The Pulpit Commentary — Daniel — Section 26

in Mo.lochi seems to assume that the iclea of a book of remembrance being kept before the Lord was one well known-as do also the passages in Daniel. The resemblanco between the prayer in N eh. ix. and that in Dan. ix. is too great to be acddento.l. It is impossible to settle with any certo.inty which is the earlieT, but the greater elaboration of the prayer in Nehemiah is o. presumption ago.inst its being the earlier. It is more clifficult to esco.pe the reference to the four horns of the Grecian goat of Daniel in Zech. i. 18. Were it not that criticism forbids 1lll to see a. prophecy in any word of a prophet, we might be inclined to see a reference to the triumphant conflicts waged by Matte.thins and his sons ago.inst the Greek monarchy. It is difficult to imagine four horns without imagining also some animal whose horns they are. To the reader of Daniel the reference would be plain, 'fhe earliest of the apocalyptic books, the Book of Enoch, part of it dated, as we think, n.o. 210, is full of evidences of the influence of Daniel. Indeed, the whole apocalyptic series are the product of the visions of Daniel. In the .Apocrypha the most noticeable reference is that which the author of the Maccabees represents the dying Ma.ttathias as making. No one would claim that the ipsissima, verba of the old man's dying advice are given, but the tenor of them can scarcely fail to be correct. One wishing to encourage those engaged in o. life-o.nd-dea.th conflict, in which passive resistance had proved unavailing, would not readily, in cold blood, have preferred the preservaticn of Da.niel's friends in the furnace, and Daniel himself in the lions' den, to the vigorous narratives of the Judges. Had the dying speech of Mattathia.s been invented, the inventor would have chosen more pat illustrations. The date of 1 Maccabees is approximately B.o. 100. The Book of Baruch is also dependent on Daniel, especially the first and older portion. Any one carefully comparing the two will be convinced that Baruch is dependent on Daniel; not, as Ewald thought, Daniel on Baruch.. The date of this book is very doubtful. Ewald would place it in the Persian period. With regard to the first portion this seems a. not improbable date. To place it after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, as do Schiirer and Kneucker, is quite untenable. No one who had seen the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus woulJ be under the mistaken idea. that, after the Cha.ldea.ns had burnt it with fire (Baruch i. 2), there could be offered on the altar burnt offerings a.ud sin offerings. It must have been written by one who had no conception of a. time when there was neither sacrifice nor offering. It, therefore, must date so long after the days of Nebuchadnezzar that the results of his capture of Jerusalem were forgotten, and before Epipha.nes. The Fourth Book of Esdro.s certainly does, at least in its present form, date from after the destruc- tion of Jerusalem, and it acknowledges Daniel and refers to portions of it. In the Apocrypha there is another book, Ecclesiasticllll, which is brought forward as evidence both for and against the early knowledge of the Book of Daniel. On the affirmative side we have Ecclus. xvii. 17, "For in the division of the nations of the whole earth he set o. ruler over every people; but Israel is the Lord's portion." This is supposed to refer to the angelic rulers of each nation, and this we find referred to in Daniel. Although the view above is supported by the name of Fritzsche, we do not regard it as quite certain, in the first place, that there is a reference here to angelic rulers; it may be kings that are meant. In the early history there was no king in Israel; the Lord was their King. On the other hand, it is o.n absurdity to imagine that Ben Sira borrowed this idea from the Septuagint version of Deut. xxxii. B, "He set the bounds of the nations accordiug to the angels of God." The repeated references to Enoch seem to imply o. greater prominence than the mention of him in Genesis would suggest--a prominence most easily explicable by an acquo.iuta.nce with the earliest Book of Enoch, and it implies the existence of Daniel. We do not think that even this may be pressed. On the ;i.; .E xii INTRODUCTION TO