The Pulpit Commentary — Daniel — Section 93

stntomcnt of cvrnts whirh wa flnrl Irnro; of thcRo frtmonR i:-;nil,lR, were doomed to ,. nlthough it is not necessary, yet on this common destruction with thA P""t m1tstcr• of o.ssumption, the suoceesion of ev~nts ns the craft. Tbnt this WaR nllowr·rl to reuch no.rro.terl in this ohapter beoomes perfeotly these snhalterns proves that popnlaropinion nnturo.l. had not gone with !110 fiery edict of tho Ver. 14.-Then Daniel answered with king. Above all, Arioch, captnin "of the oouneel and wisdom to Ariooh the captain guard" - "of the cut-throats," ns tho of the king'• guard, whioh was gone forth Spanish translators have rendered it; to slay the wise men of Babylon. The text "chief batcher," as both Theodotion and here does not seem to have differed much the E!eptnagint render his tith~-acts as if from the Egyptian recension, the trans- be is not in favonr of it. lie is compelled lation of which we have in the Septuagint to do the king's bidding; bnt he is evi- Version. "Then DBniel spBke with the dently bent on going a.bout the matter in counsel and knowledge which were his to snob a leisurely fashion that the great body Arioch the chief executioner (lr.pxl µa:y,/pq,, of the condemned may escape. We may • chief butcher,' used by Plntarch for stay to notice that the name Arioch is a 'chief cook'] of the king, to whom it was genuine Babylonian name, Eri Aku, "Ser- appointed to lead oat the wise meu (D'o,P<O'To.s) vant of the moon-god." Professor Bevan of Babylonia." The text before the Sep- declares it is borrowed from Gen. xiv. 1, tuagint translators seems to have had ;,~•, as his title is from Gen. xxxviL 36. (deeleh), "which to him," equivalent to It is singular that when the author's "which he had." The LXX. text had ,pD acquaintance with the earlier Scriptures was so full an,1 accurate, he should drop instead of p!>l. Something may be said for into the blunders be is a.ceased of. In this reading, as the 1, of the succeeding Genesis the executioner does not execute word may have occasioned the disappear- anybody: in Daniel he is represented as ance of the ,, which might be regarded as engaged in organizing the massacre. Daniel a 1, defectively written. Theodotion agrees seems not to have waited till the terrible perfectly with the Maseoretio text. The band of guardsmen-executioners arrived at Peshitta is somewhat of a paraphrase in the college where be and his friends were regard to the first clause, " Then Daniel living, he goes direct to the chief of the pacified and consulted, and said to Arioch band. The fact that he is not cut down the chief of the king's guard, who had gone immediately on his approach seems t.o oat to slay the wise men of Babylon." It o.rgue that even the common guardsmen would seem as if there had been some shrank from the duty imposed on them. confusion of the words here, though the Their horror and shrinking were perfectly meaning is not far from that of the other natural. Let ns snppoee a company in e. version. The Vnlga.te Version di1fers, regiment of Irish Roman Catholics ordered "Then Daniel asked about the law and to shoot down their own priests, and we sentence (sentientia) at Arioch, who had may have some idea of the feelings of these gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon." soldiers. These augurs and soothsayers, The state of matters implied here reveals these astrologers and magicians, had been to us the fact that several links of the story their conneellors; they had been their in- are awanting. There seems to have been tercessors with their deities. If they were absolute secrecy as to what had taken all slaughtered, would not the sheer blank place in the royal council-<ihamber, and in their own lives be immense? There would how absolute had been the failure of the be no one now to tell them, however falsely, Chaldean wise men to satisfy the de- of the future; no one to tell them wbat to mands of the king. We could imagine do to propitiate the gods. Bat more, the the strange turmoil that this would have gods might well be supposed to be enraged caused in the college of young cadets of the by the slaughter of so many of their special various guilds of soothsayers and augurs, servants, and might be expected to pour ho.d it been announced that these great down vengeance on the whole nation as heads of their vo.rions orders ho.d failed. well as on the king who had commanded it. News may have come of the wrath of the but most of all on those who, under what- king, und close behind the angry sentence ever compulsion, raised their eacrilegiollB of extirpation, passed not only on those hands against the priests of the holy godo. who had been the immediate ocousions of It is even not improbable that, once the the king's wrath, bat on all the guilds of immediate paroxysm of his fury had passed, wise men in Bubylon. This must have filled Nebuchadnezzar would be appalled ut wliat those who belonged to the various guilds he bad himself ordered, and would connive implicated, not only with terror, but with at delay, in the hope that., though late, these e.muzement. It wus next brought to them wise men might come to reason and tell that they, though only in the lower stuges him what he wished. Daniel seema to find 5-! 'lllE BOOK 011 DANIEL. [011. 11. l-1!l.