the kingdom of God,” alone receives a prophecy. - With this the change in the language of the book agrees. The first part (Daniel 2-7), treating of the world-power and its development, is written in Chaldee, which is the language of the world-power; the second part (Daniel 8-12), treating of the kingdom of God and its development, as also the first chapter, which shows how Daniel the Israelite was called to be a prophet by God, is written in the Hebrew, which is the language of the people of God. This circumstance denotes that in the first part the fortunes of the world-power, and that in the second part the development of the kingdom of God, is the subject treated of (ch. Auber. p. 39, Klief. p. 44).[1]
From these things we arrive at the certainty that the book of Daniel forms an organic whole, as is now indeed generally acknowledged, and that it was composed by a prophet according to a plan resting on higher illumination.
IV. The Genuineness of the Book of Daniel
The book of Daniel, in its historical and prophetical contents, corresponds to the circumstances of the times under which, according to its statements, it sprang up, as also to the place which the receiver of the vision, called the prophet Daniel (Dan 7:2;
- ↑ Kranichfeld (d. B. Daniels, p. 53) seeks to explain this interchange of the Hebrew and Chaldee (Aramean) languages by supposing that the decree of Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 3:31 [[[Bible_(King_James)/Daniel|Dan 4:1]]]ff.) to his people, and also his conversation with the Chaldeans (Dan 2:4-11), were originally in the Aramaic language, and that the author was led from this to make use of this language throughout one part of his book, as was the case with Ezra, e.g., Dan 4:23. And the continuous use of the Aramaic language in one whole part of the book will be sufficiently explained, if it were composed during a definite epoch, within which the heathen oppressors as such, and the heathen persecution, stand everywhere in the foreground, namely in the time of the Chaldean supremacy, on which the Median made no essential change. Thus the theocrat, writing at this time, composed his reports in the Aramaic language in order to make them effective among the Chaldeans, because they were aimed against their enmity and hostility as well as against that of their rulers. But this explanation fails from this circumstance, that in the third year of Belshazzar the vision granted to Daniel (Daniel 8) is recorded in the Hebrew language, while, on the contrary, the later events which occurred in the night on which Belshazzar was slain (Daniel 5) are described in the Chaldee language. The use of the Hebrew language in the vision (Daniel 8) cannot be explained on Kranichfeld's supposition, for that vision is so internally related to the one recorded in the Chaldee language in the seventh chapter, that no ground can be discerned for the change of language in these two chapters.
