The Pulpit Commentary — Daniel — Section 170

dition in which the annals of Nebuchad- be questioned. The eighteenth year or nezzar ltnvc come down to us. Nebuchadnezzar was that precedini;t t!Je Y ers. 2, 3.-1 thought it good to show capture of Jerusalem, which, according to the signs and wonden; that the high God Jer. Iii. 12, happened in the nineteenth year bath wrought toward me. Row great a.re of Nebuchndnezzar. In the twenty-ninth hie signs ! and how mighty are his wonder■ I verse of the same chRpter we have an e.ccount his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and of the carrying away of prisoners by Nebu- his dominion is from generation to gene- chadnezzar in his eighteenth year, i11 e. ration. The Greek versions for these two passe.ge omitted from the LXX., in e. we.y ,·erses are in abeolute agreement, henoe one the.t makes it probable t!Jat, if this passage is not surprised to find that in the Syrie.o bo genuine, the one is accord.inA" to the of Paulus Tellensis, these verses, with that Jewish, the other according to the Baby- preceding, are me.rked with an asterisk, lonie.n mode of reckoning. If that is so, which procle.ims them not to have been the eighteenth yee.r of Nebuchadnezzar regarded by their tre.nsle.tor e.s a genuine would mean the yee.r of the capture of part of the Septuagint, but to have been Jerusalem. If this date had, howover, been added from Theodotion. They a.re in close correct, something a.bout the coincidence R!:'.reement with the Me.ssoretic text. In would he.ve been mentioned. Had this ti1esc two rnrses the Peshitte. is also at one book been written to encoure.ge the Jews in with the lllassoretic text. It is poBBible that their conflict e.ge.inst Epiphanes, it would this may have been the actual beginning he.ve been mentioned the.t Nebuchadnezzar's of the document; on the other hand, it me.y me.dness occuned e.fter he had captured have been simply the suggestion of some Jerusalem. At the same time, a later scribe later scribe of how BUch a proclamation would h1\Ve a tendency to insert Huch a de.te, might he.ve begnn. The latter is, perhaps, even if no de.te had been there, or at e.ll the more probable. At the se.me time, it events to modify any other date into this. ,·indicates its position by being e. not un- Thus we find in the Septue.gint ver. 15 natural expression of feelings such as (Massoretic 19, Authorized Version 24) a Kcbucbadnczzar might well be supposed reference to the capture of Jerusalem. to haYe had after such an experience e.s Another cause would tend to make he had passed through. It me.y even be "eighteenth year" liable to occur at this that the signs and wonders to which Nebu- point, it is the.t the previous chapter in the chadnezzar refers a.re not merely those of Septuagint begins with assigning the ea.me his dream and its fulfilment, but all the date. The change must have been made signs that had been manifested in his reign. before the exemplar from which the Sep- Yers. 4, 5.-Iliebuchadneaarwas at rest tuagint tre.nslator made his translation had in mine house, and :fiourishing in my been transcribed, as it appears in Paulus palace : I saw a dream which made me Tellensis. Ewnld has suggested " the afraid, aud the thoughts upon my bed and twenty-eighth year "-in me.ny respects e. the viaions of my head troubled me. In the probe.hie suggestion. As Ewa.Id he.a )Jointed Aramaic text there is whe.t may be regnrded out, the proclame.tion would he.ve e. de.te. either e.e a play on words of the nature of Even if, as Ewald ma.inte.ined, it we.a the rhyme, or the traces of a doublet. The work of e. later time than the days of Nebu- Septuagint begins the chapter with this chadnezze.r, yet so skilful e. writer could not verse, as does the Maseoretio text, but fe.il to recognize the necessity. The Septua- further appends a date, "In the eighteenth gint Version does not give the beginning of year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar said, I this narrative the form of a proclamation. was at peace in my house, and established '.1.'he attitude of the king is the.t of rest e.fter upon my throne : I saw a vision, and I was the tow of long wars-an e.ttitude that awestruck, e.nd fear fell upon me.'' Theo- could not be e.ttributed to him when he he.d dotion differs from this aud &lso from the not reached the middle of his reign. The :Massoretic text, and renders," I Nebuchad- conquest of Egypt followed the capture of nezzar was flourishing ( .1,e11vwv) in my Jerusalem. The difference between'' ten" house, e.nd was prospering ( ,118a.J\.wv)." The and " twenty " in Aramaic, us in Hebrew, is similarity in sound between ,u811vwv and comparatively little. ,r:,v, ('"•ar) is "ten," ,i,Ba.>,,";,v may have had to do with the ren- r:i~V, ('•s•reen) is "twenty." A.a the "ten" deri.Dg. It will be noted that this is furtlier is the final word in the numerical statement, from tl,e Massoretic rE,cension than the it would be modified asaratha, whereas the Septuagint. The Pesbitta repeats the idea word "twenty" is frequently in simile.r uf rest, "I Nebuchadnezzar was at peace circumstances unmodified ; we should then ( e/,ala) in my house, and was reeti.Dg (ree!i) have 'al'reen. It may have been even 1n my palace." The Massoretic is supported later, but if the real yee.r he.d been " thirty- by tk, Sevtuagint, and, therefore, strong. eighth," the modification of the words would 'I!,c dau, in the S•-ptuagint, however, me.y Clt, IV, 1-81,] 'rHE BOOK 01!' DANlEL. 133