4:1 (3:31) 1 “King Nebuchadnezzar, to all peoples, nations, and language groups that live in all the land: Peace and prosperity! 2
6:25 Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and language groups who were living in all the land: “Peace and prosperity! 3
8:9 The king’s scribes were quickly 4 summoned – in the third month (that is, the month of Sivan), on the twenty-third day. 5 They wrote out 6 everything that Mordecai instructed to the Jews and to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces all the way from India to Ethiopia 7 – a hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all – to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language, and to the Jews according to their own script and their own language.
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.
2 tn Aram “May your peace increase!”
3 tn Aram “May your peace be increased!”
4 tn Heb “in that time”; NIV “At once.”
5 sn Cf. 3:12. Two months and ten days have passed since Haman’s edict to wipe out the Jews.
6 tn Heb “it was written”; this passive construction has been converted to an active one in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.
7 tn Heb “Cush” (so NIV), referring to the region of the upper Nile in Africa. Cf. KJV and most other English versions “Ethiopia.”