VIII. In ii. 48 Nebuchadrezzar appoints Daniel, as a reward for his wisdom, to rule over the whole province of Babylon, and to be _Rab-signîn_, "chief ruler," and to be over all the wise men (_Khakamim_) of Babylon. Lenormant treats this statement as an interpolation, because he regards it as "_evidently_ impossible." We know that in the Babylonian priesthood, and especially among the sacred caste, there was a passionate religious intolerance. It is inconceivable that they should have accepted as their religious superior a monotheist who was the avowed and uncompromising enemy to their whole system of idolatry. It is equally inconceivable that Daniel should have accepted the position of a hierophant in a polytheistic cult. In the next three chapters there is no allusion to Daniel's tenure of these strange and exalted offices, either civil or religious.[110]
IX. The third chapter contains another story, told in a style of wonderful stateliness and splendour, and full of glorious lessons; but here again we encounter linguistic and other difficulties. Thus in iii. 2, though "all the rulers of the provinces" and officers of all ranks are summoned to the dedication of Nebuchadrezzar's colossus, there is not an allusion to Daniel throughout the chapter. Four of the names of the officers in iii. 2, 3, appear, to our surprise, to be Persian;[111] and, of the six musical instruments, three--the lute, psaltery, and bagpipe[112]--have obvious Greek names, two of which (as already stated) are of late origin, while another, the _sab'ka_, resembles the Greek σαμβύκη, but may have come to the Greeks from the Aramæans.[113] The incidents of the chapter are such as find no analogy throughout the Old or New Testament, but exactly resemble those of Jewish moralising fiction, of which they furnish the most perfect specimen. It is exactly the kind of concrete comment which a Jewish writer of piety and genius, for the encouragement of his afflicted people, might have based upon such a passage as Isa. xliii. 2, 3: "When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour." Nebuchadrezzar's decree, "That every _people, nation, and language_, which speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, _shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill_," can only be paralleled out of the later Jewish literature.[114]