of the name (which is transparent in the Hebrew), 'God is my judge! The History of Bel and the Dragon stands in Greek MSS. at the end of the Book of Daniel: in the LXX. it bears the curious title 'From the prophecy of Habakkuk, son of Joshua, of the tribe of Levi,' which would seem to imply that it was an extract from a pseudepigraphic writing, attributed to the prophet Habakkuk. Whether that be the case or not, the scene of the story is laid in Babylon, shortly after the accession of Cyrus1, with whom, it is said (v. 2), Daniel lived on familiar terms (ἦν συμβιωτὴς τοῦ βασιλέως), and was honoured by him above all his friends. The Babylonians had an idol called Bel (cf. on v. 1), before whom were placed daily large offerings of flour, sheep, and wine, which the god was supposed to consume during the night. Daniel, being asked by Cyrus why he did not worship this idol, answered that he could worship only the living God, and not idols made with hands. The king replied that Bel was a living god, pointing, in proof of his assertion, to the amount of food regularly consumed by him. Daniel thereupon undertook to prove the contrary. The food was placed, as usual, before Bel; but, before the door of the temple was finally locked, Daniel strewed the floor within with ashes. Next morning, when the door was opened, the food was, of course, found to be gone. The king was triumphant: but, upon Daniel's pointing out to him the marks of footsteps on the floor, he saw that he had been duped: the priests were discredited and put to death, and Daniel was allowed to overthrow the temple. There was also a dragon in Babylon, which was believed to be a god, and worshipped as such. Daniel, being challenged by Cyrus, gave it a food which caused it to die. The people, enraged with Daniel, terrified the king into delivering him into their hands, and he was cast into a lions' den. Whilst he was there, the prophet Habakkuk, while carrying food to his reapers, at his home in Judah, was taken up by a lock of his hair (cf. 1 So, at least, according to the text of Theodotion. V. I, which alone gives the name of the king, is not in the LXX. Ezek. viii. 3), and transported by an angel to Babylon, to provide Daniel with a repast. Upon the seventh day the king proceeded to the den to bewail Daniel; but, finding him still alive, he confessed aloud the power of his God: and, like 'Darius the Mede' (Dan. vi. 24), delivered those who would have destroyed Daniel to the same fate1. It is not possible to speak with certainty as to the date of these additions to Daniel; but they may be assigned without improbability to the first cent. B.C.2 Later Jewish writings contain various anecdotes relating to Daniel3; but they are destitute of historical value. Naturally, he is often referred to honourably on account of his wisdom, his opposition to idolatry, and his good deeds. It was sometimes said that he returned to Judah and died there: but in the Middle Ages there was a persistent tradition that he was buried in Susa5. An early Arab historian describes how what was supposed to be Daniel's body was discovered at Susa about 640 A.D., and buried by King Sangar's orders under the river. Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Susa about 1160, found there a community of 7000 Jews, with 14 synagogues, in front of one of which there was, he says, the tomb of Daniel: the bones of the prophet were, however, elsewhere; for, as they were supposed to bring prosperity with them, there had been a dispute between the two quarters of the town for the possession of them, which had been settled by King Sangar ordering them to be suspended in a glass coffin exactly above the middle of the river, where, he adds, they still were. What purports to be the tomb of Daniel is shewn to the present day, a little W. of the mounds which mark the site of the ancient acropolis of Susa (cf. on viii. 1), on the opposite side of the Shaour®. 1 For various allusions in Rabbinical literature to these two stories of Bel and the Dragon, see the extracts quoted by Mr Ball in the Speaker's Commentary on the Apocrypha, ii. 344 f. 2 Cf. Schürer, Realencyklop. für Prot. Theol. i. (1896), p. 640. 3 See e.g. the Midrash on the Song of Songs, on iii. 4, v. 5, vii. 8, 9. 4 Cf. Farrar, p. 6 f. 5 See Loftus, Chaldaea and Susiana (1857), pp. 317–323. " See the Frontispiece to the present volume. The Book of Daniel is written in two languages, i. 1—ii. 4 a and viii.-xii. being in Hebrew, and ii. 46 (from ‘O king')—vii. 26 being in Aramaic (cf. on ii. 4). It cannot be said that this change of language has been altogether satisfactorily explained. The principal explanations that have been offered are the following. (1) Diversity of origin, ii. 4b-vi. being supposed (Meinhold) to be a narrative written in Aramaic c. 300 B.C., which was afterwards accommodated to the needs of the Maccabaean age by a writer living then, who prefixed i.—ii. 4 a as an introduction, and added chs. vii.-xii., with special regard to the persecutions of Antiochus. But, though the Aramaic sections of the Book of Ezra (iv. 8—vi. 18; vii. 12—26) are due no doubt to the fact that the compiler incorporated in his work extracts from a pre-existing Aramaic source, the supposition of dual authorship is not probable in the case of the Book of Daniel: not only are there links of subject-matter connecting together the Heb. and the Aram. portions, but i. 1-ii. 4 a forms an introduction without which the sequel (ii. 46 ff.) would not be intelligible; and ch. vii., relating as it does chiefly to Antiochus, ought by the hypothesis to be in Hebrew (which it is not). (2) That the book was written originally in Hebrew, but translated early into Aramaic: a portion of the Hebrew text was accidentally lost, and it was then replaced by the Aramaic translation (Lenormant, Bevan, Prince). This explanation does not account for the two facts (which can hardly both be accidental) that the Aramaic part begins in ch. ii. just where the Aramaic language is mentioned, and breaks off just at the end of a chapter. (3) The explanation which seems to be relatively the best is that of Behrmann and Kamphausen, who suppose that in ch. ii. 'the author introduced the "Chaldaeans" as speaking the language which he believed to be customary with them: afterwards he continues to use the same language on account of its greater convenience, both for himself and for his original readers, alike in the narrative portions, and in the following (seventh) chapter, which in many respects is a counterpart to ch. ii.; for the last three visions (chs. viii., ix., x.-xii.) a return to Hebrew was suggested by the consideration that this had from of old been the usual sacred language for prophetic subjects1.' § 2. History embraced by the Book of Daniel. The Book of Daniel covers a wide period of history; and a survey of it, with more particular reference to such portions of it as bear especially upon the book, will probably be of service to the reader. The Book opens in the third year of king Jehoiakim (B.C. 605), in which, it is said, Daniel and his companions were carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon. The bulk of the nation went into exile subsequently, in two detachments, in 597 and 586 respectively. Upon the condition of the Jews generally during the years of exile, it is not necessary for our present purpose to dwell: for the only Jews who figure in the book are Daniel and his three companions; their compatriots being, for all practical purposes, non-existent. Something must, however, be said on the history of Babylon itself, and on the kings who successively occupied its throne. Babylon was at this time under the rule of a dynasty of Chaldaean kings. Originally (see p. 12) resident in the S.E. of Babylonia, near the seacoast, the Chaldaeans had gradually advanced inland until, under Nabopolassar (B.C. 625-605), they became the ruling caste in Babylon itself. Nabopolassar was at first, it seems, the viceroy in Babylon of the last king of Assyria, Sin-shar-ishkun (Saracus): but, as soon as circumstances appeared favourable, he declared his independence; and the Medes, invading Assyria soon afterwards, at his invitation, razed Nineveh to the ground (B.C. 607)2. Pharaoh Necho, taking advantage of this disaster to Assyria, proceeded to lay hands on Western Asia as far as the Euphrates (2 Ki. xxiii. 29; cf. vv. 33-35, xxiv. 7 end); and it was as Nabopolassar's general, sent on behalf of his 1 Comp. Kamphausen in the Encyclopaedia Biblica, col. 1005. 2 See further particulars in Maspero, The Passing of the Nations (1900), p. 483 ff.; and cf. Davidson's Nahum (in the Cambridge Bible), p. 137 f. infirm and aged father, to oppose his further advance, that Nebuchadnezzar in 605 gained his victory at Carchemish (Jer. xlvi. 2; cf. on i. 1). Shortly afterwards Nabopolassar died; and Nebuchadnezzar hastened home (see Berosus, as quoted in the note on i. 1) to receive the crown. Nebuchadnezzar reigned for 43 years (B.C. 604-561). So far as our information goes, he had no pleasure in warlike expeditions; his campaign against Pharaoh Necho, his two expeditions against Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, his siege of Tyre (Ezek. xxix. 17, 18)1, which lasted, according to Josephus (c. Ap. i. 21), for 13 years (B.C. 585-572), and an invasion of Egypt in his 37th year (B.C. 568)2, being all that we hear of. Nebuchadnezzar was emphatically a builder; and 'nearly every cuneiform document now extant dating from his reign treats, not of conquest and warfare, like those of his Assyrian predecessors, but of the building and restoration of the walls, temples, and palaces of his beloved city of Babylon' (Prince, p. 31)3. The celebrated 'India House Inscription 4,' now preserved in the India Office, gives an eloquent and detailed description of his principal architectural and defensive works. In this inscription, after an exordium, in which he pays homage to Marduk (the supreme God of Babylon), who had 'created' him, and entrusted him with the sovereignty over a great empire, Nebuchadnezzar describes first how he renovated, on a sumptuous scale, the two ancient and famous temples of Marduk in Babylon, called E-sagil, and of Nebo in Borsippa (the suburb of Babylon on the S.W.), called E-zida, panelling their roofs with cedar brought from Lebanon, and decorating their walls, till they 'glistened like suns,' with gold and precious stones; then, how he restored fifteen other temples in Babylon; after this, how he completed the two great walls of Babylon, which, with a broad moat between them, had been begun by his father, 1 Cf. Maspero, op. cit. pp. 543 (the Wady Brissa Inscriptions), 549. 2 Schrader, KAT.2 p. 364. See the inscriptions translated in KB. iii. 2, pp. 1-71. 4 RP.2 iii. 104-123; KB. iii. 2, pp. 11-31: cf. Tiele, Bab.-Ass. Gesch. (1886), ii. 441 ff., Maspero, op. cit. pp. 561-6. |