DANIEL, BOOK OF (ciin'y61, book ov).
This important. and in many respects remark able, book takes its name not only from the prin cipal person in it, but also and chiefly from him as its real author, there being no doubt whatever that, as the book itself testifies, it was composed by Daniel (Comp. vii : t, 28; viii :2; ix :21.
(1) Rank in Canon. It occupies, however, but a third rank in the Hebrew canon. not among the Prophets, but in the Ilagiogropha, owing, no doubt, to the correct view of the composers of the canon, that Daniel did not exercise his pro phetic office in the more restricted and proper sense of the term 'prophecy.' (2) Historical. The book of Daniel divides itself into two parts. historical (chaps. i-iv) and prophetic (chaps. vii-xii), arranged respectively in chronological order. Its object is by no means to give a summary historical account of the period of the exile, or of the life of Daniel himself, since it contains only a few isolated points both as to historical facts and prophetic revelations. But the plan or tendency which so consistently runs through the whole book is of a far different char acter; it is to show the extraordinary and wonder-. ful means which the Lord made use of, in a period of the deepest misery, when the theocracy scented dissolved and fast approaching its extinction, to afford assistance to his people, proving to them that he had not entirely forsaken them, and mak ing them sensible of the fact that His merciful presence still continued to dwell with them, even without the Temple and beyond the Land of Promise.
The wonders related in Daniel (chaps. i-vi) are thus mostly of a peculiar, prominent and striking character and resemble in many respects those performed of old time in Egypt. Their divine tendency was, on the one hand, to lead the heathen power, which proudly fancied itself to be the con queror of the theocracy, to the acknowledgment that there was an essential difference between the world and the kingdom of God; and, on the other, to impress degenerate and callous Israel with the full conviction that the power of God was still the same as it was of old in Egypt.
(3) Language. The language of the book is partly Chaldxan vii:28) and partly brew. The latter is not unlike that of Ezekiel, though l2ss impure and corrupt, and not so re plete with anomalous grammatical forms.
(4) Prophetic. The style is, even in the pro phetic parts, more prosaic than poetical. The his torical descriptions are usually very broad and prolix in details, but the prophecies have a more rhetorical character and their delivery is fre quently somewhat abrupt ; their style is descrip tive, painting with the most lively color.; the still fresh impression which the vision has made on the mental eye.
The following are the essential features of the prophetic tenor of the book of Daniel, while the visions in chap. ii and together with their dif ferent symbols, may be considered as embodying the leading notion of the whole: The development of the whole of the heathen power, until the com pletion and glorification of the kingdom of God, appeared to the prophet in the shape of four pow ers of the world, each successive power always surpassing the preceding in might and strength, namely, the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek and Roman. The kingdom of God proves itself con queror of them all—a power which alone is ever lasting. and showing itself in its utmost glorifica tion in the appearance of the Messiah, as Judge and Lord of the world. Until the coining of the Messiah the people of God have yet to go through a period of heavy trials. That period is particu larly described in chapters viii and xi, illustrative of the last and heaviest combats which the king dom of God would have to endure.
The period until the appearance of the Messiah is a fixed and sacred number—seventy weeks of years (ch. ix). After the of that period ensues the death of the Messiah; the expiation of the people is realized; true justice is revealed, hut Jerusalem and the temple are in punishment given up to destruction. The true rise from this fall and corruption ensues only at the end of time in the general resurrection (ch. xii).