5:10 Due to the noise 6 caused by the king and his nobles, the queen mother 7 then entered the banquet room. She 8 said, “O king, live forever! Don’t be alarmed! Don’t be shaken!
6:6 So these supervisors and satraps came by collusion 9 to the king and said 10 to him, “O King Darius, live forever!
6:21 Then Daniel spoke to 11 the king, “O king, live forever!
1 tn Heb “bowed low, face [to] the ground, and bowed down to the king.”
2 sn Contrary to common belief, the point here is not that the wise men (Chaldeans) replied to the king in the Aramaic language, or that this language was uniquely the language of the Chaldeans. It was this view that led in the past to Aramaic being referred to as “Chaldee.” Aramaic was used as a lingua franca during this period; its origins and usage were not restricted to the Babylonians. Rather, this phrase is better understood as an editorial note (cf. NAB) marking the fact that from 2:4b through 7:28 the language of the book shifts from Hebrew to Aramaic. In 8:1, and for the remainder of the book, the language returns to Hebrew. Various views have been advanced to account for this change of language, most of which are unconvincing. Most likely the change in language is a reflection of stages in the transmission history of the book of Daniel.
3 tn Or “the.”
4 tn Aram “answered and said,” a common Aramaic idiom that occurs repeatedly in this chapter.
5 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.
6 tn Aram “words of the king.”
7 tn Aram “the queen” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). In the following discourse this woman is able to recall things about Daniel that go back to the days of Nebuchadnezzar, things that Belshazzar does not seem to recollect. It is likely that she was the wife not of Belshazzar but of Nabonidus or perhaps even Nebuchadnezzar. In that case, “queen” here means “queen mother” (cf. NCV “the king’s mother”).
8 tn Aram “The queen.” The translation has used the pronoun “she” instead because repetition of the noun here would be redundant in terms of English style.
9 tn The Aramaic verb רְגַשׁ (rÿgash) occurs three times in this chapter (vv. 7, 12, 16). Its meaning is widely disputed by commentators, and the versions vary considerably in how they render the word. The suggestion that it means “to come thronging” (BDB 1112 s.v.; cf. NAB) seems inappropriate, since it is unlikely that subordinates would enter a royal court in such a reckless fashion. The ancient versions struggled with the word and are not in agreement in their understanding of its meaning. In this chapter the word apparently means to act in agreement with other parties in the pursuit of a duplicitous goal, namely the entrapment of Daniel. Cf. NIV, NCV “went as a group”; NRSV “conspired and came to the king.”
10 tn Aram “thus they were saying.”
11 tn Aram “with.”