The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Daniel

The chief Patristic Commentary is that by St. Jerome. Fragments are preserved of other Commentaries by Origen, Hippolytus, Ephræm Syrus, Julius Africanus, Theodoret, Athanasius,...

We propose in the following pages to examine the Book of the Prophet Daniel by the same general methods which have been adopted in other volumes of the Expositor's Bible. It may...

which are given in D'Herbelot's _Bibliothèque orientale_. They only serve to show how widely extended was the reputation which became the nucleus of strange and miraculous stori...

to such a height of exaltation, and it is indeed startling that Ezekiel should thus place his youthful contemporary on such a pinnacle as to unite his name to those of Noah the...

mention of Daniel's name at all in this connection by the peculiar circumstances of his life;[18] but there is little probability in the suggestions of bewildered commentators a...

allusion of Ezekiel becomes still more difficult to explain; for Daniel must have been not only a contemporary of the prophet of the Exile, but a very youthful one. We are told-...

the peculiar splendour of Daniel's career, it becomes the less easy to account for the total silence respecting him in the other books of the Old Testament--in the Prophets who...

the reference to "the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet."[33] The Book of Revelation does not name him, but is profoundly influenced by the Book of Dani...

the lists of Hebrew heroes enumerated by Jesus the son of Sirach. We are even told that "neither was there a man born like unto Joseph, a leader of his brethren, a stay of the p...

Unable to learn anything further respecting the professed author of the Book of Daniel, we now turn to the Book itself. In this section I shall merely give a general sketch of i...

of the Book of Daniel is far stronger than this, in the startling fact that it contains at least three Greek words. After giving the fullest consideration to all that has been u...

Meinhold thinks that the Aramaic and historic sections are older than the rest of the Book, and were written about B.C. 300 to convert the Gentiles to monotheism.[69] He argues...

shall mingle themselves with the seed of men"--it seems far from improbable that there is a reference to the unhappy intermarriages of Ptolemies and Seleucidæ. Berenice, daughte...

No one can have studied the Book of Daniel without seeing that, alike in the character of its miracles and the minuteness of its supposed predictions, it makes a more stupendous...

[126] This is now supposed to mean "grandson by marriage," by inventing the hypothesis that Nabunaid married a daughter of Nebuchadrezzar. But this does not accord with Dan. v....

In endeavouring to see the idea and construction of a book there is always much room for the play of subjective considerations. Meinhold has especially studied this subject, but...

As regards the religious views of the Book of Daniel some of them at any rate are in full accordance with the belief in the late origin of the Book to which we are led by so man...

If we have found much to lead us to serious doubts as to the authenticity and genuineness--_i.e._, as to the literal historicity and the real author--of the Book of Daniel in it...

I. Other prophets start from the ground of the _present_, and to exigencies of the present their prophecies were primarily directed. It is true that their lofty moral teaching,...

We have seen that there are many circumstances which force upon us the gravest doubts as to the authenticity of the Book of Daniel. We now proceed to examine the evidence urged...

The reception of the Book of Daniel anywhere into the Canon might be regarded as an argument in favour of its authenticity, if the case of the Books of Jonah and Ecclesiastes di...

I. The objections to the authenticity and genuineness of Daniel do not arise, as is falsely asserted, from any _a-priori_ objection to admit to the full the reality either of mi...

the writer erroneously regards prophecy as mainly concerned with _prediction_. Jesus, son of Sirach, even goes out of his way to say that no man like Joseph had risen since Jose...

The first chapter of the Book of Daniel serves as a beautiful introduction to the whole, and strikes the keynote of faithfulness to the institutions of Judaism which of all othe...

to carry him to Babylon."[224] Combining these two passages, he seems to have inferred, in the absence of more accurate historical indications, that the Chaldeans had besieged a...

The Book of Daniel is constructed with consummate skill to teach the mighty lessons which it was designed to bring home to the minds of its readers, not only in the age of its f...

[274] The word is peculiar to Daniel, both here in the Hebrew and in the Aramaic. Pusey calls it "a common Syriac term, representing some form of divination with which Daniel ha...

"Every goldsmith is put to shame by his molten image: for his molten image is vanity, and there is no breath in them. They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their v...

treasonable. In some traditions they are identified with the two elders of the Story of Susanna. Assur-bani-pal burnt Samas-sum-ucin, his brother, who was Viceroy of Babylon (ab...

Thrice already, in these magnificent stories, had Nebuchadrezzar been taught to recognise the existence and to reverence the power of God. In this chapter he is represented as h...

"That night they slew him on his father's throne He died unnoticed, and the hand unknown: Crownless and sceptreless Belshazzar lay, A robe of purple round a form of clay." SIR E...

On the view which regards these pictures as powerful parables, rich in spiritual instructiveness, but not primarily concerned with historic accuracy, nor even necessarily with a...

We now enter upon the second division of the Book of Daniel--the apocalyptic. It is unquestionably inferior to the first part in grandeur and importance as a whole, but it conta...

This vision is dated as having occurred in the third year of Belshazzar; but it is not easy to see the significance of the date, since it is almost exclusively occupied with the...

Shushan is described as being in the province of Elam or Elymais, which may be here used as a general designation of the district in which Susiana was included. The prophet imag...

This chapter is occupied with the prayer of Daniel, and with the famous vision of the seventy weeks which has led to such interminable controversies, but of which the interpreta...

[606] For _charoots_, "moat" (Ewald), the A.V. has "wall," and in the marg. "breach" or "ditch." The word occurs for "ditches" in the Talmud. The text of the verse is uncertain.

It is dated in the third year of Cyrus (B.C. 535).[639] We have already been told that Daniel lived to see the first year of Cyrus (i. 21). This verse, if accepted historically,...

If this chapter were indeed the utterance of a prophet in the Babylonian Exile, nearly four hundred years before the events--events of which many are of small comparative import...

The twelfth chapter of the Book of Daniel serves as a general epilogue to the Book, and is as little free from difficulties in the interpretation of the details as are the other...