(W. F.*)
[1] Σαρβὴθ Σαβαναιέλ (Sarbeth Sabanaiel). No satisfactory explanation of this title has yet been given from the Hebrew (see the commentaries). The book may, however, have been known to Origen only in an Aramaic translation, in which case, according to the happy conjecture of Dalman (Gramm. 6) the two words may have represented the Aramaic ספר בית חשמונאי (“book of the Hasmonaean house”).
[2] If the book is a unity, ch. xvi. 23 implies that it was written after the death of Hyrcanus which occurred in 105 B.C. On the other hand the friendly references to Rome in ch. viii. show that it must have been written before the siege of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 B.C.
[3] Cf. ix. 22, xi. 37, xiv. 18, 27.
[4] See especially Geiger, Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel, 206 seq.
[5] Prefixed to the book are two spurious letters from Palestinian Jews (i., ii. 18), having no real connexion with it, or even with one another, further than that they both urge Egyptian Jews to observe the Feast of the Dedication. Between these and the main narrative is inserted the writer’s own preface, in which he explains the source and aim of his work (ii. 19-32).
[6] iv. 38. 42; v. 9 seq.; ix. 5-18.
[7] The date of composition can be only approximately determined. As the writer is acquainted with the Greek additions to Daniel (vi. 6), the first century B.C. forms the superior limit; and as the book found favour in the Eastern Church, the first century A.D. forms the inferior limit.
[8] Apart from its abrupt commencement, the references in i. 2 to “the plot” as something already specified, and in ii. 25 to the king’s “before-mentioned” companions, of whom, however, nothing is said in the previous section of the book, point to the loss of at least an introductory chapter.