2:29 “As for you, O king, while you were in your bed your thoughts turned to future things. 1 The revealer of mysteries has made known to you what will take place.
9:11 “All Israel has broken 7 your law and turned away by not obeying you. 8 Therefore you have poured out on us the judgment solemnly threatened 9 in the law of Moses the servant of God, for we have sinned against you. 10
11:21 “Then there will arise in his place a despicable person 14 to whom the royal honor has not been rightfully conferred. He will come on the scene in a time of prosperity and will seize the kingdom through deceit.
1 tn Aram “your thoughts upon your bed went up to what will be after this.”
2 sn The word zither (Aramaic קִיתָרוֹס [qitaros]), and the words for harp (Aramaic פְּסַנְתֵּרִין [pÿsanterin]) and pipes (Aramaic סוּמְפֹּנְיָה [sumponÿyah]), are of Greek derivation. Though much has been made of this in terms of suggesting a date in the Hellenistic period for the writing of the book, it is not surprising that a few Greek cultural terms, all of them the names of musical instruments, should appear in this book. As a number of scholars have pointed out, the bigger surprise (if, in fact, the book is to be dated to the Hellenistic period) may be that there are so few Greek loanwords in Daniel.
3 tn The imperfect Aramaic verbs have here an injunctive nuance.
4 sn The phrase like that of a god is in Aramaic “like that of a son of the gods.” Many patristic writers understood this phrase in a christological sense (i.e., “the Son of God”). But it should be remembered that these are words spoken by a pagan who is seeking to explain things from his own polytheistic frame of reference; for him the phrase “like a son of the gods” is equivalent to “like a divine being.”
5 tn Aram “in the mouth of the king.”
6 tn Aram “to you they say.”
7 tn Or “transgressed.” The Hebrew verb has the primary sense of crossing a boundary, in this case, God’s law.
8 tn Heb “by not paying attention to your voice.”
9 tn Heb “the curse and the oath which is written.” The term “curse” refers here to the judgments threatened in the Mosaic law (see Deut 28) for rebellion. The expression “the curse and the oath” is probably a hendiadys (cf. Num 5:21; Neh 10:29) referring to the fact that the covenant with its threatened judgments was ratified by solemn oath and made legally binding upon the covenant community.
10 tn Heb “him.”
11 tn Or “righteous.”
12 tn Heb “in all his deeds which he has done.”
13 tn Heb “we have not listened to his voice.”
14 sn This despicable person to whom the royal honor has not been rightfully conferred is Antiochus IV Epiphanes (ca. 175-164