[242] 2 Macc. vi. 18-31. Comp. the LXX. addition to Esther iv. 14, v. 4, where she is made to plead before God that she had not tasted of the table of Haman or of the king's banquet. So Judith takes "clean" bread with her into the camp of Holofernes (Judith x. 5), and Judas and his followers live on herbs in the desert (2 Macc. v. 27). The Mishnah even forbids to take the bread, oil, or milk of the heathen.

[243] Prophets of the O. T., p. 184 (E. Tr.).

[244] Mr. Bevan says that the verb for "defile" (???), as a ritual term for the idea of ceremonial uncleanness, is post-exilic; the Pentateuch and Ezekiel used ??? (Comment., p. 61). The idea intended is that the three boys avoided meat which might have been killed with the blood and offered to idols, and therefore was not Kashar (Exod. xxxiv. 15).

[245] Jos., Vit., iii. Comp. Isa. lii. 11.

[246] Mark vii. 19 (according to the true reading and translation).

[247] Acts x. 14.

[248] 1 Cor. xi. 25. This rigorism was specially valued by the Essenes and TherapeutÆ. See Derenbourg, Palestine, note, vi.

[249] Plato, Alcib., i. 37; Xen., Cyrop., i. 2. Youths entered the king's service at the age of seventeen.

[250] Lit. "sadder." LXX., s?????p??.

[251] LXX., ???d??e?s? t? ?d?? t?a????.

[252] Perhaps the Assyrian matstsara, "guardian" (Delitzsch). There are various other guesses (Behrmann, p. 5).

[253] Heb., ????????; LXX., sp??ata; Vulg., legumina. Abn Ezra took the word to mean "rice." Comp. Deut. xii. 15, 16; 1 Sam. xvii. 17, 18. Comp. Josephus (Vit., iii.), who tells us how the Jewish priests, prisoners in Rome, fed on s????? ?a? ?a?????.

[254] Ewald, Antiquities, p. 131 f.

[255] Pusey (p. 17) quotes from Chardin's notes in Harmer (Obs., lix.): "I have remarked that the countenance of the Kechicks (monks) are, in fact, more rosy and smooth than those of others, and that those who fast much are, notwithstanding, very beautiful, sparkling with health, with a clear and lively countenance."

[256] The ChartummÎm are like the Egyptian ?e????aate??. It is difficult to conceive that there was less chance of pollution in being elaborately trained in heathen magic and dream-interpretation than in eating Babylonian food. But this was, so to speak, extra fabulam. It did not enter into the writer's scheme of moral edification. If, however, the story is meant to imply that these youths accepted the heathen training, though (as we know from tablets and inscriptions) the incantations, etc., in which it abounded were intimately connected with idolatry, and were entirely unharmed by it, this may indicate that the writer did not disapprove of the "Greek training" which Antiochus tried to introduce, so far as it merely involved an acquaintance with Greek learning and literature. This is the view of GrÄtz. If so, the writer belonged to the more liberal Jewish school which did not object to a study of the Chokmath JavanÎth, or "Wisdom of Javan" (Derenbourg, Palestine, p. 361).

[257] LXX., ?????se et' a?t??. Considering the normal degradation of pages at Oriental courts, of which Rycaut (referred to by Pusey, p. 18) "gives a horrible account," their escape from the corruption around them was a blessed reward of their faithfulness. They may now have been seventeen, the age for entering the king's service (Xen., Cyrop., I. ii. 8). On the ordinary curse of the rule of eunuchs at Eastern courts see an interesting note in Pusey, p. 21.

[258] On the names see Gesenius, Isaiah, ii. 355.

[259] Alluded to in ix. 25.

[260] Daniel, pp. 20, 21.

[261] Comp. Gen. xxxix. 21; 1 Kings viii. 50; Neh. i. 1; Psalm cvi. 46.

[262] Lam. iv. 7.

[263] Hor., Sat., II. ii. 77.

[264] Milton, Reason of Church Government.

[265] Dante, Inferno, xiv. 94-120.

[266] The Assyrian and Babylonian kings, however, only dated their reigns from the first new year after their accession.

[267] Antt., X. x. 3.

[268] 2 Chron. xxxv. 21. See The Second Book of Kings, p. 404 (Expositor's Bible).

[269] See Professor Fuller, Speaker's Commentary, vi. 265.

[270] Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i. 39.

[271] The belief that dreams come from God is not peculiar to the Jews, or to Egypt, or Assyria, or Greece (Hom., Il., i. 63; Od., iv. 841), or Rome (Cic., De Div., passim), but to every nation of mankind, even the most savage.

[272] Dan. ii. 1: "His dreaming brake from him." Comp. vi. 18; Esther vi. 1: Jerome says, "Umbra quÆdam, et, ut ita dicam, aura somnii atque vestigium remansit in corde regis, ut, referentibus aliis posset reminisci eorum quÆ viderat."

[273] Gen. xli. 8; Schrader, K. A. T., p. 26; Records of the Past, i. 136.

[274] The word is peculiar to Daniel, both here in the Hebrew and in the Aramaic. Pusey calls it "a common Syriac term, representing some form of divination with which Daniel had become familiar in Babylonia" (p. 40).

[275] Exod. vii. 11; Deut. xviii. 10; Isa. xlvii. 9, 12. Assyrian Kashshapu.

[276] As in the rule "ChaldÆos ne consulito." See supra, p. 48.

[277] The equivalents in the LXX., Vulgate, A.V., and other versions are mostly based on uncertain guess-work. See E. Meyer, Gesch. d. Alterth., i. 185; Hommel, Gesch. Bab. u. Assyr., v. 386; Behrmann, p. 2.

[278] E.g., iii. 2, 3, officers of state; iii. 4, 5, etc., instruments of music; iii. 21, clothes.

[279] ii. 5: "The dream is gone from me," as in ver. 8 (Theodotion, ?p?st?). But the meaning may be the decree (or word) is "sure": for, according to NÖldeke, azda is a Persian word for "certain." Comp. Esther vii. 7; Isa. xlv. 23.

[280] BerachÔth, f. 10, 2. This book supplies a charm to be spoken by one who has forgotten his dream (f. 55, 2).

[281] Dan. ii. 5, iii. 29. Theodot., e?? ?p??e?a? ?ses?e. Lit. "ye shall be made into limbs." The LXX. render it by d?ae????a?, membratim concidor, in frusta fio. Comp. Matt. xxiv. 51; Smith's Assur-bani-pal, p. 137. The word haddam, "a limb," seems to be of Persian origin—in modern Persian andam. Hence the verb hadÎm in the Targum of 1 Kings xviii. 33. Comp. 2 Macc. i. 16, ??? p??e??.

[282] Comp. Ezra vi. 11; 2 Kings x. 27; Records of the Past, i. 27, 43.

[283] In iii. 96, ?a? ? ????a a?t?? d?e???seta?. Comp. 2 Macc. iii. 13: "But Heliodorus, because of the king's commandment, said, That in anywise it must be brought into the king's treasury."

[284] LXX. Theodot., ?a???? ??a?????ete (not in a good sense, as in Eph. v. 16; Col. iv. 5).

[285] Theodot., s????es?e. Cf. John ix. 22.

[286] Theodot., ??? ?? ? ?a???? pa?????.

[287] Esther iii. 7.

[288] The word AramÎth may be (as Lenormant thinks) a gloss, as in Ezra iv. 7.

[289] A curious parallel is adduced by Behrmann (Daniel, p. 7). Rabia-ibn-nazr, King of Yemen, has a dream which he cannot recall, and acts precisely as Nebuchadrezzar does (WÜstenfeld, p. 9).

[290] See Lenormant, La Magie, pp. 181-183.

[291] LXX., ii. 11: e? ? t?? ???e???.

[292] Lit. "chief of the slaughter-men" or "executioners." LXX., ??????e????. The title is perhaps taken from the story, which in this chapter is so prominently in the writer's mind, where the same title is given to Potiphar (Gen. xxxvii. 36). Comp. 2 Kings xxv. 8; Jer. xxxix. 9. The name Arioch has been derived from ErÎ-aku, "servant of the moon-god" (supra, p. 49), but is found in Gen. xiv. 1 as the name of "the King of Ellasar." It is also found in Judith i. 6, "Arioch, King of the ElymÆans." An Erim-akÛ, King of Larsa, is found in cuneiform.

[293] If Daniel went (as the text says) in person, he must have been already a very high official. (Comp. Esther v. 1; Herod., i. 99.) If so, it would have been strange that he should not have been consulted among the magians. All these details are regarded as insignificant, being extraneous to the general purport of the story (Ewald, Hist., iii. 194).

[294] Matt. xviii. 19. The LXX. interpolate a ritual gloss: ?a? pa????e??e ??ste?a? ?a? d??s?? ?a? t????a? ??t?sa? pa?? t?? ??????.

[295] The title is found in Gen. xxiv. 7, but only became common after the Exile (Ezra i. 2, vi. 9, 10; Neh. i. 5, ii. 4).

[296] Comp. Dan. vii. 12; Jer. xxvii. 7; Acts i. 7,?????? ? ?a????; 1 Thess. v. 1; Acts xvii. 26, ???sa? p??teta?????? ?a?????.

[297] With the phraseology of this prayer comp. Psalm xxxvi. 9, xli., cxxxix. 12; Neh. ix. 5; 1 Sam. ii. 8; Jer. xxxii. 19; Job xii. 22.

[298] Here the new title GazerÎm, "prognosticators," is added to the others, and is equally vague. It may be derived from Gazar, "to cut"—that is, "to determine."

[299] Comp. Gen. xx. 3, xli. 25; Numb. xxii. 35.

[300] Comp. Gen. xli. 45.

[301] Dan. ii. 30: "For their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king" (A.V.). But the phrase seems merely to be one of the vague forms for the impersonal which are common in the Mishnah. The R.V. and Ewald rightly render it as in the text.

[302] Here we have (ver. 31) aloo! "behold!" as in iv. 7, 10, vii. 8; but in vii. 2, 5, 6, 7, 13, we have aroo!

[303] In the four metals there is perhaps the same underlying thought as in the Hesiodic and ancient conceptions of the four ages of the world (Ewald, Hist., i. 368). Comp. the vision of Zoroaster quoted from Delitzsch by Pusey, p. 97: "Zoroaster saw a tree from whose roots sprang four trees of gold, silver, steel, and brass; and Ormuzd said to him, 'This is the world; and the four trees are the four "times" which are coming.' After the fourth comes, according to Persian doctrine, Sosiosh, the Saviour." Behrmann refers also to Bahman Yesht (Spiegel, Eran. Alterth., ii. 152); the Laws of Manu (SchrÖder, Ind. Litt., 448); and Roth (Mythos von den Weltaltern, 1860).

[304] Much of the imagery seems to have been suggested by Jer. li.

[305] Comp. Rev. xx. 11: ?a? t?p?? ??? e????? a?t???.

[306] Psalm i. 4, ii. 9; Isa. xli. 15; Jer. li. 33, etc.

[307] Isa. xiv. 4.

[308] King of kings. Comp. Ezek. xxvi. 7; Ezra vii. 12; Isa. xxxvi. 4. It is the Babylonian Shar-sharrÂni, or Sharru-rabbu (Behrmann). The Rabbis tried (impossibly) to construe this title, which they thought only suitable to God, with the following clause. But Nebuchadrezzar was so addressed (Ezek. xxvi. 7), as the Assyrian kings had been before him (Isa. x. 8), and the Persian kings were after him (Ezra vii. 12). The expression seems strange, but comp. Jer. xxvii. 6, xxviii. 14. The LXX. and Theodotion mistakenly interpolate ????e? t?? ?a??ss??.

[309] Pusey, p. 63.

[310] Comp. Jer. xxxi. 27.

[311] Bevan, p. 66.

[312] The interpretation is first found, amid a chaos of false exegesis, in the Epistle of Barnabas, iv. 4, § 6.

[313] See Bevan, p. 65.

[314] On the distinction in the writer's mind between the Median and Persian Empires see v. 28, 31, vi. 8, 12, 15, ix. 1, xi. 1, compared with vi. 28, x. 1. In point of fact, the Persians and Medians were long spoken of as distinct, though they were closely allied; and to the Medes had been specially attributed the forthcoming overthrow of Babylon: Jer. li. 28, "Prepare against her the nations with the kings of the Medes." Comp. Jer. li. 11, and Isa. xiii. 17, xxi. 2, "Besiege, O Media."

[315] See Isa. ii. 2, xxviii. 16; Matt. xxi. 42-44. "Le mot de Messie n'est pas dans Daniel. Le mot de Meshiach, ix. 26, dÉsigne l'autoritÉ (probablement sacerdotale) de la JudÉe" (Renan, Hist., iv. 358).

[316] See Kuenen, The Prophets, iii.

[317] No kings have been mentioned, but the ten toes symbolise ten kings. Comp. vii. 24.

[318] Dante, Inferno, xiv. 94-120.

[319] Milton, Paradise Lost, ii. 575.

[320] It may be paralleled by the legendary prostrations of Alexander the Great before the high priest Jaddua (Jos., Antt., XI. viii. 5), and of Edwin of Deira before Paulinus of York (BÆda, Hist., ii. 14-16).

[321] Isa. xlvi. 6. The same verbs, "they fall down, yea they worship," are there used of idols.

[322] Comp. Isa. lx. 14: "The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet."

[323] Comp. Rom. xiv. 23; Acts xv. 29; Heb. xiii. 9; 1 Cor. viii. 1; Rev. ii. 14, 20.

[324] So Jerome: "Non tam Danielem quam in Daniele adorat Deum, qui mysteria revelavit." Comp. Jos., Antt., XI. viii. 5, where Alexander answers the taunt of Parmenio about his p??s????s?? of the high priest: ?? t??t?? p??se????sa, t?? d? Te??.

[325] Acts xiv. 14, 15.

[326] Esther iii. 2. Comp. 1 Chron. xxvi. 30. This corresponds to what Xenophon calls a? ?p? t?? ???a? f??t?se??, and to our "right of entrÉe."

[327] The false prophets Ahab and Zedekiah were "roasted in the fire" (Jer. xxix. 22), which may have suggested the idea of this punishment to the writer; but it was for committing "lewdness"—"folly," Judg. xx. 6—in Israel, and for adultery and lies, which were regarded as treasonable. In some traditions they are identified with the two elders of the Story of Susanna. Assur-bani-pal burnt Samas-sum-ucin, his brother, who was Viceroy of Babylon (about b.c. 648), and Te-Umman, who cursed his gods (Smith, Assur-bani-pal, p. 138). Comp. Ewald, Prophets, iii. 240. See supra, p. 44.

[328] Malcolm, Persia, i. 29, 30.

[329] Both in Theodotion and the LXX. we have ?t??? ??t??a?de??t??. The siege of Jerusalem was not, however, finished till the nineteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar (2 Kings xxv. 8). Others conjecture that the scene occurred in his thirty-first year, when he was "at rest in his house, and flourishing in his palace" (Dan. iv. 4).

[330] Records of the Past, v. 113. The inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar are full of glorification of Marduk (Merodach), id., v. 115, 135, vii. 75.

[331] Comp. Isa. xliv. 9-20. Mr. Hormuzd Rassan discovered a colossal statue of Nebo at Nimroud in 1853. Shalmanezer III. says on his obelisk, "I made an image of my royalty; upon it I inscribed the praise of Asshur my master, and a true account of my exploits." Herodotus (i. 183) mentions a statue of Zeus in Babylon, on which was spent eight hundred talents of gold, and of another made of "solid gold" twelve ells high.

[332] By the apologists the "image" or "statue" is easily toned down into a bust on a hollow pedestal (Archdeacon Rose, Speaker's Commentary, p. 270). The colossus of Nero is said to have been a hundred and ten feet high, but was of marble. Nestle (Marginalia, 35) quotes a passage from Ammianus Marcellinus, which mentions a colossal statue of Apollo reared by Antiochus Epiphanes, to which there may be a side-allusion here.

[333] Schrader, p. 430: Dur-Yagina, Dur-Sargina, etc. LXX., ?? ped?? t?? pe?????? ???a? ?a?????a?.

[334] LXX. and Vulg., satrapÆ. Comp. Ezra viii. 36; Esther iii. 12. Supposed to be the Persian Khshatra-pawan (Bevan, p. 79).

[335] SignÎ, Babylonian word (Schrader, p. 411).

[336] LXX., t?p???a?. Comp. Pechah, Ezra v. 14. An Assyrian word (Schrader, p. 577).

[337] LXX., ????e???. Perhaps the Persian endarzgar, or "counsellor."

[338] LXX., d?????ta?. Comp. Ezra vii. 21; but GrÄtz thinks there is a mere scribe's mistake for the gadbarÎ of vv. 24 and 27.

[339] This word is perhaps the old Persian dÀtabard.

[340] The word is found here alone. Perhaps "advisers." On these words see Bevan, p. 79; Speaker's Commentary, pp. 278, 279; Sayce, Assyr. Gr., p. 110.

[341] Ewald, Prophets, v. 209; Hist., v. 294.

[342] The word has often been compared with the Greek ?????, but the root is freely found in Assyrian inscriptions (Karaz, "an edict").

[343] Comp. Rev. xviii. 2, ???a?e? ?? ?s???.

[344] See supra, p. 22. The qar'na (horn, ???a?) and sab'ka (sa???) are in root both Greek and Aramean. The "pipe" (mash'rÔkÎtha) is Semitic. Brandig tries to prove that even in Nebuchadrezzar's time these three Greek names (even the symphonia) had been borrowed by the Babylonians from the Greeks; but the combined weight of philological authority is against him.

[345] See Hibbert Lectures, chap. lxxxix., etc.

[346] Comp. vi. 13, 14.

[347] Akaloo Qar'tsÎhÎn.

[348] It is "found in the Targum rendering of Lev. xix. 16 for a talebearer, and is frequent as a Syriac and Arabic idiom" (Fuller).

[349] Jerome emphasises the element of jealousy, "Quos prÆtulisti nobis et captivos ac servos principes fecisti, ii elati in superbiam tua prÆcepta contemnunt."

[350] The phrase is unique and of uncertain meaning.

[351] Exod. v. 2; Isa. xxxvi. 20; 2 Chron. xxxii. 13-17.

[352] Dan. iii. 16. LXX., ?? ??e?a? ???e?; Vulg., non oportet nos. To soften the brusqueness of the address, in which the Rabbis (e.g., Rashi) rejoice, the LXX. add another ?as??e?.

[353] Jerome explains "But if not" by Quodsi noluerit; and Theodoret by e?te ??? ??eta? e?te ?a? ?.

[354] iii. 18. LXX., ?a? t?te fa?e??? s?? ?sta?. Tert., from the Vet. Itala, "tunc manifestum erit tibi" (Scorp., 8).

[355] Comp. Gen. xix. 22: "I cannot do anything until thou be come thither."

[356] Cremation prevailed among the Accadians, and was adopted by the Babylonians (G. Bertin, Bab. and Orient. Records, i. 17-21). Fire was regarded as the great purifier. In the Catacombs the scene of the Three Children in the fire is common. They are painted walking in a sort of open cistern full of flames, with doors beneath. The Greek word is ?????? (Matt. xiii. 42), "a calcining furnace."

[357] It seems very needless to introduce here, as Mr. Deane does in Bishop Ellicott's commentary, the notion of the seven MaskÎm or demons of Babylonian mythology. In the Song of the Three Children the flames stream out forty-nine (7 × 7) cubits. Comp. Isa. xxx. 26.

[358] The meaning of these articles of dress is only conjectural: they are—(1) SarbalÎn, perhaps "trousers," LXX. sa?a????, Vulg. braccÆ; (2) PatÎsh, LXX. t???a?, Vulg. tiarÆ; (3) Kar'bla, LXX. pe??????de?, Vulg. calceamenta. It is useless to repeat all the guesses. Sarbala is a "tunic" in the Talmud, Arab. sirbal; and some connect PatÎsh with the Greek p?tas??. Judging from Assyrian and Babylonian dress as represented on the monuments, the youths were probably clad in turbans (the Median ?a?????), an inner tunic (the Median ???d??), an outer mantle, and some sort of leggings (anaxurides). It is interesting to compare with the passage the chapter of Herodotus (i. 190) about the Babylonian dress. He says they wore a linen tunic reaching to the feet, a woollen over-tunic, a white shawl, and slippers. It was said to be borrowed from the dress of Semiramis.

[359] Chald., haddab'rÎn; LXX., ?? f???? t?? as?????.

[360] The A.V., "like the Son of God," is quite untenable. The expression may mean a heavenly or an angelic being (Gen. vi. 2; Job i. 6). So ordinary an expression does not need to be superfluously illustrated by references to the Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, but they may be found in Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, 128 and passim.

[361] LXX., ? Te?? t?? ?e??, ? ???st??. Comp. 2 Macc. iii. 31; Mark v. 7; Luke viii. 28; Acts xvi. 17, from which it will be seen that it was not a Jewish expression, though it often occurs in the Book of Enoch (Dillmann, p. 98).

[363] Comp. Psalm xvi. 12: "We went through fire and water, and Thou broughtest us out into a safe place."

[364] Comp. Gen. xxiv. 7; Exod. xxiii. 20; Deut. xxxvi. 1. The phrase applied to Joshua the high priest (Zech. iii. 2), "Is not this a brand plucked out of the burning?" originated the legend that, when the false prophets Ahab and Zedekiah had been burnt by Nebuchadrezzar (Jer. xxix. 22), Joshua had been saved, though singed. This and other apocryphal stories illustrate the evolution of Haggadoth out of metaphoric allusions.

[365] p?e?a ??t??? d?as??????, "a dewy wind, whistling continually."

[366] Song of the Three Children, 23-27.

[367] Vay. Rab., xxv. 1 (WÜnsche, Bibliotheca Rabbinica).

[368] Ecclus. xviii. 16: "Shall not the dew assuage the heat?"

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

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

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

[372] Isa. xxvi. 9.

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

[374] See Jos. c. Ap., I. 20, ?pes?? e?? ????st?a?, et?????at? t?? ??? (of Nebuchadrezzar); and I. 19 of Nabopolassar.

[375] PrÆp. Ev., lx. 41.

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

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

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

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

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

[381] Rab-chartummaya.

[382] Herod., i. 108.

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

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

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

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

[387] See Job xv. 15.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[397] Mark v. 3.

[398] Bevan, p. 92.

[399] In the Mishnah often ShamayÎm; N. T., ? as??e?a t?? ???a???.

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

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

[402] BerachÔth, f. 10, 2; f. 57, 2.

[403] Theodot., t?? ?a?t?a? s?? ?? ??e??s??a?? ??t??sa?; Vulg., peccata tua eleemosynis redime. Comp. Psalm cxii. 9. This exaltation of almsgiving is a characteristic of later Judaism (Ecclus. iv. 5-10; Tobit iv. 11).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[411] Exod. xvii. 16.

[412] Psalm cxlv. 13.

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

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

[415] Dan. ii. 38.

[416] Psalm xxxiii. 4.

[417] Exod. xviii. 11.

[418] The question has already been fully discussed (supra, pp. 54-57). The apologists say that—
1. Belshazzar was Evil-merodach (Niebuhr, Wolff, Bishop Westcott, ZÖckler, Keil, etc.), as the son of Nebuchadrezzar (Dan. v. 2, 11, 18, 22), and his successor (Baruch i. 11, 12, where he is called Balthasar, as in the LXX.). The identification is impossible (see Dan. v. 28, 31); for Evil-merodach (b.c. 561) was murdered by his brother-in-law Neriglissar (b.c. 559). Besides, the Jews were well acquainted with Evil-merodach (2 Kings xxv. 27; Jer. lii. 31.)
2. Belshazzar was Nabunaid (St. Jerome, Ewald, Winer, Herzfeld, Auberlen, etc.). But the usurper Nabunaid, son of a Rab-mag, was wholly unlike Belshazzar; and so far from being slain, he was pardoned, and sent by Cyrus to be Governor of Karmania, in which position he died.
3. Belshazzar was the son of Nabunaid. But though Nabunaid had a son of the name he was never king. We know nothing of any relationship between him and Nebuchadrezzar, nor does Cyrus in his records make the most distant allusion to him. The attempt to identify Nebuchadrezzar with an unknown Marduk-sar-utsur, mentioned in Babylonian tablets, breaks down; for Mr. Boscawen (Soc. Bibl., in § vi., p. 108) finds that he reigned before Nabunaid. Further, the son of Nabunaid perished, not in Babylon, but in Accad.

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

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

[421] Ezek. xxiii. 15.

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

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

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

[425] Dan. iii. 29.

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

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

[428] 2 Macc. iii.

[429] Psalm lv. 15.

[430] Ewald.

[431] Comp. Dan. iii. 7.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[439] Isa. xliv. 25.

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

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

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

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

[444] The word occurs in Perez Uzza. There still, however, remain some obviously unexplored mysteries about these words. Paronomasia, as I showed long ago in other works, plays a noble and profound part in the language of emotion; and that the interpretation should here be made to turn upon it is not surprising by any means. We find it in the older prophets. Thus in Jer. i. 11, 12: "What seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten My word to perform it." The meaning here depends on the resemblance in Hebrew between shaqeed, "an almond tree" ("a wakeful, or early tree"), and shoqeed, "I will hasten," or "am wakeful over."
And that the same use of plays on words was still common in the Maccabean epoch we see in the Story of Susanna. There Daniel plays on the resemblance between s?????, "a mastick tree," and s??se?, "shall cut thee in two"; and p?????, "a holm oak," and p??sa?, "to cut asunder." We may also point to the fine paronomasia in the Hebrew of Isa. v. 7, Mic. i. 10-15, and other passages. "Such a conceit," says Mr. Ball, "may seem to us far-fetched and inappropriate; but the Oriental mind delights in such lusus verborum, and the peculiar force of all such passages in the Hebrew prophets is lost in our version because they have not been preserved in translation."
As regards the Medes, they are placed after the Persians in Isa. xxi. 2, Esther i. 3, but generally before them.

[445] LXX., ?d??e? ????s?a? a?t? t?? t??t?? ?????; Theodot., ?????ta t??t??. See supra, p. 210.

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

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

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

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

[450] The view of Niebuhr and Westcott.

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

[452] Lam. iv. 7.

[453] Isa. xliv. 25, 26.

[454] Isa. xliii. 2.

[455] Ezek. xxxi. 2-15.

[456] Prov. xvi. 18.

[457] Isa. x. 33.

[458] Isa. xlvii. 13.

[459] Isa. xxi. 2.

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

[461] Jer. li. 28-57.

[462] Psalm lvii. 4.

[463] Psalm lviii. 6.

[464] Lam. iii. 53.

[465] Isa. liv. 17.

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

[467] BereshÎth Rabba, § 68.

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

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

[470] Matt. xix. 29.

[471] 1 Cor. iv. 2.

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

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

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

[475] The chamber was perhaps supposed to be a ?pe???? on the roof. The "kneeling" in prayer (as in 1 Kings viii. 54; 2 Chron. vi. 13; Ezra ix. 5) is in the East a less common attitude than standing. See 1 Sam. i. 26; Mark xi. 25; Luke xviii. 11: but see Neh. viii. 6; Gen. xxiv. 26.
The Temple, and Jerusalem, was the Kibleh, or sacred direction of devotion (1 Kings viii. 44; Ezek. viii. 16; Psalm v. 7, xxviii. 2, lv. 17, etc.).

[476] Comp. Mark vi. 26.

[477] Theodot., ???????e???.

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

[479] "Courage, till to-morrow" (??? p??? ????e?), adds the LXX.

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

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

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

[483] Theodot., t? p??? ?? t? f?t?.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[500] The use of enÔsh—not eesh—indicates chastening and weakness.

[501] Ewald.

[502] Isa. xiii. 17; Jer. li. 11, 28. Aristotle, H. N., viii. 5, calls the bear p?fa???, "all-devouring." A bear appears as a dream-symbol in an Assyrian book of auguries (Lenormant, Magie, 492).

[503] Dan. v. 28, 31, vi. 8, 12, 15, 28, viii. 20, ix. 1, xi. 1.

[504] The composite beast of Rev. xiii. 2 combines leopard, bear, and lion.

[505] Comp. viii. 4-8.

[506] Battle of the Granicus, b.c. 334; Battle of Issus, 333; Siege of Tyre, 332; Battle of Arbela, 331; Death of Darius, 330. Alexander died b.c. 323.

[507] This was the interpretation given by the great father EphrÆm Syrus in the first century. Hitzig, Kuenen, and others count from Alexander the Great, and omit Ptolemy Philometor.

[508] Dan. xi. 21.

[509] Appian, Syr., 45; Liv., xli. 24. The story of his attempt to rob the Temple at Jerusalem, rendered so famous by the great picture of Raphael in the Vatican stanze, is not mentioned by Josephus, but only in 2 Macc. iii. 24-40. In 4 Macc. it is told, without the miracle, of Apollonius. There can be little doubt that something of the kind happened, but it was perhaps due to an imposture of the Jewish high priest.

[510] Porphyry interpreted the three kings who succumbed to the little horn to be Ptolemy Philometor, Ptolemy Euergetes II., and Artaxias, King of Armenia. The critics who begin the ten kings with Alexander the Great count Seleucus IV. (Philopator) as one of the three who were supplanted by Antiochus. Von Gutschmid counts as one of the three a younger brother of Demetrius, said to have been murdered by Antiochus (MÜller, Fr. Hist. GrÆc., iv. 558).

[511] Comp. viii. 23.

[512] Comp. ?a?e?? ??a?a (Rev. xiii. 5); Hom., Od., xvi. 243.

[513] Comp. xi. 36.

[514] Jos., B. J., I. i. 2, VI. x. 1. In Antt., XII. v. 3, Josephus says he took Jerusalem by stratagem.

[515] Jahn, Hebr. Commonwealth, § xciv.; Ewald, Hist. of Isr., v. 293-300.

[516] 2 Macc. 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, after the game of Discus ... not setting by the honours of their fathers, but liking the glory of the Grecians best of all."

[517] 1 Macc. i. 29-40; 2 Macc. v. 24-26; Jos., Antt., XII. v. 4. Comp. Dan. xi. 30, 31. See SchÜrer, i. 155 ff.

[518] Jerome, Comm. in Dan., viii., ix.; Tac., Hist., v. 8; 1 Macc. i. 41-53; 2 Macc. v. 27, vi. 2; Jos., Antt., XII. v. 4.

[519] 1 Macc. ii. 41-64, iv. 54; 2 Macc. vi. 1-9, x. 5; Jos., Antt., XII. v. 4; Dan. xi. 31.

[520] Maccabee perhaps means "the Hammerer" (comp. the names Charles Martel and Malleus hÆreticorum). Simeon was called TadshÎ, "he increases" (? Gk., Tass??).

[521] The numbers vary in the records.

[522] Prideaux, Connection, ii. 212. Comp. Rev. xii. 14, xi. 2, 3.

[523] John x. 22.

[524] On the death of Antiochus see 1 Macc. vi. 8; 2 Macc. ix.; Polybius, xxxi. 11; Jos., Antt., XII. ix. 1, 2.

[525] Polybius, De Virt. et Vit., Exc. Vales, p. 144; Q. Curtius, v. 13; Strabo, xi. 522; Appian, Syriaca, xlvi. 80; 1 Macc. vi.; 2 Macc. ix.; Jos., Antt., XII. ix. 1; Prideaux, ii. 217; Jahn, Hebr. Commonwealth § xcvi.

[526] Dan. vii. 26.

[527] Dan. vii. 12. This is only explicable at all—and then not clearly—on the supposition that the fourth beast represents Alexander and the Diadochi. See even Pusey, p. 78.

[528] Ezek. i. 26; Psalm l. 3. Comp. the adaptation of this vision in Enoch xlvi. 1-3.

[529] Isa. l. 11, lx. 10-12, lxvi. 24, Joel iii. 1, 2. See Rev. i. 13. In the Gospels it is not "a son of man," but generally ? ???? t?? ?????p??. Comp. Matt. xvi. 13, xxiv. 30; John xii. 34; Acts vii. 56; Justin, Dial. c. Tryph., 31.

[530] Comp. Mark xiv. 62; Rev. i. 7; Hom., Il., v. 867, ??? ?ef?ess??.

[531] Comp. Ezek. i. 26.

[532] It is so understood by the Book of Enoch; the Talmud (Sanhedrin, f. 98, 1); the early father Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph., 31, etc. Some of the Jewish commentators (e.g., Abn Ezra) understood it of the people of God, and so Hofmann, Hitzig, Meinhold, etc. See Behrmann, Dan., p. 48.

[533] Dan. iv. 3, 34, vi. 26. See SchÜrer, ii. 247; Wellhausen, Die Pharis. u. Sadd., 24 ff.

[534] Dan. vii. 16, 22, 23, 27.

[535] Zech. ix. 9.

[536] See SchÜrer, ii. 138-187, "The Messianic Hope": he refers to Ecclus. xxxii. 18, 19, xxxiii. 1-11, xl. 13, l. 24; Judith xvi. 12; 2 Macc. ii. 18; Baruch ii. 27-35; Tobit xiii, 11-18; Wisdom iii. 8, v. 1, etc. The Messianic King appears more distinctly in Orac. Sibyll., iii.; in parts of the Book of Enoch (of which, however, xlv.-lvii. are of unknown date); and the Psalms of Solomon. In Philo we seem to have traces of the King as well as of the kingdom. See Drummond, The Jewish Messiah, pp. 196 ff.; Stanton, The Jewish and Christian Messiah, pp. 109-118.

[537] Ezra vi. 2; Neh. i. 1; Herod., v. 49; Polyb., v. 48. A supposed tomb of Daniel has long been revered at Shushan.

[538] Pers., baru; Skr., bura; Assyr., birtu; Gk., ????. Comp. Æsch., Pers., 554; Herod., ii. 96.

[539] Theodot., ????; Ewald, Stromgebiet—a place where several rivers meet. The Jews prayed on river-banks (Acts xvi. 13), and Ezekiel had seen his vision on the Chebar (Ezek. i. 1, iii. 15, etc.); but this Ulai is here mentioned because the palace stood on its bank. Both the LXX. and Theodotion omit the word Ulai.

[540] "Susianam ab Elymaide disterminat amnis EulÆus" (Plin., H. N., vi. 27).

[541] See Loftus, ChaldÆa, p. 346, who visited Shush in 1854; Herzog, R. E., s.v. "Susa." A tile was found by Layard at Kuyunjik representing a large city between two rivers. It probably represents Susa. Loftus says that the city stood between the Choaspes and the Kopratas (now the Dizful).

[542] The Latin word for "to butt" is arietare, from aries, "a ram." It butts in three directions (comp. Dan. vii. 5). Its conquests in the East were apart from the writer's purpose. Croesus called the Persians ???sta?, and Æschylus ?p????p?? ??a?, Pers., 795 (Stuart). For horns as the symbol of strength see Amos vi. 13; Psalm lxxv. 5.

[543] Unicorns are often represented on Assyrio-Babylonian sculptures.

[544] 1 Macc. i. 1-3; Isa. xli. 2; Hosea xiii. 7, 8; Hab. i. 6.

[545] Fury (chemah), "heat," "violence"—also of deadly venom (Deut. xxxii. 24).

[546] A.V., "four notable horns"; but the word chazoth means literally "a sight of four"—i.e., "four other horns" (comp. ver. 8). GrÄtz reads acheroth; LXX., ?te?a t?ssa?a (comp. xi. 4).

[547] Lit. "out of littleness."

[548] HatstsebÎ. Comp. xi. 45; Ezek. xx. 6; Jer. iii. 19; Zech. vii. 14; Psalm cvi. 24. The Rabbis make the word mean "the gazelle" for fanciful reasons (TaanÎth, 69, a).

[549] The physical image implies the war against the spiritual host of heaven, the holy people with their leaders. See 1 Macc. i. 24-30; 2 Macc. ix. 10. The Tsebaoth mean primarily the stars and angels, but next the Israelites (Exod. vii. 4).

[550] So in the Hebrew margin (Q'rÎ), followed by Theodoret and Ewald; but in the text (KethÎbh) it is, "by him the daily was abolished"; and with this reading the Peshito and Vulgate agree. HattamÎd, "the daily" sacrifice; LXX., ??de?e??s??; Numb. xxviii. 3; 1 Macc. i. 39, 45, iii. 45.

[551] The Hebrew is here corrupt. The R.V. renders it, "And the host was given over to it, together with the continual burnt offering through transgression; and it cast down truth to the ground, and it did its pleasure and prospered."

[552] 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. 11).

[553] LXX., fe????; nescio quis (Vulg., viri).

[554] Comp. for the expression xii. 6.

[555] 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 ff.), and in Jewish angelology Gabriel is identified with the Holy Spirit (Ruach Haqqodesh). As such he appears in the QurÂn, ii. 91 (Behrmann).

[556] Ben-Adam (Ezek. ii. 1).

[557] Comp. Isa. xiv. 9: "All the great goats of the earth." A ram is a natural symbol for a chieftain.—Hom., Il., xiii. 491-493; Cic., De Div., i. 22; Plut., Sulla, c. 27; Jer. l. 8; Ezek. xxxiv. 17; Zech. x. 3, etc. See Vaux, Persia, p. 72.

[558] "Strength of face" (LXX., ??a?d?? p??s?p?; Deut. xxviii. 50, etc.). "Understanding dark sentences" (Judg. xiv. 12; Ezek. xvii. 2: comp. v. 12).

[559] The meaning is uncertain. It may mean (1) that he is only strong by God's permission; or (2) only by cunning, not by strength.

[560] Comp. 2 Macc. 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."

[561] Not merely the angelic prince of the host (Josh. v. 14), but God—"Lord of lords."

[562] 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.

[563] It is said to be the national emblem of Macedonia.

[564] He is called "the King of Javan"—i.e., of the Ionians.

[565] Isa. v. 26-29. Comp. 1 Macc. i. 3.

[566] The fury of the he-goat represents the vengeance cherished by the Greeks against Persia since the old days of Marathon, ThermopylÆ, Salamis, PlatÆa, and Mycale. Persia had invaded Greece under Mardonius (b.c. 492), under Datis and Artaphernes (b.c. 490), and under Xerxes (b.c. 480).

[567] 1 Macc. vi. 1-16; 2 Macc. ix. 9; Job vii. 6; Prov. xxvi. 20.

[568] So Diodorus Siculus (Exc. Vales., p. 293); Justin, xxxii. 2; Jer. in Dan., xi.; Strabo, xvi. 744.

[569] Aurel. Vict., De Virr. Illustr., c. liv.

[570] He conquered Egypt b.c. 170 (1 Macc. i. 17-20).

[571] See 1 Macc. iii. 29-37.

[572] Comp. Ezek. xx. 6, "which is the glory of all lands"; Psalm l. 2; Lam. ii. 15.

[573] 1 Macc. 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.

[574] See Hamburger, ii. 334 (s.v. "Haftara").

[575] Comp. ???? e???? (1 Macc. i. 64; Isa. x. 5, 25, xxvi. 20; Jer. l. 5; Rom. ii. 5, etc.).

[576] Comp. xi. 21.

[577] Comp. ii. 34, xi. 45. Antiochus died of a long and terrible illness in Persia. Polybius (xxxi. 11) describes his sickness by the word da????sa?. Arrian (Syriaca, 66) says f????? ?te?e?t?se. In 1 Macc. vi. 8-16 he dies confessing his sins against the Jews, but there is another story in 2 Macc. ix. 4-28.

[578] Ver. 27, "I was gone" (or, "came to an end") "whole days." With this ??stas?? comp. ii. 1, 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.

[579] In ver. 26 the R.V. renders "it belongeth to many days to come."

[580] Comp. Gen. i. 5; 2 Cor. xi. 25. The word tamÎd 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."

[581] Matt. xxiv. 22.

[582] "These five passages agree in making the final distress last during three years and a fraction: the only difference lies in the magnitude of the fraction" (Bevan, p. 127).

[583] 1 Macc. iv. 41-56; 2 Macc. x. 1-5.

[584] 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, Hebr. Commonwealth, § xciv.; Prideaux, Connection, ii. 146.

[585] Connection, ii. 188.

[586] Gesch. d. V. Isr., i. 155.

[587] Some of these dates are uncertain, and are variously given by different authorities.

[588] Achashverosh, Esther viii. 10; perhaps connected with KshajÂrsha, "eye of the kingdom" (Corp. Inscr. Sem., ii. 125).

[589] By "the books" is here probably meant the Thorah or Pentateuch, in which the writer discovered the key to the mystic meaning of the 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 Yir'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 (?????? a???? ??? ?pp? ?e?e??). See too Dillman's Enoch, p. 293.

[590] Dan., p. 146. Comp. a similar usage in Aul. Gell., Noct. Att., iii. 10, "Se jam undecimam annorum hebdomadem ingressum esse"; and Arist., Polit., vii. 16.

[591] See Fritzsche ad loc.; Ewald, Hist. of Isr., v. 140.

[592] 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 Jehoiakim); 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. 1); or the decree of Darius (b.c. 518, Ezra vi. 1-12).

[593] Lev. xxv. 2, 4.

[594] 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21. See Bevan, p. 14.

[595] See Cornill, Die Siebzig Jahrwochen Daniels, pp. 14-18.

[596] The LXX. and Theodotion, with a later ritual bias, make the fasting a means towards the prayer: e??e?? p??se???? ?a? ??e?? ?? ??ste?a??.

[597] Ewald, p. 278. The first part (vv. 4-14) is mainly occupied with confessions 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).

[598] 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 Ellicott's Commentary, p. 407) thus exhibits the details of special resemblances:—

[599] ix. 13 (Heb.). Comp. Exod. xxxii. 13; 1 Sam. xiii. 12; 1 Kings xiii. 6, etc.

[600] Comp. Jer. xxxii. 17-23; Isa. lxiii. 11-16.

[601] ix. 21. LXX., t??e? fe??e???; Theodot., pet?e???; 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 weariness. 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, lxi.; but see Rev. xiv. 6—cherubim and seraphim have wings.

[602] In the time of the historic Daniel, as in the brief three and a half years of Antiochus, the tamÎd had ceased.

[603] ix. 23. Heb., eesh hamudÔth; Vulg., vir desideriorum, "a man of desires"; Theodot., ???? ?p??????. Comp. x. 11, 19, and Jer. xxxi. 20, where "a pleasant child" is "a son of caresses"; and the "amor et deliciÆ generis humani" applied to Titus; and the names David, Jedidiah, "beloved of Jehovah." The LXX. render the word ??ee????, "an object of pity."

[604] Daniel used ShabuÎm for weeks, not ShabuÔth.

[605] In ver. 24 the Q'rÎ and KethÎbh vary, as do also the versions.

[606] 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.

[607] Perhaps because neither Jason nor Menelaus (being apostate) were regarded as genuine successors of Onias III.

[608] Numb. xiv. 34; Lev. xxvi. 34; Ezek. iv. 6.

[610] See Isa. xlvi. 3, li. 5, liii. 11; Jer. xxiii. 6, etc.

[611] For the anointing of the altar see Exod. xxix. 36, xl. 10; Lev. viii. 11; Numb. vii. 1. It would make no difference in the usus loquendi if neither Zerubbabel's nor Judas's altar was actually anointed.

[612] It is only used thirteen times of the DebhÎr, or Holiest Place.

[613] 1 Macc. iv. 54.

[614] Theodot., ??? ???st?? ????????.

[615] Saadia the Gaon, Rashi, Von Lengerke, Hitzig, SchÜrer, Cornill.

[616] Hag. i. 1; Zech. iii. 1; Ezra iii. 2. Comp. Ecclus. xlv. 24; Jos., Antt., XII. iv. 2, p??st?t??; and see Bevan, p. 156.

[617] 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).

[618] LXX., ?p?sta??seta? ???sa ?a? ??? ?sta?; Theodot., ????e??e???seta? ???sa ?a? ??? ?st?? ?? a?t?; Aquil., ??. ??e????? ?a? ??? ?p???e? a?t?.

[619] See xi. 22. Von Lengerke, however, and others refer it to Seleucus Philopator, murdered by Heliodorus (b.c. 175).

[620] Syr. Aquil., ??? ?p???e? a?t?; Theodot., ?a? ??? ?st?? ?? a?t?; LXX., ?a? ??? ?sta?; Vulg., "Et non erit ejus populus qui eum negaturus est." The A.V. "and not for himself" is untenable. It would have been ????? ???. See Pusey, p. 182, n.

[621] Steudel, Hofmann. So too Cornill, p. 10: "Ein frommer Jude das Hoher Priesterthum mit Onias fÜr erloschen ansah."

[622] Comp. ???? ?? and ???? (JoËl, Notizen, p. 21).

[623] Jos., Antt., XII. v. 4; 1 Macc. i. 29-40.

[624] Here again the meaning is uncertain; and GrÄtz, altering the reading, thinks that it should be, "He shall abolish the covenant [with God] for the many"; or, "shall cause the many to transgress the covenant."

[625] Dan. ix. 27. Heb., Zebach oo-minchah, "the bloody and unbloody offering."

[626] The special allusion, whatever it may precisely mean, is found under three different designations: (i) In viii. 13 it is called happeshang shomeem; Gk., ? ?a?t?a ????se??; Vulg., peccatum desolationis. (ii) In ix. 27 (comp. ix. 31) it is shiqqootsÎm m'shomeem; Gk., d????a t?? ????se??; Vulg., abominatio desolationis. (iii) In xii. 11 it is shiqqoots shomeem; Gk., t? d????a ????se??; Vulg., abominatio in desolationem. Some traditional fact must (as Dr. JoËl says) have underlain the rendering "of desolation" for "of the desolator." In xi. 31 Theodotion has ?fa??s????, "of things done away with," for ????s???. The expression with which the New Testament has made us so familiar is found also in 1 Macc. i. 51 (comp. 1 Macc. 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 of 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 shiqqootsÎm themselves.

[627] Comp. pte?????? (Matt. iv. 5).

[628] Kuenen, Hist. Crit. Onderzook., ii. 472.

[629] Any one who thinks the inquiry likely to lead to any better results than those here indicated has only to wade through ZÖckler'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 minimis non curat lex." On the view that the seventy weeks were to end with the advent of Christ we ask: (1) Why do no two Christian interpreters agree about the interpretation? (2) Why did not the Apostles and Evangelists refer to so decisive an evidence?

[630] On this, however, we may remark with Cornill, "Eine Apokalypse, deren ?p??a???e?? unenthÜlbar sind, wÄre ein nonsens, eine contradictio in adjecto" (Die Siebzig Jahrwochen, p. 3). The indication was obviously meant to be understood, and to the contemporaries of the writer, familiar with the minuter facts of the day, it probably was perfectly clear.

[631] Luke ii. 25, 26, 38; Matt. xxiv. 15. Comp. 2 Thess. ii.; Jos., Antt., X. xxii. 7.

[632] "Scio de hac quÆstione ab eruditissimis viris varie disputatum et unumquemque pro captu ingenii sui dixisse quod senserat" (Jer. in Dan., ix.). In other words, there was not only no received interpretation in St. Jerome's day, but the comments of the Fathers were even then a chaos of arbitrary guesses.

[633] 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.

[634] Thus Eusebius, without a shadow of any pretence at argument makes the last week mean seventy years! (Dem. Evan., viii.).

[635] Jost (Gesch. d. Judenthums, i. 99) contents himself with speaking of "die Liebe zu prophetischer Auffassung der Vergangenheit, mit mÖglichst genauen Zahlenagaben, befriedigt, die uns leider nicht mehr verstÄndlich erscheinen."

[636] In Clem. Alex., Strom., i. 21.

[637] Cornill, p. 14; Bevan, p. 54.

[638] SchÜrer, Hist. of Jewish People, iii. 53, 54 (E. Tr.). This is also the view of Graf, NÖldeke, Cornill, and many others. In any case we must not be misled into an impossible style of exegesis of which Bleck says that "bei ihr alles mÖglich ist und alles fÜr erlaubt gilt."

[639] The LXX. date it in "the first year of Cyrus," perhaps an intentional 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.

[640] Lit. "great warfare." It will be seen that the A.V. and R.V. and other renderings vary widely from this; but nothing very important 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."

[641] Lit. "weeks of days" (Gen. xli. 1; Deut. xxi. 13: "years of days").

[642] "Bread of desires" is the opposite of "bread of affliction" in Deut. xvi. 3. Comp. Gen. xxvii. 25; Isa. xxii. 13, etc.

[643] Comp. Amos vi. 6; Ruth iii. 3; 2 Sam. xii. 20, xiv. 2.

[644] He fasted from Abib 3 to 24. The festival of the New Moon might prevent him from fasting on Abib 1, 2.

[645] Hiddekel ("the rushing") occurs only in Gen. ii. 14. It is the Assyrian idiglat.

[646] 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., ??f?? (Jer. x. 9, where alone it occurs). The LXX. omit it here. Vulg., Auro obrizo.

[647] Heb., eben tarshish (Exod. xxviii. 2); Vulg., crysolithus; R.V. and A.V., "beryl" (Ezek. i. 16). Comp. Skr., tarisha, "the sea."

[648] Theodot., t? s????; LXX., ?? p?de? (Rev. i. 15)—lit. "foot-hold"; Vulg., quÆ deorsum sunt usque ad pedes.

[649] 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., ??????. Comp. Isa. xiii. 4; Ezek. xliii. 2.

[650] Rashi guesses that they were Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

[651] Comp. Acts ix. 7, xxii. 11.

[652] Comp. Hab. iii. 16; Dan. viii. 18.

[653] Lit. "shook" or "caused me to tremble upon my knees and the palms of my hand."

[654] x. 11. LXX., ?????p?? ??ee???? e?; Tert., De Jejun., 7, "homo es miserabilis" (sc., "jejunando").

[655] The protecting genius of Persia (Isa. xxiv. 21; Psalm lxxxii.; Ecclus. xvii. 17).

[656] Michael, "who is like God" (Jude 9; Rev. xii. 7).

[657] Heb., nÔthartÎ. "I came off victorious," or "obtained the precedence" (Luther, Gesenius, etc.); "I was delayed" (Hitzig); "I was superfluous" (Ewald); "Was left over" (ZÖckler); "I remained" (A.V.); "Was not needed" (R.V. marg.). The LXX. and Theodoret seem to follow another text.

[658] LXX., "with the army of the king of the Persians."

[659] Again the text and rendering are uncertain.

[660] So Hitzig and Ewald. The view that they are distinct persons is taken by ZÖckler, Von Lengerke, etc. Other guesses are that the "man clothed in linen" is the angel who called Gabriel (viii. 16); or Michael; or "the angel of the Covenant" (Vitringa); or Christ; or "he who letteth" (? ?at????, 2 Thess. ii. 7), whom ZÖckler takes to be "the good principle of the world-power."

[661] Thus in the LXX. (Dent, xxxii. 8) we read of angels of the nations. See too Isa. xlvi. 2; Jer. xlvi. 25. Comp. Baruch iv. 7; Ecclus. xvii. 17; Frankel, Vorstudien, p. 66.

[662] Daniel, p. 162.

[663] On this chapter see Smend, Zeitschr. fÜr Alttest. Wissenschaft, v. 241.

[664] Ewald, Prophets, v. 293 (E. Tr.).

[665] Doubtless the three mentioned in Ezra iv. 5-7: Ahasuerus (Xerxes), Artaxerxes, and Darius.

[666] Heb., HakkÔl—lit. "the all." There were probably Jews in his army (Jos. c. Ap., I. 22: comp. Herod., vii. 89).

[667] ZÖckler met the difficulty by calling the number four "symbolic," a method as easy as it is profoundly unsatisfactory.

[668] Herod., iii. 96, iv. 27-29.

[669] Q. Curt., X. v. 35.

[670] 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.

[671] The King of the Negeb (comp. Isa. xxx. 6, 7). LXX., Egypt. Ptolemy assumed the crown about b.c. 304.

[672] See Stade, Gesch., ii. 276. Seleucus Nicator was deemed so important as to give his name to the Seleucid Æra (1 Macc. i. 10, ?t? as??e?a? ???????).

[673] 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.

[674] Appian, Syr., c. 55; PolyÆnus, viii. 50; Justin, xxvii. 1. See Herzberg, Gesch. v. Hellas u. Rom., i. 576. Dates are not certain.

[675] Jer., ad loc. (Dan. xi. 6).

[676] The rendering is much disputed, and some versions, punctuating differently, have, "his seed [i.e., his daughter] shall not stand." Every clause of the passage has received varying interpretations.

[677] Polyb., v. 58.

[678] Heb., nasÎkÎm; LXX., t? ???e?t?; Vulg., sculptilia.

[679] 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 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, ii. 162).

[680] 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.

[681] Justin, xxvii. 2.

[682] See 3 Macc. 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).

[683] Justin says (xxx. i): "Spoliasset regem Antiochum si fortunam virtute juvisset."

[684] ChazÔn, "the vision." GrÄtz renders it, "to cause the Law to totter"; but this cannot be right.

[685] E.g., Joseph, and his son Hyrcanus.

[686] Polyb., xxviii. 1; Liv., xxxiii. 19; Jos., Antt., XII. iii. 4. See St. Jerome, ad loc.

[687] Vulg., terra inclyta; but in viii. 9, fortitudo.

[688] In the choice of the Hebrew words qatsÎn cher'patho lo, Dr. JoËl suspects a sort of anagram of Cornelius Scipio, like the ?p? ???t?? for Ptolemy, and the ??? ??a? for Arsione in Lycophron; but the real meaning and rendering of the verse are highly uncertain.

[689] Liv., xii. 19: "Otiosum, nullisque admodum rebus gestis nobilitatum."

[690] 2 Macc. iii. 7 ff. The reading and rendering are very uncertain.

[691] JoËl, Notizen, p. 16.

[692] See Jost, i. 110.

[693] Vulg., vilissimus et indignus 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. JoËl sees in nibzeh a contemptuous paronomasia on "Epiphanes" (Notizen, p. 17).

[694] Dan. viii. 22; 2 Macc. v. 25.

[695] Jos., Antt., XII. v. 1.

[696] Jerome, amicitias simulans.

[697] See 1 Macc. iii. 30; 1 Macc. i. 19; Polyb., xxvii. 17; Diod. Sic., xxx. 22. What his unkingly stratagems were we do not know.

[698] Liv., xliv. 19: "Antiochus per honestam speciem majoris PtolemÆi reducendi in regnum," etc.

[699] Or "Paunch." He was so called from his corpulence. Comp. the name Mirabeau, Tonneau.

[700] 2 Macc. v. 5-21; 1 Macc. i. 20-24.

[701] The LXX. render this ????s? ??a???. Comp. Numb. xxiv. 24; Jerome, Trieres et Romani. On "Chittim" (Gen. x. 4) see Jos., Antt., I. vi. 1.

[702] Polyb., xxix. 11; Appian, Syr., 66; Liv., xlv. 12; Vell. Paterc., i. 10. According to Polybius (xxxi. 5), Epiphanes, by his crafty dissimulation, afterwards completely hoodwinked the ambassador Tiberius Gracchus.

[703] 2 Macc. vi. 2. Our best available historical comments on this chapter are to be found in the two books of Maccabees.

[704] 1 Macc. ii. 42, iii. 11, iv. 14, vii. 13; 2 Macc. xiv. 6.

[705] Diod. Sic, xxxi. 1; 1 Macc. i. 43. Polybius (xxxi. 4) says "he committed sacrilege in most of the temples" (t? p?e?sta t?? ?e???).

[706] 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. 11; Appian, Syr., 66; 1 Macc. vi. 1-4; 2 Macc. ix. 2). All is vague and uncertain.

[707] Polyb., xxvi. 10; 2 Macc. vi. 2; Liv., xii. 20. The Hebrew Eloah MauzzÎm is understood by the LXX., Theodotion, the Vulgate, and Luther to be a god called Mauzzim (?a??e?). See Herzog, Real-Encycl., s.v. "Meussin." Cicero (c. Verr., vii. 72) calls the Capitol arx omnium nationum. 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."

[708] R.V. The translation is difficult and uncertain.

[709] The LXX. here render this expression (which puzzled them, and which they omit in vv. 16, 41) by ????s??. Theodot., t?? ??? t?? Saae?.

[710] Ewald takes these for metaphoric designations of the Hellenising Jews. Some (e.g., ZÖckler) understand these verses as a recapitulation of the exploits of Antiochus. The whole clause is surrounded by historic uncertainties.

[711] The origin of the name Maccabee still remains uncertain. Some make it stand for the initials of the Hebrew words, "Who among the gods is like Jehovah?" in Exod. xv. 11; or of Mattathias Kohen (priest), Ben-Johanan (Biesenthal). Others make it mean "the Hammerer" (comp. Charles Martel). See Jost, i. 116; Prideaux, ii. 199 (so Grotius, and Buxtorf, De Abbreviaturis).

[712] Vulg., Aphadno. The LXX. omit it. Theodot., Apadano; Symm., "his stable."

[713] 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 ????, "palace" or "tent," in this verse. See Jer. xliii. 10 (Targum). Roland, however, quotes Procopius (De Ædif. Justiniani, ii. 4) as authority for a place called Apadnas, near Amida, on the Tigris. See Pusey, p. 39.

[714] Jahn, § xcv.

[715] 2 Macc. ix.; Jos., Antt., XII. ix. 1, 2; Milman, Hist. of the Jews, ii. 9. Appian describes his lingering and wasting illness by the word f????? (Syriaca, 66).

[716] See too Joel ii. 2.

[717] Enoch xc. 16.

[718] Rev. xvi. 14, xix. 19.

[719] Comp. Matt. xxiv. 6, 7, 21, 22.

[720] Such is the reading of the LXX., Vulgate, Peshitta, Symmachus, etc.

[721] Zech. xiv. 1-7.

[722] Comp. vii. 10: "And the books were opened."

[723] Mal. iii. 16.

[724] 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."

[725] "Many sleepers in the land of dust" seems to mean the dead. Comp. Jer. li. 39; Psalm xxii. 29; 1 Thess. iv. 14; Acts vii. 60. For "shame" see Jer. xxiii. 40. The word for "abhorrence" only occurs in Isa. lxvi. 24. The allusion seems to be to the ???stas?? ???se?? (John v. 29), the de?te??? ???at?? of Rev. xx. 14. Comp. Enoch xxii.

[726] Isa. lxvi. 24.

[727] 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 Babylonians and Assyrians. See the testimonies of St. Peter and St. Paul as to some degree of Ethnic inspiration in Acts x. 34, 35, xvii. 25-31.

[728] See Ezek. xxxvii. 1-4.

[729] 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 hic ponit pro omnibus ut certum est."

[730] Lit. "those that justify the multitude." Comp. Isa. liii. 11, and see Dan. xi. 33-35.

[732] Comp. Zech. iv. 10. This sense cannot be rigidly established.

[733] He refers to 1 Macc. i. 9, which says of the successors of Alexander, ?a? ?p?????a? ?a?? ?? t? ??.

[734] Jerome guesses that they are the angels of Persia and Greece. The word ?????? lit. "the canal," is often used of the Nile.

[735] The LXX. reads ?a? e?pa, "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."

[736] 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.

[737] 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 × 62 × 1.

[738] By way of comment see 1 Macc. v.; 2 Macc. viii.

[739] ???? is encouraging, as in ver. 13.

[740] Comp. Rev. xxii. 11.

[741] The small heathen altar to Zeus 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 Syrian 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.

[742] The "time, times, and a half." The 1,290 days, 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 quem. It is interesting to note that in Rev. xi. 2, 3, the period of 42 months = 1,260 days = 3½ years of months of 30 days with no intercalary month.