Page:06.CBOT.KD.PropheticalBooks.B.vol.6.LesserProphets.djvu/52

Jerusalem in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, as mentioned in Dan 1:1, meant that this was done after he ascended the throne. But the remark of Wieseler (die 70 Wochen u. die 63 Jahrwochen des Proph. Daniel, p. 9), that the supposed opposition between Daniel 1 and 2 is so great that it cannot be thought of even in a pseudo-Daniel, cannot but awaken suspicion against the accuracy of the supposition that Nebuchadnezzar was the actual king of Babylon at the time of the siege of Jerusalem and the carrying away of Daniel. The dream of Nebuchadnezzar in Dan 2:1 is expressly placed in the second year of his reign (מלכוּת); in Daniel 1 Nebuchadnezzar is called the king of Babylon, but yet nothing is said of his actual reign, and the time of the siege of Jerusalem is not defined by a year of his reign. But he who afterwards became king might be proleptically styled king, though he was at the time only the commander of the army. This conjecture is confirmed by the statement of Berosus, as quoted by Josephus (Ant. x. 11. 1, c. Ap. i. 19), that Nebuchadnezzar undertook the first campaign against the Egyptian king during the lifetime of his father, who had entrusted him with the carrying on of the war on account of the infirmity of old age, and that he received tidings of his father's death after he had subdued his enemies in Western Asia. The time of Nebuchadnezzar's ascending the throne and commencing his reign was a year or a year and a half after the first siege of Jerusalem; thus in the second year of his reign, that is about the end of it, the three years of the education of the Hebrew youths in the wisdom of the Chaldees would have come to an end. Thus the apparent contradiction between Dan 2:1 and Dan 1:1 is cleared up. In reference to the date, “in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim” (Dan 1:1), we cannot regard as justified the supposition deduced from Jer 36:9, that the Chaldeans in the ninth month of the fifth year of Jehoiakim had not yet come to Jerusalem, nor can we agree with the opinion that Nebuchadnezzar had already destroyed Jerusalem before the victory gained by him over Pharaoh-Necho at Carchemish (Jer 46:2) in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, but hope under Dan 1:1 to prove that the taking of Jerusalem in the fourth year of Jehoiakim followed after the battle at Carchemish, and that the statement by Daniel (Dan 1:1), when rightly understood, harmonizes easily therewith, since בּוא (Dan 1:1) signifies to go, to set out, and not to come.
But (2) it is not so easy to explain the historical difficulties which are found in Daniel 5 and Dan 6:1 (Dan 5:31), since the extra-biblical