translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: DAN

label: NET study note

text: The LXX introduces this chapter with the following chronological note: “in the eighteenth year of.” Such a date would place these events at about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. (cf. 2 Kgs 25:8 ). However, there seems to be no real basis for associating the events of with this date.


text: There is no need to think of Nebuchadnezzar’s image as being solid gold. No doubt the sense is that it was overlaid with gold (cf. Isa 40:19 ; Jer 10:3-4 ), with the result that it presented a dazzling self-compliment to the greatness of Nebuchadnezzar’s achievements.


text: According to a number of patristic authors, the image represented a deification of Nebuchadnezzar himself. This is not clear from the biblical text, however.


text: The specific duties of the seven types of officials listed here (cf. vv. 3, 27 ) are unclear. The Aramaic words that are used are transliterations of Akkadian or Persian technical terms whose exact meanings are uncertain. The translations given here follow suggestions set forth in BDB.


text: The word zither (Aramaic קִיתָרוֹס [ qitaros ]), and the words for harp (Aramaic פְּסַנְתֵּרִין [ pÿsanterin ]) and pipes (Aramaic סוּמְפֹּנְיָה [ sumponÿyah ]), are of Greek derivation. Though much has been made of this in terms of suggesting a date in the Hellenistic period for the writing of the book, it is not surprising that a few Greek cultural terms, all of them the names of musical instruments, should appear in this book. As a number of scholars have pointed out, the bigger surprise (if, in fact, the book is to be dated to the Hellenistic period) may be that there are so few Greek loanwords in Daniel.


text: O king, live forever! is a comment of typical court courtesy that is not necessarily indicative of the real sentiments of the speaker. Ancient oriental court protocol could sometimes require a certain amount of hypocrisy.


text: Daniel’s absence from this scene has sparked the imagination of commentators, some of whom have suggested that perhaps he was unable to attend the dedication due to sickness or due to being away on business. Hippolytus supposed that Daniel may have been watching from a distance.


text: There is a great deal of uncertainty with regard to the specific nature of these items of clothing.


text: The deuterocanonical writings known as The Prayer of Azariah and The Song of the Three present at this point a confession and petition for God’s forgiveness and a celebration of God’s grace for the three Jewish youths in the fiery furnace. Though not found in the Hebrew/Aramaic text of Daniel, these compositions do appear in the ancient Greek versions.


text: The phrase like that of a god is in Aramaic “like that of a son of the gods.” Many patristic writers understood this phrase in a christological sense (i.e., “the Son of God”). But it should be remembered that these are words spoken by a pagan who is seeking to explain things from his own polytheistic frame of reference; for him the phrase “like a son of the gods” is equivalent to “like a divine being.”


text: The king identifies the “son of the gods” (v. 25 ) as an angel. Comparable Hebrew expressions are used elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible for the members of God’s angelic assembly (see Gen 6:2, 4 ; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7 ; Pss 29:1; 89:6 ). An angel later comes to rescue Daniel from the lions ( Dan 6:22 ).