DANIEL (MAN) (דָּֽנִיֵּ֜אל, God is my judge, LXX Δανιήλ, G1248, Daniēl).

1. The second son of David (1 Chron 3:1, the Chileab of 2 Sam 3:3).

2. A priest of the postexilic period (Ezra 8:2; Neh 10:6).

3. The exilic seer traditionally credited with authorship of the Book of Daniel. This man is commonly accorded the status of a prophet, but this is technically incorrect. His life experiences show that he was more of a statesman in a foreign court than a mediator of divine revelation to a theocratic community. Yet it is also true that his outlook contains elements which are in full accord with the highest spiritual traditions of Heb. prophecy generally.

Daniel seems to have been born into an unidentified family of Judean nobility somewhat prior to Josiah’s reformation in 621 b.c. While nothing is known about the life and career of Daniel aside from what is narrated in the canonical book of that name, the fact that he was among the first selection of Jewish captives taken to Babylon in 605 b.c. by Nebuchadnezzar indicates that he claimed considerable social standing. The advance of the Babylonians against the Egyptians, who had marched to Haran to assist the beleaguered remnants of the Assyrian armies, has been well documented by cuneiform texts. The discovery in 1956 by D. J. Wiseman of four additional tablets of the Babylonian Chronicle in the British Museum archives furnished an account of the shattering defeat which the Babylonians inflicted upon the Egyptians at Carchemish in 605 b.c. One result of this victory was that the Babylonians seem to have demanded hostages of Judah as evidence of good faith toward Babylonia, and it was this group which went into captivity in the third year of Jehoiakim (Dan 1:1, 3), including the young man Daniel. For a three-year period he was instructed in all the lore of the Chaldeans (Dan 1:4, 5) in preparation for the royal service. He was also given the Babylonian name of Belteshazzar, the Heb. form most prob. being a transliteration of balatsu-usur or “protect his life,” the name of the protective deity having been omitted in the Heb. However, despite his superficial conformity to the court customs of Babylonia, Daniel remained true to his Jewish heritage. Thus, when he and his three friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were invited to accept the royal food and drink, they declined courteously rather than violate the ancient dietary laws of Leviticus since the food in question (1:8) had been tainted through contact with idols. God honored the witness of this group by giving them outstanding learning abilities (1:20), enabling them to qualify as official “wise men” after three years (1:20; cf. 2:13). In addition, Daniel received the ability to experience visions and interpret dreams.

In 602 b.c. Nebuchadnezzar was troubled by a dream which he had promptly forgotten on waking (2:5, 8). The priestly diviners were ordered to disclose the nature of the dream and interpret its meaning, and when they proved unequal to this challenge they were promptly sentenced to death. This unfortunate fate included Daniel also, but after prayer God revealed the dream and its meaning to him (2:11, 18, 19). It depicted a fourfold image representing the four world empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome which would precede the introduction of the Messianic kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar was so impressed with this performance that he made Daniel chief over the wise men (2:48) and offered him the governorship of the province of Babylon, a position which Daniel assigned to his three friends (2:49). Toward the end of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign (604-562 b.c.) Daniel was called upon to interpret the dream of the fallen tree (4:8-27). It required both courage and tact for Daniel to tell the king that for a specified period he would be afflicted with a mental condition, a prediction which was fulfilled within a year (4:28-33). When Nabonidus, the last ruler of imperial Babylon, retired to Teima in Arabia c. 556 b.c., his son Belshazzar acted as coregent. About 555 b.c. Daniel saw a vision of four great beasts (7:1-14) which paralleled Nebuchadnezzar’s earlier dream of the composite image. In the meantime Babylonian political power was diminishing and being overshadowed by the rising influence of Cyrus (559-530 b.c.). About 552 b.c. Daniel had a vision of a ram and a he-goat which related to the fortunes of Persia and Greece (8:20, 21) down to the Maccabean period (Dan 8:25). Late in 539 b.c. Gubaru and Ugbaru led the armies of Cyrus to victory over the Chaldea ns, and during the drunken revelries which immediately preceded the fall of Babylon, Daniel was summoned to the court and asked to explain the “handwriting on the wall.” He predicted a Medo-Persian victory, condemned the dissolute Belshazzar, and witnessed the collapse of the regime that very night (5:23-31). On assuming his office as king of Babylon, Darius the Mede (prob. Gubaru) invited Daniel to become one of his three “presidents” (6:2). Jealous colleagues tried to cause the downfall of Daniel through charges of corruption (6:4), and when this failed they instituted a royal edict prohibiting all prayers or petitions except those addressed to King Darius himself. The intractable laws of the Medes and Persians left Darius no course but to throw Daniel into a den of lions for breaking them. God intervened to save His servant but allowed the fate intended for Daniel to overtake his accusers. As the Israelite exile in Babylon drew to a close in 538 b.c., the angel Gabriel answered Daniel’s prayers by revealing the time span “seventy weeks” or 490 years (9:24-27) intervening between the decree enabling Jerusalem to be rebuilt and the time when the Messiah’s work would begin. Daniel continued to function as a wise man during the early years of Cyrus (6:28), and having seniority in this position he would doubtless have been accorded great veneration by the superstitious Persians. What appears to be the last recorded event in the life of the seer occurred in the third year of Cyrus (536 b.c.), when Daniel saw a vision of the conflict between the archangel Michael and the demonic powers of society. This unfolded in terms of the history of Near Eastern nations, dealing at some length with the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes (175 b.c.) and the rise of the eschatological antichrist. It culminated in a revelation concerning resurrection and the final judg ment of God (10:10-12:4), during which Daniel was assured that, although he would die before all this was fulfilled, he would nevertheless receive his reward at the consummation (12:13). It seems probable that Daniel was well over eighty when he died. He left behind an impressive reputation for inspiring faith through the exercise of courage when confronted by mortal danger. He also manifested complete dedication to the ideals of God in a pagan society, and set an example of persistence in prayer. His popularity in later times among the Jews is indicated by the numerous legendary accretions, as well as MSS and fragments of the book discovered at Qumran.

The Ugaritic Legend of Aqht referred to an ancient Phoenician king named Dnil (vocalized as Dan’el or Dani’el) who was reputedly wise and upright. The reference to “Daniel” in Ezekiel 14:14 may point to some such antediluvian person, and not a contemporary of Ezekiel. So also in Ezekiel 28:3 where the prophet also mocked Tyre sarcastically because she was “wiser than Daniel.”

Bibliography E. J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel (1949); E. W. Heaton, The Book of Daniel (1956).