Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898)
DANIEL, BOOK OF. It consists of two distinct parts. Historical, chs. Dan 1-6, containing the interesting narrative given in the preceding section, and with it an account of the attempted burning of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego in a fiery furnace because they would not worship the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar set up on the plain of Dura. Apocalyptic, chs. Dan 1:7-12, or the record of Daniel's visions. Dan 1:1 contains the introduction,- chs.
Dan 1:2-6 present a general view of the progressive history of the powers of the world, and of the principles of the divine government, as seen in events in the life of Daniel; and chs. Dan 1:7-12, the prophecy of the future of the people of God. The book is written in prose, but not in the same language throughout. The introduction, chs. Dan 1:1-2:4, first clause, is written in Hebrew, but from the second clause of the fourth verse of the second chapter to the end of ch. 7 it is in Aramaic, called Syriac in that verse. From the beginning of ch.
8 to the end, in which part the visions are related in the first person, the language is Hebrew. The interpretation of Daniel requires profound knowledge of ancient history. The book is, in fact, a sort of religious philosophy of history. Its fundamental idea is that all the kingdoms of the world, which pass away, are ruled and overruled by divine Providence for the kingdom of Christ, which will last for ever. T. the same position which the Revelation of John occupies in the New.
It views the kingdom of God in its contact and conflicts with the empires of the world, and looks forward to the universal reign of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment. The empires of the world appear first in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, ch. Lev 10:2, under the figure of a colossal image with a head of gold, a breast and arms of silver, a belly of brass, and legs and feet of iron and clay.
These represent respectively (according to the usual orthodox interpretation) the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Macedo-Greek, and the Roman empires; they are overthrown at last by a stone cut out of the mountain without hands and becoming a great mountain, which represents the reign of the Messiah. The indestructible rock of God's own workmanship breaks to pieces the metal colossus of man's hand. The same succession of monarchies is presented in the seventh chapter, under the form of a vision of four beasts seen by the prophet himself.
The fourth beast has ten horns, denoting ten kingdoms, growing out of it, and a little horn (Song of Solomon 7:8, Jud 6:24) springing up among the four fractured horns of the Greek empire. Interpreters agree as to the first empire, which must be Babylonia, but differ as to the other three. Some combine the Medes and Persians in one empire; others divide them, and regard the Greeks (Alexander the Great and his successors) as representing the fourth empire, and refer the "little horn" to Antiochus Epiphanes.
Still others give the prophecy of Daniel a more comprehensive sweep over all the world-empires before and after Christ, as preparing the way for the ultimate and everlasting reign of Christ. This prophecy of Christ, the most important in the book, is constantly fulfilling before our eyes, and cannot be set aside by any negative criticism. The book of Daniel has been much attacked, but also successfully vindicated by biblical scholars.
In the second part Daniel speaks in the first person as the receiver of the divine revelations recorded therein, so that the only alternative here is between truth and fraud. The very fact that two languages are used renders it extremely unlikely that it should have been forged or written in any later period, but to Daniel, familiar as he was with both Hebrew and Aramaic, it was natural. The book displays familiar acquaintance with Babylonian life and royal manners, and suits throughout the period of the Babylonian exile and the peculiar position of Daniel at the Babylonian court.
The genuineness is sanctioned by the highest authority -that of Christ, Matt 24:15, from which there is no appeal for believers. The attacks upon the book have been in three lines: (1) Its extraordinary events -the golden image, the burning fiery furnace, the dreams, the lions' den, etc.; (2) its minute prophecies; (3) its foreign (Greek) words; (4) its narrative. To these objections it is sufficient to reply:(1) The characteristics of Babylon, the manners and customs of the East, amply justify the language and prove that the book is genuinely Oriental and Babylonian.
(2) The peculiar position of Daniel required an exceptional and startling character for his revelations; his prophecies have been in great part fulfilled. c. 600. (4) Its historical difficulties. Belshazzar is represented as the last king of Babylon, while the authority there known gave Nabonnedus as the last king. This difficulty was solved by Sir Henry Rawlinson's decipherment of a cylinder among the ruins of Ur in Chaldaea in 1854. Nabonnedus had his eldest son, Belshazzar, as co-regent, and therefore it might well be that while he met the Persians in the field his son ruled in the capital.
Thus is explained how Daniel was made the third ruler in the kingdom. Dan 5:16, 1 Chr 2:29. Apocryphal Additions to Daniel. -These exist in the Greek version, and are: The Song of the Three Holy Children, the History of Susanna, and the Story of Bel and the Dragon. They passed into the Vulgate, and so into modern translations. They embody popular traditions, but never formed part of the Hebrew Bible. The Song of the Three Holy Children purports to be the triumphal song of the three confessors in the furnace, Dan 3:23, in praise of their miraculous deliverance.
The chief part has been used as a hymn (Benedicite) in the Christian Church since the fourth century. The History of Susanna, who was cleared from a charge of adultery by the shrewdness of Daniel. Probably based upon a fact. The History of Bel and the Dragon, a strange exaggeration of the record of the divine deliverance of Daniel, ch. 1 Chr 24:6.