The phrase which stat.ee the duration objections of critics and lexicographers, we oocurs four timee-Yers. 16 (13), 23 (20), venture to follow these two authorities the 25 (22), 32 (29)-a.nd is nlwnye the same, mm·o readily that the critics ha.ve a.ssigned "till Be...-en times pa.Be over him (thee)."' no rcnson why we should not do so. •~\''J.; i';i~~'. J'1;1l1 ;ill:!~ (~l,e<!b"ah 'iddan~en 3. Is there any trace in tho inscriptions yal1<l'11l1oon 'nfol,u). The question turns on euni,ing to us to throw light on this the sense to be given to 'iddan. Thie word mysterious event? At one time it wa.s sup- is found thirteen times in this book-nine posed that in the Stttndard Inscription tim<>s lX'sides the four times in this cha.pter. of Nebuchadnezzar we bad a distinct ro- We find it three times in the second chapter, ference 1;o this period of madness. As o.t where it means the time during which first translated, Nebuchadnezzar declared certain pJa.neta.ry a.nd st.ella.r influences were that for four years he did not occupy him- at work. This neturally suggest.a the signs self in building. A series of further nega- of the Zodiac a.nd the phases of the moon, ti vo sentences followed. More careful study e.nd therefore a. month, though the pro- and more accurate rendering have removed bability is that the period in the king's that misconception. From the nature of mind was much shorter. The ruling pha.ses the Standard Inscription, it was a priorl of the moon would me.ke a. fourfold or three- unlikely that anything of the kind supposed fold diYision not improbable, while the posi- should have been found in it. It is a record tions of the planets in the various astrological of the various buildings, etc., he had con- houses me.ke it more likely that a. da.y rather structed for tile honour of the gods and the tlle.n even a month is meant. We find the beauty of his co.pitul. The dates of the word nei:t in the following chapter (vers. erection nf these edifices or the construction 5 and 15), "At what time ('iddan) ye hear," of these "8.Ilals ie not givi,n; so the fact of etc. Here it means a point of time, a.nd in years in which nothing was done is not neces- the other verse (7), where the phrase occurs sarily noticeable. Lenormant ('Lo.Divina• we have ~i:i) (zim",aa'), which usua.lly tion,' 204) makes another suggestion. When he ascends the throne, after the murder of means e. set, fixed point of time. We :find his brother-in-law, Evil-Merode.ch, we find it e.gn.in in the seventh chapter (vera. 12 Neriglissar (Nergalsharezer) claiming that R.Ild 25). In the twelfth verse, after the his father, Bil-zikir-iskun, 1 had been King destruction of the fourth beast, the other of Babylon. Lenormant'e theory is that beasts continue for "a. season e.nd time," Bil-zikir-iskun reigned whlle Nebuchad- j~) j::IJ (z·man t:"'iddan); it here means nezzar was thus incepacitated by madness. a. space of time totally indefinite. In the Certainly, between the accession of Ne.bo- twe11ty-fifth verse the word in question polassar in B.o. 625, to the death of Evil- occurs three times in the phrase, "a. time, Merodach in u.o. 559, there is no sovereign times, and a di,iding of time." Here it he.a but the three members of the one dynasty. been assumed to mean "a. year," and this is Rawlinson(' Five Great Monarchies') places certainly not improbable for this particular him immediately before Ne.bopola.ssar, e.nd case ; hut nothing can be drawn from this reads his name Nebu-sum-iskun. But e.e as to the sense of the word elsewhere. So deposition meant dee.th, this would imply far as tile usage of this book is concerned, the.t his son-Neriglissar-even if only e.n we can say the word 'iddan means a. space infant, at the death of his father, would be of time, the length of which is determined at least sixty-five yea.re of age at the death by the context. When we pass into the of Evil-Meroda.ch. This is not an e.ge when Targums, we :find the same, or, if possible, men engage in conspiracies. But more, he even greater freedom of use. It is used for leaves behind him an infant son. While the time of old age in Ps. lw. 9 ; in Eccles. not impossible, this is an unlikely solution. iii. for "the times." There is a phrase, If, then, he did not reign before N abo- •iddan 'b"iddan (" time in times"), which is pola.ese.r, there must have been some inter- commonly understood to mean a. year. This val in which he held the throne while the would render it probable that the word was legitimate occupant was incapacitated by originally some period much shorter than disease or distance from the capital. It was a year, probably a month; thus Gen. xxiv. not during the interval between the death 55, where we render, according to the Ma.e- of Nabopolassar and the accession of Nebu- soretic, .. a few de.ye, at least ten." Onkelo, chadnezzar, because Berosus tells us of the renders, 'iddan b•'iddan 'o 'a8rah yarlll'en rapid march Nebuchadnezzar made through (" time in time, or ten months"), where the the desert from Syria to reach Babylon word certainly means "months." The before any usurpation took place. It did not usage of the Peshitta is much the same. ' take place between the death of N ebuchad- Ga.on Saadia would assign to 'iddan here the sense of "month;" in this he is fol- 1 Read by Rodwell (' Records of the low~d by Lenormant. Notwithstanding the l'e.bt,' v. l311) " Bel-BUI11•iskull." Oil, IV, 1-37.j TUE BOOK OF DANIEL.
nezznr nud tho accession of Evil-Merodach, in the history of Nabnnflhirl; for n Jr,n" for, from tl10 contmct triblee, there seems to period, not less than five years, ho wa~ hnvo been no intorval of uncertninty. Ilel- uno.ble to take po.rt in the busincaH of thri ziltir-iekun mny hnve, eo M. Lcnormant empire. Meantime, there is no inrlic,ition thinks, usurped the throne during the ill- in the contra.et tn.1,lea thn.t anything is ness of N ebuchndnezzar. If tho interval wrong. The annals of Nabuno.hi,l rcv,,al wero Ieee than a year, Ptolemy might not to us the fact that the king 8 son was acting insert the name in hie chronicle. Against monarch; but had these nut Cullle rlown this theory is the fact tho.t throughout the to ns, we ahould never have known of whole of Ncbucharlnczznr's reign there any incapacity bcf"o.lling thia mon>1rch. never is seven months without a con tract Ilel-zikir-iskun may have acted as mcnarch preserrnd to us, dated by the years of tho during Nebuchadnezzar's illness, nnd Lhis reign of Nebuchadnezzar. This is not abso- may have been the fact that enabled ~ eri- lutely conclusive, because some of tbe con- glissar to assert his father to have been tract tables, after the conquest of Babylon King of Babylon. by Cyrus, are still dated by the reign of It is not impossible that ~ebncnadnezzar's N abunnhid. We are compelled to abandon decree may yet tum np from the rubbish of the position tl,at we have &ny trnce of &ges. this madness. We ho.ve &n !ln!llogous case