theological questions remotely entered into the
mind of the writer. Perhaps the words should be rendered "break
off thy sins by righteousness," rather than (as Theodotion renders
them) "redeem thy sins by almsgiving."[403] It is, however, certain
that among the Pharisees and the later Rabbis there was a grievous
limitation of the sense of the word _tzedakah_, "righteousness,"
to mean merely almsgiving. In Matt. vi. 1 it is well known
that the reading "alms" (ἐλεημοσύνην) has in the received text
displaced the reading "righteousness" (δικαιοσύνην); and in the
Talmud "righteousness"--like our shrunken misuse of the word
"charity"--means almsgiving. The value of "alms" has often been
extravagantly exalted. Thus we read: "Whoever shears his substance
for the poor escapes the condemnation of hell" (_Nedarîm_, f. 22, 1).
In _Baba Bathra_, f. 10, 1, and _Rosh Hashanah_, f. 16, 2, we have
"_alms_ delivereth from death," as a gloss on the meaning of Prov.
xi. 4.[404]
We cannot tell that the writer shared these views. He probably meant
no more than that cruelty and injustice were the chief vices of
despots, and that the only way to avert a threatened calamity was by
repenting of them. The necessity for compassion in the abstract was
recognised even by the most brutal Assyrian kings.
* * * * *
We are next told the fulfilment of the dark dream. The interpretation
had been meant to warn the king; but the warning was soon forgotten
by one arrayed in such absolutism of imperial power. The intoxication
of pride had become habitual in his heart, and twelve months sufficed
to obliterate all solemn thoughts. The Septuagint adds that "he kept
the words in his heart"; but the absence of any mention of rewards or
honours paid to Daniel is perhaps a sign that he was rather offended
than impressed.
A year later he was walking on the flat roof of the great palace of
the kingdom of Babylon. The sight of that golden city in the zenith
of its splendour may well have dazzled the soul of its founder. He
tells us in an inscription that he regarded that city as the apple
of his eye, and that the palace was its most glorious ornament.[405]
It was in the centre of the whole country; it covered a vast space,
and was visible far and wide. It was built of brick and bitumen,
enriched with cedar and iron, decorated with inscriptions and
paintings. The tower "contained the treasures of my imperishable
royalty; and silver, gold, metals, gems, nameless and priceless, and
immense treasures of rare value," had been lavished upon it. Begun
"in a happy month, and on an auspicious day," it had been finished
in fifteen days by armies of slaves. This palace and its celebrated
hanging gardens were one of the wonders of the world.
Beyond this superb edifice, where now the hyæna prowls amid miles of
_débris_ and mounds of ruin, and where the bittern builds amid pools
of water, lay the unequalled city. Its walls were three hundred and
eighty feet high and eighty-five feet thick, and each side of the
quadrilateral they enclosed was fifteen miles in length. The mighty
Euphrates flowed through the midst of the city, which is said to
have covered a space of two hundred square miles; and on its farther
bank, terrace above terrace, up to its central altar, rose the huge
Temple of Bel, with all its dependent temples and palaces.[406] The
vast circuit of the walls enclosed no mere wilderness of houses, but
there were interspaces of gardens, and palm-groves, and orchards, and
cornland, sufficient to maintain the whole population. Here and there
rose the temples reared to Nebo, and Sin the moon-god, and Mylitta,
and Nana, and Samas, and other deities; and there were aqueducts or
conduits for water, and forts and palaces; and the walls were pierced
with a hundred brazen gates. When Milton wanted to find some parallel
to the city of Pandemonium in _Paradise Lost_, he could only say,--
"Not Babylon,
Nor great Alcairo such magnificence
Equall'd in all their glories, to enshrine
Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat
Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove
In wealth and luxury."
Babylon, to use the phrase of Aristotle, included, not a city, but a
nation.[407]
Enchanted by the glorious spectacle of this house of his royalty and
abode of his majesty, the despot exclaimed almost in the words of
some of his own inscriptions, "Is not this great Babylon that I have
built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my treasures and
for the honour of my majesty?"
The Bible always represents to us that pride and arrogant
self-confidence are an offence against God. The doom fell on
Nebuchadrezzar "while the haughty boast was still in the king's
mouth." The suddenness of the Nemesis of pride is closely paralleled
by the scene in the Acts of the Apostles in which Herod Agrippa I.
is represented as entering the theatre at Cæsarea to receive the
deputies of Tyre and Sidon. He was clad, says Josephus, in a robe of
intertissued silver, and when the sun shone upon it he was surrounded
with a blaze of splendour. Struck by the scene, the people, when he had
ended his harangue to them, shouted, "It is the voice of a god, and not
of a man!" Herod, too, in the story of Josephus, had received, just
before, an ominous warning; but it came to him in vain. He accepted the
blasphemous adulation, and immediately, smitten by the angel of God, he
was eaten of worms, and in three days was dead.[408]
And something like this we see again and again in what the late Bishop
Thirlwall called the "irony of history"--the very cases in which men
seem to have been elevated to the very summit of power only to heighten
the dreadful precipice over which they immediately fall. He mentions
the cases of Persia, which was on the verge of ruin, when with lordly
arrogance she dictated the Peace of Antalcidas; of Boniface VIII., in
the Jubilee of 1300, immediately preceding his deadly overthrow; of
Spain, under Philip II., struck down by the ruin of the Armada at the
zenith of her wealth and pride. He might have added the instances of
Ahab, Sennacherib, Nebuchadrezzar, and Herod Antipas; of Alexander the
Great, dying as the fool dieth, drunken and miserable, in the supreme
hour of his conquests; of Napoleon, hurled into the dust, first by the
retreat from Moscow, then by the overthrow at Waterloo.
"While the word was yet in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from
heaven." It was what the Talmudists alluded to so frequently as the
_Bath Qôl_, or "daughter of a voice," which came sometimes for the
consolation of suffering, sometimes for the admonition of overweening
arrogance. It announced to him the fulfilment of the dream and its
interpretation. As with one lightning-flash the glorious cedar was
blasted, its leaves scattered, its fruits destroyed, its shelter
reduced to burning and barrenness. Then somehow the man's heart was
taken from him. He was driven forth to dwell among the beasts of the
field, to eat grass like oxen. Taking himself for an animal in his
degrading humiliation he lived in the open field. The dews of heaven
fell upon him. His unkempt locks grew rough like eagles' feathers,
his uncut nails like claws. In this condition he remained till "seven
times"--some vague and sacred cycle of days--passed over him.
His penalty was nothing absolutely abnormal. His illness is
well known to science and national tradition as that form
of hypochondriasis in which a man takes himself for a wolf
(lycanthropy), or a dog (kynanthropy), or some other animal.[409]
Probably the fifth-century monks, who were known as _Boskoi_, from
feeding on grass, may have been, in many cases, half maniacs who
in time took themselves for oxen. Cornill, so far as I know, is
the first to point out the curious circumstance that a notion as
to the points of analogy between Nebuchad_n_ezzar (thus spelt) and
Antiochus Epiphanes may have been strengthened by the Jewish method
of mystic commentary known in the Talmud as _Gematria_, and in Greek
as _Isopsephism_. That such methods, in other forms, were known and
practised in early times we find from the substitution of Sheshach
for Babel in Jer. xxv. 26, li. 41, and of Tabeal (by some cryptogram)
for Remaliah in Isa. vii. 6; and of _lebh kamai_ ("them that dwell
in the midst of them") for _Kasdîm_ (Chaldeans) in Jer. li. 1. These
forms are only explicable by the interchange of letters known as
Athbash, Albam, etc. Now Nebuchadnezzar = 423:--
נ = 50; ב = 2; ו = 6; כ = 20; ד = 4; נ = 50; א = 1;
צ = 90; ר = 200 = 423.
And Antiochus Epiphanes = 423:--
א = 1; נ = 50; ט = 9; י = 10; ו = 6; כ = 20; ו = 6;
ס = 60 = . . . . . . . 162}
א = 1; פ = 70; י = 10; פ = 70; נ = 50; ס = 60 = 261} = 423.
The madness of Antiochus was recognised in the popular change of
his name from Epiphanes to Epimanes. But there were obvious points
of resemblance between these potentates. Both of them conquered
Jerusalem. Both of them robbed the Temple of its holy vessels. Both
of them were liable to madness. Both of them tried to dictate the
religion of their subjects.
What happened to the kingdom of Babylon during the interim is a point
with which the writer does not trouble himself. It formed no part
of his story or of his moral. There is, however, no difficulty in
supposing that the chief mages and courtiers may have continued to
rule in the king's name--a course rendered all the more easy by the
extreme seclusion in which most Eastern monarchs pass their lives,
often unseen by their subjects from one year's end to the other.
Alike in ancient days as in modern--witness the cases of Charles VI.
of France, Christian VII. of Denmark, George III. of England, and
Otho of Bavaria--a king's madness is not allowed to interfere with
the normal administration of the kingdom.
When the seven "times"--whether years or brief periods--were
concluded, Nebuchadrezzar "lifted up his eyes to heaven," and his
understanding returned to him. No further light is thrown on his
recovery, which (as is not infrequently the case in madness) was as
sudden as his aberration. Perhaps the calm of the infinite azure over
his head flowed into his troubled soul, and reminded him that (as the
inscriptions say) "the Heavens" are "the father of the gods."[410] At
any rate, with that upward glance came the restoration of his reason.
He instantly blessed the Most High, "and praised and honoured Him
who liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and His kingdom is from generation to generation.[411] And all
the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and He doeth
according to His will[412] in the army of heaven, and among the
inhabitants of the earth;[413] and none can stay His hand, or say
unto Him, What doest Thou?"[414]
Then his lords and counsellors reinstated him in his former majesty;
his honour and brightness returned to him; he was once more "that
head of gold" in his kingdom.[415]
He concludes the story with the words: "Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise
and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth
and His ways judgment;[416] and those that walk in pride He is able
to abase."[417]
He died B.C. 561, and was deified, leaving behind him an invincible
name.
FOOTNOTES:
[371] Comp. 1 Macc. i. 41, 42: "And the king [Antiochus Epiphanes]
wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people, and every
one should leave his laws."
[372] Isa. xxvi. 9.
[373] Professor Fuller follows them in supposing that the decree
is really a letter written by Daniel, as is shown by the analogy
of similar documents, and the attestation (!) of the LXX. (ἀρχὴ
τῆς ἐπιστολῆς). He adds, "The undertone of genuineness which makes
itself so inobtrusively felt to the Assyrian scholar when reading
it, is _quite sufficient to decide the question of authenticity_"!
Such remarks are meant only for a certain circle of readers already
convinced. If they were true, it would be singular that scarcely
one living Assyriologist accepts the authenticity of Daniel; and
Mr. Bevan calls this "a narrative which contains _scarcely anything
specifically Babylonian_."
[374] See _Jos. c. Ap._, I. 20, ἐμπεσὼν εἰς ἀῤῥωστίαν, μετηλλάξατο
τὸν βίον (of Nebuchadrezzar); and I. 19 of Nabopolassar.
[375] _Præp. Ev._, lx. 41.
[376] I follow the better readings which Mr. Bevan adopts from Von
Gutschmid and Toup.
[377] Comp. Ezra iv. 7, vii. 12.
[378] If Nebuchadrezzar wrote this edict, he must have been very
familiar with the language of Scripture. See Deut. vi. 22; Isa. viii.
18; Psalm lxxviii. 12-16, cvi. 2; Mic. iv. 7, etc.
[379] _Heykal_, "palace"; Bab., _ikallu_. Comp. Amos viii. 3. See the
palace described in Layard, _Nineveh and Babylon_.
[380] A mistake of the writer. See _supra_, p. 129.
[381] _Rab-chartummaya._
[382] Herod., i. 108.
[383] עִיר. Comp. Mal. ii. 12 (perhaps "the watchman and him that
answereth"). LXX., ἄγγελος; Theodot., ἐγρήγορος.
[384] Comp. Deut. xxxiii. 2; Zech. xiv. 5; Psalm lxxxix. 6; Job v. 1,
etc.
[385] The LXX., in its free manipulation of the original, adds that
the king saw the dream fulfilled. In one day the tree was cut down,
and its destruction completed in one hour.
[386] Comp. Zech. xiv. 5; Psalm lxxxix. 6.
[387] See Job xv. 15.
[388] Dr. A. Kohut, _Die jüdische Angelologie_, p. 6, n. 17.
[389] For a full examination of the subject see Oehler, _Theol. of
the O. T._, § 59, pp. 195 ff.; Schultz, _Alttest. Theol._, p. 555;
Hamburger, _Real-Encycl._, i., _s.v._ "Engel"; Professor Fuller,
_Speaker's Commentary_, on the Apocrypha, Tobit, i., 171-183.
[390] Sayce, _Records of the Past_, ix. 140.
[391] The number seven is not, however, found in all texts.
[392] The Jewish tradition admits that the names of the angels came
from Persia (_Rosh Hashanah_, f. 56, 1; _Bereshîth Rabba_, c. 48;
Riehm, _R. W. B._, i. 381).
[393] Descent of Ishtar, _Records of the Past_, i. 141. Botta found
seven rude figures buried under the thresholds of doors.
[394] The Targum understands it "for a moment."
[395] The wish was quite natural. It is needless to follow Rashi,
etc., in making this an address to God, as though it were a prayer
to Him that ruin might fall on His enemy Nebuchadrezzar. Comp. Ov.,
_Fast._, iii. 494: "Eveniat nostris hostibus ille color."
[396] _Records of the Past_, i. 133.
[397] Mark v. 3.
[398] Bevan, p. 92.
[399] In the _Mishnah_ often _Shamayîm_; N. T., ἡ βασίλεια τῶν οὐρανῶν.
[400] Or, as in A.V. and Hitzig, "if it may be a lengthening of thy
tranquillity"; but Ewald reads _arukah_, "healing" (Isa. lviii. 8),
for _ar'kah_.
[401] _Baba Bathra_, f. 4, 1.
[402] _Berachôth_, f. 10, 2; f. 57, 2.
[403] Theodot., τὰς ἁμαρτίας σου ἐν ἐλεημοσύναις λύτρωσαι; Vulg.,
_peccata tua eleemosynis redime_. Comp. Psalm cxii. 9. This
exaltation of almsgiving is a characteristic of later Judaism
(Ecclus. iv. 5-10; Tobit iv. 11).
[404] Comp. Prov. x. 2, xvi. 6; _Sukka_, f. 49, 2. The theological
and ethical question involved is discussed by Calvin, _Instt._, iii.
4; Bellarmine, _De Pœnitent_., ii. 6 (Behrmann).
[405] It is now called Kasr, but the Arabs call it _Mujelibé_, "The
Ruined."
[406] Birs-Nimrod (Grote, _Hist. of Greece_, III., chap. xix.;
Layard, _Nin. and Bab._, chap. ii.).
[407] Arist., _Polit._, III. i. 12. He says that three days after its
capture some of its inhabitants were still unaware of the fact.
[408] Acts xii. 20-23; Jos., _Antt._, XIV. viii. 2.
[409] For further information on this subject I may refer to my paper
on "Rabbinic Exegesis," _Expositor_, v. 362-378. The fact that there
are slight variations in spelling Nebuchad_n_ezzar and Antiochus
Epiphanes is of no importance.
[410] Psalm cxxiii. 1. See Eurypides, _Bacchæ_, 699.
[411] Exod. xvii. 16.
[412] Psalm cxlv. 13.
[413] Isa. xxiv. 21, xl. 15, 17. For the "host of heaven" (στρατία
οὐράνιος, Luke ii. 13) see Isa. xl. 26; Job. xxxviii. 7; 1 Kings
xxii. 19; Enoch xviii. 14-16; Matt. xi. 25.
[414] Isa. xliii. 13, xlv. 9; Psalm cxxxv. 6; Job ix. 12; Eccles.
viii. 4. The phrase for "to reprove" is literally "to strike on the
hand," and is common in later Jewish writers.
[415] Dan. ii. 38.
[416] Psalm xxxiii. 4.
[417] Exod. xviii. 11.
CHAPTER V
_THE FIERY INSCRIPTION_
"That night they slew him on his father's throne
He died unnoticed, and the hand unknown:
Crownless and sceptreless Belshazzar lay,
A robe of purple round a form of clay."
SIR E. ARNOLD.
In this chapter again we have another magnificent fresco-picture,
intended, as was the last--but under circumstances of aggravated
guilt and more terrible menace--to teach the lesson that "verily
there is a God that judgeth the earth."
The truest way to enjoy the chapter, and to grasp the lessons which
it is meant to inculcate in their proper force and vividness, is to
consider it wholly apart from the difficulties as to its literal
truth. To read it aright, and duly to estimate its grandeur, we must
relegate to the conclusion of the story all worrying questions,
impossible of final solution, as to whom the writer intended by
Belshazzar, or whom by Darius the Mede.[418] All such discussions
are extraneous to edification, and in no way affect either the
consummate skill of the picture or the eternal truths of which it is
the symbolic expression. To those who, with the present writer, are
convinced, by evidence from every quarter--from philology, history,
the testimony of the inscriptions, and the manifold results obtained
by the Higher Criticism--that the Book of Daniel is the work of some
holy and highly gifted _Chasîd_ in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes,
it becomes clear that the story of Belshazzar, whatever dim fragments
of Babylonian tradition it may enshrine, is really suggested by the
profanity of Antiochus Epiphanes in carrying off, and doubtless
subjecting to profane usage, many of the sacred vessels of the Temple
of Jerusalem.[419] The retribution which awaited the wayward Seleucid
tyrant is prophetically intimated by the menace of doom which
received such immediate fulfilment in the case of the Babylonian
King. The humiliation of the guilty conqueror, "Nebuchadrezzar the
Wicked," who founded the Empire of Babylon, is followed by the
overthrow of his dynasty in the person of his "son," and the capture
of his vast capital.
"It is natural," says Ewald, "that thus the picture drawn in this
narrative should become, under the hands of our author, a true
night-piece, with all the colours of the dissolute, extravagant riot of
luxurious passion and growing madness, of ruinous bewilderment, and of
the mysterious horror and terror of such a night of revelry and death."
The description of the scene begins with one of those crashing
overtures of which the writer duly estimated the effect upon the
imagination.
"Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords,
and drank wine before the thousand."[420] The banquet may have been
intended as some propitiatory feast in honour of Bel-merodach. It
was celebrated in that palace which was a wonder of the world, with
its winged statues and splendid spacious halls. The walls were rich
with images of the Chaldeans, painted in vermilion and exceeding in
dyed attire--those images of goodly youths riding on goodly horses,
as in the Panathenaic procession on the frieze of the Acropolis--the
frescoed pictures, on which, in the prophet's vision, Aholah and
Aholibah, gloated in the chambers of secret imagery.[421] Belshazzar's
princes were there, and his wives, and his concubines, whose presence
the Babylonian custom admitted, though the Persian regarded it as
unseemly.[422] The Babylonian banquets, like those of the Greeks,
usually ended by a _Kōmos_ or revelry, in which intoxication was
regarded as no disgrace. Wine flowed freely. Doubtless, as in the
grandiose picture of Martin, there were brasiers of precious metal,
which breathed forth the fumes of incense;[423] and doubtless, too,
there were women and boys and girls with flutes and cymbals, to which
the dancers danced in all the orgiastic abandonment of Eastern passion.
All this was regarded as an element in the religious solemnity; and
while the revellers drank their wine, hymns were being chanted, in
which they praised "the gods of gold and of silver, of brass, of iron,
of wood, and of stone." That the king drank wine before the thousand is
the more remarkable because usually the kings of the East banquet in
solitary state in their own apartments.[424]
Then the wild king, with just such a burst of folly and irreverence
as characterised the banquets of Antiochus Epiphanes, bethought him
of yet another element of splendour with which he might make his
banquet memorable, and prove the superiority of his own victorious
gods over those of other nations. The Temple of Jerusalem was famous
over all the world, and there were few monarchs who had not heard
of the marvels and the majesty of the God of Israel. Belshazzar,
as the "son" of Nebuchadrezzar, must--if there was any historic
reality in the events narrated in the previous chapter--have heard
of the "signs and wonders" displayed by the King of heaven, whose
unparalleled awfulness his "father" had publicly attested in edicts
addressed to all the world. He must have known of the Rab-mag Daniel,
whose wisdom, even as a boy, had been found superior to that of all
the _Chartummîm_ and _Ashshaphîm_; and how his three companions had
been elevated to supreme satrapies; and how they had been delivered
unsinged from the seven-times-heated furnace, whose flames had killed
his father's executioners. Under no conceivable circumstances could
such marvels have been forgotten; under no circumstances could they
have possibly failed to create an intense and a profound impression.
And Belshazzar could hardly fail to have heard of the dreams of the
golden image and of the shattered cedar, and of Nebuchadrezzar's
unspeakably degrading lycanthropy. His "father" had publicly
acknowledged--in a decree published "to all peoples, nations, and
languages that dwell in all the earth"--that humiliation had come
upon him as a punishment for his overweening pride. In that same
decree the mighty Nebuchadrezzar--only a year or two before, if
Belshazzar succeeded him--had proclaimed his allegiance to the King
of heaven; and in all previous decrees he had threatened "all people,
nations, and languages" that, if they spake anything amiss against
the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, they should be cut in
pieces, and their houses made a dunghill.[425] Yet now Belshazzar,
in the flush of pride and drunkenness,[426] gives his order to insult
this God with deadly impiety by publicly defiling the vessels of His
awful Temple,[427] at a feast in honour of his own idol deities!
Similarly Antiochus Epiphanes, if he had not been half mad, might have
taken warning, before he insulted the Temple and the sacred vessels
of Jerusalem, from the fact that his father, Antiochus the Great, had
met his death in attempting to plunder the Temple at Elymais (B.C.
187). He might also have recalled the celebrated discomfiture--however
caused--of Heliodorus in the Temple of Jerusalem.[428]
Such insulting and reckless blasphemy could not go unpunished. It
is fitting that the Divine retribution should overtake the king on
the same night, and that the same lips which thus profaned with this
wine the holiest things should sip the wine of the Divine poison-cup,
whose fierce heat must in the same night prove fatal to himself.
But even such sinners, drinking as it were over the pit of hell,
"according to a metaphor used elsewhere,[429] must still at the last
moment be warned by a suitable Divine sign, that it may be known
whether they will honour the truth."[430] Nebuchadrezzar had received
_his_ warning, and in the end it had not been wholly in vain. Even
for Belshazzar it might perhaps not prove to be too late.
For at this very moment[431] when the revelry was at its zenith,
when the whirl of excited self-exaltation was most intense, when
Judah's gold was "treading heavy on the lips"--the profane lips--of
satraps and concubines, there appeared a portent, which seems at
first to have been visible to the king alone.
Seated on his lofty and jewelled throne, which
"Outshone the wealth of Ormuz or of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on its kings barbaric pearl and gold,"
his eye caught _something_ visible on the white stucco of the wall
above the line of frescoes.[432] He saw it over the lights which
crowned the huge golden _Nebrashta_, or chandelier.[433] The fingers
of a man's hand were writing letters on the wall, and the king saw
the hollow of that gigantic supernatural palm.[434]
The portent astounded and horrified him. The flush of youth and of
wine faded from his cheek;--"his brightnesses were changed"; his
thoughts troubled him; the bands of his loins were loosed;[435] his
knees smote one against another in his trembling attitude,[436] as he
stood arrested by the awful sight.
With a terrible cry he ordered that the whole familiar tribe
of astrologers and soothsayers should be summoned. For though
the hand had vanished, its trace was left on the wall of the
banqueting-chamber in letters of fire. And the stricken king,
anxious to know above all things the purport of that strange writing,
proclaims that he who could interpret it should be clothed in
scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and should be one
of the triumvirs of the kingdom.[437]
It was the usual resource; and it failed as it had done in every
previous instance. The Babylonian magi in the Book of Daniel prove
themselves to be more futile even than Pharaoh's magicians with their
enchantments.
The dream-interpreters in all their divisions entered the
banquet-hall. The king was perturbed, the omen urgent, the reward
magnificent. But it was all in vain. As usual they failed, as in
every instance in which they are introduced in the Old Testament.
And their failure added to the visible confusion of the king, whose
livid countenance retained its pallor. The banquet, in all its royal
magnificence, seemed likely to end in tumult and confusion; for the
princes, and satraps, and wives, and concubines all shared in the
agitation and bewilderment of their sovereign.
Meanwhile the tidings of the startling prodigy had reached the ears
of the Gebîrah--the queen-mother--who, as always in the East, held a
higher rank than even the reigning sultana.[438] She had not been
present at--perhaps had not approved of--the luxurious revel, held
when the Persians were at the very gates. But now, in her young son's
extremity, she comes forward to help and advise him. Entering the
hall with her attendant maidens, she bids the king to be no longer
troubled, for there is a man of the highest rank--invariably, as
would appear, overlooked and forgotten till the critical moment,
in spite of his long series of triumphs and achievements--who was
quite able to read the fearful augury, as he had often done before,
when all others had been foiled by Him who "frustrateth the tokens
of the liars and maketh diviners mad."[439] Strange that he should
not have been thought of, though "the king thy father, the king, I
say, thy father, made him master of the whole college of mages and
astrologers. Let Belshazzar send for Belteshazzar, and he would untie
the knot and read the awful enigma."[440]
Then, Daniel was summoned; and since the king "has heard of him, that
the spirit of the gods is in him, and that light and understanding
and excellent wisdom is found in him," and that he is one who can
interpret dreams, and unriddle hard sentences and untie knots, he
shall have the scarlet robe, and the golden chain, and the seat among
the triumvirs, if he will read and interpret the writing.
"Let thy gifts be thine, and thy rewards to another,"[441] answered
the seer, with fearless forthrightness: "yet, O king, I will read and
interpret the writing." Then, after reminding him of the consummate
power and majesty of his father Nebuchadrezzar; and how his mind
had become indurated with pride; and how he had been stricken with
lycanthropy, "till he knew that the Most High God ruled in the
kingdom of men"; and that, in spite of all this, he, Belshazzar, in
his infatuation, had insulted the Most High God by profaning the holy
vessels of His Temple in a licentious revelry in honour of idols of
gold, silver, brass, iron, and stone, which neither see, nor know,
nor hear,--for this reason (said the seer) had the hollow hand been
sent and the writing stamped upon the wall.
And now what was the writing? Daniel at the first glance had read
that fiery quadrilateral of letters, looking like the twelve gems of
the high priest's ephod with the mystic light gleaming upon them.
+----+----+----+
| M. | N. | A. |
+----+----+----+
| M. | N. | A. |
+----+----+----+
| T. | Q. | L. |
+----+----+----+
| P. | R. | S. |
+----+----+----+
Four names of weight.[442]
+-------------------+
| A Mina. |
+-------------------+
| A Mina. |
+-------------------+
| A Shekel. |
+-------------------+
| A Half-mina.[443] |
+-------------------+
What possible meaning could there be in that? Did it need an
archangel's colossal hand, flashing forth upon a palace-wall to write
the menace of doom, to have inscribed no more than the names of four
coins or weights? No wonder that the Chaldeans could not interpret
such writing!
It may be asked why they could not even _read_ it, since the words
are evidently Aramaic, and Aramaic was the common language of trade.
The Rabbis say that the words, instead of being written from right
to left, were written κιονηδόν, "pillar-wise," as the Greeks called
it, from above downwards: thus--
+---+---+---+--+
| פ | ת | מ | מ |
+---+---+---+--+
| ר | ק | נ | נ |
+---+---+---+--+
| ס | ל | א | א |
+---+---+---+--+
Read from left to right, they would look like gibberish; read from
above downwards, they became clear as far as the reading was concerned,
though their interpretation might still be surpassingly enigmatic.
But words may stand for all sorts of mysterious meanings; and in
the views of analogists--as those are called who not only believe
in the mysterious force and fascination of words, but even in the
physiological quality of sounds--they may hide awful indications
under harmless vocables. Herein lay the secret.
A mina! a mina! Yes; but the names of the weights recall the word
_m'nah_, "hath numbered": and "God hath numbered thy kingdom and
finished it."
A shekel! Yes; _t'qilta_: "Thou hast been weighed in a balance and
found wanting."
_Peres_--a half-mina! Yes; but _p'rîsath_: "Thy kingdom has been
divided, and given to the Medes and Persians."[444]
At this point the story is very swiftly brought to a conclusion, for
its essence has been already given. Daniel is clothed in scarlet, and
ornamented with the chain of gold, and proclaimed triumvir.[445]
But the king's doom is sealed! "That night was Belshazzar, king of the
Chaldeans, slain." His name meant, "Bel! preserve thou the king!" But
Bel bowed down, and Nebo stooped, and gave no help to their votary.
"Evil things in robes of sorrow
Assailed the monarch's high estate;
Ah, woe is me! for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!
And all about his throne the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but an ill-remembered story
Of the old time entombed."
"And Darius the Mede took the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old."
As there is no such person known as "Darius the Mede," the age
assigned to him must be due either to some tradition about some
other Darius, or to chronological calculations to which we no longer
possess the key.[446]
He is called the son of _Achashverosh_, Ahasuerus (ix. 1), or Xerxes.
The apologists have argued that--
1. Darius was Cyaxares II., father of Cyrus, on the authority of
Xenophon's romance,[447] and Josephus's echo of it.[448] But the
_Cyropædia_ is no authority, being, as Cicero said, a non-historic
fiction written to describe an ideal kingdom.[449] History knows
nothing of a Cyaxares II.
2. Darius was Astyages.[450] Not to mention other impossibilities
which attach to this view, Astyages would have been far older than
sixty-two at the capture of Babylon by Cyrus. Cyrus had suppressed
the Median dynasty altogether some years before he took Babylon.
3. Darius was the satrap Gobryas, who, so far as we know, only acted
as governor for a few months. But he is represented on the contrary
as an extremely absolute king, setting one hundred and twenty princes
"over the whole kingdom," and issuing mandates to "all people,
nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth." Even if such an
identification were admissible, it would not in the least save the
historic accuracy of the writer. This "Darius the Mede" is ignored by
history, and Cyrus is represented by the ancient records as having
been the sole and undisputed king of Babylon from the time of his
conquest.[451] "Darius the Mede" probably owes his existence to a
literal understanding of the prophecies of Isaiah (xiii. 17) and
Jeremiah (li. 11, 28).
We can now proceed to the examination of the next chapter unimpeded
by impossible and half-hearted hypotheses. We understand it, and
it was meant to be understood, as a moral and spiritual parable,
in which unverified historic names and traditions are utilised for
the purpose of inculcating lessons of courage and faithfulness. The
picture, however, falls far below those of the other chapters in
power, finish, and even an approach to natural verisimilitude.
FOOTNOTES:
[418] The question has already been fully discussed (_supra_, pp.
54-57). The apologists say that--
1. Belshazzar was _Evil-merodach_ (Niebuhr, Wolff, Bishop Westcott,
Zöckler, Keil, etc.), as the son of Nebuchadrezzar (Dan. v. 2, 11,
18, 22), and his successor (Baruch i. 11, 12, where he is called
Balthasar, as in the LXX.). The identification is impossible (see
Dan. v. 28, 31); for Evil-merodach (B.C. 561) was murdered by his
brother-in-law Neriglissar (B.C. 559). Besides, the Jews were well
acquainted with _Evil-merodach_ (2 Kings xxv. 27; Jer. lii. 31.)
2. Belshazzar was Nabunaid (St. Jerome, Ewald, Winer, Herzfeld,
Auberlen, etc.). But the usurper Nabunaid, son of a Rab-mag, was wholly
unlike Belshazzar; and so far from being slain, he was pardoned, and
sent by Cyrus to be Governor of Karmania, in which position he died.
3. Belshazzar was _the son of Nabunaid_. But though Nabunaid
_had_ a son of the name he was never king. We know nothing of any
relationship between him and Nebuchadrezzar, nor does Cyrus in
his records make the most distant allusion to him. The attempt to
identify Nebuchadrezzar with an unknown Marduk-sar-utsur, mentioned
in Babylonian tablets, breaks down; for Mr. Boscawen (_Soc. Bibl._,
in § vi., p. 108) finds that he reigned _before_ Nabunaid. Further,
the son of Nabunaid perished, not in Babylon, but in Accad.
[419] See 1 Macc. i. 21-24. He "entered proudly into the sanctuary,
and took away the golden altar, and the candlestick of light, and all
the vessels thereof, and the table of the shewbread, and the pouring
vessels, and the vials, and the censers of gold.... He took also
the silver and the gold, and the precious vessels: also he took the
hidden treasures which he found," etc. Comp. 2 Macc. v. 11-14; Diod.
Sic., XXXI. i. 48. The value of precious metals which he carried off
was estimated at one thousand eight hundred silver talents--about
£350,000 (2 Macc. v. 21).
[420] The LXX. says "two thousand." Comp. Esther i. 3, 4. Jerome
adds, "Unusquisque secundum suam bibit ætatem."
[421] Ezek. xxiii. 15.
[422] Herod., i. 191, v. 18; Xen., _Cyrop._, V. ii. 28; Q. Curt., V.
i. 38. Theodotion, perhaps scandalised by the fact, omits the wives,
and the LXX. omits both wives and concubines.
[423] Layard, _Nin. and Bab._, ii. 262-269.
[424] Athen., _Deipnos_, iv. 145. See the bas-relief in the British
Museum of King Assur-bani-pal drinking wine with his queen, while the
head of his vanquished enemy, Te-Umman, King of Elam, dangles from a
palm-branch full in his view, so that he can feast his eyes upon it.
None others are present except the attendant eunuchs.
[425] Dan. iii. 29.
[426] The Babylonians were notorious for drunken revels. Q. Curt., V.
i., "Babylonii maxime in vinum et quæ ebrietatem sequuntur, effusi
sunt."
[427] Dan. i. 2. Comp. 1 Macc. i. 21 ff.
[428] 2 Macc. iii.
[429] Psalm lv. 15.
[430] Ewald.
[431] Comp. Dan. iii. 7.
[432] See Layard, _Nin. and Bab._, ii. 269.
[433] A word of uncertain origin. The Talmud uses it for the word
למפדס (the Greek λαμπάς).
[434] "Hollow." Heb., _pas_; Theodot., ἀστραγάλους; Vulg., _articulos_.
The word may mean "palm" of the hand, or sole of the foot (Bevan).
[435] Psalm lxix. 23. "Bands"--lit. "fastenings"; Theodot.,
συνδεσμοί; Vulg., _compages_.
[436] Comp. Ezek. vii. 17, and the Homeric λύτο γούνατα, _Od._, iv.
703; Ov., _Met._, ii. 180, "genua intremuere timore."
[437] Doubtless suggested by Gen. xli. 42 (comp. Herod., iii. 20;
Xen., _Anab._, I. ii. 27; _Cyrop._, VIII. v. 18), as other parts of
Daniel's story recall that of Joseph. Comp. Esther vi. 8, 9. The word
for "scarlet" or red-purple is _argona_. The word for "chain" (_Q'rî.
ham'nîka_) is in Theodotion rendered μανιάκης, and occurs in later
Aramaic. The phrase rendered "third ruler" is very uncertain. The
inference drawn from it in the _Speaker's Commentary_--that Nabunaid
was king, and Belshazzar second ruler--is purely nugatory. For the
Hebrew word _taltî_ cannot mean "third," which would be תְּלִיתַי.
Ewald and most Hebraists take it to mean "rule, as one of the board
of three." For "triumvir" comp. vi. 2.
[438] 1 Kings xv. 13. She is precariously identified by the
apologists with the Nitocris of Herodotus; and it is imagined that
she may have been a daughter of Nebuchadrezzar, married to Nabunaid
before the murder of Neriglissar.
[439] Isa. xliv. 25.
[440] The word _Qistrîn_, "knots," may mean "hard questions"; but Mr.
Bevan (p. 104) thinks there may be an allusion to knots used as magic
spells. (Comp. Sen., _Œdip._, 101, "_Nodosa_ sortis verba et _implexos_
dolos.") He quotes Al-Baidawi on the Koran, lxiii. 4, who says that
"a Jew casts a spell on Mohammed by tying knots in a cord, and hiding
it in a well." But Gabriel told the prophet to send for the cord, and
at each verse of the Koran recited over it a knot untied itself. See
_Records of the Past_, iii. 141; and Duke, _Rabb. Blumenlehre_, 231.
[441] So Elisha, 2 Kings v. 16.
[442] The _Menê_ is repeated for emphasis. In the _Upharsîn_ (ver.
25) the _u_ is merely the "and," and the word is slightly altered,
perhaps to make the paronomasia with "Persians" more obvious.
According to Buxtorf and Gesenius, _peras_, in the sense of "divide,"
is very rare in the Targums.
[443] _Journal Asiatique_, 1886. (Comp. Nöldeke, _Ztschr.
für Assyriologie_, i. 414-418; Kamphausen, p. 46.) It is M.
Clermont-Ganneau who has the credit of discovering what seems to be the
true interpretation of these mysterious words. _M'nê_ (Heb. _Maneh_)
is the Greek μνᾶ, Lat. _mina_, which the Greeks borrowed from the
Assyrians. _Tekel_ (in the Targum of Onkelos _tîkla_) is the Hebrew
_shekel_. In the _Mishnah_ a half-mina is called _peras_, and an
Assyrian weight in the British Museum bears the inscription _perash_ in
the Aramaic character. (See Bevan, p. 106; Schrader, _s.v._ "Mene" in
Riehm, _R.W.B._) _Peres_ is used for a half-mina in _Yoma_, f. 4, 4;
often in the Talmud; and in _Corp. Inscr. Sem._, ii. 10 (Behrmann).
[444] The word occurs in _Perez_ Uzza. There still, however, remain
some obviously unexplored mysteries about these words. Paronomasia,
as I showed long ago in other works, plays a noble and profound part
in the language of emotion; and that the interpretation should here
be made to turn upon it is not surprising by any means. We find it
in the older prophets. Thus in Jer. i. 11, 12: "What seest thou? And
I said, I see a rod of _an almond tree_. Then said the Lord unto me,
Thou hast well seen: for I will _hasten_ My word to perform it." The
meaning here depends on the resemblance in Hebrew between _shaqeed_,
"an almond tree" ("a wakeful, or early tree"), and _shoqeed_, "I will
hasten," or "am wakeful over."
And that the same use of plays on words was still common in the
Maccabean epoch we see in the Story of Susanna. There Daniel plays
on the resemblance between σχῖνος, "a mastick tree," and σχίσει,
"shall cut thee in two"; and πρῖνος, "a holm oak," and πρίσαι, "to
cut asunder." We may also point to the fine paronomasia in the Hebrew
of Isa. v. 7, Mic. i. 10-15, and other passages. "Such a conceit,"
says Mr. Ball, "may seem to us far-fetched and inappropriate; but the
Oriental mind delights in such _lusus verborum_, and the peculiar
force of all such passages in the Hebrew prophets is lost in our
version because they have not been preserved in translation."
As regards the Medes, they are placed _after_ the Persians in Isa.
xxi. 2, Esther i. 3, but generally _before_ them.
[445] LXX., ἔδωκεν ἐξουσίαν αὐτῳ τοῦ τρίτου μέρους; Theodot., ἄρχοντα
τρίτον. See _supra_, p. 210.
[446] The LXX. evidently felt some difficulty or followed some other
text, for they render it, "And _Artaxerxes of the Medes_ took the
kingdom, and Darius full of _days and glorious in old age_." So, too,
Josephus (_Antt._, X. xi. 4), who says that "he was called by another
name among the Greeks."
[447] _Cyrop._, I. v. 2.
[448] _Antt._, X. xi. 4. This was the view of Vitringa, Bertholdt,
Gesenius, Winer, Keil, Hengstenberg, Hävernick, etc.
[449] _Ad. Q. Fratr._, i. 8.
[450] The view of Niebuhr and Westcott.
[451] See Herod., i. 109. The Median Empire fell B.C. 559; Babylon
was taken about B.C. 539. It is regarded as "important" that a late
Greek lexicographer, long after the Christian era, makes the vague
and wholly unsupported assertion that the "Daric" was named after
some Darius other than the father of Xerxes! See _supra_, pp. 57-60.
CHAPTER VI
_STOPPING THE MOUTHS OF LIONS_
"Thou shalt tread upon the lion ... the young lion shalt thou
trample under thy feet."--PSALM xci. 13.
On the view which regards these pictures as powerful parables, rich
in spiritual instructiveness, but not primarily concerned with
historic accuracy, nor even necessarily with ancient tradition, we
have seen how easily "the great strong fresco-strokes" which the
narrator loves to use "may have been suggested to him by his diligent
study of the Scriptures."
The first chapter is a beautiful picture which serves to set forth
the glory of moderation and to furnish a vivid concrete illustration
of such passages as those of Jeremiah: "Her Nazarites were purer than
snow; they were whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in body than
rubies; their polishing was of sapphire."[452]
The second chapter, closely reflecting in many of its details the
story of Joseph, illustrated how God "frustrateth the tokens of the
liars, and maketh diviners mad; turneth wise men backward, and maketh
their knowledge foolish; confirmeth the word of His servant, and
performeth the counsel of His messengers."[453]
The third chapter gives vividness to the promise, "When thou walkest
through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame
kindle upon thee."[454]
The fourth chapter repeats the apologue of Ezekiel, in which he
compares the King of Assyria to a cedar in Lebanon with fine
branches, and with a shadowy shroud, and fair by the multitude
of his branches, so that all the trees of Eden that were in the
garden of God envied him, but whose boughs were "broken by all the
watercourses until the peoples of the earth left his shadow."[455]
It was also meant to show that "pride goeth before destruction, and
a haughty spirit before a fall."[456] It illustrates the words of
Isaiah: "Behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall lop the bough
with terror; and the high ones of stature shall be hewn down, and the
haughty shall be humbled."[457]
The fifth chapter gives a vivid answer to Isaiah's challenge: "Let
now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators,
stand up and save thee from these things which shall come upon
thee."[458] It describes a fulfilment of his vision: "A grievous
vision is declared unto thee; the treacherous dealer dealeth
treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam: besiege,
O Media."[459] The more detailed prophecy of Jeremiah had said:
"Prepare against Babylon the nations with the kings of the Medes....
The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight.... One post shall
run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the
King of Babylon that his city is taken at one end.... In their heat
I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they
shall rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the
Lord.... How is Sheshach taken![460] and how is the praise of the
whole earth surprised!... And I will make drunk her princes, and her
wise men, her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men; and they
shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose
name is the Lord of hosts."[461]
The sixth chapter puts into concrete form such passages of the
Psalmist as: "My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them
that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears
and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword";[462] and--"Break the
jaw-bones of the lions, O Lord";[463] and--"They have cut off my life
in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me"[464]:--and more generally
such promises as those in Isaiah: "No weapon that is formed against
thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in
judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of
the Lord, and their righteousness is of Me, saith the Lord."[465]
This genesis of _Haggadoth_ is remarkably illustrated by the
apocryphal additions to Daniel. Thus the History of Susanna was very
probably suggested by Jeremiah's allusion (xxix. 22) to the two false
prophets Ahab and Zedekiah, whom Nebuchadrezzar burnt.[466] Similarly
the story of Bel and the Dragon is a fiction which expounds Jer. li.
44: "And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of
his mouth that which he hath swallowed up."[467]
Hitherto the career of Daniel had been personally prosperous. We
have seen him in perpetual honour and exaltation, and he had not
even incurred--though he may now have been ninety years old--such
early trials and privations in a heathen land as had fallen to the
lot of Joseph, his youthful prototype. His three companions had been
potential martyrs; he had not even been a confessor. Terrible as
was the doom which he had twice been called upon to pronounce upon
Nebuchadrezzar and upon his kingdom, the stern messages of prophecy,
so far from involving him in ruin, had only helped to uplift him to
the supremest honours. Not even the sternness of his bearing, and
the terrible severity of his interpretations of the flaming message
to Belshazzar, had prevented him from being proclaimed triumvir, and
clothed in scarlet, and decorated with a chain of gold, on the last
night of the Babylonian Empire. And now a new king of a new dynasty
is represented as seated on the throne; and it might well have seemed
that Daniel was destined to close his days, not only in peace, but in
consummate outward felicity.
Darius the Mede began his reign by appointing one hundred and twenty
princes over the whole kingdom;[468] and over these he placed three
presidents. Daniel is one of these "eyes" of the king.[469] "Because
an excellent spirit was in him," he acquired preponderant influence
among the presidents; and the king, considering that Daniel's
integrity would secure him from damage in the royal accounts,
designed to set him over the whole realm.
But assuming that the writer is dealing, not with the real, but
with the ideal, something would be lacking to Daniel's eminent
saintliness, if he were not set forth as no less capable of martyrdom
on behalf of his convictions than his three companions had been. From
the fiery trial in which their faithfulness had been proved like
gold in the furnace he had been exempt. His life thus far had been
a course of unbroken prosperity. But the career of a pre-eminent
prophet and saint hardly seems to have won its final crown, unless
he also be called upon to mount his Calvary, and to share with all
prophets and all saints the persecutions which are the invariable
concomitants of the hundredfold reward.[470] Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abed-nego had been tested in early youth: the trial of Daniel
is reserved for his extreme old age. It is not, it could not be, a
_severer_ trial than that which his friends braved, nor could his
deliverance be represented as more supernatural or more complete,
unless it were that they endured only for a few moments the semblable
violence of the fire, while he was shut up for all the long hours
of night alone in the savage lions' den. There are, nevertheless,
two respects in which this chapter serves as a climax to those
which preceded it. On the one hand, the virtue of Daniel is of a
marked character in that it is _positive_, and not negative--in
that it consists, not in rejecting an overt sin of idolatry, but in
continuing the private duty of prayer; on the other, the decree of
Darius surpasses even those of Nebuchadrezzar in the intensity of its
acknowledgment of the supremacy of Israel's God.
Daniel's age--for by this time he must have passed the allotted limit
of man's threescore years and ten--might have exempted him from envy,
even if, as the LXX. adds, "he was clad in purple." But jealous that
a captive Jew should be exalted above all the native satraps and
potentates by the king's favour, his colleagues the presidents (whom
the LXX. calls "two young men") and the princes "_rushed_" before the
king with a request which they thought would enable them to overthrow
Daniel by subtlety. Faithfulness is required in stewards;[471] and
they knew that his faithfulness and wisdom were such that they would
be unable to undermine him in any ordinary way. There was but one
point at which they considered him to be vulnerable, and that was in
any matter which affected his allegiance to an alien worship. But
it was difficult to invent an incident which would give them the
sought-for opportunity. All polytheisms are as tolerant as their
priests will let them be. The worship of the Jews in the Exile was of
a necessarily private nature. They had no Temple, and such religious
gatherings as they held were in no sense unlawful. The problem of the
writer was to manage his _Haggada_ in such a way as to make private
prayer an act of treason; and the difficulty is met--not, indeed,
without violent improbability, for which, however, Jewish haggadists
cared little, but with as much skill as the circumstances permitted.
The phrase that they "made a tumult" or "rushed"[472] before the
king, which recurs in vi. 11 and 18, is singular, and looks as if
it were _intentionally_ grotesque by way of satire. The etiquette
of Oriental courts is always most elaborately stately, and requires
solemn obeisance. This is why Æschylus makes Agamemnon say, in answer
to the too-obsequious fulsomeness of his false wife,--
"καὶ τἀλλα, μὴ γυναικὸς ἐν τρόποις ἐμὲ
ἅβρυνε, μηδὲ βαρβάρου φωτὸς δίκην
χαμαιπετὲς βόαμα προσχάνῃς ἐμοί."
"Besides, prithee, use not too fond a care
To me, as to some virgin whom thou strivest
To deck with ornaments, whose softness looks
Softer, hung round the softness of her youth;
Ope not the mouth to me, nor cry amain
As at the footstool of a man of the East
Prone on the ground: so stoop not thou to me!"
That these "presidents and satraps," instead of trying to win the
king by such flatteries and "gaping upon him an earth-grovelling
howl," should on each occasion have "rushed" into his presence, must
be regarded either as a touch of intentional sarcasm, or, at any
rate, as being more in accord with the rude familiarities of licence
permitted to the courtiers of the half-mad Antiochus, than with the
prostrations and solemn approaches which since the days of Deïoces
would alone have been permitted by any conceivable "Darius the Mede."
However, after this tumultuous intrusion into the king's presence,
"all the presidents, governors, chief chamberlains," present to him
the monstrous but unanimous request that he would, by an irrevocable
interdict, forbid that any man should, for thirty days, ask any
petition of any god or man, on peril of being cast into the den of
lions.[473]
Professor Fuller, in the _Speaker's Commentary_, considers that "this
chapter gives a valuable as well as an interesting insight into Median
customs," because the king is represented as living a secluded life,
and keeps lions, and is practically deified! The importance of the
remark is far from obvious. The chapter presents no particular picture
of a secluded life. On the contrary, the king moves about freely, and
his courtiers seem to have free access to him whenever they choose.
As for the semi-deification of kings, it was universal throughout the
East, and even Antiochus II. had openly taken the surname of _Theos_,
the "god." Again, every Jew throughout the world must have been very
well aware, since the days of the Exile, that Assyrian and other
monarchs kept dens of lions, and occasionally flung their enemies to
them.[474] But so far as the decree of Darius is concerned, it may well
be said that throughout all history no single parallel to it can be
quoted. Kings have very often been deified in absolutism; but not even
a mad Antiochus, a mad Caligula, a mad Elagabalus, or a mad Commodus
ever dreamt of passing an interdict that no one was to prefer any
petition either to God or man for thirty days, except to himself! A
decree so preposterous, which might be violated by millions many times
a day without the king being cognisant of it, would be a proof of
positive imbecility in any king who should dream of making it. Strange,
too--though a matter of indifference to the writer, because it did
not affect his moral lesson--that Darius should not have noticed the
absence of his chief official, and the one man in whom he placed the
fullest and deepest confidence.
The king, without giving another thought to the matter, at once signs
the irrevocable decree.
It naturally does not make the least difference to the practices
or the purpose of Daniel. His duty towards God transcends his duty
to man. He has been accustomed, thrice a day, to kneel and pray to
God, with the window of his upper chamber open, looking towards the
_Kibleh_ of Jerusalem;[475] and the king's decree makes no change in
his manner of daily worship.
Then the princes "rushed" thither again, and found Daniel praying and
asking petitions before his God.
Instantly they go before the king, and denounce Daniel for his triple
daily defiance of the sacrosanct decree, showing that "he regardeth
not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed."
Their denunciations produced an effect very different from what they
had intended. They had hoped to raise the king's wrath and jealousy
against Daniel, as one who lightly esteemed his divine autocracy.
But so far from having any such ignoble feeling, the king only sees
that he has been an utter fool, the dupe of the worthlessness of his
designing courtiers.[476] All his anger was against himself for his own
folly; his sole desire was to save the man whom for his integrity and
ability he valued more than the whole crew of base plotters who had
entrapped him against his will into a stupid act of injustice. All day,
till sunset, he laboured hard to deliver Daniel.[477] The whole band
of satraps and chamberlains feel that this will not do at all; so they
again "rush" to the king to remind him of the Median and Persian law
that no decree which the king has passed can be altered.[478] To alter
it would be a confession of fallibility, and therefore an abnegation
of godhead! Yet the strenuous action which he afterwards adopted
shows that he might, even then, have acted on the principle which the
mages laid down to Cambyses, son of Cyrus, that "the king can do no
wrong." There seems to be no reason why he should not have told these
"tumultuous" princes that if they interfered with Daniel they should
be flung into the lions' den. This would probably have altered their
opinion as to pressing the royal infallibility of irreversible decrees.
But as this resource did not suggest itself to Darius, nothing could
be done except to cast Daniel into the den or "pit" of lions; but in
sentencing him the king offers the prayer, "May the God whom thou
servest continually deliver thee!"[479] Then a stone is laid over
the mouth of the pit, and, for the sake of double security, that even
the king may not have the power of tampering with it, it is sealed,
not only with his own seal, but also with that of his lords.[480]
From the lion-pit the king went back to his palace, but only to spend
a miserable night. He could take no food.[481] No dancing-women were
summoned to his harem;[482] no sleep visited his eyelids. At the first
glimpse of morning he rose,[483] and went with haste to the den--taking
the satraps with him, adds the LXX.--and cried with a sorrowful voice,
"O Daniel, servant of the living God, hath thy God whom thou servest
continually been able to deliver thee from the lions?"
And the voice of the prophet answered, "O king, live for ever! My
God sent His angel,[484] and shut the mouths of the lions, that they
should not destroy me: forasmuch as before Him innocency was found in
me; and also before thee, O king, have I committed no offence."
Thereupon the happy king ordered that Daniel should be taken up out
of the lion-pit; and he was found to be unhurt, because he believed
in his God.
We would have gladly spared the touch of savagery with which the story
ends. The deliverance of Daniel made no difference in the guilt of
his accusers. What they had charged him with was a fact, and was a
transgression of the ridiculous decree which they had caused the king
to pass. But his deliverance was regarded as a Divine judgment upon
them--as proof that vengeance should fall on them. Accordingly, not
they only, but, with the brutal solidarity of revenge and punishment
which, in savage and semi-civilised races, confounds the innocent with
the guilty, their wives and even their children were also cast into
the den of lions, and they did not reach the bottom of the pit before
"the lions got hold of them and crushed all their bones."[485] They are
devoured, or caught, by the hungry lions in mid-air.
"Then King Darius wrote to all the nations, communities, and tongues
who dwell in the whole world, May your peace be multiplied! I make
a decree, That in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear
before the God of Daniel: for He is the living God, and steadfast
for ever, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and
His dominion even unto the end. He delivereth and He rescueth, and
He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who delivered
Daniel from the power of the lions."
The language, as in Nebuchadrezzar's decrees, is purely
Scriptural.[486] What the Median mages and the Persian fire-worshippers
would think of such a decree, and whether it produced the slightest
effect before it vanished without leaving a trace behind, are questions
with which the author of the story is not concerned.
He merely adds that Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and of
Cyrus the Persian.
FOOTNOTES:
[452] Lam. iv. 7.
[453] Isa. xliv. 25, 26.
[454] Isa. xliii. 2.
[455] Ezek. xxxi. 2-15.
[456] Prov. xvi. 18.
[457] Isa. x. 33.
[458] Isa. xlvii. 13.
[459] Isa. xxi. 2.
[460] The word is a cabalistic cryptogram--an instance of
_Gematria_--for Babel.
[461] Jer. li. 28-57.
[462] Psalm lvii. 4.
[463] Psalm lviii. 6.
[464] Lam. iii. 53.
[465] Isa. liv. 17.
[466] _Sanhedrin_, f. 93, 1. See another story in _Vayyikra Rabba_,
c. xix.
[467] _Bereshîth Rabba_, § 68.
[468] The LXX. says 127, and Josephus (_Antt._, X. xi. 4) says 360
(comp. Esther i. 1, viii. 9, ix. 3). Under Darius, son of Hystaspes,
there were only twenty divisions of the empire (Herod., iii. 89).
[469] Dan. vi. 2: "Of whom Daniel was"--not "_first_," as in A.V.,
but "_one_," R.V.
[470] Matt. xix. 29.
[471] 1 Cor. iv. 2.
[472] Dan. vi. 6, _char'ggishoo_; Vulg., _surripuerunt regi_; A.V.
marg., "came tumultuously." The word is found in the Targum in Ruth
i. 19 (Bevan).
[473] The den (_goob_ or _gubba_) seems to mean a vault. The Hebrew
word for "pit" is _boor_.
[474] See Layard, _Nin. and Bab._, i. 335, 447, 475; Smith, _Hist. of
Assur-bani-pal_, xxiv.
[475] The chamber was perhaps supposed to be a ὑπερῷον on the roof. The
"kneeling" in prayer (as in 1 Kings viii. 54; 2 Chron. vi. 13; Ezra ix.
5) is in the East a less common attitude than standing. See 1 Sam. i.
26; Mark xi. 25; Luke xviii. 11: but see Neh. viii. 6; Gen. xxiv. 26.
The Temple, and Jerusalem, was the _Kibleh_, or sacred direction of
devotion (1 Kings viii. 44; Ezek. viii. 16; Psalm v. 7, xxviii. 2,
lv. 17, etc.).
[476] Comp. Mark vi. 26.
[477] Theodot., ἀγωνιζόμενος.
[478] Esther i. 19, viii. 8.
[479] "Courage, till to-morrow" (ἕως πρωῒ θάῤῥει), adds the LXX.
[480] Comp. Lam. iii. 53. Seal-rings are very ancient (Herod., i.
195). It is useless to speculate on the construction of the lion-pit.
The only opening mentioned seems to have been _at the top_; but there
must necessarily have been side-openings also.
[481] Theodot., ἐκοιμήθη ἄδειπνος. Daniel, on the other hand, in the
apocryphal _Haggada_, gets his dinner miraculously from the Prophet
Habakkuk.
[482] Heb., _dachavān_; R.V., "instruments of music"; R.V. marg.,
"dancing-girls"; Gesenius, Zöckler, etc., "concubines."
[483] Theodot., τὸ πρωῒ ἐν τῷ φωτί.
[484] Comp. Dan. iii. 8; Psalm xxxiv. 7-10; Acts xii. 11.
[485] Comp. Esther ix. 13, 14; Josh. vii. 24; 2 Sam. xxi. 1-6. The
LXX. modifies the savagery of the story by making the vengeance fall
only on the _two_ young men who were Daniel's fellow-presidents. But
comp. Herod., iii. 119; Am. Marcell., xxiii. 6; and "Ob noxam unius
omnis propinquitas perit," etc.
[486] Psalm xxix. 1, x. 16, etc. Professor Fuller calls it "a
_Mazdean_ colouring in the language"!
PART III
_THE PROPHETIC SECTION OF THE BOOK_
CHAPTER I
_VISION OF THE FOUR WILD BEASTS_
We now enter upon the second division of the Book of Daniel--the
apocalyptic. It is unquestionably inferior to the first part in
grandeur and importance as a whole, but it contains not a few great
conceptions, and it was well adapted to inspire the hopes and arouse
the heroic courage of the persecuted Jews in the terrible days of
Antiochus Epiphanes. Daniel now speaks in the first person,[487]
whereas throughout the historic section of the Book the third person
has been used.
In the form of apocalypse which he adopts he had already had partial
precursors in Ezekiel and Zechariah; but their symbolic visions were
far less detailed and developed--it may be added far more poetic and
classical--than his. And in later apocalypses, for which this served
as a model, little regard is paid to the grotesqueness or incongruity
of the symbols, if only the intended conception is conveyed. In no
previous writer of the grander days of Hebrew literature would such
symbols have been permitted as horns which have eyes and speak, or
lions from which the wings are plucked, and which thereafter stand on
their feet as a man, and have a man's heart given to them.
The vision is dated, "In the first year of Belshazzar, King of
Babylon." It therefore comes chronologically between the fourth
and fifth chapters. On the pseudepigraphic view of the Book we may
suppose that this date is merely a touch of literary verisimilitude,
designed to assimilate the prophecies to the form of those uttered
by the ancient prophets; or perhaps it may be intended to indicate
that with three of the four empires--the Babylonian, the Median, and
the Persian--Daniel had a personal acquaintance. Beyond this we can
see no significance in the date; for the predictions which are here
recorded have none of that immediate relation to the year in which
they originated which we see in the writings of Isaiah and Jeremiah.
Perhaps the verse itself is a later guess or gloss, since there are
slight variations in Theodotion and the LXX. Daniel, we are told,
both saw and wrote and narrated the dream.[488]