Daniel 7:1-6

Daniel has a Vision of Four Animals Coming up from the Sea

7:1 In the first ¹  year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had ²  a dream filled with visions ³  while he was lying on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream in summary fashion. ⁴  7:2 Daniel explained: ⁵  “I was watching in my vision during the night as ⁶  the four winds of the sky ⁷  were stirring up the great sea. ⁸  7:3 Then four large beasts came up from the sea; they were different from one another.

7:4 “The first one was like a lion with eagles’ wings. As I watched, its wings were pulled off and it was lifted up from the ground. It was made to stand on two feet like a human being, and a human mind ⁹  was given to it. ¹⁰ 

7:5 “Then ¹¹  a second beast appeared, like a bear. It was raised up on one side, and there were three ribs ¹²  in its mouth between its teeth. ¹³  It was told, ¹⁴  ‘Get up and devour much flesh!’

7:6 “After these things, ¹⁵  as I was watching, another beast ¹⁶  like a leopard appeared, with four bird-like wings on its back. ¹⁷  This beast had four heads, ¹⁸  and ruling authority was given to it.

Daniel 1:2

1:2 Now the Lord ¹⁹  delivered ²⁰  King Jehoiakim of Judah into his power, ²¹  along with some of the vessels ²²  of the temple of God. ²³  He brought them to the land of Babylonia ²⁴  to the temple of his god ²⁵  and put ²⁶  the vessels in the treasury of his god.

[7:1]  ¹ sn The first year of Belshazzar’s reign would have been ca. 553 B.C. Daniel would have been approximately 67 years old at the time of this vision.

[7:1]  ² tn Aram “saw.”

[7:1]  ³ tn Aram “and visions of his head.” The Aramaic is difficult here. Some scholars add a verb thought to be missing (e.g., “the visions of his head [were alarming him]”), but there is no external evidence to support such a decision and the awkwardness of the text at this point may be original.

[7:1]  ⁴ tn Aram “head of words.” The phrase is absent in Theodotion. Cf. NIV “the substance of his dream.”

[7:2]  ⁵ tn Aram “answered and said.”

[7:2]  ⁶ tn Aram “and behold.”

[7:2]  ⁷ tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[7:2]  ⁸ sn The referent of the great sea is unclear. The common view that the expression refers to the Mediterranean Sea is conjectural.

[7:4]  ⁹ tn Aram “heart of a man.”

[7:4]  ¹⁰ sn The identity of the first animal, derived from v. 17 and the parallels in chap. 2, is Babylon. The reference to the plucking of its wings is probably a reference to the time of Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity (cf. chap. 4). The latter part of v. 4 then describes the restoration of Nebuchadnezzar. The other animals have traditionally been understood to represent respectively Media-Persia, Greece, and Rome, although most of modern scholarship identifies them as Media, Persia, and Greece. For a biblical parallel to the mention of lion, bear, and leopard together, see Hos 13:7-8.

[7:5]  ¹¹ tn Aram “and behold.”

[7:5]  ¹² sn The three ribs held securely in the mouth of the bear, perhaps representing Media-Persia, apparently symbolize military conquest, but the exact identity of the “ribs” is not clear. Possibly it is a reference to the Persian conquest of Lydia, Egypt, and Babylonia.

[7:5]  ¹³ tc The LXX lacks the phrase “between its teeth.”

[7:5]  ¹⁴ tn Aram “and thus they were saying to it.”

[7:6]  ¹⁵ tn Aram “this.” So also in v. 7.

[7:6]  ¹⁶ tn Aram “and behold, another one.”

[7:6]  ¹⁷ tn Or “sides.”

[7:6]  ¹⁸ sn If the third animal is Greece, the most likely identification of these four heads is the four-fold division of the empire of Alexander the Great following his death. See note on Dan 8:8.

[1:2]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew term translated “Lord” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[1:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “gave.”

[1:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “hand,” which is often used idiomatically for one’s power and authority. See BDB 390 s.v. יָד 2.

[1:2]  ²² tn Or “utensils”; or “articles.”

[1:2]  ²³ tn Heb “house of God.”

[1:2]  ²⁴ sn The land of Babylonia (Heb “the land of Shinar”) is another name for Sumer and Akkad, where Babylon was located (cf. Gen 10:10; 11:2; 14:1, 9; Josh 7:21; Isa 11:11; Zech 5:11).

[1:2]  ²⁵ tn Or “gods” (NCV, NRSV, TEV; also later in this verse). The Hebrew term can be used as a numerical plural for many gods or as a plural of majesty for one particular god. Since Nebuchadnezzar was a polytheist, it is not clear if the reference here is to many gods or one particular deity. The plural of majesty, while normally used for Israel’s God, is occasionally used of foreign gods (cf. BDB 43 s.v. אֱלֹהִים 1, 2). See Judg 11:24 (of the Moabite god Chemosh); 1 Sam 5:7 (of the Philistine god Dagon); 1 Kgs 11:33 (of the Canaanite goddess Astarte, the Moabite god Chemosh, and the Ammonite god Milcom); 2 Kgs 19:37 (of the Assyrian god Nisroch). Since gods normally had their own individual temples, Dan 1:2 probably refers to a particular deity, perhaps Marduk, the supreme god of Babylon, or Marduk’s son Nabu, after whom Nebuchadnezzar was named. The name Nebuchadnezzar means “Nabu has protected the son who will inherit” (HALOT 660 s.v. נְבוּכַדְרֶאצַּר). For a discussion of how temples functioned in Babylonian religion see H. Ringgren, Religions of the Ancient Near East, 77-81.

[1:2]  ²⁶ tn Heb “brought.” Though the Hebrew verb “brought” is repeated in this verse, the translation uses “brought…put” for stylistic variation.