Frederic Farrar - The Expositor's Bible - The Book of Daniel

Gen. xli.

See Lenormant, La Divination , p. 219.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Schrader dubiously connects it with matstsara , "guardian."

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

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

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

Keilinschr. , p. 429; Meinhold, p. 28.

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

Jos., Antt. , XI. viii. 5.

Isa. xlix. 23.

Isa. lx. 14.

Acts xii. 22, 23.

Acts xiv. 11, 12, xxviii. 6.

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

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

Supra , p. 23.

Athen., Deipnos. , iv. 175.

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

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

See iv. 16, 25-30.

Preserved by Jos.: comp. Ap. , I. 20.

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

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

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

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

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

Herod., i. 191. See Rawlinson, Herod. , i. 434.

Xen., Cyrop. , VII. v. 3.

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

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

2 Kings xxv. 27.

Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the Monuments , p. 527.

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

Winer, Realwörterb. , s. v. "Darius."

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

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