5:13 So Daniel was brought in before the king. The king said to Daniel, “Are you that Daniel who is one of the captives of Judah, whom my father the king brought from Judah?
9:7 “You are righteous, 11 O Lord, but we are humiliated this day 12 – the people 13 of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far away in all the countries in which you have scattered them, because they have behaved unfaithfully toward you.
8:27 I, Daniel, was exhausted 24 and sick for days. Then I got up and again carried out the king’s business. But I was astonished at the vision, and there was no one to explain it.
1 tn Aram “[there were] discovered to be in him.”
2 tn Aram “wisdom like the wisdom.” This would be redundant in terms of English style.
3 tc Theodotion lacks the phrase “and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods.”
4 tc The MT includes a redundant reference to “your father the king” at the end of v. 11. None of the attempts to explain this phrase as original are very convincing. The present translation deletes the phrase, following Theodotion and the Syriac.
5 tn Or “royal greatness and majestic honor,” if the four terms are understood as a double hendiadys.
6 tn Or perhaps, “when he had tasted” (cf. NASB) in the sense of officially initiating the commencement of the banquet. The translation above seems preferable, however, given the clear evidence of inebriation in the context (cf. also CEV “he got drunk and ordered”).
7 tn Or “ancestor”; or “predecessor” (also in vv. 11, 13, 18). The Aramaic word translated “father” can on occasion denote these other relationships.
8 tn Or “taken.”
9 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
10 sn Making use of sacred temple vessels for an occasion of reveling and drunkenness such as this would have been a religious affront of shocking proportions to the Jewish captives.
11 tn Heb “to you (belongs) righteousness.”
12 tn Heb “and to us (belongs) shame of face like this day.”
13 tn Heb “men.”
14 tc This phrase, repeated from v. 1, is absent in Theodotion.
15 tn The Hebrew text has “books”; the word “sacred” has been added in the translation to clarify that it is Scriptures that are referred to.
16 sn The tetragrammaton (the four Hebrew letters which constitute the divine Name, YHWH) appears eight times in this chapter, and nowhere else in the book of Daniel.
17 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
18 tn The Hebrew term has a primary meaning of “skill, insight,” but here it has the connotation “cunning, treachery.” See BDB 968 s.v. שֵׂכֶל, שֶׂכֶל.
19 tn Heb “he will cause deceit to succeed by his hand.”
20 tn Heb “in his heart he will act arrogantly.”
21 tn Heb “in peace.” The Hebrew word used here is difficult. It may refer to the security felt by those who did not realize the danger of imminent attack, or it may refer to the condition of being unaware of the impending danger. The latter idea is reflected in the present translation. See further, BDB 1017 s.v. שַׁלְוָה.
22 tn Heb “with nothingness of hand.”
23 tn Heb “truth.”
24 tn The Hebrew word here is נִהְיֵיתִי (nihyetiy). Its meaning is not entirely clear. Hebrew הָיָה (hayah) normally has meanings such as “to be” or “become.” Here, however, it describes Daniel’s emotional and physical response to the enigmatic vision that he has seen. It is parallel to the following verb, which refers to illness, and seems to refer to a state of utter exhaustion due to the amazing things that Daniel has just seen. The LXX lacks the word. On the meaning of the word see further, BDB 227-28 s.v. הָיָה Niph.2; DCH 2:540 s.v. היה I Ni.3.
25 tn Heb “the.”
26 sn Susa (Heb. שׁוּשַׁן, shushan), located some 230 miles (380 km) east of Babylon, was a winter residence for Persian kings during the Achaemenid period. The language of v. 2 seems to suggest that Daniel may not have been physically present at Susa, but only saw himself there in the vision. However, the Hebrew is difficult, and some have concluded that the first four words of v. 2 in the MT are a later addition (cf. Theodotion).
27 tn The Hebrew word בִּירָה (birah, “castle, palace”) usually refers to a fortified structure within a city, but here it is in apposition to the city name Susa and therefore has a broader reference to the entire city (against this view, however, see BDB 108 s.v. 2). Cf. NAB “the fortress of Susa”; TEV “the walled city of Susa.”
28 tn The term אוּבַל (’uval = “stream, river”) is a relatively rare word in biblical Hebrew, found only here and in vv. 3 and 6. The Ulai was apparently a sizable artificial canal in Susa (cf. NASB, NIV, NCV), and not a river in the ordinary sense of that word.
29 tn Heb “on his place.”
30 sn The one who will send out an exactor of tribute was Seleucus IV Philopator (ca. 187-176
31 sn Perhaps this exactor of tribute was Heliodorus (cf. 2 Maccabees 3).
32 tn Heb “broken” or “shattered.”
33 tn Heb “the wine of their drinking.”
34 tn The words “from their diet” are not in the Hebrew text but have been added in the translation for clarity.
35 sn This is a figure that emphasizes that they will serve for a long time but not for an unlimited duration. The kingdom of Babylon lasted a relatively short time by ancient standards. It lasted from 605
36 tn Heb “until the time of his land, even his, comes.” The independent pronoun is placed here for emphasis on the possessive pronoun. The word “time” is used by substitution for the things that are done in it (compare in the NT John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20 “his hour had not yet come”).
37 tn Heb “him.” This is a good example of the figure of substitution where the person is put for his descendants or the nation or subject he rules. (See Gen 28:13-14 for another good example and Acts 22:7 in the NT.)