The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Daniel

F. W. Farrar

The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Daniel

AUTHORITIES CONSULTED

COMMENTARIES AND TREATISES

The chief Rabbinic Commentaries were those of Rashi († 1105); Abn Ezra († 1167); Kimchi († 1240); Abrabanel († 1507).1

The chief Patristic Commentary is that by St. Jerome. Fragments are preserved of other Commentaries by Origen, Hippolytus, Ephræm Syrus, Julius Africanus, Theodoret, Athanasius, Basil, Eusebius, Polychronius, etc. (Mai, Script. Vet. Nov. Coll., i.).

The Scholastic Commentary attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas is spurious.

The chief Commentaries of the Reformation period are those by: —

Luther, Auslegung d. Proph. Dan., 1530-46 (Opp. Germ., vi., ed. Walch.)

Œcolampadius, In Dan. libri duo. Basle, 1530.

Melancthon, Comm. in Dan. Wittenburg, 1543.

Calvin, Prælect. in Dan. Geneva, 1563.

Modern Commentaries are numerous; among them we may mention those by: —

Newton, Observations upon the Prophecies. London, 1733.

Bertholdt, Daniel. Erlangen, 1806-8.

Rosenmüller, Scholia. 1832.

Hävernick. 1832 and 1838.

Hengstenberg. 1831.

There are Commentaries by Von Lengerke, 1835; Maurer, 1838; Hitzig, 1850; Ewald, 1867; Kliefoth, 1868; Keil, 1869; Kranichfeld, 1868; Kamphausen, 1868; Meinhold (Kurzgefasster Kommentar), 1889; Auberlen, 1857; Archdeacon Rose and Prof. J. M. Fuller (Speaker's Commentary), 1876; Rev. H. J. Deane (Bishop Ellicott's Commentary), 1884; Zöckler (Lange's Bibelwerk), 1889; A. A. Bevan (Cambridge), 1893; Meinhold, Beiträge, 1888.

The latest Commentary which has appeared is that by Hauptpastor Behrmann, in the Handkommentar z. Alten Testament. Göttingen, 1894.

Discussions in the various Introductions (Einleitungen, etc.) by Bleek, De Wette, Keil, Stähelin, Reuss, Cornely, Dr. S. Davidson, Kleinert, Cornill, König, etc.

LIVES OF DANIEL

Pseudo-Epiphanius, Opera, ii. 243.

H. J. Deane, Daniel (Men of the Bible). 1892.

THERE ARE ARTICLES ON DANIEL IN

Winer's Realwörterbuch, Second Edition.

Delitzsch, in Herzog's Real-Encyclopädie.

Graf, in Schenkel's Bibel-Lexicon, i. 564.

Bishop Westcott, in Dr. W. Smith's Bible Dictionary, New Edition. 1893.

Hamburger, Real-Encyclopädie, ii., s. v. "Geheimlehre," p. 265; s. vv. "Daniel," pp. 223-225; and Heiliges Schriftthum.

TREATISES

Russel Martineau, Theological Review. 1865.

Prof. Margoliouth, The Expositor. April 1890.

Prof. J. M. Fuller, The Expositor, Third Series, vols. i., ii.

T. K. Cheyne, Encyclopædia Britannica, vi. 803.

Prof. Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the Monuments. 1894.

Prof. S. R. Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, pp. 458-483. 1891.

Prof. S. Leathes, in Book by Book, pp. 241-251.

C. von Orelli, Alttestamentliche Weissagung, p. 454. Wien, 1882.

Meinhold, Die Geschichtlichen Hagiographen (Strack and Zöckler, Kurzgefasster Kommentar, 1889).

Meinhold, Erklärung des Buches Daniels. 1889.

TREATISES OR DISCUSSIONS BY

Dr. Pusey, Daniel the Prophet. 1864.

T. R. Birks, The Later Visions of Daniel. 1846.

Ellicott, Horæ Apocalypticæ. 1844.

Tregelles, Remarks on the Prophetic Visions of Daniel. 1852.

Hilgenfeld, Die Propheten Ezra u. Daniel. 1863.

Baxmann, Stud. u. Krit., iii. 489 ff. 1863.

Desprez, Daniel. 1865.

Hofmann, Weissagung und Erfüllung, i. 276-316.

Kuenen, Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, E. Tr. 1877.

Ewald, Die Propheten des Alten Bundes, iii. 298. 1868.

Hilgenfeld, Die jüdische Apokalyptic. 1857.

Lenormant, La Divination chez les Chaldeans. 1875.

Fabre d'Envieu, Le livre du Prophète Daniel. 1888.

Hebbelyuck, De auctoritate libr. Danielis. 1887.

Köhler, Bibl. Geschichte. 1893.

INSCRIPTIONS AND MONUMENTS

Babylonian, Persian, and Median inscriptions bearing on the Book of Daniel are given by: —

Schrader, Keilinschriften und d. A. T., E. Tr., 1885-88; and in Records of the Past. See too Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum.

Sayce, The Higher Criticism, pp. 497-537.

These inscriptions have been referred to also by Cornill, Nestle, Nöldeke, Lagarde, etc.

HISTORIES AND OTHER BOOKS

Sketches and fragments of many ancient historians: —

Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicæ, ll. x., xi., xii.

The Books of Maccabees.

Prideaux, Connection of the Old and New Testaments, ed. Oxford. 1828.

Ewald, Gesch. des Volkes Israel. 1843-50.

Grätz, Gesch. der Juden, Second Edition. 1863.

Jost, Gesch. d. Judenthums und seinen Sekten, i. 90-116. Leipzig, 1857.

Herzfeld, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, ii. 416. 1863.

Van Oort, Bible for Young People, E. Tr. 1877.

Kittel, Gesch. d. Hebräer, ii. 1892.

Schürer, Gesch. d. jüdischen Volkes. Leipzig, 1890.

Jahn, Hebrew Commonwealth, E. Tr. 1828.

Droysen, Gesch. d. Hellenismus, ii. 211.

E. Meyer, Gesch. d. Alterthums, i.

SPECIAL TREATISES

Delitzsch, Messianische Weissagangen. Leipzig, 1890.

Riehm, Die Messianische Weissagung. Gotha, 1875.

Knabenbauer, Comment in Daniel. prophet., Lament., et Baruch. 1891.

Kuenen, Religion of Israel, E. Tr. 1874.

Bludau, De Alex. interpe. Danielis indole. 1891.

Nöldeke, D. Alttest. Literatur. 1868.

Fraidl, Exegese d. 70 Wochen Daniels. 1883.

Menken, Die Monarchienbild. 1887.

Kamphausen, Das Buch Daniel in die neuere Geschichtsforschung. Leipzig, 1893.

Lennep, De Zeventig Jaarweken van Daniel. Utrecht, 1888.

Dr. M. Joël, Notizen zum Buche Daniel. Breslau, 1873.

Derenbourg, Les Mots grecs dans le Livre biblique de Daniel. Mélanges Graux, 1888.

Cornill, Die Siebzig Jahrwochen Daniels. 1889.

Wolf, Die Siebzig Wochen Daniels. 1859.

Sanday, Inspiration (Bampton Lectures). 1894.

Sayce, Hibbert Lectures. 1887.

Roszmann, Die Makkabeische Erhebung.

J. F. Hoffmann, Antiochus IV. (Epiphanes). 1873.

Speaker's Commentary on Tobit, 1, 2 Maccabees, etc. 1888.

PART I

INTRODUCTION

Ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν περὶ τούτων ὡς εὗρον καὶ ἀνέγνων, οὕτως ἔγραψα· εἰ δέ τις ἄλλως δοξάζειν βουλήσεται περὶ αὐτῶν ἀνέγκλητον ἐχέτω τὴν ἐτερογνωμοσύνην. – Josephus, Antt., X. ii. 7.

CHAPTER I

THE HISTORIC EXISTENCE OF THE PROPHET DANIEL

"Trothe is the hiest thinge a man may kepe." – Chaucer.

We propose in the following pages to examine the Book of the Prophet Daniel by the same general methods which have been adopted in other volumes of the Expositor's Bible. It may well happen that the conclusions adopted as regards its origin and its place in the Sacred Volume will not command the assent of all our readers. On the other hand, we may feel a reasonable confidence that, even if some are unable to accept the views at which we have arrived, and which we have here endeavoured to present with fairness, they will still read them with interest, as opinions which have been calmly and conscientiously formed, and to which the writer has been led by strong conviction.

All Christians will acknowledge the sacred and imperious duty of sacrificing every other consideration to the unbiassed acceptance of that which we regard as truth. Further than this our readers will find much to elucidate the Book of Daniel chapter by chapter, apart from any questions which affect its authorship or age.

But I should like to say on the threshold that, though I am compelled to regard the Book of Daniel as a work which, in its present form, first saw the light in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, and though I believe that its six magnificent opening chapters were never meant to be regarded in any other light than that of moral and religious Haggadoth, yet no words of mine can exaggerate the value which I attach to this part of our Canonical Scriptures. The Book, as we shall see, has exercised a powerful influence over Christian conduct and Christian thought. Its right to a place in the Canon is undisputed and indisputable, and there is scarcely a single book of the Old Testament which can be made more richly "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, completely furnished unto every good work." Such religious lessons are eminently suitable for the aims of the Expositor's Bible. They are not in the slightest degree impaired by those results of archæological discovery and "criticism" which are now almost universally accepted by the scholars of the Continent, and by many of our chief English critics. Finally unfavourable to the authenticity, they are yet in no way derogatory to the preciousness of this Old Testament Apocalypse.

The first question which we must consider is, "What is known about the Prophet Daniel?"

I. If we accept as historical the particulars narrated of him in this Book, it is clear that few Jews have ever risen to so splendid an eminence. Under four powerful kings and conquerors, of three different nationalities and dynasties, he held a position of high authority among the haughtiest aristocracies of the ancient world. At a very early age he was not only a satrap, but the Prince and Prime Minister over all the satraps in Babylonia and Persia; not only a Magian, but the Head Magian, and Chief Governor over all the wise men of Babylon. Not even Joseph, as the chief ruler over all the house of Pharaoh, had anything like the extensive sway exercised by the Daniel of this Book. He was placed by Nebuchadrezzar "over the whole province of Babylon";2 under Darius he was President of the Board of Three to "whom all the satraps" sent their accounts;3 and he was continued in office and prosperity under Cyrus the Persian.4

II. It is natural, then, that we should turn to the monuments and inscriptions of the Babylonian, Persian, and Median Empires to see if any mention can be found of so prominent a ruler. But hitherto neither has his name been discovered, nor the faintest trace of his existence.

III. If we next search other non-Biblical sources of information, we find much respecting him in the Apocrypha – "The Song of the Three Children," "The Story of Susanna," and "Bel and the Dragon." But these additions to the Canonical Books are avowedly valueless for any historic purpose. They are romances, in which the vehicle of fiction is used, in a manner which at all times was popular in Jewish literature, to teach lessons of faith and conduct by the example of eminent sages or saints.5 The few other fictitious fragments preserved by Fabricius have not the smallest importance.6 Josephus, beyond mentioning that Daniel and his three companions were of the family of King Zedekiah,7 adds nothing appreciable to our information. He narrates the story of the Book, and in doing so adopts a somewhat apologetic tone, as though he specially declined to vouch for its historic exactness. For he says: "Let no one blame me for writing down everything of this nature, as I find it in our ancient books: for as to that matter, I have plainly assured those that think me defective in any such point, or complain of my management, and have told them, in the beginning of this history, that I intended to do no more than to translate the Hebrew books into the Greek language, and promised them to explain these facts, without adding anything to them of my own, or taking anything away from them."8

IV. In the Talmud, again, we find nothing historical. Daniel is always mentioned as a champion against idolatry, and his wisdom is so highly esteemed, that, "if all the wise men of the heathen," we are told, "were on one side, and Daniel on the other, Daniel would still prevail."9 He is spoken of as an example of God's protection of the innocent, and his three daily prayers are taken as our rule of life.10 To him are applied the verses of Lam. iii. 55-57: "I called upon Thy name, O Lord, out of the lowest pit… Thou drewest near in the day that I called: Thou saidst, Fear not. O Lord, Thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; Thou hast redeemed my life." We are assured that he was of Davidic descent; obtained permission for the return of the exiles; survived till the rebuilding of the Temple; lived to a great age, and finally died in Palestine.11 Rav even went so far as to say, "If there be any like the Messiah among the living, it is our Rabbi the Holy: if among the dead, it is Daniel."12 In the Avoth of Rabbi Nathan it is stated that Daniel exercised himself in benevolence by endowing brides, following funerals, and giving alms. One of the Apocryphal legends respecting him has been widely spread. It tells us that, when he was a second time cast into the den of lions under Cyrus, and was fasting from lack of food, the Prophet Habakkuk was taken by a hair of his head and carried by the angel of the Lord to Babylon, to give to Daniel the dinner which he had prepared for his reapers.13 It is with reference to this Haggada that in the catacombs Daniel is represented in the lions' den standing naked between two lions – an emblem of the soul between sin and death – and that a youth with a pot of food is by his side.

There is a Persian apocalypse of Daniel translated by Merx (Archiv, i. 387), and there are a few worthless Mohammedan legends about him which are given in D'Herbelot's Bibliothèque orientale. They only serve to show how widely extended was the reputation which became the nucleus of strange and miraculous stories. As in the case of Pythagoras and Empedocles, they indicate the deep reverence which the ideal of his character inspired. They are as the fantastic clouds which gather about the loftiest mountain peaks. In later days he seems to have been comparatively forgotten.14

These references would not, however, suffice to prove Daniel's historical existence. They might merely result from the literal acceptance of the story narrated in the Book. From the name "Daniel," which is by no means a common one, and means "Judge of God," nothing can be learnt. It is only found in three other instances.15

Turning to the Old Testament itself, we have reason for surprise both in its allusions and its silences. One only of the sacred writers refers to Daniel, and that is Ezekiel. In one passage (xxviii. 3) the Prince of Tyrus is apostrophised in the words, "Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee." In the other (xiv. 14, 20) the word of the Lord declares to the guilty city, that "though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness"; "they shall deliver neither son nor daughter."16

The last words may be regarded as a general allusion, and therefore we may pass over the circumstance that Daniel – who was undoubtedly a eunuch in the palace of Babylon, and who is often pointed to as a fulfilment of the stern prophecy of Isaiah to Hezekiah17– could never have had either son or daughter.

But in other respects the allusion is surprising.

i. It was very unusual among the Jews to elevate their contemporaries to such a height of exaltation, and it is indeed startling that Ezekiel should thus place his youthful contemporary on such a pinnacle as to unite his name to those of Noah the antediluvian patriarch and the mysterious man of Uz.

ii. We might, with Theodoret, Jerome, and Kimchi, account for the mention of Daniel's name at all in this connection by the peculiar circumstances of his life;18 but there is little probability in the suggestions of bewildered commentators as to the reason why his name should be placed between those of Noah and Job. It is difficult, with Hävernick, to recognise any climax in the order;19 nor can it be regarded as quite satisfactory to say, with Delitzsch, that the collocation is due to the fact that "as Noah was a righteous man of the old world, and Job of the ideal world, Daniel represented immediately the contemporaneous world."20 If Job was a purely ideal instance of exemplary goodness, why may not Daniel have been the same?

To some critics the allusion has appeared so strange that they have referred it to an imaginary Daniel who had lived at the Court of Nineveh during the Assyrian exile;21 or to some mythic hero who belonged to ancient days – perhaps, like Melchizedek, a contemporary of the ruin of the cities of the Plain.22 Ewald tries to urge something for the former conjecture; yet neither for it nor for the latter is there any tittle of real evidence.23 This, however, would not be decisive against the hypothesis, since in 1 Kings iv. 31 we have references to men of pre-eminent wisdom respecting whom no breath of tradition has come down to us.24

iii. But if we accept the Book of Daniel as literal history, the allusion of Ezekiel becomes still more difficult to explain; for Daniel must have been not only a contemporary of the prophet of the Exile, but a very youthful one. We are told – a difficulty to which we shall subsequently allude – that Daniel was taken captive in the third year of Jehoiakim (Dan. i. 1), about the year b. c. 606. Ignatius says that he was twelve years old when he foiled the elders; and the narrative shows that he could not have been much older when taken captive.25 If Ezekiel's prophecy was uttered b. c. 584, Daniel at that time could only have been twenty-two: if it was uttered as late as b. c. 572,26 Daniel would still have been only thirty-four, and therefore little more than a youth in Jewish eyes. It is undoubtedly surprising that among Orientals, who regard age as the chief passport to wisdom, a living youth should be thus canonised between the Patriarch of the Deluge and the Prince of Uz.

iv. Admitting that this pinnacle of eminence may have been due to the peculiar splendour of Daniel's career, it becomes the less easy to account for the total silence respecting him in the other books of the Old Testament – in the Prophets who were contemporaneous with the Exile and its close, like Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi; and in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which give us the details of the Return. No post-exilic prophets seem to know anything of the Book of Daniel.27 Their expectations of Israel's future are very different from his.28 The silence of Ezra is specially astonishing. It has often been conjectured that it was Daniel who showed to Cyrus the prophecies of Isaiah.29 Certainly it is stated that he held the very highest position in the Court of the Persian King; yet neither does Ezra mention his existence, nor does Nehemiah – himself a high functionary in the Court of Artaxerxes – refer to his illustrious predecessor. Daniel outlived the first return of the exiles under Zerubbabel, and he did not avail himself of this opportunity to revisit the land and desolate sanctuary of his fathers which he loved so well.30 We might have assumed that patriotism so burning as his would not have preferred to stay at Babylon, or at Shushan, when the priests and princes of his people were returning to the Holy City. Others of great age faced the perils of the Restoration; and if he stayed behind to be of greater use to his countrymen, we cannot account for the fact that he is not distantly alluded to in the record which tells how "the chief of the fathers, with all those whose spirit God had raised, rose up to go to build the House of the Lord which is in Jerusalem."31 That the difficulty was felt is shown by the Mohammedan legend that Daniel did return with Ezra,32 and that he received the office of Governor of Syria, from which country he went back to Susa, where his tomb is still yearly visited by crowds of adoring pilgrims.

v. If we turn to the New Testament, the name of Daniel only occurs in the reference to "the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet."33 The Book of Revelation does not name him, but is profoundly influenced by the Book of Daniel both in its form and in the symbols which it adopts.34

vi. In the Apocrypha Daniel is passed over in complete silence among the lists of Hebrew heroes enumerated by Jesus the son of Sirach. We are even told that "neither was there a man born like unto Joseph, a leader of his brethren, a stay of the people" (Ecclus. xlix. 15). This is the more singular because not only are the achievements of Daniel under four heathen potentates greater than those of Joseph under one Pharaoh, but also several of the stories of Daniel at once remind us of the story of Joseph, and even appear to have been written with silent reference to the youthful Hebrew and his fortunes as an Egyptian slave who was elevated to be governor of the land of his exile.

CHAPTER II

GENERAL SURVEY OF THE BOOK

1. The Language

Unable to learn anything further respecting the professed author of the Book of Daniel, we now turn to the Book itself. In this section I shall merely give a general sketch of its main external phenomena, and shall chiefly pass in review those characteristics which, though they have been used as arguments respecting the age in which it originated, are not absolutely irreconcilable with the supposition of any date between the termination of the Exile (b. c. 536) and the death of Antiochus Epiphanes (b. c. 164).

I. First we notice the fact that there is an interchange of the first and third person. In chapters i. – vi. Daniel is mainly spoken of in the third person: in chapters vii. – xii. he speaks mainly in the first.

Kranichfeld tries to account for this by the supposition that in chapters i. – vi. we practically have extracts from Daniel's diaries,35 whereas in the remainder of the Book he describes his own visions. The point cannot be much insisted upon, but the mention of his own high praises (e. g., in such passages as vi. 4) is perhaps hardly what we should have expected.

II. Next we observe that the Book of Daniel, like the Book of Ezra36 is written partly in the sacred Hebrew, partly in the vernacular Aramaic, which is often, but erroneously, called Chaldee.37

The first section (i. 1-ii. 4a) is in Hebrew. The language changes to Aramaic after the words, "Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriac" (ii. 4a);38 and this is continued to vii. 28. The eighth chapter begins with the words, "In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel"; and here the Hebrew is resumed, and is continued till the end of the Book.

The question at once arises why the two languages were used in the same Book.

It is easy to understand that, during the course of the seventy years' Exile, many of the Jews became practically bilingual, and would be able to write with equal facility in one language or in the other.

This circumstance, then, has no bearing on the date of the Book. Down to the Maccabean age some books continued to be written in Hebrew. These books must have found readers. Hence the knowledge of Hebrew cannot have died away so completely as has been supposed. The notion that after the return from the Exile Hebrew was at once superseded by Aramaic is untenable. Hebrew long continued to be the language normally spoken at Jerusalem (Neh. xiii. 24), and the Jews did not bring back Aramaic with them to Palestine, but found it there.39

But it is not clear why the linguistic divisions in the Book were adopted. Auberlen says that, after the introduction, the section ii. 4a-vii. 28 was written in Chaldee, because it describes the development of the power of the world from a world-historic point of view; and that the remainder of the Book was written in Hebrew, because it deals with the development of the world-powers in their relation to Israel the people of God.40 There is very little to be said in favour of a structure so little obvious and so highly artificial. A simpler solution of the difficulty would be that which accounts for the use of Chaldee by saying that it was adopted in those parts which involved the introduction of Aramaic documents. This, however, would not account for its use in chap. vii., which is a chapter of visions in which Hebrew might have been naturally expected as the vehicle of prophecy. Strack and Meinhold think that the Aramaic and Hebrew parts are of different origin. König supposes that the Aramaic sections were meant to indicate special reference to the Syrians and Antiochus.41 Some critics have thought it possible that the Aramaic sections were once written in Hebrew. That the text of Daniel has not been very carefully kept becomes clear from the liberties to which it was subjected by the Septuagint translators. If the Hebrew of Jer. x. 11 (a verse which only exists in Aramaic) has been lost, it is not inconceivable that the same may have happened to the Hebrew of a section of Daniel.42