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

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

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

[372] Isa. xxvi. 9.

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

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

[375] Præp. Ev., lx. 41.

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

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

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

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

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

[381] Rab-chartummaya.

[382] Herod., i. 108.

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

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

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

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

[387] See Job xv. 15.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[397] Mark v. 3.

[398] Bevan, p. 92.

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

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

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

[402] Berachôth, f. 10, 2; f. 57, 2.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[411] Exod. xvii. 16.

[412] Psalm cxlv. 13.

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

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

[415] Dan. ii. 38.

[416] Psalm xxxiii. 4.

[417] Exod. xviii. 11.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[421] Ezek. xxiii. 15.

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

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

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

[425] Dan. iii. 29.

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

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

[428] 2 Macc. iii.

[429] Psalm lv. 15.

[430] Ewald.

[431] Comp. Dan. iii. 7.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[439] Isa. xliv. 25.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[450] The view of Niebuhr and Westcott.

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

[452] Lam. iv. 7.

[453] Isa. xliv. 25, 26.

[454] Isa. xliii. 2.

[455] Ezek. xxxi. 2-15.

[456] Prov. xvi. 18.

[457] Isa. x. 33.

[458] Isa. xlvii. 13.

[459] Isa. xxi. 2.

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

[461] Jer. li. 28-57.

[462] Psalm lvii. 4.

[463] Psalm lviii. 6.

[464] Lam. iii. 53.

[465] Isa. liv. 17.

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

[467] Bereshîth Rabba, § 68.

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

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

[470] Matt. xix. 29.

[471] 1 Cor. iv. 2.

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

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

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

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

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

[476] Comp. Mark vi. 26.

[477] Theodot., ἀγωνιζόμενος.

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

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

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

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

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

[483] Theodot., τὸ πρωῒ ἐν τῷ φωτί.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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