Daniel 2:4

Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in, Syriac,.... These spake, either because the interpretation of dreams particularly belonged to them; or else as being the chief of the wise men, and of

Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation. Then spake the Chaldeans.

In Syriac; that is, in the Chaldee tongue, for Syria or Aram is taken in a large sense sometimes, containing Assyria, Babylon, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Palestine, , and from hence to the 8th chapter all is written in the Chaldee language, and not Hebrew, because it most concerned that people, and from thence in Hebrew again. O king, live for ever: this was a salutation to princes of old, ; their meaning was, Let him live a long happy life, for thus the word live is often taken, , and this is agreeable to the desires of all worldly men in their prosperity. We will show the interpretation: it is observed of old to this day, that there is not any sort of men who are such flatterers as impostors. So confident and arrogant are these fortune-tellers, that they promise to interpret a dream which they never knew: this was boldly said of them, seeing the Egyptian magicians could not interpret Pharaoh’ s dream though he told it them, .

Daniel 2:4 Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation.Ver. 4. Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriac,] i.e., In Chaldee, whence there is here no Chaldee paraphrase; or else, if the Syriac were then a distinct tongue from the Chaldee, as now it is, it was belike their learned language, as now the Arabic is among the Turks. O king, live for ever.] In this most officious salutation they flatter him, say some, or aver the immortality of the soul, as others, or wish him a long life, as also Daniel doth afterwards. And we will show the interpretation.] Impostors are great braggers; but as the peacock in setting up his tail showeth his posteriors, so do these get to themselves shame.

(4) In Syriack.—Probably a fresh title, indicating to the copyist that the Chaldee portion of the book begins here. It has been conjectured that this portion of the book (Daniel 2:4-7) is a Chaldee translation of an original Hebrew work, but there is no authority for the conjecture. God is about to reveal facts connected with the Gentile world, and therefore a Gentile language is used as the vehicle of the revelation. (See 1 Timothy 2:3-4; Matthew 2:1-2). Live for ever.—For this common form of salutation, comp. Daniel 3:9; Daniel 5:10, &c.

Verse 4. Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriac] ארמית aramith, the language of Aram or Syria. What has been generally called the Chaldee. O king, live for ever] מלכא לעלמין חיי Malca leolmin cheyi. With these words the Chaldee part of Daniel commences; and continues to the end of the seventh chapter. These kinds of compliments are still in use in the East Indies. A superior gives a blessing to an inferior by saying to him, when the latter is in the act of doing him reverence, "Long life to thee." A poor man, going into the presence of a king to solicit a favour, uses the same kind of address: O father, thou art the support of the destitute; mayest thou live to old age! - WARD'S Customs.

4. in Syriack] in Aramaic, i.e. the language of the Aramaeans, an important branch of the Semitic stock, inhabiting chiefly Mesopotamia, Syria, and part of Arabia. There were numerous ‘Aramaic’ dialects—as the Aramaic spoken in Assyria, at Zinjirli (near Aleppo), in Palmyra, in Têma, by the Nabataeans at ’el‘Öla, that of the books of Daniel and Ezra, that of the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, that of the Babylonian, that of the Palestinian Talmud—which, while similar in their general features, differed in details, somewhat in the manner in which the Greek dialects differed from one another: but the language which is now known distinctively as ‘Syriac,’—i.e. the language in which the ‘Peshiṭ ?tâ’ version of the Bible (2nd cent. a.d.) was made, and in which an extensive Christian literature exists,—differs markedly from the Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra: and hence the rendering ‘Syriack’ suggests an entirely false idea of the language here meant. R.V., ‘in the Syrian language’ (cf. Isaiah 36:11) is some improvement; but the term which ought to be employed is ‘Aramaic.’ The Aramaic part of the book begins with the words O king; and if ‘(in) Aramaic’ forms an integral part of the sentence, the author, it seems, must mean to indicate that in his opinion Aramaic was used at the court for communications of an official nature. That, however, does not explain why the use of Aramaic continues to the end of ch. 7; and it is besides quite certain that Aramaic, such as that of the Book of Daniel, was not spoken in Babylon. Very probably Oppert, Lenormant, Nestle, and others are right in regarding ‘Aramaic’ as originally a marginal note, indicating that that language begins to be used here; in this case the word will in English be naturally enclosed in brackets, ‘And they spake to the king, [Aramaic] O king, &c’ The second ‘(in) Aramaic’ in Ezra 4:7 is probably to be explained similarly (‘was written in Aramaic, and interpreted. [Aramaic]’). O king, live for ever] The standing formula, with which, in Dan., the king is addressed (Daniel 3:9, Daniel 5:10, Daniel 6:6; Daniel 6:21); elsewhere (in the 3rd person) only on somewhat exceptional occasions, 1 Kings 1:31; Nehemiah 2:3. we will shew] declare.

Then spake the Chaldeans to the king - The meaning is, either that the Chaldeans spoke in the name of the entire company of the soothsayers and magicians (see the notes, Daniel 1:20; Daniel 2:2),

4. In Syriac — This does not show that the writer of Daniel thought the Chaldeans spake Syriac or Aramaic. It is more probably a late marginal note, stating that at this point the Aramaic section of the book began.