The Pulpit Commentary — Daniel — Section 107

A slmiletr ohronolngicol eucocssion mny be Daniel. The word for "threehina-fl.oor" cxpecte,l in tl10 events fnrcehndnwo,I, •.-:r;n;t ( iddrei), is also one that d~s n;,t Ver. 85.-Thon was the iron, the olay, appear in the Targums, but it does np- the bra&1, the silvor, and the gold, broken pea,r in the Peshitta. Jensen suggests an to pieoes together, and beoame like the Assyrian etymology, but Brockclmnnn ohaff of the summer threshing-11.oors. The marks this doubtful; Lagarrle euggcsts a. voreions o.ro closer to the Mnssorctic tho.n Persian etymology, also marked douhtful. our Authorized Version, as they o.11 give Whichever etymology holds bears out tho moro prominence to ;,;111:i (lca(,"dah), "at Eastern origin of the book. The Targums onco." It is rendered ••-together." The represent the older Aramaic of Palestine. LXX. ronde1·s &µa.; Tlwodotion, ,l11&1ra!; If Daniel were e. book originating in Pales- tho Pcshitto. repeo.ts the word; o.nd Jerome tine, the Persian words appeetring in it renders pariter. Theodotion changes the might also be expected to appear in the order somewhat, for the salie of mo.king it Targums. And the wind oe.rried them more symmetrical. The rendering of the awa.y, tha.t no place was found for them: LXX. is in some respects different from the a.nd the stone that smote the image bees.me natural sense of the Mo.ssoretio text, but not a great mountain, and filled the whole eo much so ns to require us to presume e. earth. The LXX. rendering is, " And the radically different text: "Then the iron, wind carried them a.way, so that there was and the clo.y, etc., beco.me fragments, and nothing left of them, and the stone that they were smaller th11n the chaff of the smote the image became a great mountain, threshing-floor." We have this verse also and emote the whole earth." The first in the Itala, preserved to us in Tertullian, portion of this is a. fairly correct rendering but it does not differ from Jerome seriously. of our present Massoretic text. On the It would follow naturally enough if the other hand, the latter clause implies that mighty image were so smitten on its weak the translator had before him. or imagined and fragile feet, that it would come crashing he had, not m1So, but nno; not impossibly to the earth; but more happened than this. nNSo might be written without the silent As the monarch looked, in falling, the N; thus, nSo, as in the Peshitta. In that various parts of the imago, ns they fell in a case the mistake might ea.eily be made. heap, became broken, no.y, triturated-they Behrmann remarks on the vocalization of became as the dust or oho.ff of the summer threshing-floor. Summer is the dead time nNSo in this passage being the aame as nm::, in the East ; harvest is over by the end of hut does not remark that it is written defec- June, and the threshing of corn then com- tively in Syriac. The sense in the Massoretic mences. All this huge statue was reduced text is much better the.n that implied in this to particles as small o.nd light as the chaff reading. Theodotion's renderillg di.iers that is beaten off the grain by the thresh- in the first clause of this portion of the ing instruments of those days-feet of oxen present verse, "And the abundance (rr,\;j- or wheel of cart. Chaff is a favourite Bos) of wind carried it a.way, a.nd place was symbol for lightness and worthlessness. In not found for them: and the atone, when it the first psalm the wicked are compared to had smitten (1ra.Tcf(a.s) the image, became a chaff; so in Ps. xxvili. In Hoseo., where he great mountain, and filled the whole earth." speaks (xiii. 8) of Israel's sins, he says, 'fhe renderillg "multitude" (1r.\,j6os) is " Ephraim shall be l~e the chaff of the due to reading jiOy instead of po,:r. This threshing-floor." Isaiah (xii. 15, 16) speaks form of the 11lural of the demonstrative pro- of Jacob getting new threshing instruments noun is the c.1mmoner in Biblical Aramaic, to thresh the mountains, and make them but does not appear in the Targnme nor the email as chaff. It may be noted that the Peshitta. It is akin to the Mandaitic pm. word here translated "chaff" only occurs Neither the Peshitta. nor the Vulgate p?e- here. The word does not o.ppear in the sents any peculiarities of renderillg. All 'far gums, instead of which is used yio ( miilz ), this me.as that had formed the imo.ge, the Hebrew word. In Syrio.o, o.gain, in the though it had been gold, silver, brass, and Peehitta, it occurs frequently, o.s Ps. i. 4 iron, yet was so ground down-had become and Isa. xl. 15- another sign, slight in reduced to pe.rtioles so 8IIlAll. that the win<l itself, of the Ea.stem origin of the Book of carried them awe.y. So scattered ware they Daniel. The fact tho.t the word occurred that they collected in no special place, so in Do.niel would have a tendency to pre- that one conld say, "This is the image." serve it if in use when Do.niel was pub- The figure is still that of the threshing-floor; lished, or introduce it if it were not. Yet, the wind, blowing on the grain that i~ as we have said, it does not appear in the lifted up before it, carries away the cho.ff, 'fo.l'gums. It docs appco.r in Syrio.o, tho but, search as one mo.y, the chuff, oneo lo.nguage of a people who, o.s not Jews, blown 11way, cannot bo founJ.. A tuon, would presumably not be familiar with remarkable thing now takes pbce-tliu 68 THE BOOK OF DANIEL. '[cu. n. 1-4.0,