Page 346 - Daniel

fathers” in 2:23, in view of the more common usage elsewhere in
Scripture, for Daniel to omit the word Yahweh or LORD in a passage
where a specific name for God would be necessary, is significant. The

expression should be rendered “the gods of his fathers”—that is, any
god, as the ESV translates it.

In keeping with the blasphemous character of this king who magnifies
himself above every god, he disregards whatever deities his fathers
worshiped. And in keeping with his disregard for former deities, he does
not pay respect to what is called “the one beloved by women.” This
expression has been regarded as a reference to a specific pagan goddess
such as Ewald’s identification with Tammuz-Adonis, which Montgomery
57
states has “come to be generally adopted” since Bevan. Bevan states,

“the one beloved by women” must, to judge by the context, be some
object of women. Most modern interpreters, following Ephraim Syrus,

explain this as a reference to the goddess Nanaia, whose temple in
Elymais the king endeavoured to plunder shortly before his death. But
to this view there are two objections. Firstly, the attack upon the
temple of Nanaia cannot have been heard of in Judaea till the year
164 B.C. Secondly, there is no reason why Nanaia should be designated

as the Desire of women. Even if her worship was, as has been
supposed, of a voluptuous character, this would scarcely give rise to
such an appellation. It appears, therefore, much more probable that
Ewald is right in explaining the one beloved by women as Tammuz
(Adonis), whose cult had been popular in Syria from time

immemorial, especially amongst women (Ezek. 8:14). 58

Others, like Young after Keil, consider it the normal male love or
59
desire for women, meaning that this king is inhuman in his disregard of
women.

A plausible explanation of this passage, in the light of Daniel’s Jewish
background, is that this expression is the natural desire of Jewish women
to become the mother of the promised Messiah, the seed of the woman
promised in Genesis 3:15. The expression then becomes a symbol of the
messianic hope in general. As Gaebelein expresses it, “Still more
interesting is the statement ‘he shall not regard the one beloved by