Tlie view which has been presented of the 15k. of Dn doubtless will appear to some to destroy its religious value and render it unworthy of a place within the sacred Canon. No one, however, under the modem view can read the book witliout being taught lessons of sublime faith, and having a firmer assurance of the ultimate triumph of the kingdom of God. The book has in the ^jast been blessed as an instrument of the Holy Spirit for the strengthening of the Church, and, interpreted in the light of its real origin, this will contmue and be enhanced. Great difficulties in receiving its lessons will be removed, and the Church will be spared endless profitless discussion and exegesis necessi- tated by the old view.f
ii. The Interpretation. — The Bk. of Dn con- tains three representations of the world's history more or less closely related to each other, which, with their interpretations, may be outlined as follows : —
Oh. 2 Ch. 7
A.Oolden»The liou he&d
S i I V e r "The bear breast
B r azen=The leopard belly and Ihiphs
Iron leff9 = The fourth and iron beast and clay feet
Oh. 8
= Babylonian Empire. = The ram =Medo-Peraian ,, = The he-goat = Grecian „
* An argument often repeated rest« on the assertion that the whole colourinjf and character of the book are Oriental and esp. Babylonian, imposHibte to on a^e so tinfaniiliur with them as the Maccabiean, and reference is made to the colossal image, the flery furnace, the martyr-like hnldnesa of the three ctni- feasors, the decree of Darius, the lions' den, the dreams of Nebuch., and his demands of the Clmldaana, etc. (Fuller, art. ' Daniel, Smith, DB"^. Such a view hatl the countenance and authority of Lenommnt (La Dimnation, pp. 109-'J07). The tnith is, however, that the Bk, of Dn contains no allusions to Bab. customs which might not have been known to a Jewinh writer of the 2nd cent. B.C. (who even might have vibited Babylon), or have been preserved in the tales from which he drew his material ; while, on the other hand, there are the statements olready piven which seem to prove the author's real lack of acquaintance with Babylon during the Exile. In a<ldition to these may be mentioned the statement of Daniel's appoint- ment as * chief governor over all the wise men of Babylon {'1^). This, owing to the exclusiveness of Bab. sacred caste, even Lenormant regarded as impos.si))le, and hence held the words ' all tlie wise men ' to be an mt<-Ti»(tlation. Indeed, Lenormant's or any sinnlar theory of the compnsitioii of the book {i.e. an early work thoroughly revised in the (Jreek periofi) is worthless for a defence either of the truth of its narrative or of its genuineness, because the line of separation between the early and late contents cannot be determined. The account of Nebuchadnezzar's in- sanity (ch. 4) has been thought to receive connnnalJon by a story given in a fragment of tne historian Abydenus (i>reHerved In EusebiuH, Prcep. Kvanff. ix. 41). The "story relates that Nebuch. on the roof of his palace was in^ipired by some god or other, and announced the future calainities of Babylon and then suddenly vanished. In this announcement there is a wish that the author of these calamities might t>e driven into the desert wticre the wild beasts seek their foofl, and wander among the mountains and rocks alone. The similarity between this and tlie hihlical narrative is not very great, and yet enough perhaps to show that the same story originally was the basis of each (Bevan, p. 87 ft. ; Schroder, JPT, 1»S1, pp. 618-029).
t The following from Farrar Is worthy of iiuolalion in this connexion : ' Though I am compelled to regard the IJk. of Dn as a work which In its present form first saw the light in the days of Antiochus Kpiphanes, and though I believe that its six mag- nificent opening chapters were never meant to be regarded in any other light than that of moral and religious Uaggadoth, yet no words of mine can exaggerate the value which I atlarh to this part of our Canonical 8rrli>ture8. The book, as we »liall Me. has exercised a iwwerful inllurnco over Christian conduct and Christian thougot. Its right to a place in the Canuu is
Ch. 8
e= Babylon Ian Empire
:The ram =Medo-Per8i&o „
' The he-goat = MocedoDian „
« Syrian „
= Babylonian Empire.
■> Persian
Ch. 2 Ch. 7
B. O o I d e n = The lion
head Silver =The bear ■
breast B r a z e n = The leopard >
l^elly and thighs
Iron Icgs-The fourth and iron beast an<i clay feet
0. GoIden=TheliOD
head Silver =The bear ■ ^The ram ^Median
breast Braze n = The leopard =
belly and
thighs
Iron lega=The fourth
and iron beast =Thehe-goat=Qrecian „
and clay
feet
The parallelism between the composite image (ch. 2) and the four beasts (ch. 7) shows that they were desired to represent the same world-powers. In this mterpreters are generally agreed. The historic fact that after the fall of the Bab. kingdom there was no distinct Median kingdom, but Media was united to Persia, naturally gave the interpretation of Medo-Persian to the silver breast and the bear, and such a united kingdom appeared in the two- homed ram of ch. 8. Tlie brazen belly and thi^dis and tiie leopard then well symbolized the Grecian kingdom of Alexander and his successors, who ace. to ch. 8 were represented by the he-goat. While tlie legs of iron and feet of iron and clay and the fourth beast with the ten horns, in connexion with wiiich appeared the final everlasting kin'^dom (2** 7^), would represent the Roman Empire in whose days the Christ appeared. Elsewhere, both in OT and NT, there were indication.s of great wars and dis- tress, and even an Antichrist to precede the tinal consummation of the kingdom oi J". Hence the interpretation A was most plausible, and became almost universal in the early Jewish and the Christian Church.*