Daniel 1:21

And Daniel continued,.... In Babylon, and at court there, and in the favour of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors: even unto the first year of King Cyrus: by whom Babylon was taken, and when the

And Daniel continued even unto the first year of king Cyrus. Daniel continued even unto the first year of ... Cyrus - (2 Chronicles 36:22; Ezra 1:1).

i.e. In the court of Babylon until Cyrus, and then he was in the Persian court, and he lived in honour and high employment all that time, yea, after Cyrus began to reign; for, , he had visions and revelations in the third year of Cyrus. He might live longer, for the word until doth not exclude things that follow after, 112:8.

Daniel 1:21 And Daniel continued [even] unto the first year of king Cyrus.Ver. 21. And Daniel continued, &c.] And afterwards also, though shrewdly lifted at under Darius; and in the third year of Cyrus he was overborne by the counsellors hired to hinder the building of the temple, whom he could not withstand, and therefore kept an extraordinary fast.

(21) Continued.—(See Introduction, § I.) The phrase does not mean that “he prophesied,” but that he lived until the time specified; by no means implying that he died in the first year of Cyrus. This year is specified on account of its importance to the Jewish people as the year of their deliverance. We are led to think of Daniel during this period holding high positions in the courts of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Darius, yet so using the things of this world that at the close of his life (Daniel 10:11) he became the man greatly beloved by God. (See Pusey: Daniel the Prophet, pp. 21-23).

Verse 21. The first year of king Cyrus.] That is, to the end of the Chaldean empire. And we find Daniel alive in the third year of Cyrus, see Daniel 10:1.

21. A remark on the long continuance of Daniel—with the reputation, it is understood, implied in Daniel 1:20—in Babylon. The first year of Cyrus (b.c. 538) would be nearly 70 years after the date of Daniel’s captivity (Daniel 1:1), so that he would then be quite an aged man. continued even unto] lit. was until. The expression is an unusual one; but the meaning, it seems, is that Daniel survived the fall of the empire of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, and remained, unaffected by the change of dynasty, till the first year of Cyrus, the year in which (Ezra 1:1; Ezra 5:13; Ezra 6:3) the Jews received permission to return to Palestine. He is mentioned indeed as still alive in the third year of Cyrus (Daniel 10:1); but that fact is here left out of consideration. Cyrus] Heb. Kτresh, as regularly. The Persian form is Kuru(sh), the Babylonian Kurβsh. Additional Note on the term ‘Chaldaeans’The term ‘Chaldaeans’ (Heb. Kasdξm) is used in the Book of Daniel in a sense different from that which it has in any other part of the Old Testament. In other parts of the Old Testament (e.g. in Jeremiah, passim) it has an ethnic sense: it denotes a people which (in the inscriptions at present known) is thought to be first alluded to about 1100 b.c., and is certainly named repeatedly from 880 b.c.: they lived then in the S.E. of Babylonia, towards the sea-coast; afterwards, as they increased in power, they gradually advanced inland; in 721 b.c. Merodach-baladan, ‘king of the land of the Kaldu,’ made himself king of Babylon; and ultimately, under Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar, they became the ruling caste in Babylonia. In the Book of Daniel (except in Daniel 5:30, Daniel 9:1, where the term plainly has its ethnic sense), ‘Chaldaean’ is the designation not of the ruling caste at large, but of the class—or one of the classes—of wise men (Daniel 1:4, Daniel 2:2; Daniel 2:4-5; Daniel 2:10, Daniel 3:8 (prob.), Daniel 4:7, Daniel 5:7; Daniel 5:11). Of this sense of the word there is no trace in the inscriptions; it is first found in Herodotus (c. 440 b.c.), and is common afterwards in the classical writers; and it dates really from a time when ‘Chaldaean’ had become synonymous with ‘Babylonian’ in general, and when virtually the only ‘Chaldaeans’ known were members of the priestly or learned class. The following passages will shew how the classical writers understood the term. Hdt. i. 181 (in the description of the ‘ziggurat’ of Bel, i.e. [Tiele] Merodach, in Babylon): ‘as the Chaldaeans, being priests of this god, say.’ i. 183: ‘On the greater altar [in the precincts of the temple at the foot of the ‘ziggurat’] the Chaldaeans burn also 1000 talents of frankincense every year, when they celebrate the festival pf this god.’ Also, in the same chapter, ‘as the Chaldaeans said,’ and ‘I did not see it, but I say what is said by the Chaldaeans.’ Strabo (1 cent. b.c.) xvi.

And Daniel continued even unto the first year of king Cyrus - When the proclamation was issued by him to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem, Ezra 1:1.

21. For Cyrus see Introduction, III, 3, (6). If continued (Hebrews, was) means in this connection “remained alive,” as many suppose, and as seems a very natural sense, then this verse contradicts Daniel 10:1.