Introduction to the Old Testament

by John Edgar McFadyen

Daniel is called a prophet in the New Testament (Matt. xxiv. 15). In the Hebrew Bible, however, the book called by his name appears not among the prophets, but among "the writings," between Esther and Ezra. The Greek version placed it between the major and the minor prophets, and this has determined its position in modern versions. The book is both like and unlike the prophetic books. It is like them in its passionate belief in the overruling Providence of God and in the sure consummation of His kingdom; but in its peculiar symbolism, imagery, and pervading sense of mystery it stands without a parallel in the Old Testament. The impulse to the type of prophecy represented by Daniel was given by Ezekiel and Zechariah. The book is indeed rather apocalyptic than prophetic. The difference has been well characterized by Behrmann. "The essential distinction," he remarks, "between prophecy and apocalyptic lies in this: the prophets teach that the present is to be interpreted by the past and future, while the apocalyptic writers derive the future from the past and present, and make it an object of consolatory hope. With the prophets the future is the servant and even the continuation of the present; with the apocalyptic writers the future is the brilliant counterpart of the sorrowful present, over which it is to lift them." This will be made most plain by a summary of the book itself.

Chs. i.-vi. are narrative in form; chs. vii.-xii. are prophetic or apocalyptic—they deal with visions. Curiously enough ii. 4-vii. 28, for no apparent reason, are written in Aramaic. In ch. i. Daniel and his three friends, Jewish captives at the court of Babylon, prove their fidelity to their religion by refusing to defile themselves with the king's food. At the end of three years they show themselves superior to the "wise" men of the empire. Then (ii.) follows a dream of Nebuchadrezzar, in which a great image was shivered to pieces by a little stone, which grew till it filled the whole world. Daniel alone could retell and interpret the dream: it denoted a succession of kingdoms, which would all be ultimately overthrown and succeeded by the everlasting kingdom of God. Ch. iii. deals not with Daniel but with his friends. It tells the story of their refusal to bow before Nebuchadrezzar's colossal image of gold, and how their fidelity was rewarded by a miraculous deliverance, when they were thrown into the furnace of fire. The supernatural wisdom of Daniel is again illustrated in ch. iv., where he interprets a curious dream of Nebuchadrezzar as a token that he would be humbled for a time and bereft of his reason. Ch. v. affords another illustration of the wisdom of Daniel, and of the humiliation of impiety and pride, this time in the person of Belshazzar, who is regarded as Nebuchadrezzar's son. Daniel interprets the enigmatic words written by the mysterious hand on the wall as a prediction of the overthrow of Belshazzar's kingdom, which dramatically happens that very night. Ch. vi. is intended to teach how precious to God are those who trust Him and scrupulously conform to the practices of true religion without regard to consequences. Daniel is preserved in the den of lions into which he had been thrown by the cruel jealousy of the officials of Darius' empire.

With ch. vii. Daniel's visions begin. Four great beasts are seen coming up out of the sea, which, according to Babylonian mythology, is the element opposed to the divine. The last of the beasts, especially cruel and terrible, had ten horns, and among them a little horn with human eyes and presumptuous lips. Then is seen the divine Judge upon His throne, and the presumptuous beast is judged and slain. Before this same Judge is brought one like a son of man, who comes with the clouds of heaven—this human and heavenly figure being in striking contrast to the beasts that rise out of the sea. Daniel is informed that the beasts represent four kingdoms, whose dominion is to be superseded by the dominion of the saints of the most High, i.e. by the kingdom of God, which will be everlasting. In a second vision (viii.) a powerful ram is furiously attacked and overthrown by a goat. The angel Gabriel explains that the ram is the Medo-Persian empire, and the goat is the king of Greece, clearly Alexander the Great. From one of the four divisions of Alexander's empire, a cunning, impudent and impious king would arise who would abolish the daily sacrifice and lay the temple in ruins, but by a miraculous visitation he would be destroyed. In ch. ix. Daniel, after a fervent penitential prayer offered in behalf of his sinful people, is enlightened by Gabriel as to the true meaning of Jeremiah's prophecy (xxv. 11f., xxix. 10f.) touching the desolation of Jerusalem. The seventy years are not literal years, but weeks of years, i.e. 490 years. During the last week (i.e. seven years) there would be much sorrow and persecution, especially during the last half of that period, but it would end in the utter destruction of the oppressor.

In another vision (x.-xii.) Daniel is informed by a shining one of a struggle he had had, supported by Michael, with the tutelary angel of Persia; and he makes a revelation of the future. The Persian empire will be followed by a Greek empire, which will be divided into four. In particular, alliances will be formed and wars made between the kings of the north (no doubt Syria) and the south (Egypt). With great elaboration and detail the fortunes of the king of the north, who is called contemptible, xi. 21, are described: how he desecrates the sanctuary, abolishes the sacrifice, cruelly persecutes the holy people, and prescribes idolatrous worship. At last, however, he too perishes, and his death is the signal that the Messianic days are very soon to dawn. Israel's dead—especially perhaps her martyred dead—are to rise to everlasting life, and her enemies are also to be raised to everlasting shame. Well is it for him who can possess his soul in patience, for the end is sure.

Two facts are obvious even to a cursory inspection of the contents of Daniel (1), that certain statements about the exilic period, during which, according to the book, Daniel lived, are inaccurate; and (2) towards the close of the book and especially in ch. xi., which represents a period long subsequent to Daniel, the visions are crowded with minute detail which corresponds, point for point, with the history of the third and second centuries B.C., and in particular with the career of Antiochus Epiphanes (xi. 21-45).

(1) Among the unhistorical statements the following may be noted. There was no siege and capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar in 605 B.C., as is implied by i. 1 (cf. Jer. xxv. 1, 9-11), nor indeed could there have been any till after the decisive battle of Carchemish, which brought Western Asia under the power of Babylon. Again, Belshazzar is regarded as the son of Nebuchadrezzar (v.), though he was in reality the son of Nabunaid, between whom and Nebuchadrezzar three monarchs lay. Nor is there any room in this period of the history (538 B.C.) for "Darius the Mede," v. 31; the conquest of Babylon threw the Babylonian empire immediately into the hands of Cyrus, and the impossible figure of Darius the Mede appears to arise through a confusion with the Darius who recaptured Babylon after a revolt in 521, and perhaps to have been suggested by prophecies (cf. Isa. xiii. 17) that the Medes would conquer Babylon. Again, though in certain passages the Chaldeans represent the people of that name, v. 30, ix. 1, in others (cf. ii. 2, v. 7) the word is used to denote the wise men of Babylon—a use demonstrably much later than the Babylonian empire and impossible to any contemporary of Daniel. Such a seven years' insanity of Nebuchadrezzar as is described in Daniel iv. is extremely improbable; equally improbable is the attitude that Nebuchadrezzar in his decree (iii.) and confession (iv.) and Darius in his decree (vi.) are represented as having adopted towards the God of the Jews.

(2) Concerning the immediately succeeding period—from Cyrus to Alexander—the author is apparently not well informed. He knows of only four Persian kings, xi. 2 (cf. vii. 6). Ch. xi. 5-20 gives a brief résumé of the relations between the kings of the north and the kings of the south—which, in this context, after a plain allusion in vv. 3, 4 to Alexander the Great and the divisions of his empire, can only be interpreted of Syria and Egypt. From v. 21, however, to the end of ch. xi. interest is concentrated upon one particular person, who must, in the context, be a king of the north, i.e. Syria. The direct reference in v. 31 to the pollution of the sanctuary, the temporary abolition of sacrifice, and the erection of a heathen altar, put it beyond all doubt that the impious and "contemptible" monarch is none other than Antiochus Epiphanes. This conclusion is confirmed by the details of the section, with their unmistakable references to his Egyptian campaigns, vv. 25-28, and to the check imposed upon him by the Romans, v. 30, in 168 B.C.

The phenomenon then with which we have to deal is this. A book supposed to come from the exile, and to announce beforehand the persecutions and ultimate triumph of the Jewish people in the second century B.C. is occasionally inaccurate in dealing with the exilic and early post-exilic period, but minute and reliable as soon as it touches the later period. Only one conclusion is possible—that the book was written in the later period, not in the earlier. It is a product of the period which it so minutely reflects, 168-165 B.C. The precise date of the book depends upon whether we regard viii. 14 as implying that the dedication of the temple by Judas Maccabaeus in 165 B.C. is a thing of the past or still an object of contemplation. In any case it must have been written before the death of Antiochus in 164 (xi. 45). Like all the prophets, the author of Daniel addresses his own age. The brilliant Messianic days are always the issue of the existing or impending catastrophe; and so it is in Daniel. The redemption which is to involve the resurrection is to follow on the death of Antiochus and the cessation of the horrors of persecution—horrors of which the author knew only too well.[1] [Footnote 1: Daniel is fittingly chosen as the hero of the book and the recipient of the visions, as he appears to have enjoyed a reputation for piety and wisdom (Ezek. xiv. 14, 20, xxviii. 3). Ezekiel's references to him, however, would lead us to suppose that he is a figure belonging to the gray patriarchial times, rather than a younger contemporary of his own.]

Thus the belief in the late date of the book is reached by a study of the book itself, and is not due to any prejudice against the possibility of miracle or predictive prophecy. But the late date is confirmed by evidence of other kinds, especially (1) linguistic, and (2) theological. (1) There are over a dozen Persian words in the book, some even in the Babylonian part of the story. These words would place the book, at the earliest, within the period of the Persian empire (538-331 B.C.). Further, within two verses, iii. 4, 5, occur no less than five Greek words (herald, harp, trigon, psaltery and bagpipe), one of which, psanterîn, by its change of l (psa_l_terion) into n, betrays the influence of the Macedonian dialect and must therefore be later than the conquests of Alexander, and another, symphonia, is first found in Plato. Though it is not impossible that the names of the other musical instruments may have been taken over by the Semites from the Greeks at an early time, these words at any rate practically compel us to put the book, at the earliest, within the Greek period (i.e. after 331 B.C.). Further, the Hebrew of the book has a strongly Aramaic flavour. It is not classical Hebrew at all, but has marked affinities, both in vocabulary and syntax, with some of the latest books in the Old Testament, such as Chronicles and Esther.

(2) The theology of Daniel undoubtedly represents one of the latest developments within the Old Testament. The transcendence of God is emphasized. He is frequently called "the God of Heaven," ii. 18, 19, and once "heaven" is used, as in the later manner (cf. Luke xv. 18) almost as a synonym for "God," iv. 26. As God becomes more transcendent, angels become more prominent: they constitute a very striking feature in the book of Daniel—two of them are even named, Gabriel and Michael. Very singular, too, and undoubtedly late is the conception that the fortunes of each nation are represented and guarded in heaven by a tutelary angel, x. 13ff. 20.