SOURCE: Clifford, Richard J. “History and Myth in Daniel 10-12.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 220 (December 1975): 23-26.

[In the following essay, Clifford argues that the author of The Book of Daniel selected and structured historical details to present a new interpretation of history and mythical narrative.]

Chapters 10-12 of the book of Daniel, by consensus of modern commentators a single apocalypse parallel to the apocalypses of Daniel 7 and 8, is a unique combination of historical narrative¹ and prediction of the future. To be sure, the whole of Dan 11:2b-12:1-3 is, in form, a revelation of future events. But the author of Daniel, writing between 168 and 163 b.c.e., i.e. after the second campaign against Egypt of Antiochus IV and before his death in Persia, is living in the crisis period of 11:29-35, while describing events future to him (Dan 11:40-12:3). This essay attempts to show that in Dan 11:2b-35, where the author was bound by the historical record, he selected and structured historical details to give a profoundly original interpretation of Antiochus IV, which stemmed from his own Danielic party. In Dan 11:36-12:3, where he was not bound by Seleucid history, he reused OT traditions and transformed Canaanite mythic material to the same purpose. It is a pleasure to dedicate this contribution to the memory of G. Ernest Wright, who always attempted to see the OT against its environment.

I. THE SELECTION AND STRUCTURE OF THE HISTORICAL RECORD (DAN 11:2B-35)

In the following outline the intention of the author's arrangement of 11:2b-35 is made clear schematically.

• A. 10:1-11:2a Introduction of vision

• 10:1a Date formula

• 10:1b Summary of the vision: a great war

• 10:2-3 Ritual mourning

• 10:4-11:2a Appearance of heavenly man and dialogue with Daniel

• B. 11:2b-12:3 Vision of the days to come
  1. 11:2b-35 Selection and structure of the historical record
     • a. 11:2b-9 From Persia to Third Syrian War

     • 11:2b Wealth of Persia serves only to cause entry of Greece into east

     • 11:3-4 Alexander's might cannot insure succession to his progeny

     • 11:5 King of South (Ptolemy I) gains power but is outstripped by one of his princes (Seleucus I)

     • 11:6-9 Dynastic marriage leads to Third Syrian War (246-241)

     • b. 11:10-19 Antiochus III (223-187)

     • 11:10-12 First campaign against Egypt by Antiochus ends in stalemate

     • 11:13-19 Second campaign against Egypt, marked by military and diplomatic success, leads ultimately to check by Rome and Antiochus' disappearance from scene. Note: vs. 14b, describing support of Seleucids by some Jews, anticipates vss. 30, 32; vs. 16b, depicting Antiochus standing in triumph in the land, anticipates vs. 30.

     • c. 11:20 Seleucus IV (187-175), transitional to Antiochus IV
     • d. 11:21-12:3 Antiochus IV (175-163), climax

     • 11:21-24 Antiochus' deceitful rise and his difference from his predecessors

     • 11:25-28 First campaign against Egypt is inconclusive because it is not yet the time of the end.

     • 11:29-35 Second campaign against Egypt in the “time appointed” (mo‘ed, vs. 29). Check by Rome leads to impiety against the holy covenant and division among Jews into supporters and resistors.

  2. 11:36-12:3 Reuse of OT traditions and transformation of mythic materials

  3. 11:36-39 His attack on the gods and replacement of ancestral deities

  4. 11:40-45 Third and climactic campaign against Egypt. At height of success, Antiochus is called to return to cosmic battle in the holy land, preparing way for ingathering of Israel.

  5. 12:1-3 Ingathering of true Israel from the land of death

• C. 12:4 Conclusion

As is true of Daniel 7 and 8, the course of world empires is capitulated in the career of the leader, e.g. the eleventh horn, the he-goat, the king. Like the royal activity shown in chs. 7 and 8, the kings' actions in ch. 11 are destined for frustration. As can be seen in the outline, containment of the empires until the climactic time of Antiochus IV is effected by the empires themselves. Only with Antiochus IV, who is said three times to have departed from the customs of his fathers and who attacks the divine assembly and the Most High God, does heaven intervene directly. “He will exalt himself against every god and against the god of gods he will speak monstrous things” (Dan [Book of Daniel] 11:36) recalls Dan 7:8, 11, 20, 25; 8:9-12. The unheard of attack on heaven can only be put down by heaven itself. Heaven's intervention is the end of the earthly empire.

Dan 11:2b-35 deserves closer study. Dan 11:2b, though textually troublesome, is best rendered, “Three more kings are to arise for Persia. And the fourth will become richer than all. And when he becomes powerful by his wealth, he will rouse all, that is, the kingdom of Greece.” The glory of Persia is slighted by lumping all the kings anonymously together. The wealth of the fourth, his strength, serves only to excite the envy of the Greeks and their hostile entry into the east. Dan 11:3-4 depicts the ignoble end of the great Alexander. At the point of his greatest success, his kingdom is broken and scattered, and inherited by none of his children.

Dan 11:5-20 describes the complicated story of the Seleucid and Ptolemaic predecessors of Antiochus IV, focusing not so much on the evil of the kings but on their persistent inability to effect a permanent rule by reason of their containment of each other. Dan 11:5-9 shows the rise of Ptolemy I and Seleucus I, Seleucus acting as a check on the untrammeled success of Ptolemy.²

Dan 11:10-19 describes the career of Antiochus III the Great. These verses are intended in the literary structure of the chapter as a foreshadowing of the career of Antiochus IV, the real center of interest for the author. As in Dan 11:21-35, the perspective is Seleucid and there are two campaigns against Egypt. The first ends in stalemate (Dan 11:10-12). The second is successful. No one can withstand Antiochus. He stands in the “beautiful land” and does as he pleases (Dan 11:16). Provoked by Seleucid success, “lawbreakers of thy people” arise to assist the victor and to “establish the vision,” just as the success of the later Antiochus will encourage a group (Dan 11:30, 32). Intoxicated by these triumphs, Antiochus III sets out on further conquest. He is stopped by Rome in the person of L. Cornelius Scipio. Up to the second campaign of Antiochus III, the check on the unbridled rule of Seleucid or Ptolemaic power was provided by each of Alexander's successors on the other. Now a third power, Rome, enters to frustrate the Seleucid plans, as it will in the days of Antiochus IV (Dan 11:30). The last pointer to Antiochus IV in this account is the dynastic marriage of Antiochus' daughter Cleopatra to Ptolemy V in Dan 11:17. It recalls the earlier unsuccessful marriage in 11:6, and prepares us for yet another piece of royal intrigue which cannot succeed (Dan 11:26-27).

The literary structure of Dan 11:10-19 serves to show that the time of Antiochus III is the last period in history when the earthly powers contain themselves. To accent the contrast with the second Antiochus, the author shapes Dan 11:10-19 and 11:21-12:3 similarly. In both accounts, the success of the Seleucid king means conflict with Rome, eschatological stirrings among the Jews, and the tyrant standing on holy ground. The difference then becomes obvious. Antiochus IV did what his fathers never did: he attacked the divine assembly and even the Most High God (vss. 24, 37, 38). Structurally, this fateful innovation is made clear by framing the climactic third (fictional) campaign against Egypt in adapted mythic language (11:36-39 and 12:1-3). It is the last age, when the enormity of sin causes the just God to appear. One meets the vocabulary of the end time only in 11:21-12:3, ‘ēt, (qēṣ) lammô‘ēd, ‘ēt qēṣ, bā‘ēt hahî’.

Dan 11:20, concerning Seleucus IV, is clearly transitional and by its brevity leads quickly to the denouement.

Dan 11:21-24 is prefatory and indicates that the career of Antiochus IV is climactic by insisting he did what none of his predecessors had done. The first Egyptian campaign (Dan 11:25-28) is marked by intrigue and lying table fellowship. It is doomed to failure “for the appointed end is not yet” (11:27). On Antiochus' return, he is portrayed as conceiving that hatred for the covenant that will have such fateful consequences. The second Egyptian campaign is frustrated by the Romans (vs. 30), leading him, like his predecessor (vs. 16), to stand in the holy land. It is now the appointed time (vs. 29): the final drama is beginning though the ultimate scene is still to come, since the distress must last “until the end time which is still appointed to come” (vs. 35).

As in the previous apocalypses in chs. 7 and 8, the succession of world empires issues finally in a conflict with the holy people. The division among the people, already foreshadowed in the time of Antiochus III (11:14), now becomes sharp and clear. The desecration of the temple, the installation of the “abomination that makes desolate,” precipitates the formation of two groups, “those who abandon the holy covenant” (11:30, 32), and the maśkîlîm, “the wise.”³

II. THE REUSE OF OT [OLD TESTAMENT] TRADITIONS AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF CANAANITE MYTH

If Dan 11:29-35 describes historical events contemporaneous with the author's writing, the desecration of the temple and the resultant split in the people, Dan 11:36-12:3 deals with the future vss. 40-45) and with heavenly matters vss. 36-39 and 12:1-3). The author draws upon OT traditions and Canaanite mythology more liberally here than he could in vss. 21-35. It is important therefore to identify carefully the traditions and myths being drawn upon here.

In Dan 11:36, vocabulary resonances with other Danielic and OT passages portray Antiochus IV as the great tyrant bent on self-deification destined for cosmic conflict with the Most High God. “He shall do according to his will” (vs. 36), is a Danielic expression for a tyrant's military triumph just prior to disaster (8:4; 11:3, 16). The words yitrômēm and yitgaddēl are used in the OT only of God exalting himself (Isa 33:10), and of the outrage of “the saw exalting itself above him who wields it” (Isa 10:15). Antiochus' raising of himself against the divine assembly and even the Most High God is a reuse of the old Canaanite myth of the rebellion in the heavens⁴ which finds its OT reflex in such passages as Isa 14:3-21 and Ezek 28:1-19. The more immediate reference is to Daniel 7 and 8 where the earthly tyrant who threatens the holy people comes finally to speak arrogant words against Yahweh (esp. 7:8, 11, 25; 8:9-12). The phrase “until the time of the end which is decreed comes to pass” appears to be a borrowing of an Isaian phrase (Isa 28:22 and 10:23)⁵ and occurs also in Dan 9:26-27. The replacement of the deities proper to each nation (Dan 11:37-38) represents an attempt to change what humans may not change, since the guardians of each nation are appointed by the president of the divine assembly (e.g. Deut 32:8-9 [LXX] and Sir 17:17). His reapportionment (y^eḥellēq) of the land in Dan 11:39 is another wresting of a divine prerogative since only God can apportion the land.⁶

The total success of the arrogant king in Egypt in Dan 11:40-45 can only lead to his downfall. The author here draws upon OT depictions of the humbling of the king at the height of his power, such as those of Isa 10:5-34; 14:3-21; 47:1-15; Ezek 27; 28:1-10; 31. Rumors from the north and east will cause him to return home, a detail probably based upon Isaiah 37, esp. vs. 7 (2 Kings 19).

The events of Dan 11:40-12:3, the death of Antiochus and the raising of the just, are a unified action. The single picture of divine victory and the procession of the people in triumph to the land may have its remote Canaanite ancestry in the victorious return of the divine warrior from battle with his entourage,⁷ and is found in many OT texts of return from the exile, e.g. Jer 30:4-11; Isa 10:5-34; the addition of Isa 14:1-2 to ch. 13; Isa 34:1-17, esp. vss. 16-17. The New Exodus in Second Isaiah often follows Israel's atonement and Yahweh's victory.⁸

Another ancient tradition appears in the death of the enemy between the sea and the glorious holy mountain (Dan 11:45). Ezekiel 38-39 depicts the final battle in the holy land. Psalms 2, 46, 48, 76 describe the enemy kings raging against the holy mountain only to be destroyed upon it or at the base, a theme with rich mythological ancestry.⁹ The close connection between the victory at the mountain and the return of the people finds support in the parallel apocalypse of Daniel 7 where the saints seem to receive immediately the dominion taken from the eleventh horn. In Dan 12:1, it is twice stated that Michael arises “at that time,” in the time of the last battle and victory.

In place of the ingathering of scattered Israel from exile which would be expected in traditional accounts of the death of the tyrant, one finds the awakening of “many of those who sleep in the ground of dust.” And “the wise (maśkîlîm) shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, / those who make many righteous, like stars for ever and ever.” The language of the verse is largely Isaian (cf. Isa 26:19; 52:13-53:12).¹⁰ The thought is bold and new, yet in continuity with Danielic thought. Recent discussion of the term q^edôšîm, “holy ones,” in Daniel 7 and 8 demonstrates that the term can refer to both the angelic host and the faithful Jews “in so far as they are associated with the heavenly host in the eschatological era.”¹¹ The author looks to some kind of fellowship with the heavenly host. Only the gods, the members of the divine assembly, enjoyed immortality. Life after death thus had to be imagined as becoming one of the heavenly entourage of the Most High God. These gods were sometimes depicted as stars, e.g. Judg 5:20 and Job 38:7.¹²

It appears that the author saw the ultimate enemy of the Most High God and his people not as Antiochus IV or any human empire, but as a more radical power persisting among the succession of empires. In Dan 7:2-3, the four beasts (empires) come from the great sea, and in Dan 12:1-3, the ultimate enemy that is overcome is death. Antiochus is only an agent of a more radical evil, death. Faithful Israel is brought home from the domain of the tyrant death. Those leaders who have exercised their servanthood will be gathered together and be enabled to continue to lead Israel, as members of the heavenly court, in the fateful stars. The author is cautious in his boldness. The wise become like stars. He is using old traditions without being limited by their polytheistic context.

Notes

1. Its closest analogue is 1 Enoch 85-90. On the genre, “coded history,” see most recently Hengel (1975) I, 99, 183-90. Commentaries consulted: Bentzen (1952); Delcor (1971); Montgomery (1927); Plöger (1965); and Porteous (1965).

2. Reading yeḥ^ezaq on the second occurrence of this verb in Dan 11:5 with LXX, the w^e in MT being due to dittography of the concluding w of the preceding word or of the y beginning the MT verb. The waw and the yod are several times confused in the chapter, a confusion arising easily in the script of the first century b.c.e. Also, read mimmemšaltô at the end of the verse, a mem having been lost by haplography in the MT.

3. That language from Isa 52:13-53:12, the fourth “servant song,” is being reused here, has been pointed out by many modern commentators, e.g., Ginsberg (1953). Evidently the Danielic party understands itself as the true servant Israel at this time. For earlier adaptation of Isaian servant language to a group within Israel, see Hanson (1975) ch. 2. It is interesting to note that the wise in Daniel do not dissociate themselves from the people (rabbîm) but see their suffering and death as creative for the whole people (Dan 11:35).

4. Clifford (1972) 131-77.

5. As noted in the commentaries, Isa 10:5-34, on the boasting of the Assyrian tyrant, his downfall and the gathering of Israel, is mined by the author of Daniel not only for vocabulary but also for the general pattern of destruction of the enemy king followed by the bringing back of Israel from exile. Of recent commentators, Bentzen (1952) has most clearly pointed out the use of Isaian passages in Dan 11:21-12:3.

6. Cf. the use of ḥālaq and ḥillēq in Joshua in the apportionment by God of the holy land to his people, and the use of the verb in the D stem in Isa 34:17 and Joel 3:2 of God's apportioning the land in the last age.

7. For a detailed discussion of “ritual conquest” in Israel's early traditions, and the transformation of Canaanite mythic language, see Cross (1973) 77-104.

8. On Jeremiah 30, see Nickelsburg (1972) 15-16. On Isa 14:1-2, see the comments of Wildberger (1974) ad loc.

9. For Canaanite and OT parallels to the battle on the holy mountain or at its base, see Clifford (1972) 57-60, 131-60.

10. Nickelsburg (1972) 17-23.

11. Collins (1974b) 66. See the thorough discussion of the term in Collins' article as a whole. In addition, Dequeker (1973) 108-87.

12. See further Collins (1974a) 21-43. A Ugaritic text instructive for its association of immortality with membership in the divine council is a dialogue between the goddess Anat and the young man Aqhat: “And Virgin Anat answered, / ‘Ask for life, O Aqhat the hero, / Ask for life and I will give it to you, / Not dying and I will grant it to you. / I will cause you to count years with Baal, / With the sons of El you will count months. / For Baal, when he gives life, gives a feast. / For the one brought to life he gives a feast and makes him drink. / He sings, he serenades him, / With sweetness does he sing. / And I will bring you life, O Aqhat the hero.’ / And Aqhat the hero answered, ‘Do not deceive me, O Virgin. / Moreover, your lying is loathsome to the hero. / Mortal man, how can he attain everlasting life? / How can man attain an eternal destiny? / Glaze will be poured on my head, / Plaster (?) upon my pate. / And like every mortal I will die. / and I shall surely die.’” (CTCA 17.6.2-45 = UT 2 Aqht). The passage in Daniel reverses the ancient Near Eastern belief that life with the gods is forbidden to mortals. Earlier OT passages echo the belief that man may not aspire to immortal life (see Clifford [1975]).

Bibliography

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———. 1975. Proverbs 9: A Suggested Ugaritic Parallel. Vetus Testamentum 25: 298-306.

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———. 1974b. The Son of Man and the Saints of the Most High in the Book of Daniel. Journal of Biblical Literature 93: 50-66.

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