Daniel 2:15–18 — Semitic Language Study
עָנֵ֣ה וְאָמַ֗ר לְאַרְיֹוךְ֙ שַׁלִּיטָ֣א דִֽי־מַלְכָּ֔א עַל־מָ֥ה דָתָ֛א מְהַחְצְפָ֖ה מִן־קֳדָ֣ם מַלְכָּ֑א אֱדַ֣יִן מִלְּתָ֔א הֹודַ֥ע אַרְיֹ֖וךְ לְדָנִיֵּֽאל׃ וְדָ֣נִיֵּ֔אל עַ֖ל וּבְעָ֣ה מִן־מַלְכָּ֑א דִּ֚י זְמָ֣ן יִנְתֵּן־לֵ֔הּ וּפִשְׁרָ֖א לְהַֽחֲוָיָ֥ה לְמַלְכָּֽא אֱדַ֥יִן דָּֽנִיֵּ֖אל לְבַיְתֵ֣הּ אֲזַ֑ל וְ֠לַחֲנַנְיָה מִֽישָׁאֵ֧ל וַעֲזַרְיָ֛ה חַבְרֹ֖והִי מִלְּתָ֥א הֹודַֽע וְרַחֲמִ֗ין לְמִבְעֵא֙ מִן־קֳדָם֙ אֱלָ֣הּ שְׁמַיָּ֔א עַל־רָזָ֖ה דְּנָ֑ה דִּ֣י לָ֤א יְהֹֽבְדוּן֙ דָּנִיֵּ֣אל וְחַבְרֹ֔והִי עִם־שְׁאָ֖ר חַכִּימֵ֥י בָבֶֽל
And he asked Arioch, the captain of the King, “Why is the decree so severe from before the King?” So Arioch made the matter known to Daniel. And Daniel arose and sought from the King for time to show and provide the interpretation for the King. So Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to his companions — Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah — so that they might seek the mercies of the God of Heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his companions should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
I’d like to focus this entry on one particular word of interest, that being the function רָזָ֖ה razah referring to a “secret” or “mystery”. This word, like much of the technical terminology in the book of Daniel, is borrowed from the Persian راز raz and shares a cognate with Sanskrit in the word rahás (रहस्) — meaning “secret,” “mystery,” or “hidden place.” In fact, this is a common moniker for Hindu esoteric spirituality. An example of this is the mystical work Tripurā Rahasya (त्रिपुरा रहस्य) which translates to The Mystery Beyond the Three Cities. It also appears in the Pali literature of the Buddhist scriptural corpus, referring to the act of solitude that a sage undergoes before enlightenment.
Interestingly, the context of the secret in the book of Daniel is the content of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, cast as a mašal that needs an interpretation (tafsir) to be made sense of. Because it is ultimately a condemnation of the King and a foretaste of his ultimate downfall, Nebuchadnezzar takes out his anger on magicians who are unable to assure him of the mašal’s practical teaching. In the Bible, it is the God-appointed prophet who is privy to the “mysteries” of God. That is why there is such a strict admonition against self-assumed prophets in the book of Jeremiah!
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יְהוָ֜ה אֵלַ֗י שֶׁ֚קֶר הַנְּבִאִים֙ נִבְּאִ֣ים בִּשְׁמִ֔י לֹ֤א שְׁלַחְתִּים֙ וְלֹ֣א צִוִּיתִ֔ים וְלֹ֥א דִבַּ֖רְתִּי אֲלֵיהֶ֑ם חֲזֹ֨ון שֶׁ֜קֶר וְקֶ֤סֶם וֶאֱלוּל וְתַרְמוּת לִבָּ֔ם הֵ֖מָּה מִֽתְנַבְּאִ֥ים לָכֶֽם׃
And Yahweh said to me ‘the prophets have prophesied lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, vain idolatry, and the deceit of their own hearts.’ — Jer. 14:14
Given this admonition, it behooves us to take caution when we come across the notion of “mystery” in the text of scripture. This is especially true in the context of my fellow religionists in the Eastern Orthodox Church who love to discuss the mystagogy of the Cappadocian Fathers as opposed to the Aristotelian scholastics who shaped the rationalistic theologies of the West. If the Christian East is obsessed with mystery and experience in light of revelation, the West often makes a similar error when scholastic theologians attempt to supplement revelation with “reason”. Both of these approaches are untenable according to Paul, where “experience” is nowhere to be found and the “mystery” is revealed via the “encounter”.
γνωρίζω γὰρ ὑμῖν, ἀδελφοί, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τὸ εὐαγγελισθὲν ὑπ’ ἐμοῦ ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν κατὰ ἄνθρωπον· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐγὼ παρὰ ἀνθρώπου παρέλαβον αὐτό οὔτε ἐδιδάχθην, ἀλλὰ δι’ ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.
For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel proclaimed by me is not according to man: for neither did I receive it from a man, nor was I taught it, but by a revelation of Jesus Christ. — Gal. 1:11–12
The direct parallel to this verse in the Gospels is found in Matthew where Simon Peter correctly identifies the function of Jesus as God’s anointed one, not by his rational faculties, nor by any mystical experience, but by a revelatory encounter.
ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτῷ Μακάριος εἶ, Σίμων Βαριωνᾶ, ὅτι σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα οὐκ ἀπεκάλυψέν σοι ἀλλ’ ὁ Πατήρ μου ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς.
And answering, Jesus said to him ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, that flesh and blood did not reveal (this) to you but my Father who is in Heaven. — Matt. 16:17
This is how we should understand Paul’s recollection in 2 Corinthians 12:2–4 where he speaks of himself as a man “caught up in the third heaven”, encountering the divine teaching and becoming set as a steward of the mysteries of God. Many people assume Paul is uncharacteristically describing a “mystical experience” in the sense of a Palamite hesychast, but such a reading would patently clash with Paul’s more typical warning against mysticism in the vein of the Roman mystery religions.
Μηδεὶς ὑμᾶς καταβραβευέτω θέλων ἐν ταπεινοφροσύνῃ καὶ θρησκείᾳ τῶν ἀγγέλων, ἃ μὴ ἑώρακεν ἐμβατεύων, εἰκῇ φυσιούμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ νοὸς τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ
Let no one disqualify you all, delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels detailing that which he has not seen, vainly being puffed up by the flesh of his mind. — Col. 2:18
Paul is therefore echoing the book of his predecessor Jeremiah, in warning his audience of people coming along and sharing their own “mystical experiences” which are of no value. If it does not come from God, it comes from the vain flesh of the mind. And if it does indeed come from God, it is taught by the Spirit through the words of scripture, which Paul consciously wrote to his audience so that they do not become puffed up in arrogance but take heed not to think beyond what was written!
Tαῦτα δέ, ἀδελφοί, μετεσχημάτισα εἰς ἐμαυτὸν καὶ Ἀπολλὼ δι’ ὑμᾶς, ἵνα ἐν ἡμῖν μάθητε τὸ μὴ ὑπὲρ ὃ γέγραπται φρονεῖν, ἵνα μὴ εἷς ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἑνὸς φυσιοῦσθε κατὰ τοῦ ἑτέρου.
And these, brothers, I figuratively transferred to myself and Apollo on your account, so that you might learn not to think beyond what was written, so that one of you is not puffed up against the other. — 1 Cor. 4:6
Therefore, no one’s experience counts for anything. The encounter rests in one’s encounter with the teaching written beforehand in the scriptures. That’s the importance of the perfect tense verb γέγραπται, literally meaning “it has been written”. So in the scriptural system, it is the text already written that must be encountered, and only then will the “mysteries of God” be revealed to the hearer.
Furthermore, I think it is fascinating that the author of Daniel incorporates this word, רז, which was well-known in Persian (Zoroastrian) mysticism. In accordance with the rest of the Ketubim, the book of Daniel has the broader gentile world within its scope. What is particularly fascinating, as I have said before, is the anachronistic nature of this language, anticipating the rise of the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire. They represent the first fruits, so to speak, of the “Japhethites” dwelling in the tents of Shem. As such, the authors ingeniously utilized a word that would have been readily associated with Persian ritual magic and relegated it to only being able to be disambiguated by God’s revealing it to his prophet. Since virtually all modern scholars see Daniel as a product of the Hellenistic period, it is even more interesting that the technical terminology of the Persians is being employed here. Even though the Greeks and the Persians were perennial enemies, there was a great deal of respect given to the μάγοι (Zoroastrian priesthood) in the literature of the Greek philosophers. In fact, Egypt, Babylon, and Persia were seen as the epicenters of wisdom long before it was associated with the Eleatics, Ionians, and Athenians. Before the wisdom of the Torah can be spread to the nations, the reference of the gentiles needs to be changed away from their sages and philosophers and to the God of scripture.
The mechanism of the “mystery” revealed amid the gentiles is crucial for the rest of the book of Daniel as “apocalyptic literature” and of the New Testament as the fulfillment of what was previously “prophesied”. As we shall see, the contents of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream have to do with the eventual end of his kingdom, the arrival of the Persians after him, the conquest of the Greeks, and finally the destruction of all kingdoms wherein God sets his appointed “Son of Man” on the set of power (i.e. the right hand) to judge all the earth. As was warned in the Prophets, all of the nations will be held accountable to the God of the sky and the earth on the last day.
Therefore, the Pauline school framed “mystery” in the New Testament as essentially that of the arrival of Jeremiah’s “new covenant” and the grafting in of the gentiles.
πρὸς ὃ δύνασθε ἀναγινώσκοντες νοῆσαι τὴν σύνεσίν μου ἐν τῷ μυστηρίῳ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὃ ἑτέραις γενεαῖς οὐκ ἐγνωρίσθη τοῖς υἱοῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων ὡς νῦν ἀπεκαλύφθη τοῖς ἁγίοις ἀποστόλοις αὐτοῦ καὶ προφήταις ἐν Πνεύματι, εἶναι τὰ ἔθνη συγκληρονόμα καὶ σύσσωμα καὶ συμμέτοχα τῆς ἐπαγγελίας αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ διὰ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου
For that which you can understand, by reading my insight into the secret (mystery) of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men as it is now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit, which is that the gentiles are joint-heirs and a joint-body and joint-partakers of his promises in Christ, through the Gospel. — Eph. 3:3–6
This spreading of the Torahic wisdom throughout the ends of the earth leads ultimately to the judgment of all its kings and princes at the end of time. The mystery, ultimately, is God’s judgment on the world, wherein every nation must stand before his throne.
