Discovery BoxDaniel 1:13 
Context1:13 Then compare our appearance 1 with that of 2 the young men who are eating the royal delicacies; 3 deal with us 4 in light of what you see.”
Daniel 2:4
Context2:4 The wise men replied to the king: [What follows is in Aramaic 5 ] “O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will disclose its 6 interpretation.”
Daniel 2:39
Context2:39 Now after you another kingdom 7 will arise, one inferior to yours. Then a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule in all the earth.
1 tn Heb “let our appearance be seen before you.”
2 tn Heb “the appearance of.”
3 tn Heb “delicacies of the king.” So also in v. 15.
4 tn Heb “your servants.”
5 sn Contrary to common belief, the point here is not that the wise men (Chaldeans) replied to the king in the Aramaic language, or that this language was uniquely the language of the Chaldeans. It was this view that led in the past to Aramaic being referred to as “Chaldee.” Aramaic was used as a lingua franca during this period; its origins and usage were not restricted to the Babylonians. Rather, this phrase is better understood as an editorial note (cf. NAB) marking the fact that from 2:4b through 7:28 the language of the book shifts from Hebrew to Aramaic. In 8:1, and for the remainder of the book, the language returns to Hebrew. Various views have been advanced to account for this change of language, most of which are unconvincing. Most likely the change in language is a reflection of stages in the transmission history of the book of Daniel.
6 tn Or “the.”
7 sn The identity of the first kingdom is clearly Babylon. The identification of the following three kingdoms is disputed. The common view is that they represent Media, Persia, and Greece. Most conservative scholars identify them as Media-Persia, Greece, and Rome.
