did reverence to Daniel, and commanded to offer an 47 oblation and grateful odours unto him.

The king

spoke thus unto Daniel, Truly your God is the God of gods, and Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, 48 since thou hast been able to reveal this secret. Then the king made Daniel great, and gave him many large presents, and appointed him to preside over the whole province of Babylon, and he was a chief magistrate over all the wise men of Babylon. Moreover Daniel

49

translates the words that follow in the next clause, "et hostias et incensum:" Gr. has " μαναα και ευωδιας," or a cake of fine four and grateful odours. Both perhaps understood it as a kind of sacrifice, which it probably was not: For Mr. Harmer, Vol. ii. p. 72, &c. seems to have placed this matter in a full and satisfactory light, and explained the words that countenance the idea of a sacrifice to mean Tokens or marks of respect not very uncommonly paid to men in the east. The passage is much too long to be cited.

48. -made Daniel great.—Ch. 17. Syr. amplificavit, or magnificavit, the word is of the form Pahel, and used only in this place.

-many large presents.—Gr. Ar. and V. read many and large, and one MS. favours the Vau: the same versions and Cod. 240, begin the 47th verse with a Vau.

-over the whole province.—One MS. and some versions read 1. De Rossi. The Chaldee word n or Medina is a name often in use among the Arabs, and by it the city of their prophet in the desert of Arabia is well known to be called at this day. At this place he was invested with regal power after his expulsion from Mecca, and from his flight to this place in the year of our Lord 622, the Hejra commences. Many places or considerable towns in Spain are still called by this same name, and retain this vestige of the Saracen incursions.

————a chief magistrate.—In this and the former Chapters we read of three chief magistrates, the master of the Eunuchs or Chamberlains D07, the Master of the Executioners or Captain of the Guard

or Head of the Senators, or רב סגנין and here the ,טבחיא רב

High Chancellor. Syr. reads "over all the military commanders and all the wise men."

49.

asked of the king, and he deputed over the care of the province of Babylon Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; but Daniel was in the gate of the king.

-Daniel asked of the king.-His request might be justified on the score of friendship, but more especially for the sake of the church and nation of the Jews, and that he might obtain some faithful associates who should assist him in the high and slippery station to which he was advanced.

The word 2 seems to have respect to agriculture, and the revenues arising from the cultivation of lands: and this was probably the nature of the presidency to which Shadrach, &c. were advanced : while Daniel sat εν τη αυλη του βασιλεως, or according to Theodoret and Syr. in the gate or court of the king, as his High Chancellor, or chief Minister of Justice and of the affairs of the state.

The following passage in Dr. Shaw's Travels may throw much light upon this situation of Daniel; Speaking of the Judicature of the Algerines he says, "all affairs of moment are laid before the Dey, or else when he is absent, or otherwise employed, they are heard by the Treasurer, Master of the Horse, and other principal Officers of the Regency, who sit constantly in the gate of the Palace for that purpose. At all these Tribunals the cause is quickly decided, nothing more being required than the proof of what is alleged, so that a matter of debt, trespass, or of the highest crimes, will be finally decided, and the sentence executed in less than an hour. And on the word "gate,” he observes in a note, thus we read "of the elders in the gate;" Deut. xxii. 15, and xxv. 7; and Isa. xxix. 21. Amos v. 10, "of him that reproveth and rebuketh in the gate," &c. Ed. fol. p. 315.

1

CHAPTER III.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR the king made an Image of gold, the height of it was sixty cubits, and the breadth of it

THIS Chapter contains a History of Nebuchadnezzar's erecting an Image of Gold of an immense size, as an idol to which he expected all his empire to pay worship. Daniel's three friends refusing this worship, are cast into a furnace of fire, and by their miraculous delivery thence, the King is again brought to an acknowledgment of the one true God.

How soon this image was erected after the dream in his second year is uncertain. Gr. and Ar. begin this Chapter with "In the eighteenth year,” and Dr. Prideaux agrees with them, though the words are not in the present text: But whether it happened then, or, as some think, later, the design of it probably was to frustrate the exposition, and defeat the end, of the dream; on which account perhaps the image was made wholly of gold, and not of different metals; to make an ostentatious display of the abundance of his wealth, and to obviate the jealousies of his people on account of his favours to Daniel and his friends. Some or all of these motives might probably influence this haughty and inconstant monarch to desert the true God, whom he had so lately acknowledged, and to yield again to the force of those inveterate habits, from which he had been so miraculously recovered.

This statue was probably of Bel or some of the Assyrian deities, as we may collect from verse 14. It is thought to have been hollow within, like the Colossus at Rhodes, whose height exceeded that of the statue by ten cubits: The proportion of the height seems unequal to the breadth, unless the pedestal be included therein on which it was placed. Houbigant, on account of this disparity, thinks it was rather a column or pyramid than of the human form: But Diodorus, 1. ii. §. 9, tells us, that Xerxes took away an image of gold forty feet long, when he demolished the temple of Belus in Babylon, which Prideaux

six cubits: When he had set it up in the plain of 2 Dura in the province of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the Princes, the Senators, and the Magistrates, the Judges, the Treasurers, the

The statue of

supposes may have been this of Nebuchadnezzar. Jupiter also made by Lysippus at Tarentum is said to be forty cubits. The plain of Dura where it was erected was probably near a town called by Symmachus Dourau, and by Ptolemy Doraba; “Ammianus Marcellinus mentions Dura as not far from the place where Julian died; and in D'Anville's map of the Tigris and Euphrates it is on the Tigris, under 344 lat. and in Niebuhr's map of his journey (45 of vol. ii.) is Dor." Michaelis. But Jerom considers it as an inclosed place in Babylon, see Chapter i. 2, and LXX. has πepißoλov, considering it as an appellative for a sort of circus.

1. -When he had set it up.―Thus the words may be rendered by the assistance of the Vau at the next verse. The like observation may illustrate the rendering in many other places, and especially at the latter end of the third and beginning of the fourth verses, where there is a Vau twice in both places. So Syr.

2. The Princes, the Senators, and the Magistrates &c.—It must be very difficult at this distance of time, and perhaps impossible, to ascertain with exactness the proper titles and offices of the several characters that are here mentioned. I shall endeavour to give as just a description of them as I can, either from the form of the words, their use in other places, the opinion of commentators, or the allusion they may bear to modern offices of dignity in the East. I take the first word, with Herodotus, to be of Persian, or, rather, with Grotius, of Assyrian origin, to have been derived down through the Chaldeans to the Persians, and to answer to their Satrap, meaning probably the chief of their nobility; see Esth. ix. 3. The next word D is the same that is used at Chap. ii. 48, and probably means some of the highest officers in the state, which I have therefore rendered by "Senators." The office sustained by these persons seems to have extended to matters both military and ecclesiastical, as Castell observes on the word, and intimates that it signifies a kind of Vice-roy, or one of the first rank in either the military line, or among the Pontiffs: Perhaps it may answer to the Beys. The word that follows is con

Counsellors, the Presidents, and all the Governors of the Provinces, to come to the dedication of the Image, 3 which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. Then were gathered together the Princes, the Senators, and

nected with the preceding by a Vau, and we find these words joined but with their order inverted, Jer. li. 23. and again ver. 57. The was probably a Magistrate appointed to preside over a peculiar government and the word Pacha is still retained in the East, and though varied somewhat in sound, denotes a kind of Bashaw or Governor among the Turks, Arabs, and Persians. The word '71778 R. Nathan translates "Judges;" they seem to have been a kind of Guardians or Directors of the statute laws or decrees of the monarch, and are therefore rendered by the Gr. nyovμevoɩ the chief Judges. There is an officer in the Ottoman court called the Caddilaschir, which may seem to answer to this description; the Caddilaschirs are a sort of universal Judges, that extend to all persons or causes whatsoever. The following word '7272 "the Treasurers,” is, as Grotius has observed, the same word that is so translated, Ezra i. 8. and is often found in the Chaldee; and by changing the kindred letter ʼn for 1, they may be the yacopopoɩ of the Greeks, and may answer to the Ottoman "Defterdars." which follows may be derived from

the law, and 77 to purify, and probably signifies the most distinguished counsellors or professors of the law. The next word ' is omitted by Vulg. but coming from the verb to persuade, is by some supposed to have been given to persons of very high characters for knowledge and wisdom; and the Mufti or sovereign Pontiff among the Turks seems to have derived his name from a similar source in the Arabic language. But Houbigant calls these last "Janitores," which he considers as a very high office, and sustained by Daniel himself. See Chap. ii. 49. R. Jacchiades has illustrated, or rather applied all these characters to similar offices in the Turkish empire; an account of which may be seen in Grotius: see also Habesci's present state of the Ottoman empire.

3. Then were gathered together.-The design of calling all these officers of every nation and language in the whole empire together, seems to have been chiefly to ensnare Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; for those that presided over lesser districts were also summoned to the dedication; eis ta eykaivia. Th. See John x. 22.