[231] Dan. i. 3; LXX., Ἀβιεσδρί. The name is of quite uncertain derivation. Lenormant connects it with Abai-Istar, "astronomer of the goddess Istar" (_La Divination_, p. 182). Hitzig sees in this strange rendering Abiesdri the meaning "eunuch." A eunuch could have no son to help him, so that his father is his help (_'ezer_). Ephræm Syrus, in his Commentary, preserves both names (Schleusner, _Thesaurus_, _s.v._ Ἀβιέσερ). We find the name Ash_k_enaz in Gen. x. 3. Theodot. has Ἀσφανέζ. Among other guesses Lenormant makes Ashpenaz = Assa-ibni-zir. Dr. Joel (_Notizen zum Buche Daniel_, p. 17) says that since the Vulgate reads Ab_r_iesri, "ob nicht der Wort von rechts zu links gelesen müsste?"
[232] Called in i. 7-11 the Sar-hassarîsîm (comp. Jer. xxxix. 3; Gen. xxxvii. 36, _marg._; 2 Kings xviii. 17; Esther ii. 3). This officer now bears the title of _Gyzlar Agha_.
[234] Athen., _Deipnos_, xi. 583. See Bevan, p. 60; Max Müller in Pusey, p. 565. How Professor Fuller can urge the presence of these Persian words in proof of the genuineness of Daniel (_Speaker's Commentary_, p. 250) I cannot understand. For Daniel does not seem to have survived beyond the third year of the Persian dominion, and it is extremely difficult to suppose that all these Persian words, including titles of Nebuchadrezzar's officials, were already current among the Babylonians. On the other hand, _Babylonian_ words seem to be rare, though Daniel is represented as living nearly the whole of a long life in Babylon. There is no validity in the argument that these words could not have been known in the days of the Maccabees, "for half of them are common in Syria, though the oldest extant Syriac writers are _later by three centuries_ than the time of the Maccabees" (Bevan, p. 41).
[235] The name Daniel occurs among Ezra's contemporaries in Ezra viii. 2; Neh. x. 7, and the other names in Neh. viii. 4, x. 3, 24; 1 Esdras ix. 44.
[236] _Balatsu-utsur._ The name in this form had nothing to do with Bel, as the writer of Daniel seems to have supposed (Dan. iv. 5), nor yet with Beltis, the wife of Bel. See _supra_, p. 47. Comp. the names Nabusarutsur, Sinsarutsur, Assursarutsur. Also comp. _Inscr. Semit._, ii. 38, etc. Pseudo-Epiphanius says that Nebuchadrezzar meant Daniel to be co-heir with his son Belshazzar.