4:4 (4:1) 1 I, Nebuchadnezzar, was relaxing in my home, 2 living luxuriously 3 in my palace.
7:15 “As for me, Daniel, my spirit was distressed, 4 and the visions of my mind 5 were alarming me.
7:28 “This is the conclusion of the matter. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts troubled me greatly, and the color drained from my face. 8 But I kept the matter to myself.” 9
2:23 O God of my fathers, I acknowledge and glorify you,
for you have bestowed wisdom and power on me.
Now you have enabled me to understand what I 10 requested from you.
For you have enabled me to understand the king’s dilemma.” 11
4:18 “This is the dream that I, King Nebuchadnezzar, saw. Now you, Belteshazzar, declare its 17 interpretation, for none of the wise men in 18 my kingdom are able to make known to me the interpretation. But you can do so, for a spirit of the holy gods is in you.”
4:34 But at the end of the appointed time 19 I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked up 20 toward heaven, and my sanity returned to me.
I extolled the Most High,
and I praised and glorified the one who lives forever.
For his authority is an everlasting authority,
and his kingdom extends from one generation to the next.
1 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
2 tn Aram “my house.”
3 tn Aram “happy.”
4 tn The Aramaic text includes the phrase “in its sheath,” apparently viewing the body as a container or receptacle for the spirit somewhat like a sheath or scabbard is for a knife or a sword (cf. NAB “within its sheath of flesh”). For this phrase the LXX and Vulgate have “in these things.”
5 tn Aram “head.”
7 tn Aram “house.”
8 tn Aram “by the might of my strength.”
10 tn Aram “my brightness was changing on me.”
11 tn Aram “in my heart.”
13 tn Aram “we.” Various explanations have been offered for the plural, but it is probably best understood as the editorial plural; so also with “me” later in this verse.
14 tn Aram “the word of the king.”
16 tn Aram “not for any wisdom which is in me more than [in] any living man.”
17 tn Aram “they might cause the king to know.” The impersonal plural is used here to refer to the role of God’s spirit in revealing the dream and its interpretation to the king. As J. A. Montgomery says, “it appropriately here veils the mysterious agency” (Daniel [ICC], 164-65).
18 tn Aram “heart.”
19 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.”
22 tc The present translation assumes the reading חֲזִי (khazi, “consider”) rather than the MT חֶזְוֵי (khezvey, “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.
25 tc The present translation reads פִּשְׁרֵהּ (pishreh, “its interpretation”) with the Qere and many medieval Hebrew
26 tn Aram “of.”
28 tn Aram “days.”
29 tn Aram “lifted up my eyes.”
31 tn Aram “walk.”
34 tn The Aramaic text has also the words “about you.”
35 tn Or perhaps “one of three rulers,” in the sense of becoming part of a triumvir. So also v. 29.