2:12 Because of this the king got furiously angry 2 and gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. 2:13 So a decree went out, and the wise men were about 3 to be executed. They also sought 4 Daniel and his friends so that they could be executed.
2:16 When Herod 5 saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he became enraged. He sent men 6 to kill all the children in Bethlehem 7 and throughout the surrounding region from the age of two and under, according to the time he had learned from the wise men.
1 tn Aram “whose dwelling is not with flesh.”
2 tn Aram “was angry and very furious.” The expression is a hendiadys (two words or phrases expressing a single idea).
3 tn The Aramaic participle is used here to express the imminent future.
4 tn The impersonal active plural (“they sought”) of the Aramaic verb could also be translated as an English passive: “Daniel and his friends were sought” (cf. NAB).
5 sn See the note on King Herod in 2:1. Note the fulfillment of the prophecy given by the angel in 2:13.
6 tn Or “soldiers.”
7 map For location see Map5-B1; Map7-E2; Map8-E2; Map10-B4.
8 sn According to John 11:53 the Jewish leadership had already planned to kill Jesus. This plot against Lazarus apparently never got beyond the planning stage, however, since no further mention is made of it by the author.
9 tn Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the residents of Jerusalem who had heard about the resurrection of Lazarus and as a result were embracing Jesus as Messiah. See also the note on the phrase “Judeans” in v. 9.