THE BOOK

OF

DANIEL.

THE history of Daniel is contained in the book which bears his name. was in the first band of Hebrew captives sent to Babylon in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, about seven From this we learn that he years before the deportation of the second band, which included Ezekiel. It appears from the history that he was quite a youth at this time; and as those carried into captivity on this occasion appear to have been exclusively persons of consideration and youths of distinguished families, there is every reason to believe that Daniel must have belonged to a family of rank and consequence. The Jews indeed go further, and believe that he was of the royal family, and descended from Hezekiah; and therefore cite his history in confirmation of the prophecy of Isaiah (xxxix. 7) to that monarch, ' Of thy sons which shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.' Daniel, being one of the youths selected to be brought up for future service at the court of the conqueror, received instruction in all the learning of the Chaldæans. But it was through the wisdom given him from above, and the signal favour of God manifested remarkably towards him before the eyes of the heathen, that he rose to distinction at the court of Babylon, and was held in high consideration by its successive kings, through all the seventy years in which his nation remained in captivity, and whose condition in captivity was probably much meliorated through his influence. As Josephus observes, he was the only one of the prophets who enjoyed a high degree of worldly prosperity. His life was however not without its trials, disturbed as it was by the envy and murderous plots of jealous courtiers; but all these served but the more to manifest his righteousness and faith, and in the end tended to establish him all the more firmly in his high place. Daniel must have lived to a great age. dates of his first prophecy (ii. 1) and of his last (x. 1). Some suppose him to have been twenty years There is an interval of seventy years between the of age when carried into captivity; he was very possibly younger. However, ten years after, we find him celebrated for his piety and wisdom (Ezek. xiv. 14, 20), which seems indeed to have become proverbial (Ezek. xxviii. 3). At the date of his last prophecy, in the third year of Cyrus, he must have been about ninety years of age; and it is not probable that he survived much longer.

There is little reason to doubt that Daniel retained much authority and influence so long as he lived in the reign of Cyrus; and there is much ground to conclude that he brought that great prince acquainted with those prophecies which had a long time before predicted not only the restoration of the Jews to their own land, but that this restoration was to be effected under a king named Cyrus. But although he had thus probably an important part in bringing about this result, there is no evidence that he availed himself of the privilege conceded to his countryman. Some have asserted that he returned from captivity with Ezra, and took upon him the government of Syria; but it is more likely that he was too old to take part in so great a charge, and that, according to the usually received opinion, he died in Persia. Epiphanius and others affirm that he died at Babylon; and they say that his sepulchre was to be found there, many ages after, in the royal cave. that, according to the common tradition, he was buried at Susa or Shusan, where he sometimes resided, But it seems more probable probably in his official capacity, and where he was favoured with some of his last visions (Dan, viii. 2, 8). Josephus says that there was at Susa a magnificent edifice in the form of a tower, which was said to have been built by Daniel, and which served as a sepulchre for the Persian and Parthian kings. This in the time of the historian retained its perfect beauty, and presented a fine specimen of the prophet's skill in architecture. but that a monument of the kind would be ascribed to him by the numerous Jews resident in those That this tower was built by Daniel there is little ground to believe; parts in and before the time of Josephus, is highly probable. Benjamin of Tudela mentions that he was shewn the reputed tomb of Daniel at Susa on the Tigris; and at the present day, a tomb bearing his name is the only standing building among the ruins of Shus-the ancient Susa.

The Hebrews always accounted this book as canonical. Josephus calls Daniel not only a prophet,

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but one of the greatest of the prophets; adding, that he not only, in common with other prophets, foretold future things, but also fixed the precise time of their coming to pass. Our Saviour also cites him as Daniel the prophet' (Matt. xxv. 14), and gives himself, in virtue of the expression in Dan. vii. 13, the title of Son of Man;' while the apostles repeatedly appeal to it as an authority (ex. gr. 1 Cor. vi. 2; 2 Thess. ii. 3; Heb. xi. 33). It is important to note this, as, in the Hebrew bibles, the book of Daniel does not appear among those of the prophets, but in the Hagiographa; that is to say, the Jews fully recognize the book of Daniel as holy writ, but refuse to consider it prophetic, or to regard Daniel as a prophet, and therefore give it no place among their prophetic books. For this they assign many frivolous reasons; but the real one is conjectured by many Christian commentators to be, that Daniel's famous predictions concerning the Messiah so remarkably corresponded to the history of Christ, and, what is more, to the time of his appearance, that they could not justify their refusal to consider him as the expected Messiah, without altogether denying the prophetic character of Daniel's book. This was done; and certainly after the time of Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem; for we have not only the testimony of Josephus, as to the belief of the Jews in his time, but we know that so fully did they acknowledge the prophetic character of Daniel, and so accurately calculate the time given by him, that at the date of our Saviour's appearance there was a general expectation in the nation that the time for the Messiah's advent was come. And he did come, but they knew him not: he came unto his own, and his own received him not (John i. 10, 11).

Yet in the face of evidence so conclusive, the authenticity of Daniel has been subject to the most vigorous and elaborate assaults, the leading object of which has been to regard the particularity with which the remotely future events are described, and with which the fate of empires that had not yet risen is defined, down to the very dates, as proving that the book was written after the age of Antiochus Epiphanes, beyond whose time this particularity does not extend, and as leading to the conclusion that the alleged prophecies were after the events which they describe-making in fact the very excellence of the prophecies, and the fulness of their inspiration, an argument against their truth. These assaults have in recent days been most ably and victoriously repelled by such writers as Jahn, Hävernick, and Hengstenberg. The work on the Authenticity of Daniel, by the last named, is an enduring monument of the consummate abilities and fine acquirements of that great writer. To that work, which exists in the English language, we must be content to refer the reader, as the discussion runs too much into details to be suitably produced within the limits of a short Introduction. There is however a summary of the arguments given by Hävernick in the Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature;' in which, besides enforcing the points of evidence to which we have referred, he proves that the period of the exile would be altogether incomprehensible without the existence of a man like Daniel, exercising great influence upon his own people, and whose return to Palestine was effected by means of his high station in the state, as well as through the peculiar assistance of God with which he was favoured that the first book of the Maccabees, which is almost contemporary with the events prophetically related in it, not only presupposes the existence of the book of Daniel, but actually betrays an acquaintance with the Alexandrine version of it (1 Macc. i. 54; comp. Dan. ix. 27; ii. 59; comp. Dan. iii.)—that in the Maccabæan age the canon had long been completed and closed, so that it is utterly improbable that a work then recent should have acquired a canonical character-that too much weight cannot be assigned to the testimony in favour of the authenticity of the book which is to be deduced from the mention of Daniel in Ezek. xiv. 14, 20; xxviii. 3; where the character assigned to him is perfectly conformable to that which his own book exhibits-that the book betrays such an intimate acquaintance with Chaldæan manners, customs, history, and religion, as none but a contemporary writer could fairly be supposed to possess-that the religious, the ardent belief in the Messiah, the purity of that belief, the absence of all the notions and ceremonial practices of later Judaism, the agreement of the book in these respects with the genuine prophetic books, and more especially with the prophets in and after the Exile-all this testifies the genuineness of Daniel-and, lastly, that the linguistic character of the book is most decisive for its authenticity. In the first instance the language in it, by turns Hebrew and Aramæan (Chaldee), is particularly remarkable. In that respect it bears a close analogy to that of Ezra. The author must certainly have been equally conversant with both languages-an attainment exactly suited to a Jew living in the time of the Exile, but not in the least to an author living in the Maccabean age, when the Hebrew had long ceased to be a living language, and had been supplanted by the Aramaan vernacular dialect.

There are Jewish commentaries on Daniel by the Rabbis Saadias Hag-Gaon, Jarchi, Abarbanel, and Aben-Ezra, but not separate ones. Of later date is the commentary on Daniel and the five Megilloth, under the title (derived from Prov. ix. 17) of Bread of Secrecies, Venice, 1608; the Paraphrase of R. Joseph Ben David Jachia, Bologna, 1538, reproduced with a Latin version and annotations by Constantine l'Empereur, at Amsterdam, in 1633; a Commentary by Moses Alshech, under the title of the Rose of Sharon, produced at Saphet in Upper Galilee, in 1568, and printed at Venice in 1592; and one by R. Samuel ben Judah Valerius, Venice, 1586. Of the ecclesiastical fathers we have commentaries by Jerome, Theodoret, and Hippolytus. That of Jerome is applied chiefly to the

refutation of Porphyry, who devoted one of the twelve books which he composed against the Christians to an attack on the authenticity of Daniel. The testimonies from ancient historians which Jerome has preserved are of great value to modern interpreters. There are commentaries on Daniel by Luther, Ecolampadius, Melanchthon, Calvin, and Victor Strigel, to which the following may be added -giving only the author's name, place of publication, and date, when the title is the common one of Commentarius in Danielem. Pinto, Coimbra, 1582; Pererius, Romæ, 1586; Heilbrunneri Danielis prophetæ Vaticinia, Lauingae, 1587; Marcellinus, Venetiis, 1588; Rollock, Comment. in librum Danielis prophetæ, Edinb., 1591; Junius, Expositio propheta Danielem, Heidelb., 1593; Hugh Broughton, Exposition of Daniel's Visions, Lond., 1596; Polani, Basil, 1599; Veldius, Antwerp, 1602; Leyser, Darmstadt, 1610; Willet, Hexapla, that is a Sixfold Commentary on the Prophecies of Daniel, Lond., 1610; Sanctius, Lugd., 1612; Parker, Expositio visionum et prophetiarum Danielis, Lond., 1646; Geieri Prælectiones Academica in Danielem prophetam, Lips., 1667; Wingendorpii Prophetia Danielis paraphrasi reddita et cum prophane historic monumentis collata, Leida, 1674; Jungmanni Propheta Daniel modo novo et hactenus inaudito reseratus, etc., Cassel, 1681; Bekker, Uitlegginge van den Prophet Daniel, Amsterd., 1688; Meissner, Der heilige Prophet Daniel, etc., Hamb., 1695; Wells, A Help for the Understanding of the Book of Daniel, Lond., 1716; C. B. Michaelis, Adnotationes philologico-exegetica in Danielem, Halle, 1720; Petersen, Sinn des Geistes in dem Prophetem Danielem, Frankf., 1720; Newton (Sir Isaac), Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, Lond., 1733; Koch, Entsiegelter Daniel, Lemgo, 1740; Venema, Dissertationes ad Vaticinia Danielis emblematica cap. II. VII. et VIII. Leovard., 1746; Venema, Comm. ad Danielis cap. XI. 4-XII. 3, Leovard., 1752; Roos, Auslegung der Weissagungen Daniels, Leipz., 1771; Harenberg, Aufklärung des Buchs Daniels, etc., Blankenburg, 1773; Amner, An Essay towards an interpretation of the Prophecies of Daniel, Lond., 1776; Zeise, Uebersetzung und Erklärung des Buchs Daniel, Dresd., 1777; Wintle, Daniel; an improved Version attempted, with a Preliminary Dissertation, and Notes, critical, historical, and explanatory, Lond., 1792; Thube, Das Buch des Propheten Daniels, Schwerin, 1797; Bertholdt, Daniel, aus dem Hebraisch-Aramäischen neu übersetzt und erklärt, mit einer vollständigen Einleitung, und einigen Historischen und Exigetischen Excursen, Erlangen, 1806; Bleek, Ueber Verfasser und Zweck des Buchs Daniel, Berlin, 1822; Wilson, Hora Prophetica, or Dissertations on the Book of the Prophet Daniel; Kirms, Commentatio historico-critica, exhibens descriptionem et censuram recentium de Danielis libro opinionum, Jenæ, 1828; Hävernick, Commentar über das Buch Daniel, Hamb., 1832; Langerke, Das Buch Daniel, Konigsb., 1835. Besides these works there is a vast number of Dissertations on particular parts of Daniel, and on the interpretation of his Prophecies. Of these our English theologians have contributed a far larger proportional share than of regular Commentaries on the Book. [Hengstenberg, Dissertations on the Genuineness of Daniel, 1847.]

12 Kings 24. 1. 2 Chron. 36. 6.

dah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.

3 And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the princes;

4 Children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans.

5 And the king appointed them a daily provision of the king's meat, and of 'the wine which he drank: so nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the king.

2 Heb. the wine of his drink.

8 Or, he made Daniel understand.