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could prognosticate the future and determine the intention or will of the gods. The offering of sacrifices was one of the means to accomplish this end, but it is significant that many of the names used to designate the priestly classes have reference to the priest's position as the exorciser of evil spirits, or his power to secure a divine oracle or to foretell the future, and not to his function as sacrificer. Such names are mashmashu, the general term for 'the charmer'; kalû, so called, perhaps, as the restrainer' of the demons, the one who keeps them in check; lagaru, a synonym of kalû; makhkhû1, 'soothsayer'; surra, a term which is still obscure; shailu, the 'inquirer,' who obtains an oracle through the dead or through the gods2; mushêlu3, 'necromancer'; ashipu1 or ishippu, sorcerer'."

The antiquity, if not of the 'Chaldaeans' under this name, yet of the priests in whose hands the traditional lore mentioned by Diodorus was, is also well established: "the magical texts formed the earliest sacred literature" of Babylonia5; and the great astrological work, called NûrBel, 'the Light of Bel,' is earlier than B.C. 2000.

Babylonia was the land of magic (cf. Is. xlvii. 9—13); and a very extensive literature, dealing with different branches of the subject, has been brought to light during recent years. Demons, or evil spirits, were supposed to be active upon earth, bringing to mankind diseases, misfortunes, and every kind of ill; the heavens were supposed to exercise an influence over the destinies of men and nations; all kinds of natural occurrences which we should describe as accidental, such as an animal entering a building, were supposed to be declarations of the will of the gods; and methods had to be devised for the purpose of dealing with the occult agencies concerned, of interpreting all significant phenomena, and of averting, where this was held to be possible, the evils which they portended. The demons were ever present and ever active: so sorcerers and sorceresses sprang up, who, by means of various magical devices, could invoke the demons at their will, and bring such persons as they chose within their power. On the other hand, the priests were ready with means for protecting people who were thus assailed; and many collections of 'incantations have come down to us, each dealing with some particular kind of demonic evil, or providing some particular method of protection against demons. In particular, every kind of disease was attributed to the action of some malignant spirit, either attacking a person spontaneously, or induced to do so by bewitchment; and the cure was effected by exorcising the demon through prescribed formulae of supposed power, accompanied by symbolical acts (e.g. burning the image of the witch). Omens were also carefully observed, and tables were drawn up describing the significance of all kinds of occurrences, including the most trifling, in heaven and earth. "Fully one-fourth of the portion of Asshurbanabal's library

3, 13.

1 Whence, probably, the 'Rab-mag,' i.e. 'chief of the soothsayers,' of Jer. xxxix. in Deut. xviii. 11; Jud. i. 1; 1 Sam. xxiii. 2, xxviii. 6, &c. 8 Lit. the 'bringer up,' from elay: comp. 1 Śam. xxviii. 11.

Cf. the Heb.

Comp. on Dan. i. 20.

5 Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 327.

Jastrow, pp. 253-293.

that has been discovered consists of omen-tablets of various sizes in which explanations are afforded of all physical peculiarities to be observed in animals and men, of natural phenomena, of the positions and movements of the planets and stars, of the incidents and accidents of public and private life-in short, of all possible occurrences and situations1."

The principles upon which the explanations of all these phenomena were drawn up were, no doubt, partly the association of ideas (as when the sight of a lion symbolized strength, or success), and partly the extension of a single coincidence between a given phenomenon and a particular subsequent occurrence, into a general law. It is, however, evident to what long and elaborate treatises the systematization of rules for dealing with, and explaining, such an immense variety of phenomena would ultimately lead.

There are six terms used in the Book of Daniel as designations of diviners or magicians, viz. (1) wise men (D), (2) enchanters (DOWN), (3) magicians (DD), (4) Chaldeans' (D), (5) determiners (of fates) (1), (6) sorcerers (DDD), which are distributed as follows:

i. 20 the magicians and the enchanters.

ii. 2 the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans.

ii. 10 b any magician, enchanter, or Chaldean.

ii. 27

wise

men, enchanters, magicians, (or) determiners (of fates).

iv. 7 the magicians, the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the determiners (of fates). v. 7 the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the determiners (of fates).

V. II (of Daniel) 'master of magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, (and) determiners (of fates).'

V. 15 the wise men, (even) the enchanters.

Wise men occurs besides, alone, in the expression '(all) the wise men of Babylon,' in ii. 12, 13 ('the wise men'), 14, 18, 24, 48, iv. 6, 18 ('all the wise men of my kingdom'), v. 7, 8 ('the wise men of the king'): 'Chaldeans' also occurs alone in i. 4 'the literature and language of the Chaldeans' (seemingly in a general sense); in ii. 4, 5, 10a (as speaking on behalf of the 'wise men' generally); and in iii. 8: and harṭummim is used in a generic sense in iv. 9 (where Daniel is called 'master of the hartummim'; cf. ii. 48 and v. 11).

A comparison of the passages shews that the terms in question are used with some vagueness. The generic term appears certainly to be 'wise men'; but in ii. 27 even this appears to be coordinated with three of the special classes. In Diodorus Siculus 'Chaldaeans' is the generic term; but in Daniel that, except once, appears as the name of one class beside others: in i. 4, however (unless, which is improbable, there was no special literature' connected with any of the other classes), it is used in a generic sense. In iv. 7 and v. II 'determiners (of fates)' appears to take the place of 'sorcerers' in ii. 2, although the two terms do not seem to be by any means synonymous. Nor are the several classes of wise men named in Daniel known to correspond to any division or classification indicated by the inscriptions. The attempts

1 Jastrow, pp. 352-406. See further Lenormant, La Magie chez les Chaldéens (1874), and La Divination et la Science des Présages chez les Chaldéens (1875); the translations of magical texts in Sayce's Hibbert Lectures for 1887, p. 441 ff. ('to be accepted with caution,' Jastrow, p. 713); and the literature cited by Jastrow, P. 717 ff. Minuter details would here be out of place, as they would not really illustrate anything in the Book of Daniel.

which have been made to prove the contrary cannot be pronounced successful. Lenormant, for example1, observing that the great work on magic preserved in Asshurbanabal's library consists of three parts, dealing respectively with incantations against evil spirits, incantations against diseases, and magical hymns, argued that these three divisions corresponded exactly to the three classes, hartummim or 'conjurateurs,' wise men or ‘médecins,' and 'ashshāphim or 'théosophes,' mentioned in Daniel by the side of the astrologers and diviners (kasdim and gāzerin): but the parallel drawn is an arbitrary one; there is no reason whatever for supposing that 'wise men' in Heb. or Aramaic denoted 'médecins,' or 'ashshaphim 'théosophes.' It seems evident that the author simply took such terms denoting diviners or magicians, as were traditionally connected with Babylon, or seemed to him on other grounds to be suitable, and combined them together, for the purpose of presenting a general picture of the manner in which the arts of divination and magic were systematically studied in Babylon.

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Nebuchadnezzar, in his second year, being disquieted by a dream, demands of the wise men of Babylon that they should repeat and interpret it to him: as they are unable to do this, they are condemned by him to death (vv. 1-12). Daniel, and his companions, being involved in the condemnation, and finding consequently their lives in jeopardy, betake themselves to prayer; their supplication is answered by the secret of the dream being revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night (vv. 13-23). Being now, at his own request, brought before the king, Daniel describes and interprets his dream to him (vv. 24—45), and is rewarded by him with high honours (vv. 46–49);

The dream was of a colossal image, the head consisting of gold, the breast and arms of silver, the body of brass, the legs of iron, the feet of iron and clay mixed: as Nebuchadnezzar was contemplating it, a stone 'cut out without hands' suddenly fell, smiting the feet of the image, which thereupon broke up, while the stone became a mountain, filling the whole earth. The image symbolizes the anti-theocratic power of the world; and its principal parts are interpreted to signify four empires, the head of gold being Nebuchadnezzar himself, representing the first empire. With the exception of the first, the empires intended are not expressly indicated; and it has been much disputed what the three following the first are. It is, however, generally admitted that the four kingdoms symbolized in Nebuchadnezzar's dream are the same as the four represented by the four beasts in Daniel's vision in Chap. VII.; so that the discussion of the question will come more suitably at the end of the notes on Chap. VII. The conclusion there reached, it may be premised, is that the second, third, and fourth empires are, respectively, the Median, the Persian, and the Macedonian. But whatever may be the case with the three disputed empires, the 'stone cut out without hands' clearly represents the kingdom of God, before which all earthly powers are destined ultimately to fall.

1 La Magie, p. 13 f.

And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, 2 Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was

The main object of the chapter is to shew-(1) how the heathen king is brought (v. 47) to acknowledge the supremacy of Daniel's God; (2) how the sequence of empires is in the hands of God; and (3) how a Divine kingdom is destined ultimately to be established upon earth. The representation of the magnificent but hollow splendour of earthly empire in the form of a 'huge, gleaming, terrible colossus, of many colours and different metals, brilliant at its summit, but gradually deteriorating, both in material and appearance, towards its base, and, when struck by the falling rock, instantly collapsing into atoms, is fine and striking.

The narrative seems to a certain extent to be modelled on that of Joseph in Gen. xli., there being parallels in both idea and expression. In both narratives a heathen monarch is troubled by a dream which he cannot understand; in both he sends for his own wise men, who fail to remove his perplexity; in both a young Jewish captive, relying on the help of his God, is successful, and is rewarded by the king with high honours, and a life-long position of influence in his kingdom. For similarities of expression, see the notes on vv. 1, 2, 12, 28, 30.

1-6. Nebuchadnezzar, being troubled by a dream, summons the wise men of Babylon before him, and bids them both tell him what his dream had been, and also interpret it to him.

1. in the second year] There is not, perhaps, necessarily a contradiction here with the three years' of i. 5, 18. By Heb. usage, fractions of time were reckoned as full units: thus Samaria, which was besieged from the fourth to the sixth year of Hezekiah, is said to have been taken at the end' of three years (2 Ki. xvii. 9, 10); and in Jer. xxxiv. 14 'at the end of seven years' means evidently when the seventh year has arrived (see also Mark viii. 31, &c.). If, now, the author, following a custom which was certainly sometimes adopted by Jewish writers, and which was general in Assyria and Babylonia, 'post-dated the regnal years of a king, i.e. counted as his first year not the year of his accession but the first full year afterwards1, and if further Nebuchadnezzar gave orders for the education of the Jewish youths in his accession-year, the end of the 'three years' of i. 5, 18 might be reckoned as falling within the king's second year. Ewald, Kamphausen, and Prince, however, suppose that 'ten' has fallen out of the text; and would read 'in the twelfth year.'

dreamed dreams] In Assyria and Babylonia, as in Egypt2, and other countries of the ancient world, dreams were regarded as significant, and as portending future events. The Assyrian inscriptions furnish several instances of deities appearing in dreams with words of encouragement or advice. Thus Asshur appears to Gugu (Gyges), king of Lydia, in a dream, and tells him that, if he grasps the feet' (i.e. owns the sovereignty) of Asshurbanapal, he will overcome his foes (KB. ii.

1 See art. CHRONOLOGY, in Hastings' Dict. of the Bible, p. 400.
See Hastings' Dict. of the Bible, ii. p. 772 b.

DANIEL

2

which have been made to prove the contrary cannot be pronounced successful. Lenormant, for example1, observing that the great work on magic preserved in Asshurbanabal's library consists of three parts, dealing respectively with incantations against evil spirits, incantations against diseases, and magical hymns, argued that these three divisions corresponded exactly to the three classes, hartummim or ‘conjurateurs,' wise men or 'médecins,' and 'ashshaphim or 'théosophes,' mentioned in Daniel by the side of the astrologers and diviners (kasdim and gāzerin): but the parallel drawn is an arbitrary one; there is no reason whatever for supposing that 'wise men' in Heb. or Aramaic denoted 'médecins,' or 'ashshaphim 'théosophes.' It seems evident that the author simply took such terms denoting diviners or magicians, as were traditionally connected with Babylon, or seemed to him on other grounds to be suitable, and combined them together, for the purpose of presenting a general picture of the manner in which the arts of divination and magic were systematically studied in Babylon.

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Nebuchadnezzar, in his second year, being disquieted by a dream, demands of the wise men of Babylon that they should repeat and interpret it to him: as they are unable to do this, they are condemned by him to death (vv. 1-12). Daniel, and his companions, being involved in the condemnation, and finding consequently their lives in jeopardy, betake themselves to prayer; their supplication is answered by the secret of the dream being revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night (vv. 13-23). Being now, at his own request, brought before the king, Daniel describes and interprets his dream to him (vv. 24-—45), and is rewarded by him with high honours (vv. 46-49):

The dream was of a colossal image, the head consisting of gold, the breast and arms of silver, the body of brass, the legs of iron, the feet of iron and clay mixed: as Nebuchadnezzar was contemplating it, a stone 'cut out without hands' suddenly fell, smiting the feet of the image, which thereupon broke up, while the stone became a mountain, filling the whole earth. The image symbolizes the anti-theocratic power of the world; and its principal parts are interpreted to signify four empires, the head of gold being Nebuchadnezzar himself, representing the first empire. With the exception of the first, the empires intended are not expressly indicated; and it has been much disputed what the three following the first are. It is, however, generally admitted that the four kingdoms symbolized in Nebuchadnezzar's dream are the same as the four represented by the four beasts in Daniel's vision in Chap. VII.; so that the discussion of the question will come more suitably at the end of the notes on Chap. VII. The conclusion there reached, it may be premised, is that the second, third, and fourth empires are, respectively, the Median, the Persian, and the Macedonian. But whatever may be the case with the three disputed empires, the 'stone cut out without hands' clearly represents the kingdom of God, before which all earthly powers are destined ultimately to fall.

1 La Magie, p. 13 f.

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