Footnotes

1. Daniel 3:1 sn The LXX introduces this chapter with the following chronological note: “in the eighteenth year of.” Such a date would place these events at about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 b.c. (cf. 2 Kgs 25:8). However, there seems to be no real basis for associating the events of Daniel 3 with this date.
2. Daniel 3:1 sn There is no need to think of Nebuchadnezzar’s image as being solid gold. No doubt the sense is that it was overlaid with gold (cf. Isa 40:19; Jer 10:3-4), with the result that it presented a dazzling self-compliment to the greatness of Nebuchadnezzar’s achievements.
3. Daniel 3:1 sn According to a number of patristic authors, the image represented a deification of Nebuchadnezzar himself. This is not clear from the biblical text, however.
4. Daniel 3:1 tn Aram “60 cubits.” Assuming a length of 18 inches for the standard cubit, the image would be 90 feet (27.4 m) high.
5. Daniel 3:1 tn Aram “6 cubits.” Assuming a length of 18 inches for the standard cubit, the image would be 9 feet (2.74 m) wide.sn The dimensions of the image (90 feet high and 9 feet wide) imply that it did not possess normal human proportions, unless a base for the image is included in the height dimension. The ancient world knew of other tall statues. For example, the Colossus of Rhodes—the huge statue of Helios which stood (ca. 280-224 b.c.) at the entrance to the harbor at Rhodes and was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world—was said to be 70 cubits (105 ft or 32 m) in height, which would make it even taller than Nebuchadnezzar’s image.
6. Daniel 3:2 sn The specific duties of the seven types of officials listed here (cf. vv. 3, 27) are unclear. The Aramaic words that are used are transliterations of Akkadian or Persian technical terms whose exact meanings are uncertain. The translations given here follow suggestions set forth in BDB.
7. Daniel 3:2 tn Aram “Nebuchadnezzar the king.” The proper name and title have been replaced by the relative pronoun (“he”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.
8. Daniel 3:3 tc The LXX and Theodotion lack the words “that Nebuchadnezzar had erected.”
9. Daniel 3:4 tn According to BDB 1097 s.v. כָּרוֹז the Aramaic word used here is a Greek loanword, but other scholars have argued instead for a Persian derivation (HALOT 1902 s.v. *כָּרוֹז).
10. Daniel 3:4 tn Aram “in strength.”
11. Daniel 3:4 tn Aram “they are saying.”
12. Daniel 3:5 sn The word zither (Aramaic קִיתָרוֹס [qitaros]), and the words for harp (Aramaic פְּסַנְתֵּרִין [p^esanterin]) and pipes (Aramaic סוּמְפֹּנְיָה [sumpon^eyah]), are of Greek derivation. Though much has been made of this in terms of suggesting a date in the Hellenistic period for the writing of the book, it is not surprising that a few Greek cultural terms, all of them the names of musical instruments, should appear in this book. As a number of scholars have pointed out, the bigger surprise (if, in fact, the book is to be dated to the Hellenistic period) may be that there are so few Greek loanwords in Daniel.
13. Daniel 3:5 tn The imperfect Aramaic verbs have here an injunctive nuance.
14. Daniel 3:6 tn Aram “in that hour.”
15. Daniel 3:7 tn Aram “all the peoples.”
16. Daniel 3:7 tc Though not in the Aramaic text of BHS, this word appears in many medieval Hebrew mss, some LXX mss, and the Vulgate (cf. vv. 5, 10, 15).
17. Daniel 3:8 tc This expression is absent in Theodotion.
18. Daniel 3:8 tn Aram “men.”
19. Daniel 3:8 tn Aram “ate the pieces of.” This is a rather vivid idiom for slander.
20. Daniel 3:9 tn Aram “answered and said,” a common Aramaic idiom that occurs repeatedly in this chapter.
21. Daniel 3:9 sn O king, live forever! is a comment of typical court courtesy that is not necessarily indicative of the real sentiments of the speaker. Ancient oriental court protocol could sometimes require a certain amount of hypocrisy.
22. Daniel 3:12 sn Daniel’s absence from this scene has sparked the imagination of commentators, some of whom have suggested that perhaps he was unable to attend the dedication due to sickness or absence prompted by business. Hippolytus supposed that Daniel may have been watching from a distance.
23. Daniel 3:13 tn Aram “in anger and wrath”; NASB “in rage and anger.” The expression is a hendiadys.
24. Daniel 3:13 tn The Aramaic infinitive is active.
25. Daniel 3:13 tn Aram “these men.” The pronoun is used in the translation to avoid undue repetition.
26. Daniel 3:15 tn Aram “hand,” as also in v. 17.
27. Daniel 3:16 tc In the MT this word is understood to begin the following address (“answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar’”). However, it seems unlikely that Nebuchadnezzar’s subordinates would address the king in such a familiar way, particularly in light of the danger that they now found themselves in. The present translation implies moving the verse-dividing atnakh from “king” to “Nebuchadnezzar.”
28. Daniel 3:16 tn Aram “to return a word to you.”
29. Daniel 3:17 tc The ancient versions typically avoid the conditional element of v. 17.
30. Daniel 3:17 tn The Aramaic expression used here is very difficult to interpret. The question concerns the meaning and syntax of אִיתַי (ʾitay, “is” or “exist”). There are several possibilities. (1) Some interpreters take this word closely with the participle later in the verse יָכִל (yakhil, “able”), understanding the two words to form a periphrastic construction (“if our God is…able”; cf. H. Bauer and P. Leander, Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramäischen, 365, §111b). But the separation of the two elements from one another is not an argument in favor of this understanding. (2) Other interpreters take the first part of v. 17 to mean “If it is so, then our God will deliver us” (cf. KJV, ASV, RSV, NASB). However, the normal sense of ʾitay is existence; on this point see F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 41, §95. The present translation maintains the sense of existence for the verb (“If our God…exists”), even though the statement is admittedly difficult to understand in this light. The statement may be an implicit reference back to Nebuchadnezzar’s comment in v. 15, which denies the existence of a god capable of delivering from the king’s power, thus their statement is rhetorically adapted to the perspective of the person they are addressing.
31. Daniel 3:19 tn Aram “the appearance of his face was altered”; cf. NLT “his face became distorted with rage”; NAB “[his] face became livid with utter rage.”
32. Daniel 3:19 tn Aram “he answered and said.”
33. Daniel 3:20 tn This is sometimes taken as a comparative: “[some of the] strongest.”
34. Daniel 3:21 sn There is a great deal of uncertainty with regard to the specific nature of these items of clothing.
35. Daniel 3:21 tn Aram “into the midst of the furnace.” For stylistic reasons the words “the midst of” have been left untranslated.
36. Daniel 3:22 tn Aram “caused to go up.”
37. Daniel 3:22 tn The Aramaic verb is active.
38. Daniel 3:22 tn Aram “the flame of the fire” (so KJV, ASV, NASB); NRSV “the raging flames.”
39. Daniel 3:23 tn Aram “into the midst of the furnace.” For stylistic reasons the words “the midst of” have been left untranslated.
40. Daniel 3:23 sn The deuterocanonical writings known as The Prayer of Azariah and The Song of the Three present at this point a confession and petition for God’s forgiveness and a celebration of God’s grace for the three Jewish youths in the fiery furnace. Though not found in the Hebrew/Aramaic text of Daniel, these compositions do appear in the ancient Greek versions.
41. Daniel 3:24 tn Aram “we threw…bound.”
42. Daniel 3:24 tn Aram “into the midst of.”
43. Daniel 3:25 sn The phrase like that of a god is in Aramaic “like that of a son of the gods.” Many patristic writers understood this phrase in a christological sense (i.e., “the Son of God”). But it should be remembered that these are words spoken by a pagan who is seeking to explain things from his own polytheistic frame of reference; for him the phrase “like a son of the gods” is equivalent to “like a divine being.” Despite the king’s description though, the fourth person probably was an angel who had come to deliver the three men, or was a theophany.
44. Daniel 3:26 tn Aram “answered and said.”
45. Daniel 3:26 tn Aram “from the midst of the fire.” For stylistic reasons the words “the midst of” have been left untranslated.
46. Daniel 3:27 tn Aram “in their bodies.”
47. Daniel 3:27 tn Aram “the fire did not have power.”
48. Daniel 3:28 tn Aram “answered and said.”
49. Daniel 3:28 sn The king identifies the “son of the gods” (v. 25) as an angel. Comparable Hebrew expressions are used elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible for the members of God’s angelic assembly (see Gen 6:2, 4; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Pss 29:1; 89:6). An angel later comes to rescue Daniel from the lions (Dan 6:22).
50. Daniel 3:28 tn Aram “they changed” or “violated.”
51. Daniel 3:28 tn Aram “so that they might not.”
52. Daniel 3:29 tn Aram “from me is placed an edict.”
53. Daniel 3:29 tn Aram “speaks negligence.”
54. Daniel 3:30 tn Aram “and the king.” The proper name has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
55. Daniel 4:1 sn Beginning with 4:1, the verse numbers through 4:37 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Aramaic text (BHS), with 4:1 ET = 3:31 AT, 4:2 ET = 3:32 AT, 4:3 ET = 3:33 AT, 4:4 ET = 4:1 AT, etc., through 4:37 ET = 4:34 AT. Thus Dan 3:31-33 of the Aramaic text appears as Dan 4:1-3 in the English Bible, and the corresponding verses of ch. 4 differ accordingly. In spite of the division of the Aramaic text, a good case can be made that 3:31-33 AT (= 4:1-3 ET) is actually the introduction to ch. 4.
56. Daniel 4:1 tn Aram “May your peace increase!”
57. Daniel 4:3 tn Aram “His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.”
58. Daniel 4:4 sn This verse marks the beginning of chap. 4 in the Aramaic text of Daniel (see the note on 4:1). The Greek OT (LXX) has the following addition: “In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign he said.” This date would suggest a link to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 b.c. In general, the LXX of chapters 4-6 is very different from the MT, so much so that the following notes will call attention only to selected readings. In Daniel 4 the LXX lacks sizable portions of material in the MT (e.g., vv. 3-6, 31-32), includes sizable portions of material not in the MT (e.g., v. 14a, parts of vv. 16, 28), has a different order of some material (e.g., v. 8 after v. 9), and in some instances is vastly different from the MT (e.g., vv. 30, 34). Whether these differences are due to an excessively paraphrastic translation technique adopted for these chapters in the LXX, or are due to differences in the underlying Vorlage of the LXX, is a disputed matter. The latter seems more likely. There is a growing trend in modern scholarship to take the LXX of chapters 4-6 much more seriously than was the case in most earlier text-critical studies that considered this issue.
59. Daniel 4:4 tn Aram “my house.”
60. Daniel 4:4 tn Aram “happy.”
61. Daniel 4:5 tn Aram “and it.”
62. Daniel 4:6 tn Aram “from me there was placed a decree.”
63. Daniel 4:6 tn The Aramaic infinitive here is active.
64. Daniel 4:8 sn This explanation of the meaning of the name Belteshazzar may be more of a paronomasia than a strict etymology. See the note at 1:7. The king's god was Marduk, who was called Bel (“Lord”).
65. Daniel 4:9 tc The present translation assumes the reading חֲזִי (khazi, “consider”) rather than the MT חֶזְוֵי (khezve, “visions”). The MT implies that the king required Daniel to disclose both the dream and its interpretation, as in chapter 2. But in the following verses Nebuchadnezzar recounts his dream, while Daniel presents only its interpretation.
66. Daniel 4:10 tc The LXX lacks the first two words (Aram “the visions of my head”) of the Aramaic text.
67. Daniel 4:10 tn Instead of “in the middle of the land,” some English versions render this phrase “a tree at the center of the earth” (NRSV); NAB, CEV “of the world”; NLT “in the middle of the earth.” The Hebrew phrase can have either meaning.
68. Daniel 4:10 tn Aram “its height was great.”
69. Daniel 4:11 tn Aram “its sight,” as also v. 17.
70. Daniel 4:11 tn Or “to the end of all the earth” (so KJV, ASV); NCV, CEV “from anywhere on earth.”
71. Daniel 4:12 tn Aram “the beasts of the field.”
72. Daniel 4:12 tn Aram “all flesh.”
73. Daniel 4:13 tn Aram “the visions of my head.”
74. Daniel 4:13 tn Aram “a watcher and a holy one.” The expression is a hendiadys, as also in v. 23. This “watcher” is apparently an angel. The Greek OT (LXX) in fact has ἄγγελος (angelos, “angel”) here. Theodotion simply transliterates the Aramaic word (ʿir). The term is sometimes rendered “sentinel” (NAB) or “messenger” (NIV, NLT).
75. Daniel 4:14 tn Aram “in strength.”
76. Daniel 4:14 tn Aram “and thus he was saying.”
77. Daniel 4:15 tn Aram “the stock of its root,” as also in v. 23. The implication here is that although the tree is chopped down, it is not killed. Its life-giving root is spared. The application to Nebuchadnezzar is obvious.
78. Daniel 4:15 sn The function of the band of iron and bronze is not entirely clear, but it may have had to do with preventing the splitting or further deterioration of the portion of the tree that was left after being chopped down. By application it would then refer to the preservation of Nebuchadnezzar’s life during the time of his insanity.
79. Daniel 4:15 tn Aram “its lot be.”
80. Daniel 4:16 tn Aram “its heart.” The metaphor of the tree begins to fade here and the reality behind the symbol (the king) begins to emerge.
81. Daniel 4:16 sn The seven periods of time probably refer to seven years.
82. Daniel 4:16 tn Aram “over” (also in vv. 23, 25, 32).
83. Daniel 4:17 tc The present translation follows an underlying reading of עַל־דִּבְרַת (ʿal divrat, “so that”) rather than MT עַד־דִּבְרַת (ʿad divrat, “until”).
84. Daniel 4:17 tn Aram “the kingdom of man”; NASB “the realm of mankind”; NCV “every kingdom on earth.”
85. Daniel 4:18 tc The present translation, as also in the next verse, reads פִּשְׁרֵהּ (pishreh, “its interpretation”) with the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss; the Kethib is פִּשְׁרָא (pishraʾ, “the interpretation”).
86. Daniel 4:18 tn Aram “of.”
87. Daniel 4:19 tn Aram “about one hour.” The expression refers idiomatically to a brief period of time of undetermined length.
88. Daniel 4:19 tn Aram “my lord.”
89. Daniel 4:20 tn Aram “its sight.”
90. Daniel 4:21 tn Aram “the beasts of the field” (also in vv. 23, 25, 32).
91. Daniel 4:22 sn Much of modern scholarship views this chapter as a distortion of traditions that were originally associated with Nabonidus rather than with Nebuchadnezzar. A Qumran text, the Prayer of Nabonidus, is often cited for parallels to these events.
92. Daniel 4:25 tn The Aramaic indefinite active plural is used here like the English passive, as also in vv. 28, 29, and 32.
93. Daniel 4:25 tn Aram “from mankind,” as also in v. 32.
94. Daniel 4:25 tn Aram “your dwelling will be,” as also in v. 32.
95. Daniel 4:25 tn Or perhaps: “be made to eat.”
96. Daniel 4:25 sn Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity has features that are associated with the mental disorder boanthropy, in which the person so afflicted imagines himself to be an ox or a similar animal and behaves accordingly.
97. Daniel 4:25 tn Aram “until.”
98. Daniel 4:26 sn The reference to heaven here is a circumlocution for God. There was a tendency in Jewish contexts to avoid direct reference to God. Compare the expression “kingdom of heaven” in the NT and such statements as: “I have sinned against heaven and in your sight” (Luke 15:21).
99. Daniel 4:27 tn Aram “if there may be a lengthening to your prosperity.”
100. Daniel 4:28 tn Aram “reached.”
101. Daniel 4:29 tn The word “battlements” is not in the text but is supplied from context. Many English versions supply “roof” here (e.g., NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); cf. NLT “on the flat roof.”
102. Daniel 4:30 tn Aram “house.”
103. Daniel 4:30 tn Aram “by the might of my strength.”
104. Daniel 4:31 tn Aram “in the mouth of the king.”
105. Daniel 4:31 tn Aram “to you they say.”
106. Daniel 4:32 tn Aram “until.”
107. Daniel 4:33 tn Aram “hour.”
108. Daniel 4:33 tn Or “on.”
109. Daniel 4:33 tn Aram “was fulfilled.”
110. Daniel 4:33 tn The words “feathers” and “claws” are not present in the Aramaic text, but have been added in the translation for clarity.
111. Daniel 4:34 tn Aram “days.”
112. Daniel 4:34 tn Aram “lifted up my eyes.”
113. Daniel 4:35 tc The present translation reads כְּלָא (k^elaʾ), with many medieval Hebrew mss, rather than כְּלָה (k^elah) of BHS.
114. Daniel 4:35 tn Aram “strikes against.”
115. Daniel 4:36 tc The translation reads הַדְרֵת (hadret, “I returned”) rather than the MT הַדְרִי (hadri, “my honor”); cf. Theodotion.
116. Daniel 4:36 tc The translation reads הָתְקְנֵת (hotq^enet, “I was established”) rather than the MT הָתְקְנַת (hotq^enat, “it was established”). The MT could read: “And regarding my kingdom, it was established.”
117. Daniel 4:37 tn Aram “walk.”