Isaiah 44:25

44:25 who frustrates the omens of the empty talkers ¹ 

and humiliates ²  the omen readers,

who overturns the counsel of the wise men ³ 

and makes their advice ⁴  seem foolish,

Daniel 2:2-10

2:2 The king issued an order ⁵  to summon the magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, and wise men ⁶  in order to explain his dreams to him. ⁷  So they came and awaited the king’s instructions. ⁸ 

2:3 The king told them, “I have had a dream, ⁹  and I ¹⁰  am anxious to understand the dream.” 2:4 The wise men replied to the king: [What follows is in Aramaic ¹¹ ] “O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will disclose its ¹²  interpretation.” 2:5 The king replied ¹³  to the wise men, “My decision is firm. ¹⁴  If you do not inform me of both the dream and its interpretation, you will be dismembered ¹⁵  and your homes reduced to rubble! 2:6 But if you can disclose the dream and its interpretation, you will receive from me gifts, a reward, and considerable honor. So disclose to me the dream and its interpretation!” 2:7 They again replied, “Let the king inform us ¹⁶  of the dream; then we will disclose its ¹⁷  interpretation.” 2:8 The king replied, “I know for sure that you are attempting to gain time, because you see that my decision is firm. 2:9 If you don’t inform me of the dream, there is only one thing that is going to happen to you. ¹⁸  For you have agreed among yourselves to report to me something false and deceitful ¹⁹  until such time as things might change. So tell me the dream, and I will have confidence ²⁰  that you can disclose its interpretation.”

2:10 The wise men replied to the king, “There is no man on earth who is able to disclose the king’s secret, ²¹  for no king, regardless of his position and power, has ever requested such a thing from any magician, astrologer, or wise man.

Daniel 5:7-8

5:7 The king called out loudly ²²  to summon ²³  the astrologers, wise men, and diviners. The king proclaimed ²⁴  to the wise men of Babylon that anyone who could read this inscription and disclose its interpretation would be clothed in purple ²⁵  and have a golden collar ²⁶  placed on his neck and be third ruler in the kingdom.

5:8 So all the king’s wise men came in, but they were unable to read the writing or to make known its ²⁷  interpretation to the king.

Daniel 5:15-16

5:15 Now the wise men and ²⁸  astrologers were brought before me to read this writing and make known to me its interpretation. But they were unable to disclose the interpretation of the message. 5:16 However, I have heard ²⁹  that you are able to provide interpretations and to decipher knotty problems. Now if you are able to read this writing and make known to me its interpretation, you will wear purple and have a golden collar around your neck and be third ³⁰  ruler in the kingdom.”

Daniel 5:30

5:30 And in that very night Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, ³¹  was killed. ³² 

[44:25]  ¹ tc The Hebrew text has בַּדִּים (baddim), perhaps meaning “empty talkers” (BDB 95 s.v. III בַּד). In the four other occurrences of this word (Job 11:3; Isa 16:6; Jer 48:30; 50:36) the context does not make the meaning of the term very clear. Its primary point appears to be that the words spoken are meaningless or false. In light of its parallelism with “omen readers,” some have proposed an emendation to בָּרִים (barim, “seers”). The Mesopotamian baru-priests were divination specialists who played an important role in court life. See R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel, 93-98. Rather than supporting an emendation, J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 2:189, n. 79) suggests that Isaiah used בַּדִּים purposively as a derisive wordplay on the Akkadian word baru (in light of the close similarity of the d and r consonants).

[44:25]  ² tn Or “makes fools of” (NIV, NRSV); NAB and NASB both similar.

[44:25]  ³ tn Heb “who turns back the wise” (so NRSV); NIV “overthrows the learning of the wise”; TEV “The words of the wise I refute.”

[44:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “their knowledge” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[2:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “said.” So also in v. 12.

[2:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” The term Chaldeans (Hebrew כַּשְׂדִּים, kasdim) is used in the book of Daniel both in an ethnic sense and, as here, to refer to a caste of Babylonian wise men and astrologers.

[2:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “to explain to the king his dreams.”

[2:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “stood before the king.”

[2:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “I have dreamed a dream” (so KJV, ASV).

[2:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “my spirit.”

[2:4]  ¹¹ 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.

[2:4]  ¹² tn Or “the.”

[2:5]  ¹³ tn Aram “answered and said,” a common idiom to indicate a reply, but redundant in contemporary English.

[2:5]  ¹⁴ tn It seems clear from what follows that Nebuchadnezzar clearly recalls the content of the dream, although obviously he does not know what to make of it. By not divulging the dream itself to the would-be interpreters, he intends to find out whether they are simply leading him on. If they can tell him the dream’s content, which he is able to verify, he then can have confidence in their interpretation, which is what eludes him. The translation “the matter is gone from me” (cf. KJV, ASV), suggesting that the king had simply forgotten the dream, is incorrect. The Aramaic word used here (אַזְדָּא, ’azda’) is probably of Persian origin; it occurs in the OT only here and in v. 8. There are two main possibilities for the meaning of the word: “the matter is promulgated by me” (see KBL 1048 s.v.) and therefore “publicly known” (cf. NRSV; F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 62-63, §189), or “the matter is irrevocable” (cf. NAB, NIV, TEV, CEV, NLT; HALOT 1808 s.v. אזד; cf. also BDB 1079 s.v.). The present translation reflects this latter option. See further E. Vogt, Lexicon linguae aramaicae, 3.

[2:5]  ¹⁵ tn Aram “made limbs.” Cf. 3:29.

[2:7]  ¹⁶ tn Aram “his servants.”

[2:7]  ¹⁷ tn Or “the.”

[2:9]  ¹⁸ tn Aram “one is your law,” i.e., only one thing is applicable to you.

[2:9]  ¹⁹ tn Aram “a lying and corrupt word.”

[2:9]  ²⁰ tn Aram “I will know.”

[2:10]  ²¹ tn Aram “matter, thing.”

[5:7]  ²² tn Aram “in strength.”

[5:7]  ²³ tn Aram “cause to enter.”

[5:7]  ²⁴ tn Aram “answered and said.”

[5:7]  ²⁵ sn Purple was a color associated with royalty in the ancient world.

[5:7]  ²⁶ tn The term translated “golden collar” here probably refers to something more substantial than merely a gold chain (cf. NIV, NCV, NRSV, NLT) or necklace (cf. NASB).

[5:8]  ²⁷ tc Read וּפִשְׁרֵהּ (ufishreh) with the Qere rather than וּפִשְׁרָא (ufishra’) of the Kethib.

[5:15]  ²⁸ tn The Aramaic text does not have “and.” The term “astrologers” is either an appositive for “wise men” (cf. KJV, NKJV, ASV, RSV, NRSV), or the construction is to be understood as asyndetic (so the translation above).

[5:16]  ²⁹ tn The Aramaic text has also the words “about you.”

[5:16]  ³⁰ tn Or perhaps “one of three rulers,” in the sense of becoming part of a triumvir. So also v. 29.

[5:30]  ³¹ tn Aram “king of the Chaldeans.”

[5:30]  ³² sn The year was 539 B.C. At this time Daniel would have been approximately eighty-one years old. The relevant extra-biblical records describing the fall of Babylon include portions of Herodotus, Xenophon, Berossus (cited in Josephus), the Cyrus Cylinder, and the Babylonian Chronicle.