[224] Comp. Jer. xxii. 18, 19, xxxvi. 30.
[225] See _supra_, p. 45.
[226] Jeremiah (lii. 28-30) mentions _three_ deportations, in the seventh, eighteenth, and twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar; but there are great difficulties about the historic verification, and the paragraph (which is of doubtful genuineness) is omitted by the LXX.
[227] The manner in which the maintainers of the genuineness get over this difficulty is surely an instance of such special pleading as can convince no unbiassed inquirer. They conjecture (1) that Nebuchadrezzar had been associated with his father, and received the title of king before he really became king; (2) that by "_came to_ Jerusalem and besieged it" is meant "_set out towards_ Jerusalem, so that (ultimately) he besieged it"; (3) and that a vague and undated allusion in the Book of Chronicles, and a vague, unsupported, and evidently erroneous assertion in Berossus--quoted by Josephus, _Antt._, X. xi. 1; _c. Ap._, I. 19, who lived some two and a half centuries after these events, and who does not mention any siege of Jerusalem--can be so interpreted as to outweigh the fact that neither contemporary histories nor contemporary records know anything of this supposed deportation. Jeremiah (xxv. 1) says correctly that "the _fourth_ year of Jehoiakim" was "the first year of Nebuchadrezzar"; and had Jerusalem been already captured and plundered, it is impossible that he should not have alluded to the fact in that chapter. An older subterfuge for "explaining" the error is that of Saadia the Gaon, Abn Ezra, Rashi, etc., who interpret "the third year of Jehoiakim" to mean "_the third year after his rebellion_ from Nebuchadrezzar," which is not only impossible in itself, but also contradicts Dan. ii. 1.
[228] Shinar is an archaism, supposed by Schrader to be a corruption of Sumir, or Northern Chaldea (_Keilinschr._, p. 34); but see Hommel, _Gesch. Bab. u. Assyr._, 220; F. Delitzsch, _Assyr. Gram._, 115. The more common name in the exilic period was Babel (Jer. li. 9, etc.) or Eretz Kasdim (Ezek. xii. 13).
[229] On this god--Marduk or Maruduk (Jer. l. 2)--comp. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 7. See Schrader, _K. A. T._, pp. 273, 276; and Riehm, _Handwörterb._, ii. 982.
[230] This seems to be a Persian word, _fratama_, "first." It is only found in Esther. Josephus says that the four boys were connected with Zedekiah (_Antt._, X. x. 1). Comp. Jer. xli. 1.
[231] Dan. i. 3; LXX., Ἀβιεσδρί. The name is of quite uncertain derivation. Lenormant connects it with Abai-Istar, "astronomer of the goddess Istar" (_La Divination_, p. 182). Hitzig sees in this strange rendering Abiesdri the meaning "eunuch." A eunuch could have no son to help him, so that his father is his help (_'ezer_). Ephræm Syrus, in his Commentary, preserves both names (Schleusner, _Thesaurus_, _s.v._ Ἀβιέσερ). We find the name Ash_k_enaz in Gen. x. 3. Theodot. has Ἀσφανέζ. Among other guesses Lenormant makes Ashpenaz = Assa-ibni-zir. Dr. Joel (_Notizen zum Buche Daniel_, p. 17) says that since the Vulgate reads Ab_r_iesri, "ob nicht der Wort von rechts zu links gelesen müsste?"
[232] Called in i. 7-11 the Sar-hassarîsîm (comp. Jer. xxxix. 3; Gen. xxxvii. 36, _marg._; 2 Kings xviii. 17; Esther ii. 3). This officer now bears the title of _Gyzlar Agha_.
[233] Isa. xxxix. 6, 7.
[234] Athen., _Deipnos_, xi. 583. See Bevan, p. 60; Max Müller in Pusey, p. 565. How Professor Fuller can urge the presence of these Persian words in proof of the genuineness of Daniel (_Speaker's Commentary_, p. 250) I cannot understand. For Daniel does not seem to have survived beyond the third year of the Persian dominion, and it is extremely difficult to suppose that all these Persian words, including titles of Nebuchadrezzar's officials, were already current among the Babylonians. On the other hand, _Babylonian_ words seem to be rare, though Daniel is represented as living nearly the whole of a long life in Babylon. There is no validity in the argument that these words could not have been known in the days of the Maccabees, "for half of them are common in Syria, though the oldest extant Syriac writers are _later by three centuries_ than the time of the Maccabees" (Bevan, p. 41).