Daniel 2:15

2:15 He inquired of Arioch the king’s deputy, “Why is the decree from the king so urgent?” ¹  Then Arioch informed Daniel about the matter.

Daniel 2:18

2:18 He asked them to pray for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery so that he ²  and his friends would not be destroyed along with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

Daniel 2:27

2:27 Daniel replied to the king, “The mystery that the king is asking about is such that no wise men, astrologers, magicians, or diviners can possibly disclose it to the king.

Daniel 2:37

Daniel Interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream

2:37 “You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has granted you sovereignty, power, strength, and honor.

Daniel 2:49--3:1

2:49 And at Daniel’s request, the king ³  appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the administration of the province of Babylon. Daniel himself served in the king’s court. ⁴ 

Daniel’s Friends Are Tested

3:1 ⁵ King Nebuchadnezzar had a golden ⁶  statue made. ⁷  It was ninety feet ⁸  tall and nine feet ⁹  wide. He erected it on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

Daniel 3:17

3:17 If ¹⁰  our God whom we are serving exists, ¹¹  he is able to rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he will rescue us, O king, from your power as well.

Daniel 3:20

3:20 He ordered strong ¹²  soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and to throw them into the furnace of blazing fire.

Daniel 4:1

4:1 (3:31) ¹³  “King Nebuchadnezzar, to all peoples, nations, and language groups that live in all the land: Peace and prosperity! ¹⁴ 

Daniel 4:6

4:6 So I issued an order ¹⁵  for all the wise men of Babylon to be brought ¹⁶  before me so that they could make known to me the interpretation of the dream.

Daniel 4:22

4:22 it is you, ¹⁷  O king! For you have become great and strong. Your greatness is such that it reaches to heaven, and your authority to the ends of the earth.

Daniel 4:24

4:24 this is the interpretation, O king! It is the decision of the Most High that this has happened to my lord the king.

Daniel 4:30

4:30 The king uttered these words: “Is this not the great Babylon that I have built for a royal residence ¹⁸  by my own mighty strength ¹⁹  and for my majestic honor?”

Daniel 5:15

5:15 Now the wise men and ²⁰  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.

Daniel 5:20

5:20 And when his mind ²¹  became arrogant ²²  and his spirit filled with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne and his honor was removed from him.

Daniel 6:1

Daniel is Thrown into a Lions’ Den

6:1 It seemed like a good idea to Darius ²³  to appoint over the kingdom 120 satraps ²⁴  who would be in charge of the entire kingdom.

Daniel 6:5

6:5 So these men concluded, ²⁵  “We won’t find any pretext against this man Daniel unless it is ²⁶  in connection with the law of his God.”

Daniel 6:17

6:17 Then a stone was brought and placed over the opening ²⁷  to the den. The king sealed ²⁸  it with his signet ring and with those ²⁹  of his nobles so that nothing could be changed with regard to Daniel.

Daniel 6:25

6:25 Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and language groups who were living in all the land: “Peace and prosperity! ³⁰ 

Daniel 6:27

6:27 He rescues and delivers

and performs signs and wonders

in the heavens and on the earth.

He has rescued Daniel from the power ³¹  of the lions!”

Daniel 7:22-23

7:22 until the Ancient of Days arrived and judgment was rendered ³²  in favor of the holy ones of the Most High. Then the time came for the holy ones to take possession of the kingdom.

7:23 “This is what he told me: ³³ 

‘The fourth beast means that there will be a fourth kingdom on earth

that will differ from all the other kingdoms.

It will devour all the earth

and will trample and crush it.

Daniel 7:28

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. ³⁴  But I kept the matter to myself.” ³⁵ 

Daniel 3:12

3:12 But there are Jewish men whom you appointed over the administration of the province of Babylon – Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – and these men ³⁶  have not shown proper respect to you, O king. They don’t serve your gods and they don’t pay homage to the golden statue that you have erected.”

Daniel 6:7

6:7 To all the supervisors of the kingdom, the prefects, satraps, counselors, and governors it seemed like a good idea for a royal edict to be issued and an interdict to be enforced. For the next thirty days anyone who prays ³⁷  to any god or human other than you, O king, should be thrown into a den of lions.

Daniel 7:7

7:7 “After these things, as I was watching in the night visions ³⁸  a fourth beast appeared – one dreadful, terrible, and very strong. ³⁹  It had two large rows ⁴⁰  of iron teeth. It devoured and crushed, and anything that was left it trampled with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that came before it, and it had ten horns.

[2:15]  ¹ tn The Aramaic word מְהַחְצְפָה (mÿhakhtsÿfah) may refer to the severity of the king’s decree (i.e., “harsh”; so HALOT 1879 s.v. חצף; BDB 1093 s.v. חֲצַף), although it would seem that in a delicate situation such as this Daniel would avoid this kind of criticism of the king’s actions. The translation above understands the word to refer to the immediacy, not harshness, of the decree. See further, F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 50, §116; E. Vogt, Lexicon linguae aramaicae, 67.

[2:18]  ² tn Aram “Daniel.” The proper name is redundant here in English, and has not been included in the translation.

[2:49]  ³ tn Aram “and Daniel sought from the king and he appointed.”

[2:49]  ⁴ tn Aram “was at the gate of the king.”

[3:1]  ⁵ sn The LXX introduces this chapter with the following chronological note: “in the eighteenth year of.” Such a date would place these events at about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. (cf. 2 Kgs 25:8). However, there seems to be no real basis for associating the events of Daniel 3 with this date.

[3:1]  ⁶ sn There is no need to think of Nebuchadnezzar’s image as being solid gold. No doubt the sense is that it was overlaid with gold (cf. Isa 40:19; Jer 10:3-4), with the result that it presented a dazzling self-compliment to the greatness of Nebuchadnezzar’s achievements.

[3:1]  ⁷ sn According to a number of patristic authors, the image represented a deification of Nebuchadnezzar himself. This is not clear from the biblical text, however.

[3:1]  ⁸ tn Aram “sixty cubits.” Assuming a length of 18 inches for the standard cubit, the image would be 90 feet (27.4 m) high.

[3:1]  ⁹ tn Aram “six cubits.” Assuming a length of 18 inches for the standard cubit, the image would be 9 feet (2.74 m) wide.

[3:1]  sn The dimensions of the image (ninety feet high and nine feet wide) imply that it did not possess normal human proportions, unless a base for the image is included in the height dimension. The ancient world knew of other tall statues. For example, the Colossus of Rhodes – the huge statue of Helios which stood (ca. 280-224 B.C.) at the entrance to the harbor at Rhodes and was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – was said to be seventy cubits (105 ft or 32 m) in height, which would make it even taller than Nebuchadnezzar’s image.

[3:17]  ¹⁰ tc The ancient versions typically avoid the conditional element of v. 17.

[3:17]  ¹¹ tn The Aramaic expression used here is very difficult to interpret. The question concerns the meaning and syntax of אִיתַי (’itay, “is” or “exist”). There are several possibilities. (1) Some interpreters take this word closely with the participle later in the verse יָכִל (yakhil, “able”), understanding the two words to form a periphrastic construction (“if our God is…able”; cf. H. Bauer and P. Leander, Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramäischen, 365, §111b). But the separation of the two elements from one another is not an argument in favor of this understanding. (2) Other interpreters take the first part of v. 17 to mean “If it is so, then our God will deliver us” (cf. KJV, ASV, RSV, NASB). However, the normal sense of ’itay is existence; on this point see F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 45, §95. The present translation maintains the sense of existence for the verb (“If our God…exists”), even though the statement is admittedly difficult to understand in this light. The statement may be an implicit reference back to Nebuchadnezzar’s comment in v. 15, which denies the existence of a god capable of delivering from the king’s power.

[3:20]  ¹² tn This is sometimes taken as a comparative: “[some of the] strongest.”

[4:1]  ¹³ sn Beginning with 4:1, the verse numbers through 4:37 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Aramaic text (BHS), with 4:1 ET = 3:31 AT, 4:2 ET = 3:32 AT, 4:3 ET = 3:33 AT, 4:4 ET = 4:1 AT, etc., through 4:37 ET = 4:34 AT. Thus Dan 3:31-33 of the Aramaic text appears as Dan 4:1-3 in the English Bible, and the corresponding verses of ch. 4 differ accordingly. In spite of the division of the Aramaic text, a good case can be made that 3:31-33 AT (= 4:1-3 ET) is actually the introduction to ch. 4.

[4:1]  ¹⁴ tn Aram “May your peace increase!”

[4:6]  ¹⁵ tn Aram “from me there was placed a decree.”

[4:6]  ¹⁶ tn The Aramaic infinitive here is active.

[4:22]  ¹⁷ sn Much of modern scholarship views this chapter as a distortion of traditions that were originally associated with Nabonidus rather than with Nebuchadnezzar. A Qumran text, the Prayer of Nabonidus, is often cited for parallels to these events.

[4:30]  ¹⁸ tn Aram “house.”

[4:30]  ¹⁹ tn Aram “by the might of my strength.”

[5:15]  ²⁰ 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).

[5:20]  ²¹ tn Aram “heart.”

[5:20]  ²² sn The point of describing Nebuchadnezzar as arrogant is that he had usurped divine prerogatives, and because of his immense arrogance God had dealt decisively with him.

[6:1]  ²³ tn Aram “It was pleasing before Darius.”

[6:1]  ²⁴ tn This is a technical term for an official placed in charge of a region of the empire (cf. KJV, NLT “prince[s]”; NCV, TEV “governors”). These satraps were answerable to a supervisor, who in turn answered to Darius.

[6:5]  ²⁵ tn Aram “were saying.”

[6:5]  ²⁶ tn Aram “unless we find [it] against him.”

[6:17]  ²⁷ tn Aram “mouth.”

[6:17]  ²⁸ sn The purpose of the den being sealed was to prevent unauthorized tampering with the opening of the den. Any disturbance of the seal would immediately alert the officials to improper activity of this sort.

[6:17]  ²⁹ tn Aram “the signet rings.”

[6:25]  ³⁰ tn Aram “May your peace be increased!”

[6:27]  ³¹ tn Aram “hand.”

[7:22]  ³² tc In the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate the verb is active, understanding “judgment” to be the object rather than the subject of the verb (i.e., “the Ancient of Days rendered judgment”). This presupposes a different vocalization of the verb ( יְהַב [yÿhav] rather than the MT יְהִב [yÿhiv]).

[7:23]  ³³ tn Aram “thus he said.”

[7:28]  ³⁴ tn Aram “my brightness was changing on me.”

[7:28]  ³⁵ tn Aram “in my heart.”

[3:12]  ³⁶ sn Daniel’s absence from this scene has sparked the imagination of commentators, some of whom have suggested that perhaps he was unable to attend the dedication due to sickness or due to being away on business. Hippolytus supposed that Daniel may have been watching from a distance.

[6:7]  ³⁷ tn Aram “prays a prayer.”

[7:7]  ³⁸ tn The Aramaic text has also “and behold.” So also in vv. 8, 13.

[7:7]  ³⁹ sn The fourth animal differs from the others in that it is nondescript. Apparently it was so fearsome that Daniel could find nothing with which to compare it. Attempts to identify this animal as an elephant or other known creature are conjectural.

[7:7]  ⁴⁰ tn The Aramaic word for “teeth” is dual rather than plural, suggesting two rows of teeth.