{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"DAN","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Daniel","commonName":"Daniel","introduction":"DANIEL, that is, \"God is my judge\"; probably of the blood royal (compare Dan 1:3, with Ch1 3:1, where a son of David is named so). Jerusalem may have been his birthplace (though Dan 9:24, \"thy holy city,\" does not necessarily imply this). He was carried to Babylon among the Hebrew captives brought thither by Nebuchadnezzar at the first deportation in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. As he and his three companions are called (Dan 1:4) \"children,\" he cannot have been more than about twelve years old when put in training, according to Eastern etiquette, to be a courtier (Dan 1:3, Dan 1:6). He then received a new name, by which it was usual to mark a change in one's condition (Kg2 23:34; Kg2 24:17; Ezr 5:14; Est 2:7), Belteshazzar, that is, \"a prince favored by Bel\" (Dan 1:7). His piety and wisdom were proverbial among his countrymen at an early period; probably owing to that noble proof he gave of faithfulness, combined with wisdom, in abstaining from the food sent to him from the king's table, as being polluted by the idolatries usual at heathen banquets (Dan 1:8-16). Hence Ezekiel's reference to him (Eze 14:14, Eze 14:20; Eze 28:3) is precisely of that kind we should expect; a coincidence which must be undesigned. Ezekiel refers to him not as a writer, but as exhibiting a character righteous and wise in discerning secrets, in those circumstances now found in his book, which are earlier than the time when Ezekiel wrote. As Joseph rose in Egypt by interpreting Pharaoh's dreams, so Daniel, by interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's, was promoted to be governor of Babylonia, and president of the Magian priest-caste. Under Evil-merodach, Nebuchadnezzar's successor, as a change of officers often attends the accession of a new king, Daniel seems to have had a lower post, which led him occasionally to be away from Babylon (Dan 8:2, Dan 8:27). Again he came into note when he read the mystic writing of Belshazzar's doom on the wall on the night of that monarch's impious feast. BEROSUS calls the last Babylonian king Nabonidus and says he was not killed, but had an honorable abode in Carmania assigned to him, after having surrendered voluntarily in Borsippa. RAWLINSON has cleared up the discrepancy from the Nineveh inscription. Belshazzar was joint king with his father, Evil-merodach or Nabonidus (called Minus in the inscriptions), to whom he was subordinate. He shut himself up in Babylon, while the other king took refuge elsewhere, namely, in Borsippa. BEROSUS gives the Chaldean account, which suppresses all about Belshazzar, as being to the national dishonor. Had Daniel been a late book, he would no doubt have taken up the later account of BEROSUS. If he gave a history differing from that current in Babylonia, the Jews of that region would not have received it as true. Darius the Mede, or Cyaxares II, succeeded and reigned two years. The mention of this monarch's reign, almost unknown to profane history (being eclipsed by the splendor of Cyrus) is an incidental proof that Daniel wrote as a contemporary historian of events which he knew, and did not borrow from others. In the third year of Cyrus he saw the visions (the tenth through twelfth chapters) relating to his people down to the latest days and the coming resurrection. He must have been about eighty-four years old at this time. Tradition represents Daniel as having died and been buried at Shushan. Though his advanced age did not allow him to be among those who returned to Palestine, yet he never ceased to have his people's interests nearest to his heart (Dan. 9:3-19; Dan 10:12).\n\nAUTHENTICITY OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. Dan 7:1, Dan 7:28; Dan 8:2; Dan 9:2; Dan 10:1-2; Dan 12:4-5, testify that it was composed by Daniel himself. He does not mention himself in the first six chapters, which are historical; for in these it is not the author, but the events which are the prominent point. In the last six, which are prophetical, the author makes himself known, for here it was needed, prophecy being a revelation of words to particular men. It holds a third rank in the Hebrew canon: not among the prophets, but in the Hagiographa (Chetubim), between Esther and Ezra, books like it relating to the captivity; because he did not strictly belong to those who held exclusively the profession of \"prophets\" in the theocracy, but was rather a \"seer,\" having the gift, but not the office of prophet. Were the book an interpolated one, it doubtless would have been placed among the prophets. Its present position is a proof of its genuineness, as it was deliberately put in a position different from that where most would expect to find it. Placed between Esther, and Ezra and Nehemiah, it separated the historical books of the time after the captivity. Thus, Daniel was, as BENGEL calls him, the politician, chronologer, and historian among the prophets. The Psalms also, though many are prophetical, are ranked with the Hagiographa, not with the prophets; and the Revelation of John is separated from his Epistles, as Daniel is from the Old Testament prophets. Instead of writing in the midst of the covenant people, and making them the foreground of his picture, he writes in a heathen court, the world kingdoms occupying the foreground, and the kingdom of God, though ultimately made the most significant, the background. His peculiar position in the heathen court is reflected in his peculiar position in the canon. As the \"prophets\" in the Old Testament, so the epistles of the apostles in the New Testament were written by divinely commissioned persons for their contemporaries. But Daniel and John were not in immediate contact with the congregation, but isolated and alone with God, the one in a heathen court, the other on a lonely isle (Rev 1:9). PORPHYRY, the assailant of Christianity in the third century, asserted that the Book of Daniel was a forgery of the time of the Maccabees (170-164 B.C.), a time when confessedly there were no prophets, written after the events as to Antiochus Epiphanes, which it professes to foretell; so accurate are the details. A conclusive proof of Daniel's inspiration, if his prophecies can be shown to have been before the events. Now we know, from JOSEPHUS [Antiquities, 10.11.7], that the Jews in Christ's days recognized Daniel as in the canon. Zechariah, Ezra, and Nehemiah, centuries before Antiochus, refer to it. Jesus refers to it in His characteristic designation, \"Son of man,\" Mat 24:30 (Dan 7:13); also expressly by name, and as a \"prophet,\" in Mat 24:15 (compare Mat 24:21, with Dan 12:1, &c.); and in the moment that decided His life (Mat 26:64) or death, when the high priest adjured him by the living God. Also, in Luk 1:19-26, \"Gabriel\" is mentioned, whose name occurs nowhere else in Scripture, save in Dan 8:16; Dan 9:21. Besides the references to it in Revelation, Paul confirms the prophetical part of it, as to the blasphemous king (Dan 7:8, Dan 7:25; Dan 11:36), in Co1 6:2; Th2 2:3-4; the narrative part, as to the miraculous deliverances from \"the lions\" and \"the fire,\" in Heb 11:33-34. Thus the book is expressly attested by the New Testament on the three points made the stumbling-block of neologists--the predictions, the narratives of miracles, and the manifestations of angels. An objection has been stated to the unity of the book, namely, that Jesus quotes no part of the first half of Daniel. But Mat 21:44 would be an enigma if it were not a reference to the \"stone that smote the image\" (Dan 2:34-35, Dan 2:44-45). Thus the New Testament sanctions the second, third, sixth, seventh, and eleventh chapters. The design of the miracles in the heathen courts where Daniel was, as of those of Moses in Egypt, was to lead the world power, which seemed to be victorious over the theocracy, to see the essential inner superiority of the seemingly fallen kingdom of God to itself, and to show prostrate Israel that the power of God was the same as of old in Egypt. The first book of Maccabees (compare 1 Maccabees 1:24; 9:27, 40, with Dan 12:1; Dan 11:26, of the Septuagint) refers to Daniel as an accredited book, and even refers to the Septuagint Alexandrian version of it. The fact of Daniel having a place in the Septuagint shows it was received by the Jews at large prior to the Maccabean times. The Septuagint version so arbitrarily deviated from the Hebrew Daniel, that Theodotius' version was substituted for it in the early Christian Church. JOSEPHUS [Antiquities, 11.8.5] mentions that Alexander the Great had designed to punish the Jews for their fidelity to Darius, but that Jaddua (332 B.C.), the high priest, met him at the head of a procession and averted his wrath by showing him Daniel's prophecy that a Grecian monarch should overthrow Persia. Certain it is, Alexander favored the Jews, and JOSEPHUS' statement gives an explanation of the fact; at least it shows that the Jews in JOSEPHUS' days believed that Daniel was extant in Alexander's days, long before the Maccabees. With Jaddua (high priest from 341-322 B.C.) the Old Testament history ends (Neh 12:11). (The register of the priests and Levites was not written by Nehemiah, who died about 400 B.C., but was inserted with divine sanction by the collectors of the canon subsequently.) An objection to Daniel's authenticity has been rested on a few Greek words found in it. But these are mostly names of Greek musical instruments, which were imported by Greece from the East, rather than vice versa. Some of the words are derived from the common Indo-Germanic stock of both Greek and Chaldee: hence their appearance in both tongues. And one or two may have come through the Greeks of Asia Minor to the Chaldee. The fact that from the fourth verse of the second chapter to the end of the seventh, the language is Chaldee, but the rest Hebrew, is not an argument against, but for, its authenticity. So in Ezra the two languages are found. The work, if that of one author, must have been composed by someone in the circumstances of Daniel, that is, by one familiar with both languages. No native-born Hebrew who had not lived in Chaldea would know Chaldee so well as to use it with the same idiomatic ease as his native tongue; the very impurities in Daniel's use of both are just such as were natural to one in his circumstances, but unnatural to one in a later age, or to one not half Hebrew, half Chaldean in residence as Daniel was. Those parts of Daniel which concern the whole world are mostly Chaldee, then the language of the world empire. So Greek was made the language of the New Testament, which was designed for the whole world. Those affecting the Jews, mostly Hebrew; and this not so impure as that of Ezekiel. His Chaldee is a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic. Two predictions alone are enough to prove to us that Daniel was a true prophet. (1) That his prophecies reach beyond Antiochus; namely, he foretells the rise of the four great monarchies, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome (the last not being in Daniel's time known beyond the precincts of Italy, or rather of Latium), and that no other earthly kingdom would subvert the fourth, but that it would divide into parts. All this has come to pass. No fifth great earthly monarchy has arisen, though often attempted, as by Charlemagne, Charles V, and Napoleon. (2) The time of Messiah's advent, as dated from a certain decree, His being cut off, and the destruction of the city. \"He who denies Daniel's prophecies,\" says SIR ISAAC NEWTON, \"undermines Christianity, which is founded on Daniel's prophecies concerning Christ.\"\n\nCHARACTERISTICS OF DANIEL. The vision mode of revelation is the exception in other prophets, the rule in Daniel. In Zechariah (Zec. 1:1-6:15), who lived after Daniel, the same mode appears, but the other form from the seventh chapter to the end. The Revelation of St. John alone is perfectly parallel to Daniel, which may be called the Old Testament Apocalypse. In the contents too there is the difference above noticed, that he views the kingdom of God from the standpoint of the world kingdoms, the development of which is his great subject. This mode of viewing it was appropriate to his own position in a heathen court, and to the relation of subjection in which the covenant-people then stood to the world powers. No longer are single powers of the world incidentally introduced, but the universal monarchies are the chief theme, in which the worldly principle, opposed to the kingdom of God, manifests itself fully. The near and distant are not seen in the same perspective, as by the other prophets, who viewed the whole future from the eschatological point; but in Daniel the historical details are given of that development of the world powers which must precede the advent of the kingdom [AUBERLEN].\n\nSIGNIFICANCE OF THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. The exile is the historical basis of Daniel's prophecies, as Daniel implies in the first chapter, which commences with the beginning, and ends with the termination, of the captivity (Dan 1:1, Dan 1:21; compare Dan 9:1-2). A new stage in the theocracy begins with the captivity. Nebuchadnezzar made three incursions into Judah. The first under Jehoiakim (606 B.C.), in which Daniel was carried away, subjected the theocracy to the Babylonian world power. The second (598 B.C.) was that in which Jehoiachin and Ezekiel were carried away. In the third (588 B.C.), Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and carried away Zedekiah. Originally, Abraham was raised out of the \"sea\" (Dan 7:2) of the nations, as an island holy to God, and his seed chosen as God's mediator of His revelations of love to mankind. Under David and Solomon, the theocracy, as opposed to the heathen power, attained its climax in the Old Testament, not only being independent, but lord of the surrounding nations; so that the period of these two kings was henceforth made the type of the Messianic. But when God's people, instead of resting on Him, seek alliance with the world power, that very power is made the instrument of their chastisement. So Ephraim (722 B.C.) fell by Assyria; and Judah also, drawn into the sphere of the world's movements from the time of Ahaz, who sought Assyrian help (740 B.C., Isa. 7:1-25) at last fell by Babylon, and thenceforth has been more or less dependent on the world monarchies, and so, till Messiah, was favored with no revelations from the time of Malachi (four hundred years). Thus, from the beginning of the exile, the theocracy, in the strict sense, ceased on earth; the rule of the world powers superseding it. But God's covenant with Israel remains firm (Rom 11:29); therefore, a period of blessing under Messiah's kingdom is now foretold as about to follow their long chastisement. The exile thus is the turning point in the history of the theocracy, which ROOS thus divides: (1) From Adam to the exodus out of Egypt. (2) From the exodus to the beginning of the Babylonian captivity. (3) From the captivity to the millennium. (4) From the millennium to the end of the world. The position of Daniel in the Babylonian court was in unison with the altered relations of the theocracy and the world power, which new relation was to be the theme of his prophecy. Earlier prophets, from the standpoint of Israel, treated of Israel in its relation to the world powers; Daniel, from Babylon, the center of the then world power, treats of the world powers in their relation to Israel. His seventy years' residence in Babylon, and his high official position there, gave him an insight into the world's politics, fitting him to be the recipient of political revelations; while his spiritual experiences, gained through Nebuchadnezzar's humiliation, Belshazzar's downfall, and the rapid decay of the Babylonian empire itself, as well as the miraculous deliverances of himself and his friends (the third through sixth chapters), all fitted him for regarding things from the spiritual standpoint, from which the world's power appears transient, but the glory of God's kingdom eternal. As his political position was the body, the school of magicians in which he had studied for three years (Dan 1:4-5) was the soul; and his mind strong in faith and nourished by the earlier prophecies (Dan 9:2), the spirit of his prophecy, which only waited for the spirit of revelation from above to kindle it. So God fits His organs for their work. AUBERLEN compares Daniel to Joseph: the one at the beginning, the other at the end of the Jewish history of revelation; both representatives of God and His people at heathen courts; both interpreters of the dim presentiments of truth, expressed in God-sent dreams, and therefore raised to honor by the powers of the world: so representing Israel's calling to be a royal priesthood among the nations; and types of Christ, the true Israel, and of Israel's destination to be a light to lighten the whole Gentile world, as Rom 11:12, Rom 11:15 foretells. As Achilles at the beginning, and Alexander at the end, of Grecian history are the mirrors of the whole life of the Hellenic people, so Joseph and Daniel of Israel.\n\nCONTENTS OF THE BOOK. Historical and biographical introduction in the first chapter. Daniel, a captive exile, is representative of his nation in its servitude and exile: while his heavenly insight into dreams, far exceeding that of the magi, represents the divine superiority of the covenant-people over their heathen lords. The high dignities, even in the world, which he thereby attained, typify the giving of the earth-kingdom at last \"to the people of the saints of the Most High\" (Dan 7:27). Thus Daniel's personal history is the typical foundation of his prophecy. The prophets had to experience in themselves, and in their age, something of what they foretold about future times; just as David felt much of Christ's sufferings in his own person (compare Hos 1:2-11; Hos 2:3). So Jon. 1:1-17, &c. [ROOS]. Hence biographical notices of Daniel and his friends are inserted among his prophecies. The second through twelfth chapters contain the substance of the book, and consist of two parts. The first (the second through seventh chapters) represents the development of the world powers, viewed from a historical point. The second (the eighth through twelfth chapters), their development in relation to Israel, especially in the future preceding Christ's first advent, foretold in the ninth chapter. But prophecy looks beyond the immediate future to the complete fulfilment in the last days, since the individual parts in the organic history of salvation cannot be understood except in connection with the whole. Also Israel looked forward to the Messianic time, not only for spiritual salvation, but also for the visible restoration of the kingdom which even now we too expect. The prophecy which they needed ought therefore to comprise both, and so much of the history of the world as would elapse before the final consummation. The period of Daniel's prophecies, therefore, is that from the downfall of the theocracy at the captivity till its final restoration, yet future--the period of the dominion of the world powers, not set aside by Christ's first coming (Joh 18:36; for, to have taken the earth-kingdom then, would have been to take it from Satan's hands, Mat 4:8-10), but to be superseded by His universal and everlasting kingdom at His second coming (Rev 11:15). Thus the general survey of the development and final destiny of the world powers (the second through seventh chapters) fittingly precedes the disclosures as to the immediate future (the eighth through twelfth chapters). Daniel marks the division by writing the first part in Chaldee, and the second, and the introduction, in Hebrew; the former, referring to the powers of the world, in the language of the then dominant world power under which he lived; the latter, relating to the people of God, in their own language. An interpolator in a later age would have used Hebrew, the language of the ancient prophets throughout, or if anywhere Aramaic, so as to be understood by his contemporaries, he would have used it in the second rather than in the first part as having a more immediate reference to his own times [AUBERLEN]. \n\n\n\nNext: Daniel Chapter 1\n\n","order":27,"numberOfChapters":12,"sha256":"52ffb04ed7fdad0a18e31cb0dd5f7354207dcc9f1eb26ff0a5baf325867e27a4","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/DAN/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"DAN","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":12,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/DAN/12.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"DAN","chapter":12},"totalNumberOfVerses":305},"chapter":{"number":4,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["I thought it good--\"It was seemly before me\" (Psa 107:2-8). \n\nsigns--tokens significant of God's omnipotent agency. The plural is used, as it comprises the marvellous dream, the marvellous interpretation of it, and its marvellous issue.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["I was . . . at rest--my wars over, my kingdom at peace. \n\nflourishing--\"green.\" Image from a tree (Jer 17:8). Prosperous (Job 15:32).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["It may seem strange that Daniel was not first summoned. But it was ordered by God's providence that he should be reserved to the last, in order that all mere human means should be proved vain, before God manifested His power through His servant; thus the haughty king was stripped of all fleshly confidences. The Chaldees were the king's recognized interpreters of dreams; whereas Daniel's interpretation of the one in Dan. 2:24-45 had been a peculiar case, and very many years before; nor had he been consulted on such matters since.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["Belteshazzar--called so from the god Bel or Belus (see on Dan 1:7).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["spirit of the holy gods--Nebuchadnezzar speaks as a heathen, who yet has imbibed some notions of the true God. Hence he speaks of \"gods\" in the plural but gives the epithet \"holy,\" which applies to Jehovah alone, the heathen gods making no pretension to purity, even in the opinion of their votaries (Deu 32:31; compare Isa 63:11). \"I know\" refers to his knowledge of Daniel's skill many years before (Dan 2:8); hence he calls him \"master of the magicians.\" \n\ntroubleth--gives thee difficulty in explaining it.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["tree--So the Assyrian is compared to a \"cedar\" (Eze 31:3; compare Eze 17:24). \n\nin the midst of the earth--denoting its conspicuous position as the center whence the imperial authority radiated in all directions.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["beasts . . . shadow under it--implying that God's purpose in establishing empires in the world is that they may be as trees affording men \"fruits\" for \"meat,\" and a \"shadow\" for \"rest\" (compare Lam 4:20). But the world powers abuse their trust for self; therefore Messiah comes to plant the tree of His gospel kingdom, which alone shall realize God's purpose (Eze 17:23; Mat 13:32). HERODOTUS [7.19] mentions a dream (probably suggested by the tradition of this dream of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel) which Xerxes had; namely, that he was crowned with olive, and that the branches of the olive filled the whole earth, but that afterwards the crown vanished from his head: signifying his universal dominion soon to come to an end.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["watcher and an holy one--rather, \"even an holy one.\" Only one angel is intended, and he not one of the bad, but of the holy angels. Called a \"watcher,\" because ever on the watch to execute God's will [JEROME], (Psa 103:20-21). Compare as to their watchfulness, Rev 4:8, \"full of eyes within . . . they rest not day and night.\" Also they watch good men committed to their charge (Psa 34:7; Heb 1:14); and watch over the evil to record their sins, and at God's bidding at last punish them (Jer 4:16-17), \"watchers\" applied to human instruments of God's vengeance. As to GOD (Dan 9:14; Job 7:12; Job 14:16; Jer 44:27). In a good sense (Gen 31:49; Jer 31:28). The idea of heavenly \"watchers\" under the supreme God (called in the Zendavesta of the Persian Zoroaster, Ormuzd) was founded on the primeval revelation as to evil angels having watched for an opportunity until they succeeded in tempting man to his ruin, and good angels ministering to God's servants (as Jacob, Gen 28:15; Gen 32:1-2). Compare the watching over Abraham for good, and over Sodom for wrath after long watching in vain for good men it it, for whose sake He would spare it, Gen 18:23-33; and over Lot for good, Gen. 19:1-38 Daniel fitly puts in Nebuchadnezzar's mouth the expression, though not found elsewhere in Scripture, yet substantially sanctioned by it (Ch2 16:9; Pro 15:3; Jer 32:19), and natural to him according to Oriental modes of thought.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["Hew down-- (Mat 3:10; Luk 13:7). The holy (Jde 1:14) one incites his fellow angels to God's appointed work (compare Rev 14:15, Rev 14:18). \n\nbeasts get away from under it--It shall no longer afford them shelter (Eze 31:12).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["stump--The kingdom is still reserved secure for him at last, as a tree stump secured by a hoop of brass and iron from being split by the sun's heat, in the hope of its growing again (Isa 11:1; compare Job 14:7-9). BARNES refers it to the chaining of the royal maniac.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["heart--understanding (Isa 6:10). \n\ntimes--that is, \"years\" (Dan 12:7). \"Seven\" is the perfect number: a week of years: a complete revolution of time accompanying a complete revolution in his state of mind.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["demand--that is, determination; namely, as to the change to which Nebuchadnezzar is to be doomed. A solemn council of the heavenly ones is supposed (compare Job 1:6; Job 2:1), over which God presides supreme. His \"decree\" and \"word\" are therefore said to be theirs (compare Dan 4:24, \"decree of the Most High\"); \"the decree of the watchers,\" \"the word of the holy ones.\" For He has placed particular kingdoms under the administration of angelic beings, subject to Him (Dan 10:13, Dan 10:20; Dan 12:1). The word \"demand,\" in the second clause, expresses a distinct idea from the first clause. Not only as members of God's council (Dan 7:10; Kg1 22:19; Psa 103:21; Zac 1:10) do they subscribe to His \"decree,\" but that decree is in answer to their prayers, wherein they demand that every mortal who tries to obscure the glory of God shall be humbled [CALVIN]. Angels are grieved when God's prerogative is in the least infringed. How awful to Nebuchadnezzar to know that angels plead against him for his pride, and that the decree has been passed in the high court of heaven for his humiliation in answer to angels' demands! The conceptions are moulded in a form peculiarly adapted to Nebuchadnezzar's modes of thought. \n\nthe living--not as distinguished from the dead, but from the inhabitants of heaven, who \"know\" that which the men of the world need to the taught (Psa 9:16); the ungodly confess there is a God, but would gladly confine Him to heaven. But, saith Daniel, God ruleth not merely there, but \"in the kingdom of men.\" \n\nbasest--the lowest in condition (Sa1 2:8; Luk 1:52). It is not one's talents, excellency, or noble birth, but God's will, which elevates to the throne. Nebuchadnezzar abased to the dunghill, and then restored, was to have in himself an experimental proof of this (Dan 4:37).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["Daniel . . . Belteshazzar--The use of the Hebrew as well as the Chaldee name, so far from being an objection, as some have made it, is an undesigned mark of genuineness. In a proclamation to \"all people,\" and one designed to honor the God of the Hebrews, Nebuchadnezzar would naturally use the Hebrew name (derived from El, \"God,\" the name by which the prophet was best known among his countrymen), as well as the Gentile name by which he was known in the Chaldean empire. \n\nastonied--overwhelmed with awe at the terrible import of the dream. \n\none hour--the original means often \"a moment,\" or \"short time,\" as in Dan 3:6, Dan 3:15. \n\nlet not the dream . . . trouble thee--Many despots would have punished a prophet who dared to foretell his overthrow. Nebuchadnezzar assures Daniel he may freely speak out. \n\nthe dream be to them that hate thee--We are to desire the prosperity of those under whose authority God's providence has placed us (Jer 29:7). The wish here is not so much against others, as for the king: a common formula (Sa2 18:32). It is not the language of uncharitable hatred.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["The tree is the king. The branches, the princes. The leaves, the soldiers. The fruits, the revenues. The shadow, the protection afforded to dependent states.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["It is thou--He speaks pointedly, and without circumlocution (Sa2 12:7). While pitying the king, he uncompromisingly pronounces his sentence of punishment. Let ministers steer the mean between, on the one hand, fulminations against sinners under the pretext of zeal, without any symptom of compassion; and, on the other, flattery of sinners under the pretext of moderation. \n\nto the end of the earth-- (Jer 27:6-8). To the Caspian, Euxine, and Atlantic seas.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["decree of the Most High--What was termed in Dan 4:17 by Nebuchadnezzar, \"the decree of the watchers,\" is here more accurately termed by Daniel, \"the decree of the Most High.\" They are but His ministers.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["they shall drive thee--a Chaldee idiom for \"thou shalt be driven.\" Hypochondriacal madness was his malady, which \"drove\" him under the fancy that he was a beast, to \"dwell with the beasts\"; Dan 4:34 proves this, \"mine understanding returned.\" The regency would leave him to roam in the large beast-abounding parks attached to the palace. \n\neat grass--that is, vegetables, or herbs in general (Gen 3:18). \n\nthey shall wet thee--that is, thou shalt be wet. \n\ntill thou know, &c.-- (Psa 83:17-18; Jer 27:5).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["thou shalt have known, &c.--a promise of spiritual grace to him, causing the judgment to humble, not harden, his heart. \n\nheavens do rule--The plural is used, as addressed to Nebuchadnezzar, the head of an organized earthly kingdom, with various principalities under the supreme ruler. So \"the kingdom of heaven\" (Mat 4:17; Greek, \"kingdom of the heavens\") is a manifold organization, composed of various orders of angels, under the Most High (Eph 1:20-21; Eph 3:10; Col 1:16).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["break off--as a galling yoke (Gen 27:40); sin is a heavy load (Mat 11:28). The Septuagint and Vulgate translate not so well, \"redeem,\" which is made an argument for Rome's doctrine of the expiation of sins by meritorious works. Even translate it so, it can only mean; Repent and show the reality of thy repentance by works of justice and charity (compare Luk 11:41); so God will remit thy punishment. The trouble will be longer before it comes, or shorter when it does come. Compare the cases of Hezekiah, Isa 38:1-5; Nineveh, Jon 3:5-10; Jer 18:7-8. The change is not in God, but in the sinner who repents. As the king who had provoked God's judgments by sin, so he might avert it by a return to righteousness (compare Psa 41:1-2; Act 8:22). Probably, like most Oriental despots, Nebuchadnezzar had oppressed the poor by forcing them to labor in his great public works without adequate remuneration. \n\nif . . . lengthening of . . . tranquillity--if haply thy present prosperity shall be prolonged.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["twelve months--This respite was granted to him to leave him without excuse. So the hundred twenty years granted before the flood (Gen 6:3). At the first announcement of the coming judgment he was alarmed, as Ahab (Kg1 21:27), but did not thoroughly repent; so when judgment was not executed at once, he thought it would never come, and so returned to his former pride (Ecc 8:11). \n\nin the palace--rather, upon the (flat) palace roof, whence he could contemplate the splendor of Babylon. So the heathen historian, ABYDENUS, records. The palace roof was the scene of the fall of another king (Sa2 11:2). The outer wall of Nebuchadnezzar's new palace embraced six miles; there were two other embattled walls within, and a great tower, and three brazen gates.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["Babylon, that I have built--HERODOTUS ascribes the building of Babylon to Semiramis and Nitocris, his informant under the Persian dynasty giving him the Assyrian and Persian account. BEROSUS and ABYDENUS give the Babylonian account, namely, that Nebuchadnezzar added much to the old city, built a splendid palace and city walls. HERODOTUS, the so-called \"father of history,\" does not even mention Nebuchadnezzar. (Nitocris, to whom he attributes the beautifying of Babylon, seems to have been Nebuchadnezzar's wife). Hence infidels have doubted the Scripture account. But the latter is proved by thousands of bricks on the plain, the inscriptions of which have been deciphered, each marked \"Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar.\" \"Built,\" that is, restored and enlarged (Ch2 11:5-6). It is curious, all the bricks have been found with the stamped face downwards. Scarcely a figure in stone, or tablet, has been dug out of the rubbish heaps of Babylon, whereas Nineveh abounds in them; fulfilling Jer 51:37, \"Babylon shall become heaps.\" The \"I\" is emphatic, by which he puts himself in the place of God; so the \"my . . . my.\" He impiously opposes his might to God's, as though God's threat, uttered a year before, could never come to pass. He would be more than man; God, therefore, justly, makes him less than man. An acting over again of the fall; Adam, once lord of the world and the very beasts (Gen 1:28; so Nebuchadnezzar Dan 2:38), would be a god (Gen 3:5); therefore he must die like the beasts (Psa 82:6; Psa 49:12). The second Adam restores the forfeited inheritance (Psa 8:4-8).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["While, &c.--in the very act of speaking, so that there could be no doubt as to the connection between the crime and the punishment. So Luk 12:19-20. \n\nO king . . . to thee it is spoken--Notwithstanding thy kingly power, to thee thy doom is now spoken, there is to be no further respite.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["driven from men--as a maniac fancying himself a wild beast. It is possible, a conspiracy of his nobles may have co-operated towards his having been \"driven\" forth as an outcast. \n\nhairs . . . eagles' feathers--matted together, as the hair-like, thick plumage of the ossifraga eagle. The \"nails,\" by being left uncut for years, would become like \"claws.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":34,"content":["lifted up mine eyes unto heaven--whence the \"voice\" had issued (Dan 4:31) at the beginning of his visitation. Sudden mental derangement often has the effect of annihilating the whole interval, so that, when reason returns, the patient remembers only the event that immediately preceded his insanity. Nebuchadnezzar's looking up towards heaven was the first symptom of his \"understanding\" having \"returned.\" Before, like the beasts, his eyes had been downward to the earth. Now, like Jonah's (Jon 2:1-2, Jon 2:4) out of the fish's belly, they are lifted up to heaven in prayer. He turns to Him that smiteth him (Isa 9:13), with the faint glimmer of reason left to him, and owns God's justice in punishing him. \n\npraised . . . him--Praise is a sure sign of a soul spiritually healed (Psa 116:12, Psa 116:14; Mar 5:15, Mar 5:18-19). \n\nI . . . honoured him--implying that the cause of his chastisement was that he had before robbed God of His honor. \n\neverlasting dominion--not temporary or mutable, as a human king's dominion.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":35,"content":["all . . . as nothing-- (Isa 40:15, Isa 40:17). \n\naccording to his will in . . . heaven-- (Psa 115:3; Psa 135:6; Mat 6:10; Eph 1:11). \n\narmy--the heavenly hosts, angels and starry orbs (compare Isa 24:21). \n\nnone . . . stay his hand--literally, \"strike His hand.\" Image from striking the hand of another, to check him in doing anything (Isa 43:13; Isa 45:9). \n\nWhat doest thou-- (Job 9:12; Rom 9:20).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":36,"content":["An inscription in the East India Company's Museum is read as describing the period of Nebuchadnezzar's insanity [G. V. SMITH]. In the so-called standard inscription read by SIR H. RAWLINSON, Nebuchadnezzar relates that during four (?) years he ceased to lay out buildings, or to furnish with victims Merodach's altar, or to clear out the canals for irrigation. No other instance in the cuneiform inscriptions occurs of a king recording his own inaction. \n\nmy counsellors . . . sought unto me--desired to have me, as formerly, to be their head, wearied with the anarchy which prevailed in my absence (compare Note, see on Dan 4:33); the likelihood of a conspiracy of the nobles is confirmed by this verse. \n\nmajesty was added--My authority was greater than ever before (Job 42:12; Pro 22:4; \"added,\" Mat 6:33).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":37,"content":["praise . . . extol . . . honour--He heaps word on word, as if he cannot say enough in praise of God. \n\nall whose works . . . truth . . . judgment--that is, are true and just (Rev 15:3; Rev 16:7). God has not dealt unjustly or too severely with me; whatever I have suffered, I deserved it all. It is a mark of true contrition to condemn one's self, and justify God (Psa 51:4). \n\nthose that walk in pride . . . abase--exemplified in me. He condemns himself before the whole world, in order to glorify God.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Daniel Chapter 5\n\n"]}],"introduction":"EDICT OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR CONTAINING HIS SECOND DREAM, RELATING TO HIMSELF. (Dan. 4:1-37)\n\nPeace--the usual salutation in the East, shalom, whence \"salaam.\" The primitive revelation of the fall, and man's alienation from God, made \"peace\" to be felt as the first and deepest want of man. The Orientals (as the East was the cradle of revelation) retained the word by tradition.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/DAN/4.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"DAN","chapter":4},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/DAN/5.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"DAN","chapter":5},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/DAN/3.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"DAN","chapter":3},"numberOfVerses":27}