Bible Difficulties (64 page)

Is not Daniel 5 in error regarding the identity of the last king of Babylon? Wasn't it
Nabonidus rather than Belshazzar?

On the contrary, the biblical notice has been strikingly confirmed by archaeological evidence. During the previous centuries many scholars mistakenly assumed that

"Belshazzar" was a mere legendary figure because none of the Greek historians, from Herodotus on, knew anything about Belshazzar or referred to his name. While it is true that Nabonidus (the cuneiform spelling is
Nabu-na'id
) was indeed the head king of Babylon at the demise of the Chaldean Empire, it has now been well established that he was quartered at Tema in North Arabia at the time of Cyrus's invasion of Babylonia. It was therefore his son, Belshazzar, who was in charge of Babylon itself (which at that time was considered impregnable to any besieging army), and who had been crowned as viceroy several years earlier during his father's reign.

Excavations at Ur turned up an inscription of Nabunaid containing a prayer, first for himself, then for his firstborn son,
Bel-shar-usur
. Such prayers were offered only for the reigning monarch (in a manner quite similar to the celebration of Holy Communion in the Anglican Church). Still other cuneiform documents record how Belshazzar presented sheep and oxen at the temples of Sippar as "an offering of the King." Since the name of Belshazzar had been forgotten by the time of Herodotus (ca. 450 B.C.), it is clear that the author of Daniel 5 must have written this work a good deal
earlier
than 450 B.C. That author was also well aware that Belshazzar was only number two king of Babylon in 539

B.C., for all he could offer Daniel as a reward for deciphering the inscription on the wall of the banquet hall was "the
third
place in the kingdom." (For further details on this matter, the reader is encouraged to consult Raymond P. Dougherty,
Nabonidus and
Belshazzar
[New Haven: Yale, 1929].)

Is there any confirmation for the existence of "Darius the Mede"?

"Darius the Mede" is first mentioned in Daniel 5:31: "So Darius the Mede received the kingdom [over the erstwhile Chaldean Empire] at about the age of sixty-two" (NASB).

Some scholars, advocating a late date theory for the composition of Daniel, argue (1) that there never was a Median Darius, since he is never mentioned in any other ancient document preserved to us; (2) that the name Darius was picked up by the Maccabean 289

author, who was confused about the real sequence in Persian History and mixed up a legendary Median king with Darius I (522-484), who was a Persian rather than a Mede; (3) that the author mistakenly supposed that it was the Medes who conquered Babylon (rather than Cyrus the Persian), and that under this legendary "Darius" they were supposed to have maintained a world empire for some years before they fell to the Persians.

In this way the Maccabean date advocates are able to account for the four "kingdoms" in Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Dan. 2) as (1) Chaldean, (2) Median, (3) Persian, (4) Greek--

which would have the advantage of extending the prophetic horizon of "Daniel" no farther than 165 B.C. (The problem with the traditional identification of the fourth kingdom with Rome is that it would presuppose genuine predictive prophecy--which cannot be permitted by rationalist higher criticism.) The tenability of the Maccabean date hypothesis rests on this explanation for "Darius the Mede." Therefore Darius is a pretty important fellow and deserves our special attention.

No identification can be made out between Darius the son of Hystaspes and Darius the Mede for the following reasons:

1. Darius I was a Persian by birth, a cousin of King Cyrus; he was not a Median.

2. Darius was a young man when he assassinated the imposter Gaumata (who claimed to be Smerdis, the son of Cyrus) in 522. Darius could not have been 62; he was more likely in his twenties.

3. Darius did not precede Cyrus as king of Babylon; rather, he began his reign seven years after the death of Cyrus the Great; yet the liberal theory alleges that the author supposed that he came before Cyrus.

4. Such confusion as to the true nationality and time sequence of Darius the Great would have been unthinkable in the second-century B.C. Hellenistic world; for even in the Near East every schoolboy was required to read Xenophon, if not Herodotus, and other Greek historians from the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Even in Hellenistic Palestine, these authors were widely read and admired. It is from Xenophon and Herodotus that we gain our information concerning Cyrus and Darius. Any Greek-writing author, or author within the Hellenistic orbit, who attempted to put Darius before Cyrus would have been laughed off the stage by the general public; and no credence would have been given to anything he wrote.

We must therefore conclude that Darius the Mede and Darius the Persian have nothing to do with each other, and that the confusion is in the minds of the late date theorists rather than in the mind of the author of Daniel. And yet it is true that no reference to

"Darius the Mede" has been discovered as yet in the findings of archaeology. (Until the late nineteenth century, the same would have been true of Belshazzar, viceroy under his father Nabonidus. Maccabean date critics used to allege that he was another fictional character in Daniel, before the discovery of Babylonian tablets from that period, which 290

confirm that Belshazzar was serving as junior king in the final years of Nabonidus's reign.) Yet there is a very obvious and attractive identification to be found as we shall see.

There are several indications in the text of Daniel that Darius was not king in his own right but had been temporarily appointed to the throne by some higher authority. In 9:1 it is stated that Darius "was made king." The passive stem (
hophal
) is used in the verb
homlak
, rather than the usual
malak
("became king"), which would have been used had he obtained the throne by conquest or by inheritance. In 5:31 we are told that Darius

"received" (
qabbel
) the kingship, as if it had been entrusted to him by a higher authority.

It is also appropriate to point out that subordinate or vassal kings were similarly appointed by Cyrus according to the Behistun Rock inscription set up by Darius I in the late sixth century. (Thus Darius's own forebear, Hystaspes, is said to have been "made king" during the time of Cyrus the Great.) As the incumbent of the time-honored throne of Babylon, it was only a matter of proper protocol for Cyrus's appointee to assume in his official decrees the same titles as had always attached to that title. Thus the decree of 6:25 is addressed to the inhabitants of "all the earth" (
'arà'
could also be translated

"land," rather than being as comprehensive as "the earth"). Traditional titulary, going back to the time of Hammurabi (eighteenth century B.C.), was
sar kissati
("king of the universe"). Therefore this phrase need not be construed as implying that Darius was claiming to be king over all the inhabited world, including Persia itself, as some critics assumed.

Who, then, was Darius the Mede? In his careful study of the relevant archaeological documents, J.C. Whitcomb (
Darius the Mede
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959]) has assembled all the texts referring to (1) Ugbaru, the general who engineered the capture of Babylon in 539 B.C.; (2) Gubaru, who is often referred to in tablets dating from 535 to 525 as the governor of Babylon; and (3) Gaubaruva, a leader mentioned in the inscriptions of Darius the Great. Ugbaru was not the same person as Gubaru (Xenophon spells his name as Gobryas but confuses him with Ugbaru) but an elderly general who died within a few weeks after the Fall of Babylon. Gaubaruva is plainly a later personage who came into prominence after Ushtani was appointed governor of Babylon in the late 520s. Concerning Gubaru, we have little evidence of his ethnic background, but he could very well have been a Mede. Certainly it was consistent with Cyrus's policy to put talented and loyal Medes like General Harpagus into key positions in his government. As for the name "Darius" (Persian
Darayawush
), it seems to be related to
dara
, which appears in Avestan as a term for "king." Like
augustus
among the Romans,
darayawush
("the royal one") may have been a special honorific title, which could also be used as a proper name (just as "King" may be a name in English).

It would appear, then, that right after the Fall of Babylon to the Medo-Persian troops, Cyrus's presence was urgently needed in another front of his expanding empire. He therefore found it expedient to put Gubaru-Darius in charge, with the title King of Babylon, to rule for a year or so until Cyrus could return in person and celebrate a formal coronation as king in the temple of Marduk. After his year of rule as viceroy, then, Darius was retained as the governor of Babylon, but with the crown transferred to his overlord, 291

Cyrus (who subsequently had his older son, Cambyses, crowned king of Babylon). It is clear from Daniel's failure to mention any date later than Darius's "first year" (9:1) that his reign must have been of very brief duration. It should be observed that an empire that lasted for only a single year introduces and element of utter implausibility into the Maccabean date hypothesis; for a one-year empire could hardly have been set up as number two in a series that included the Chaldean Empire, which lasted for 73 years, the Persian Empire, which lasted for 208 years, and the Greek Empire, which would have lasted for 167 years by 165 B.C.

We close this discussion with the episode that first ushers Darius onto the stage in Daniel's narrative. Daniel 5 relates the dramatic episode of the divine handwriting on the wall of Belshazzar's banquet hall. The third term in that fateful inscription is PERES, which Daniel himself (in v.28) interprets as "PERES--your kingdom has been divided

[
perisat
, from the same
p-r-s
root as PERES] and given over to the Medes and Persians

[
Paras
]" (NASB). This double word-play on the root
p-r-s
makes it absolutely certain that the author of this book believed that kingdom number one (the Chaldean Empire) passed directly and immediately into the control of the Persians, allied with the Medes, as kingdom number two. This leaves no room for the critics' theory of an earlier and separate Median Empire as being intended by the author of Daniel. That author must therefore have believed that kingdom number two was Persian (i.e., Medo-Persian), that kingdom number three (of Dan. 2) was the Macedonian-Greek-Syrian Empire, and that kingdom number four would overthrow and replace the Greek Empire. The only power that ever did that was the Roman Empire. Therefore, successful predictive prophecy cannot be eliminated from Daniel even by a Maccabean date hypothesis!

How can we make any sense out of Daniel's prophecy of Seventy Weeks?

The prophecy of the Seventy Weeks in Daniel 9:24-27 is one of the most remarkable long-range predictions in the entire Bible. It is by all odds one of the most widely discussed by students and scholars of every persuasion within the spectrum of the Christian church. And yet when it is carefully examined in the light of all the relevant data of history and the information available from other parts of Scripture, it is quite clearly an accurate prediction of the time of Christ's coming advent and a preview of the thrilling final act of the drama of human history before that advent.

Daniel 9:24 reads: "Seventy weeks have been determined for your people and your holy city [i.e., for the nation Israel and for Jerusalem]." The word for "week" is
sabuac
, which is derived from
sebà
, the word for "seven." Its normal plural is feminine in form:
sebuòt
. Only in this chapter of Daniel does it appear in the masculine plural
sabuìm
.

(The only other occurrence is in the combination
sebuè sebuòt
["heptads of weeks"] in Ezek. 21:28 [Ezek. 21:23 English text]). Therefore, it is strongly suggestive of the idea

"heptad" (a series or combination of seven), rather than a "week" in the sense of a series of seven days. There is no doubt that in this case we are presented with seventy sevens of years rather than of days. This leads to a total of 490 years.

292

At the completion of these 490 years, according to v.24b, there will be six results: (1)

"to finish or bring transgression [or `the sin of rebellion'] to an end"; (2) "to finish [or

`seal up'] sins"; (3) "to make atonement for iniquity"; (4) "to bring in everlasting righteousness"; (5) "to seal up vision and prophecy"; and (6) "to anoint the holy of holies." By the end of the full 490 years, then, the present sin-cursed world order will come to an end (1 and 2), the price of redemption for sinners will have been paid (3); the kingdom of God will be established on earth, and all the earth will be permanently filled with righteousness, as the waters cover the sea (4); and the Most Holy One (Christ?), or the Most Holy Sanctuary (which seems more probable, since Christ was already anointed by the Holy Spirit at His first advent), will be solemnly anointed and inaugurated for worship in Jerusalem, the religious and political capital of the world during the Millennium (5 and 6).

Daniel 9:25 reads: "And you are to know and understand, from the going forth of the command [or `decree'; lit., `word'--
dabar
] to restore and [re] build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince [
nagid
] will be [or `there are; the Hebrew omits the verb `to be' in this case] seven heptads and sixty-two heptads." This gives us two installments, 49 years and 434 years, for a total of 483 years. Significantly, the seventieth heptad is held in abeyance until v.27. Therefore we are left with a total of 483 between the issuance of the decree to rebuild Jerusalem and the coming of the Messiah.

As we examine each of the three decrees issued in regard to Jerusalem by kings subsequent to the time Daniel had this vision (538 B.C., judging from Dan. 9:1), we find that the first was that of Cyrus in 2 Chronicles 36:23: "The LORD, the God of heaven,...has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah"