Daniel 1:1

Introductory Daniel Prepared for His Work.

1. De Wette, Kuenen, etc., have called the date given in this verse “obviously false,” “a striking and characteristic misstatement,” because it makes the first year of Nebuchadnezzar coincide with the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim (608-597 B.C.), while Jeremiah (Jeremiah 35:1; Jeremiah 46:2; compare 2 Chronicles 36:0) makes it coincide with Jehoiakim’s fourth year. But Jeremiah almost certainly calls Nebuchadnezzar, who was only crown prince at the time of the Palestinian campaign (605 B.C.), “king” proleptically, which is a very permissible usage (Behrmann). Moreover, Jeremiah may be conceived as reckoning the accession year of this king as his first year, according to Jewish custom, while the author of Daniel, according to ordinary Babylonian usage, may have counted his first year as not beginning until the following New Year’s Day. (See our Introduction, III, 5; Society Biblical Archaeology, January, 1900.) On this supposition all contradictions vanish, the third year of Jehoiakim being the accession year of Nebuchadnezzar and his fourth year synchronizing with Nebuchadnezzar’s official “first year.” For Nebuchadnezzar see our Introduction, III, 3, (1); for Babylon see Introduction, III, 4. The cuneiform meaning of this name is “Gate of God,” but the discoveries at Kom Ombo, 1894, show Babylon spelt “Balbal,” with an evident play on the Semitic בלבל , “confound.” (Compare Genesis 11:9.)