Daniel 1:2

The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand,.... And the city of Jerusalem too, or he could not have took the king, and so the Syriac version renders it, and the Lord delivered it into his

And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels

In this expedition Nebuchadnezzar carried away some of the vessels of the temple, and some captives, among whom was Daniel and his friends. These vessels he carried into the house of his god; which god was Baal or Bel, and Nebo, ; which words they put into the names of their kings and favourites, of which more afterward. These vessels as spoils he put in the house of his god, for his honour, because he thought he had gotten his victory by the help of his idol god, ,10, as the Philistines did, ,24; whereas the text saith the Lord gave all into his hand, . The executioners of God’ s wrath upon God’ s sinful people have other thoughts than God hath about that, .

Daniel 1:2 And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.Ver. 2. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim.] Because the affliction by Pharaoh (being but a money matter) had not a kindly effect, a heavier is now sent; for as one cloud followeth at the heels of another, so doth one judgment of God upon another, till repentance, as the sun, do interpose, and cause it to clear up. With part of the vessels.] Not all as yet, by a sweet providence, and for an instance of God’ s patience. Which he carried into the land of Shinar.] Or, Babylonia, a part of the garden of Eden, as most geographers think, but now "the seat of Satan." To the house of his god.] Jupiter Belus. See on Isaiah 46:1.

(2) Part of the vessels.—Literally, from one point to another. He did not take them all at once, but on different occasions. (On Shinar, see Note, Genesis 10:10.) His god—i.e., Bel-Merodach, who was originally an Accadian deity, the signification of the second part of the name being “he that measures the path of the sun.” The planet Jupiter was worshipped under this name. He was the tutelary god of Babylon, and to his honour Nebuchadnezzar dedicated a temple. For a further description of this deity see Bar 6:14-15.

Verse 2. Part of the vessels of the house of God] He took the richest and finest of them for the service of his god Bel, and left what were necessary for carrying on the public worship of Jehovah, (for he did not attempt to alter the civil or religious constitution of Judea;) for leaving Jehoiakim on the throne, he only laid the land under tribute. The Chaldeans carried these sacred vessels away at three different times. 1. In the war spoken of in this place. 2. In the taking of Jerusalem and Jeconiah a few months after, 2Kg 24:13. 3. Eleven years after, under the reign of Zedekiah, when the city and temple were totally destroyed, and the land ruined, 2Kg 25:8-15. The land of Shinar ] This was the ancient mame of Babylon. See Genesis 11:2. The treasure house of his god.] This was Bel, who had a splendid temple in Babylon, and was the tutelar god of the city and empire.

2. gave into his hand Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and part, &c.] To ‘give into the hand’ as Judges 3:10; Jeremiah 20:4; Jeremiah 21:7; Jeremiah 22:25, and frequently. The expression is a strong one, and seems to imply that the writer had in view a defeat, and not merely a timely submission. the house of God] A frequent expression in late writers for the Temple (e.g. 2 Chronicles 3:3; 2 Chronicles 4:19; 2 Chronicles 5:1; 2 Chronicles 5:14; 2 Chronicles 7:5): earlier writers say nearly always ‘the house of Jehovah’ (e.g. 1 Kings 7:40; 1 Kings 7:45; 1 Kings 7:48; 1 Kings 7:51). which he carried] and he brought them. The pron. (as the text stands: see below, p. 4) refers to the vessels. Shinar] properly Shin‘ar, a Hebrew name for Babylonia (Genesis 10:10; Genesis 11:2; Genesis 14:1; Genesis 14:7; Joshua 7:21; Isaiah 11:11; Zechariah 5:11), here, no doubt, an old expression revived. The explanation of the name is uncertain, as nothing directly parallel has been found hitherto in the Inscriptions. According to some Assyriologists there are grounds for supposing it to be a dialectic variation of Shumer, the name given in the Inscriptions to South Babylonia[174]; but this explanation is not accepted by all scholars[175]. [174] As in the common title of the Assyrian kings, ‘King of Shumer and Akkad’ (Akkad being North Babylonia): so Delitzsch, Paradies (1881), p. 198, Assyr. Gramm. (1889), § 49a, Rem.; Schrader, KAT. 2 p. 118 f.; Prince, p. 58. [175] Cf. Dillmann on Genesis 10:10. Sayce, Patriarchal Palestine, p. 67 f., connects the name with Sangar, a district a little W. of Nineveh.to the house (i.e. temple) of his god] If any stress is to be laid upon the particular deity intended, it would be Marduk (the Merodach of Jer 50:2), the patron-god of Babylon. According to 2 Chronicles 36:7, the vessels which Nebuchadnezzar brought to Babylon in the reign of Jehoiakim were placed by him in his palace[176]. But see the next note. [176] See, however, Ezra 1:7; Ezra 5:14, though the gold and silver vessels mentioned here may be those carried away by Nebuchadnezzar with Jehoiachin (Jeremiah 27:16 [see Daniel 1:20, and cf. 2 Kings 24:13], Jeremiah 28:3), or Zedekiah (2 Kings 25:14-15).and the vessels he brought, &c.] In the Heb. ‘the vessels’ is emphatic by its position, and would naturally imply that something different had been mentioned before. As the verse stands, the clause is almost tautologous with the preceding one: at all events, if the ‘treasure house of his god’ be really a place distinct from the ‘house of his god,’ the correction is attached very awkwardly. Ewald supposed that some words had fallen out, and proposed to read ‘Jehoiakim, king of Judah, with the noblest of the land, and part,’ &c. Certainly the transportation of captives is presupposed in Daniel 1:3; but the insertion of these words does not relieve the awkwardness of Dan 1:2.

And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand - Jehoiakim was taken captive, and it would seem that there was an intention to convey him to Babylon 2 Chronicles 36:6, but that for some

2. Compare 2 Kings 23:35; 2 Kings 24:4; 2 Chronicles 36:5-8; Jeremiah 27:19-20. Shinar — Probably the Hebrew form of the archaic name for Babylon (Konig).