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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by

SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & Co.

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

In the following exposition of the Book of Daniel, the undersigned has occupied an exe. getical and critical position, the peculiarity of which will probably not be overlooked, on a careful comparison with the views and methods of other recent expositors. While he has held fast to the authenticity of the book as a whole, although it was difficult for him to change his former opinion respecting the composition of the book, that it originated during the Maccabæan age, and to conform it to the results of the thorough investigations of M. v. Niebuhr, Pusey, Zündel, Kranichfeld, Volck, Füller, and others, which demonstrated its composition during the captivity, he is still obliged to retain his former doubts with respect to the greater portion of Chap. xi. (particularly vs. 5-39). The reasons which determine him to this conclusion, are certainly of an internal character only. They result in the conviction that a particularizing prophecy, embracing the history of centuries, as it is found in that section, forms so marked a contrast to everything in the line of specializing prediction that occurs elsewhere in the prophetic literature of the Old Testament, that only the theory of an interpolating revision of its prophetic contents, imposed on it during the period of the Seleucid persecutions, or soon afterward, seems to afford a really satisfactory explanation of its particulars. Granted, that In the face of the unanimous testimony of all the external witnesses to the integrity of the prophet's text, the subjective nature of a criticism, such as is involved in this conclusion, may be censured; granted, that it may be termed inconsequent, that the intimate unity of the wellplanned, well-adapted, and well-arranged work is thus broken through at but a single point; yet the analogia visionis prophetica, which furnishes the motive for our decision, appears to us to be no less a certain, objectively admissible, and most weighty criterion in critical questions like the present, than is the analogia fidei in the domain of Scriptural dogmatics. Nor was the solution of the many difficulties that were encountered, as it resulted from the assumption of an ex eventu interpolation at a single point, permitted to restrain us from submitting the progressive results of our investigation to the careful inspection of Biblical scholars belonging to wider circles, so far as the plan and design of the theological and homiletical Bible-work permitted such a course. [The American reviser has taken the liberty of combating the author's view as to the interpolation of the passage in question.]

In the treatment of a prophetic book like the one before us, it is evident that the homiletic element must occupy a very subordinate place. Nor could it be a principal aim for an exegete to obtain dogmatic results and modes of presenting them, from such a prophet as Daniel. For this reason we have preferred to follow the example of one of our esteemed co-laborers (Dr. Bähr, in his exposition of the Books of Kings), and accordingly we have given the title of "Ethico fundamental principles related to the history of salvation" to the section ordinarily devoted to that object, and in the same connection we have noticed the apologetic questions that presented themselves, and also have indicated what was suitable for practical and homiletical treatment, in addition to the features designated by that heading.

We have devoted an especially careful attention, as in the case of our former exposition of the Song of Solomon, to the history and literature of the exposition of this prophet, both as a whole and with reference to its principal parts severally. Especially has the history of the exposition of the difficult and important vision of the 70 weeks of years, (chap. ix., 24-27,) leen sketched by us as thoroughly as was possible, more thoroughly, we believe, than in any of the recent and latest commentaries on Daniel.

Of the most recent exegetical and critical literature on this prophet, it was unfortunately impossible to notice two works that appeared while this book was in press: the commentary of Keil (in Keil and Delitzsch's Bible-work on the O. T.), and the monograph by P. Caspari, Zur Einführung in das Buch Daniel (Leipsic, Dörffling und Franke).

May our attempt to add a further new and independent contribution to the exegetical literature on the most mysterious and difficult of all the prophets, which has recently been enriched by somewhat numerous, and in some respects not unimportant treatises, find that tolerant reception, at least on the part of Bible students who share our views in substance, which it may appropriately claim, in view of the unusual difficulty attending the execution of its object.

Greifswald, April, 1869.

DR. ZÖCKLER

THE PROPHET DANIEL.

INTRODUCTION.

1. THE BOOK OF DANIEL, CONSIDERED AS A PROTOTYPE OF THE CANONICAL APOCALYPSE THE peculiarities of the book of Daniel, which explain, on the one hand, its position in the Jewish canon among the historical Hagiographa, and, on the other, its being classed in the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Luther, with the writings of the greater prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, are both internal and external. They arise chiefly from the circumstance that the writer lived and wrought in Babylonia, not as a member of the community of exiled Jews, but as a naturalized Babylonian at the court of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors-not, like Ezekiel, discharging priestly functions among his people, but performing duty as an officer of the state and chief of the Magi. He was thus possessed of honors and emoluments akin to those of Joseph, his patriarchal prototype, at the court of the Egyptian Pharaoh; but his removal, at a later date, from his prominent position, and his death, not long after the overthrow of the Chaldæan dynasty by the Persians, prevented his exerting a decisive influence on the welfare of his people.

The book of Daniel's prophecies owes its origin to a period of the deepest national misery of the people of God—a time of the profoundest degradation and confusion, which finds its only parallel in the condition of Israel, when, wholly separated from its native soil, it languished in Egypt, the ignominious "house of bondage" and oppressive "iron furnace" (Deut. v. 5; iv. 20; 1 Kings viii. 51; Jer. xi. 4); but this earlier period has its counterpart here, not only retrospectively as regards the severity of the judgment and humiliation, but also prospectively as respects the abundance of gracious visitation, and the wonderful displays of the Divine power, love, and faithfulness. Both the humiliation and the glory present in the humiliation are revealed in these prophecies. The first or historical division of the book records chiefly the miracles by which the grace of God was magnified in those who remained faithful during years of apostasy, suffering, and banishment. The comfortless condition and utter degeneracy of the nation are seen principally in the second part, the visions and prophetical pictures of which describe the present and immediate future as a period of severe oppression, universal apostasy, and unquestioned supremacy of the world-powers arrayed against God, at the close of which period the Messianic æra of salvation is finally introduced. According to this division the whole consists of two books-one of narratives (chap. i.-vi.), and the other of visions (chap. vii.-xii.)—which are about equal in length. This circumstance forms a marked peculiarity of Daniel, as compared with the other prophetical books of the Old Testament, which sometimes interweave the historical element with the prophetical (e.g., Amos, Isa., Jer., etc.), and at others, either reduce the former to narrow limits (e.g., Joel, Micah, Zechariah, etc.), or bring it into such prominence as to exclude the office of the seer (Jonah). This balance between narrative and prophecy, which exists only in Daniel, has its explanation in the

origin of the book in a strange land and in a time of exile-circumstances which forbade an arrangement in direct and perfect harmony with the form of prophetical literature in general. These circumstances also serve to account for peculiarities in the language of the book; for its composition, to the extent of about one-half in Hebrew, and the remainder (chap. ii. 4 b.-chap. vii.) in the Aramæan or Chaldee idiom, which gradually, and as a consequence of the Babylonian captivity and of the Persian supremacy, became the language of the Palestinian Jews, is due solely to its origin, not only in a time of exile, but among the scenes of the exile, and at the court of the barbarous conquerors. The historical book of Ezra, which appeared immedi ately at the close of the exile, is the only one of the Old-Testament Scriptures which shares this peculiarity of language, while the prophetical books (e.g., Jeremiah, which originated at the time of the exile and when its author was in constant intercourse with the Babylonians), merely contain isolated Aramaan words or paragraphs (see especially Jer. x. 11).

The peculiar literary traits and theological contents of this book, especially in its second or prophetical part, likewise find their explanation in its origin among the scenes of the captivity. The prophecies of Daniel, conveyed generally in the form of dreams and visions, and nowhere enforced by inspired addresses or exhortations, and concerning themselves chiefly, if not exclusively, with the fate of the all-controlling world-power, on the one hand, and, on the other, with the final triumph of the Messianic kingdom of God, are thus distinguished from the earlier prophetical writings by peculiarities which mark the book as the pattern for the socalled apocalyptic prophecies. In ordinary prophecies the people of God had usually occupied the foreground of vision, while the world-powers by which they were threatened, were only noticed incidentally, and made the objects of "burdens" or threatening prophecies, as isolated representatives of the spirit that opposes God. Daniel, on the contrary, takes his posi tion in the heart of that world-power, which had overthrown and subjugated all the nations of the East, and among them the chosen race. From this point of vision he foretells the rise of a new world-kingdom, which shall destroy the present empire, to be followed, in turn, by another and still greater power, and so on to the end, when an eternal kingdom of truth and righteousness shall be established on their ruins, by the direct interference of the God of heaven. The result of all earthly development, and the succession of judgments visited on the enemies of God's people, closing with the Messianic or general judgment, form the subject of this prophecy; and the grandeur of its field of vision, compassing all history and embracing the world, together with the visional clothing of its teaching and the profound symbolism of its eschatological descriptions, constitute the features which stamp it as an apocalypse, in distinction from all earlier prophecy. Within the Old Testament, this form of prophetical writing is approached by the closing chapters of Ezekiel (xl.-xlviii.), but it is directly represented only in the former half of Zechariah (chap. i.-viii.), where the model found in Daniel was probably copied. In the New Testament it is found, if we except certain brief sections in the Gospels and Pauline epistles (the eschatological discourse in Matt. xxiv., xxv., and parallel passages, and 2 Thess. ii.), only in the Revelation of St. John, which is a direct copy and continuation of the prophecies of Daniel.

These peculiarities, as numerous as they are apparent and significant, explain why the book of Daniel was separated [in the Hebrew Bible] from the other prophets and placed among the Hagiographa, when the Old-Testament canon was formed. Its internal features, consisting in an embrace of all history with an eschatological aim, joined to a visional and symbolical dress, which stamp it as the model of all Biblical (and extra-Biblical or apocryphal) apocalypse, would not of themselves have compelled such a separation; since many of the later prophetical writings display clear transitions in matter and form to the field of apocalypse, and permit the distinction between this ripest fruit of Scriptural prophetical development and prophecy in the narrower sense, to appear as the result of the gradual growth. The decisive reason for the disposition made of this book, must be found in its peculiar division into historical and prophetical parts, and in its composition in Hebrew and Aramaic. This appears with irrefragable certainty from its assignment to a place immediately before Ezra, the only other book in the canon which frames in Chaldce a section of considerable extent between the Hebrew portions of its text.

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