Daniel 2:1

in the second year There is not, perhaps, necessarily a contradiction here with the -three years" of Daniel 1:5; Daniel 1:18. By Heb. usage, fractions of time were reckoned as full units: thus Samaria, which was besieged from the fourth to the sixth year of Hezekiah, is said to have been taken -at the end" of three years (2 Kings 17:9-10); and in Jeremiah 34:14 -at the end of seven years" means evidently when the seventh year has arrived (see also Mark 8:31, &c.). It, now, the author, following a custom which was certainly sometimes adopted by Jewish writers, and which was general in Assyria and Babylonia, -post-dated" the regnal years of a king, i.e. counted as his first year not the year of his accession but the first full year afterwards [200], and if further Nebuchadnezzar gave orders for the education of the Jewish youths in his accession-year, the end of the -three years" of Daniel 1:5; Daniel 1:18 might be reckoned as falling within the king's second year. Ewald, Kamphausen, and Prince, however, suppose that -ten" has fallen out of the text; and would read -in the twelfthyear."

[200] See art. Chronology, in Hastings" Dict. of the Bible, p. 400.

dreamed dreams In Assyria and Babylonia, as in Egypt [201], and other countries of the ancient world, dreams were regarded as significant, and as portending future events. The Assyrian inscriptions furnish several instances of deities appearing in dreams with words of encouragement or advice. Thus Asshur appears to Gugu (Gyges), king of Lydia, in a dream, and tells him that, if he -grasps the feet" (i.e. owns the sovereignty) of Asshurbanapal, he will overcome his foes (KB[202] ii. 173, 175). During Asshurbanaparl's war with his -false" brother, Shamash-shum-ukin, a professional dreamer saw written on the moon, -Whoso plans evil against Asshurbanapal, an evil death will I prepare against him" (ib.p. 187). When the same king was warring against Ummanaldashi, king of Elam, Ishtar sent his army a dream, in which she said to them, -I march before Asshurbanapal, the king whom my hands have made" (ib. p. 201); and in another war she appeared to a professional dreamer, standing before the king, armed, and assuring him that, wherever he went, she went likewise (ib.p. 251). Nabu-na'id, the last king of Babylon (b.c. 555 538), was commanded, or encouraged, to restore temples by deities appearing to him in dreams (ib. iii. 2, pp. 85, 97, 99). On another occasion, Nabu-na'id saw in a dream a great star in heaven, the significance of which Nebuchadnezzar (also in the dream) explained to him [203]. These, however, are mostly cases of the apparitions of deities; for instances of symbolicaldreams, such as the one of Nebuchadnezzar, we may compare rather, though they are much briefer, the dreams in Herodotus, i. 107, 108, 209, iii. 30, 124, vii. 19 (cited below, on Daniel 4:10).

[201] See Hastings" Dict. of the Bible, ii. p. 772 b.

[202] B.Eb. Schrader, Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek(transliterations and translations of Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions), 1889 1900.

[203] Messerschmidt, Die Inschrift der Stele Nabuna'ids, 1896, p. 30 f.

and his spirit was troubled More exactly, was agitated, disturbed; so Daniel 2:3. The expression is borrowed from Genesis 41:8: cf. Psalms 77:5 -I am agitatedand cannot speak."

brake from him More lit. was come to pass, i.e. was completedor done with(something like the Latin actum est; cf. Daniel 8:27), upon him, -upon" being used idiomatically to emphasize the person who is the subject of an experience, or (more often) of an emotion, and who, as it were, is sensible of it as acting or operating uponhimself. Cf. Psalms 42:4 -I will pour out my soul uponme," Psalms 42:5 -why moanest thou uponme?" Psalms 42:6 -my soul uponme is cast down," Psalms 142:3 -when my spirit fainteth uponme," Psalms 143:4; Jeremiah 8:18 -my heart uponme is sick," Job 30:16 (R.V. marg.), Lamentations 3:20 -my soul is bowed down uponme": within, in all these passages, does not express the idea of the Hebrew. Cf. the writer's Parallel Psalter, Glossary I, s. v. upon(p. 464); and see also Daniel 5:9.