Daniel 4:4-5

Nebuchadnezzar Dreams of a Tree Chopped Down

4:4 (4:1) ¹  I, Nebuchadnezzar, was relaxing in my home, ²  living luxuriously ³  in my palace. 4:5 I saw a dream that ⁴  frightened me badly. The things I imagined while lying on my bed – these visions of my mind – were terrifying me.

Daniel 4:1

4:1 (3:31) ⁵  “King Nebuchadnezzar, to all peoples, nations, and language groups that live in all the land: Peace and prosperity! ⁶ 

1 Samuel 3:17

3:17 Eli ⁷  said, “What message did he speak to you? Don’t conceal it from me. God will judge you severely ⁸  if you conceal from me anything that he said to you!”

[4:4]  ¹ sn This verse marks the beginning of chap. 4 in the Aramaic text of Daniel (see the note on 4:1). The Greek OT (LXX) has the following addition: “In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign he said.” This date would suggest a link to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. In general, the LXX of chapters 4-6 is very different from the MT, so much so that the following notes will call attention only to selected readings. In Daniel 4 the LXX lacks sizable portions of material in the MT (e.g., vv. 3-6, 31-32), includes sizable portions of material not in the MT (e.g., v. 14a, parts of vv. 16, 28), has a different order of some material (e.g., v. 8 after v. 9), and in some instances is vastly different from the MT (e.g., vv. 30, 34). Whether these differences are due to an excessively paraphrastic translation technique adopted for these chapters in the LXX, or are due to differences in the underlying Vorlage of the LXX, is a disputed matter. The latter seems more likely. There is a growing trend in modern scholarship to take the LXX of chapters 4-6 much more seriously than was the case in most earlier text-critical studies that considered this issue.

[4:4]  ² tn Aram “my house.”

[4:4]  ³ tn Aram “happy.”

[4:5]  ⁴ tn Aram “and it.”

[4:1]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn Aram “May your peace increase!”

[3:17]  ⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Eli) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “So God will do to you and thus he will add.” The verbal forms in this pronouncement are imperfects, not jussives, but the statement has the force of a curse or warning. One could translate, “May God do to you and thus may he add.”