Daniel 2:5

2:5 The king replied ¹  to the wise men, “My decision is firm. ²  If you do not inform me of both the dream and its interpretation, you will be dismembered ³  and your homes reduced to rubble!

Daniel 2:8

2:8 The king replied, “I know for sure that you are attempting to gain time, because you see that my decision is firm.

Daniel 2:11

2:11 What the king is asking is too difficult, and no one exists who can disclose it to the king, except for the gods – but they don’t live among mortals!” ⁴ 

Daniel 2:18

2:18 He asked them to pray for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery so that he ⁵  and his friends would not be destroyed along with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

Daniel 3:1

Daniel’s Friends Are Tested

3:1 ⁶ King Nebuchadnezzar had a golden ⁷  statue made. ⁸  It was ninety feet ⁹  tall and nine feet ¹⁰  wide. He erected it on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

Daniel 3:22

3:22 But since the king’s command was so urgent, and the furnace was so excessively hot, the men who escorted ¹¹  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were killed ¹²  by the leaping flames. ¹³ 

Daniel 4:26

4:26 They said to leave the taproot of the tree, for your kingdom will be restored to you when you come to understand that heaven ¹⁴  rules.

Daniel 5:5

5:5 At that very moment the fingers of a human hand appeared ¹⁵  and wrote on the plaster of the royal palace wall, opposite the lampstand. ¹⁶  The king was watching the back ¹⁷  of the hand that was writing.

Daniel 5:29

5:29 Then, on Belshazzar’s orders, ¹⁸  Daniel was clothed in purple, a golden collar was placed around his neck, and he was proclaimed third ruler in the kingdom.

Daniel 6:14

6:14 When the king heard this, ¹⁹  he was very upset and began thinking about ²⁰  how he might rescue Daniel. Until late afternoon ²¹  he was struggling to find a way to rescue him.

Daniel 6:18

6:18 Then the king departed to his palace. But he spent the night without eating, and no diversions ²²  were brought to him. He was unable to sleep. ²³ 

Daniel 7:6

7:6 “After these things, ²⁴  as I was watching, another beast ²⁵  like a leopard appeared, with four bird-like wings on its back. ²⁶  This beast had four heads, ²⁷  and ruling authority was given to it.

Daniel 7:11

7:11 “Then I kept on watching because of the arrogant words of the horn that was speaking. I was watching ²⁸  until the beast was killed and its body destroyed and thrown into ²⁹  the flaming fire.

Daniel 7:28

7:28 “This is the conclusion of the matter. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts troubled me greatly, and the color drained from my face. ³⁰  But I kept the matter to myself.” ³¹ 

Daniel 8:26

8:26 The vision of the evenings and mornings that was told to you is correct. ³²  But you should seal up the vision, for it refers to a time many days from now.”

Daniel 9:8

9:8 O LORD, we have been humiliated ³³  – our kings, our leaders, and our ancestors – because we have sinned against you.

Daniel 9:14

9:14 The LORD was mindful of the calamity, and he brought it on us. For the LORD our God is just ³⁴  in all he has done, ³⁵  and we have not obeyed him. ³⁶ 

Daniel 11:15

11:15 Then the king of the north will advance and will build siege mounds and capture a well-fortified city. ³⁷  The forces of the south will not prevail, not even his finest contingents. ³⁸  They will have no strength to prevail.

Daniel 11:21

11:21 “Then there will arise in his place a despicable person ³⁹  to whom the royal honor has not been rightfully conferred. He will come on the scene in a time of prosperity and will seize the kingdom through deceit.

Daniel 12:5

12:5 I, Daniel, watched as two others stood there, one on each side of the river. ⁴⁰ 

[2:5]  ¹ tn Aram “answered and said,” a common idiom to indicate a reply, but redundant in contemporary English.

[2:5]  ² tn It seems clear from what follows that Nebuchadnezzar clearly recalls the content of the dream, although obviously he does not know what to make of it. By not divulging the dream itself to the would-be interpreters, he intends to find out whether they are simply leading him on. If they can tell him the dream’s content, which he is able to verify, he then can have confidence in their interpretation, which is what eludes him. The translation “the matter is gone from me” (cf. KJV, ASV), suggesting that the king had simply forgotten the dream, is incorrect. The Aramaic word used here (אַזְדָּא, ’azda’) is probably of Persian origin; it occurs in the OT only here and in v. 8. There are two main possibilities for the meaning of the word: “the matter is promulgated by me” (see KBL 1048 s.v.) and therefore “publicly known” (cf. NRSV; F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 62-63, §189), or “the matter is irrevocable” (cf. NAB, NIV, TEV, CEV, NLT; HALOT 1808 s.v. אזד; cf. also BDB 1079 s.v.). The present translation reflects this latter option. See further E. Vogt, Lexicon linguae aramaicae, 3.

[2:5]  ³ tn Aram “made limbs.” Cf. 3:29.

[2:11]  ⁴ tn Aram “whose dwelling is not with flesh.”

[2:18]  ⁵ tn Aram “Daniel.” The proper name is redundant here in English, and has not been included in the translation.

[3:1]  ⁶ sn The LXX introduces this chapter with the following chronological note: “in the eighteenth year of.” Such a date would place these events at about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. (cf. 2 Kgs 25:8). However, there seems to be no real basis for associating the events of Daniel 3 with this date.

[3:1]  ⁷ sn There is no need to think of Nebuchadnezzar’s image as being solid gold. No doubt the sense is that it was overlaid with gold (cf. Isa 40:19; Jer 10:3-4), with the result that it presented a dazzling self-compliment to the greatness of Nebuchadnezzar’s achievements.

[3:1]  ⁸ sn According to a number of patristic authors, the image represented a deification of Nebuchadnezzar himself. This is not clear from the biblical text, however.

[3:1]  ⁹ tn Aram “sixty cubits.” Assuming a length of 18 inches for the standard cubit, the image would be 90 feet (27.4 m) high.

[3:1]  ¹⁰ tn Aram “six cubits.” Assuming a length of 18 inches for the standard cubit, the image would be 9 feet (2.74 m) wide.

[3:1]  sn The dimensions of the image (ninety feet high and nine feet wide) imply that it did not possess normal human proportions, unless a base for the image is included in the height dimension. The ancient world knew of other tall statues. For example, the Colossus of Rhodes – the huge statue of Helios which stood (ca. 280-224 B.C.) at the entrance to the harbor at Rhodes and was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – was said to be seventy cubits (105 ft or 32 m) in height, which would make it even taller than Nebuchadnezzar’s image.

[3:22]  ¹¹ tn Aram “caused to go up.”

[3:22]  ¹² tn The Aramaic verb is active.

[3:22]  ¹³ tn Aram “the flame of the fire” (so KJV, ASV, NASB); NRSV “the raging flames.”

[4:26]  ¹⁴ sn The reference to heaven here is a circumlocution for God. There was a tendency in Jewish contexts to avoid direct reference to God. Cf. the expression “kingdom of heaven” in the NT and such statements as “I have sinned against heaven and in your sight” (Luke 15:21).

[5:5]  ¹⁵ tn Aram “came forth.”

[5:5]  ¹⁶ sn The mention of the lampstand in this context is of interest because it suggests that the writing was in clear view.

[5:5]  ¹⁷ tn While Aramaic פַּס (pas) can mean the palm of the hand, here it seems to be the back of the hand that is intended.

[5:29]  ¹⁸ tn Aram “Belshazzar spoke.”

[6:14]  ¹⁹ tn Aram “the word.”

[6:14]  ²⁰ tn Aram “placed his mind on.”

[6:14]  ²¹ tn Aram “the entrances of the sun.”

[6:18]  ²² tn The meaning of Aramaic דַּחֲוָה (dakhavah) is a crux interpretum. Suggestions include “music,” “dancing girls,” “concubines,” “table,” “food” – all of which are uncertain. The translation employed here, suggested by earlier scholars, is deliberately vague. A number of recent English versions follow a similar approach with “entertainment” (e.g., NASB, NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT). On this word see further, HALOT 1849-50 s.v.; E. Vogt, Lexicon linguae aramaicae, 37.

[6:18]  ²³ tn Aram “his sleep fled from him.”

[7:6]  ²⁴ tn Aram “this.” So also in v. 7.

[7:6]  ²⁵ tn Aram “and behold, another one.”

[7:6]  ²⁶ tn Or “sides.”

[7:6]  ²⁷ sn If the third animal is Greece, the most likely identification of these four heads is the four-fold division of the empire of Alexander the Great following his death. See note on Dan 8:8.

[7:11]  ²⁸ tc The LXX and Theodotion lack the words “I was watching” here. It is possible that these words in the MT are a dittography from the first part of the verse.

[7:11]  ²⁹ tn Aram “and given over to” (so NRSV).

[7:28]  ³⁰ tn Aram “my brightness was changing on me.”

[7:28]  ³¹ tn Aram “in my heart.”

[8:26]  ³² tn Heb “truth.”

[9:8]  ³³ tn Heb “to us (belongs) shame of face.”

[9:14]  ³⁴ tn Or “righteous.”

[9:14]  ³⁵ tn Heb “in all his deeds which he has done.”

[9:14]  ³⁶ tn Heb “we have not listened to his voice.”

[11:15]  ³⁷ sn This well-fortified city is apparently Sidon. Its capture from the Ptolemies by Antiochus the Great was a strategic victory for the Seleucid kingdom.

[11:15]  ³⁸ tn Or “choice troops” (BDB 104 s.v. מִבְחָר), or “elite troops” (HALOT 542 s.v. מִבְחָר).

[11:21]  ³⁹ sn This despicable person to whom the royal honor has not been rightfully conferred is Antiochus IV Epiphanes (ca. 175-164 B.C.).

[12:5]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “one to this edge of the river and one to that edge of the river.”