“O Lord, 7 great and awesome God who is faithful to his covenant 8 with those who love him and keep his commandments,
9:15 “Now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with great power 12 and made a name for yourself that is remembered to this day – we have sinned and behaved wickedly.
10:1 15 In the third 16 year of King Cyrus of Persia a message was revealed to Daniel (who was also called Belteshazzar). This message was true and concerned a great war. 17 He understood the message and gained insight by the vision.
1 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.
2 tn Aram “house.”
3 tn Aram “by the might of my strength.”
4 tn Heb “extraordinarily he will destroy.”
5 tn Heb “he will succeed and act.”
6 tn See the corresponding Aramaic expression in 7:27. If the “holy ones” are angels, then this probably refers to the angels as protectors of God’s people. One could translate, “people belonging to (i.e., protected by) the holy ones.” If the “holy ones” are God’s people, then this is an appositional construction, “the people who are the holy ones.” One could translate simply “holy people.” For examples of a plural appositional genitive after “people,” see 11:15, 32. Because either interpretation is possible, the translation has deliberately preserved the ambiguity of the Hebrew grammar here.
7 tn The Hebrew term translated “Lord” here and in vv. 7, 9, 15, 16, and 19 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
8 tn Heb “who keeps the covenant and the loyal love.” The expression is a hendiadys.
9 tn Heb “he has fulfilled his word(s) which he spoke.”
10 tn Heb “our judges.”
11 tn Heb “who judged.”
12 tn Heb “with a powerful hand.”
13 tn Or “a precious treasure”; KJV “greatly beloved”; NASB, NIV “highly esteemed.”
14 tn This sentence is perhaps a compound hendiadys (“give serious consideration to the revelatory vision”).
15 sn This chapter begins the final unit in the book of Daniel, consisting of chapters 10-12. The traditional chapter divisions to some extent obscure the relationship of these chapters.
16 tc The LXX has “first.”
sn Cyrus’ third year would have been ca. 536
17 tn The meaning of the Hebrew word צָבָא (tsava’) is uncertain in this context. The word most often refers to an army or warfare. It may also mean “hard service,” and many commentators take that to be the sense here (i.e., “the service was great”). The present translation assumes the reference to be to the spiritual conflicts described, for example, in 10:16–11:1.