3jg\>*^^^^ ott^« ''^^min '^■¥ PRINCETON, N. J. ^^if. Shelf ^ Division , X) w.^^ Srftion , EHx> Number X\ THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE . EDITED BY THE REV, W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M,A., LL.D. Editor of "The Ex/>osiior" THE BOOK OF DANIEL F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S, NEW YORK A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON 51 EAST TENTH STREET 1895 THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. Crown Svo, cloth^ price $ 1.50 each vol. First Series, 1887-8. Fifth Series, 1891-2. , Colossians. The Psalms. By A. Maclarhn, D.D, By A. Maclaren, D.D. Vol. I. St. Mark. 1 and 2 Thessalonians. By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh. By James Dennev, D.D. Genesis. The Book of Job. By Prof. Marcus Dods, D.D. By R. A. Watson, M.A., D.D. 1 Samuel. Ephesians. By Prof. W. G. Blaikie, D.D. By Prof. G. G. Findlav, B.A. 2 Samuel. The Gospel of St. John. By the same Author. By Prof. M. Dods, D.D. Vol. II. Hebrews. The Acts of the Apostles. By Principal T.C. Edwards.D.D. By Prof. Stokes, D.D. Vol. II. Second Series, 1888-9. Sixth Series, 1892-3. Galatians. 1 Kings. By Ven. Archdeacon Farrar. By Prof. G. G. FiNDLAV, B.A. The Pastoral Epistles. Philippians. By Principal Rainy, D.D. By Rev. A. Plummer, D.D. Isaiah i. — xxxix. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther. By Prof. G. A. Smith, D.D. By Prof W. F. Adeney, M.A. Vol. I. Joshua. The Book of Revelation. By Prof. W. G. Blaikie, D.D. By Prof. W. Milligan, D.D. The Psalms. 1 Corinthians. ByA. Maclaren, D.D. Vol.11. By Prof. Marcus Dods, D.D. The Epistles of St. Peter. The Epistles of St. John. By Prof. Rawson Lumby, D.D. By Rt. Rev. W. Alexandhr,D.D. Seventh Series, 1893-4. Third Series, 1889-90. 2 Kings. By Ven. Archdeacon Farrar. Judges and Ruth. By R. A. Watson, M.A., D.D. Romans. Jeremiah. By H. C. G. MouLE, M.A. By Rev. C. J. Ball, M.A. ' The Books of Chronicles. Isaiah XL. — lxvi. , -' By Prof. W. H. Bennett,- M.A. By Prof. G. A. Smith, D.D. 2 Corinthians. Vol.11. . :■. By James Denney, D.D. St. Matthew. . Numbers. By Rev. J. Monro:Gibson, D.D. By R. a. -Watson, M.A., D.D. Exodus. The Psalms. By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh. - ByA. Maclaren, D.D. Vol. III. St. Luke. ' f. By Rev. H. Burton, M.A. - EIGHTH series, 1895-6. -Daniel. By Ven. Archdeacon Farrar. Fourth Series, 1890-1. Ecclesiastes. The Book of Jeremiah. By Rev. Samuel Cox, D.D. By Prof. W. H. Bennett, M.A. St. James and St. Jude. Deuteronomy. By Rev. A. Plummer, D.D. By Prof. Andrew Harper, B.D. Proverbs. The Song of Solomon and By Rev. R. F. Horton, D.D. Lamentations. Leviticus. By Prof. W. F. Adeney, M.A. By Rev. S. H. Keli or,r,, D.D. Ezekiel. The Gospel of St. John. By Prof. John Skinner, M.A. By Prof. M. Dods, D.D. Vol. I. The Minor Prophets. By Prof. G. A. Smith, D.D. . The Acts of the Apostles. By Prof. Stokes, D.D. Vol. I. Two Vols. THE BOOK OF DANIEL F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S. LAIE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE ; ARCHDEACON OF WESTMINSTER X) NEW YORK A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON 51 EAST TENTH STREET 1895 CONTENTS PART I INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I PAGE THE HISTORIC EXISTENCE OF THE PROPHET DANIEL . 3 CHAPTER n GENERAL SURVEY OF THE BOOK. • 13 I. THE LANGUAGE ..... • 13 2. UNITY ...... . 24 3. GENERAL TONE ..... . 27 4. STYLE ...... . 29 5. STANDPOINT OF ITS AUTHOR • 31 6. MORAL ELEMENT ..... • 34 CHAPTER HI PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORICAL SECTION 39 CHAPTER IV GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK V . 63 vi CONTENTS CHAPTER V PAGE THE THEOLOGY OF THE BOOK 67 CHAPTER VI PECULIARITIES OF THE APOCALYPTIC AND PROPHETIC SECTION OF THE BOOK 7 1 CHAPTER VII INTERNAL EVIDENCE . 78 CHAPTER VIII EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF THE GENUINENESS UNCERTAIN AND INADEQUATE . ... . . .88 CHAPTER IX EXTERNAL EVIDENCE AND RECEPTION INTO THE CANON 9^ CHAPTER X SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION II3 PART II COMMENTARY ON THE HISTORIC SECTION CHAPTER I THE PRELUDE 1 23 CHAPTER II THE DREAM-IMAGE OF RUINED EMPIRES . . . I4I CONTENTS CHAPTER III PAGE THE IDOL OF GOLD, AND THE FAITHFUL THREE . 167 CHAPTER IV THE BABYLONIAN CEDAR, AND THE STRICKEN DESPOT 1 84 CHAPTER V THE FIERY INSCRIPTION 203 CHAPTER VI STOPPING THE MOUTHS OF LIONS . . . . 2l8 PART III THE PROPHETIC SECTION OF THE BOOK CHAPTER I VISION OF THE FOUR WILD BEASTS .... ^233 CHAPTER II THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT 252 CHAPTER III THE SEVENTY WEEKS 268 CHAPTER IV INTRODUCTION TO THE CONCLUDING VISION . . 292 CONTENTS CHAPTER V PAGE AN ENIGMATIC PROPHECY PASSING INTO DETAILS OF THE REIGN OF ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES . . 299 CHAPTER VI THE EPILOGUE . . . . . . . • 319 APPENDIX APPROXIMATE CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES . . . 333 GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE LAGID^, PTOLEMIES, AND SELEUCIDiE 334 AUTHORITIES CONSULTED COMMENTARIES AND TREATISES The chief Rabbinic Commentaries were those of Rashi (f 1105) ; Abn Ezra (t 1167) ; Kimchi (f 1240) ; Abrabanel (f 1507).' The chief Patristic Commentary is that by St. Jerome. Frag- ments are preserved of other Commentaries by Origen, Hippo- lytus, Ephraem Syrus, Julius Africanus, Theodoret, Athanasius, Basil, Eusebius, Polychronius, etc. (Mai, Script. Vet. Nov. Coll., i.). The vScholastic 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 {0pp. Germ., vi., ed. Walch). CEcolampadius, In Dan. libri duo. Basle, 1530. Melancthon, Comm. in Dan. Wittenburg, 1 543. Calvin, Prcelect. 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. Rosenmiiller, Scholia. 1832. Havernick. 1832 and 1838. Hengstenberg. • 1831. There are Commentaries by Von Lengerke, 1835 ; Maurer, 1838 ; Hitzig, 1850; Ewald, 1867 ; Kliefoth, 1868; Keil, 1869; Kranich- feld, 1868; Kamphausen, 1868; Meinhold {Ktirzgefasster Kom- mentar\ 1889 ; Auberlen, 1857 ; Archdeacon Rose and Prof. ' The Commentary which passes as that of Saadia the Gaon is said to be spurious. His genuine Commentary only exists in manuscript. AUTHORITIES CONSULTED J. M. Fuller {Speaker's Commentary), 1876; Rev, H. J. Deane (Bishop Ellicott's Commentary), 1884; Zockler (Lange's ^/^(?/- werk), 1889; A. A. Bevan {Cambridge), 1893; Meinhold, Bei- trcige, 1888. The latest Commentary which has appeared is that by Haupt- pastor Behrmann, in the Handko?nmeittar z. Alien Testa?nent. Gottingen, 1894. Discussions in the various Introductions {Einleitungen, etc.) by Bleek, De Wette, Keil, Stalielin, Reuss, Comely, Dr. S. Davidson, Kleinert, Cornill, Konig, 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 Realworterbuch, Second Edition. Delitzsch, in Herzog's Real-E7icyclopddie. Graf, in Schenkel's Bibel-Lexicon, i. 564. Bishop Westcott, in Dr. W. Smith's Bible Dictionary, New Edition. 1893. Hamburger, Real-Encyclopddiey ii., s.v. " Geheimlehre," p. 265 ; s.vv. " Daniel," pp. 223-225 ; and Heiliges Schriftthic7n. TREATISES 'RM?>^^\'W2LrWi\^2i'w, Theological Review. 1865. Prof. Margoliouth, The Expositor. April 1890. Prof. J. M. Fuller, The Expositor, Third Series, vols, i., ii. T. K. Cheyne, Encyclopcsdia Britannica, vi. 803. Prof. Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the Monume7tts. 1 894. Prof. S. R. Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testameiit, 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 Zockler, Kurzgefasster Konmietitar, 1889). Meinhold, Erkldi'ung des Buchcs Daniels. 1889. A UTII OR/TIES CONS UL TED TREATISES OR DISCUSSIONS BY Dr. Pusey, Daniel the Prophet. 1864. T. R. Birks, The Later Visions of Daniel. 1846, Ellicott, Horce Apocalypticce . 1844. Tregelles, Re?ftarks on the Prophetic Visio?is of Daniel. 1852. Hilgenfeld, Die Propheten Ezra u. Daniel. 1863. Baxmann, Stud. u. Krit.^ iii. 489 ff. 1863. Desprez, Daniel. 1865. Hofmann, Weissagung und Erfullung^ i. 276-316. Kuenen, Prophets aftd Prophecy in Israel, E. Tr. 1877. Evvald, Die Prophete7t des Alien Bundes, iii. 298. 1868. Hilgenfeld, Die jUdische Apokalyptic. 1857. Lenormant, La Divination chez les Chaldeans. 1875. Fabre d'Envieu, Le livre du Prophete Daniel. 1888. Hebbelyuck, De auctoritate libr. Danielis. 1887. Kohler, Bibl. Geschichte. 1893. INSCRIPTIONS AND MONUMENTS Babylonian, Persian, and Median inscriptions bearing on the Book of Daniel are given by : — Schrader, Keilinschriften tmd d. A. T., E. Tr., 1885-88; and in Records of the Past. See too Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticaru?n. Sayce, The Higher Criticism, pp. 497-537. These inscriptions have been referred to also by Cornill, Nestle, Noldeke, Lagarde, etc. HISTORIES AND OTHER BOOKS Sketches and fragments of many ancient historians : — Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicce, 11. x., xi,, xii. The Books of Maccabees. Piideaux, Connection of the Old and New Testaments, ed. Oxford. 1828. Evvald, Gesch. des Volkes Israel. 1843-50. Gratz, Gesch. der Juden, Second Edition. 1863. Jost, Gesch. d. Jtidenthums tmd seinen Sekten, \. 90-116. Leipzig, 1857. AUTHORITIES CONSULTED Herzfeld, Gesch. des Volkes Israel^ ii. 416. 1863. Van Oort, Bible for Young People, E. Tr. 1877. Kittel, Gesch. d. Hebraer, ii. 1892. Schiirer, Gesch. d.jiidischen Volkes. Leipzig, 1890. Jahn, Hebrew Commonwealth, E, Tr. 1828. Droysen, Gesch. d. Hellenismus, ii. 211. E. Meyer, Gesch. d. Alterthtmis, 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. Noldeke, D. Alttest. Literatur. 1868. Fraidl, Exegese d. 70 Wochen Daniels. 1883. Menken, Die Monarchietibild. 1887. Kamphausen, Das Buch Daniel in die neuere Geschichts- forschung. Leipzig, 1893. Lennep, De Zeventig Jaarweken van Daniel. Utrecht, 1888. Dr. M. Joel, Notizen zum Buche Daniel. Breslau, 1873. Derenbourg, Les Mots grecs dans le Livre biblique de Daniel. Melanges Graux, 1888. Cornill, Die Siebzig Jahrwochen Daniels. 1889. Wolf, Die Siebzig Wochen Daniels. 1859. Sanday, Inspiration (Bampton Lectures). 1894. Sayce, Hibbert Lectures. 1 887. Roszmann, Die Makkabeische Erhebung. J. F. Hoffmann, Antiochus IV. {Epiphanes). 1873. Speaker's Commentary on Tobit, i, 2 Maccabees, etc. 1888. PART I INTRO D UCTION 'E7U) ix.kv oZv irepl tovtwv ws eSpov Kal dv&yvwv, oOtws ^pa\f/a' el de Tis dXXws do^d^eiv ^ovkyjaeraL ire pi avrwv dvejK'KTjTov c'x^w Tr)P irepoyvwixoavvrfv. — 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 THE BOOK OF DANIEL 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 in- disputable, and there is scarcely a single book of the Old Testament which can be made more richly ** pro- fitable 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 archaeological 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 power- ful 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 The historic existence of the prophet 5 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 " ; ^ under Darius he was President of the Board of Three to " whom all the satraps " sent their accounts;^ and he was continued in office and prosperity under Cyrus the Persian.^ 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 Hterature, to teach lessons of faith and conduct by the example of eminent sages or saints.^ The few other fictitious ' Dan. ii. 48. ^ Dan. V. 29, vi. 2. ^ Dan. vi. 28. There is a Daniel of the sons of Ithamar in Ezra viii. 2, and among those who sealed the covenant in Neh. x. 6. ' For a full account of the Agada (also called Agadtha and Haggada), I must refer the reader to Hamburger's Real-Encyklopddie fur Bibel imd Talmud, ii. 19-27, 921-934. The first two forms of the words are Aramaic ; the third was a Hebrew form in use among the Jews in Babylonia. The word is derived from 133^ "to say" or "explain." Halacha was the rule of religious praxis, a sort of Directorium Judaicum : Haggada was the result of free religious reflection. See further Strack, Einl. in den Thalmud, iv. 122. THE BOOK OF DANIEL fragments preserved by Fabricius have not the smallest importance/ Josephus, beyond mentioning that Daniel and his three companions were of the family of King Zedekiah,^ 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."^ 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."* 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.^ 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 ; ' Fabricius, Cod. Pseudepigr. Vet. Test., i. 1 124. 2 Jos., Antt., X. xi. 7. But Pseudo-Epiphanius (/?., in Aramaic. The word may be a gloss, as it is in Ezra iv. 7 (Lenormant). See, however, Kamphausen, p. 14. We cannot here enter into minor points, such as that in ii.-vi. we have •l^i'J for "see," and in vii. 2, 3, -IIX ; which Meinhold takes to prove that the historic section is earlier than the prophetic. GENERAL SURVEY 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. ^ 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 v/orld-powers in their relation to Israel the people of God.^ 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 introduc- tion 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 Mein- hold think that the Aramaic and Hebrew parts are of different origin. Konig supposes that the Aramaic sections were meant to indicate special reference to the Syrians and Antiochus.^ Some critics have thought it possible that the Aramaic sections were once written in Hebrew. That the text of Daniel has not been very » Driver, p. 471 ; Noldeke, Enc. Brit., xxi. 647; Wright, Grammar, p. 16. Ad. Merx has a treatise on Cur in lib. Dan. juxta Hebr. Ara- maica sit adhibita dialedus, 1865 ; but his solution, " Scriptorem omnia quae rudioribus vulgi ingeniis apta viderentur Aramaice praeposuisse " is wholly untenable. - Auberlen, Dan., pp. 28, 29 (E. Tr.). " Einleit., § t^Zi. i6 THE BOOK OF DANIEL carefully kept becomes clear from the liberties to which it was subjected by the Septuagint translators. If the Hebrew of Jer. x. ii (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.^ The Talmud throws no light on the question. It only says that — i. ^' The men of the Great Synagogue wrote "^ — by which is perhaps meant that they ^'edited" — '*the Book of Ezekiel, the Twelve Minor Prophets, the Book of Daniel, and the Book of Ezra " ; ^ and that — ii. " The Chaldee passages in the Book of Ezra and the Book of Daniel defile the hands^^ The first of these two passages is merely an assertion that the preservation, the arrangement, and the admis- sion into the Canon of the books mentioned was due to the body of scribes and priests — a very shadowy and unhistorical body — known as the Great Synagogue.^ The second passage sounds startling, but is nothing more than an authoritative declaration that the Chaldee sections of Daniel and Ezra are still parts of Holy Scripture, though not written in the sacred language. It is a standing rule of the Talmudists that All Holy Scripture defiles the hands — even the long-disputed Books of Ecclesiastes and Canticles.^ Lest any should ' Cheyne, Enc. Brit., s.v. " Daniel." "^ XITO. See 2 Esdras xiv. 22-48 : " In forty days they wrote two hundred and four books." ^ Baba-Bathra, f. 15, 6 : comp. Sanhedrtn, f. 83, 6. •* Yaddayim, iv. ; Mtsh., 5. * See Rau, De Synag. Magna., ii. 66 ff. ; Kuenen, Over de Mannen der Groote Synagoge, 1876 ; Ewald, Hist, of Israel^ v. 168-170 (E. Tr.) ; Westcott, s.v. ''Canon ' (Smith's Diet., i. 500). ® Yaddayim, iii. ; Mish., 5 ; Hershon, Treasures of the Talmud, pp. 41-43- GENERAL SURVEY 17 misdoubt the sacredness of the Chaldee sections, they are expressly included in the rule. It seems to have originated thus : The eatables of the heave offerings were kept in close proximity to the scroll of the Lav^, for both w^ere considered equally sacred. If a mouse or rat happened to nibble either, the offerings and the books became defiled, and therefore defiled the hands that touched them.^ To guard against this hypothetical defilement it vi^as decided that all handling of the Scriptures should be follow^ed by ceremonial ablutions. To say that the Chaldee chapters '' defile the hands " is the Rabbinic v^ay of declaring their Canonicity. Perhaps nothing certain can be inferred from the philological examination either of the Hebrew or of the Chaldee portions of the Book ; but they seem to indicate a date not earlier than the age of Alexander (b.c. 333). On this part of the subject there has been a great deal of rash and incompetent assertion. It involves delicate problems on which an independent and a valuable opinion can only be offered by the merest handful of living scholars, and respecting which even these scholars sometimes disagree. In deciding upon such points ordinary students can only weigh the authority and the arguments of specialists who have devoted a minute and lifelong study to the grammar and history of the Semitic languages. I know no higher contemporary authorities on the date of Hebrew writings than the late veteran scholar F. Delitzsch and Professor Driver. I. Nothing was more beautiful and remarkable in Pro- fessor Delitzsch than the open-minded candour which compelled him to the last to advance with advancing ' Hershon {I.e.) refers to Shabbath, f. 14, i. THE BOOK OF DANIEL thought; to admit all fresh elements of evidence; to continue his education as a Biblical inquirer to the latest days of his life ; and without hesitation to correct, modify, or even reverse his previous conclusions in accordance with the results of deeper study and fresh discoveries. He wrote the article on Daniel in Herzog's Real-Encyclopddie, and in the first edition of that work maintained its genuineness ; but in the later editions (iii. 470) his views approximate more and more to those of the Higher Criticism. Of the Hebrew of Daniel he says that "it attaches itself here and there to Eze- kiel, and also to Habakkuk ; in general character it resembles the Hebrew of the Chronicler who wrote shortly before the beginning of the Greek period (b.c. 332), and as compared either with the ancient Hebrew, or with the Hebrew of the Mishnah is full of singu- larities and harshnesses of style." ^ So far, then, it is clear that, if the Hebrew mainly resembles that of B.C. 332, it is hardly likely that it should have been written before e.g. 536. Professor Driver says, " The Hebrew of Daniel in all distinctive features resembles, not the Hebrew of Ezekiel, or even of Haggai and Zechariah, but that of the age subsequent to Nehemiah " — whose age forms the great turning-point in Hebrew style. He proceeds to give a list of linguistic peculiarities in support of this view, and other specimens of sen- tences constructed, not in the style of classical Hebrew, ' Herzog, I.e. ; so too Konig, Emleit, § 387 : " Das Hebr. der B. Dan. ist nicht bios nachexilisch sondern auch nachchronistisch." He instances ribbo (Dan. xi. 12) for reboba, "myriads" (Ezek. xvi. 7); and tam'id, "the daily burnt oflfering" (Dan. viii. Il), as post-Biblical Hebrew for 'olath hatamtd (Neh. x. 34), etc. Margoliouth {Expositor, April 1890) thinks that the Hebrew proves a date before B.C. 168 : on which view see Driver, p. 483. GENERAL SURVEY 19 but in "the later uncouth style" of the Book of Chronicles. He points out in a note that it is no explanation of these peculiarities to argue that, during his long exile, Daniel may have partially forgotten the language of his youth ; " for this would not account for the resemblance of the new and decadent idioms to those which appeared in Palestine independently two hundred and fifty years afterwards." ^ Behrmann, in the latest commentary on Daniel, mentions, in proof of the late character of the Hebrew : (i) the introduction of Persian words which could not have been used in Babylonian before the conquest of Cyrus (as in i. 3, 5, xi. 45, etc. ; (2) many Aramaic or Aramaising words, expressions-, and grammatical forms (as in i. 5, 10, 12, 16, viii. 18, 22, X. 17, 21, etc.); (3) neglect of strict accuracy in the use of the Hebrew tenses (as in viii. 14, ix. 3 f., xi. 4f., etc.) ; (4) the borrowing of archaic expressions from ancient sources (as in viii. 26, ix. 2, xi. 10, 40, etc.) ; (5.) the use of technical terms and periphrases common in Jewish apocalypses (xi. 6, 13, 35, 40, etc.).2 2. These views of the character of the Hebrew agree with those of previous scholars. Bertholdt and Kirms declare that its character differs toto genere from what might have been expected had the Book been genuine. Gesenius says that the language is even more corrupt than that of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi. Professor Driver says the Persian words presuppose a period after the Persian Empire had been well established ; the Greek words demand ^ the Hebrew supports ^ and the Aramaic permits a date after the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great. De Wette and Ewald have ^ Lit, of Old Test, pp. 473-476. ^ Das Buck Dan., iii. 20 THE BOOK OF DANIEL pointed out the lack of the old passionate spontaneity of early prophecy ; the absence of the numerous and profound paronomasiae, or plays on words, which cha- racterised the burning oratory of the prophets ; and the peculiarities of the style— which is sometimes obscure and careless, sometimes pompous, iterative, and artificial.^ 3. It is noteworthy that in this Book the name of the great Babylonian conqueror, with whom, in the narrative part, Daniel is thrown into such close con- nexion, is invariably written in the absolutely erroneous form which his name assumed in later centuries— Nebuchadnezzar. A contemporary, familiar with the Babylonian language, could not have been ignorant of the fact that the only correct form of the name is Nebuchad;^zzar — />., Nebu-kudurri-utsur, '' Nebo pro- tect the throne." 2 4. But the erroneous form Neduchad;?ezzar is not the only one which entirely militates against the notion of a contemporary writer. There seem to be other mistakes about Babylonian matters into which a person in Daniel's position could not have fallen. Thus the name Belteshazzar seems to be connected in the writer's mind with Bel, the favourite deity of Nebuchadrezzar; but it can only mean Balatu-utsur, *' his life protect," which looks Hke a mutilation. Ahed-nego is an astonishingly corrupt form for Abed- nabu, '' the servant of Nebo." Hammelzar, Shadrach, Meshach, Ashpenaz, are declared by Assyriologists to ' See Glassius, Philol. Sacr., p. 931 ; Ewald, Die Proph. d. A. Bundes, i. 48 ; De Wette, Einleit., § 347. "^ Ezekiel always uses the correct form (xxvi. 7, xxix. 18, xxx. 10]. Jeremiah uses the correct form except in passages which properly belong to the Book of Kings. GENERAL SURVEY be " out of keeping with Babylonian science." In ii. 48 signin means a civil ruler ; — does not imply Archimagus, as the context seems to require, but, according to Lenor- mant, a high civil officer. . 5. The Aramaic of Daniel closely resembles that of Ezra. Noldeke calls it a Palestinian or Western Aramaic dialect, later than that of the Book of Ezra.^ It is of earlier type than that of the Targums of Jonathan and Onkelos ; but that fact has very little bearing on the date of the Book, because the differ- ences are slight, and the resemblances manifold, and the Targums did not appear till after the Christian Era, nor assume their present shape perhaps before the fourth century. Further, '* recently discovered in- scriptions have shown that many of the forms in which the Aramaic of Daniel differs from that of the Targums were actually in use in neighbouring countries down to the first century a.d." ^ 6. Two further philological considerations bear on the age of the Book. i. One of these is the existence of no less than fifteen Persian words (according to Noldeke and others), especially in the Aramaic part. These words, ' Noldeke, Seinit. Spr., p. 30 ; Driver, p. 472 ; Konig, p. 387. - Driver, p. 472, and the authorities there quoted ; as against McGill and Pusey (Darnel, pp. 45 ff., 602 ff.). Dr. Pusey's is the fullest repertory of arguments in favour of the authenticity of Daniel, many of which have become more and more obviously untenable as criticism advances. But he and Keil add little or nothing to what had been ingeniously elaborated by Hengstenberg and Havernick. For a sketch of the peculiarities in the Aramaic see Behrmann, Darnel, v.-x. Renan (Hist. Gen. des Langites Sem., p. 219) exaggerates when he says, " La langue des parties chaldennes est beaucoup plus basse que celle des fragments chaldeens du Livre d'Esdras, et s'incline beaucoup vers la langue du Talmud."' THE BOOK OF DANIEL which would not be surprising after the complete establishment of the Persian Empire, are surprising in passages which describe Babylonian institutions before the conquest of Cyrus.-^ Various attempts have been made to account for this phenomenon. Professor Fuller attempts to show, but with little success, that some of them may be Semitic.^ Others argue that they are amply accounted for by the Persian trade which, as may be seen from the Records of the Past^^ existed between Persia and Babylonia as early as the days of Belshazzar. To this it is replied that some of the words are not of a kind which one nation would at once borrow from another,"^ and that " no Persian words have hitherto been found in Assyrian or Babylonian inscriptions prior to the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus, except the name of the god Mithra." ii. But the linguistic evidence unfavourable to the genuineness of the Book of Daniel is far stronger than this, in the startling fact that it contains at least three Greek words. After giving the fullest consideration to all that has been urged in refutation of the conclusion, this circumstance has always been to me a strong con- firm.ation of the view that the Book of Daniel in its present form is not older than the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. Those three Greek words occur in the list of musical instruments mentioned in iii. 5, 7, 10, 15. They are : Dnn"'p, kitharos, KLOapi,<;, '* harp " ; |nn:D3, psanterin^ ' Meinhold, Beitmge, pp. 30-32 ; Driver, p. 470. "^ Speaker's Commentary, vi. 246-250. ' New Series, iii. 124. * E.g., DTH, "limb"; T*l, "secret"; DJDD, "message." There are no Persian words in Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, or Malachi ; they are found in Ezra and Esther, which were written long after the establish- ment of the Persian Empire. GENERAL SURVEY 23 -r^dKrrjpLoVy "psaltery";^ i^>iTi^)OySflmpdnyah, a-v/iKpcoPia, A.V. " dulcimer," but perhaps '' bagpipes." ^ Be it remembered that these musical instruments are described as having been used at the great idol-festival of Nebuchadrezzar (b.c. 550). Now, this is the date at which Pisistratus was tyrant at Athens, in the days of Pythagoras and Polycrates, before Athens became a fixed democracy. It is just conceivable that in those days the Babylonians might have borrowed from Greece the word kilhan's.^ It is, indeed, supremely unlikely^ because the harp had been known in the East from the earliest days ; and it is at least as probable that Greece, which at this time was only beginning to sit as a learner at the feet of the immemorial East, borrowed the idea of the instrument from Asia. Let it, however, be admitted that such words as yayiriy '' wine " (otz^o?), lapptdy " a torch " (Xa/jbird^;), and a few others, may indi- cate some early intercourse between Greece and the East, and that some commercial relations of a rudi- mentary kind were existent even in prehistoric days."^ But what are we to say of the two other words ? Both are derivatives. Psalterion does not occur in Greek before Aristotle (d. 322) ; nor siimphonia before Plato (d. 347). In relation to music, and probably as the name of a musical instrument, sumphonia is first ' The change oiniox /is not uncommon : comp. fievriop, ivTaTOS, etc. ^ The word i^Dlb*, Sab'ka, also bears a suspicious resemblance to (xafjL^vKT], but Athienaeus says (Detpnos., iv. 173) that the instru- ment was invented by the Syrians. Some have seen in kdros (iii. 4, " herald ") the Greek Krjpv^, and in hamtiik, " chain," the Greek fiapiaKrjs : but these cannot be pressed. ^ It is true that there was some small intercourse between even the Assyrians and lonians (Ja-am-na-a) -as far back as the days of Sargon (b.c. 722-705) ; but not enough to account for such words. * Sayce, Contemp. Rev., December 1878, 24 THE BOOK OF DANIEL used by Polybius (xxvi. lO, § 5, xxxi. 4, § 8), and in express connexion with the festivities of the very king with whom the apocalpytic section of Daniel is mainly occupied — Antiochus Epiphanes.^ The attempts of Professor Fuller and others to derive these words from Semitic roots are a desperate resource, and cannot win the assent of a single trained philologist. '' These words," says Professor Driver, ** could not have been used in the Book of Daniel, unless it had been written after the dissemination of Greek influence in Asia through the conquest of Alexander the Great. "^ 2. The Unity of the Book The Unity of the Book of Daniel is now generally admitted. No one thought of questioning it in days before the dawn of criticism, but in 1772 Eichhorn and Corrodi doubted the genuineness of the Book. J. D. Michaelis endeavoured to prove that it was ''a col- lection of fugitive pieces," consisting of six historic pictures, followed by four prophetic visions.^ Bertholdt, followed the erroneous tendency of criticism which found a foremost exponent in Ewald, and imagined the possibility of detecting the work of many different ' Some argue that in this passage av/mcpcovia means "a concert" (com p. Luke XV. 25) ; but Polybius mentions it with " a horn " (KepdrLov). Behrmann (p. ix) connects it with a'Kpwv, and makes it mean "a pipe." - Pusey says all he can on the other side (pp. 23-28), and has not changed the opinion of scholars (pp. 27-33). fabre d'Envieu (i. lOi) also desperately denies the existence of any Greek words. On the other side see Derenbourg, Les Mots grecs dans le Livre bibliqiie de Daniel (Melanges Graux, 1884). ^ Orient, u. Exeg. Bibliothek, 1772, p. 141. This view was revived by Lagarde in the Gbttingen Gel. Anzeigen, 1 891. GENERAL SURVEY 25 hands. He divided the Book into fragments by nine different authors.^ Zockler, in Lange's Bibelwerky persuaded himself that the old ''orthodox" views of Hengstenberg and Auberlen were right ; but he could only do this by sacrificing the authenticity of parts of the Book, and assuming more than one redaction. Thus he supposes that xi. 5-39 are an interpolation by a writer in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. Similarly, Lenormant admits interpolations in the first half of the Book. But to concede this is practically to give up the Book of Daniel as it now stands. The ttJiity of the Book of Daniel is still admitted or assumed by most critics.^ It has only been recently questioned in two directions. Meinhold thinks that the Aramaic and historic sec- ^ Daniel neu Ubersetz. u. Erkldrt., 1808; KohX^r, Lehrbuch/u. 577. The first who suspected the unity of the Book because of the two languages was Spinoza (Tract-lnstoricopol, x. 130 ff.). Newton {Obser- vations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse, i. 10) and Beausobre (Remarques sur le Nouv. Test., i. 70) shared the doubt because of the use of the first person in the prophetic (Dan. vii,-xii.) and the third in the historic section (Dan. i.-vi.). Michaelis, Bertholdt, and Reuss considered that its origin was fragmentary ; and Lagarde (who dated the seventh chapter a.d. 69) calls it "a bundle of fly- leaves." Meinhold and Strack, like Eichhorn, regard the historic section as older than the prophetic ; and Cornill thinks that the Book was put together in great haste. Similarly, Graf {Der Prophet J eremia) regards the Aramaic verse, Jer. x. 1 1, as a marginal gloss. Lagarde argues, from the silence of Josephus about many points, that he could not have had the present Book of Daniel before him {e.g., Dan. vii, or ix.-xii.) ; but the argument is unsafe. Josephus seems to have understood the Fourth Empire to be the Roman, and did not venture to write of its destruction. For this reason he does not explain "the stone" of Dan. ii. 45. 2 By De Wette, Schrader, Hitzig, Ewald, Gesenius, Bleek, Delitzsch, Von Lengerke, Stahelin, Kamphausen, Wellhausen, etc. Reuss, however, says {Heil. Schrift., p. 575), " Man konnte auf die Vorstellung 26 THE BOOK OF DANIEL tions are older than the rest of the Book, and were written about B.C. 300 to convert the Gentiles to monotheism.^ He argues that the apocalpytic section was written later, and was subsequently incorporated with the Book. A somewhat similar view is held by Zockler,^ and some have thought that Daniel could never have written of himself in such highly favour- able terms as, e.g., in Dan. vi. 4.^ The first chapter, which is essential as an introduction to the Book, and the seventh, which is apocalpytic, and is yet in Aramaic, create objections to the acceptance of this theory. Further, it is impossible not to observe a certain unity of style and parallelism of treatment between the two parts. Thus, if the prophetic section is mainly devoted to Antiochus Epiphanes, the historic section seems to have an allusive bearing on his impious madness. In ii. 10, II, and vi. 8, we have descriptions of daring Pagan edicts, which might be intended to furnish a contrast with the attempts of Antiochus to suppress the worship of God. The feast of Belshazzar may well be a ** reference to the Syrian despot's revelries at Daphne." Again, in ii. 43 — where the mixture of iron and clay is explained by "they shall mingle themselves with the kommen das Buch habe mehr als einen Verfasser"; and Konig thinks that the original form of the book may have ended with chap. vii. {Einlcit, § 384). ' Beitrage, 1 888. See too Kranichfeld, Das Buch Daniel, p. 4. The view is refuted by Budde, Theol. Lit. Zeitung, 1888, No. 26, The conjecture has often occurred to critics. Thus Sir Isaac Newton, believing that Daniel wrote the last six chapters, thought that the six first " are a collection of historical papers written by others " (Obse)'vaticns, i. 10). - Einleit., p. 6. ^ Other critics who incline to one or other modification of this view of the two Daniels are Tholuck, d. A. T. in N. T., 1872; C. v. Orelli, Alitest. Weissag., 1882 ; and Strack, GENERAL SURVEY 27 seed of men " — it seems far from improbable that there is a reference to the unhappy intermarriages of Ptolemies and Seleiicidae. Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus), married Antiochus II. (Theos), and this is alluded to in the vision of xi. 6. Cleopatra, daughter of Antiochus III. (the Great), married Ptolemy V. (Epiphanes), which is alluded to in xi. ly} The style seems to be stamped throughout with the characteristics of an individual mind, and the most cursory glance suffices to show that the historic and prophetic parts are united by many points of connexion and resem- blance. Meinhold is quite unsuccessful in the attempt to prove a sharp contrast of views between the sections. The interchange of persons — the third person being mainly used in the first seven chapters, and the first person in the last five — may be partly due to the final editor ; but in any case it may easily be paralleled, and is found in other writers, as in Isaiah (vii. 3, xx. 2) and the Bpok of Enoch (xii.). But it may be said in general that the authenticit}^ of the Book is now rarely defended by any competent critic, except at the cost of abandoning certain sections of it as interpolated additions ; and as Mr. Bevan some- what caustically remarks, ''the defenders of Daniel have, during the last few years, been employed chiefly in cutting Daniel to pieces." ^ 3. The General Tone of the Book The general tone of the Book marks a new era in the education and progress of the Jews. The lessons ' Hengstenberg also points to verbal resemblances between ii. 44 and vii. 14; iv, 5 and vii. i ; ii. 31 and vii. 2; ii. 38 and vii. 17, etc. (Genuineness of Daniel, E. Tr., pp. 186 ff.). ^ A Short Commsniary, p. 8. THE BOOK OF DANIEL of the Exile uplifted them from a too narrow and absorbing particularism to a wider interest in the destinies of humanity. They were led to recognise that God '' has made of one every nation of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habita- tion ; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us."^ The standpoint of the Book of Daniel is larger and more cosmopolitan in this re- spect than that of earlier prophecy. Israel had begun to mingle more closely with other nations, and to be a sharer in their destinies. Politically the Hebrew race no longer formed a small though independent kingdom, but was reduced to the position of an entirely insigni- ficant sub-province in a mighty empire. The Messiah is no longer the Son of David, but the Son of Man ; no longer only the King of Israel, but of the world. Mankind — not only the seed of Jacob — fills the field of prophetic vision. Amid widening horizons of thought the Jews turned their eyes upon a great past, rich in events, and crowded with the figures of heroes, saints, and sages. At the same time the world seemed to be growing old, and its ever-deepening wickedness seemed to call for some final judgment. We begin to trace in the Hebrew writings the colossal conceptions, the monstrous imagery, the daring conjectures, the more complex religious ideas, of an exotic fancy.^ " The giant forms of Empires on their way To ruin, dim and vast," begin to fling their weird and sombre shadows over the page of sacred history and prophetic anticipation. Acts xvii. 26, 27. - See Hitzig, p. xii ; Auberlen, p. 4 GENERAL SURVEY 29 4. The Style of the Book The style of the Book of Daniel is new, and has very marked characteristics, indicating its late position in the Canon. It is rhetorical rather than poetic. " Totum Danielis librum," says Lowth, " e poetarum censu excludo." ^ How widel}^ does the style differ from the rapt passion and glowing picturesqueness of Isaiah, from the elegiac tenderness of Jeremiah, from the lyrical sweetness of many of the Psalms ! How very little does it correspond to the three great requirements of poetry, that it should be, as Milton so finely said, '* simple, sensuous, passionate " ! A certain artifi- ciality of diction, a sounding oratorical stateliness, enhanced by dignified periphrases and leisurely repeti- tions, must strike the most casual reader ; and this is sometimes carried so far as to make the movement of the narrative heavy and pompous.^ This peculiarity is not found to the same extent in any other book of the Old Testament Canon, but it recurs in the Jewish writings of a later age. From the apocryphal books, for instance, the poetical element is with trifling ex- ceptions, such as the Song of the Three Children, entirely absent, while the taste for rhetorical ornamenta- tion, set speeches, and dignified elaborateness is found in many of them. This evanescence of the poetic and impassioned ele- ment separates Daniel from the Prophets, and marks ^ Reuss says too severely, " Die Schilderungen aller dieser Vorgange machen keinen gewinnenden Eindruck. . . . Der Stil ist unbeholfen, die Figuren grotesk, die Farben grell," He admits, however, the suitableness of the Book for the Maccabean epoch, and the deep impression it made {Heil. Schrift. A. T., p. 571). ^ See iii. 2, 3, 5, 7 ; viii. i, 10, 19 ; xi. 15, 22, 31, etc. 30 THE BOOK OF DANIEL the place of the Book among the Hagiographa, where it was placed by the Jews themselves. In all the great Hebrew seers we find something of the ecstatic trans- port, the fire shut up within the bones and breaking forth from the volcanic heart, the burning lips touched by the hands of seraphim with a living coal from off the altar. The word for prophet {nahiy Vates) implies an inspired singer rather than a soothsayer or seer {roeh^ chozeh). It is applied to Deborah and Miriam ^ because they poured forth from exultant hearts the paean of victory. Hence arose the close connexion between music and poetry.^ Elisha required the presence of a minstrel to soothe the agitation of a heart thrown into tumult by the near presence of a revealing Power.^ Just as the Greek word /xaz^rt?, from fialvoixaiy implies a sort of madness, and recalls the foaming lip and streaming hair of the spirit-dilated messenger, so the Hebrew verb naba meant, not only to proclaim God's oracles, but to be inspired by His possession as with a Divine frenzy.* ** Madman " seemed a natural term to apply to the messenger of Elisha.^ It is easy there- fore to see why the Book of Daniel was not placed among the prophetic rolls. This vera passio, this ecstatic elevation of thought and feeling, are wholly wanting in this earliest attempt at a philosophy of history. We trace in it none of that ** blasting with excess of light," none of that shuddering sense of being uplifted out of self, which marks the higher and earlier * Exod. XV. 20 ; Judg. iv. 4. 2 I Sam. X. 5 ; I Chron. xxv. i, 2, 3. ^ 2 Kings iii. 15. * Jer. xxix. 26; I Sam. xviii. lO, xix. 21-24. 1 ^ 2 Kings ix. Ii. See Expositors Bible, Second Book of Kings, p. 113. GENERAL SURVEY 31 forms of prophetic inspiration. Daniel is addressed through the less exalted medium of visions, and in his visions there is less of "the faculty Divine." The instinct — if instinct it were and not knowledge of the real origin of the Book — which led the " Men of the Great Synagogue " to place this Book among the Ketub- htm, not among the Prophets, was wise and sure.^ 5. The Standpoint of the Author " In Daniel Oflfnet sich eine ganz neue Welt."— Eichhorn, Einleit., iv. 472. The author of the Book of Daniel seems naturally to place himself on a level lower than that of the prophets who had gone before him. He does not count himself among the prophets ; on the contrary, he puts them far higher than himself, and refers to them as though they belonged to the dim and distant past (ix. 2, 6). In his prayer of penitence he confesses, " Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in Thy Name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers " ; " Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets." Not once does he use the mighty formula '' Thus saith Jehovah " — not once does he assume, in the prophecies, a tone of high personal authority. He shares the view of the Macca- bean age that prophecy is dead.^ ^ On this subject see Ewald, Proph. d. A. Bundes, i. 6; Novalis, Schriften, ii. 472; Herder, Geist der Ebr. Poesie, ii. 61; Knobel, Prophettsmus, i. 103. Even the Latin poets were called propheice, '* bards " (Varro, De Ling. Lat., vi. 3). Epimenides is called " a prophet " in Tit. i. 12. See Plato, Tim., 72, a. ; Phadr., 262, d. ; Pind., Fr.f 118 ; and comp. Eph. iii. 5, iv. ii. ^ Dan. ix. 6, 10. So conscious was the Maccabean age of the absence of prophets, that, just as» after the Captivity a question is f 32 THE BOOK OF DANIEL In Dan. ix. 2 we find yet anotiier decisive indication of the late age of this writing. He tells us that he "understood by books" (more correctly, as in the A.V., ** by the books " ^) the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet." The writer here represents himself as a humble student of previous prophets, and this necessarily marks a position of less freshness and independence. *'To the old prophets," says Bishop Westcott, *' Daniel stands in some sense as a commentator." No doubt the posses- sion of those living oracles was an immense blessing, a rich inheritance ; but it involved a danger. Truths established by writings and traditions, safe-guarded by schools and institutions, are too apt to come to men only as a power from without, and less as '^ a hidden and inly burning flame." ^ By '' the books " can hardly be meant anything but some approach to a definite Canon. If so, the Book of Daniel in its present form can only have been written subsequently to the days of Ezra. ''The account which assigns a collection of books to Nehemiah (2 Mace. ii. 13)," says Bishop Westcott, "is in itself a confirmation of the general truth of the gradual formation of the Canon during the Persian period. The various classes of books were completed in succes- postponed "itill there should arise a priest with the Urim and Thummin," so Judas postponed the decision about the stones of the desecrated altar "until there should cornea prophet to show what should be done with them " (l Mace. iv. 45, 46, ix. 27, xiv. 41). Comp. Song of the Three Children, 15 ; Psalm Ixxiv. 9 ; Sota, f. 48, 2. See infra, Introd., chap. viii. ' Dan. ix. 2, hassepharim, to. ^L^Xia. '^ Ewald, Proph. d. A. B., p. 10. Judas Maccabaeus is also said to have " restored " {eTriavurjyaye) the lost (5ia7re7rrw/cdra) sacred writings (2 Mace. ii. 14). GENERAL SURVEY 33 sion ; and this view harmonises with what must have been the natural development of the Jewish faith after the Return. The persecution of Antiochus (b.c. 168) was for the Old Testament what the persecution of Diocletian was for the New — the final crisis which stamped the sacred writings with their peculiar character. The king sought out the Books of the Law (i Mace. i. 56) and burnt them ; and the possession of a ' Book of the Covenant ' was a capital crime. According to the common tradition, the proscription of the Law led to the public use of the writings of the prophets." ^ The whole method of Daniel differs even from that of the later and inferior prophets of the Exile — Haggai, Malachi, and the second Zechariah. The Book is rather an apocalypse than a prophecy : ** the eye and not the ear is the organ to which the chief appeal is made." Though symbolism in the form of visions is not un- known to Ezekiel and Zechariah, yet those prophets are far from being apocalyptic in character. On the other hand, the grotesque and gigantic emblems of Daniel — these animal combinations, these interventions of dazzling angels who float in the air or over the water, these descriptions of historical events under the veil of material types seen in dreams — are a frequent pheno- menon in such late apocryphal writings as the Second Book of Esdras, the Book of Enoch, and the prae- Christian Sibylline oracles, in which talking lions and eagles, etc., are frequent. Indeed, this style of symbolism originated among the Jews from their contact with the graven mysteries and colossal images of Babylonian worship. The Babylonian Exile formed an epoch in * Smith's Diet, of the Bible, i. 501. The daily lesson from the Prophets was called the Haphtarah (Hamburger, Real-Encycl., ii. 334). 3 34 THE BOOK OF DANIEL the intellectual development of Israel fully as important as the sojourn in Egypt. It was a stage in their moral and religious education. It was the psychological pre- paration requisite for the moulding of the last phase of revelation — that apocalyptic form which succeeds to theophany and prophecy, and embodies the final results of national religious inspiration. That the apocalyptic method of dealing with history in a religious and an imaginative manner naturally arises towards the close of any great cycle of special revelation is illustrated by the flood of apocalypses which overflowed the early literature of the Christian Church. But the Jews clearly saw that, as a rule, an apocalypse is inherently inferior to a prophecy, even when it is made the vehicle of genuine prediction. In estimating the grades of inspira- tion the Jews placed highest the inward illumination of the Spirit, the Reason, and the Understanding; next to this they placed dreams and visions ; and lowest of all they placed the accidental auguries derived from the Bath Ool. An apocalypse may be of priceless value, like the Revelation of St. John ; it may, like the Book of Daniel, abound in the noblest and most thrilling lessons ; but in intrinsic dignity and worth it is always placed by the instinct and conscience of mankind on a lower grade than such outpourings of Divine teachings as breathe and burn through the pages of a David and an Isaiah. 6. The Moral Element. Lastly, among these salient phenomena of the Book of Daniel we are compelled to notice the absence of the predominantly moral element from its prophetic portion. The author does not write in the tone of a preacher of repentance, or of one whose immediate GENERAL SURVEY 35 object it is to ameliorate the moral and spiritual con- dition of his people. His aims were different.^ The older prophets were the ministers of dispensations between the Law and the Gospel. They were, in the beautiful language of Herder, — " Die Saitenspiel in Gottes machtigen Handen." Doctrine, worship, and consolation were their proper sphere. They were ^^ orator es Legis^ advocaii Patrice^ In them prediction is wholly subordinate to moral warn- ing and instruction. They denounce, they inspire : they smite to the dust with terrible invective ; they uplift once more into glov/ing hope. The announcement of events yet future is the smallest part of the prophet's office, and rather its sign than its substance. The highest mission of an Amos or an Isaiah is not to be a prognosticator, but to be a religious teacher. He makes his appeals to the conscience, not to the imagination — to the spirit, not to the sense. He deals with eternal principles, and is almost wholly indifferent to chrono- logical verifications. To awaken the death-like slumber of sin, to fan the dying embers of faithfulness, to smite down the selfish oppressions of wealth and power, to startle the sensual apathy of greed, were the ordinary and the noblest aims of the greater and the minor prophets. It was their task far rather to forth-tell than to fore-tell) and if they announce, in general outline and uncertain perspective, things which shall be here- after, it is only in subordination to high ethical pur- poses, or profound spiritual lessons. So it is also in the Revelation of St. John. But in the ^' prophetic " ^ On this subject see Kuenen, The Prophets^ iii. 95 ff. ; Davison, On Prophecy, pp. 34-67 ; Herder, Hebv. Poesie, ii. 64 ; De Wette, Christl. Sittenlehre, ii. I. 36 THE BOOK OF DANIEL part of Daniel it is difficult for the keenest imagination to discern any deep moral, or any special doctrinal significance, in all the details of the obscure wars and petty diplomacy of the kings of the North and South. In point of fact the Book of Daniel, even as an apocalypse, suffers severely by comparison with that latest canonical Apocalypse of the Beloved Disciple which it largely influenced. It is strange that Luther, who spoke so slightingly of the Revelation of St. John, should have placed the Book of Daniel so high in his estimation. It is indeed a noble book, full of glorious lessons. Yet surely it has but little of the sublime and mysterious beauty, little of the heart-shaking pathos, little of the tender sweetness of consolatory power, which fill the closing book of the New Testament. Its imagery is far less exalted, its hope of immortality far less distinct and unquenchable. Yet the Book of Daniel, while it is one of the earliest, still remains one of the greatest specimens of this form of sacred litera- ture. It inaugurated the new epoch of '^ apocalyptic " which in later days was usually pseudepigraphic, and sheltered itself under the names of Enoch, Noah, Moses, Ezra, and even the heathen Sibyls. These apocalypses are of very unequal value. '' Some," as Kuenen says, "stand comparatively high; others are far below mediocrity." But the genus to which they belong has its own peculiar defect. They are works of art : they are not spontaneous ; they smell of the lamp. A fruit- less and an unpractical peering into the future was encouraged by these writings, and became predominant in some Jewish circles. But the Book of Daniel is incomparably superior in every possible respect to Baruch, or the Book of Enoch, or the Second Book of GENERAL SURVEY 37 Esdras ; and if we place it for a moment by the side of such books as those contained in the Codex Pseud- epigraphus of Fabricius, its high worth and Canonical authority are vindicated with extraordinary force. How lofty and enduring are the lessons to be learnt alike from its historic and predictive sections we shall have abundant opportunities of seeing in the following pages. So far from undervaluing its teaching, I have always been strongly drawn to this Book of Scripture. It has never made the least difference in my reverent accept- ance of it that I have, for many years, been convinced that it cannot be regarded as literal history or ancient prediction. Reading it as one of the noblest specimens of the Jewish Haggada or moral Ethopoeia, I find it full of instruction in righteousness, and rich in examples of life. That Daniel was a real person, that he lived in the days of the Exile, and that his life was distinguished by the splendour of its faithfulness I hold to be entirely possible. When we regard the stories here related of him as moral legends, possibly based on a groundwork of real tradition, we read the Book with a full sense of its value, and feel the power of the lessons which it was designed to teach, without being perplexed by its apparent improbabilities, or worried by its immense historic and other difficulties. The Book is in all respects unique, a writing sui generis ; for the many imitations to which it led are but imitations. But, as the Jewish writer Dr. Joel truly says, the unveiling of the secret as to the real lateness of its date and origin, so far from causing any loss in its beauty and interest, enhance both in a remarkable degree. It is thus seen to be the work of a brave and gifted anonymous author about B.C. 167, who brought his piety and his patriotism to bear on the troubled 38 THE BOOK OF DANIEL fortunes of his people at an epoch in which such piety and patriotism were of priceless value. We have in its later sections no voice of enigmatic prediction, fore- telling the minutest complications of a distant secular future, but mainly the review of contemporary events by a wise and an earnest writer whose faith and hope remained unquenchable in the deepest night of persecu- tion and apostasy.^ Many passages of the Book are dark, and will remain dark, owing partly perhaps to corruptions and uncertainties of the text, and partly to imitation of a style which had become archaic, as well as to the peculiarities of the apocalyptic form. But the general idea of the Book has now been thoroughly elucidated, and the interpretation of it in the following pages is accepted by the great majority of earnest and faithful students of the Scriptures. ^ Joel, Notizen, p. 7. CHAPTER III PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORIC SECTION NO one can have studied the Book of Daniel with- out seeing that, alike in the character of its miracles and the minuteness of its supposed predictions, it makes a more stupendous and a less substantiated claim upon our credence than any other book of the Bible, and a claim wholly different in character. It has over and over again been asserted by the uncharit- ableness of a merely traditional orthodoxy that inability to accept the historic verity and genuineness of the Book arises from secret faithlessness, and antagonism to the admission of the supernatural. No competent scholar will think it needful to refute such calumnies. It suffices us to know before God that we are actuated simply by the love of truth, by the abhorrence of any- thing which in us would be a pusillanimous spirit of falsity. We have too deep a belief in the God of the Amen, the God of eternal and essential verity, to offer to Him *' the unclean sacrifice of a lie." An error is not sublimated into a truth even when that lie has acquired a quasi-consecration, from its supposed desir- ability for purposes of orthodox controversy, or from its innocent acceptance by generations of Jewish and Christian Churchmen through long ages of uncritical ignorance. Scholars, if they be Christians at all, can have rto possible a-priori objection to belief in the 39 40 THE BOOK OF DANIEL supernatural. If they believe, for instance, in the Incarnation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they believe in the most mysterious and unsurpassable of all miracles, and beside that miracle all minor questions of God's power or willingness to manifest His immediate intervention in the affairs of men sink at once into absolute insignificance. But our belief in the Incarnation, and in the miracles of Christ, rests on evidence which, after repeated examination, is to us overwhelming. Apart from all questions of personal verification, or the Inward Witness of the Spirit, we can show that this evidence is sup- ported, not only by the existing records, but by myriads of external and independent testimonies. The very same Spirit which makes men believe where the demon- stration is decisive, compels them to refuse belief to the literal verity of unique miracles and unique predic- tions which come before them without any convincing evidence. The narratives and visions of this Book present difficulties on every page. They were in all probability never intended for anything but what they are — Haggadoth, which, like the parables of Christ, convey their own lessons without depending on the necessity for accordance with historic fact. Had it been any part of the Divine will that we should accept these stories as pure history, and these visions as predictions of events which were not to take place till centuries afterwards, we should have been provided with some aids to such belief On the con- trary, in whatever light we examine the Book of Daniel, the evidence in its favour \s> weak, dubious, hypothetical, and a priori; while the. evidence against it acquires increased intensity with every fresh aspect in which it is examined. The Book which would make the most PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORIC SECTION 41 extraordinary demands upon our credulity if it were meant for history, is the very Book of which the genuineness and authenticity are decisively discredited by every fresh discovery and by each new examination. There is scarcely one learned European scholar by whom they are maintained, except with such conces- sions to the Higher Criticism as practically involve the abandonment of all that is essential in the traditional theory. And we have come to a time when it will not avail to take refuge in such transferences of the discussions in alteram materianiy and such purely vulgar appeals ad invidiam y as are involved in saying, '^ Then the Book must be a forgery," and ^* an imposture," and " a gross lie." To assert that *' to give up the Book of Daniel is to betray the cause of Christianity," ^ is a coarse and * Thus Dr. Pusey says : " The Book of Daniel is especially fitted to be a battle-field between faith and unbelief. It admits of no half- measures. It is either Divine or an imposture. To write any book under the name of another, and to give it out to be his, is, in any case, a forgery dishonest in itself, and destructive of all trustworthiness. But the case of the Book of Daniel, if it were not his, would go far beyond even this. The writer, were he not Daniel, must have lied on a fi-ightful scale. In a word, the whole Book would be one lie in the Name of God." Few would venture to use such language in these days, it is always a perilous style to adopt, but now it has become suicidal. It is founded on an immense and inexcusable anachronism. It avails itself of an utterly false misuse of the words "faith" and "unbelief," by which "faith" becomes a mere synonym for "that which I esteem orthodox," or that which has been the current opinion in ages of ignorance. Much truer faith may be shown by accepting arguments founded on unbiassed evidence than by rejecting them. And what can be more foolish than to base the great truths of the Christian rehgion on special pleadings which have now come to wear the aspect of ingenious sophistries, such as would not be allowed to have the smallest validity in any ordinary question of literary or historic evidence? Hengstenberg, like Pusey, says in his violent ecclesiastical tone of autocratic infallibility that the interpretation of 42 THE BOOK OF DANIEL dangerous misuse of the weapons of controversy. Such talk may still have been excusable even in the days of Dr. Pusey (with whom it was habitual) ; it is no longer excusable now. Now it can only prove the uncharit- ableness of the apologist, and the impotence of a defeated cause. Yet even this abandonment of the sphere of honourable argument is only one degree more painful than the tortuous subterfuges and wild asser- tions to which such apologists as Hengstenberg, Keil, and their followers were long compelled to have recourse. Anything can be proved about anything if we call to our aid indefinite suppositions of errors of transcription, interpolations, transpositions, extra- ordinary silences, still more extraordinary methods of presenting events, and (in general) the unconsciously disingenuous resourcefulness of traditional harmonics. To maintain that the Book of Daniel, as it now stands, was written by Daniel in the days of the Exile is to cherish a belief which can only, at the utmost, be extremely uncertain, and which must be maintained in defiance of masses of opposing evidence. There can be little intrinsic value in a determination to believe historical and literary assumptions which can no longer be maintained except by preferring the flimsiest hypo- theses to the most certain facts. My own conviction has long been that in these the Book by most eminent modern critics " will remain false so long as the word of Christ is true — that is, for ever." This is to make " the word of Christ" the equivalent of a mere theological blindness and prejudice ! Assertions which are utterly baseless can only be met by assertions based on science and the love of truth. Thus when Rup- precht says that "the modern criticism of the Book of Daniel is unchristian, immoral, and unscientific," we can only reply with disdain, Novimus istas \r]Kv6ov$. In the present day they are mere bluster of impotent odium theologicum. PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORIC SECTION 43 Haggadoth, in which Jewish literature dehghted in the prae-Christian era, and which continued to be written even till the Middle Ages, there was not the least pretence or desire to deceive at all. I believe them to have been put forth as moral legends — as avowed fiction nobly used for the purposes of religious teaching and encouragement. In ages of ignorance, in which no such thing as literary criticism existed, a popular Haggada might soon come to be regarded as historical, just as the Homeric lays were among the Greeks, or just as Defoe's story of the Plague of London was taken for literal history by many readers even in the seventeenth century. Ingenious attempts have been made to show that the author of this Book evinces an intim.ate familiarity with the circumstances of the Babylonian religion, society, and history. In many cases this is the reverse of the fact. The instances adduced in favour of any knowledge except of the most general description are entirely delusive. It is frivolous to maintain, with Lenormant, that an exceptional acquaintance with Babylonian custom was required to describe Nebu- chadrezzar as consulting diviners for the interpretation of a dream I To say nothing of the fact that a similar custom has prevailed in all nations and all ages from the days of Samuel to those of Lobengula, the writer had the prototype of Pharaoh before him, and has evidently been influenced by the story of Joseph.^ Again, so far from showing surprising acquaintance with the organisation of the caste of Babylonian diviners, the writer has made a mistake in their very name, as well as in the statement that a faithful Jew, ' Gen. xli. 44 THE BOOK OF DANIEL like Daniel, was made the chief of their college I ^ Nor, again, was there anything so unusual in the presence of women at feasts — also recognised in the Haggada of Esther — as to render this a sign of extraordinary information. Once more, is it not futile to adduce the allusion to punishment by burning alive as a proof of insight into Babylonian peculiarities ? This punish- ment had already been mentioned by Jeremiah in the case of Nebuchadrezzar. " Then shall be taken up a curse by all the captivity of Judah which are in Babylon, saying. The Lord make thee like Zedekiah and like Ahab " (two false prophets), ** whom the King of Babylon roasted in the fire^ ^ Moreover, it occurs in the Jewish traditions which described a miraculous escape of exactly the same character in the legend of Abraham. He, too, had been supernaturally rescued from the burning fiery furnace of Nimrod, to which he had been consigned because he refused to worship idols in Ur of the Chaldees.^ When the instances mainly relied upon prove to be so evidentially valueless, it would be waste of time to follow Professor Fuller through the less important and more imaginary proofs of accuracy which his industry has amassed. Meanwhile the feeblest reasoner will see that while a writer may easily be accurate in general facts, and even in details, respecting an age * 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. i) 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 Commeritary, p. 22). ^ Avodah-Zarah, f. 3, I ; Sanhedrin, f. 93, I ; Pesachini^ f. 118, i ; Eiruvin, f. 53, I. PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORIC SECTION 45 long previous to that in which he wrote, the existence of violent errors as to matters with which a con- temporary must have been familiar at once refutes all pretence of historic authenticity in a book professing to have been written by an author in the days and country which he describes. Now such mistakes there seem to be, and not a few of them, in the pages of the Book of Daniel. One or two of them can perhaps be explained away by pro- cesses which would amply suffice to show that " yes " means *' no," or that " black " is a description of "white " ; but each repetition of such processes leaves us more and more incredulous. If errors be treated as corruptions of the text, or as later interpolations, such arbitrary methods of treating the Book are practically an admis- sion that, as it stands, it cannot be regarded as historical. I. We are, for instance, met by what seems to be a remarkable error in the very first verse of the Book, which tells us that ^^ In the third year of Jehoiaktm, King of Judah, came Nebuchad;?ezzar " — as in later days he was incorrectly called — '' King of Bablyon, unto Jerusalem, and besieged it." It is easy to trace whence the error sprang. Its source lies in a book which is the latest in the whole Canon, and in many details difficult to reconcile with the Book of Kings — a book of which the Hebrew resembles that of Daniel — the Book of Chronicles. In 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6 we are told that Nebuchad/^ezzar came up against Jehoiakim, and ** bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon " ; and also — to which the author of Daniel directly refers — that he carried off some of the vessels of the House of God, to put them in the treasure-house of his god. In this passage it is not said that this occurred '* in the third year of Jehoiakim," 46 THE BOOK OF DANIEL who reigned eleven years ; but in 2 Kings xxiv. i we are told that " in his days Nebuchadnezzar came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three yearsT The passage in Daniel looks like a confused reminiscence of the "three years" with "the third year of Jehoiakim." The elder and better authority (the Book of Kings) is silent about any deportation having taken place in the reign of Jehoiakim, and so is the contemporary Prophet Jeremiah. But in any case it seems impossible that it should have taken place so early as the third year of Jehoiakim, for at that time he was a simple vassal of the King of Egypt. If this deportation took place in the reign of Jehoiakim, it would certainly be singular that Jeremiah, in enumerating three others, in the seventh, eighteenth, and twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar,^ should make no allusion to it. But it is hard to see how it could have taken place before Egypt had been defeated in the Battle of Carchemish, and that was not till b.c. 597, \\\^ fourth year of Jehoiakim.^ Not only does Jeremiah make no mention of so remarkable a deportation as this, which as the earliest would have caused the deepest anguish, but, in the fourth 3^ear of Jehoiakim (Jer. xxxvi. i), he writes a roll to threaten evils which are still future, and in the fifth year proclaims a fast in the hope that the imminent peril may even 3'et be averted (Jer. xxxvi. 6-10). It is only after the violent obstinacy of the king that the destructive advance of Nebuchadrezzar is finally prophesied (Jer. xxxvi. 29) as something which has not yet occurred.^ * Jer. Hi. 28-30. These were in the reign of Jehoiachin. 2 Jer. xlvi. 2 : comp. Jer. xxv. The passage of Berossus, quoted in Jos., Antt., X. xi. I, is not trustworthy, and does not remove the difficulty. ^ The attempts of Keil and Pusey to get over the difficulty, if they PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORIC SECTION 47 II. Nor are the names in this first chapter free from difficulty. Daniel is called Belteshazzar, and the remark of the King of Babylon — ''whose name was Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god" — certainly suggests that the first syllable is (as the Massorets assume) connected with the god Bel. But the name has nothing to do with Bel. No contemporary could have fallen into such an error ; ^ still less a king who spoke Babylonian. Shadrach may be Shudur-akuy " command of Aku," the moon-god ; but Meshach is inexplicable ; and Abed-nego is a strange corruption for the obvious and common Abed-nebo, " servant of Nebo." Such a corruption could hardly have arisen till Nebo was practically forgotten. And what is the meaning of "the Melzar'' (Dan. i. 11)? The A.V. takes it to be a proper name ; the R.V. renders it " the steward." But the title is unique and obscure.^ Nor can anything be made of the name of Ashpenaz, the prince of the eunuchs, whom, in one manuscript, the LXX. call Abiesdri.^ III. Similar difficulties and uncertainties meet us at every step. Thus, in the second chapter (ii. i), the dream of Nebuchadrezzar is fixed in the second 3^ear were valid, would reduce Scripture to a hopeless riddle. The reader will see all the latest efforts in this direction in the Speaker's Comn-tentary and the work of Fab re 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 baldtn, "life," is common in Assyrian names. The mistake comes from the wrong vocalisation adopted by the Massorets (Meinhold, Beitrcige, 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. 48 THE BOOK OF DANIEL of his reign. This does not seem to be in accord with i. 3, 1 8, which says that Daniel and his three com- panions were kept under the care of the prince of the eunuchs for three years. Nothing, of course, is easier than to invent harmonistic hypotheses, such as that of Rashi, that " the second year of the reign of Nebuchad- rezzar has the wholly different meaning of ^' the second year after the destruction of the Temple " ; or as that of Hengstenberg, followed by many modern apologists, that Nebuchadrezzar had previously been associated in the kingdom with Nabopolassar, and that this was the second year of his independent reign. Or, again, we may, with Ewald, read '* the twelfth year." But by these methods we are not taking the Book as it stands, but are supposing it to be a network of textual corrup- tions and conjectural combinations. IV. In ii. 2 the king summons four classes of hiero- phants to disclose his dream and its interpretation. They are the magicians (Chartummtm), the enchanters {Ashshaphtm)y the sorcerers {MechashsKphim)^ and the Chaldeans {Kasdini)} The Chartummim occur in Gen. xli. 8 (which seems to be in the writer's mind) ; and the MechashsK phim occur in Exod. vii. ii, xxii. i8 ; but the mention of Kasdim, ** Chaldeans," is, so far as we know, an immense anachronism. In much later ages the name was used, as it was among the Roman writers, for wandering astrologers and quacks.^ But this degenerate sense of the word was, so far as we can judge, wholly unknown to the age of Daniel. It never once occurs in this sense on any of the monu- ments. Unknown to the Assyrian-Babylonian language, • On these see Rob. Smith, Cambr. Journ. of Philol., No. 27, p. 125. 2 Juv., Sat., X. 96 : " Cum grege Chaldaeo"; Val. Max., iii. i ; Cic, De Div., i. I, etc. PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORIC SECTION 49 and only acquired long after the end of the Babylonian Empire, such a usage of the word is, as Schrader says, '^an indication of the post-exilic composition of the Book." ^ In the days of Daniel " Chaldeans " had no meaning resembling that of " magicians " or *' astro- logers." In every other writer of the Old Testament, and in all contemporary records, Kasdim simply means the Chaldean nation, and never a learned caste.^ This single circumstance has decisive weight in proving the late age of the Book of Daniel. V. Again, we find in ii. 14, *' Arioch, the chief of the executioners." Schrader precariously derives the name from Eri-aku, '^ servant of the moon-god " ; but, how- ever that may be, we already find the name as that of a king Ellasar in Gen. xiv. i, and we find it again for a king of the Elymseans in Judith i. 6. In ver. 16 Daniel " went in and desired of the king " a little respite; but in ver. 25 Arioch tells the king, as though it were a sudden discovery of his own, ** I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that wdll make known unto the king the interpretation." This was a sur- prising form of introduction, after we have been told that the king himself had, by personal examination, found that Daniel and his young companions were " ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm.''^ It seems, however, as if each of these chapters was intended to be recited as a separate Haggada. VI. In ii. 46, after the interpretation of the dream, '^ the King Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer ^ Keilinschr.^ p, 429 ; Meinhold, p. 28. '^ Isa. xxiii. 13 ; Jer. xxv. 12 ; Ezck. xii. 13; Hab. i. 6. 4 so THE BOOK OF DANIEL an oblation and sweet odours unto him" This is another of the immense surprises of the Book. It is exactly the kind of incident in which the haughty theocratic senti- ment of the Jews found deUght, and we find a similar spirit in the many Talmudic inventions in which Roman emperors, or other potentates, are represented as pay- ing extravagant adulation to Rabbinic sages. There is (as we shall see) a similar story narrated by Josephus of Alexander the Great prostrating himself before the high priest Jaddua, but it has long been relegated to the realm of fable as an outcome of Jewish self-esteem.^ It is probably meant as a concrete illustration of the glowing promises of Isaiah, that " kings and queens shall bow down to thee with their faces towards the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet " ; ^ and "the sons of them that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet." ^ VI I. We further ask in astonishment whether Daniel could have accepted without indignant protest the offer- ing of " an oblation and sweet odours." To say that they were only offered to God in the person of Daniel is the idle pretence of all idolatry. They are expressly said to be offered '^ to Da.niel." A Herod could accept blasphemous adulations;* but a Paul and a Barnabas deprecate such devotions with intense disapproval.^ VIII. In ii. 48 Nebuchadrezzar appoints Daniel, as a revv-ard for his wisdom, to rule over the whole province of Babylon, and to be Rab-sigmn^ ^* chief ruler," and to be over all the wise men {Khakamtm) of Babylon. Lenormant treats this statement as an interpolation, because he regards it as ^^ evidently impossible." We 1 Jos., Antt., XI. viii. 5. " Acts xii. 22, 23. 2 Isa. xlix. 23. ^ Acts xiv. ii, 12, xxviii. 6. 3 Isa. Ix. 14. PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORIC SECTION 51 know that in the Babylonian priesthood, and especially among the sacred caste, there was a passionate religious intolerance. It is inconceivable that they should have accepted as their religious superior a monotheist who was the avowed and uncompromising enemy to their whole system of idolatry. It is equally inconceivable that Daniel should have accepted the position of a hierophant in a polytheistic cult. In the next three chapters there is no allusion to Daniel's tenure of these strange and exalted offices, either civil or religious.^ IX. The third chapter contains another story, told in a style of wonderful stateliness and splendour, and full of glorious lessons ; but here again we encounter linguistic and other difficulties. Thus in iii. 2, though ^*all the rulers of the provinces" and officers of all ranks are summoned to the dedication of Nebuchad- rezzar's colossus, there is not an allusion to Daniel throughout the chapter. Four of the names of the officers in iii. 2, 3, appear, to our surprise, to be Persian ; ^ and, of the six musical instruments, three — the lute, psaltery, and bagpipe^ — have obvious Greek names, two of which (as already stated) are of late origin, while another, the saUka^ resembles the Greek G-ajJb^vicT]^ but may have come to the Greeks from the Aramaeans.'* The incidents of the chapter are such as find no analogy throughout the Old or New Testament, but exactly resemble those of Jewish moralising fiction, of which they furnish the most perfect specimen. It * 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. 52 THE BOOK OF DANIEL is exactly the kind of concrete comment which a Jewish writer of piety and genius, for the encouragement of his afflicted people, might have based upon such a passage as Isa. xliii. 2, 3 : '' When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour." Nebuchadrezzar's decree, "That Qwery people, nation , and language, which speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill,^^ can only be paralleled out of the later Jewish literature.^ X. In chap. iv. we have another monotheistic decree of the King of Bab3'lon, announcing to " all people, nations, and languages" what "the high God hath wrought towards me." It gives us a vision which recalls Ezek. xxxi. 3-18, and may possibly have been suggested by that fine chapter.^ The language varies between the third and the first person. In iv. 13 Nebuchadrezzar speaks of " a watcher and a holy one." This is the first appearance in Jewish literature of the word '/r, " watcher," which is so common in the Book of Enoch.^ In ver. 26 the expression " after thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule " is one which has no analogue in the Old Testament, though exceedingly common in the superstitious periphrases of the later Jewish literature. As to the * 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. 2 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. PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORIC SECTION 53 story of the strange lycanthropy with which Nebu- chadrezzar was afQicted, though it receives nothing but the faintest shadow of support from any historic record, it may be based on some fact preserved by tradition. It is probably meant to reflect on the mad ways of Antiochus. The general phrase of Berossus, which tells us that Nebuchadrezzar ** fell into a sick- ness and died,"^ has been pressed into an historical verification of this narrative 1 But the phrase might have been equally well used in the most ordinary case,^ which shows what fancies have been adduced to prove that we are here dealing with history. The fragment of Abydenus in his Assyn'aca, preserved by Eusebius,^ shows that there was some story about Nebuchadrezzar having uttered remarkable words upon his palace-roof The announcement of a coming irrevocable calamity to the kingdom from a Persian mule, '' the son of a Median woman," and the wish that ^^ Ihe alien conqueror" might be driven ^'through the desert where wild beasts seek their food, and birds fly hither and thither," has, however, very little to do with the story of Nebuchadrezzar's madness. Abydenus says that, " when he had thus prophesied, he suddenly vanished " ; and he adds nothing about any restoration to health or to his kingdom. All that ' Preserved by Jos. : comp. Ap., I. 20. ^ The phrase is common enough : e.g., in Jos., Antt., X. xi. i (comp. c. Ap.f I. 19) ; and a similar phrase, iixireadbv els dppcoaTiau, t's used of Antiochus Epiphanes in I Mace. vi. 8. 3 Prcep. 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 oi four, exclusive of Belshazzar. See, too, Schrader, Jahrb. furProt. Theol.y 1 881, p. 618. 54 THE BOOK OF DANIEL can be said is that there was current among the Babylonian Jews some popular legend of which the writer of the Book of Daniel availed himself for the purpose of his edifying Midrash. Xr, When we reach the fifth chapter, we are faced by a new king, Belshazzar, who is somewhat emphatically called the son of Nebuchadrezzar.^ History knows of no such king.^ The prince of whom it does know was never king, and was a son, not of Nebuchadrezzar, but of the usurper Nabunaid ; and between Nebuchadrezzar and Nabunaid there were three other kings.^ There was a Belshazzar — -Bel-sar-utsur^ '' Bel pro- tect the prince"— and we possess a clay cylinder of his father Nabunaid, the last king of Babylon, praying the moon-god that " my son, the offspring of my heart, might honour his godhead, and not give himself to sin."* But if we follow Herodotus, this Belshazzar never came to the throne ; and according to Berossus he was conquered in Borsippa. Xenophon, indeed, speaks of " an impious king " as being slain in Babylon; but this is only in an avowed romance ' Dan. V. II. 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. 2 Schrader, p. 434 ff. ; and in Riehm, Handworterb., ii. 163 ; Pinches, in Smith's Bibl. Diet., i. 388, 2nd edn. The contraction into Belshazzar from Bel-sar-utsur seems to show a late date. 3 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 RawUnson, Herod. ^ i. 434. PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORIC SECTION 55 which has not the smallest historic validity.^ Schrader conjectures that Nabunaid may have gone to take the field against Cyrus (vv^ho conquered and pardoned him, and allowed him to end his days as governor of Karamania), and that Belshazzar may have been killed in Babylon. These are mere hypotheses ; as are those of Josephus,^ who identifies Belshazzar with Nabunaid (whom he calls Naboandelon) ; and of Babelon, who tries to make him the same as Maruduk-shar-utsur (as though Bel was the same as Maruduk), which is impossible, as this king reigned before Nabunaid. No contemporary v/riter could have fallen into the error either of calling Belshazzar *' king " ; or of insisting on his being '' the son " of Nebuchadrezzar ; ^ or of representing him as Nebuchadrezzar's successor. Nebu- chadrezzar was succeeded by — Evil-merodach . . circ. b.c. 561 (Avil-marduk).^ Nergal-sharezer . . . , „ 559 (Nergal-sar-utsur). Lakhabbashi-marudu I 555 (an infant). (Laborosoarchod) j Nabunaid ,, 554- Nabunaid reigned till about b.c. 538, when Babylon was taken by Cyrus. The conduct of Belshazzar in the great feast of this chapter is probably meant as an allusive contrast to the revels and impieties of Antiochus Epiphanes, espe- cially in his infamous festival at the grove of Daphne. XII. ''That night," we are told, ''Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was slain." It has always been sup- ' 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, 1 1, 22; and so in Baruch i. ii, 12. ^ 2 Kings xxv, 27. 56 THE BOOK OF DANIEL posed that this was an incident of the capture of Babylon by assault, in accordance with the story of Herodotus, repeated by so many subsequent writers. But on this point the inscriptions of Cyrus have revolutionised our knowledge. " There was no siege and capture of Babylon ; the capital of the Babylonian Empire opened its gates to the general of Cyrus. Gobryas and his soldiers entered the city without fighting, and the daily services in the great temple of Bel-merodach suffered no interruption. Three months later Cyrus himself arrived, and made his peaceful entry into the new capital of his empire. We gather from the contract-tablets that even the ordinary business of the place had not been affected by the war. The siege and capture of Babylon by Cyrus is really a reflection into the past of the actual sieges undergone by the city in the reigns of Darius^ son of Hystaspes and Xerxes. It is clear, then, that the editor of the fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel could have been as little a contemporary of the events he professes to record as Herodotus. For both alike, the true history of the Babylonian Empire has been overclouded and fore- shortened by the lapse of time. The three kings who reigned between Nebuchadrezzar and Nabunaid have been forgotten, and the last king of the Babylonian Empire has become the son of its founder." ^ Snatching at the merest straws, those who try to vindicate the accuracy, of the writer — although he makes Belshazzar a king, which he never was ; and the son of Nebuchadrezzar, which is not the case ; or his grand- son, of which there is no tittle of evidence ; and his successor, whereas four kings intervened ; — think that • Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the Monuments, p. 527. PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORIC SECTION 57 they improve the case by urging that Daniel was made *' the third ruler in the kingdom " — Nabunaid being the first, and Belshazzar being the second ! Unhappily for their very precarious hypothesis, the translation ''third ruler" appears to be entirely untenable. It means '' one of a board of three." XIII. In the sixth chapter we are again met by difficulty after difficulty. Who, for instance, was Darius the Mede ? We are told (v. 30, 31) that, on the night of his impious banquet, " Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans " was slain, *' and Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old." We are also told that Daniel '' prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian " (vi. 28). But this Darius is not even noticed elsewhere. Cyrus was the conqueror of Babylon, and betw^een b.c. 538-536 there is no room or possibihty for a Median ruler. The inference which we should naturally draw from these statements in the Book of Daniel, and which all readers have drawn, was that Babylon had been con- quered by the Medes, and that only after the death of a Median king did Cyrus the Persian succeed. But historic monuments and records entirely over- throw this supposition. Cyrus w^as the king of Babylon from the day that his troops entered it without a blow. He had conquered the Medes and suppressed their royalty. '* The numerous contract-tables of the ordi- nary daily business transactions of Babylon, dated as they are month by month, and almost day by day from the reign of Nebuchadrezzar to that of Xerxes, prove that between Nabonidus and Cyrus there was no inter- mediate ruler J^ The contemporary scribes and mer- chants of Babylon knew nothing of any King Belshazzar, 58 THE BOOK OF DANIEL and they knew even less of any King Darius the Mede. No contemporary writer could possibly have fallen into such an error.^ And against this obvious conclusion, of what possible avail is it for Hengstenberg to quote a late Greek lexicographer {Harpocration^ a.d. 170?), who says that the coin '' a daric " was named after a Darius eariier than the father of Xerxes? — or for others to identify this shadow^y Darius the Mede with Astyages ? ^ — or with C3^axare3 II. in the romance of Xenophon ? ^ — or to say that Darius the Mede is Gobryas (Ugbaru) of Gutium ^ — a Persian, and not a king at all — who under no circumstances could have been called " the king " by a contemporary (vi. 12, ix. i), and whom, apparently for three months only, Cyrus made governor of Baby- ' 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. 2 Winer, Realworterb., s.v. "Darius." ^ So Bertholdt, Von Lengerke, Auberlen. It is decidedly rejected by Schrader (Riehm, Handworterb., i. 259). Even Cicero said, " Cyrus ille a Xenophonte non ad historiae fidem scriptus est" {Ad Quint. Fratr., Ep. i. 3). Niebuhr called the Cyropcedia ''^ eincn elenden und lappi- schen Roman " {Alt. Gesch., i. 116). He classes it with Telemaque or Rasselas. Xenophon was probably the ultimate authority for the statement of Josephus (Antt., X. xi. 4), which has no weight. Hero- dotus 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 pro- fessed romancer like Xenophon, and a late compiler like Josephus, against these authorities ? * T. W. Pinches, in Smith's Bibi. Diet., 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 Rosenmiiller, 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. i, ix. I, is equally unhistorical. PECULIARITIES OF THE HISTORIC SECTION 59 Ion ? How could a contemporary governor have appointed "one hundred and twenty princes which should be over the whole kingdom," ^ when, even in the days of Darius Hystaspis, there were only twenty or twenty -three satrapies in the Persian Empire ? '^ And how could a mere provincial viceroy be approached by *' all the presidents of the kingdom^ the governors, and the princes, the counsellors, and the captains," to pass a decree that any one who for thirty days offered any prayer to God or man, except to him, should be cast into the den of lions ? The fact that such a decree could only be made by a king is emphasised in the narrative itself (vi. 12 : comp. iii. 29). The sup- posed analogies offered by Professor Fuller and others in favour of a decree so absurdly impossible — except in the admitted licence and for the high moral purpose of a Jewish Haggada — are to the last degree futile. In any ordinary criticism they would be set down as idle special pleading. Yet this is only one of a multitude of wildly improbable incidents, which, from misunder- standing of the writer's age and purpose, have been taken for sober history, though they receive from his- torical records and monuments no shadov/ of confirma- tion, and are in not a few instances directly opposed to all that we now know to be certain history. Even if it were conceivable that this hypothetic " Darius the Mede " was Gobryas, or Astyages, or Cyaxares, it is plain that the author of Daniel gives him a name and national designation which lead to mere confusion, and speaks of him in a way which would have been surely avoided by any contemporary. * This is supported by the remark that this three-months viceroy " appointed governors in Babylon " ! '^ Herod., iii. 89 ; Records of the Past, viii. 88. 6o THE BOOK OF DANIEL *' Darius the Mede," says Professor Sayce, '* is in fact a reflection into the past of Darius the son of Hystaspes} just as the siege and capture of Babylon by Cyrus are a reflection into the past of its siege and capture by the same prince. The name of Darius and the story of the slaughter of the Chaldean king go together. They are alike derived from the unwritten history which, in the East of to-day, is still made by the people, and which blends together in a single picture the manifold events and personages of the past. It is a history which has no perspective, though it is based on actual facts ; the accurate combinations of the chronologer have no meaning for it, and the events of a century are crowded into a few years. This is the kind of history which the Jewish mind in the age of the Talmud loved to adapt to moral and religious purposes. This kind of history then becomes as it were a parable , and under the name of Haggada serves to illustrate that teaching of the lawr 2 The favourable view given of the character of the imaginary Darius the Mede, and his regard for Daniel, may have been a confusion with the Jevvish reminiscences of Darin s, son of Hystaspes, who permitted the re- building of the Temple under Zerubbabel.^ If we look for the source of the confusion, we see it ' See, too, Meinhold {Beitrage, p. 46), who concludes his survey with the words, " Sprachliche wie sachliche Griinde machen es nicht nur wahrscheinlkh sondern gewiss dass an danielsche Autorschaft von Dan. ii.-vi., iiberhanpt an die Entstehung zur Zeit der jiidischen Ver- bannung nicht zu denken ist." He adds that almost all scholars believe the chapters to be no older than the age of the Maccabees, and that even Kahnis {Dogmatik, i. 376) and Delitzsch (Herzog, s.v. " Dan.") give up their genuineness. He himself believes that these Aramaic chapters were incorporated by a later writer, who wrote the introduction. ■^ Sayce, I.e., p. 529. ^ Kamphausen, p. 45. PECULIARITIES lOF THE HISTORIC SECTION 6i perhaps in the prophecy of Isaiah (xiii. 17, xiv. 6-22), that the Medes should be the destroyers of Babylon ; or in that of Jeremiah — a prophet of whom the author had made a special study (Dan. ix. 2) — to the same effect (Jer. li. 11-28) ; together with the tradition that a Darius — namely, the son of Hystaspes — had once conquered Babylon. XIV. But to make confusion worse confounded, if these chapters were meant for histor}^, the problematic ^'Darius the Mede " is in Dan. ix. I called ''the son of Ahasuerus." Now Ahasuerus (Achashverosh) is the same as Xerxes, and is the Persian name Khshyarsha ; and Xerxes was the son^ not the father, of Darius Hystaspis, who was a Persian^ not a Mede. Before Darius Hystaspis could have been transformed into the son of his own son Xerxes, the reigns, not only of Darius, but also of Xerxes, must have long been past. XV. There is yet another historic sign that this Book did not originate till the Persian Empire had long ceased to exist. In xi. 2 the writer only knows oi four kings of Persia.^ These are evidently Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius Hystaspis, and Xerxes — whom he describes as the richest of them. This king is de- stroyed by the kingdom of Grecia — an obvious con- fusion of popular tradition between the defeat inflicted on the Persians by the Republican Greeks in the days * Sayce, I.e. The author of the Book of Daniel seems only to have known of three kings of Persia after Cyrus (xi. 2). But five are mentioned in the Old Testament — Cyrus, Darius, Artaxerxes, Xerxes, and Darius III. (Codomannus, Neh. xii. 22). There were three Dariuses and three Artaxerxes, but he only knows one of each name (Kamphausen, p. 32). He might easily have overlooked the fact that the Darius of Neh. xii. 22 was a wholly different person from the Darius of Ezra vi. i. 62 THE BOOK OF DANIEL of Xerxes (b.c. 480), and the overthrow of the Persian kingdom under Darius Codomannus by Alexander the Great (b.c. 333). These, then, are some of the apparent historic im- possibiHties by which we are confronted when we regard this Book as professed history. The doubts suggested by such seeming errors are not in the least removed by the acervation of endless conjectures. They are greatly increased by the fact that, so far from standing alone, they are intensified by other difficulties which arise under every fresh aspect under which the Book is studied. Behrmann, the latest editor, sums up his studies with the remark that " there is an almost universal agreement that the Book, in its present form and as a whole, had its origin in the Maccabean age ; while there is a widening impression that in its purpose it is not an exclusive product of that period." No amount of casuistical ingenuity can long prevail to overthrow the spreading conviction that the views of Hengstenberg, Havernick, Keil, Pusey, and their followers, have been refuted by the light of advancing knowledge — which is a light kindled for us by God Himself. CHAPTER IV GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK IN endeavouring to see the idea and construction of a book there is always much room for the play of subjective considerations. Meinhold has especially studied this subject, but we cannot be certain that his views are more than imaginative. He thinks that chap, ii., in which we are strongly reminded of the story of Joseph and of Pharaoh's dreams, is intended to set forth God as Omniscient, and chap. iii. as Omnipotent. To these conceptions is added in chap. iv. the insistence upon God's All-holiness. The fifth and sixth chapters form one conception. Since the death of Belshazzar is assigned to the night of his banquet no edict could be ascribed to him resembling those attributed to Nebuchadrezzar. The effect of Daniel's character and of the Divine protection ac- corded to him on the mind of Darius is expressed in the strong edict of the latter in vi. 26, 27. This is meant to illustrate that the All-wise, Almighty, All- holy God is the Only Living God. The consistent and homogeneous object of the whole historic section is to set forth the God of the Hebrews as exalting Himself in the midst of heathendom, and extorting submission by mighty portents from heathen potentates. In this the Book offers a general analogy to the section of the history of the Israelites in Egypt narrated in Exod. i. 12. 63 64 THE BOOK OF DANIEL The culmination of recognition as to the power of God is seen in the decree of Darius (vi. 26, 27), as compared with that of Nebuchadrezzar in iv. 33. According to this view, the meaning and essence of each separate chapter are given in its closing section, and there is artistic advance to the great climax, marked alike by the resemblances of these four paragraphs (ii. 47, iii. 28, 29, iv. 37, vi. 26, 27), and by their differences. To this main purpose all the other elements of these splendid pictures — the faithfulness of Hebrew wor- shippers, the abasement of blaspheming despots, the mission of Israel to the nations — are subordinated. The chief aim is to set forth the helpless humiliation of all false gods before the might of the God of Israel. It might be expressed in the words, ^' Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations, and cast their gods into the fire ; for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone." A closer glance at these chapters will show some grounds for these conclusions. Thus, in the second chapter, the magicians and sorcerers repudiate all possibility of revealing the king's dream and its interpretation, because they are but men, and the gods have not their dwelling with mortal flesh (ii. 11); but Daniel can tell the dream because he stands near to his God, who, though He is in heaven, yet is All-wise, and revealeth secrets. In the third chapter the destruction of the strongest soldiers of Nebuchadrezzar by fire, and the absolute deliverance of the three Jews whom they have flung into the furnace, convince Nebuchadrezzar that no god can deliver as the Almighty does, and that there- fore it is blasphemy deserving of death to utter a word against Him. THE GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK 65 In chap. iv. the supremacy of Daniel's wisdom as derived from God, the fulfilment of the threatened judgment, and the deliverance of the mighty King of Babylon from his degrading madness when he lifts up his eyes to heaven, convince Nebuchadrezzar still more deeply that God is not only a Great God, but that no other being, man or god, can even be compared to Him. He is the Only and the Eternal God, who '' doeth according to His will in the army of heaven" as well as "among the inhabitants of the earth," and "none can stay His hand." This is the highest point of con- viction. Nebuchadrezzar confesses that God is not only Primus inter pares, but the Irresistible God, and his own God. And after this, in the fifth chapter, Daniel can speak to Belshazzar of " the Lord of heaven " (v. 23) ; and as the king's Creator ; and of the nothingness of gods of silver, and gold, and brass, and wood, and stone ; — as though those truths had already been decisively proved. And this belief finds open expression in the decree of Darius (vi. 26, 27), which concludes the historic section. It is another indication of this main purpose of these histories that the plural form of the Name of God — Elohtm — does not once occur in chaps, ii.-vi. It is used in i. 2, 9, 17 ; but not again till the ninth chapter, where it occurs twelve times; once in the tenth (x. 12) ; and twice of God in the eleventh chapter (xi. 32, 37). In the prophetic section (vii. 18, 22, 25, 27) we have " Most High " in the plural (^eliontn) ; ^ but with refer- ence only to the One God (see vii. 25). But in all cases where the heathen are addressed this plural becomes the singular (ehllehy '''^^), as throughout the ^ Literally, as in margin, ^^mont high things" or ^'places" 5 66 THE BOOK OF DANIEL first six chapters. This avoidance of so common a word as the plural Elohim for God, because the plural form might conceivably have been misunderstood by the heathen, shows the elaborate construction of the Book.^ God is called Eloah Shamain, '' God of heaven," in the second and third chapters ; but in later chapters we have the common post-exilic phrase in the plural.^ In the fourth and fifth chapters we have God's Holi- ness first brought before us, chiefly on its avenging side ; and it is not till we have witnessed the proof of His Unity, Wisdom, Omnipotence, and Justice, which it is the mission of Israel to make manifest among the heathen, that all is summed up in the edict of Darius to all people, nations, and languages. The omission of any express recognition of God's tender compassion is due to the structure of these chapters ; for it would hardly be possible for heathen potentates to recognise that attribute in the immediate presence of His judgments. It is somewhat remarkable that the name '' Jehovah " is avoided.^ As the Jews pur- posely pronounced it with wrong vowels, and the LXX. render it by Kvpco^;, the Samaritan by no^^i^, and the Rabbis by ''the Name," so we find in the Book of Daniel a similar avoidance of the awful Tetragrammaton. ' In iv. 5, 6 ; and elohin means " gods " in the mouth of a heathen ("spirit of the holy gods "), ^ Elohin occurs repeatedly in chap, ix., and in x. I2, xi. 32, 37. ^ It only occurs in Dan, ix. A CHAPTER V THE THEOLOGY OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL S regards the religious views of the Book of Daniel some of them at any rate are in full accordance with the belief in the late origin of the Book to which we are led by so many indications.^ I. Thus in Dan. xii. 2 (for we may here so far anti- cipate the examination of the second section of the Book) we meet, for the first time in Scripture, with a distinct recognition of the resurrection of the individual dead.^ This, as all know, is a doctrine of which we only find the faintest indication in the earlier books of the Canon. Although the doctrine is still but dimly formulated, it is clearer in this respect than Isa. xxv. 8, xxvi. 19. II. Still more remarkable is the special prominence of angels. It is not God who goes forth to war (Judg. V. 13, 23), or takes personal part in the deliver- ance or punishment of nations (Isa. v. 26, vii. 18). Throned in isolated and unapproachable transcendence, He uses the agency of intermicdiate beings (Dan. iv. 14).^ ' The description of God as " the Ancient of Days " with garments white as snow, and of His throne of flames on burning wheels, is found again in the Book of Enoch, written about B.C. 141 (Enoch xiv.). 2 See Dan. xii. 2. Comp. Jos., B. /., II. viii. 14; Enoch xxii. 13, Ix. 1-5, etc. ^ Comp. Smend, Alitest. Relig, Gesch., p. 530. For references to 67 68 THE BOOK OF DANIEL In full accordance with late developments of Jewish opinion angels are mentioned by special names, and appear as Princes and Protectors of special lands.^ In no other book in the Old Testament have we any names given to angels, or any distinction between their dignities, or any trace of their being in mutual rivalry as Princes or Patrons of different nationalities. These remarkable features of angelology only occur in the later epoch, and in the apocalyptic literature to which this Book belongs. Thus they are found in the LXX, translations of Deut. xxxii. 8 and Isa. xxx. 4, and in such post-Maccabean books as those of Enoch and Esdras.^ III. Again, we have the fixed custom of three daily formal prayers, uttered towards the Kibleh of Jerusalem. This m.ay, possibly, have begun during the Exile. It became a normal rule for later ages.^ The Book, how- ever, like that of Jonah, is, as a whole, remarkably free from any extravagant estimate of Levitical minutiae. IV. Once more, for the first time in Jewish story, we find extreme importance attached to the Levitical distinction of clean and unclean meats, which also comes into prominence in the age of the Maccabees, as it afterwards constituted a most prominent element in the ideal of Talmudic religionism.* Daniel and the angels in Old Testament see Job i. 6, xxxviii. 7 ; Jer. xxiii. 18 ; Psalm Ixxxix. 7; Josh. v. 13-15 ; Zech. i. 12, iii. I. See further Behrmann, Dan., p. xxiii. * Dan. iv. 14, ix. 21, x. 13, 20. - See Enoch Ixxi. 17, Ixviii. 10, and the six archangels Uriel, Raphael, Reguel, Michael, Saragael, and Gabriel in Enoch xx.-xxxvi. See Rosh Hashanah, f. 56, I ; Bereshith Rabba, c. 48 ; Hamburger, i. 305-312. 3 Berachoth, f. 31 ; Dan. vi. ii. Comp. Psalm Iv. 18; i Kings viii 38-48. * I Mace. i. 62 ;- Dan. i. 8 ; 2 Mace. v. 27, vi. i8-vu. 42. THE THEOLOGY OF THE BOOK 69 Three Children are vegetarians, like the Pharisees after the destruction of the Second Temple, mentioned in Baba Bathra^ f. 60, 2. V. We have already noticed the avoidance of the sacred name ^* Jehovah " even in passages addressed to Jews (Dan. ii. 18), though we find ^'Jehovah" in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 7. Jehovah only occurs in reference to Jer. XXV. 8-1 1, and in the prayer of the ninth chapter, where we also find Adonai and Elohim. Periphrases for God, like ''the Ancient of Days," become normal in Talmudic literature. VI. Again, the doctrine of the Messiah, like these other doctrines, is, as Professor Driver says, '' taught with greater distinctness and in a more developed form than elsewhere in the Old Testament, and with features approximating to, though not identical with, those met with in the earlier parts of the Book of Enoch (b.c. 100). In one or two instances these developments may have been partially moulded by foreign influences.^ They undoubtedly mark a later phase of revelation than that which is set before us in other books of the Old Testament. And the conclusion indicated by these special features in the Book is confirmed by the general atmosphere which we breathe throughout it. The atmo- sphere and tone are not those of any other writings belonging to the Jews of the Exile ; it is rather that of the Maccabean Chasidim. How far the Messianic Bar Enosh (vii. 13) is meant to be a person will be considered in the comment on that passage. We shall see in later pages that the supreme value ' Introd., p. 477. Comp. 2 Esdras xiii. 41-45, SLud passim; Enoch xl., xlv., xlvi., xlix., and passim; Hamburger, Real-EncycL, ii. 267 ff. With " the time of the end " and the numerical calculations comp. 2 Esdras vi. 6, 7. ..^^^^ ' ' "• ' """ ' '* ' »» ^^ 70 THE BOOK OF DANIEL and importance of the Book of Daniel, rightl}^ under- stood, consists in this — that " it is the first attempt at a Philosoph}^, or rather at a Theology of History." ^ Its main object was to teach the crushed and afQicted to place unshaken confidence in God. ^ Roszmann, Die Makkabaische Erhebttng, p. 45. See Wellhausen, Die Pharis. n. d. Sadd., 77 ff. CHAPTER VI PECULIARITIES OF THE APOCALYPTIC AND PROPHETIC SECTION OF THE BOOK IF we have found much to lead us to serious doubts as to the authenticity and genuineness — i.e., as to the Hteral historicity and the real author — of the Book of Daniel in its historic section, we shall find still more in the prophetic section. If the phenomena already passed in review are more than enough to indicate the impossibility that the Book could have been written by the historic Daniel, the phenomena now to be considered are such as have sufficed to convince the immense majority of learned critics that, in its present form, the Book did not appear before the days of Antiochus Epiphanes.^ The probable date is b.c. 164. As in the Book of Enoch xc. 15, 16, it contains history written under the form of prophecy. Leaving minuter examination to later chapters of commentary, we will now take a brief survey of this unique apocalypse. 1. As regards the style and method the only distant approach to it in the rest of the Old Testament is in a few visions of Ezekiel and Zechariah, which differ * Among these critics are Delitzsch, Riehm, Evvald, Bunsen, Hilgenfeld, Cornill, Liicke, Strack, Schiirer, Kuenen, Meinhold, Orelli, Joel, Reuss, Konig, Kamphausen, Cheyne, Driver, Briggs, Bevan, Behrmann, etc. 71 72 THE BOOK OF DANIEL greatly from the clear, and so to speak classic, style of the older prophets. But in Daniel we find visions far more enigmatical, and far less full of passion and poetry. Indeed, as regards style and intellectual force, the splendid historic scenes of chaps, i.-vi. far sur- pass the visions of vii.-xii., some of which have been described as ^'composite logographs," in which the ideas are forcibly juxtaposed without care for any coherence in the symbols — as, for instance, when a horn speaks and has e3^es.^ Chap. vii. contains a vision of four different wild beasts rising from the sea : a lion, with eagle-wings, which afterwards becomes semi-human ; a bear, leaning on one side, and having three ribs in its mouth ; a four- winged, four-headed panther ; and a still more terrible creature, with iron teeth, brazen claws, and ten horns, among which rises a little horn, which destroyed three of the others — it has man's eyes and a mouth speaking proud things. There follows an epiphany of the Ancient of Days, who destroys the little horn, but prolongs for a time the existence of the other wild beasts. Then comes One in human semblance, who is brought before the Ancient of Days, and is clothed by Him with universal and eternal power. We shall see reasons for the view that the four beasts — in accordance with the interpretation of the vision given to Daniel himself — represent the Baby- lonian, the Median, the Persian, and the Greek empires, issuing in the separate kingdoms of Alexander's successors ; and that the little horn is Antiochus ' Renan, History of Israel, iv. 354. He adds, "L'essence du genre c'est le pseudonyme, ou si Ton veut I'apocryphisme " (p. 356). PECULIARITIES OF THE APOCALYPTIC SECTION 73 Epiphanes, whose overthrow is to be followed imme- diately by the Messianic Kingdom.^ The vision of the eighth chapter mainly pursues the history of the fourth of these kingdoms. Daniel sees a ram standing eastward of the river-basin of the Ulai, having two horns, of which one is higher than the other. It butts westward, northward, and southward, and seemed irresistible, until a he-goat from the West, with one horn between its eyes, con- fronted it, and stamped it to pieces. After this its one horn broke into four towards the four winds of heaven, and one of them shot forth a puny horn, which grew great towards the South and East, and acted tyrannously against the Holy People, and spoke blasphemously against God. Daniel hears the holy ones declaring that its powers shall only last two thousand three hundred evening-mornings. An angel bids Gabriel to explain the vision to Daniel ; and Gabriel tells the seer that the ram represents the Medo-Persian and the he-goat the Greek Kingdom. Its great horn is Alexander ; the four horns are the kingdoms of his successors, the Diadochi ; the little horn is a king bold of vision and versed in enigmas, whom all agree to be Antiochus Epiphanes. In the ninth chapter we are told that Daniel has been meditating on the prophecy of Jeremiah that Jerusalem should be rebuilt after seventy years, and as the seventy years seem to be drawing to a close he ' Lagarde, Gott. Gel. Anzieg., 1891, pp. 497-520, stands almost, if not quite, alone in arguing that Dan. vii. was not written till a.d. 69, and that the " little horn " is meant for Vespasian. The relation of the fourth empire of Dan. vii. to the iron part of the image in Dan. ii. refutes this view : both can only refer to the Greek Empire. Josephus (Antt, X. xi. 7) does not refer to Dan. vii. ; but neither does he to ix.-xii,, for reasons already mentioned See Cornill, Ein/ett, p. 262. 74 THE BOOK OF DANIEL humbles himself with prayer and fasting. But Gabriel comes flying to him at the time of the evening sacrifice, and explains to him that the seventy years is to mean seventy weeks of years — i.e., four hundred and ninety years, divided into three periods of 7 + 62 + i. At the end of seven (i.e., forty-nine) years an anointed prince will order the restoration of Jerusalem. The city will continue, though in humiliation, for sixty-two {i.e., four hundred and thirty-four) years, when ^^an anointed " will be cut off, and a prince will destroy it. During half a week (i.e., for three and a half years) he will cause the sa.crifice and oblation to cease ; and he will make a covenant with m.any for one week, at the end of which he will be cut off. Here, again, we shall have reason to see that the whole prophecy culminates in, and is mainly concerned with, Antiochus Epiphanes. In fact, it furnishes us with a sketch of his fortunes, which, in connexion with the eleventh chapter, tells us more about him than we learn from any extant history. In the tenth chapter Daniel, after a fast of twenty- one days, sees a vision of Gabriel, who explains to him why his coming has been delayed, soothes his fears, touches his lips, and prepares him for the vision of chapter eleven. That chapter is mainly occupied with a singularly minute and circumstantial history of the murders, intrigues, wars, and intermarriages of the Lagidae and Seleucidae. So detailed is it that in some cases the history has to be reconstructed out of it. This sketch is followed by the doings and final over- throw of Antiochus Epiphanes. The twelfth chapter is the picture of a resurrection, and of words of consolation and exhortation addressed to Daniel. PECULIARITIES OF THE APOCALYPTIC SECTION 75 Such in briefest outline are the contents of these chapters, and their pecuHarities are very marked. Until the reader has studied the more detailed explana- tion of the chapters separately, and especially of the eleventh, he will be unable to estimate the enormous force of the arguments adduced to prove the impossibility of such " prophecies " having emanated from Babylon and Susa about b.c. 536. Long before the astonishing en- largement of our critical knov/ledge which has been the work of the last generation — nearly fifty years ago — the mere perusal of the Book as it stands produced on the manly and honest judgment of Dr. Arnold a strong impression of uncertainty. He said that the latter chapters of Daniel would, if genuine, be a clear excep- tion to the canons of interpretation which he laid down in his Sermons on Prophecy, since ''there can be no reasonable spiritual meaning made out of the kings of the North and South." ''But," he adds, "I have long thought that the greater part of the Book of Daniel is most certainly a very late v/ork of the time of the Maccabees; and the pretended prophecies about the kings of Grecia and Persia, and of the North and South, are mere history, like the poetical prophecies in Virgil and elsewhere. In fact, you can trace distinctly the date when it was written, because the events up to that date are given with historical minuteness, totally unlike the character of real prophecy ; and beyond that date all is imaginary." ^ The Book is the earliest specimen of its kind known to us. It inaugurated a new and important branch of Jewish literature, which influenced many subsequent writers. An apocalypse, so 'far as its literary form is concerned, " claims throughout to be a supernatural ' Stanley, Life of Arnold, p. 505. 76 THE BOOK OF DANIEL revelation given to mankind by. the mouth of those men in whose names the various writings appear." An apocalypse — such, for instance, as the Books of Enoch, the Assumption of Moses, Baruch, i, 2 Esdras, and the Sibylline Oracles — is characterised by its enigmatic form, which shrouds its meaning in parables and symbols. It indicates persons without naming them, and shadows forth historic events under animal forms, or as operations of Nature. Even the explanations which follow, as in this Book, are still mysterious and indirect. II. In the next place an apocalypse is literary, not oral. Schiirer, who classes Daniel among the oldest and most original of pseudepigraphic prophecies, etc., rightly says that '' the old prophets in their teachings and exhortations addressed themselves directly to the people first and foremost through their oral utterances ; and then, but only as subordinate to these, by written discourses as well. But now, when men felt them- selves at any time compelled by their religious enthu- siasm to influence their contemporaries, instead of directly addressing them in person like the prophets of old, they did so by a writing purporting to be the work of some one or other of the great names of the past, in the hope that in this way the effect would be all the surer and all the more powerful." ^ The Daniel of this Book represents himself, not as a prophet, but as a humble student of the prophets. He no longer claims, as Isaiah did, to speak in the Name of God Himself with a ''Thus saith Jehovah." III. Thirdly, it is impossible not to notice that Daniel differs from all other prophecies by its all-but- total indifference to the circumstances and surroundings * Schiirer, Hist, of the Jew. People, iii. 24 (E. Tr.). PECULIARITIES OF THE APOCALYPTIC SECTION 77 in the midst of which the prediction is supposed to have originated. The Daniel of Babylon and Susa is represented as the writer ; 3^et his whole interest is concentrated, not in the events which immediately interest the Jews of Babylon in the days of Cyrus, or of Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, but deals with a number of predictions which revolve almost exclusively about the reign of a very inferior king four centuries afterwards. And with this king the predictions abruptly stop short, and are followed by the very general promise of an immediate Messianic age. We may notice further the constant use of round and cyclic numbers, such as three and its compounds (i. 5, iii. I, vi. 7, 10, vii. 5, 8); four (ii., vii. 6, and viii. 8, xi. 12); seven and its compounds (iii. 19, iv. 16, 23, ix. 24, etc.). The apocalyptic symbols of Bears, Lions, Eagles, Horns, Wings, etc., abound in the contemporary and later Books of Enoch, Baruch, 4 Esdras, the Assumption of Moses, and the Sibyllines, as well as in the early Christian apocalypses, like that of Peter. The authors of the Sibyllines (b.c. 140) were acquainted with Daniel ; the Book of Enoch breathes exactly the same spirit with this Book, in the transcendentalism which avoids the name Jehovah (vii. 1 3 ; Enoch xlvi. i, xlvii. 3), in the number of angels (vii. 10; Enoch xl. i, Ix. 2), their names, the title of ^' watchers " given to them, and their guardianship of men (Enoch xx. 5). The Judgment and the Books (vii. 9, 10, xii. i) occur again in Enoch xlvii. 3, Ixxxi. i, as in the Book of Jubilees, and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs.^ * On the close resemblance between Daniel and other apocryphal books see Behrmann, Dan., pp. 37-39 ; Dillmann, Das Buck Henoch, For its relation to the Book of Baruch see Schrader, Keilinschriften, 435 f. Philo does not allude to Daniel. CHAPTER VII INTERNAL EVIDENCE I. /^"ATHER prophets start from the ground of the ^<^ present^ and to exigencies of the present their prophecies were primarily directed. It is true that their lofty moral teaching, their rapt poetry, their impassioned feeling, had its inestimable value for all ages. But these elements scarcely exist in the Book of Daniel. Almost the whole of its prophecies bear on one short particular period nearly four hundred years after the supposed epoch of their delivery. What, then, is the phenomenon they present ? W^hereas other prophets, by studying the problems of the present in the light flung upon them by the past, are enabled, by combining the present with the past, to gain, with the aid of God's Holy Spirit, a vivid glimpse of the immediate future, for the instruction of the living generation, the reputed author of Daniel passes over the immediate future with a few words, and spends the main part of his revelations on a triad of years separated by centuries from contemporary history. Occupied as this description is with the wars and negotiations of empires which were yet unborn, it can have had little practical significance for Daniel's fellow-exiles. Nor could these '^ predictions " have been to prove the possibility of supernatural foreknowledge,^ since, even ' Any apparently requisite modification of these ^vords will be considered hereafter. 78 INTERNAL EVIDENCE ■ 79 after their supposed fulfilment, the interpretation of them is open to the greatest difficulties and the gravest doubts. If to a Bab3^1onian exile was vouchsafed a gift of prevision so minute and so marvellous as enabled him to describe the intermarriages of Ptolemies and Seleucidae four centuries later, surely the gift must have been granted for some decisive end. But these pre- dictions are precisely the ones which seem to have the smallest significance. We must say, with Semler, that no such benefit seems likely to result from this predetermination of comparatively unimportant minutiae as God must surely intend when He makes use of means of a very extraordinary character. It might perhaps be said that the Book was written, four hundred years before the crisis occurred, to console the Jews under their brief period of persecution by the Seleucidae. It would be indeed extraordinary that so curious, distant, and roundabout a method should have been adopted for an end which, in accordance with the entire economy of God's dealings with men in revelation, could have been so much more easil}^ and so much more effectually accomplished in simpler ways. Further, unless we accept an isolated allusion to Daniel in the imaginary speech of the dying Mattathias, there is no trace whatever that the Book had the smallest influence in inspiring the Jews in that terrible epoch. And the reference of Mattathias, if it was ever made at all, may be to old tradition, and does not allude to the prophecies about Antiochus and his fate. But, as Hengstenberg, the chief supporter of the authenticity of the Book of Daniel, well observes,^ " Prophecy can never entirely separate itself from the 1 On Revelations^ vol. i., p. 408 (E. Tr.). So THE BOOK OF DANIEL ground of the present, to influence which is always its more immediate object^ and to which therefore it must constantly construct a bridge.^ On this also rests all certainty of exposition as to the future. And that the means should be provided for such a certainty is a necessary consequence of the Divine nature of prophecy. A truly Divine prophecy cannot possibly swim in the air ; nor can the Church be left to mere guesses in the exposition of Scripture which has been given to her as a light amid the darkness." II. And as it does not start from the ground of the present, so too the Book of Daniel reverses the method of prophecy with reference to the future. For the genuine predictions of Scripture advance by slow and gradual degrees from the uncertain and the general to the definite and the special. Prophecy marches with histor}^, and takes a takes a step for- ward at each new period.^ So far as we know there is not a single instance in which any prophet alludes to, much less dwells upon, any kingdom which had not then risen above the political horizon.^ In Daniel the case is reversed : the only kingdom which was looming into sight is dismissed with a few words, and the kingdom most dwelt upon is the most distant and quite the most insignificant of all, of the very existence of which neither Daniel nor his con- temporaries had even remotely heard.'* III. Then again, although the prophets, with their ' " Dient bei ihnen die Zukunft der Gegenwart, und ist selbst fortgesetzte Gegenwart " (Behrmann, Dan., p. xi). ^ See M. de Pressense, Hist, des Trois Prem. Stecles, p. 283. ^ See some admirable remarks on this subject in Ewald, Die Proph. d. Alt. Bund., i. 23, 24; Winer, Reahvorterb., s.v. "Propheten" Stahelin, Einleit., § 197. * Comp. Enoch i. 2. INTERNAL EVIDENCE 8i divinely illuminated souls, reached far beyond intel- lectual sagacity and political foresight, yet their hints about the future never distantly approach to detailed history like that of Daniel. They do indeed so far lift the veil of the Unseen as to shadow forth the out- line of the near future, but they do this only on general terms and on general principles.-^ Their object, as I have repeatedly observed, was mainly moral, and it was also confessedly conditional, even when no hint is given of the implied condition.^ Nothing is more certain than the wisdom and beneficence of that Divine provision which has hidden the future from men's eyes, and even taught us to regard all prying into its minute events as vulgar and sinful.^ Stargazing and monthly prognostication were rather the characteristics of false religion and unhallowed divinations than of faithful and holy souls. Nitzsch^ most justly lays it down as an essential condition of prophecy that it should not disturb mavUs relation to history. Anything Hke detailed description of the future would intoler- ably perplex and confuse our sense of human free-will. It would drive us to the inevitable conclusion that men are but puppets moved irresponsibly by the hand of inevitable fate. Not one such prophecy, unless this be one, occurs anywhere in the Bible. We do not think that (apart from Messianic prophecies) a single instance can be given in which any prophet distinctly and minutely predicts a future series of events of which the fulfilment was not near at hand. In the few cases • Ewald, Die Proph., i. 27 ; Michel Nicolas, Etudes sitr la Bible, pp. 336 ff. "^ Comp. Mic. iii. 12 ; Jer, xxvi. 1-19 ; Ezek. i. 21, Comp. xxix. 18, 19. ^ Deut, xviii. 10. * System der christlichen Lehre, p. 66. 6 82 THE BOOK OF DANIEL when some event, already imminent, is predicted appa- rently with some detail, it is not certain whether some touches — names, for instance — may not have been added by editors living subsequently to the occurrence of the event/ That there has been at all times a gift of prescience, whereby the Spirit of God, '* entering into holy souls, has made them sons of God and prophets," is indisputable. It is in virtue of this high fore- knowledge ^ that the voice of the Hebrew Sibyl has " Rolled sounding onwards through a thousand years Her deep prophetic bodiments." Even Demosthenes, by virtue of a statesmian's thoughtful experience, can describe it as his office and duty *' to see events in their beginnings, to discern their purport and tendencies from the first, and to forewarn his countrymen accordingly." Yet the power of Demosthenes was as nothing compared with that of an Isaiah or a Nahum ; and we may safely say that the writings alike of the Greek orator and the Hebrew prophets would have been comparatively valueless had they merely contained anticipations of future history, instead of dealing with truths whose value is equal for all ages — truths and principles which give clearness to the past, security to the present, and guidance to the future. Had it been the function of prophecy to remove the veil of obscurity v/hich God in His wisdom has hung over the destinies of men and kingdoms, it would never have attained, as it has done, to the love and reverence of mankind. IV. Another unique and abnormal feature is found ' E.g., in the case of Josiah (i Kings xiii. 2). ^ De Corona, 73 : iZetv ra Trpdyixara dpx^/xeva kuI Trpoai(r64a6ac Kal irpoenretv rots 6.W0LS, INTERNAL EVIDENCE 83 in the close and accurate chronological calculations in which the Book of Daniel abounds. We shall see later on that the dates of the Maccabean reconsecration of the Temple and the ruin of Antiochus Epiphanes are indicated almost to the day. The numbers of prophecy are in all other cases symbolical and general. They are intentional compounds of seven — the sum of three and four, which are the numbers that mystically shadow forth God and the world — a number which even Cicero calls '' rerum omnium fere modus " ; and of ten, the number of the world.^ If we except the pro- phecy of the seventy years' captivity — which was a round number, and is in no respect parallel to the periods of Daniel — there is no other instance in the Bible of a chronological prophecy. We say no other instance, because one of the commentators who, in writing upon Daniel, objects to the remark of Nitzsch that the numbers of prophecy are mystical, yet observes on the one thousand two hundred and sixty days of Rev. xii. that the number one thousand two hundred and sixty, or three and a half years, " has no historical signification whatever, and is only to be viewed in its relation to the number seven — viz., as symbolising the apparent victory of the world over the Church." ^ V. Alike, then, in style, in matter, and in what has been called by V. Orelli its '' exoteric " manner, — alike in its definiteness and its indefiniteness — in the point from which it starts and the period at which it termi- nates — in its minute details and its chronological indica- tions — in the absence of the moral and the impassioned ' The symbolism of numbers is carefully and learnedly worked out in Bahr's Sytnbolik: cf, Auberlen, p. 133. The several fulfilments of the prophesied seventy years' captivity illustrate this. ■^ Hcngstenberg, On Revelations, p. 609. 84 THE BOOK OF DANIEL element, and in the sense of fatalism which it must have introduced into history had it been a genuine prophecy, — the Book of Daniel differs from all the other books which compose that prophetic canon. From that canon it was rightly and deliberately ex- cluded by the Jews. Its worth and dignity can only be rationally vindicated or rightly understood by sup- posing it to have been the work of an unknown moralist and patriot of the Maccabean age. And if anything further were wanting to complete the cogency of the internal evidence which forces this conclusion upon us, it is amply found in a study of those books, confessedly apocryphal, w^hich, although far inferior to the Book before us, are yet of value, and which we believe to have emanated from the same era. They resemble this Book in their language, both Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as in certain recurring- expressions and forms to be found in the Books of Maccabees and the Second Book of Esdras ; — in their style— rhetorical rather than poetical, stately rather than ecstatic, diffuse rather than pointed, and wholly inferior to the prophets in depth and power ; — in the use of an apocalyptic method, and the strange combination of dreams and symbols ; — in the insertion, by way of embellishment, of speeches and formal documents which can at the best be only semi-historical ; — finally, in the whole tone of thought, especially in the quite peculiar doctrine of archangels, of angels guarding kingdoms, and of opposing evil spirits. In short, the Book of Daniel may be illustrated by the Apocryphal books in every single particular. In the adoption of an illus- trious name — which is the most marked characteristic of this period — it resembles the additions to the Book of Daniel, the Books of Esdras, the Letters of Baruch INTERNAL EVIDENCE 85 and Jeremiah, and the Wisdom of Solomon. In the imaginary and quasi-legendary treatment of history it finds a parallel in Wisdom xvi.— xix., and parts of the Second Book of Maccabees and the Second Book of Esdras. As an allusive narrative bearing on contem- poraneous events under the guise of describing the past, it is closely parallel to the Book of Judith,^ while the character of Daniel bears the same relation to that of Joseph, as the representation of Judith does to that of Jael. As an ethical development of a few scattered historical data, tending to the marvellous and super- natural, but rising to the dignity of a very noble and important religious fiction, it is analogous, though in- comparably superior, to Bel and the Dragon, and to the stories of Tobit and Susanna.^ The conclusion is obvious ; and it is equally obvious that, when w^e suppose the name of Daniel to have been assumed, and the assumption to have been sup- ported by an antique colouring, we do not for a moment charge the unknown author — who may very well have been Onias IV. — with any dishonesty. Indeed, it appears to us that there are many traces in the Book — (f^covdvTa avverolaiv — which exonerate the writer from any suspicion of intentional deception. They may have been meant to remove any tendency to error in under- standing the artistic guise which was adopted for the better and more forcible inculcation of the lessons to be conveyed. That the stories of Daniel offered pecu- liar opportunities for this treatment is shown by the apocryphal additions to the Book ; and that the practice ' All these particulars may be found, without any allusion to the Book of Daniel, in the admirable article on the Apocrypha by Dean Plumptre in Dr. Smith's Did. of the Bible. ^ Ewald, Gesch. Isr., iv. 541. 86 THE BOOK OF DANIEL was well understood even before the closing of the Canon is sufficiently shown by the Book of Ecclesiastes. The writer of that strange and fascinating book, with its alternating moods of cynicism and resignation, merely adopted the name of Solomon, and adopted it with no dishonourable purpose ; for he could not have dreamed that utterances which in page after page betray to criticism their late origin would really be identified with the words of the son of David a thousand years before Christ. This may now be regarded as an in- disputable, and is indeed a no longer disputed, result of all literary and philological inquiry. It is to Porphyry, a Neoplatonist of the third century (born at Tyre, a.d. 233 ; died in Rome, a.d. 303), that w^e owe our ability to write a continuous historical commentary on the symbols of Daniel. That writer devoted the twelfth book of his ^070^ Kara XpiaTiavcov to a proof that Daniel was not written till a/ier the epoch which it so minutely described.-^ In order to do this he collected with great learning and industry a history of the obscure Antiochian epoch from authors most of whom have perished. Of these authors Jerome — the most valuable part of whose commentary is derived from Porphyry — gives a formidable list, men- tioning among others Callinicus, Diodorus, Polybius, Posidonius, Claudius, Theo, and Andronicus. It is a strange fact that the exposition of a canonical book should have been mainly rendered possible by an avowed opponent of Christianity. It was the object of Porphyry to prove that the apocalyptic portion of the Book was not a prophecy at all.^ It used to be a ' " Et non tarn Danielem ventitra dixisse quam ilium itarrasse prceterita''^ (Jer.). ^ "Ad intelligendas autem extrcmas Danielis partes multiplex INTERNAL EVIDENCE 87 constant taunt against those who adopt his critical conclusions that their weapons are borrowed from the armoury of an infidel. The objection hardly seems worth answering. ^^ Fas est et ab hoste doceri." If the enemies of our religion have sometimes helped us the better to understand our sacred books, or to judge more correctly respecting them, we should be grateful that their assaults have been overruled to our in- struction. The reproach is wholly beside the question. We may apply to it the manly words of Grotius : " Neque 7ne pudeat consentire PorphyriOj quando is in veram sententiam incidit.''^ Moreover, St. Jerome himself could not have written his commentary, as he himself admits, without availing himself of the aid of the erudition of the heathen philosopher, whom no less a person than St. Augustine called ^^ doctissimus philosophorum,^^ though unhappily he was " acerrimiis christianorum inimiatsy Graecorum historia necessaria est " (Jer., Prooem. Explan. in Dan. Proph. ad f.). Among these Greek historians he mentions eight whom Porphyry had consulted, and adds, " Et si quando cogimur Utterarum saecularium recordari . . . non nostrae est voluntatis, sed ut dicam, gravissimce necessitatis" We know Porphyry's arguments mainly through the commentary of Jerome, who, indeed, derived from Porphyry the historic data without which the eleventh chapter, among others, would have been wholly unintelligible. CHAPTER VIII EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF THE GENUINENESS UNCERTAIN AND INADEQUATE WE have seen that there are many circumstances which force upon us the gravest doubts as to the authenticity of the Book of Daniel. We now pro- ceed to examine the evidence urged in its favour, and deemed adequate to refute the conclusion that in its present form it did not see the light before the time of Antiochus IV. Taking Hengstenberg as the most learned reasoner in favour of the genuineness of Daniel, we will pass in review all the positive arguments which he has adduced.^ They occupy no less than one hundred and ten pages (pp. 182-291) of the English translation of his work on the genuineness of Daniel. Most of them are tortuous specimens of special pleading inadequate in them- selves, or refuted by increased knowledge derived from the monuments and from further inquiry. To these arguments neither Dr. Pusey nor any subsequent writer has made any material addition. Some of them have been already answered, and many of them are so unsatisfactory that they may be dismissed at once. I. Such, for instance, are the testimony of the author * Havernick is another able and sincere supporter ; but Droysen truly says (^Gesch. d. Hellenismus^ ii. 211), "Die Havernickschcn Auffassung kann kein vernunftiger Mensch bestimmen.*' 88 FAVOURABLE EVIDENCE UNCERTAIN 89 himself. In one of those slovenly treatises which only serve to throw dust in the eyes of the ignorant we find it stated that, " although the name of Daniel is not prefixed to his Book, the passages in which he speaks in the first person sufficiently prove that he was the author " I Such assertions deserve no answer. If the mere assumption of a name be a sufficient proof of the authorship of a book, we are rich indeed in Jewish authors — and, not to speak of others, our list includes works by Adam, Enoch, Eldad, Medad, and Elijah. '* Pseudonymity," says Behrmann, '* was a very common characteristic of the literature of that day, and the conception of literary property was alien to that epoch, and especially to the circle of writings of this class." II. The character of the language, as we have seen already, proves nothing. Hebrew and Aramaic long continued in common use side by side at least among the learned,^ and the divergence of the Aramaic in Daniel from that of the Targums leads to no definite result, considering the late and uncertain age of those v/ri tings. III. How any argument can be founded on the exact knowledge of history displayed by local colouring we cannot understand. Were the knowledge displayed ever so exact it would only prove that the author was a learned man, which is obvious already. But so far from any remarkable accuracy being shown by the author, it is, on the contrary, all but impossible to reconcile many of his statements with acknowledged facts. The elaborate and tortuous explanations, the frequent " subauditur," the numerous assumptions ' See Grimm, Comment, zum, I. Buck der Makk., Einleit., xvii. ; Movers in Bonner Zeitschr., Heft 13, pp. 31 ff. ; Stahelin, Einleit., p. 356. 90 THE BOOK OF DANIEL required to force the text into accordance with the certain historic data of the Babylonian and Persian empires, tell far more against the Book than for it. The methods of accounting for these inaccuracies are mostly self-confuting, for they leave the subject in hopeless confusion, and each orthodox commentator shows how untenable are the views of others. IV. Passing over other arguments of Keil, Hengsten- berg, etc., which have been either refuted already, or which are too weak to deserve repetition, we proceed to examine one or two of a more serious character. Great stress, for instance, is laid on the reception of the Book into the Canon. We acknowledge the canonicity of the Book, its high value when rightly apprehended, and its rightful acceptance as a sacred book ; but this in nowise proves its authenticity. The history of the Old Testament Canon is involved in the deepest obscurity. The belief that it was finally completed by Ezra and the Great Synagogue rests on no foundation ; indeed, it is irreconcilable with later historic notices and other facts connected with the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and the two Books of Chronicles. The Christian Fathers in this, as in some other cases, implicitly believed what came to them from the most questionable sources, and was mixed up with mere Jewish fables. One of the oldest Talmudic books, the Pirke A both, is entirely silent on the collection of the Old Testament, though in a vague way it connects the Great Synagogue with the preservation of the Law. The earliest mention of the legend about Ezra is in the Second Book of Esdras (xiv. 29-48). This book does not possess the slightest claim to authority, as it was not completed till a century after the Christian era; and it mingles up with this very narrative a number of particulars thoroughly fabu- FAVOURABLE EVIDENCE UNCERTAIN 91 lous and characteristic of a period when the Jewish writers were always ready to subordinate history to imaginative fables. The account of the magic cup, the forty days and forty nights' dictation, the ninety books of which seventy were secret and intended only for the learned, form part of the very passage from which we are asked to believe that Ezra established our existing Canon, though the genuine Book of Ezra is wholly silent about his having performed any such inestimable service. It adds nothing to the credit of this fable that it is echoed by Irenaeus, Clemens Alexandrinus, and TertuUian.^ Nor are there any external considerations which render it probable. The Talmudic tradition in the Baba Bathra^ which says (among other remarks in a passage of v«/hich *' the notorious errors prove the unreliability of its testimony ") that the " men of the Great Synagogue wrote the Books of Ezekiel, the Twelve Minor Prophets, Daniel y and Ezra.^ It is evident that, so far as this evidence is worth anything, it rather goes against the authenticity of Daniel than for it. The Pirke Aboth makes Simon the Just (about e.g. 290) a member of this Great Synagogue, of which the very existence is dubious."^ Again, the author of the forged letter at the beginning of the Second Book of Maccabees — *' the work " says Hengstenberg, ** of an arrant impostor"^ — attributes the collection of certain books first to Nehemiah, and 1 Iren., Adv. Hceres., iv. 25; Clem., Strom, i. 21, § 146; Tert., De Cult. Foem., i. 3 ; Jerome, Adv. Helv., 7; Ps. August., De Mirab., ii. 32, etc. ■^ Baba Bathra, f. 136, 14 6. ^ See Oehler, s.v. " Kanon " (Herzog, Encyct.). * Rau, De Synag. Magna, ii. 66. * On Daniel, p. 195. 92 THE BOOK OF DANIEL then, when they had been lost, to Judas Maccabaeus (2 Mace. ii. 13, 14). The canonicity of the Old Testament books does not rest on such evidence as this,^ and it is hardly worth while to pursue it further. That the Book of Daniel was regarded as authentic by Josephus is clear ; but this by no means decides its date or authorship. It is one of the very few books of which Philo makes no mention whatever. V. Nor can the supposed traces of the early exist- ence of the Book be considered adequate to prove its genuineness. With the most important of these, the story of Josephus {AntL, XI. viii. 5) that the high priest Jaddua showed to Alexander the Great the prophecies of Daniel respecting himself, we shall deal later. The alleged traces of the Book in Ecclesiasticus are very uncertain, or rather wholly questionable ; and the allusion to Daniel in i Mace. ii. 60 decides nothing, because there is nothing to prove that the speech of the dying Mattathias is authentic, and because we know nothing certain as to the date of the Greek translator of that book or of the Book of Daniel. The absence of all allusion to the prophecies of Daniel is, on the other hand, a far more cogent point against the authenticity. Whatever be the date of the Books of Maccabees, it is inconceivable that they should offer no vestige of proof that Judas and his brothers received any hope or comfort from such explicit pre- dictions as Dan. xi., had the Book been in the hands of those pious and noble chiefs. 1 " Even after the Captivity," says Bishop Westcott, " the history of the Canon, like all Jewish history up to the date of the Maccabees, is wrapped in great obscurity. Faint traditions alone remain to interpret results which are found realised when the dark- ness is first cleared away " {s.v. " Canon," Smith's Diet, of Bible). FAVOURABLE EVIDENCE UNCERTAIN 93 The First Book of Maccabees cannot be certainly dated more than a century before Christ, nor have we reason to believe that the Septuagint version of the Book is much older.^ VI. The badness of the Alexandrian version, and the apocryphal additions to it, seem to be rather an argu- ment for the late age and less established authority of the Book than for its genuineness.^ Nor can we attach much weight to the assertion (though it is endorsed by the high authority of Bishop Westcott) that ^^ it is far more difficult to explain its composition in the Maccabean period than to meet the peculiarities which it exhibits with the exigencies of the Return." So far is this from being the case that, as we have seen already, it resembles in almost every particular the acknowledged productions of the age in which we believe it to have been written. Many of the state- ments made on this subject by those who defend the authenticity cannot be maintained. Thus Hengsten- berg^ remarks that (i) "at this time the Messianic hopes are dead/' and (2) '' that no great Hterary work appeared between the Restoration from the Captivity and the time of Christ." Now the facts are precisely the reverse in each instance. For (i) the little book called the Psalms of Solomon,* which belongs to this period, contains the strongest and clearest Messianic hopes^ ' See Konig, Einleit., § 80, 2. 2 " In propheta Daniele Septuaginta interpretes multum ab Hebraica veritate discordant" (Jerome, ed. Vallarsi, v. 646). In the LXX. are first found the three apocryphal additions. For this reason the version of Theodotion was substituted for the LXX., which latter was only rediscovered in 1772 in a manuscript in the library of Cardinal Chigi. ^ On the Authenticity of Daniel, pp, 159, 290 (E. Tr.). •* Psalms of Sol. xvii. 36, xviii. 8, etc. See Fabric, Cod. Pseudep., i. 917-972 ; Ewald, Gesch. d. Volkes Isr., iv. 244.! 94 THE BOOK OF DANIEL and the Book of Enoch most closely resembles Daniel in its Messianic predictions. Thus it speaks of the pre-existence of the Messiah (xlviii. 6, Ixii. 7), of His sitting on a throne of glory (Iv. 4, Ixi. 8), and receiving the power of rule. (ii) Still less can we attach any force to Hengsten- berg's argument that, in the Maccabean age, the gift of prophecy was believed to have departed for ever. In- deed, that is an argument in favour of the pseudonymity of the Book. For in the age at which — for purposes of literary form — it is represented as having appeared the spirit of prophecy was far from being dead. Ezekiel was still living, or had died but recently. Zechariah, Haggai, and long afterwards Malachi, were still to con- tinue the succession of the mighty prophets of their race. Now, if prediction be an element in the prophet's work, no prophet, nor all the prophets together, ever distantly approached any such power of minutely fore- telling the events of a distant future — even the half- meaningless and all-but-trivial events of four centuries later, in kingdoms which had not yet thrown their distant shadows on the horizon — as that which Daniel must have possessed, if he were indeed the author of this Book.^ Yet, as we have seen, he never thinks of claiming the functions of the prophets, or speaking in the prophet's commanding voice, as the foreteller of the message of God. On the contrary, he adopts the com- paratively feebler and more entangled methods of the literary composers in an age when men saw not their tokens and there was no prophet more.^ ' Even Auberlen says {Dan., p, 3, E. Tr.), " If prophecy is any- where a history of the future, it is here." ^ See Vitringa, De defedu Prophetice post Malachice tempora Obss, Sacr., ii. 336. FAVOURABLE EVIDENCE UNCERTAIN 95 We must postpone a closer examination of the ques- tions as to the " four kingdoms " intended by the writer, and of his curious and enigmatic chronological calculations ; but we must reject at once the monstrous assertion — excusable in the days of Sir Isaac Newton, but which has now become unwise and even portentous — that '' to reject Daniel's prophecies would be to undermine the Christian religion, which is all but founded on his prophecies respecting Christ " ! Happil}^ the Christian religion is not built on such foundations of sand. Had it been so, it would long since have been swept away by the beating rain and the rushing floods. Here, again, the arguments urged by those who believe in the authenticity of Daniel recoil with tenfold force upon themselves. Sir Isaac Newton's observations on the prophecies of Daniel only show how little transcen- dent genius in one domain of inquiry can save a great thinker from absolute mistakes in another. In writing upon prophecy the great astronomer was writing on the assumption of baseless premisses which he had drawn from stereotyped tradition ; and he was also writing at an epoch when the elements for the final solution of the problem had not as yet been discovered or elaborated. It is as certain that, had he been living now, he would have accepted the conclusion of all the ablest and most candid inquirers, as it is certain that Bacon, had he now been living, would have accepted the Copernican theor}^ It is absurdly false to say that " the Christian religion is all but founded on Daniel's prophecies respecting Christ." If it were not absurdly false, we might well ask, How it came that neither Christ nor His Apostles ever once alluded to the existence of any such argu- ment, or ever pointed to the Book of Daniel and the prophecy of the seventy weeks as containing the least 96 THE BOOK OF DANIEL germ of evidence in favour of Christ's mission or the Gospel teaching ? No such argument is remotely alluded to till long afterwards by some of the Fathers. But so far from finding any agreement in the opinions of the Christian Fathers and commentators on a subject which, in Newton's view, was so momentous, we only find ourselves weltering in a chaos of uncertainties and contradictions. Thus Eusebius records the attempt of some early Christian commentators to treat the last of the seventy weeks as representing, not, like all the rest, seven years, but seventy years, in order to bring down the prophecy to the days of Trajan ! Neither Jewish nor Christian exegetes have ever been able to come to the least agreement between themselves or with one another as to the beginning or end — the terminus a quo or the terminus ad quern — with reference to which the seventy weeks are to be reckoned. The Christians naturally made great efforts to make the seventy weeks end with the Crucifixion. But JuHus Africanus ^ (t a.d. 232), beginning with the twentieth year of Artaxerxes (Neh. ii. 1-9, B.C. 444), gets only four hundred and seventy-five to the Crucifixion, and to escape the diffi- culty makes the years lunar years.^ Hippolytus^ separates the last week from all the * Demonstr. Evang., viii. ^ Of the Jews, the LXX. translators seem to make the seventy weeks end with A.itiochus Epiphanes ; but in Jerome's day they made the first year of " Darius the Mede " the terminus a quo, and brought down the terminus ad qtiem to Hadrian's destruction of the Temple. Saadia the Gaon and Rashi reckon the seventy weeks from Nebuchadrezzar to Titus, and make Cyrus the anointed one of ix. 25. Abn Ezra, on the other hand, takes Nehemiah for " the anointed one." What can be based on such varying and undemonstrable guesses ? See Behrmann, Dan., p. xliii. ^ Hippolytus, Fragm. in Dan. (Migne, Patr. Grcec, x.). FAVOURABLE EVIDENCE UNCERTAIN 97 rest, and relegates it to the days of Antichrist and the end of the world. Eusebius himself refers *' the anointed one " to the line of Jewish high priests, separates the last week from the others, ends it with the fourth year after the Crucifixion, and refers the ceasing of the sacrifice (Deut. ix. 27) to the rejection of Jewish sacrifices by God after the death of Christ. Apollinaris makes the seventy weeks begin with the birth of Christ, and argues that Elijah and Antichrist were to appear a.d. 490 ! None of these views found general acceptance.^ Not one of them was sanctioned by Church authority. Every one, as Jerome says, argued in this direction or that pro captu ingenii sui. The climax of arbitrariness is reached by Keil — the last prominent defender of the so-called ** orthodoxy " of criticism — when he makes the weeks not such common- place things as ''earthly chronological weeks," but Divine, symbolic, and therefore unknown and unascertainable periods. And are we to be told that it is on such fantastic, self-contradictory, and mutually refuting cal- culations that ''the Christian religion is all but founded " ? Thank God, the assertion is entirely wild. ' See Bevan, pp. 141-145. CHAPTER IX EXTERNAL EVIDENCE AND RECEPTION INTO THE CANON THE reception of the Book of Daniel anywhere into the Canon might be regarded as an argument in favour of its authenticity, if the case of the Books of Jonah and Ecclesiastes did not sufficiently prove that canonicity, while it does constitute a proof of the value and sacred significance of a book, has no weight as to its traditional authorship. But in point of fact the position assigned by the Jews t;o the Book of Daniel — not among the Prophets, where, had the Book been genuine, it would have had a supreme right to stand, but only with the Book of Esther, among the latest of the Hagiographa^ — is a strong argument for its late date. The division of the Old Testament into Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa first occurs in the Pro- logue to Ecclesiasticus (about b.c. 131) — " the Law, the Prophecies, and the rest of the books." ^ In spite of its peculiarities, its prophetic claims among those who accepted it as genuine were so strong that the LXX. and the later translations unhesitatingly reckon the author among the four greater prophets. If the Daniel of the * Jacob Perez of Valentia accounted for this by the hatred of the Jews for Christianity ! (Diestel, Gesch. d. A. T., p. 211). ^ Comp. Luke xxiv. 44 ; Acts xxviii. 23 ; Philo, De Vit. Cont., 3. See Oehler in Herzog, s.v. " Kanon." 98 RECEPTION INTO. THE CANON 99 Captivity had written this -Book, he would have had a far greater claim to this position among the prophets than Haggai, Malachi, or the later Zechariah. Yet the Jews deliberately placed the Book among the Kethubim, to the writers of which they indeed ascribe the Holy Spirit {Ruach Hakkodesh), but whom they did not credit with the higher degree of prophetic inspiration. Josephus expresses the Jewish conviction that, since the days of Artaxerxes onwards, the writings which had appeared had not been deemed worthy of the same reverence as those which had preceded them, because there had occurred no unquestionable succession of prophets.^ The Jews who thus decided the true nature of the Book of Daniel must surely have been guided by strong traditional, critical, historical, or other grounds for denying (as they did) to the author the gift of prophecy. Theodoret denounces this as ''shameless impudence " {avaLaxvi^Tiav) on their part ; ^ but may it not rather have been fuller knowledge or simple honesty ? At any rate, on any other grounds it would have been strange indeed of the Talmudists to decide that the most minutely predictive of the prophets — if indeed this were a prophecy — wrote without the gift of prophecy.^ It can only have been the late and suspected appearance of the Book, and its marked phenomena, which led to its relegation to the lowest ' Jos. c. Ap., I. 8. '^ Opp. ed. Migne, ii. 1260: Et's TOcaiTrjv dpaiax^fTiav rjXacrau ws Kal Tov x(>po^ "f"^^ irpQcpTjTwu TovTOv aTToaxotvl^uv . He may well add, on his view of the date, el yap ravra rrjs irpocprjTeias aWorpia, Tiva tt po(f)riTela.i TO. tdia; ' Megtlla, 3, I. Josephus, indeed, regards apocalyptic visions as the highest form of prophecy {And., X. xi. 7) ; but the great Rabbis Kimchi, Maimonides, Joseph Albo, etc., *re strongly against him See Behrmann, p. xxxix. loo THE BOOK OF DANIEL place in the Jewish Canon. Already in i Mace. iv. 46 we find that the stones of the demolished pagan altar are kept " until there should arise a prophet to show what should be done with them " ; and in I Mace, xiv. 41 we again meet the phrase " until there should arise a faithful prophet." Before this epoch there is no trace of the existence of the Book of Daniel, and not only so, but the prophecies of the post-exilic pro- phets as to the future contemplate a wholly different horizon and a wholly different order of events. Had Daniel existed before the Maccabean epoch, it is im- possible that the rank of the Book should have been deliberately ignored. The Jewish Rabbis of the age in which it appeared saw, quite correctly, that it had points of affinity with other pseudepigraphic apoca- lypses which arose in the same epoch. The Hebrew scholar Dr. Joel has pointed out how, amid its im- measurable superiority to such a poem as the enig- matic Cassandra of the Alexandrian poet Lycophron,^ it resembles that book in its indirectness of nomenclature. Lycophron is one of the pleiad of poets in the days of Ptolemy Philadelphus ; but his writings, like the Book before us, have probably received interpolations from later hands. He never calls a god or a hero by his name, but always describes him by a periphrasis, just as here we have " the King of the North " and " the King of the South," though the name " Egypt " slips in (Dan. xi. 8). Thus Hercules is "a three-nights' lion " (rpteo-TTe/oo? \ecov), and Alexander the Great is ^' a wolf." A son is always " an offshoot " (=io; 1 = 6; 3= 20; 1 = 6; D = 60 = 162 ) _ N = I ; a = 70 ; * = 10 ; Q = 70 ; i = 50 ; D = 60 = 261 j ^^' 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 ' 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. BABYLONIAN CEDAR, AND THE STRICKEN DESPOT 201 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 sup- posing 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." ^ 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 ' Psalm cxxiii. I. See Eurypides, Bacchce, 699. THE BOOK OF DANIEL generation to generation.^ And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing ; and He doeth accord- ing to His will ^ in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth ; ^ and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou ? " * 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." 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 ; ^ and those that walk in pride He is able to abase." ^ He died b.c. 561, and was deified, leaving behind him an invincible name. 1 Exod. xvii. 16. 2 Psalm cxlv. 13. ^ Isa. xxiv. 21, xl. 15, 17. For the "host of heaven" {ffTparla oipdvios, Luke ii. 13) see Isa. xl. 26 ; Job. xxxviii. 7 ; l Kings xxii. 19 ', Enoch xviii. 14-16 ; Matt. xi. 25. * 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. ^ Dan. ii. 38. ^ Exod. xviii. ii. ^ Psalm xxxiii. 4. 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.^ All such discussions are extraneous to edification, and * The question has already been fully discussed {supra^ pp. S4~57)' The apologists say that — I. Belshazzar was Evil-merodach (Niebuhr, Wolff, Bishop Westcott, ZOckler, Keil, etc.), as the son of Nebuchadrezzar (Dan. v. 2, II, i8, 22), and his successor (Baruch i. ii, 12, where he is called Balthasar, as in the LXX.). The identification is impossible (see Dan. v. 28, 203 204 THE BOOK OF DANIEL 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 Chasid 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.^ The retribution which awaited the wayward Seleucid tyrant is prophetically intimated by the menace of doom which received such 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-tnerodach (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, men- tioned in Babylonian tablets, breaks down ; for Mr. Boscawen {Soc. Bibl.y in § vi., p. 108) finds that he reigned before Nabunaid. Further, the son of Nabunaid perished, not in Babylon, but in Accad. ' See I Mace. 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 THE FIERY INSCRIPTION 205 immediate fulfilment in the case of the Babylonian King. The humiliation of the guilty conqueror, *' Nebu- chadrezzar 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." ^ 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 treasures which he found," etc. Comp. 2 Mace. 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 Mace. V. 21). ' The LXX. says ''two thousand." Comp. Esther i. 3, 4. Jerome adds, " Unusquisque secundum suam bibit aetatem." 2o6 THE BOOK OF DANIEL in the chambers of secret imagery.^ Belshazzar's princes were there, and his wives, and his concubines, whose presence the Babylonian custom admitted, though the Persian regarded it as unseemly.^ The Babylonian banquets, like those of the Greeks, usually ended by a Konios 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 ; ^ and doubtless, too, there were women and boys and girls with flutes and cymbals, to which the dancers danced in all the orgiastic aban- donment of Eastern passion. All this was regarded as an element in the rehgious solernnity ; 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.* 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 ' Ezek. xxiii. 15. 2 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. ^ Layard, Nin. and Bab., ii. 262-269, * 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. THE FIERY INSCRIPTION 207 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 v/isdom, even as a boy, had been found superior to that of all the Chartummim and Ashshaphtm ; 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 circum- stances 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 2o8 THE BOOK OF DANIEL made a dunghill.' Yet now Belshazzar, in the flush of pride and drunkenness,^ gives his order to insult this God with deadly impiety by publicly defiling the vessels of His awful Temple,^ 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 Helio- dorus in the Temple of Jerusalem.^ 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,^ must still at the last moment be warned by a suitable Divine sign, that it may be known whether they will honour the truth." ^ 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 ^ when the revelry was at * Dan. iii. 29. ^ The Babylonians were notorious for drunken revels. Q. Curt., V. i., " Babylonii maxime in vinum et quae ebrietatem sequuntur, eflfusi sunt." 5 Psalm Iv. 15. ^ Dan. i. 2. Comp. i Mace. i. 21 ff. ^ Ewald. * 2 Mace. iii. ' Comp. Dan. iii. 7. THE FIERY INSCRIPTION 209 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.^ He saw it over the lights which crowned the huge golden Nebrashta, or chandelier.^ The fingers of a man's hand were writing letters on the wall, and the king saw the hollow of that gigantic supernatural palm.^ 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 ; ^ his knees smote one against another in his trembling attitude,^ 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 sum- moned. For though the hand had vanished, its trace was left on the wall of the banqueting-chamber in ' See Layard, Nin. and Bab., ii. 269. 2 A word of uncertain origin. The Talmud uses it for the word DnaD*? (the Greek \afiirds). ^ "Hollow." Hob., pas; Theodot., a(Trpa'ya\ovi ] Vulg., articulos. The word may mean " palm " of the hand, or sole of the foot (Bevan). ■» Psalm Ixix. 23. " Bands " — lit. " fastenings " ; Theodot., crvpdefffjLoi ; Vulg., compages. ^ Comp. Ezek. vii. 17, and the Homeric \\jto yoivara, Od., iv. 703 ; Ov., Met., ii, 180, "genua intremuere timore." 14 THE BOOK OF DANIEL 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.^ 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 en- chantments. 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 Gebirah — the queen-mother — who, as always in the East, held a higher rank than even ' Doubtless suggested by Gen. xH. 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'ri. ham'nika) is in Theodotion rendered /jLauiaKrjS, and occurs in later Aramaic. The phrase rendered "third ruler" is very uncertain. The inference drawn from it in the Speakers Commentary — that Nabunaid was king, and Belshazzar second ruler— is purely nugatory. For the Hebrew word talti cannot mean "third," which would be '•rivi^. Ewald and most Hebraists take it to mean " rule, as one of the board of three." For " triumvir " comp. vi. 2. THE FIERY INSCRIPTION the reigning sultana/ She had not been present at — perhaps had not approved of — the luxurious revel, held when the Persians were at thie 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 — invari- ably, 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 augur}^, 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." " 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." ^ Then, Daniel v/as 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, ' I 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. ^ Isa. xliv. 25. ^ The word Qistrin, "knots," may mean "hard questions"; but Mr. Bevan (p. 104) thinks there may be an allusion to knots used as magic spells. (Comp. Sen., (Edip., loi, ^^ Nodosa sortis verba et implexos dolos,") He quotes Al-Baidawi on the Koran, Ixiii. 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. Blumenlehrey 231. THE BOOK OF DANIEL 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," ^ 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 pro- faning 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, look- ing 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. So Elisha, 2 Kings v. i6. THE FIERY INSCRIPTION 213 Four names of weight. A Mina. A Mina. A Shekel. A Half-mina.^ 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 I 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 ' The Mem is repeated for emphasis. In the Upharsin (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. '^ Journal A siatique, 1886. (Comp. Noldeke, Ztschr.fiir 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'ne (Heb. Maneh) is the Greek ixva, Lat. mina, which the Greeks borrowed from the Assyrians. Tekel (in the Targum of Onkelos tikla) 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 Ybma, f. 4, 4.^- bfti&A;inHhe Talmud,'^ and in Corp. Inscr. Sem., ii. lo (Behrmann). ' "^"^ ' '\.v 214 THE BOOK OF DANIEL left, were written fciovijSov, '' pillar-wise," as the Greeks called it, from above downwards : thus — ^ n ^ ^ "i p i :3 D h i< 5< Read from left to right, they would look Hke gibberish ; read from above downwards, they became clear as far as the reading was concerned, though their interpreta- tion might still be surpassingly enigrtiatic. 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 I 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 1 Yes ; t'qiita : ** Thou hast been weighed in a balance and found wanting." Peres — a half-mina ! Yes ; but frtsath : " Thy king- dom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." ^ ' The word occurs in Peres Uzza. There still, however, remain some obviously unexplored mysteries about these words. Parono- masia, 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. 1 1, 12 : "What seest thou ? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. Then said the THE FIERY INSCRIPTION 215 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.^ 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." 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 and it did its pleasure and prospered." ' Dan. viii. 13. I follow Ewald in this difficult verse, and with him Von Lengerke and Hitzig substantially agree ; but the text is again corrupt, as appears also in the LXX. It would be useless here to enter into minute philological criticism. "How long?"(comp. Isa. vi. ii). ^ LXX., 0eXyGiw/'t ; nescio quis (Vulg., viri'), * Comp. for the expression xii. 6. 256 THE BOOK OF DANIEL archangel Gabriel is here first mentioned in Scripture.^ ** Gabriel/' cried the voice, ** explain to him what he has seen." vSo Gabriel came and stood beside him ; but he was terrified, and fell on his face. " Observe, thou son of man," ^ said the angel to him ; ''for unto the time of the end is the vision." But since Daniel still lay prostrate on his face, and sank into a swoon, the angel touched him, and raised him up, and said that the great wrath was only for a fixed time, and he would tell him what would happen at the end of it. The two-horned ram, he said, the Baal-keranaim, or " lord of two horns," represents the King of Media and Persia ; the shaggy goat is the Empire of Greece ; and the great horn is its first king — Alexander the Great.' The four horns rising out of the broken great horn are four inferior kingdoms. In one of these, sacrilege would culminate in the person of a king of bold face,'* and skilled in cunning, who would become powerful, though not by" his own strength.*^ He would prosper 1 We find no names in Gen. xxxii. 30; Judg, xiii. 18. For the presence of angels at the vision comp. Zech. i. 9, 13, etc. Gabriel means "man of God." In Tobit iii. 17 Raphael is mentioned; in 2 Esdras v. 20, Uriel. This is the first mention of any angel's name, Michael is the highest archangel (Weber, System., 162 ft'.), and in Jewish angelology Gabriel is identified with the Holy Spirit {Ruach Haqqodesh). As such he appears in the Quran, ii. 91 (Behrmann). - Ben-Adam (Ezek. ii. i). 3 Comp. Isa. xiv. 9 : " All the great goats of the earth." A ram is a natural symbol for a chieftain. — Hom., //., xiii. 491-493; Cic, De Div., i. 22 ; Plut., Sulla, c. 27 ; Jer. 1. 8 ; Ezek. xxxiv. 17 ; Zech. x. 3, etc. See Vaux, Persia, p. 72. * " Strength of face " (LXX., dvaLdr]^ Tr/joaciTry ; Deut. xxviii. 50, etc.). " Understanding dark sentences" (Judg, xiv. 12 ; Ezek. xvii. 2 : comp. V. 12). ^ The meaning is uncertain. It may mean (i) that he is only strong by God's permission ; or (2) only by cunning, not by strength. THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT 257 and destroy mighty men and the people of the holy ones/ and deceit would succeed by his double-dealing. He would contend against the Prince of princes,^ and yet without a hand would he be broken in pieces. Such is the vision and its interpretation ; and though there is here and there a difficulty in the details and translation, and though there is a neces- sary crudeness in the emblematic imagery, the general significance of the whole is perfectly clear. The scene of the vision is ideally placed in Shushan, because the Jews regarded it as the royal capital of the Persian dominion, and the dream begins with the overthrow of the Medo-Persian Empire.^ The ram is a natural symbol of power and strength, as in Isa. Ix. 7. The two horns represent the two divisions of the empire, of which the later — the Persian — is the loftier and the stronger. It is regarded as being already the lord of the East, but it extends its con- quests by butting westward over the Tigris into Europe, and southwards to Egypt and Africa, and northwards towards Scythia, with magnificent success. The he-goat is Greece.* Its one great horn re- presents "the great Emathian conqueror."^ So swift ' Comp. 2 Mace. iv. 9-15: "The priests had no courage to serve any more at the altar, but despising the Temple, and neglecting the sacrifices, hastened to be partakers of the unlawful allowance in the place of exercise . . . not setting by the honours of their fathers, but liking the glory of the Grecians best of all." - Not merely the angelic prince of the host (Josh. v. 14), but God — " Lord of lords." ^ Comp. Esther i. 2. Though the vision took place under Babylon, the seer is strangely unconcerned with the present, or with the fate of the Babylonian Empire. ■• It is said to be the national emblem of Macedonia. ^ He is called "the King of Javan " — />., of the lonians. 17 258 THE BOOK OF DANIEL was the career of Alexander's conquests, that the goat seems to speed along without so much as touch- ing the ground.-^ With irresistible fury, in the great battles of the Granicus (b.c. 334), Issus (b.c. 333), and Arbela (b.c. 331), he stamps to pieces the power of Persia and of its king, Darius Codomannus.^ In this short space of time Alexander conquers Syria, Phoenicia, Cyprus, Tyre, Gaza, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Media, Hyrcania, Aria, and Arachosia. In B.C. 330 Darius was murdered by Bessus, and Alexander became lord of his kingdom. In b.c. 329 the Greek King con- quered Bactria, crossed the Oxus and Jaxartes, and defeated the Scythians. In b.c. 328 he conquered Sogdiana. In b.c 327 and 326 he crossed the Indus, Hydaspes, and Akesines, subdued Northern and Western India, and — compelled by the discontent of his troops to pause in his career of victory — sailed down the Hydaspes and Indus to the Ocean. He then returned by land through Gedrosia, Karmania, Persia, and Susiana to Babylon. There the great horn is suddenly broken without hand.^ Alexander in b.c. 323, after a reign of twelve years and eight months, died as a fool dieth, of a fever brought on by fatigue, exposure, drunkenness, and debauchery. He was only thirty-two years old. The dismemberment of his empire immediately followed. In b.c. 322 its vast extent was divided ' Isa. V. 26-29, Comp. i Mace. i. 3. '^ The fury of the he-goat represents the vengeance cherished by the Greeks against Persia since the old days of Marathon, Ther- mopylae, Salamis, Platsea, and Mycale. Persia had invaded Greece under Mardonius (b.c. 492), under Datis and Artaphernes (e.g. 490), and under Xerxes (b.c. 480). ^ I Mace. vi. 1-16; 2 Mace. ix. 9; Job vii. 6; Prov. xxvi. 20. THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT ±S9 among his principal generals. Twenty-two years of war ensued ; and in b,c. 301, after the defeat of Anti- gonus and his son Demetrius at the Battle of Ipsus, four horns are visible in the place of one. The battle was won by the confederacy of Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus, and they founded four king- doms. Cassander ruled in Greece and Macedonia ; Lysimachus in Asia Minor ; Ptolemy in Egypt, Coele- Syria, and Palestine ; Seleucus in Upper Asia. With one only of the four kingdoms, and with one only of its kings, is the vision further concerned — with the kingdom of the Seleucidae, and with the eighth king of the dynasty, Antiochus Epiphanes. In this chapter, however, a brief sketch only of him is furnished. Many details of the minutest kind are subsequently added. He is called *' a puny horn," because, in his youth, no one could have anticipated his future greatness. He was only a younger son of Antiochus III. (the Great). When Antiochus III. was defeated in the Battle of Magnesia under Mount Sipylus (b.c. 190), his loss was terrible. Fifty thousand foot and four thousand horse were slain on the battlefield, and fourteen hundred were taken prisoners. He was forced to make peace with the Romans, and to give them hostages, one of whom was Antiochus the Younger, brother of Seleucus, who was heir to the throne. Antiochus for thirteen years languished miserably as a hostage at Rome. His father, Antiochus the Great, was either slain in b.c. 187 by the people of Elymais, after his sacrilegious plunder- ing of the Temple of Jupiter-Belus ; ^ or murdered by ' So Diodorus Siculus (Exc. Vales., p. 293); Justin, xxxii. 2; Jer. m Dan., xi. ; Strabo, xvi. 744. 26o THE BOOK OF DANIEL some of his own attendants v/hom he had beaten during a fit of drunkenness.^ Seleucus Philopator succeeded him, and after having reigned for thirteen years, wished to see his brother Anticchus again. He therefore sent his son Demetrius in exchange for him, perhaps desiring that the boy, who was then twelve years old, should enjoy the advantage of a Roman education, or thinking that Antiochus would be of more use to him in his designs against Ptolemy Philometor, the child-king of Egypt. When Demetrius was on his way to Rome, and Antiochus had not yet reached Antioch, Heliodorus the treasurer seized the opportunity to poison Seleucus and usurp the crown. The chances, therefore, of Antiochus seemed very forlorn. But he was a man of ability, though with a taint of folly and madness in his veins. B}^ allying him- self with Eumenes, King of Pergamum, as we shall see hereafter, he suppressed Heliodorus, secured the king- dom, and ** becoming very great," though only by fraud, cruelty, and stratagem, assumed the title of Epiphanes ^' the Illustrious." He extended his power '' towards the South " by intriguing and warring against Egypt and his young nephew, Ptolemy Philometor ; ^ and '* towards the Sunrising " by his successes in the direc- tion of Media and Persia;^ and towards ''the Glory" or " Ornament " (Jiatstsebi) — i.e., the Holy Land.* In- flated with insolence, he now set himself against the stars, the host of heaven — i.e., against the chosen people of God and their leaders. He cast down and ' Aurel. Vict., De Virr. Ilhtstr.y c. liv. ^ He conquered Egypt B.C. 170 (i Mace. i. 17-20). ^ See I Mace, iii, 29-37. ■• Comp. Ezek. xx. 6, " which is the glory of all lands " ; Psalm 1. 2 Lam, ii. 15. THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT 261 trampled on them,^ and defied the Prince of the host ; for he " Not e'en against the Holy One of heaven Refrained his tongue blasphemous." His chief enormity was the abolition of " the daily " (tamid) — i.e., the sacrifice daily offered in the Temple ; and the desecration of the sanctuary itself by violence and sacrilege, which will be more fully set forth in the next chapters. He also seized and destroyed the sacred books of the Jews. As he forbade the reading of the Law — of which the daily lesson was called the Parashah — there began from this time the custom of selecting a lesson from the Prophets, which was called the Haphtarah.^ It was natural to make one of the holy ones, who are supposed to witness this horrible iniquity,^ inquire how long it was to be permitted. The enigmatic answer is, '' Until an evening-morning two thousand three hundred." In the further explanation given to Daniel by Gabriel a few more touches are added. Antiochus Epiphanes is described as a king ''bold of visage, and skilled in enigmas." His boldness is sufficiently illustrated by his many campaigns and battles, and his braggart insolence has been already * I Mace. i. 24-30. Dr. Pusey endeavours, without even the smallest success, to show that many things said of Antiochus in this book do not apply to him. The argument is based on the fact that the characteristics of Antiochus — who was a man of versatile impulses — are somewhat differently described by different authors ; but here we have the aspect he presented to a few who regarded him as the deadliest of tyrants and persecutors. * See Hamburger, ii. 334 {s.v. "Haftara"). * Comp. bp'^y] fMeyaXr} (i Mace. i. 64; Isa. x. 5, 25, xxVi. 20; Jer. 1. 5 Rom. ii. 5, etc.). 262 THE BOOK OF DANIEL alluded to in vii. 8. His skill in enigmas is illustrated by his dark and tortuous diplomacy, which was ex- hibited in all his proceedings/ and especially in the whole of his dealings with Egypt, in which country he desired to usurp the throne from his young nephew Ptolemy Philometor. The statement that ** he will have mighty strength, but not by his own strength," may either mean that his transient prosperity was due only to the permission of God, or that his successes were won rather by cunning than by prowess. After an allusion to his cruel persecution of the holy people, Gabriel adds that '' without a hand shall he be broken in pieces " ; in other words, his retribution and destruc- tion shall be due to no human intervention, but will come from God Himself^ Daniel is bidden to hide the vision for many days — a sentence which is due to the literary plan of the Book ; and he is assured that the vision concerning the " evening-morning " was true. He adds that the vision exhausted and almost annihilated him ; but, afterwards, he arose and did the king's business. He was silent about the vision, for neither he nor any one else understood it.^ Of course, had the real date of the chapter been in the reign of Belshazzar, it was wholly impossible that either the seer or any one ' Comp. xi. 21. "^ Comp. ii. 34, xi. 45. Antiochus died of a long and terrible illness in Persia. Polybius (xxxi. 1 1) describes his sickness by the word 8ai/j.ov7]a-as. Arrian (Syrt'aca, 66) says tpdiviop eTeXeirrjae. In I Mace, vi. 8- 1 6 he dies confessing his sins against the Jews, but there is another story in 2 Mace. ix. 4-28. ^ Ver. 27, "I was gone" (or, "came to an end") "whole days." With this ^KO-raa-LS comp. ii. i, vii. 28 ; Exod. xxxiii. 20 ; Isa. vi. 5 ; Luke ix. 32 ; Acts ix. 4, etc. Comp. xii. 8 ; Jer. xxxii. 14, and (contra) Rev. xxii. 10, THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT 263 else should have been able to attach any significance to it.i Emphasis is evidently attached to the '* two thousand three hundred evening-morning" during which the deso- lation of the sanctuary is to continue. What does the phrase " evening-morning " ('erebh- boqer) mean ? In ver. 26 it is called *' the vision concerning the evening and the morning." Does " evening-morning " mean a whole day, like the Greek wxOijfiepov, or half a day ? The expression is doubly perplexing. If the writer meant ''days," why does he not say '' days" as in xii, 1 1, 12 ? ^ And why, in any case, does he here use the solecism ^crebh-boqer (Abendmorgen)^ and not, as in ver. 26, "evening and morning " ? Does the expression mean two thousand three hundred days ? or eleven hundred and fifty days ? It is a natural supposition that the time is meant to correspond with the three years and a half ('' a time, two times, and half a time") of vii. 25. But here again all certainty of detail is precluded by our ignorance as to the exact length of years by which the writer reckoned ; and how he treated the month Ve-adar^ a month of thirty days, which was intercalated once in every six years. Supposing that he allowed an intercalary fifteen days for three and a half years, and took the Babylonian * In ver. 26 the R. V. renders " it belongeth to many days to come.'' 2 Comp. Gen. i. 5 ; 2 Cor. xi. 25. The word tamtd includes both the morning and evening sacrifice (Exod. xxix. 41). Pusey says (p. 220), " The shift of halving the days is one of those monsters which have disgraced scientific expositions *of Hebrew.'" Yet this is the view of such scholars as Ewald, Hitzig, Kuenen, Cornill, Behrmann. The latter quotes a parallel : "vgl. im Hildebrandsliede sumaro ente wintro sehstie =: 30 Jahr." 264 THE BOOK OF DANIEL reckoning of twelve months of thirty days, then three and a half years gives us twelve hundred and seventy- five days, or, omitting any allowance for intercalation, twelve hundred and sixty days. If, then, " two thousand three hundred evening- morning " means two thousand three hundred half dsiys, we have one hundred and. ten days too many for the three and a half years. And if the phrase means two thousand three hunr dred full days, that gives us (counting thirty intercalary days for Ve-adar) too little for seven years by two hundred and fifty days. Some see in this a mystic intimation that the period of chastisement shall for the elect's sake be shortened.^ Some commentators reckon seven years roughly, from the elevation of Menelaus to the high-priesthood (Kisleu, b.c. i68 : 2 Mace. v. ii) to the victory of Judas Maccabseus over Nicanor at Adasa, March, b.c. i6i (i Mace. vii. 25-50; 2 Mace. xv. 20-35). In neither case do the calculations agree with the twelve hundred and ninety or the thirteen hundred and thirty-five days of xii. 12, 13. Entire volumes of tedious and wholly inconclusive comment have been written on these combinations, but by no reasonable supposition can we arrive at close accuracy. Strict chronological accuracy was difficult of attainment in those days, and was never a matter about which the Jews, in particular, greatly troubled themselves. We do not know either the ierminus a quo from which or the terminus ad quem to which the writer reckoned. All that can be said is that it is perfectly impossible for us to identify or exactly equi- parate the three and a half years (vii. 25), the ''two • Matt. xxiv. 22. THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT 265 thousand three hundred evening-morning" (viii. 14), the seventy-two weeks (ix. 26), and the twelve hun- dred and ninety days (xii. 11). Yet all those dates have this point of resemblance about them, that they very roughly indicate a space of about three and a half years (more or less) as the time during which the daily sacrifice should cease, and the Temple be polluted and desolate.-^ Turning now to the dates, we know that Judas the Maccabee cleansed ^ (''justified " or vindicated," viii. 14) the Temple on Kisleu 25 (December 25th, b.c. 165). If we reckon back two thousand three hundred full days from this date, it brings us to b.c. 171, in which Menelaus, who bribed Antiochus to appoint him high priest, robbed the Temple of some of its treasures, and procured the murder of the high priest Onias III. In this year Antiochus sacrificed a great sow on the altar of burnt offerings, and sprinkled its broth over the sacred building. These crimes provoked the revolt of the Jews, in v/hich they killed Lysimachus, governor of Syria, and brought on themselves a heavy retribution.^ If we reckon back two thousand three hundred half- days, eleven hundred and fifty whole days, we must go back three years and seventy days, but we cannot tell what exact event the writer had in mind as the starting- point of his calculations. The actual time which elapsed fram the final defilement of the Temple by Apollonius, ' "These five passages agree in making the final distress last during three years and a fraction : the only diff"erence lies in the magnitude of the fraction" (Bevan, p. 127). 2 I Mace. iv. 41-56 ; 2 Mace. x. 1-5. ' See on this period Diod. Sic, Fr., xxvi. 79 ; Liv., xlii. 29 ; Polyb., Legat., 71; Justin, xxxiv. 2 ; Jer., Comm. in Dan., xi. 22; Jahn, Hehr. Comj-nonwealth, § xciv. ; Prideaux, Connection, ii. 146. 266 THE BOOK OF DANIEL the general of Antiochus, in B.C. i68, till its repurification was roughly three years. Perhaps, however — for all is uncertain — the writer reckoned from the earliest steps taken, or contemplated, by Antiochus for the the suppression of Judaism. The purification of the Temple did not end the time of persecution, which was to continue, first, for one hundred and forty days longer, and then forty-five days more (xii. li, 12). It is clear from this that the writer reckoned the beginning and the end of troubles from "different epochs which we have no longer sufficient data to discover. It must, however, be borne in mind that no minute certainty about the exact dates is attainable. Many authorities, from Prideaux^ down to Schiirer,^ place the desecration of the Temple towards the close of B.C. 168. Kuenen sees reason to place it a year later. Our authorities for this period of history are numerous, but they are fragmentary, abbreviated, and often inexact. Fortunately, so far as we are able to see, no very important lesson is lost by our inability to furnish an undoubted or a rigidly scientific explanation of the minuter details. Approximate Dates, as inferred by Cornill AND Others ^ B.C. Jeremiah's prophecy in Jer. xxv. 12 . . 605 Jeremiah's prophecy in Jer. xxix. 10 . . 594 Destruction of the Temple . . . 586 or 588 Return of the Jewish exiles , . -537 Decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus (Ezra vii. i) 458 ' Connectioftf ii. 188. ^ Gesch. d. V. Isr., i. 155. ^ Some of these dates are uncertain, and are variously given by different authorities. THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT 267 Approximate Dates {continued) B.C. Second decree (Neh. ii. i) . . . . 445 Accession of Antiochus Epiphanes (August, Clinton) 175 Usurpation of the high-priesthood by Jason 175 Jason displaced by Menelaus . . . 172 (?) Murder of Onias III (June) 171 Apollonius defiles the Temple . . . i68 War of independence . . . . . 166 Purification of the Temple by Judas the Mac- cabee (December) 165 Death of Antiochus 163 CHAPTER III THE SEVENTY WEEKS THIS chapter is occupied with the prayer of Daniel, and with the famous vision of the seventy weeks which has led to such interminable controversies, but of which the interpretation no longer admits of any certainty, because accurate data are not forthcoming. The vision is dated in the first year of Darius, the son of Achashverosh, of the Median stock.^ We have seen already that such a person is unknown to history. The date, however, accords well in this instance with the literary standpoint of the writer. The vision is sent as a consolation of perplexities suggested by the writer's study of the Scriptures ; and nothing is more naturally imagined than the fact that the overthrow of the Babylonian Empire should have sent a Jewish exile to the study of the rolls of his holy prophets, to see what light they threw on the exile of his people. He understood from '' the books " the number of the years ** whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet for the accomplishing of the desolation of Jerusalem, even seventy years." ^ Such is the render- * Achashverosh, Esther viii. lo; perhaps connected with iTsAo/rtrsAa, " eye of the kingdom" {Corp. Inscr. Sent., ii. 125), - By " the books " is here probably meant the Thorah or Pentateuch, in which the writer discovered the key to the mystic meaning of the 268 THE SEVENTY WEEKS 269 ing of our Revisers, who here follow the A.V. ("I understood by books "), except that they rightly use the definite article (LXX., iv Tal<; ^II3Xol<;). Such too is the view of Hitzig. Mr. Be van seems to have pointed out the real meaning of the passage, by referring not only to the Pentateuch generally, as helping to interpret the words of Jeremiah, but especially to Lev. xxvi. 18, 21, 24, 28} It was there that the writer of Daniel dis- covered the method of interpreting the *' seventy years " spoken of by Jeremiah. The Book of Leviticus had four times spoken of a sevenfold punishment — a punish- ment " seven times more " for the sins of Israel. Now this thought flashed upon the writer like a luminous principle. Daniel, in whose person he wrote, had arrived at the period at which the literal seventy years of Jeremiah were — on some methods of computation — upon the eve of completion : the writer himself is living in the dreary times of Antiochus. Jeremiah had pro- phesied that the nations should serve the King of Babylon seventy years (Jer. xxv. 11), after which time God's vengeance should fall on Babylon ; and again (Jer. xxix. 10, 1 1 ), that after seventy years the exiles should return to Palestine, since the thoughts of Jehovah towards them were thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give them a future and a hope. The writer of Daniel saw, nearly four centuries later, seventy years. It was not in the two sections of Jeremiah himself (called, according to Kimchi, Sepher Hamattanah and Sepher Hagalon) that he found this key. Jeremiah is here Ytr'myah, as in Jer. xxvii.-xxix. See Jer. xxv. 11 ; Ezek. xxxvii. 21 ; Zech. i. 12. In the Epistle of Jeremy (ver. 2) the seventy years become seven generations (XP^vos fiaKpoi ^ws eTTTTtt yevedp). See too Dillman's Enoch, p. 293. ' Dan., p. 146. Comp. a similar usage in Aul. Gell., Nod. Att., iii. 10, " Se jam undecimam annorunt hebdomadem. ingressum esse"; and Arist., Polit., vii. 16. 270 THE BOOK OF DANIEL that after all only a mere handful of the exiles, whom the Jews themselves compared to the chaff in comparison with the wheat, had returned from exile ; that the years which followed had been cramped, dismal, and distressful ; that the splendid hopes of the Messianic kingdom, which had glowed so brightly on the fore- shortened horizon of Isaiah and so many of the prophets, had never yet been fulfilled ; and that these anticipations never showed fewer signs of fulfilment than in the midst of the persecuting furies of Antiochus, supported by the widespread apostasies of the Hellen- ising Jews, and the vile ambition of such renegade high priests as Jason and Menelaus. That the difficulty was felt is shown by the fact that the Epistle of Jeremy (ver. 2) extends the epoch of captivity to two hundred and ten years (7 x 30), whereas in Jer. xxix. 10 " seventy years " are distinctly mentioned.^ What was the explanation of this startling apparent discrepancy between '' the sure word of prophecy " and the gloomy realities of history ? The writer saw it in a mystic or allegorical inter- pretation of Jeremiah's seventy years. The prophet could not (he thought) have meant seventy literal years. The number seven indeed played its usual mystic part in the epoch of punishment. Jerusalem had been taken B.C. 588 ; the first return of the exiles had been about B.C. 538. The Exile therefore had, from one point of view, lasted forty-nine years — i.e., 7^-7- But even if seventy years were reckoned from the fourth year of Jehoiakim (b.c. 606?) to the decree of Cyrus (b.c. 536), and if these seventy years could be made out, still * See Fritzsche ad he. ; Ewald, Hist, of Isr., v. 140. THE SEVENTY WEEKS 271 the hopes of the Jews were on the whole miserably frustrated.^ Surely then — so thought the writer — the real meaning of Jeremiah must have been misunderstood ; or, at any rate, only partially understood. He must have meant, not " years," but weeks of years — Sabbatical years. And that being so, the real Messianic fulfilments were not to come till four hundred and ninety years after the begin- ning of the Exile ; and this clue he found in Leviticus. It was indeed a clue which lay ready to the hand of any one who was perplexed by Jeremiah's prophecy, for the word WT^, e/SSoyLta?, means, not only the week, but also " seven," and the seventh year ; ^ and the Chronicler had already declared that the reason why the land was to lie waste for seventy years was that ** the land" was "to enjoy her Sabbaths"; in other words, that, as seventy Sabbatical years had been wholly neglected (and indeed unheard of) during the period of the monarchy — which he reckoned at four hundred and ninety years — therefore it was to enjoy those Sabbatical years continuously while there was no nation in Pales- tine to cultivate the soil.^ ' The writer of 2 Chron, xxxv. 17, 18, xxxvi. 21, 22, evidently supposed that seventy years had elapsed between the destruction of Jerusalem and the decree of Cyrus — which is only a period of fifty years. The Jewish writers were wholly without means for forming an accurate chronology. For instance, the Prophet Zechariah (i. 12), writing in the second year of Darius, son of Hystaspes (b,c. 520), thinks that the seventy years were only then concluding. In fact, the seventy years may be dated from b.c. 606 (fourth year of Jehoia- kim) ;'or B.c. 598 (Jehoiachin) ; or from the destruction of the Temple (B.C. 588) ; and may be supposed to end at the decree of Cyrus (b.c. 536) ; or the days of Zerubbabel (Ezra v. i) ; or the decree of Darius (B.C. 518, Ezra vi. 1-12). - Lev. XXV. 2, 4. ^ 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21, See Bevan, p. 14. 272 THE BOOK OF DANIEL Another consideration may also have led the writer to his discovery. From the coronation of Saul to the captivity of Zachariah, reckoning the recorded length of each reign and giving seventeen years to Saul (since the "forty years" of Acts xiii. 21 is obviously unten- able), gave four hundred and ninety years, or, as the Chronicler implies, seventy unkept Sabbatic years. The writer had no means for an accurate computation of the time which had elapsed since the destruction of the Temple. But as there were four hundred and eighty years and twelve high priests from Aaron to Ahimaaz, and four hundred and eighty years and twelve high priests from Azariah I. to Jozadak, who was priest at the beginning of the Captivity, — so there were twelve high priests from Jozadak to Onias III. ; and this seemed to imply a lapse of some four hundred and ninety years in round numbers.^ The writer introduces what he thus regarded as a consoling and illuminating discovery in a striking manner. Daniel coming to understand for the first time the real meaning of Jeremiah's '* seventy years," " set his face unto the Lord God, to seek prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes." ^ His prayer is thus given : — It falls into three strophes of equal length, and is " all alive and aglow with a pure fire of genuine repent- ance, humbly assured faith, and most intense petition." ^ At the same time it is the composition of a literary ' See Cornill, Die Siebzig Jahrwochen Daniels^ pp. 14-18. ^ The LXX. and Theodotion, with a later ritual bias, make th^fasimg a means towards the prayer : evpelv irpoaevxv^ Kai ^Xeos iv vriarelais. ^ Ewald, p. 278. The first part (vv. 4-14) is mainly occupied with con- fessions and acknowledgment of God's justice; the last part (vv. 15-19) with entreaty for pardon : confessio (vv. 4-14) ; consolatio (vv. 15-19) (Melancthon). THE SEVENTY WEEKS 273 writer, for in phrase after phrase it recalls various passages of Scripture.^ It closely resembles the prayers of Ezra and Nehemiah, and is so nearly parallel with the prayer of the apocryphal Baruch that Ewald regards it as an intentional abbreviation of Baruch ii. i-iii. 39. Ezra, however, confesses the sins of his nation without asking for forgiveness ; and Nehemiah hkewise praises God for His mercies, but does not plead for pardon or deliverance ; but Daniel entreats pardon for Israel and asks that his own prayer may be heard. The sins of Israel in vv. 5, 6, fall under the heads of wandering, lawlessness, rebellion, apostasy, and heedlessness. It is one of the marked tendencies of the later Jewish writings to degenerate into centos of phrases from the Law and the Prophets. It is noticeable that the name Jehovah occurs in this chapter of Daniel alone (in vv. 2, 4, 10, 13, 14, 20) ; and that he also addresses God as El, Elohim, and Adonai. In the first division of the prayer (vv. 4-10) Daniel * Besides the parallels which follow, it has phrases from Exod. XX. 6; Deut. vii. 21, x. 17; Jer. vii. 19; Psalm xliv. 16, cxxx. 4; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 15, 16. Mr. Deane (Bishop EUicott's Commentary, p. 407) thus exhibits the details of special resemblances : — Dan. ix. Ezra ix. Neh. ix. Baruch. Verse. Verse. Verse. 4 7 32 5 7 33,34 1. II 6 1 32,33 7 6,7 32,33 1- 15-17 8 6,7 33 9 ... 17 ... 13 ... ii.7 14 IS 33 15 ... 10 11. II 18 ... ... ii. 19 19 ... ... ii. 15 18 274 THE BOOK OF DANIEL admits the faithfulness and mercy of God, and deplores the transgressions of his people from the highest to the lowest in all lands. In the second part (vv. !i-i4) he sees in these transgressions the fulfilment of '^ the curse and the oath " written in the Law of Moses, with special refer- ence to Lev. xxvi. 14, 18, etc. In spite of all their sins and miseries they had not *' stroked the face " of the Lord their God.^ The third section (vv. 15-19) appeals to God by His past mercies and deliverances to turn away His wrath and to pity the reproach of His people. Daniel entreats Jehovah to hear his prayer, to make His face shine on His desolated sanctuary, and to behold the horrible condition of His people and of His holy city. Not for their sakes is He asked to show His great compassion, but because His Name is called upon His city and His people.^ Such is the prayer; and while Daniel was still speaking, praying, confessing his own and Israel's sins, and interceding before Jehovah for the holy mountain — yea, even during the utterance of his prayer — the Gabriel of his former vision came speed- ing to him in full flight^ at the time of the evening • ix. 13 (Heb.). Comp. Exod. xxxii. 13; I Sam. xiii. 12; I Kings xiii. 6, etc. '•^ Comp. Jer. xxxii. 17-23; Isa. Ixiii. 11-16. ^ ix. 21, LXX., rdxft 0epo/"ei'os; Theodot., TTCTbixevos ', Vulg., cito volans ; A.V. and R.V., " being made to fly swiftly" ; R.V. marg., " being sore wearied " ; A.V. marg., " with weariness " ; Von Lengerke, " being caused to hasten with haste." The verb elsewhere always connotes wearhiess. If that be the meaning here, it must refer to Daniel. If it here means " flying," it is the only passage in the Old Testament where angels fly ; but see Isa, vi. 2 ; Psalm civ. 4, etc. The wings of angels are first mentioned in the Book of Enoch, Ixi. ; but see Rev xiv. 6 — cherubim and seraphim have wings. THE SEVENTY WEEKS . 275 sacrifice.-' The archangel tells him that no sooner had his supplication begun than he sped on his way, for Daniel is a dearly beloved one.^ Therefore he bids him take heed to the word and to the vision : — 1. Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people, and upon thy holy city ^ — (a) to finish (or " restrain ") the transgression ; (/8) to make an end of (or '' seal up," Theodot. a^payia-aC) sins ; * (7) to make reconciliation for (or *' to purge away ") iniquity ; (S) to bring in everlasting righteousness ; (e) to seal up vision and prophet (Heb., nabt] LXX., 7rpo(j>')]Tr]v) ; and (f) to anoint the Most Holy (or ''a Most Holy Place " ; LXX., ev^pavai dycov dyloyv). 2. From the decree to restore Jerusalem unto the Anointed One (or ^' the Messiah "), the Prince, shall be seven weeks. For sixty-two weeks Jerusalem shall be built again with street and moat, though in troublous times.^ 3. After these sixty-two weeks — (a) an Anointed One shall be cut off, and shall have ' In the time of the historic Daniel, as in the brief three and a half years of Antiochus, the tamid had ceased. 2 ix. 23. Heb,, eesh hamudoth ; Vulg., vir destderiorum, " a man of desires " ; Theodot., dvT]p i7ndv/j.LQv. Comp. x. 11, 19, and Jer. xxxi. 20, where " a pleasant child " is " a son of caresses" ; and the "amor et delicice generis humani''^ applied to Titus; and the names David, Jedidiah, " beloved of Jehovah." The LXX. render the word e\€€Lv6s, " an object of pity." ^ Daniel used Shabimn for weeks, not Shabuoth. ^ In ver, 24 the Q'ri and Kethibh vary, as do also the versions. ^ For charoots, " moat " (Ewald), the A.V. has " wall," and in the marg. "breach" or "ditch." The word occurs for "ditches" in the Talmud. The text of the verse is uncertain. 276 THE BOOK OF DANIEL no help (?) (or '' there shall be none belonging to him ") ; 1 (/?) the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary ; (7) his end and the end shall be with a flood, and war, and desolation ; (S) for one week this alien prince shall make a covenant with many ; (e) for half of that week he shall cause the sacrifice and burnt offering to cease ; (f ) and upon the wing of abominations [shall come] one that maketh desolate ; (?;) and unto the destined consummation [wrath'] shall be poured out upon a desolate one (?) (or '' the horrible one "). Much is uncertain in the text, and much in the translation ; but the general outline of the declaration is clear in many of the chief particulars, so far as they are capable of historic verification. Instead of being a mystical prophecy which floated purely in the air, and in which a week stands (as Keil supposes) for unknown, heavenly, and symbolic periods — in which case no real information would have been vouchsafed — we are expressly told that it was intended to give the seer a definite, and even a minutely detailed, indication of the course of events. Let us now take the revelation which is sent to the perplexed mourner step by step. I. Seventy weeks are to elapse before any perfect deliverance is to come. We are nowhere expressly told that year-weeks are meant, but this is implied ' Perhaps because neither Jason nor Menelaus (being apostate) were regarded as genuine successors of Onias III. THE SEVENTY WEEKS 277 throughout, as the only possible means of explaining either the vision or the history. The conception, as we have seen, would come to readers quite naturally, since Shabbath meant in Hebrew, not only the seventh day of the week, but the seventh year in each week of years. Hence " seventy weeks " means four hundred and ninety years.^ Not until the four hundred and ninety yea7's — the seventy weeks of years — are ended will the time have come to complete the prophecy which only had a sort of initial and imperfect fulfilment in seventy actual years. The precise meaning attached in the writer's mind to the events which are to mark the close of the four hundred and ninety years — namely, (a) the ending of transgression ; (/8) the sealing up of sins ; (7) the atone- ment for iniquity; (5) the bringing in of everlasting righteousness ; and (e) the sealing up of the vision and prophet (or prophecy ^) — cannot be further defined by us. It belongs to the Messianic hope.^ It is the pro- phecy of a time which may have had some dim and partial analogies at the end of Jeremiah's seventy years, but which the writer thought would be more richly and finally fulfilled at the close of the Antiochian persecu- tion. At the actual time of his writing that era of restitution had not yet begun. But (f) another event, which would mark the close of the seventy year-weeks, was to be " the anointing of a Most Holy." What does this mean ? Theodotion and the ancient translators render it ''« Holy of Holies." But throughout the whole Old * Numb. xiv. 34 ; Lev. xxvi. 34 ; Ezek. iv, 6. ^ Comp. Jer. xxxii. 11, 44. * See Isa. xlvi. 3, li. 5, liii. 11 ; Jer. xxiii. 6, etc. 278 THE BOOK OF DANIEL Testament ''Holy of Holies " is never once used of a person^ though it occurs forty-four times.^ Keil and his school point to I Chron. xxiii. 13 as an exception ; but '^ Nil agit exemptum quod litem lite resolvity In that verse some propose the rendering, '' to sanctify, as most holy, Aaron and his sons for ever " ; but both the A.V. and the R.V. render it, "Aaron was separated that he should sanctify the most holy things^ he and his sons for ever." If there be a doubt as to the rendering, it is perverse to adopt the one which makes the usage differ from that of every other passage in Holy Writ. Now the phrase ''most holy" is most frequently apphed to the great altar of sacrifice.^ It is therefore natural to explain the present passage as a reference to the reanointing of the altar of sacrifice, primarily in the days of Zerubbabel, and secondarily by Judas Maccabseus after its profanation by Antiochus Epi- phanes.^ 2. But in the more detailed explanation which follows, the seventy year-weeks are divided into 7 + 62+1. (a) At the end of the first seven week-years (after forty-nine years) Jerusalem should be restored, and there should be "an Anointed, a Prince."* Some ancient Jewish commentators, followed by many eminent and learned moderns," understand this Anointed One (Mashiach) and Prince (Nagtd) to be ^ For the anointing of the altar see Exod. xxix. 36, xl. 10; Lev. viii. 1 1 ; Numb. vii. i. It would make no difference in the usus loqtiendi if neither Zerubbabel's nor Judas's altar was actually anointed. 2 It is only used thirteen times of the Debhir, or Holiest Place. 3 I Mace. iv. 54. ^ Theodot., ews xfnarov riyov/Mivov. •"* Saadia the Gaon, Rashi, Von Lengerke, Hitzig, Schurer, Cornill. THE SEVENTY WEEKS 279 Cyrus ; and that there can be no objection to conferring on him the exalted title of '* Messiah" is amply proved by the fact that Isaiah himself bestows it upon him (Isa. xlv. i). Others, however, both ancient (like Eusebius) and modern (like Gratz), prefer to explain the term of the anointed Jewish high priest, Joshua, the son of Jozadak. For the term '* Anointed " is given to the high priest in Lev. iv. 3, vi. 20 ; and Joshua's position among the exiles might well entitle him, as much as Zerubbabel himself, to the title of Nagid or Prince.-^ (/5) After this restoration of Temple and priest, sixty- two weeks (/>., four hundred and thirty-four years) are to elapse, during which Jerusalem is indeed to exist "with street and trench " — but in the straitness of the times.^ This, too, is clear and easy of comprehension. It exactly corresponds with the depressed condition of Jewish life during the Persian and early Grecian epochs, from the restoration of the Temple, b.c. 538, to B.C. 171, when the false high priest Menelaus robbed the Temple of its best treasures. This is indeed, so far as accurate chronology is concerned, an unverifiable period, for it only gives us three hundred and sixty- seven years instead of four hundred and thirty-four : — but of that I will speak later on. The punctuation of the original is disputed. Theodotion, the Vulgate, and our A.V. punctuate in ver. 25, " From the going forth of the commandment " (" decree " or *' word ") " that Jeru- ' Hag. i. I ; Zech. iii. I ; Ezra iii. 2. Comp. Ecclus. xlv. 24; Jos., Anit., XII. iv. 2, TrpoaTdrrjs ; and see Bevan, p. 156. ^ We see from Zech. i. 12, ii. 4, that even in the second year of Darius Hystaspis Jerusalem had neither walls nor gates ; and even in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the wall was still broken down and the gates burnt (Neh. i. 3). 28o THE BOOK OF DANIEL salem should be restored and rebuilt, unto an Anointed, a Prince, are seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks." Accepting this view, Von Lengerke and Hitzig make the seven weeks run parallel with the first seven in the sixty-two. This indeed makes the chronology a little more accurate, but introduces an unexplained and a fantastic element. Consequently most modern scholars, including even such writers as Keil, and our Revisers follow the Masoretic punctuation, and put the stop after the seven weeks, separating them entirely from the following sixty-two. 3. After the sixty-two weeks is to follow a series of events, and all these point quite distinctly to the epoch of Antiochus Epiphanes. (a) Ver. 26. — An Anointed One ^ shall be cut off with all that belongs to him. There can be no reasonable doubt that this is a reference to the deposition of the high priest Onias III., and his murder by Andronicus (b.c. 171).^ This startling event is mentioned in 2 Mace. iv. 34, and by Josephus {Antt., XII. V. i), and in Dan. xi. 22. It is added, *' and no . . , to him} Perhaps the word " helper " (xi. 45) has fallen out of the text, as Gratz supposes ; or the words may mean, " there is no [priest] for it [the people].'* The A.V. renders it, ''but not for himself"; and in ^ LXX., 6LTro(XTadr]., for three and a half years) the king abolished the sacrifice and the oblation or meat offering.^ This alludes to the suppression of the most distinctive ordinances of Jewish worship, and the general defile- ment of the Temple after the setting up of the heathen altar. The reckoning seems to be from the edict promul- gated some months before December, 168, to December, 165, when Judas the Maccabee reconsecrated the Temple. (f) The sentence which follows is surrounded with every kind of uncertainty. The R.V. renders it, " And upon the wing [or, pin- nacle] of abominations shall come [or, be] one that maketh desolate." The A.V. has, "And for the overspreading of abomi- nations " (or marg.j ** with the abominable armies ") '' he shall make it desolate." ^ ^ Dan. ix. 27. Heb., Zebach oo-tnmchah, " the bloody and unbloody offering." - The special allusion, whatever it may precisely mean, is found under three different designations : (i) In viii. 13 it is called happeshang THE SEVENTY WEEKS 283 It is from the LXX. that we derive the famous expression, " abomination of desolation," referred to by St. Matthew (xxiv. 15 : cf. Luke xxi. 20) in the last discourse of our Lord. Other translations are as follows : — Gesenius : " Desolation comes upon the horrible wing of a rebel's host." Ewald: ^*And above will be the horrible wing of abominations." Wieseler : ''And a desolation shall arise against the wing of abominations." shomeetn ', Gk., 17 afiaprla iprifidxretas ; Vulg., peccatum desolationis. (ii) In ix. 27 (comp. ix. 31) it is shiqqootsim m'shomeew.) Gk,, pdeXvyfJba Ti]S eprjfxdicreujs ; Yu\g., abominatw desolah'om's. (iii) In xii. II it is shiqqoots shomeem ; Gk., to ^deXvy/uia eprj/xwaeojs ; Vulg., abotni- natio in desolationem. Some traditional fact must (as Dr. Joel says) have underlain the rendering ^' of desolation " ior ^' of the desolator^'' In xi. 31 Theodotion has rjcpaviaixev^v, "of things done away with," for epr)fjioj(T4o}j'. The expression with which the New Testament has made us so familiar is found also in I Mace. i. 51 (comp. i Mace, vi. 7) : " they built the abomination of desolation upon the altar." There " the abomination " seems clearly to mean a smaller altar for heathen sacrifice to Zeus, built on the great altar of burnt offering. Perhaps the writer of Daniel took the word shomeem, " desolation," as a further definition oi shiqqoots, "abomination," from popular speech; and it may have involved a reference to Lev. xxvi. 15-31 : "If ye shall despise My statutes. . . I will even appoint over you terror . . . and I will make your cities waste, and appoint your sanctuaries unto desolation.'''' The old Jewish exegetes referred the prophecy to Antiochus Epiphanes; Josephus and later writers applied it to the Romans. Old Christian expositors regarded it as Messianic ; but even Jerome records nine different views of commentators, many of them involving the grossest historic errors and absurdities. Of Post- Reformation expositors down to the present century scarcely two agree in their interpretations. At the present day modern critics of any weight almost unanimously regard these chapters, in their primary significance, as vaticinia ex eventu, as some older Jewish and Christian exegetes had already done. Hitzig sarcastically says that the exegetes have here fallen into all sorts of shiqqootsim themselves. 284 THE BOOK OF DANIEL Von Lengerke, Hengstenberg, Pusey : " And over the edge [or, pinnacle^] of abominations [cometh] the deso- lator " ; — which they understand to mean that Antiochus will rule over the Temple defiled by heathen rites. Kranichfeld and Keil : ''And a destroyer comes on the wings of idolatrous abominations." Kuenen, followed by others, boldly alters the text from ve'al k'naph, " and upon the wing," into ve'alkannoj " and instead thereof." ^ "And instead thereof" (J.e.y in the place of the sacri- fice and meat offering) " there shall be abominations." It is needless to weary the reader with further attempts at translation ; but however uncertain may be the exact reading or rendering, few modern commentators doubt that the allusion is to the smaller heathen altar built by Antiochus above {i.e., on the summit) of the " Most Holy " — i.e., the great altar of burnt sacrifice — over- shadowing it like " a wing " {kanaph), and causing desolations or abominations (shiqqootstm). That this interpretation is the correct one can hardly be doubted in the light of the clearer references to " the abomina- tion that maketh desolate" in xi. 31 and xii. 11. In favour of this we have the almost contemporary inter- pretation of the Book of Maccabees. The author of that history directly applies the phrase " the abomina- tion of desolation " to the idol altar set up by Antiochus (i Mace. i. 54; vi. 7). (77) Lastly, the terrible drama shall end by an out- pouring of wrath, and a sentence of judgment on " the desolation " (R.V.) or " the desolate " (A.V.). This can only refer to the ultimate judgment with which Antiochus is menaced. Comp. irTep<)yLov (Matt. iv. 5). Kuenen, Hist. Crit. Onderzook., ii. 472, THE SEVENTY WEEKS 285 It will be seen then that, despite all uncertainties in the text, in the translation, and in the details, we have in these verses an unmistakably clear foreshadowing of the same persecuting king, and the same disastrous events, with which the mind of the writer is so pre- dominantly haunted, and which are still more clearly indicated in the subsequent chapter. Is it necessary, after an inquiry inevitably tedious, and of little or no apparently spiritual profit or signi- ficance, to enter further into the intolerably and inter- minably perplexed and voluminous discussions as to the beginning, the ending, and the exactitude of the seventy weeks ? ^ Even St. Jerome gives, by way of specimen, nine different interpretations in his time, and comes to no decision of his own. After confessing that all the interpretations wjre individual guesswork, he leaves every reader to his own judgment, and adds : " Dicam quid unusquisque senserit, lecioris arbitrio dere- linquens cujus expositionem sequi debeat^ I cannot think that the least advantage can be de- rived from doing so. For scarcely any two leading commentators agree as to details ; — or even as to any fixed principles by • Any one who thinks the inquiry likely to lead to any better results than those here indicated has only to wade through Zockler's comment in Lange's Bibelwerk (" Ezekiel and Daniel," i. 186-221). It is hard to conceive any reading more intolerably wearisome ; and at the close it leaves the reader in a state of more hopeless confusion than before. The discussion also occupies many pages of Pusey (pp. 162- 231) ; but neither in his hypothesis nor any other are the dates exact. He can only say, " It were not of any account if we could not interpret these minor details. De nttntmis non curat lex" On the view that the seventy weeks were to end with the advent of Christ we ask : (l) Why do no two Christian interpreters agree about the interpreta- tion ? (2) Why did not the Apostles and Evangelists refer to so decisive an evidence ? 286 THE BOOK OF DANIEL which they profess to determine the date at which the period of seventy weeks is to begin or is to end ; — or whether they are to be reckoned continuously, or with arbitrary misplacements or discontinuations ; — or even whether they are not purely symbolical, so as to have no reference to any chronological indications ; ^ — or whether they are to be interpreted as referring to one special series of events, or to be regarded as having many fulfilments by "springing and germinal developments." The latter view is, however, distinctly tenable. It applies to all prophecies, inasmuch as his- tory repeats itself; and our Lord referred to another " abomination of desolation " which in His days was yet to come.^ There is not even an initial agreement — or even the data as to an agreement — whether the " years " to be counted are solar years of three hundred and forty-three days, or lunar years, or " mystic " years, or Sabbath years of forty-nine years, or "indefinite" years; or where they are to begin and end, or in what fashion they are to be divided. All is chaos in the existing commentaries. As for any received or authorised interpretation, there not only is none, but never has been. The Jewish interpreters differ from one another as widely as the Christian. Even in the days of the Fathers, the early exegetes were so hopelessly at sea in their methods ' On this, however, we may remark with Cornill," Eine Apokalypse, deren aTroKaXixj/eis unenthiilbar sind, ware ein nonsens, eine contra- dictio in adjecto " (Die Siebzig Jahrwochen, p. 3). The indication was obviously tneant to be understood, and to the contemporaries of the writer, familiar with the minuter facts of the day, it probably was perfectly clear. - Luke ii. 25, 26, 38; Matt. xxiv. 15. Comp. 2 Thess. ii.; Jos., Antt.y X, xxii. 7. THE SEVENTY WEEKS 287 of application that St. Jerome contents himself, just as I have done, with giving no opinion of his own.^ The attempt to refer the prophecy of the seventy weeks primarily or directly to the coming and death of Christ, or the desolation of the Temple by Titus, can only be supported by immense manipulations, and by hypotheses so crudely impossible that they would have made the prophecy practically meaningless both to Daniel and to any subsequent reader. The hope- lessness of this attempt of the so-called '' orthodox " interpreters is proved by their own fundamental dis- agreements.^ It is finally discredited by the fact that neither our Lord, nor His Apostles, nor any of the earliest Christian writers once appealed to the evidence of this prophecy, which, on the principles of Hengsten- berg and Dr. Pusey, would have been so decisive ! If such a proof lay ready to their hand — a proof definite and chronological — why should they have deliberately passed it over, while they referred to other prophecies so much more general, and so much less precise in dates? Of course it is open to any reader to adopt the view of Keil and others, that the prophecy is Messianic, but only typically and generally so. On the other hand, it may be objected that the Antiochian hypothesis breaks down, because — though it ' " Scio de hac quaestione ab eruditissimis viris varie disputatum et unuvnquemque pro captii ingenii sui dixisse quod senserat" (Jer. in Dan., ix.). In other words, there was not only no received inter- pretation in St. Jerome's day, but the comments of the Fathers were even then a chaos of arbitrary guesses. '^ Pusey makes out a table of the divergent interpretation of the commentators, whom, in his usual ecclesiastical fashion, he charitably classes together as " unbelievers," from Corrodi and Eichhorn down to Herzfeld. But quite as striking a table of divergencies might be drawn up of " orthodox " commentators. 288 THE BOOK OF DANIEL does not pretend to resort to any of the wild, arbitrary, and I had almost said preposterous, hypotheses invented by those who approach the interpretation of the Book with a-prwrt a.nd a-posteriori'^ assumptions — it still does not accurately correspond to ascertainable dates. But to those who are guided in their exegesis, not by unnatural inventions, but by the great guiding principles of history and literature, this consideration presents no difficulty. Any exact accuracy of chrono- logy would have been far more surprising in a writes of the Maccabean era than round numbers and vague computations. Precise computation is nowhere prevalent in the sacred books. The object of those books always is the conveyance of eternal, moral, and spiritual instruction. To such purely mundane and secondary matters as close reckoning of dates the Jewish writers show themselves manifestly indifferent. It is possible that, if we were able to ascertain the data which lay before the writer, his calculations might seem less divergent from exact numbers than they now appear. More than this we cannot affirm. What was the date from which the writer calculated his seventy weeks ? Was it from the date of Jeremiah's first prophecy (xxv. 12), b.c. 605? or his second prophecy (xxix. 10), eleven years later, b.c. 594? or from the destruction of the first Temple, B.C. 586? or, as some Jews thought, from the first year of '' Darius the Mede " ? or from the decree of Artaxerxes in Neh. ii. 1-9 ? or from the birth of Christ — the date assumed by ApoUinaris ? All these views have been adopted by various Rabbis and Fathers ; but it is obvious that not one of them accords with the allusions of the narrative ' Thus Eusebius, without a shadow of any pretence at argument makes the last week mean seventy years ! (^Dem. Evan., viii,). THE SEVENTY WEEKS 289 and prayer, except that which makes the destruction of the Temple the terminus a quo. In the confusion of historic reminiscences and the rarity of written docu- ments, the writer may not have consciously distinguished this date (b.c. 588) from the date of Jeremiah's prophecy (b.c. 594). That there were differences of computation as regards Jeremiah's seventy years, even in the age of the Exile, is sufficiently shown by the different views as to their termination taken by the Chronicler (2 Chron. xxxvi. 22), who fixes it b.c. 536, and by Zechariah (Zech. i. 12), who fixes it about b.c. 519. As to the terminus ad quem, it is open to any commentator to say that the prediction may point to many subsequent and analogous fulfilments ; but no competent and serious reader who judges of these chapters by the chapters themselves and by their own repeated indications, can have one moment's hesitation in the conclusion that the writer is thinking mainly of the defilement of the Temple in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, and its reconsecration (in round numbers) three and a half years later by Judas Maccabaeus (December 25th, b.c. 164). It is true that from b.c. 588 to b.c. 164 only gives us four hundred and twenty-four years, instead of four hundred and ninety years. How is this to be accounted for ? Ewald supposes the loss of some passage in the text which would have explained the discrepancy ; and that the text is in a somewhat chaotic condition is proved by its inherent philological difficulties, and by the appearance which it assumes in the Septuagint. The first seven weeks indeed, or forty-nine years, approximately correspond to the time between b.c 588 (the destruction of the Temple) and b.c 536 (the decree of Cyrus) ; but the following sixty-two weeks should 19 290 THE BOOK OF DANIEL give us four hundred and thirty-four years from the time of Cyrus to the cutting off of the Anointed One, by the murder of Onias III. in B.C. 171, whereas it only gives us three hundred and sixty-five. How are we to account for this miscalculation to the extent of at least sixty-five years ? Not one single suggestion has ever accounted for it, or has ever given exactitude to these computations on any tenable hypothesis.^ But Schurer has shown that exactly similar mistakes of reckoning are made even by so learned and industrious an historian as Josephus. 1. Thus in his Jewish War (Vi. iv. 8) he says that there were six hundred and thirty-nine years between the second year of Cyrus and the destruction of the Temple by Titus (a.d. 70). Here is an error of more than thirty years. 2. In his Antiquities (XX. x.) he says that there were four hundred and thirty-four years between the Return from the Captivity (b.c. 536) and the reign of Antiochus Eupator (b.c. 164-162). Here is an error of more than sixty years. 3. In Antt., XIII. xi. i, he reckons four hundred and eighty-one years between the Return from the Captivity and the time of Aristobulus (b.c. 105-104). Here is an error of some fifty years. Again, the Jewish Hellenist Demetrius ^ reckons five hundred and seventy-three years from the Captivity of the Ten Tribes (b.c. 722) to the time of Ptolemy IV. ' Jost {Gesch. d. Judenthums, i. 99) contents himself with speaking of " die Liebe zu prophetischer Auifassung der Vergangenheit, mit mOglichst genauen Zahlenagaben, befriedigt, die uns leider nicht mehr verstandlich erscheineny ^ In Clem. Alex,, Strom,, i. 21. THE SEVENTY WEEKS igt (B.C. 222), which is seventy years too many. In other words, he makes as nearly as possible the same mis- calculations as the writer of Daniel. This seems to show that there was some traditional error in the current chronology ; and it cannot be overlooked that in ancient days the means for coming to accurate chronological conclusion were exceedingly imperfect. ^' Until the establishment of the Seleucid era (b.c. 312), the Jew had no fixed era whatsoever " ; ^ and nothing is less astonishing than that an apocalyptic writer of the date of Epiphanes, basing his calculations on un- certain data to give an allegoric interpretation to an ancient prophecy, should have lacked the records v/hich would alone have enabled him to calculate with exact precision.^ And, for the rest, we must say with Grotius, ^^ Modicum nee prcetor curatf nee propheta." ' Cornill, p. 14; Bevan, p. 54. - Schiirer, Hist, of Jewish People, iii. 53, 54 (E. Tr.). This is also the view of Graf, Noldeke, Cornill, and many others. In any case we must not be misled into an impossible style of exegesis of which Bleek says that "bei ihr alles moglich ist und alles fur erlaubt gilt." CHAPTER IV INTRODUCTION TO THE CONCLUDING VISION THE remaining section of the Book of Daniel forms but one vision, of which this chapter is the Intro- duction or Prologue. Daniel is here spoken of in the third person. It is dated in the third year of Cyrus (b.c. 535).^ We have already been told that Daniel lived to see the first year of Cyrus (i. 21). This verse, if accepted histori- cally, would show that at any rate Daniel did not return to Palestine with the exiles. Age, high rank, and opportunities of usefulness in the Persian Court may have combined to render his return undesirable for the interests of his people. The date — the last given in the life of the real or ideal Daniel — is perhaps here mentioned to account for the allusions which follow to the kingdom of Persia. But with the great and moving fortunes of the Jews after the accession of Cyrus, and even with the beginning of their new national life in Jerusalem, the author is scarcely at all concerned. He makes no mention of Zerubbabel the prince, nor of Joshua the priest, nor of the decree of ' The LXX. date it in " the first year of Cyrus," perhaps an inten- tional alteration (i. 21). We see from Ezra, Nehemiah, and the latest of the Minor Prophets that there was scarcely even an attempt to restore the ruined walls of Jerusalem before b.c. 444. 292 INTRODUCTION TO THE CONCLUDING VISION 293 Cyrus, nor of the rebuilding of the Temple ; his whole concern is with the petty wars and diplomacy of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, of which an account is given, so minute as either to furnish us with historical materials unknown to any other historian, or else is difficult to reconcile with the history of that king's reign as it has been hitherto understood. In this chapter, as in the two preceding, there are great difficulties and uncertainties about the exact sig- nificance of some of the verses, and textual emendations have been suggested. The readers of the Expositor's Bible would not, however, be interested in minute and dreary philological disquisitions, which have not the smallest moral significance, and lead to no certain result. The difficulties affect points of no doctrinal importance, and the greatest scholars have been unable to arrive at any agreement respecting them. Such difficulties will, therefore, merely be mentioned, and I shall content myself with furnishing what appears to be the best authenticated opinion. The first and second verses are rendered partly by Ewald and partly by other scholars, ** Truth is the revelation, and distress is great; ^ therefore understand thou the revelation y since there is understanding of it in the vision^ The admonition calls attention to the importance of '' the word," and the fact that reality lies beneath its enigmatic and apocalyptic form. Daniel had been mourning for three full weeks,^ ' Lit. "great warfare." It will be seen that the A.V. and R.V. and other renderings vary widely from this ; but nothing very impor- tant depends on the variations. Instead of taking the verbs as imperatives addressed to the reader, Hitzig renders, " He heeded the word, and gave heed to the vision," - Lit. " weeks of days " (Gen. xli. I ; Deut. xxi. 13 : "years of days "). 294 THE BOOK OF DANIEL during which he ate no dainty bread/ nor flesh, nor wine, nor did he anoint himself with oil.^ But in the Passover month of Abib or Nisan, the first month of the year, and on the twenty-fourth day of that month,^ he was seated on the bank of the great river, Hiddekel or Tigris,* when, lifting up his eyes, he saw a certain man clothed in fine linen Hke a Jewish priest, and his loins girded with gold of Uphaz.^ His body was like chrysolite,^ his face flashed like lightning, his eyes were like torches of fire, his arms and feet gleamed like polished brass,^ and the sound of his words was as the sound of a deep murmur.^ Daniel had com- panions with him ; ^ they did not see the \dsion, but some supernatural terror fell upon them, and they fled to hide themselves.^^ At this great spectacle his strength departed, and ' "Bread of desires" is the opposite of "bread of affliction" in Devit. xvi. 3. Comp. Gen. xxvii. 25 ; Isa. xxii. 13, etc. 2 Comp. Amos vi. 6 ; Ruth iii. 3 ; 2 Sam. xii. 20, xiv. 2. 3 He fasted from Abib 3 to 24. The festival of the New Moon might prevent him from fasting on Abib I, 2. * Hiddekel ("the rushing") occurs only in Gen. ii. 14. It is the Assyrian idiglat. 5 For the girdle see Ezek, xxiii. 15. Ewald (with the Vulg., Chald., and Syriac) regards Uphaz as a clerical error for Ophir (Psalm xlv. 9). LXX., Mw^di" (Jer. x. 9, where alone it occurs). The LXX. omit it here. Vulg., Auro obriso. ^ Heb., eben tarshish (Exod. xxviii. 2) ; Vulg., crysolithus ; R.V. and A.V., " beryl " (Ezek. i. 16). Comp. Skr., tarisha, " the sea." ' Theodot., ThaK^X-n; LXX., olirSSes (Rev. i. 15)— lit. "foot-hold"; Vulg., qiice deorsum sunt usque ad pedes. ^ This description of the vision follows Ezek. i. 16-24, ix. 2, and is followed in Rev. i. 13-15. The "deep murmur" is referred to the sound of the sea by St. John ; A.V., " the voice of a multitude " ; LXX., OSpv^os. Comp. Isa. xiii. 4 ; Ezek. xliii. 2. ^ Rashi guesses that they were Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. '" Comp. Acts ix. 7, xxii. 11. INTRODUCTION TO THE CONCLUDING VISION 295 his brightness was changed to corruption ; ^ and when the vision spoke he fell to the earth face downwards. A hand touched him, and partly raised him to the trembling support of his knees and the palms of his hands,^ and a voice said to him, ''Daniel, thou greatly beloved,^ stand upright, and attend ; for I am sent to thee." The seer was still trembling ; but the voice bade him fear not, for his prayer had been heard, and for that reason this message had been sent to him. Gabriel's coming had, however, been delayed for three weeks, by his having to withstand for twenty days the prince of the kingdom of Persia.* The necessity of continuing the struggle was only removed by the arrival of Michael, one of the chief princes,^ to help him, so that Gabriel was no longer needed ® to resist the kings of Persia.^ The vision was for many days,^ and he had come to enable Daniel to understand it. Once more Daniel was terrified, remained silent, and fixed his eyes on the ground, until one like the sons of men touched his lips, and then he spoke to apologise for his timidity and faintheartedness. ^ Comp. Hab. iii. 16; Dan. viii. 18. "^ Lit. " shook " or " caused me to tremble upon my knees and the palms of my hand." ^ X. II. LXX., dvOpioTTos eXeeiubs el; Tert., De Jej'im., 7, "homo es miserabilis" (sc, " jejunando "). * The protecting genius of Persia (Isa. xxiv. 21; Psalm Ixxxii.; Ecclus. xvii, 17). ^ Michael, " who is like God " (Jude 9 ; Rev. xii. 7). * Heb., nothartt. " I came off victorious," or " obtained the pre- cedence " (Luther, Gesenius, etc.) ; " I was delayed " (Hitzig) ; " I was superfluous" (Ewald) ; "Was left over" (Zockler) ; "I remained" (A.V.) ; " "Was not needed " (R.V. marg.). The LXX. and Theodoret seem to follow another text. ^ LXX,, " with the army of the king of the Persians." * Again the text and rendering are uqcertain. 296 THE BOOK OF DANIEL A third time the vision touched, strengthened, blessed him, and bade him be strong. '* Knowest thou," the angel asked, '' why I am come to thee ? I must return to fight against the Prince of Persia, and while I am gone the Prince of Greece [Javan] will come. I will, however, tell thee what is announced in the writing of truth, the book of the decrees of heaven, though there is no one to help me against these hostile princes of Persia and Javan, except Michael your prince." The difficulties of the chapter are, as we have said, of a kind that the expositor cannot easily remove. I have given what appears to be the general sense. The questions which the vision raises bear on matters of angelology, as to which all is purposely left vague and indeterminate, or which lie in a sphere wholly beyond our cognisance. It may first be asked whether the splendid angel of the opening vision is also the being in the similitude of a man who thrice touches, encourages, and strengthens Daniel. It is perhaps simplest to suppose that this is the case,^ and that the Great Prince tones down his overpowering glory to more familiar human semblance in order to dispel the terrors of the seer. The general conception of the archangels as princes of the nations, and as contending with each other, belongs to the later developments of Hebrew opinion on such subjects.^ Some have supposed that the " princes " ' So Hitzig and Ewald. The view that they are distinct persons is taken by ZOckler, Von Lengerke, etc. Other guesses are that the "man clothed in Hnen " is the angel who called Gabriel (viii. i6); or Michael ; or " the angel of the Covenant " (Vitringa) ; or Christ ; or "he who letteth" (6 nar^x^^i 2 Thess. ii, 7), whom Zockler takes to be " the good principle of the world-power," 2 Thus in the LXX, (Deut. xxxii. 8) we read of angels of the nations, INTRODUCTION TO THE CONCLUDING VISION 297 of Persia and Javan to whom Gabriel and Michael are opposed are, not good angels, but demonic powers, — '^the world-rulers of this darkness" — subordinate to the evil spirit whom St. Paul does not hesitate to call " the god of this world," and '' the prince of the powers of the air." This is how they account for this '' war in heaven," so that '* the dragon and his angels " fight against '* Michael and his angels." Be that as it may, this mode of presenting the guardians of the destinies of nations is one respecting which we have no further gleams of revelation to help us. Ewald regards the two last verses of the chapter as a sort of soliloquy of the angel Gabriel with himself He is pressed for time. His coming has already been delayed by the opposition of the guardian-power of the destinies of Persia. If Michael, the great arch- angel of the Hebrews, had not come to his aid, and (so to speak) for a time relieved guard, he would have been unable to come. But even the respite leaves him anxious. He seems to feel it almost necessary that he should at once return to contend against the Prince of Persia, and against a new adversary, the Prince of Javan, who is on his way to do mischief Yet on the whole he will stay and enlighten Daniel before he takes his flight, although there is no one but Michael who aids him against these menacing princes. It is difficult to know whether this is meant to be ideal or real — whether it represents a struggle of angels against demons, or is merely meant for a sort of parable which represents the to-and-fro conflicting impulses which sway the destinies of earthly kingdoms. In any case See too Isa. xlvi. 2 ; Jer. xlvi. 25. Comp. Baruch iv. 7 ; Ecclus. xvii, 17 ; Frankel, Vorstudien, p. 66. 298 THE BOOK OF DANIEL the representation is too unique and too remote from earth to enable us to understand its spiritual meaning, beyond the bare indication that God sitteth above the water-floods and God remaineth a king for ever. It is another way of showing us that the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing ; that the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel to- gether ; but that they can only accomplish what God's hand and God's counsel have predetermined to be done ; and that when they attempt to overthrow the destinies which God has foreordained, '' He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh them to scorn, the Lord shall have them in derision." These, apart from all complications or developments of angelology or demonology, are the continuous lesson of the Word of God, and are con- firmed by all that we decipher of His providence in His ways of dealing with nations and with men. CHAPTER V . AN ENIGMATIC PROPHECY PASSING INTO DETAILS OF THE REIGN OF ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES " Pone haec dici de Antiocho, quid nocet religioni nostrae ? " — HiERON. ed. Vallars, v. 722. IF this chapter were indeed the utterance of a prophet in the Babylonian Exile, nearly four hundred years before the events — events of which many are of small comparative importance in the world's history — which are here so enigmatically and yet so minutely depicted, the revelation would be the most unique and per- plexing in the whole Scriptures. It would represent a sudden and total departure from every method of God's providence and of God's manifestation of His will to the minds of the prophets. It would stand absolutely and abnormally alone as an abandonment of the limitations of all else which has ever been foretold. And it would then be still more surprising that such a reversal of the entire economy of prophec}^ should not only be so widely separated in tone from the high moral and spiritual lessons which it was the special glory of prophecy to inculcate, but should come to us entirely devoid of those decisive credentials which could alone suffice to command our conviction of its genuineness and authenticity. '' We find in this chapter," says Mr. Bevan, *'a complete survey of the history from the beginning of the Persian period down to the time of 299 300 THE BOOK OF DANIEL the author. Here, even more than in the earlier vision, we are able to perceive how the account gradually becomes more definite as it approaches the latter part of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, and how it then passes suddenly from the domain of historical facts to that of ideal expectations."^ In recent days, when the force of truth has compelled so many earnest and honest thinkers to the acceptance of historic and literary criticism, the few scholars who are still able to maintain the traditional views about the Book of Daniel find themselves driven, like Zockler and others, to admit that even if the Book of Daniel as a whole can be regarded as the production of the exiled seer five and a half centuries before Christ, yet in this chapter at any rate there must be large interpolations.'^ There is here an unfortunate division of the chapters. The first verse of chap. xi. clearly belongs to the last verses of chap. x. It seems to furnish the reason why Gabriel could rely on the help of Michael, and therefore may delay for a few moments his return to the scene of conflict with the Prince of Persia and the coming King of Javan. Michael will for that brief period undertake the sole responsibihty of main- taining the struggle, because Gabriel has put him under a direct obligation by special assistance which he rendered to him only a little while previously in the first year of the Median Darius.^ Now, therefore, Gabriel, though in haste, will announce to Daniel the truth. The announcement occupies five sections. First Section (xi.- 2-9). — Events from the rise of ' Daniel, p. 162. ^ On this chapter see Smend, Zeitschr. fi'tr Altfest Wissenschaft, V. 241. 2 Ewald, Prophets, v. 293 (E. Tr.). FIRST SECTION 301 Alexander the Great (b.c 336) to the death of Seleucus Nicator (b.c. 280). There are to be three kings of Persia after Cyrus (who is then reigning), of whom the third is to be the richest ; ^ and ** when he is waxed strong through his riches, he shall stir up the alP against the realm of Javan." There were of course many more than four kings of Persia ^ : viz. — B.C. Cyrus 536 Cambyses . 529 Pseudo-Smerdis . 522 Darius Hystaspis . . 521 Xerxes I. 485 Artaxerxes I. (Longimanus) . 464 Xerxes II. . 425 Sogdianus 425 Darius Nothus 424 Artaxerxes II. (Mnemon) • 405 Artaxerxes III. . • 359 Darius Codomannus . 336 But probably the writer had no historic sources to which to refer, and only four Persian kings are pro- minent in Scripture — Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes. Darius Codomannus is indeed mentioned in Neh. xii. 22, but might have easily been over- looked, and even confounded with another Darius in uncritical and unhistorical times. The rich fourth king who '' stirs up the all against the realm of Grecia" ' Doubtless the three mentioned in Ezra iv. 5-7 : Ahasuerus (Xerxes), Artaxerxes, and Darius. 2 Heb., Hakkol— lit. " the all." There were probably Jews in his rmy (Jos. c. Ap., I. 22 : comp. Herod., vii. 89). » Zeckler met the difficulty by calUng the number four " symbolic," a method as easy as it is profoundly unsatisfactory. 302 THE BOOK OF DANIEL might be meant for Artaxerxes I., but more probably refers to Xerxes (Achashverosh, or Ahasuerus), and his immense and ostentatious invasion of Greece (b.c. 480). His enormous wealth is dwelt upon by Herodotus.^ Ver. 3 (B.C. 336-323). — Then shall rise a mighty king (Alexander the Great), and shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will. ** Fortunam solus omnium mortalium in potestate habuit," says his historian, Quintus Curtius.^ Ver. 4 (e.g. 323).— But when he is at the apparent zenith of his strength his kingdom shall be broken, and shall not descend to any of his posterity,^ but (b.c. 323-301) shall be for others, and shall ultimately (after the Battle of Ipsus, b.c. 301) be divided towards the four winds of heaven, into the kingdoms of Cassander (Greece and Macedonia), Ptolemy (Egypt, Coele-Syria, and Palestine), Lysimachus (Asia Minor), and Seleucus (Upper Asia). Ver. 5. — Of these four kingdoms and their kings the vision is only concerned with two — the kings of the South ^ (/>., the Lagidse, or Egyptian Ptolemies, who sprang from Ptolemy Lagos), and the kings of the North (?>., the Antiochian Seleucidae). They alone are singled out because the Holy Land became a sphere of contentions between these rival dynasties.^ ' Herod,, Hi. 96, iv. 27-29. 2 Q. Curt., X. V. 35. ' See Grote, xii. 133. Alexander had a natural son, Herakles, and a posthumous son, Alexander, by Roxana. Both were murdered— the former by Polysperchon. See Diod. Sic, xix. 105, xx. 28; Pausan., ix. 7; Justin, xv. 2; Appian, Syr, c. 51. * The King of the Negeb (comp. Isa. xxx. 6, 7). LXX., Egypt. Ptolemy assumed the crown about b.c. 304. * See Stade, Gesch., ii. 276. Seleucus Nicator was deemed so im- portant as to give his name to the Seleucid sera (i Mace. i. 10, ^ri fiacriXsias 'BXX>>wv). FIRST SECTION 303 B.C. 306. — The King of the South (Ptolemy Soter, son of Lagos) shall be strong, and shall ultimately assume the title of Ptolemy I., King of Egypt. But one of his princes or generals (Seleucus Nicator) shall be stronger/ and, asserting his independence, shall establish a great dominion over Northern Syria and Babylonia. Ver. 6 (b.c. 250). — The vision then passes over the reign of Antiochus II. (Soter), and proceeds to say that " at the end of years " (i.e., some half-century later, B.C. 250) the kings of the North and South should form a matrimonial alliance. The daughter of the King of the South — the Egyptian Princess Berenice, daughter of Ptolem}^ II. (Philadelphus), should come to the King of the North (Antiochus Theos) to make an agree- ment. This agreement (marg., *' equitable conditions ") was that Antiochus Theos should divorce his wife and half-sister Laodice, and disinherit her children, and bequeath the throne to any future child of Berenice, who would thus unite the empires of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidse.^ Berenice took with her so vast a dowry that she was called ** the dowry-bringer " (<^e/)i/o(^0j009).^ Antiochus himself accompanied her as far as Pelusium (b.c. 247). But the compact ended in nothing but calamity. For, two years after, Ptolemy II. died, leaving an infant child by Berenice. But Berenice ^ Diod. Sic, xix. 55-58 ; Appian, Syr., c. 52. He ruled from Phrygia to the Indus, and was the most powerful of the Diadochi, The word one is not expressed in the Hebrew : " but as for one of his captains.' There may be some corruption of the text. Seleucus can scarcely be regarded as a vassal of Ptolemy, but of Alexander. 2 Appian, Syr., c. 55 ; Polyaenus, viii. 50 ; Justin, xxvii. i. See Herz- berg, Gesch. v. Hellas u. Rom., i. 576. Dates are not certain, er., ad loc. (Dan. xi. 6). 304 THE BOOK OF DANIEL did ^^not retain the strength of her armj^^ since the military force which accompanied her proved powerless for her protection ; nor did Ptolemy II. abide, nor any sup- port which he could render. On the contrary, there was overwhelming disaster. Berenice's escort, her father, her husband, all perished, and she herself and her infant child were murdered by her rival, Laodice (b.c. 246), in the sanctuary of Daphne, whither she had fled for refuge. Ver. 7 (b.c. 285-247). — But the murder of Berenice shall be well avenged. For '* out of a shoot from her roots" stood up one in his office, even her brother Ptolemy III. (Euergetes), who, unlike the effeminate Ptolemy II., did not entrust his wars to his generals, but came himself to his army. He shall completely conquer the King of the North (Seleucus II., Kallinikos, son of Antiochus Theos and Laodice), shall seize his fortress (Seleucia, the port of Antioch).^ Ver. 8 (b.c. 247). — In*this campaign Ptolemy Euergetes, who earned the title of '* Benefactor " by this vigorous invasion, shall not only win immense booty — four thousand talents of gold and many jewels, and forty thousand talents of silver — but shall also carry back with him to Egypt the two thousand five hundred molten images,^ and idolatrous vessels, which, two hundred and eighty years before (b.c. 527), Cambyses had carried away from Egypt.* ' The rendering is much disputed, and some versions, punctuating differently, have, " his seed [?>., his daughter] shall not stand." Every clause of the passage has received varying interpretations. 2 Polyb., V. 58. ^ Heb., nastktm; LXX., tcl x^^'evrd ; Vulg., sculptilia. * Herodotus (iii. 47) says that he ordered the images to be burnt. On the Marmor Adulitanum, Ptolemy Euergetes boasted that he had united Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Persia, Susiana, Media, and all SECOND SECTION 305 After this success he will, for some years, refrain from attacking the Seleucid kings. ^ Ver. 9 (B.C. 240). — Seleucus Kallinikos makes an attempt to avenge the shame and loss of the invasion of Syria by invading Egypt, but he returns to his own land totally foiled and defeated, for his fleet was destroyed by a storm.^ Second Section (vv. 10-19). — Events from the death of Ptolemy Euergetes (b.c. 247) to the death of Anti- ochus III. (the Great, b.c. 175). In the following verses, as Behrmann observes, there is a sort of dance of shadows, only fully intelligible to the initiated. Ver. 10. — The sons of Seleucus KaUinikos were Seleucus III. (Keraunos, b.c 227-224) and Antiochus the Great (b.c. 224-187). Keraunos only reigned two years, and in b.c. 224 his brother Antiochus III. succeeded him. Both kings assembled immense forces to avenge the insult of the Egyptian invasion, the defeat of their father, and the retention of their port and fortress of Seleucia. It was only sixteeen miles from Antioch, and being still garrisoned by Egyp- tians, constituted a standing danger and insult to their capital city. Ver. 1 1 . — After twenty-seven years the port of Seleucia is wrested from the Egyptians by Antiochus the Great, and he so completely reverses the former countries as far as Bactria under his rule. The inscription was seen at Adules by Cosmas Indicopleustes, and recorded by him (Wolf u. Buttmann, Museum, u. 162). * R.V. marg., " He shall continue more years than the King of the North." Ptolemy Euergetes died b.c. 247 ; Seleucus Kallinikos, B.C. 225. It must be borne in mind that in almost every clause the readings, renderings, and interpolations vary. I give what seem to be the best attested and the most probable. 2 Justin, xxvii. 2. 20 3o6 THE BOOK OF DANIEL successes of the King of the South as to conquer Syria as far as Gaza. Ver. 12 (B.C. 217). — But at last the young Egyptian King, Ptolemy IV. (Philopator), is roused from his dissipation and effeminacy, advances to Raphia (south- west of Gaza) with a great army of twenty thousand foot, five thousand horse, and seventy-three elephants, and there, to his own immense self-exaltation, he inflicts a severe defeat on Antiochus, and *' casts down tens of thousands^^ Yet the victory is illusive, although it enables Ptolemy to annex Palestine to Egypt. For Ptolemy ^^ shall not show himself strong^^^ but shall, by his supineness, and by making a speedy peace, throw away all the fruits of his victory, while he returns to his past dissipation (b.c. 217-204).^ Ver. 13. — Twelve years later (b.c. 205) Ptolemy Philopator died, leaving an infant son, Ptolemy Epi- phanes. Antiochus, smarting from his defeat at Raphia, again assembled an army which was still greater than before (b.c. 203), and much war-material. In the intervening years he had won great victories in the East as far as India. Ver. 14. — Antiochus shall be aided by the fact that many — including his ally Philip, King of Macedon, and various rebel-subjects of Ptolemy Epiphanes— stood up against the King of Egypt and wrested Phoe- nicia and Southern Syria from him. The Syrians were further strengthened by the assistance of the " children of the violent " among the Jews, " who shall lift them- ' See 3 Mace. i. 2-8; Jos., B.J., IV. xi. 5. The Seleucid army lost ten thousand foot, three hundred horse, five elephants, and more than four thousand prisoners (Polyb., v, 86). 2 Justin says (xxx. l) : "Spoliasset regem Antiochum si fortunam virtute juvisset." ANTIOCHUS THE GREAT 307 selves up to fulfil the vision of the oracle;^ but they shall fall." We read in Josephus that many of the Jews helped Antiochus ; ^ but the allusion to '* the vision " is entirely obscure. Ewald supposes a reference to some prophecy no longer extant. Dr. Joel thinks that the Hellenising Jews may have referred to Isa. xix. in favour of the plans of Antiochus against Egypt. Vv. 15, 16. — But however much any of the Jews may have helped Antiochus under the hope of ulti- mately regaining their independence, their hopes were frustrated. The Syrian King came, besieged, and took a well-fenced city — perhaps an allusion to the fact that he wrested Sidon from the Egyptians. After his great victory over the Egyptian general Scopas at Mount Panium (b.c. 198), the routed Egyptian forces, to the number of ten thousand, flung themselves into that city.^ This campaign ruined the interests of Egypt in Palestine, '' the glorious land."* Palestine now passed to Antiochus, who took possession '^ with destruction in his handy Ver. 17 (B.C. 198-195).— After this there shall again be an attempt at " equitable negotiations " ; by which, however, Antiochus hoped to get final possession of Egypt and destroy it. He arranged a marriage between ^' a daughter of women " — his daughter Cleopatra — and Ptolemy Epiphanes. But this attempt also entirely failed. Ver. 18 (b.c. 190). — Antiochus therefore '' sets his face * Chdzon, "the vision." Gratz renders it, "to cause the Law to totter " ; but this cannot be right. "^ E.g., Joseph, and his son Hyrcanus. ^ Polyb., xxviii. i; Liv., xxxiii. 19; Jos., AntL, XII. iii. 4. See St. Jerome, ad he. * Vulg., terra inclyta ; but in viii. 9, fortitudo. 3o8 THE BOOK OF DANIEL in another direction^^ and tries to conquer the islands and coasts of Asia Minor. But a captain — the Roman general, Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus — puts an end to the insolent scorn with which he had spoken of the Romans, and pays him back with equal scorn,^ utterly defeating him in the great Battle of Magnesia (b.c. 190), and forcing him to ignominious terms. Ver. 19 (b.c. 175). — Antiochus next turns his atten- tion {^^ sets his face ") to strengthen the fortresses of his own land in the east and west ; but making an attempt to recruit his dissipated wealth by the plunder of the Temple of Belus in Elymais, '* stumbles and falls ^ and is not found y Third Section (vv. 20-27). — Events under Seleucus Philopator down to the first attempts of Antiochus Epiphanes against Egypt (e.g. 170). Ver. 20. — Seleucus Philopator (e.g. 187-176) had a character the reverse of his father's. He was no rest- less seeker for glory, but desired wealth and quietness.^ Among the Jews, however, he had a very evil repu- tation, for he sent an exactor — a mere tax-collector, Heliodorus — '* to pass through the glory of the kingdom " ^ He only reigned twelve years, and then was '' broken " — i.e., murdered by Heliodorus, neither in anger nor in battle, but by poison administered by this " tax-collec- tor." The versions all vary, but I feel little doubt that Dr. Joel is right when he sees in the curious phrase nogesh heder malkooth, ''one that shall cause a raiser ' In the choice of the Hebrew words qats'in cherpatho lo. Dr. Joel suspects a sort of anagram of Cornehus Scipio, like the airo fxeXiros for Ptolemy, and the 5,'ov "Hpos for Arsione in Lycophron ; but the real meaning and rendering of the verse are highly uncertain. ^ Liv., xii. 19: " Otiosum, nullisque admodum rebus gestis nobili- tatum." ^ 2 Mace. iii. 7 ff- The reading and rendering are very uncertain. ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES 309 of taxes to pass over the kingdom " — of which neither Theodotion nor the Vulgate can make anything — a cryptographic allusion to the name Heliodorus ; ^ and possibly the predicted fate may (by a change of subject) also refer to the fact that Heliodorus was checked, not by force, but by the vision in the Temple (2 Mace. V. 18, iii. 24-29). We find from 2 Mace. iv. I that Simeon, the governor of the Temple, charged Onias with a trick to terrify Heliodorus. This is a very probable view of what occurred.^ Ver. 21. — Seleucus Philopator died b.c. 175 without an heir. This made room for a contemptible person, a reprobate, who had no real claim to royal dignity,' being only a younger son of Antiochus the Great. He came by surprise, ** in time of security ^^ and obtained the kingdom by flatteries.^ Ver. 22. — Yet "M^ overflowing wings of Egypt^^ (or ''the arms of a flood") '■^ were swept away before him and broken ; yea, and even a covenanted or allied prince y Some explain this of his nephew Ptolemy Philometor, others of Onias III., "the prince of the covenant" — i.e.y the princely high priest, whom Antiochus displaced in favour of his brother, the apostate Joshua, who Graecised his name into Jason, as his brother Onias did in calHng himself Menelaus.^ Ver. 23. — This mean king should prosper by deceit ^ Jo6l, Notizen, p. 16. ^ See Jost, i. no. ' Vulg., vilissimus et indigniis decore regio ; R.V,, "to whom they had not given the honour of a kingdom " ; Ewald, " upon him shall not be set the splendour of a kingdom." Dr. Jo6l sees in nibzeh a contemptuous paronomasia on "Epiphanes" {Notizen, p. 17). * Dan. viii. 22; 2 Mace. v. 25. " Jos., Anti., XII. V. I. 3IO THE BOOK OF DANIEL which he practised on all connected with him;^ and though at first he had but few adherents, he should creep into power. Ver. 24. — '*/« time of security shall he come, even upon the fattest places of the province.'^ By this may be meant his invasions of Galilee and Lower Egypt. Acting unlike any of his royal predecessors, he shall lavishly scatter his gains and his booty among needy followers,^ and shall plot to seize Pelusium, Naucratis, Alexandria, and other strongholds of Egypt for a time. Ver. 25.— After this (b.c. 171) he shall, with a '^ gr&at army,^^ seriously undertake his first invasion of Egypt, and shall be met by his nephew Ptolemy Philometor with another immense army. In spite of this, the young Egyptian King shall fail through the treachery of his own courtiers. He shall be outwitted and treacherously undermined by his uncle Antiochus. Yes I even while his army is fighting, and many are being slain, the very men who '^ eat of his dainties J^ even his favourite and trusted courtiers Eulaeus and Lenaeus, will be devising his ruin, and his army shall be swept away. Vv. 26, 27 (B.C. 174).— The Syrians and the Egyptian King, nephew and uncle, shall in nominal amity sit at one banquet, eating from one table ; ^ but all the while they will be distrustfully plotting against each other and " speaking lies " to each other. Antiochus will pretend to ally himself with the young Philometor against his brother Ptolemy Euergetes II. — generally ' Jerome, amicitias simulans. ' See I Mace. iii. 30; I Mace. i. 19; Polyb., xxvii. 17; Diod. Sic, XXX. 22. What his unkingly stratag-erns were we do not know. •■' Liv., xliv. 19 : " Antiochus per houcstam speciem majoris Ptolemaei reducendi in regnum," etc. FOURTH SECTION 31 1 known by his derisive nickname as Ptolemy Physkon ^ — whom after eleven months the Alexandrians had proclaimed king. But all these plots and counter-plots should be of none effect, for the end was not yet. Fourth Section (vv. 28-35). — Events between the first attack of Antiochus on Jerusalem (b.c. 170) and his plunder of the Temple to the first revolt of the Maccabees (b.c. 167). Ver. 28 (e.g. 168). — Returning from Egypt with great plunder, Antiochus shall set himself against the Holy Covenant. He put down the usurping high priest Jason, who, with much slaughter, had driven out his rival usurper and brother, Menelaus. He massacred many Jews, and returned to Antioch enriched with golden vessels seized from the Temple.^ Ver. 29. — In e.g. 168 Antiochus again invaded Egypt, but with none of the former splendid results. For Ptolemy Philometor and Physkon had joined in sending an embassy to Rome to ask for help and protection. In consequence of this, ^^ ships from Kittini^''^ — namely, the Roman fleet — came against him, bringing the Roman commissioner, Gaius Popilius Laenas. When Popilius met Antiochus, the king put out his hand to embrace him; but the Roman merely held out his tablets, and bade Antiochus read the Roman demand that he and his army should at once evacuate Egypt. '^ I will consult my friends on the subject," said Antiochus. Popilius, with infinite haughtiness and ^ Or " Paunch." He was so called from his corpulence. Comp. the name Mirabeau, Tonneau, 2 2 Mace. V. 5-21 ; i Mace. i. 20-24. ^ The LXX. render this '^^ovai 'Fu/xaioi. Comp= Numb. xxiv. 24 ; Jerome, Tricres et Romani, On "Chittim" (Gen. x. 4) see Jos., Ant!., I. vi. I. 312 THE BOOK OF DANIEL audacity, simply drew a circle in the sand with his vine-stick round the spot on which the king stood, and said, ''You must decide before you step out of that circle." Antiochus stood amazed and humiliated; but seeing that there was no help for it, promised in despair to do all that the Romans demanded/ Ver. 30. — Returning from Egypt in an indignant frame of mind, he turned his exasperation against the Jews and the Holy Covenant, especially extending his ap- proval to those who apostatised from it. Ver. 31. — Then (b.c. 168) shall come the chmax of horror. Antiochus shall send troops to the Holy Land, who shall desecrate the sanctuary and fortress of the Temple, and abolish the daily sacrifice (Kisleu 15), and set up the abomination that maketh desolate.^ Ver. 32. — To carry out these ends the better, and with the express purpose of putting an end to the Jewish religion, he shall pervert or " make profane " by flatteries the renegades who are ready to apostatise from the faith of their fathers. But there shall be a faithful remnant who will bravely resist him to the uttermost. ** The people who know their God will be valiant, and do great deeds^ Ver. 33. — To keep alive the national faith ^^ wise teachers of the people shall instruct many,''^ and will draw upon their own heads the fury of persecution, so that many shall fall by sword, and by flame, and by captivity, and by spoliation for many days. ' Polyb., xxix. ii; Appian, Syr., 66; Liv., xlv. 12; Veil. Paterc, i, 10. According to Polybius (xxxi. 5), Epiphanes, by his crafty dis- simulation, afterwards completely hoodwinked the ambassador Tiberius Gracchus. - 2 Mace. vi. 2. Our best available historical comments on this chapter are to be found in the two books of Maccabees. FIFTH SECTION 313 Ver. 34. — But in the midst of this fierce onslaught of cruelty they shall be ^^ holpen with a little helpy There shall arise the sect of the Chasidimy or '' the Pious," bound together by Tugendbund to maintain the Laws which Israel received from Moses of old.^ These good and faithful champions of a righteous cause will indeed be weakened by the false adherence of waverers and flatterers. Ver. 35. — To purge the party from such spies and Laodiceans, the teachers, like the aged priest Mattathias at Modin, and the aged scribe Eleazar, will have to brave even martyrdom itself till the time of the end. Fifth-Section (vv. 36-45,6.0. 147-164). — Events from the beginning of the Maccabean rising to the death of Antiochus Epiphanes. Ver. 36. — Antiochus will grow more arbitrary, more insolent, more blasphemous, from day to day, calling himself '' God" (Theos) on his coins, and requiring all his subjects to be of his religion,^ and so even more kindling against himself the wrath of the God of gods by his monstrous utterances, until the final doom has fallen. Ver. 37. — He will, in fact, make himself his own god, paying no regard (by comparison) to his national or local god, the Olympian Zeus, nor to the Syrian deity, Tammuz-Adonis, '' the desire of women." ^ ' I Mace. ii. 42, iii. ii, iv. 14, vii. 13 ; 2 Mace. xiv. 6, "^ Diod. Sic., xxxi. i; i Mace. i. 43, Polybius (xxxi. 4) says "he committed sacrilege in most of the temples " (ra TrAetora rwv lepQv). ^ Jahn (Heb. Com., § xcii.) sees in the words *' neither shall he regard the desire of women " an allusion to his exclusion of women from the festival at Daphne. Some explain the passage by his robbery of the Temple of Artemis or Aphrodite in Elymais (Polyb., xxxi. II ; Appian, Syr., 66; i Mace. vi. 1-4; 2 Mace. ix. 2). All is vague and uncertain. 314 THE BOOK OF DANIEL "Tammuz came next behind, Whose yearly wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer day. While smooth Adonis from his native rock Ran purple to the sea — supposed with blood Of Tammuz yearly wounded. The love tale Infected Zion's daughters with like heat." Ver. 38. — The only God to whom he shall pay marked respect shall be the Roman Jupiter, the god of the Capitol. To this god, to Jupiter Capitolinus, not to his own Zeus Olympios, the god of his Greek fathers, he shall erect a temple in his capital city of Antioch, and adorn it with gold and silver and precious stones.^ Ver. 39. — ^^ And he shall deal with the strojigest for- tresses by the help of a strange god^^'^ — namely, the CapitoHne Jupiter (Zeus Polieus)— and shall crowd the strongholds of Judaea with heathen colonists who worship the Tyrian Hercules (Melkart) and other idols; and to these heathen he shall give wealth and power. Ver. 40. — But his evil career shall be cut short. Egypt, under the now-allied brothers Philometor and Physkon, shall unite to thrust at him. Antiochus will advance against them like a whirlwind, with many chariots and horsemen, and with the aid of a fleet. Vv. 41-45. — In the course of his march he shall pass ' Polyb., xxvi. lo ; 2 Mace. vi. 2 ; Liv., xii. 20. The Hebrew Eloah Mauzzim is understood by the LXX., Theodotion, the Vulgate, and Luther to be a god called Mauzzim {Maui^dix) . See Herzog, Real- EncycL, s.v. " Meussin." Cicero (c. Verr., vii. 72) calls the Capitol arx omnhim naiionum. The reader must judge for himself as to the validity of the remark of Pusey (p. 92), that " all this is alien from the character of Antiochus." - R.V. The translation is difficult and uncertain. ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES 315 through Palestine, ^^ the glorious landj^^ with disastrous injury ; but Edom, Moab, and the bloom of the kingdom of Ammon shall escape his hand. Egypt, however, shall not escape. By the aid of the Libyans and Ethiopians who are in his train he shall plunder Egypt of its treasures.^ How far these events correspond to historic realities is uncertain. Jerome says that Antiochus invaded Egypt a third time in b.c. 165, the eleventh year of his reign ; but there are no historic traces of such an invasion, and most certainly Antiochus towards the close of his reign, instead of being enriched with vast Egyptian spoils^ was struggling with chronic lack of means. Some therefore suppose that the writer com- posed and pubHshed his enigmatic sketch of these events before the close of the reign of Antiochus, and that he is here passing from contemporary fact into a region of ideal anticipations which were never actually fulfilled. Ver. 43 (b.c. 165). — In the midst of this devastating invasion of Egypt, Antiochus shall be troubled with disquieting rumours of troubles in Palestine and other realms of his kingdom. He v/iil set out with utter fury to subjugate and to destroy, determining above all to suppress the heroic Maccabean revolt which had in- flicted such humiliating disasters upon his generals, Seron, Apollonius, and Lysias.^ ' The LXX. here render this expression (which puzzled them, and which they omit in vv. 16, 41) by di\rjt. ^ Ewald takes these for metaphoric designations of the Hellenising Jews. Some (e.g., Zftckler) understand these verses as a recapitula- tion of the exploits of Antiochus. The whole clause is surrounded by historic uncertainties. ' The origin of the name Maccabee still remains uncertain. Some 3i6 THE BOOK OF DANIEL Ver. 45 (b.c. 164). — He shall indeed advance so far as to pitch his palatial tent ^' between the sea and the mountain of the High Glory ^^ ; but he will come to a disastrous and an unassisted end.^ These latter events either do not correspond with the actual history, or cannot be verified. So far as we know Antiochus did not invade Egypt at all after B.C. 168. Still less did he advance from Egypt, or pitch his tent anywhere near Mount Zion. Nor did he die in Palestine, but in Persia (b.c. 165). The writer, indeed, strong in faith, anticipated, and rightly, that Antiochus would come to an ignominious and a sudden end — God shooting at him with a swift arrow, so that he should be wounded. But all accurate details seem suddenly to stop short with the doings in the fourth section, which may refer to the strange conduct of Antiochus in his great festival in honour of Jupiter at Daphne. Had the writer published his book after this date, he could not surely have failed to speak with triumphant gratitude and exultation of the heroic stand made by Judas Maccabaeus and the splendid victories make it stand for the initials of the Hebrew words, " Who among the gods is like Jehovah?" in Exod. xv. II ; or of Mattathias Kohen (priest), Ben-Johanan {Biesenthal). Others make it mean "the Hammerer" (comp. Charles Martel). See Jost, i. Ii6; Prideaux, ii. 199 (so Grotius, and Buxtorf, De Abbi'eviaturis), ^ Vulg., Aphadno. The LXX. omit it. Theodot., Apadano ; Symm., "his stable." 2 Porphyry says that " he pitched his tent in a place called Apedno, between the Tigris and Euphrates " ; but even if these rivers should be called seas, they have nothing to do with the Holy Mountain. Apedno seems to be a mere guess from the word pSK, "palace" or "tent," in this verse. See Jer. xliii: 10 (Targum). Roland, however, quotes Procopius {De ccdif. Jttstiniani, ii. 4) as authority for a place called Apadnas, near Amida, on the Tigris. See Pusey, p. 39. ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES 317 which restored hope and glory to the Holy Land. I therefore regard these verses as a description rather of ideal expectation than of historic facts. We find notices of Antiochus in the Books of Mac- cabees, in Josephus, in St. Jerome's Commentary on Daniel, and in Appian's Syriaca. We should know more of him and be better able to explain some of the allusions in this chapter if the writings of the secular historians had not come down to us in so fragmentary a condition. The relevant portions of Callinicus Suto- ricus, Diodorus Siculus, Polybius, Posidonius, Claudius, Theon, Andronicus, Alypius, and others are all lost — except a few fragments which we have at second or third hand. Porphyry introduced quotations from these authors into the twelfth book of his Arguments against the Christians) but we only know his book from Jerome's ex-parte quotations. Other Christian treatises, written in answer to Porphyry by Apolhnaris, Eusebius, and Methodius, are only preserved in a few sentences by Nicetas and John of Damascus. The loss of Porphyry and Apollinarius is especially to be regretted. Jerome says that it was the extraordinarily minute correspond- ence of this chapter of Daniel with the history of Antiochus Epiphanes that led Porphyry to the convic- tion that it only contained vaticinia ex eventu} Antiochus died at Tabae in Paratacaene on the fron- tiers of Persia and Babylonia about b.c. 163. The Jewish account of his remorseful deathbed may be read in I Mace. vi. 1-16 : '* He laid him down upon his bed, and fell sick for grief; and there he continued many days, for his grief was ever more and more ; and he made account that he should die." He left a son, * Jahn, § xcv 3i8 THE BOOK OF DANIEL Antiochus Eupator, aged- nine, under the charge of his flatterer and foster-brother Philip.-^ Recalhng the wrongs he had inflicted on Judaea and Jerusalem, he said : "I perceive, therefore, that for this cause these troubles are come upon me ; and, behold, I perish through great grief in a strange land." ^ 2 Mace. ix. ; Jos., Antt., XII. ix. i, 2; Milman, Hist of the Jews, ii. 9. Appian describes his lingering and wasting illness by the word (f>divo)v [Syriaca, 66). CHAPTER VI THE EPILOGUE THE twelfth chapter of the Book of Daniel serves as a general epilogue to the Book, and is as Httle free from difficulties in the interpretation of the details as are the other apocalyptic chapters. The keynote, however, to their right understanding must be given in the words ^' At that timej^ with which the first verse opens. The words can only mean " the time " spoken of at the end of the last chapter, the days of that final effort of Antiochus against the holy people which ended in his miserable death. "At that time," then — i.e.y about the year b.c. 163 — the guardian archangel of Israel, " Michael, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people," shall stand up for their deliverance. But this deliverance should resemble many similar crises in its general characteristics. It should not be immediate. On the contrary, it should be preceded by days of unparalleled disorder and catastrophe — *^ a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time." We may, for instance, compare with this the similar prophecy of Jeremiah (xxx. 4-u) : "And these are the words which the Lord spake con- cerning Israel and concerning Judah. For thus saith the Lord ; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. . . . Alas 1 for that day is great, 319 320 THE BOOK OF DANIEL SO that none is like it : it is even the time of Jacob's trouble ; but he shall be saved out of it. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that I will burst th}' bonds. . . . Therefore fear thou not, O Jacob, My servant, saith the Lord ; neither be dismayed, O Israel. . . . For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee. For I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have scattered thee, but I will not make a full end of thee : but I will correct thee with judgment, and will in nowise leave thee unpunished." ^ The general conception is so common as even to have found expression in proverbs, — such as, " The night is darkest just before the dawn " ; and, " When the tale of bricks is doubled, Moses comes." Some shadow of similar individual and historic experiences is found also among the Greeks and Romans. It lies in the expression 6eo^ airo fivX^^^l'^' ^^^ ^^^^ ^" ^^^ lines of Horace, — " Nee Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus Intersit." We find the same expectation in the apocryphal Book of Enoch,^ and we find it reflected in the Revelation of St. John,^ where he describes the devil as let loose and the powers of evil as gathering them- selves together for the great final battle of Armageddon before the eternal triumph of the Lamb and of His saints. In Rabbinic literature there was a fixed anticipation that the coming of the Messiah must inevitably be preceded by '* pangs " or " birth-throes," of which the}^ spoke as the n^EJ^D 'hi } These views See too Joel ii. 2. ^ Rev. xvi. 14, xix. 19. Enoch xc. 16, * Comp. Matt. xxiv. 6, 7, 21, 22. THE EPILOGUE 321 may partly have been founded on individual and national experience, but they were doubtless deepened by the vision of Zechariah (xii.). " Behold, a day of the Lord cometh, when thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle ; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished ; and half of the people shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives. . , . And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be light, but cold and ice:^ but it shall be one day that is known unto the Lord, not day and not night : but it shall come to pass that at evening time there shall be light." ^ The anticipation of the saintly writer in the days of the early Maccabean uprising, while all the visible issues were still uncertain, and hopes as yet unaccom- plished could only be read by the eyes of faith, were doubtless of a similar character. When he wrote Antiochus was already concentrating his powers to advance with the utmost wrath and fury against the Holy City. Humanly speaking, it was certain that the holy people could oppose no adequate resistance to his overwhelming forces, in which he would doubtless be able to enlist contingents from many allied nations. What could ensue but immeasurable calamity to the great majority ? Michael indeed, their prince, should do his utmost for them ; but it would not be in his * Such is the reading of the LXX., Vulgate, Peshitta, Symmachus, etc. * Zech. xiv. i-7» 21 THE BOOK OF DANIEL power to avert the misery which should fall on the nation generally. Nevertheless, they should not be given up to utter or to final destruction. As in the days of the Assyrians the name Shear-jashub, which Isaiah gave to one of his young sons, was a sign that *' a remnant should be left," so now the seer is assured that " thy people shall be delivered " — at any rate " every one that shall be found written in the book." ^' Written in the book " — for all true Israehtes had ever believed that a book of record, a book of remem- brance, lies ever open before the throne of God, in which are inscribed the names of God's faithful ones ; as well as that awful book in which are written the evil deeds of men.^ Thus in Exodus (xxxii. 33) we read, " Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book," which tells us of the records against the guilty. In Psalm Ixix. 28 we read, " Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written with the righteous." That book of the righteous is specially mentioned by Malachi : *' Then they that feared the Lord spake one with another : and the Lord hearkened and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and called upon His Name."^ And St. John refers to these books at the close of the Apocalypse : '' And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened : and another book was opened, which is the book of life : and the dead were judged out of the things which 'were written in the books, according to their works. . . . And if any one ' Comp. vii. 10: "And the books were opened.' 2 Mai. iii. 16. THE EPILOGUE 333 was not found written in the book of life, he was cast in the lake of fire." ^ In the next verse the seer is told that " many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and ever- lasting abhorrence." ^ It is easy to glide with insincere confidence over the difficulties of this verse, but they are many. We should naturally connect it with what goes before as a reference to '' that time " ; and if so, it would seem as though — perhaps with reminiscences of the concluding prophecy of Isaiah ^ — the writer con- templated the end of all things and the final resurrection.* If so, we have here another instance to be added to the many in which this prophetic vision of the future passed from an immediate horizon to another infinitely distant. And if that be the correct interpretation, this is the earliest trace in Scripture of the doctrine of individual immortality. Of that doctrine there was * Rev. XX. 12-15. Compare too Phil, iv, 3 : "With Clement also, and the rest of my fellow-workers, whose names are in the book of life." ^ "Many sleepers in the land of dust" seems to mean the dead. Comp. Jer. li. 39; Psalm xxii. 29; i Thess. iv. 14; Acts vii. 60. For " shame " see Jer. xxiii. 40. The word for " abhorrence " only occurs in Isa. Ixvi. 24. The allusion seems to be to the di'dorao-ts Kpla-eujs (John v. 29), the 8eijT€pos Odvaros of Rev. xx. 14. Comp. Enoch xxii. ^ Isa. Ixvi. 24. ^ It is certain that the doctrine of the Resurrection acquired more clearness in the minds of the Jews at and after the period of the Exile ; nor is there anything derogatory to the workings of the Spirit of God which lighteth every man, in the view which supposes that they may have learnt something on this subject from the Baby- lonians and Ass5^rians. See the testimonies of St. Peter and St, Paul as to some degree of Ethnic inspiration in Acts x. 34, 35, xvii. 25-31. 324 THE BOOK OF DANIEL no full knowledge — there were only dim prognosti- cations or splendid hopes ^ — until in the fulness of the times Christ brought life and immortahty to light. For instance, the passage here seems to be doubly limited. It does not refer to mankind in general, but only to members of the chosen people ; and it is not said that all men shall rise again and receive according to their works, but only that '' many " shall rise to receive the reward of true life,^ while others shall live indeed, but only in everlasting shame. To them that be wise — to ''the teacher,"^ and to those that turn the many to " righteousness " — there is a further promise of glory. They " shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever." There is here, perhaps, a reminiscence of Prov. iv. 1 8, 19, which tells us that the way of the wicked is as darkness, whereas the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Our Lord uses a similar metaphor in his explanation of the Parable of the Tares : " Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the king- dom of their Father." * We find it once again in the last verse of the Epistle of St. James : '' Let him know, that he who hath converted a sinner from the error ' See Ezek. xxxvii. 1-4. "^ Theodoret says that "many" means "all," as in Rom. v. 15; but there it is " the many," and the parallel is altogether defective. Hofmann gets over the difficulty by rendering it, "And in multitudes shall they arise." Many commentators explain it not of the final but of some partial resurrection. Few will now be content with such autocratic remarks as that of Calvin : " Multos hie ponit pro omnibus ut certum est." » Lit. "those that justify the multitude." Comp. Isa. liii. 1 1, and see Dan. xi. 33-35. * Matt, xiii. 43; I Cor. xv, 41 ; Rev. iii 28. THE EPILOGUE 32S of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins." But there is a further indication that the writer expected this final consummation to take place imme- diately after the troubles of the Antiochian assault ; for he describes the angel Gabriel as bidding Daniel '* to seal the Book even to the time of the end." Now as it is clear that the Book was, on any hypothesis, meant for the special consolation of the persecuted Jews under the cruel sway of the Seleucid King, and that then first could the Book be understood, the writer evidently looked for the fulfilment of his last prophecies at the termination of these troubles. This meaning is a little obscured by the rendering, '^ many shall run to andfro^ and knowledge shall be increased." Ewald, Maurer, and Hitzig take the verse, which literally implies movement hither and thither, in the sense, ^' many shall peruse the Book." ^ Mr. Bevan, however, from a consideration of the Septuagint Version of the words, " and knowledge shall be increased " — for which they read, *'and the land be filled with injustice "—thinks that the original rendering would be represented by, *' many shall rush hither and thither, and many shall be the calamities." In other words, " the revelation must remain concealed, because there is to ensue a long period of commotion and distress." ^ If we have been convinced by the concurrence of many irresistible arguments that the Book of Daniel is the product of the epoch which it most minutely describes, we can only see in this verse a part of the • Comp. Zech. iv. 10. This sense cannot be rigidly established. ^ He refers to i Mace. i. 9, which says of the successors of Alexander, /cai cttX^^ wav KaKb. iv tji y-jj, 326 THE BOOK OF DANIEL literary form which the Book necessarily assumed as the vehicle for its lofty and encouraging messages. The angel here ceases to speak, and Daniel, look- ing round him, becomes aware of the presence of two other celestial beings, one of whom stood on either bank of the river. ^ " And one said to the man clothed in linen, which was above the waters of the river, How long to the end of these wonders ? " ^ There is a certain grandeur in the vagueness of description, but the speaker seems to be one of the two angels standing on either '' lip " of the Tigris. ''The man clothed in linen," who is hovering in the air above the waters of the river, is the same being who in viii. i6 wears " the appearance of a man," and calls "from between the banks of Ulai" to Gabriel that he is to make Daniel understand the vision. He is also, doubtless, the " one man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz, his body like the beryl, his face as flashing- lightning, his eyes as burning torches, and his voice like the deep murmur of a multitude," who strikes such terror into Daniel and his comrades in the vision of chap. X. 5, 6 ; — and though all is left uncertain, " the great prince Michael " may perhaps be intended. The question how long these marvels were to last, and at what period the promised deliverance should be accomplished, was one which would naturally have the intensest interest to those Jews who — in the agonies ' Jerome guesses that they are the angels of Persia and Greece. The word "IN^Hj lit. "the canal," is often used of the Nile. 2 The LXX. reads koL elira, "and I said," making Daniel the speaker (so too the Vulgate) ; but the form of the passage is so closely analogous to viii. 13, as to leave no doubt that here too " one saint is speaking to another saint." THE EPILOGUE 327 of the Antiochian persecution and at the beginning of the 'Mittle help" caused by the Maccabean uprising — read for the first time the fearful yet consolatory and inspiring pages of this nfew apocalypse. The answer is uttered with the most solemn emphasis. The Vision of the priest-like and gold-girded angel, as he hovers above the river-flood, '' held up both his hands to heaven," and swears by Him that liveth for ever and ever that the continuance of the afQiction shall be ^' for a time, times, and a half." So Abraham, to emphasise his refusal of any gain from the King of Sodom, says that he has '' lifted up his hand unto the Lord, the Most High God, that he would not take from a thread to a shoe-latchet." And in Exod. vi. 8, when Jehovah says '' I did swear," the expression means literally, '^ I lifted up My hand!'^ It is the natural attitude of calling God to witness ; and in Rev. x. 5, 6, with a reminiscence of this passage, the angel is described as standing on the sea, and lifting his right hand to heaven to swear a mighty oath that there should be no longer delay. The *' time, two times, and half a time " of course means three years and a half, as in vii. 25. There can be little doubt that their commencement is the terminus a quo which is expressly mentioned in ver. 1 1 : *' the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away." We have already had occasion to see that three years, with a margin which seems to have been variously computed, does roughly correspond to the continuance of that total desecration of the Temple, and extinction of the most characteristic rites of Judaism, which pre- ' Comp. Gen. xiv. 22 ; Deut. xxxii. 40, " For I lift up My hand unto heaven, and say, I live for ever " ; Ezek. xx. 5, 6, etc. 328 THE BOOK OF DANIEL ceded the death of Antiochus and the triumph of the national cause. Unhappily the reading, rendering, and interpretation of the next clause of the angel's oath are obscure and uncertain. It is rendered in the R.V., '' and when they have made an end of breaking in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished." As to the exact translation many scholars differ. Von Lengerke translates it, '' and when the scattering of a part of the holy people should come to an end, all this should be ended." The Septuagint Version is wholly unintelligible. Mr, Bevan suggests an altera- tion of the text which would imply that, "when the power of the shatterer of the holy people \i.e.^ Anti- ochus] should come to an end, all these things should be ended." This no doubt would not only give a very clear sense, but also one which would be identical with the prophecy of vii. 25, that "' they [the times and the law] shall be given unto his hand until a time and times and half a time." ^ But if we stop short at the desperate and uncertain expedient of correcting the original Hebrew, we can only regard the words as implying (in the rendering of our A.V. and R.V.) that the persecution and suppression of Israel should pro- ceed to their extremest limit, before the woe was ended ; and of this we have already been assured.^ The writer, in the person of Daniel, is perplexed by the angel's oath, and yearns for further enlightenment and certitude. He makes an appeal to the vision with ' Those who can rest content with such exegesis may explain this to imply that " the reign of antichrist will be divided into three periods — the first long, the second longer, the third shortest of all," just as the seventy weeks of chap. ix. are composed of 7 x 62 x I. '^ By way of comment see I Mace. v. ; 2 Mace. viii. THE EPILOGUE 329 the question, *' O. my lord, what shall be the issue [or, latter end] of these things ? " In answer he is simply bidden to go his way — i.e., to be at peace, and leave all these events to God,^ since the words are shut up and sealed till the time of the end. In other words, the Daniel of the Persian Court could not possibly have attached any sort of definite meaning to minutely detailed predictions affecting the existence of empires which would not so much as emerge on the horizon till cen- turies after his death. These later visions could only be apprehended by the contemporaries of the events which they shadowed forth. " Many," continued the angel, " shall purify them- selves, and make themselves white, and be refined ; but the wicked shall do wickedly : and none of the wicked shall understand ; the teachers shall under- stand." ^ The verse describes the deep divisions which should be cleft among the Jews by the intrigues and persecu- tions of Antiochus. Many would cling to their ancient and sacred institutions, and purified by pain, purged from all dross of worldliness and hypocrisy in the fires of afQiction, like gold in the furnace, would form the new parties of the Chasidim and the Anavim^ " the pious " and " the poor." They would be such men as the good high priest Onias, Mattathias of Modin and his glorious sons, the scribe Eleazar, and the seven dauntless martyrs, sons of the holy woman who unflinchingly watched their agonies and encouraged them to die rather than to apostatise. But the wicked would con- tinue to be void of all understanding, and would go 1' H? is encouraging, as in ver. 13. "^ Comp. Rev. xxii. ii. THE BOOK OF DANIEL on still in their wickedness, like Jason and Menelaus, the renegade usurpers of the high-priesthood. These and the whole Hellenising party among the Jews, for the sake of gain, plunged into heathen practices, made abominable offerings to gods which were no gods, and in order to take part in the naked contests of the Greek gymnasium which they had set up in Jerusalem, delibe- rately attempted to obliterate the seal of circumcision which was the covenant pledge of their national con secration to the Jehovah of their fathers. " And from the time that the continual burnt offering shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days." If we suppose the year to consist of twelve months of thirty days, then (with the insertion of one intercalary month of thirty days) twtlve hundred and ninety days is exactly three and a half years. We are, however, faced by the difficulty that the time from the desecration of the Temple till its reconsecration by Judas Maccabgeus seems to have been exactly three years ; ^ and if that view be founded on correct chronology, we can give no exact interpretation of the very specific date here furnished. Our difficulties are increased by the next clause : ^' Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days." All that we can conjecture from this is that, at the ' The small heathen altar to Zens was built by Antiochus upon the great altar of burnt offering on Kisleu 15, b.c. 168. The revolt of Mattathias and his seven sons began b.c. 167. Judas the Maccabee defeated the Syi'ian generals Apollonius, Seron, and Gorgias b.c. 166, and Lysias at Beth-sur in B.C. 165. He cleansed and rededicated the Temple on Kisleu 25, b.c. 165. THE EPILOGUE 331 close of twelve hundred and ninety days, by the writer's reckoning from the cessation of the daily burnt offering, and the erection of the heathen abomination which drove all faithful Jews from the Temple, up to the date of some marked deliverance, would be three and a half years, but that this deliverance would be less complete and beatific than another and later deliverance which would not occur till forty-five days later.-^ Reams of conjecture and dubious history and imagi- nauve chronology have been expended upon the effort to give any interpretation of these precise data which can pretend to the dignity of firm or scientific exegesis. Some, for instance, like Keil, regard the numbers as symbolical^ which is equivalent to the admission that they have little or no bearing on literal history ; others suppose that they are conjectural^ having been penned before the actual termination of the Seleucid troubles. Others regard them as only intended to represent round numbers. Others again attempt to give them historic accuracy by various manipulations of the dates and events in and after the reign of Antiochus. Others relegate the entire vision to periods separated from the Maccabean age by hundreds of years, or even into the remotest future. And none of these commentators, by their researches and combinations, have succeeded in estabhshing the smallest approach to conviction in the minds of those who take the other viev/s. There can ^ The " time, times, and a half." The 1,290 da3's, 1,335 days, and the 1,150 days, and the 2,300 days of viii. 14 all agree in indicating three years with a shorter or longer fraction. It will be observed that in each case there is a certain reticence or vagueness as to the terminus ad quern. It is interesting to note that in Rev. xi. 2, 3, the period of 42 months = 1,260 days = 3| years of months of 30 days with no intercalary month. 33^ THE BOOK OF DANIEL be little doubt that to the writer and his readers the passage pointed either to very confident expectations or very well-understood realities ; but for us the exact clue to the meaning is lost. All that can be said is that we should probably understand the dates better if our knowledge of the history of B.C. 165-164 was more complete. We are forced to content ourselves with their general significance. It is easy to record and to multiply elaborate guesses, and to deceive our- selves with the merest pretence and semblance of certainty. For reverent and severely honest inquiries it seems safer and wiser to study and profit by the great lessons and examples clearly set before us in the Book of Daniel, but, as regards many of its un- solved difficulties, to obey the wise exhortation of the Rabbis, — " Learn to say, * I do not know.' " APPROXIMATE CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES B.C. B.C. Jehoiakim 608-597 Malachi .... 420 Zedekiah . 597-588 Alexander the Great in- Jerusalem taken 588 vades Persia . . . 334 Death of Nebuchadrezzar 561 Battle of Granicus . . 334 Evil-merodach . . 561 Battle of Issus . . . 333 Neriglissar . 559 Battle of Arbela . .331 Laborosoarchod 555 Death of Darius Codo- Nabunaid . 555 mannus. . . . 330 Capture of Babylon 538 Death of Alexander . . 323 Decree of Cyrus .536 Ptolemy Soter captures Cambyses 529 Jerusalem . . . 320 Darius, son of Hystaspes . 521 Simon the Just high Dedication of the Seconc priest .... 310 Temple . 516 Beginning of Septuagint Battle of Salamis 480 translation . . . 284 Ezra . 458 Antiochus the Great con- Nehemiah . 444 quers Palestine . (?) 202 Nehemiah's reforms 428 B.C. Accession of Antiochus Epiphanes . 176 Joshua (Jason), brother of Onias III., gets the priesthood by bribery, and promotes H ellenism among the J ews 1 74 First expedition of Antiochus against Egypt.— Murder of Onias III. . .171 His second expedition . . (?) 170 His plunder of the Temple and mas- sacre at Jerusalem . . . .170 Third expedition of Antiochus . .169 Apollonius, the general of Antiochus, advances against Jerusalem with an army of 22,000. — Massacre. — The abomination of desolation in the 333 Dan. vii. 8, 20. Dan. xi. 22-24, ix. 26. Dan. viii. 9, 10; xi. 28. Dan. xi, 29, 30. Dan, vii. 21, 24, 25 ; 334 CHRONOLOGICAL AND GENEALOGICAL TABLES Temple. — Antiochus carries off some viii. 11-13, 24, 25 ; of the holy vessels (i Mace. i. 25); xi. 30-35, etc. forbids circumcision ; burns the books of the Law ; puts down the daily sacrifice .... 169-8 Desecration of the Temple. — Jews compelled to pay public honour to false gods. — Faithfulness of scribes and Chasidim. — Revolt ol Maccabees 167 Dan. xi. 34, 35; xii. 3. Jewish war of independence. — Death of the priest Mattathias. — Judas Maccabseus defeats Lysias . . 166 Battles of Beth-zur and Emmaus. — Dan. vii. 11, 26; viii. Purification of Temple (Kisleu 25). 165 14; xi. 45, etc. Death of Antiochus Epiphanes . . 163 Judas Maccabaeus dies in battle at Eleasa 161 GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE LAGIDiE, PTOLEMIES, AND SELEUCID^ Seleucus Nicator, B.C. 312-280. Ptolemy Soter (Dan. xi. 5). Antiochus I. (Soter), Ptolemy Philadelphus. B.C. 280. I Laodice=pAntiochus II. (Theos)=pBerenice. Ptolemy Euergetes, B.C. 260-246. I B.C. 285-247 (Dan. xi. 7, 8). An infant, murdered | by Laodice. Seleucus II. Antiochus. Ptolemy Philopator, (Kallinikos), ^-C- 222-205 (Dan. xi. 10-12). d. B.C. 226. j_ Seleucus III. Antiochus III. (" the Great "), (Keraunos). B.C. 224 (Dan. xi. 10-12, 14). Seleucus Antiochus IV. Cleopatra=pPtolemy Epiphanes, Philopator. (Epiphanes), b.c. 175. 1 B.C. 205-181 (Dan. xi. 14). Demetrius. ^^^j^'^Jl'^^ V., ptdem^y PhilJmetor, Ptolemy B.C. 104. B c. 181-146 (Dan. xi. 25-30). Euergetes II. For a fuller list and further identifications see Driver, pp. 461, 462, and supra. For the genealogical table see Mr. Deane (Bishop Ellicott's Comnientary, v. 402).' Date Due ■.^^mm^ ..,-.-«---^^" t«iv,- AP-frt-*-«f "* }\\i pi'iiii w i.*!*.!^^ lisi^i:;|:5 ^ 1^ .«VT^OJ^. "1012 00057 3453 '^^■/.ij&m