Daniel 2
Daniel 2 | |
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← chapter 3 → | |
Book | Book of Daniel |
Category | Ketuvim |
Christian Bible part | Old Testament |
Order in the Christian part | 27 |
Daniel 2 (the second chapter of the Book of Daniel) tells how Daniel related and interpreted a dream of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon. In his night dream, the king saw a gigantic statue made of four metals, from its head of gold to its feet of mingled iron and clay; as he watched, a stone "not cut by human hands" destroyed the statue and became a mountain filling the whole world. Daniel explained to the king that the statue represented four successive kingdoms beginning with Babylon, while the stone and mountain signified a kingdom established by God which would never be destroyed nor given to another people. Nebuchadnezzar then acknowledges the supremacy of Daniel's God and raises him to high office in Babylon.[1]
The book divides into two parts, a set of tales in chapters 1–6, and the series of visions in chapters 7–12.[2] The book itself claims to have been written in the sixth century BCE. In the academic consensus, the tales date no earlier than the Hellenistic period (323–30 BCE), and the visions from the Maccabean era (the mid-2nd century BCE).[3] Chapter 2 in its present form dates from no earlier than the first decades of the Seleucid Empire (312–63 BCE), but its roots may reach back to the Fall of Babylon (539 BCE) and the rise of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (c. 550–330 BCE).[4]
The overall theme of the Book of Daniel is God's sovereignty over history.[5] On the human level Daniel is set against the Babylonian magicians who fail to interpret the king's dream, but the cosmic conflict is between the God of Israel and the false Babylonian gods.[6] What counts is not Daniel's human gifts, nor his education in the arts of divination, but "Divine Wisdom" and the power that belongs to God alone, as Daniel indicates when he urges his companions to seek God's mercy for the interpretation of the king's dreams.[7]
Biblical narrative
In the second year of his reign,
Composition and structure
Book of Daniel
It is generally accepted that the
- A. (2:4b-49) – A dream of four kingdoms replaced by a fifth
- B. (3:1–30) – Daniel's three friends in the fiery furnace
- C. (4:1–37) – Daniel interprets a dream for Nebuchadnezzar
- C'. (5:1–31) – Daniel interprets the handwriting on the wall for Belshazzar
- B'. (6:1–28) – Daniel in the lions' den
- B. (3:1–30) – Daniel's three friends in the fiery furnace
- A'. (7:1–28) – A vision of four world kingdoms replaced by a fifth
Daniel 2
Daniel 2 forms a chiasmus within the larger structure of Daniel 2–7:[12]
- A. Introduction (v.1)
- B. The king and his unwise courtiers (vv.2–12)
- C. Daniel and Arioch (vv.13–16)
- D. Daniel and his friends pray to God (vv.17–23)
- C'. Daniel and Arioch (vv.24–25)
- C. Daniel and Arioch (vv.13–16)
- B'. The king and Daniel, the wise courtier (vv.26–47)
- B. The king and his unwise courtiers (vv.2–12)
- A'. Result (vv.48–49)
Chapter 1 and the first few lines of chapter 2 are in Hebrew, but in verse 4 the text says, in Hebrew, "Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic," and the book then continues in Aramaic until the end of chapter 7, where it switches back to Hebrew. No convincing explanation for this has been put forward.[13]
Chapter 2 in its present form dates from no earlier than the first decades of the
Genre and themes
Genre
The Book of Daniel is an apocalypse, a literary genre in which a heavenly reality is revealed to a human recipient; such works are characterized by visions, symbolism, an other-worldly mediator, an emphasis on cosmic events, angels and demons, and pseudonymity (false authorship).[15] Apocalypses were common from 300 BCE to 100 CE, not only among Jews and Christians, but Greeks, Romans, Persians and Egyptians.[16] Daniel, the book's hero, is a representative apocalyptic seer, the recipient of the divine revelation: has learned the wisdom of the Babylonian magicians and surpassed them, because his God is the true source of knowledge; he is one of the maskil, the wise, whose task is to teach righteousness.[16] The book is also an eschatology, meaning a divine revelation concerning the end of the present age, a moment in which God will intervene in history to usher in the final kingdom.[17]
Daniel 2 exhibits both these genres, but it is also made up numerous subgenres: a court tale, a dream report, a legend, an aretalogy, a doxology, and a midrash.[14] In folkloric terms it can be typified as a "court legend," a story set in the royal court, concerned with wonderful events and containing an edifying message.[18] The plot of such tales (another example is the story of Joseph and Pharaoh in Genesis 41) is as follows: a person of low status is called before a person of high status to answer a difficult question or to solve a riddle; the high-status person poses the problem but none present can solve; the person of low status solves it and is rewarded.[19]
Themes
The overall theme of the Book of Daniel is God's sovereignty over history,[5] and the theme of the tales in chapters 1–6 is that God is sovereign over all earthly kings.[20] In Daniel 2 these two merge, and the claim of God's sovereignty extends beyond the immediate story to take in all of history.[20] On the human level Daniel is set against the Babylonian magicians who fail to interpret the king's dream, but the cosmic conflict is between the God of Israel and the false Babylonian gods.[6] What counts is not Daniel's human gifts, nor his education in the arts of divination, but "Divine Wisdom" and the power that belongs to God alone, as Daniel indicates when he urges his companions to seek God's mercy for the interpretation of the king's dreams.[7]
Interpretation
Overview: dreams in the ancient world
In the ancient world, dreams, especially those of kings, were regarded as
The king's behaviour implies a distrust of his court dream-interpreters, and sets the scene for his later celebration of Daniel's God.
The four world kingdoms and the rock
Most modern scholars agree that the four world empires symbolised by the statue are Babylon (the head), the Medes (arms and shoulders), Persia (thighs and legs) and Seleucid Syria and Ptolemaic Egypt (the feet).[27] Jewish scholars interpret the mixed materials forming the feet as the kingdom of Rome alongside kingdoms under Islamic rule.[28] The concept of four successive world empires is drawn from Greek theories of mythological history, while the symbolism of the four metals is drawn from Persian writings.[29] The consensus among scholars is that the four beasts of chapter 7 symbolise the same four world empires.[30] Verses 41b-43 give three different interpretations of the meaning of the mixture of iron and clay in the statue's feet, as a "divided kingdom," then as "strong and brittle," and finally as a dynastic marriage.[18] The marriage might be a reference to either of two between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, the first in c.250 BCE and the second in 193.[31]
The symbolic significance of the stone which destroys the statue and becomes a mountain evokes biblical imagery of God as the "rock" of Israel, Zion as a mountain rising above all others, and God's glory filling the whole world. Images from the Book of Isaiah seem to be especially favoured. Whether the author was conscious of it or not, the image of the shattered statue blown away in the wind like chaff from the threshing floor brings to mind Isaiah 41:14–15 where Israel is a threshing sled that turns mountains into chaff, and the rock itself reflects the address to the Judean exiles in Isaiah 51:1, "look to the rock from which you were hewn."[32]
Christian eschatological readings
The traditional interpretation of the dream identifies the four empires as the Babylonian (the head), Medo-Persian (arms and shoulders), Greek (thighs and legs), and Roman (the feet) empires.[33]
References
Citations
- ^ a b Seow 2003, p. 31-33.
- ^ Collins 2002, p. 2.
- ^ a b Collins 1984, p. 28.
- ^ a b Newsom & Breed 2014, p. 63-64.
- ^ a b Levine 2010, p. 1234.
- ^ a b Hill 2009, pp. 57–58.
- ^ a b Seow 2003, p. 37.
- ^ Collins 1984, p. 29,34–35.
- ^ Redditt 2009, pp. 176–177, 180.
- ^ Wesselius 2002, p. 295.
- ^ Redditt 2009, p. 177.
- ^ Mangano 2001, p. 179.
- ^ Towner 1993, p. 150.
- ^ a b Hill 2009, p. 57.
- ^ Crawford 2000, p. 73.
- ^ a b Davies 2006, p. 397-406.
- ^ Carroll 2000, p. 420-421.
- ^ a b Collins 1984, p. 49.
- ^ Collins 1984, p. 49-50.
- ^ a b Newsom & Breed 2014, p. 63.
- ^ a b Levine 2010, p. 1235-1236, footnote 2.1–13.
- ^ Newsom & Breed 2014, p. 66-67.
- ^ Levine 2010, p. 1237-1238, footnote 2.31–35.
- ^ Levine 2010, p. 1236, footnote 2.14–19.
- ^ Levine 2010, p. 1237, footnote 2.20–23.
- ^ Levine 2010, p. 1238-1239, footnote 2.36–47.
- ^ Towner 1984, p. 36.
- ^ Malachi Haim Hacohen 2019 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108226813.004
- ^ Niskanen 2004, p. 27,31.
- ^ Matthews & Moyer 2012, p. 260,269.
- ^ Collins 1984, p. 51.
- ^ Newsom & Breed 2014, p. 77.
- ^ Miller 1994, p. 96.
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