Daniel 4:3-6
3 “How great are his signs!How mighty are his wonders!
His kingdom will last forever, ▼
▼ Aram “his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.”
and his authority continues from one generation to the next.”
Nebuchadnezzar Dreams of a Tree Chopped Down
4 [Heb. 4:1] ▼▼ This verse marks the beginning of chap. 4 in the Aramaic text of Daniel (see the note on 4:1). The Greek OT (LXX) has the following addition: “In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign he said.” This date would suggest a link to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. In general, the LXX of chapters 4–6 is very different from the MT, so much so that the following notes will call attention only to selected readings. In Daniel 4 the LXX lacks sizable portions of material in the MT (e.g., vv. 3–6, 31–32), includes sizable portions of material not in the MT (e.g., v. 14a, parts of vv. 16, 28), has a different order of some material (e.g., v. 8 after v. 9), and in some instances is vastly different from the MT (e.g., vv. 30, 34). Whether these differences are due to an excessively paraphrastic translation technique adopted for these chapters in the LXX, or are due to differences in the underlying Vorlage of the LXX, is a disputed matter. The latter seems more likely. There is a growing trend in modern scholarship to take the LXX of chapters 4–6 much more seriously than was the case in most earlier text-critical studies that considered this issue.
I, Nebuchadnezzar, was relaxing in my home, ▼▼ Aram “my house.”
living luxuriously ▼▼ Aram “happy.”
in my palace. 5I saw a dream that ▼▼ Aram “and it.”
frightened me badly. The things I imagined while lying on my bed – these visions of my mind – were terrifying me. 6So I issued an order ▼▼ Aram “from me there was placed a decree.”
for all the wise men of Babylon to be brought ▼▼ The Aramaic infinitive here is active.
before me so that they could make known to me the interpretation of the dream.
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