All the opponents of the book of Daniel who have followed Porphyry l find a powerful evidence of its being composed not in the time of the exile, but in the time of the Maccabees, in the contents and nature of the prophecies found in it, particularly in this, as Bleek has expressed it, that " the special destination of the prediction extends to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes when that Syrian prince exercised tyranny against the Jewish people, and especially sought by every means to abolish the worship of Jehovah
1 Whose opinion of the contents of the book is thus quoted by Jerome (Prooem. in Dan.): " Quidquid (antor libri Dan.) usque ad Antiochum dixcrit, veram historiam continere; si quid autem ultra opinatus sit, quia futura nescierit, esse meniitum."
and to introduce the Grecian cultus into the temple at Jerusalem; for the prophecy either breaks off with the death of this prince, or there is immediately joined to it the announcement of the liberation of the people of God from all oppression, of the salvation and the kingdom of the Messiah, and even of His rising again from the dead." To confirm this assertion, which deviates from the interpretation adopted in the church, and is also opposed by recent opponents of the genuineness of the book, Bleek has in his jEinleitung, and in his Abhandlg. v. note, p. 28, fallen upon the strange expedient of comparing the prophecies of Daniel, going backwards from ch. xii., for the purpose of showing that as ch. xii. and xi. 21-45 speak only of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, of his wicked actions, and especially of his proceedings against the Jewish people and against the worship of Jehovah, so also in ch. ix., viii., vii., and ii. the special pre-intimations of the future do not reach further than to this enemy of the people of God. Now certainly in ch. xii., vers. 11 and 12 without doubt refer to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, and xi. 21-35 as surely treat of the proceedings and of the wicked actions of this Syrian king; but the section xi. 36— xii. 3 is almost unanimously interpreted by the church of the rise and reign of Antichrist in the last time, and is explained of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, as lately shown by Klief., only when an interpretation is adopted which does not accord with the sense of the words, and is in part distorted, and rests on a false historical basis. While now Bleek, without acknowledging the ancient church - interpretation, adopts that which has recently become prevalent, applying the whole eleventh chapter absolutely to Antiochus Epiphanes, and regards it as necessary only to reject the artistic explanation which Auberlen has given of ch. xii., and then from the results so gained, and with the help of ch. viii., so explains the prophecies of the seventy weeks, ch. ix., and of the four wrorldmonarchies, ch. ii. and vii., that ch. ix. 25-27 closes with Antiochus Epiphanes, and the fourth world-kingdom becomes the Greco- Macedonian monarchy of Alexander and his successors, he has by means of this process gained the wished-for result, disregarding altogether the organism of the well-arranged book. But scientifically we cannot well adopt such a method, which, without any reference to the organism of a book, takes a retrograde course to explain the clear and unambiguous expressions by means of dark and doubtful passages. For, as Ziindel (p. 95) has well remarked, as we cannot certainly judge of a symphony from the last tones of the finale, but only after the first simple passages of the thema, so we cannot certainly form a correct judgment from its last brief and abrupt sentences of a prophetical work like this, in which the course of the prophecy is such that it proceeds from general to special predictions. Ch. xii. forms the conclusion of the whole book; in vers. 5-13 are placed together the two periods (ch. vii. and viii.) of severe oppression of the people of God, which are distinctly separable from each other — that proceeding from the great enemy of the third world-kingdom, i.e. Antiochus Epiphanes (ch. viii.), and that from the last great enemy of the fourth world-kingdom, i.e. Antichrist (ch. vii.), — while the angel, at the request of the prophet, makes known to him the duration of both. These brief expressions of the angel occasioned by Daniel's two questions receive their right interpretation from the earlier prophecy in ch. vii. and viii. If we reverse this relation, while on the ground of a very doubtful, not to say erroneous, explanation of ch. xi., we misinterpret the questions of Daniel and the answers of the angel, and now make this interpretation the standard for the exposition of ch. ix., viii., vii., and ii., then we have departed from the way by which we may reach the right interpretation of the prophetic contents of the whole book.
The question how far the prophecies of Daniel reach, can only be determined by an unprejudiced interpretation of the two visions of the world-kingdoms, ch. ii. and vii., in conformity with the language there used and with their actual contents, and this can only be given in the following exposition of the book. Therefore we must here limit ourselves to a few brief remarks.
According to the unmistakeable import of the two fundamental visions, ch. ii. and vii., the erection of the Messianic kingdom follows close after the destruction of the fourth world-kingdom (ch. ii. 34, 44), and is brought about (ch. vii. 9-14, 26 f.) by the judgment on the little horn which grew out of the fourth worldpower, and the investiture of the Messiah coming in the clouds of heaven with authority, glory, and kingly power. The first of these world-powers is the Chaldean monarchy founded by Nebuchadnezzar, who is the golden head of the image (ch. ii. 37, 38). The kingdom of the Chaldeans passes over to Darius, of Median origin, who is followed on the throne by Cyrus the Persian (ch. vi. 29), and thus it passes over to the Medes and Persians. This kingdom, in ch. vii. represented under the figure of a bear, Daniel saw in ch. viii. under the figure of a ram with two horns, which, being pushed at by a he-goat having a great horn between his eyes as he was running in his flight over the earth, had his two horns broken, and was thrown to the ground and trodden upon. When the hegoat hereupon became strong, he broke his great horn, and in its stead there grew up four horns toward the four winds of heaven; and out of one of them came forth a little horn, which became exceeding great, and magnified itself even to the Prince of the host, and took away the daily sacrifice (ch. viii. 3-13). This vision was thus explained to the prophet by an angel: — The ram with two horns represents the kings of the Medes and Persians; the he-goat is the king of Javan, i.e. the Greco-Macedonian kingdom, for u the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king " (Alexander of Macedon); the four horns that sprang up in the place of the one that was broken off are four kingdoms, and in the latter time of their kingdom a fierce king shall stand up (the little horn), who shall destroy the people of the Holy One, etc. (ch. viii. 20-25). According to this quite distinct explanation given by the angel, the horn, i.e. Antiochus Epiphanes, so hostile to the people of God belongs to the third world-kingdom, arises out of one of the four kingdoms into which the monarchy of Alexander the Great- was divided; the Messianic kingdom, on the contrary, does not appear till after the overthrow of the fourth world-kingdom and the death of the last of the enemies arising out of it (ch. vii.). Accordingly, the affirmation that in the book of Daniel the appearance of the Messianic salvation stands in order after the destruction of Antiochus Epiphanes, is in opposition to the principal prophecies of the book; and this opposition is not removed by the supposition that the terrible beast with the ten horns (ch. vii. 7) is identical with the he-goat, which is quite otherwise described, for at first it had only one horn, after the breaking off of which four came up in its stead. The circumstance that the description of the little horn growing up between the ten horns of the fourth beast, the speaking great and blasphemous things against the Most High, and thinking to change times and laws (ch. vii. 8, 24 f.), harmonizes in certain features with the representation of Antiochus Epiphanes described by the little horn (ch. viii.), which would destroy the people of the Holy One, rise up against the Prince of princes, and be broken without the hand of man, does not at all warrant the identification of these enemies of God and His people rising out of different worldkingdoms, but corresponds perfectly with this idea, that Antiochus Epiphanes in his war against the people of God was a type of
Antichrist, the great enemy arising out of the last world-kingdom Along with these resemblances there are also points of dissimilarity, such e.g. as this: the period of. continuance of the domination of both is apparently alike, but in reality it is different. The activity of the prince who took away the daily sacrifice, i.e. Antiochus Epiphanes, was to continue 2300 evening-mornings (ch. viii. 14), or, as the angel says, 1290 days (ch. xii. 11), so that he who waits and comes to the 1335 days shall see (ch. xii. 12) salvation; the activity of "the enemy in the last time, i.e. of Antichrist, on the contrary, is for a time, (two) times, and an half time (ch. vii. 25, xii. 7), or a half W^f (ch. ix. 27) — designations of time which have been taken without any exegetical justification to mean years, in order to harmonize thg difference.
Accordingly, Daniel does not prophesy the appearance of the Messianic redemption after the overthrow of Antiochus Epiphanes, but announces that the fourth world-kingdom, with the kingdoms growing out of it, out of which the last enemy of the people of God arises, would first follow Antiochus, who belonged to the third world-kingdom. This fourth world-kingdom with its last enemy is destroyed by the judgment which puts an end to all the worldkingdoms and establishes the Messianic kingdom. Thus the assertion that the special destination of the prediction only goes down to Antiochus Epiphanes is shown to be erroneous. Not only in the visions ch. ii. and vii. is the conduct of the little horn rising up between the ten horns of the fourth beast predicted, but also in ch. xi. 36-45 the actions of the king designated by this horn are as specially predicted as is the domination and rule of Antiochus Epiphanes in ch. viii. 9 ff., 24 f., and in ch. xi. 20-35.
These are all the grounds worth mentioning which the most recent opponents of the historical and prophetical character of this book have adduced against its genuineness. It is proved from an examination of them, that the internal arguments are of as little value as the external to throw doubts on its authorship, or to establish its Maccabean origin. But we must go a step further, and briefly show that the modern opinion, that the book originated in the time of the Maccabees, which is set aside by the fact already adduced (p. 32), the use of it on the part of Zechariah and Ezra, is irreconcilable with the formal nature, with the actual contents, and with the spirit of the took of Daniel.
1. Neither the character of the language nor the mode in which the prophetic statements are made, corresponds with the age of the Maccabees. As regards the character of the age, the interchange of the Hebrew and the Chaldee, in the first place, agrees fully with the time of the exile, in which the Chaldee language gradually obtained the ascendency over the Hebrew mother-tongue of the exiles, but not with the time of the Maccabees, in which the Hebrew had long ago ceased to be the language used by the people.1 In the second place, the Hebrew diction of Daniel harmonizes peculiarly with the language used by writers of the period of the exile, particularly by Ezekiel;2 and the Chaldean idiom of this book agrees in not a few characteristic points with the Chaldee of the book of Ezra and Jer. x. 11, wherein these Chaldean portions are markedly distinguished from the Chaldean language of the oldest Targums, which date from the middle of the first century B.C.3 In the third place, the language of Daniel has, in common with that of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, certain Aryan elements or Parsisms, which can only be explained on the supposition that their authors lived and wrote in the Babylonish exile or
1 The use of the Chaldee along with the Hebrew in this book points, as Kran., p. 52, justly remarks, "to a conjuncture in which, as in the Hebrew book of Ezra with its inwoven pieces of Chaldee, the general acquaintance of the people with the Aramaic is supposed to be self-evident, but at the same time the language of the fathers was used by the exiles of Babylon and their children as the language of conversation." Rosenm., therefore, knows no other mode of explaining the use of both languages in this book than by the assertion that the pseudo-author did this nulla alia de causa, quam ut lectoribus persuaderet, compositum esse librum a vetere Mo propheta, cui utriusque linguae, usum seque facilem esse oportuit. The supposition that even in the second century before Christ a great proportion of the people understood the Hebrew, modern critics set themselves to establish by a reference to the disputed book of Daniel and certain pretended Maccabean psalms.
3 See the collection of Hebraisms in the Chaldean portions of Daniel and of the book of Ezra in Hengstenberg's Beitrage, i. p. 303, and in my Lehrb. d. Einl. § 133, 4. It may be further remarked, that both books have a peculiar mode under the Persian rule.1 But the expedient adopted by the opponents of the genuineness to explain these characteristic agreements from imitation, is inadmissible from this consideration, that in the Hebrew complexion of the Chaldee portion as in the Aryan element found in the language there used, this book shows, along with the agreements, also peculiarities which announce2 the independent character of its language.
of formation of the 3d pers. imperf. of &on: Wr6, Dan. ii. 20, 28, 29, 45 (mr6, iv. 2t), Ezra iv. 13, vii. 26, pnb, ii. 43, vi. 2, 3, and Ezra vii. 25, and pr6, v. 17, for tf\n\ piT, and prp, which forms are not found in the ^biblical Chaldee, while the forms with;> are first used in the Talmud in the use of the imperative, optative, and subjunctive moods (cf. S. D. Luzzatto, Elementi grammaticali del Caldeo biblico e del dialetto talmudico babilonese, Padova 1865, p. 80, — the first attempt jto present the grammatical peculiarities of the biblical Chaldee in contradistinction to the Babylonico-talmudic dialect), and Nini is only once found in the Targ. Jon., Ex. xxii. 24, and perhaps also in the Jerusalem Targum, Ex. x. 28. The importance of this linguistic phenomenon in determining the question of the date of the origin of both books has been already recognised by J. D. Michaelis (Gram. Chal. p. 25), who
has remarked concerning it: "ex his similibusque Danielis et Ezrse hebraismis, qui his libris peculiares sunt, intelliges, utrumque librum eo tempore scriptum fuisse, quo recens adhuc vernacula sua admiscentibus Hebrseis lingua Chaldaica; non seriore tempore confictum. In Targumim enim, antiquissimis etiam, plerumque frustra hos hebraismos quxsieris, in Daniele et Ezra ubique obviosy
1 Not to mention the name of dignity nns used in the Assyrian period, and the two proper names, T3SB^» i. 3, and Tp'ntf, ii. 14, cf. Gen. xiv. 1, 9, there are in this book the following words of Aryan origin: &TUK, ii. 5, 8, derived from the Old Persian azandd, found in the inscriptions of Bisutun and Nakhschi-Kustam, meaning science, knowledge; Plina, iii- 2, 3, and 121T3> PIM* Ezra i. 8, vii. 21, from the Old Persian gada or ganda^ Zend, gaza or ganga, thus gada-bara, treasurer, the Old Persian form, while *i3t3 corresponds with the Zend, gaza-bara; -Qm, iii- 2, 3, Old Persian and Zend, ddta-bara (New iii. 4, Old Persian khresii^ crier, from which the verb p3, v. 29, in Chald. and Syr. of similar meaning with the Greek wpvaaeiv.
2 Thus Daniel uses only the plur. suffixes jb,)in, fij?, \)nb, while in Ezra
Although perhaps the use of peculiar Aramaic words and wordforms by a Jew of the time of the Maccabees may be explained, yet the use of words belonging to the Aryan language by such an one remains incomprehensible, — such words, e.g., as K^TK, P.t1^}"!, 32nBj which are met with neither in the Targums nor in the rabbinical writings, or D'1}?, member, piece, from which the Targumists formed the denom. B*?.«?, ^ekl^eaOav, to dismember, and have naturalized in the Aramaic language (cf. J. Levy, Chald. IVorterb. ueber die Targ. i. p. 194). Whence could a Maccabean Jew of the era of the Seleucidae, when the Greek language and culture had become prominent in the East, have received these foreign words?
Bat as the language of this book, particularly its Aryan element, speaks against its origin in the age of the Maccabees, so also " the contemplative-visionary manner of representation in the book," as Kran. (p. 59) justly remarks, a accords little with a conjuncture of time when (1 Mace. ii. ff.) the sanctuary was desecrated and tyranny rose to an intolerable height. It is not conceivable that in such a time those who mingled in that fearful insurrection and were called on to defend their lives with weapons in their hands, should have concerned themselves with visions and circumstantial narratives of detailed history, which appertain to a lengthened period of quietness, instead of directly encouraging and counselling the men of action, so that they might be set free from the fearful situation in which they were placed."
2. Thus in no respect do the actual contents of this book correspond with the relations and circumstances of the times of the Maccabees; but, on the contrary, they point decidedly to the time of the exile. The historical parts show an intimate acquaintance not only with the principal events of the time of the exile, but also with the laws and manners and customs of the Chaldean and Medo-Persian monarchies. The definite description (ch. i. 1) of the first expedition of Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem, which is fabricated certainly from no part of the O. T., and which is yet the forms Db and D'n are interchanged with pa and pn in such a way, that f\n is used fifteen times, Din ten times, pa once, and Da five times. The forms with D used by Ezra, and also by Jeremiah, x. 11, prevail in the Targum. Moreover Daniel has only prsn (ii. 34, 35, iii. 22), Ezra, on the contrary, has proved to be correct, points to a man well acquainted with this event; so too the communication regarding king Belshazzar, ch. v., whose name occurs only in this book, is nowhere else independently found. An intimate familiarity with the historical relations of the Medo-Persian kingdom is seen in the mention made of the law of the Medes and Persians, ch. vi. 9, 13, since from the time of Cyrus the Persians are always placed before the Medes, and only in the book of Esther do we read of the Persians and Medes (ch. i. 3, 14, 18), and of the law of the Persians and Medes (ch. i. 19). An intimate acquaintance with the state-regulations of Babylon is manifest in the statement made in ch. i. 7 (proved by 2 Kings xxiv. 17 to be a Chaldean custom), that Daniel and his companions, on their being appointed for the king's service, received new names, two of which were names derived from Chaldean idols; in the account of their food being brought from the king's table (ch. i. 5); in the command to turn into a dunghill (ch. ii. 5) the houses of the magicians who were condemned to death; in the death-punishments mentioned in ch. ii. 5 and iii. 6, the being hewn to pieces and cast into a burning fiery furnace, which are shown by Ezek. xvi. 10, xxiii. 47, Jer. xxix. 29, and other proofs, to have been in use among the Chaldeans, while among the Medo-Persians the punishment of being cast into the den of lions is mentioned, ch. vi. 8, 13 ff. The statement made about the clothing worn by the companions of Daniel (ch. iii. 21) agrees with a passage in Herodotus, i. 195; and the exclusion of women from feasts and banquets is confirmed by Xen. Cyrop. v. 2, and Curtius, v. 1, 38. As to the account given in ch. ii. 5, 7, of the priests and wise men of Chaldea, Fr. Miinter (Religion der Babyl. p. 5) has remarked, " What the early Israelitish prophets record regarding the Babylonish religion agrees well with the notices found in Daniel; and the traditions preserved by Ctesias, Herod., Berosus, and Diodor are in perfect accordance therewith." Compare with this what P. F. Stuhr (Die heidn. Religion, des alt. Orients, p. 416 ff.) has remarked concerning the Chaldeans as the first class of the wise men of Babylon. A like intimate acquaintance with facts on the part of the author of this book is seen in his statements regarding the government and the state officers of the Chaldean and Medo- Persian kingdom (cf. Hgstb. Beitr. i. p. 346 ff.).
The prophetical parts of this book also manifestly prove its origin in the time of the Babylonian exile. The foundation of the world-kingdom by Nebuchadnezzar forms the historical starting-point for the prophecy of the world-kingdoms. "Know, O king," says Daniel to him in interpreting his dream of the worldmonarchies, u thou art the head of gold" (ch. ii. 37). The visions which are vouchsafed to Daniel date from the reign of Belshazzar the Chaldean, Darius the Median, and Cyrus the Persian (ch. vii. 1, viii. 1, ix. 1, x. 1). With this stands in harmony the circumstance that of the four world-kingdoms only the first three are historically explained, viz. besides the first of the monarchy of Nebuchadnezzar (ch. ii. 37), the second of the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, and the third of the kingdom of Javan, out of which, at the death of the first king, four kingdoms shall arise toward the four winds of heaven (ch. viii. 20-22). Of the kings of the Medo- Persian kingdom, only Darius the Median and Cyrus the Persian, during whose reign Daniel lived, are named Moreover the rise of yet four kings of the Persians is announced, and the warlike expedition of the fourth against the kingdom of Javan, as also the breaking up and the division toward the four winds (ch. xi. 5-19) of the kingdom of the victorious king of Javan. Of the four kingdoms arising out of the monarchy of Alexander of Macedon nothing particular is said in ch. viii., and in ch. xi. 5-19 only a series of wars is predicted between the king of the south and the king of the north, and the rise of the daring king who, after the founding of his kingdom by craft, would turn his power against the people of God, lay waste the sanctuary, and put an end to the daily sacrifice, and, according to ch. viii. 23, shall arise at the end of these four kingdoms.
However full and particular be the description given in ch. viii. and ch. xi. of this daring king, seen in ch. viii. as the little horn, yet it nowhere passes over into the prediction of historical particularities, so as to overstep the boundaries of prophecy and become prognostication or the feigned setting forth of the empiric course of history. Now, though the opinion of Kran. p. 58, that " the prophecy of Daniel contains not a single passus which might not (leaving the fulfilment out of view) in a simple, self-evident way include the development founded in itself of a theocratic thought, or of such-like thoughts," is not in accordance with the supernatural factor of prophecy, since neither the general prophecy of the unfolding of the world-power in four successive world-kingdoms, nor the special description of the appearance and unfolding of this world-kingdom, can be conceived of or rightly regarded as a mere explication of theocratic thoughts, yet the remark of the same theologian, that the special prophecies in Daniel viii. and xi. do not abundantly cover themselves with the historical facts in which they found their fulfilment, and are fundamentally different from the later so-called Apocalypse of Judaism in the Jewish Sibyl, the book of Enoch and the book of Ezra (= Esdras), which are appended to the book of Daniel, is certainly well founded.
What Daniel prophesied regarding the kings of Persia who succeeded Cyrus, regarding the kingdom of Javan and its division after the death of the first king into four kingdoms, etc., could not be announced by him by virtue of an independent development of prophetic thoughts, but only by virtue of direct divine revelation; but this revelation is at the same time not immediate prediction, but is an addition to the earlier prophecies of further and more special unveilings of the future, in which the point of connection for the reference of the third world-kingdom to Javan was already given in the prophecy of Balaam, Num. xxiv. 24, cf. Joel iv. 6 (iii. 6). The historical destination of the world-kingdoms does not extend to the kingdom of Javan and the ships of Chittim (ch. xi. 30), pointing back to Num. xxiv. 24, which set bounds to the thirst for conquest of the daring king who arose, up out of the third world-kingdom. The fourth world-kingdom, however distinctly it is described according to its nature and general course, lies on the farther side of the historical horizon of this prophet,* although in the age of the Maccabees the growth of the Roman power, striving after the mastery of the world, was already so well known that the Alexandrine translators, on the ground of historical facts, interpreted the coming of the ships of Chittim by rfeovcri 'Pcofiaioi. The absence of every trace of the historical reference of the fourth world-kingdom, furnishes an argument worthy of notice in favour of the origin of this book of Daniel during the time of the exile. For at the time of the Babylonian exile Eome lay altogether out of the circle of vision opened up to the prophets of Scripture, since it had as yet come into no relation at all to the then dominant nations which were exercising an influence on the fate of the kingdom of God. Altogether different was the state of matters in the age of the Maccabees, for they sent messengers with letters to Rome, proposing to enter into a lea^ua with the Romans: cf. 1 Mace. viii. xii.
The contents of Dan. ix. accord with the age of the Maccabees still less than do the visions of the world-kingdoms. Three and a half centuries after the accomplishment of Jeremiah's prophecy of the desolation of Judah, after Jerusalem and the temple had been long ago rebuilt, it could not come into the mind of any Jew to put into the mouth of the exiled prophet Daniel a penitential prayer for the restoration of the holy city, and to represent Gabriel as having brought to him the prophecy that the seventy years of the desolation of Jerusalem prophesied of by Jeremiah were not yet fulfilled, but should only be fulfilled after the lapse of seventy year-weeks, in contradiction to the testimony of Ezra, or, according to modern critics, of the author of the books of Chronicles and of Ezra, living at the end of the Persian era, that God, in order to fulfil His word spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, had in the first year of Cyrus stirred up the spirit of Cyrus the king of Persia to send forth an edict throughout his whole kingdom, which directed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and commanded them to rebuild the temple (2 Chron. xxxvi. 22 f., Ezra i. 1-4).
3. If now, in conclusion, we take into consideration the religious spirit of this book, we find that the opponents of its genuineness display no special gift of Sidfcpiais 7rvev/iaT0)v when they place the book of Daniel in the same category with the Sybilline Oracles, the fourth book of Ezra (= 2 Esdras), the book of Enoch, the Ascensio Jesajce, and other pseudepigraphical products of apocryphal literature, and represent the narrative of the events of Daniel's life and his visions as a literary production after the manner of Deuteronomy and the book of Koheleth (Ecclesiastes), which a Maccabean Jew has chosen, in order to gain for the wholesome truths which he wished to represent to his contemporaries the wished-for acceptance (Bleek, p. 593 f.). For this purpose, he must in the historical narratives, " by adducing the example of Daniel and his companions or the one side, and of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar on the other, exhort his fellow-countrymen to imitate the former in the inflexible stedfastness of their faith, in their open, fearless confession of the God of their fathers, and show them how this only true, all-powerful God will know in His own time to humble those who, like Antiochus Epiphanes, raised themselves against Him in presumptuous pride and sought to turn away His people from His service, and, on the other hand, to make His faithful worshippers in the end victorious" (Bleek, p. 601). Hence the tendency is conspicuous, " that the author in his descriptions in ch. iii. and vi. almost always, in whole and in part, has kept before his eye the relations of his time (the land of Judea being then under the oppression of Antiochus Epiplianes) and the surrounding circumstances; and these he brings before his readers in a veiled, yet by them easily recognisable, manner " (p.
602). Wherein, then, does the " easily recognisable " resemblance of these two facta consist? Nebuchadnezzar directed a colossal image of threescore cubits in height and six cubits in breadth to be erected on the plain of Dura, and to be solemnly consecrated as a national image, the assembled people falling down before it doing it homage. Antiochus Epiphanes, on the contrary, did not command an idol-image, as has been supposed from a false interpretation of the /3$e\vy/j,a iprjjjLoocrew (1 Mace. i. 54), to be placed on the altar of burnt-offering, but only a small idol-altar (/&w/zoi/, 1 Mace. i. 59) to be built; no mention is made, however, of its being solemnly consecrated. He then commanded the Jews to offer sacrifice month after month on this idol-altar; and because he wished that in his whole kingdom all should form but one people, and that each should leave his laws (ver. 41), he thus sought to constrain the Jews to give up the worship of God inherited from their fathers, and to fall in with the heathen forms of worship. Nebuchadnezzar did not intend to forbid to the nations that became subject to him the worship of their own gods, and to the Jews the worship of Jehovah, but much more, after in the wonderful deliverance of the three friends of Daniel he recognised the omnipotence of the supreme God, he forbade by an edict, on the pain of death, all his subjects from blaspheming this God (Dan. iii. 28-30). And wherein consists the resemblance between Antiochus Epiphanes and the Median Darius (Dan. vi.)? Darius; it is true, at the instigation of his princes and satraps, issued an ordinance that whoever within thirty days should offer a prayer to any god or man except to the king himself should be cast into the den of lions, but certainly not with the view of compelling the Jews, or any other of his subjects, to apostatize from their ancestral religion, for after the expiry of the appointed thirty days every one might again direct his prayer to his own god. The special instigators of this edict did not contemplate by it the bringing of the Jewish people under any religious restraint, but they aimed only at the overthrow of Daniel, whom Darius had raised to the rank of third ruler in the realm and had thought to set over the whole kingdom. But when Daniel was denounced to him by the authors of this law, Darius became greatly moved, and did all he could to avert from him the threatened punishment. And when, by an appeal of his satraps to the law of the Medes and Persians that no royal edict could be changed, necessity was laid upon him to cause Daniel to be cast into the den of lions, he spent a sleepless night, and was very glad when, coming to the lions' den early in the morning, he found Daniel uninjured. He then not only commanded Daniel's accusers to be cast to the lions, but he also by a proclamation ordered all his subjects to do homage to the living God who did signs and wonders in heaven and earth. In this conduct of Darius towards Daniel and towards the living God of heaven and earth, whom Daniel and the Jews worshipped, can a single incident be found which will remind us of the rage of Antiochus Epiphanes against the Jews and their worship of God?
Still less can it be conceived that (as Bleek, p. 604, says) the author of this book had " without doubt Antiochus Epiphanes before his eyes " in Nebuchadnezzar, ch. iv., and also in Belshazzar, ch. v. It is true that Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, according to ch. iv. and v., sin against the Almighty God of heaven and earth and are punished for it, and Antiochus Epiphanes also at last fell under the judgment of God on account of his wickedness. But this general resemblance, that heathen rulers by their contact with the Jews did dishonour to the Almighty God, and were humbled and punished for it, repeats itself at all times, and forms no special characteristic of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. In all the special features of the narratives of Dan. iv. and v., on the other hand, complete differences are met with. Nebuchadnezzar was struck with beastlike madness, not because he had persecuted the Jews, but because in his haughty pride as a ruler he deified himself, because he knew not that the Most High ruleth over the kingdom of men (ch. iv. 14); and when he humbled himself before the Most High, he was freed from his madness and again restored to his kingdom. Belshazzar also did not transgress by persecuting the Jews, but by causing at a riotous banquet, in drunken insolence, the golden vessels which had been brought from the temple in Jerusalem to Babylon to be produced, and by drinking out of these vessels with his captains and his wives amid the singing of songs in praise of the idol-gods; thus, as Daniel represented to him, raising himself up against the Lord of heaven, and not honouring the God in whose hand his breath was and with whom were all his wavs, although he knew how his father Nebuchadnezzar had been punished by this God (ch. v. 20-23) for his haughty presumption.
The relation not only of Nebuchadnezzar and of Darius, but also of Belshazzar, to the Jews and their religion is therefore fundamentally different from the tendency of Antiochus Epiphanes to uproot Judaism and the Mosaic worship of God. The Babylonian kings were indeed heathen, who, according to the common opinion of all heathens, held their national gods to be greater and more powerful than the gods of the nations subdued by them, among whom they also placed the God of Israel; but when they heard of the wonders of His divine omnipotence, they gave honour to the God of Israel as the God of heaven and of earth, partly by express confession of Him, and partly, at least as Belshazzar did, by honouring the true worshippers of this God. Antiochus Epiphanes, on the contrary, persisted in his almost mad rage against the worship of God as practised by the Jews till he was swept away by the divine judgment. If the pretended pseudo-Daniel, therefore, had directed his view to Antiochus Epiphanes in the setting forth of such narratives, we could only imagine the purpose to have been that he might lead this fierce enemy of his people to acknowledge and worship the true God. But with such a supposition not only does the sentiment of the Jews, as it is brought to light in the books of the Maccabees, stand in opposition, but it is also contradicted by the prophecies of this book, which threaten the daring and deceitful king, who would take away the daily sacrifice and lay waste the sanctuary, with destruction without the hand of man, without giving any room for the thought of the possibility of a change of mind, or of his conversion. The author of these prophecies cannot therefore have followed, in the historical narratives of his book, the tendency imputed to him by modern critics.
On the whole, an entire misapprehension of the spirit which pervades the historical parts of the book of Daniel lies at the foundation of the supposition of such a tendency. The narratives regarding Nebuchadnezzar, his dream, the consecration of the golden statue, and his conduct after his recovery from his madness, as well as those regarding Darius, ch. vi., could not be invented, at least could not be invented by a Maccabean Jew, because in the pre-exilian history there are altogether wanting types corresponding to the psychological delineation of these characters. It is true that a Pharaoh raised Joseph, who interpreted his dream, to be the chief ruler in his kingdom, but it does not come into his mind to give honour to the God who revealed in the dream what would befall his kingdom (Gen. xli.). For the other narratives of this book there are wanting in the Old Testament incidents with which they could be connected; and the resemblance between the life-experience of Joseph and that of Daniel extends only to these general matters, that both received from God the gift of interpreting dreams, and by means of this gift brought help and deliverance to their people i1 in all details, however, Daniel is so different from Joseph, that the delineation of his portrait as found in this book cannot be regarded as a copy of the history of Joseph. Still less can we think of the narratives of Daniel as poetical compositions; for the characters of Nebuchadnezzar and of Darius the Mede are essentially different from the prevailing views of Judaism concerning the heathen. The relation of both of these genuine heathen kings to the revelations of God shows a receptivity for the control of the living God in the lot of men, as is predicated before and after the exile in no Jewish writing of a single heathen. Such representations of character cannot be invented; they are drawn according to life, and can only be understood if the wonders of divine omnipotence and grace which the book of Daniel relates truly happened.
But as in the historical narrations, so also in the visions of Daniel, there is wanting every trace of any tendency pointing to Antiochus Epiphanes. This tendency is derived only from the view already (p. 42) shown to be incorrect, that all the prophecies of Daniel extend only down to this king, and that with his death the destruction of the God-opposing world-power and the setting up of the Messianic kingdom of God is to be expected. But if the opponents of the genuineness of this book derive support for their views from the relation of the prophecies of Daniel to the pseudepigraphic products of the Jewish Apocalyptics, so also, on the other hand, Ziindel (Krit. Unter. p. 134 ff.) has so conclusively proved the decided difference between the prophecies of Daniel and the Sibylline Oracles, which, according to Bleek, Lucke, and others, must have flowed from one source and are homogeneous, that we may limit ourselves to a brief condensed exhibition of the main results of this proof (p. 165 ff.).
First, the subject of the two writings is perfectly different. In Daniel the seer stands in moral connection with the vision; this is not so with the Sibyl. Daniel is a pious Israelite, whose name, as we see from Ezekiel, was well known during the Chaldean exile, and whose life-history is spent in inseparable connection with his prophecies; on the contrary, the Sibyls withdraw their existence from all historical control, for they date back in the times of
1 Chr. B. Michaelis thus brings together the analogies between the events in
the life of Joseph and of Daniel: " Uterque in peregrinam delatus ten-am, uterque felix somniorum interpres, uterque families ac populi sui stator, uterque summorum principum administer, uterque sapientum sui loci supremus antistes."
hoary antiquity, not only of Israel, but of all nations, viz. in the period of the deluge, and their persons disappear in apocryphal darkness. " While Daniel on his knees prays for the divine disclosure regarding the time of the deliverance of his people, and each of his revelations is at the same time an answer to prayer, the Sibyl in the Maccabean time is represented, in a true heathenish manner, powerfully transported against her will by the word of God as by a madness, and twice she prays that she might rest and cease to prophesy."
Again, the prophetic situation is just as different. As is the case with all the earlier prophets, Daniel's prophecy goes forth from a definite historical situation, the growing up of the first great world-power in Assyria-Chaldea; it stands in a moral practical connection with the deliverance of Israel, about which it treats, after the expiry of the seventy years of Jeremiah; the four worldmonarchies which were revealed to him take root in the historical ground of the time of Nebuchadnezzar. In the Seleucidan-Jewish Sibyl, on the contrary, there is no mention made of a prophetical situation, nor of a politico-practical tendency; the Sibyl has in a true Alexandrine manner a literary object, viz. this, to represent Judaism as the world-religion. " That life-question for Israel and the world, When comes the kingdom of God? which in Daniel springs up in an actual situation, as it shall also be only answered by divine fact, is in the Alexandrine Sibyllist only a question of doctrine which he believes himself called on to solve by making the heathen Jews and associates of the Jews.
Finally, in the Sibyls there is wanting a prophetical object. The prophetical object of Daniel is the world-power over against the kingdom of God. This historico-prophetic idea is the determinating, sole, all-penetrating idea in Daniel, and the centre of it lies throughout in the end of the world-power, in its inner development and its inner powerlessness over against the kingdom of God. The four world-forms do not begin with the history of nations and extend over our present time. On the contrary, the creative prophetic spirit is wanting to the Sibyl; not one historical thought of deliverance is peculiar to it; it is a genuine Alexandrine compilation of prophetic and Grseco-classic thoughts externally conceived. The thought peculiarly pervading it, to raise- Judaism to the rank of the world-religion, is only a human reflection of the divine plan, that in Abraham all the nations shall be blessed, which pervades all the prophets as the great thought in the history of the world; in Daniel it comes out into the greatest clearness, and is realized by Christianity. This prophetic world-thought the Sibyl has destroyed, i.e. has religiously spiritualized and politically materialized it. u Not the living and holy covenant God Jehovah, who dwells on high and with the contrite in heart, but Godhead uncreated and creating all things, without distinction in Himself, the invisible God, who sees all things, who is neither male nor female, as He appears at a later period in the teaching of the school of Philo, is He whom the Sibyl in very eloquent language declares to the heathen. But of the God of Israel, who not only created the world, but who also has a divine kingdom on the earth, and will build up this kingdom, in a word, of the God of the history of redemption, as He is seen in His glory in Daniel, we find no trace whatever." The materialistic historic prophecy of the Sibyllist corresponds with this religious spiritualism. He seeks to imitate the prophecies of Daniel, but he does not know the prophetic fundamental thought of the kingdom of God over against the kingdom of the world, and therefore he copies the empirical worldhistory: " first Egypt will rule, then Assyria, Persia, Media, Macedonia, Egypt again, and then Rome."
Thus the Sibylline Apocalyptic is fundamentally different from the prophecies of Daniel.1 Whoever has a mind so little disciplined that he cannot perceive this difference, cannot be expected to know how to distinguish between the prophecies of Daniel and the philosophical reflections of the book of Koheleth.2 If Koheleth brings forward his thoughts regarding the vanity of all things in the name of the wise king Solomon, then is this literary production, which moreover is so very transparent that every reader of the book can see through it, altogether comprehensible. If, on the other hand, a Maccabean Jew clothe his own self-conceived ideas re^ardinc the development of the war of the heathen world-powers against the people of God in revelations from God, which the prophet
1 This may be said also of the other apocryphal apocalypses of Judaism, which we have no need, however, here specially to consider, because these apocalypses, as is generally acknowledged, originate in a much later time, and therefore have no place in discussions regarding the genuineness of the book of Daniel.
2 The Deuteronomy which Bleek and others quote along with the book of Koheleth cannot be therefore taken into consideration as capable of supplying analogical proof, because the supposition that this book is not genuine, was not composed by Moses, is no better grounded than is the supposed nongenuiueness of the book of Daniel.
living in the Babylonian exile might have received, then this undertaking is not merely literary deception, but at the same time an abuse of prophecy, which, as a prophesying out of one's own heart, is a sin to which God in His law has annexed the punishment of death.
If the book of Daniel were thus a production of a Maccabean Jew, who would bring " certain wholesome truths" which he thought he possessed before his contemporaries as prophecies of a divinely enlightened seer of the time of the exile, then it contains neither prophecy given by God, nor in general wholesome divine truth, but mere human invention, which because it was clothed with falsehood could noi have its origin in the truth. Such a production Christ, the eternal personal Truth, never could have regarded as the prophecy of Daniel the prophet, and commended to the observation of His disciples, as He has done (Matt. xxiv. 15, cf. Mark xiii. 14).
This testimony of our Lord fixes on the external and internal evidences which prove the genuineness of the book of Daniel the seal of divine confirmation.
For the exegetical literature of the book of Daniel see in my Lehrb. der Einl. in d. A. Test. § 385 f. [The Messrs. T. and T. Clark of Edinburgh have recently published an English translation of this work, under the title of Manual of Historico- Critical Introduction to the Canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament, etc., translated by the Rev. Professor Douglas, D.D., Free Church College, Glasgow. 2 vols., Edinburgh 1869]. To what is there recorded we may add, Das Buch Daniel erkl. von Rud. Kranichfeld, Berlin 1868; Das Buch Daniels uebers. u. erkl. von Dr. Th. Kliefoth, Schwerin 1868; J. L. Fuller, der Prophet Daniel erkl., Basel 1868 (for the educated laity); Pusey, Daniel the Prophet, Oxf. 1864; and Mayer (Cath.), die Messian. Prophezieen des Daniel, Wien 1866. [Der Prophet Daniel, theologisch-homiletisch bearbeitet. von Dr. Zoeckler, Professor der Theologie zu Greifswald (J. P. Lange's Bibelwerk, 17er Thiel des A. T.), 1870.]
When Nebuchadnezzar first besieged Jerusalem he not only took away the holy vessels of the temple, but also commanded that several Israelitish youths of noble lineage, among whom was Daniel, should be carried to Babylon and there educated in the science and wisdom of the Chaldeans for service in his court, which they entered upon when their education was completed. This narrative, in which the stedfast attachment of Daniel and his three friends to the religion of their fathers, and the blessings which flowed to them from this fidelity (vers. 8-17), are particularly set forth, forms the historical introduction to the following book, whilst it shows how Daniel reached the place of influence which he held, a place which was appointed for him according to the divine counsel, during the Babylonish exile, for the preservation and development of the Old Testament kingdom of God. It concludes (ver. 21) with the remark, that Daniel continued to occupy this place till the first year of Cyrus.