258 Charles C. Torrey, 



thus stand side hy side with the unquahfied ^'H which immediately 

 follows. We have here the result of a copyist's error, which was caused 

 by the twofold mention of the image, coupled with the resemblance ot 

 the two words 3'n and IH- The original text was certainly: cSji I'^XI 

 "jSapb DKp nTl"' n?n X^:it? nn pi )Xflhl nn. the adverbial K^Jtr 

 following the word ^'H- This seems to be what actually stood before 

 the old Greek translator: xal tSou sixwv jxia, xal ^v f, etxcuv exei'vY) \i.z-\61ki\ 

 (jcp6(5pa, xal fj Trp65o<|<t? aurrjc (reading ni'1 for HIT) uT^sp^psp'']? sanfjxet 

 ivavTtov (joo. " Thou, O king, didst behold, and lo, an image — that 

 image was very great, and its splendor exceeding — standing before 

 thee, and its appearance was terrible." 



2 : 33 Tln3S3 (tvvice), also vss. 41 (twice) and 42 (twice). It is better 

 to follow the consonant text and write ?in3^ in all these cases, since 

 the evidence is so abundant that in the popular speech, both in Aramaic 

 and in Hebrew, the personal pronoun of the third person plural was 

 epicene. 



2 : 38. The English version reads : "And wheresoever the children 

 of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath 

 he given into thine hand, and hath made thee to rule over them all. 

 Thou art the head of gold." This would be a glorious kingdom, cer- 

 tainly, but not glorious enough for this context. Nor has any plausible 

 explanation of the verse ever been given. The trouble lies in the 

 misunderstanding of the idiom ^"1X1 ^*7 ^32? which is merely a trans- 

 lation of the Greek Iv t^ oixouixsvttj. The word r'nx*7 illustrates the 

 use of the indefinite third person plural in place of the passive 

 voice, which is so characteristic of the Aramaic of this time ; cf ru'^lIT 

 in vs. 30, the participle pI?32iS3 in 4 : 22, and many other passages. 

 " In all which they inhabit " is the current way of saying " In every 

 (place) which is inhabited." At the time when the stor)- of Daniel 

 was written, this phrase must have been in such common use that no 

 one would have made the mistake of connecting Xti^3X '^55 with the 

 preceding rather than with the following words. The passage should 

 be rendered : "And in all the world (or, more literally, ' the inhabited 

 world ') he hath given into thine hand the sons of men, the beasts of 

 the field, and the fowls of the heaven, and hath made thee to rule 

 over them all." 



2 : 40. This verse has caused much unnecessary difficulty, chiefly 

 because of the massoretic accentuation (that miserable substitute for 

 punctuation, as modern scholars try^ to use it). The verse should read: 



htm pinia sbna ^n S::p h'2 ,x^ns2 ns^pn sinn s^rnn is'^^ai 



r-in^ pin \h^ h'D >mD ^1 K^nS^l ;xbD- "And a fourth kingdom 

 shall be strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaketh and crusheth all 



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