The cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament - The Search For ...

BOOK OF DANIEL VI. VII. 135
Median interregnum, which pervades the Book of Daniel *,
evidently originates from a dim recollection of the former
position of superiority possessed by the Medes. Their place
in Medo-Persia was occupied by the dominion of Cyrus
and the Achaemenidae. The tradition takes no account
of the fact that this Median rule exactly coincided chrono-
logically with the Babylonian, and that the Persian conqueror
had brought Media earlier than Babylonia under his sway.
This same tradition made no scruple to assume as a Median
interrex, one having the pure Persian name Darius. How
far the legend adopted in other respects the material which
here comes under consideration, may be ascertained by the
reader from my essay "The legend of Nebukadnezzar's
frenzy" in Jahrbiicher fur Protestant, Theologie pp. 618
629. See the remarks on chap. V. 1.
VII. 1. In the first year of Belshazzar. Comp. VIII. 1438
"in the third year of Belshazzar". To judge from this mode
of expression, the author of the Book of Daniel regarded
Belshazzar as a separate and independent monarch , who
reigned several years. We cannot at any rate prove from
documentary evidence that such was the fact; comp. note
on V. 1. Probably we have simply a confusion of this
king of Babel, whom the Jews supposed to be the last,
with the actually last king Nabunit, who reigned altogether
17 years; comp. note on chap. V. 2.
VIII. 2. v^N Eulaeus Evlaioq, in Assyrian nS.r Ulai
* Comp. not only V. 28, VIII. 3. 20 but especially VII. 3 foil.
In the last passage the kingdom represented under the image of a bear
is without doubt the Median empire, in the same way as the "lesser"
empire that follows the Babylonian, referred-to in the monarchic image
described in II, 39 a.
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