Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Leonard Jayawardena <leonardj AT live.com>]

Rolf Furuli  wrote:

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In an article, I gave the following translation: "And upon the wings of abominations the one causing desolation will come. And this will be until the complete destruction, because that which is decided will gush forth upon the one becoming desolate."
 
I take כנף in the collective sense and use plural. I see no reason why we should abandon the literal meaning "wing." Your rendering "edge" (top) is not impossible. But a good principle is that if we want to deviate from the basic meaning of a word (here "wing"), we need to have something in the context pointing in this direction. But I see nothing that would suggest "edge/top."
 
If "wing" is chosen, what can the meaning be? In v. 26, the word "flood" may refer to an army. If this is correct, and the army also is referred to as an abomination or abominations, "wings" could refer to the swiftness of this army, as was the case in Habbakuk 1:6-8. But in any case, our translation should be based on lexical, grammatical, and syntactical points, and not on our understanding of the fulfillment of a prophecy.
 
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LJ: First,  I would like to know how you are able to justify your taking   כנף in a collective and plural sense.  Correct me if I am wrong, but your understanding of Daniel 9:27c,   ועל כנף שקוצים משמ ,  seems to be something like "on the wings of armies metaphorically pictured as birds of prey comes its rider,  משמ , the one causing the desolation." If this is your understanding, isn't there some absurdity in one person riding on the wings of many birds?! Further, in  Exodus 19:4, God tells the people of Israel that he carried them "on the wings of eagles." However, the Hebrew is   על־כנפי
 נשרים , where כנף is in the plural and construct state, as opposed to Daniel 9:27c, where it is in the singular and construct state. (I am not able to properly copy and paste the words cited from Exodus  and hence they  may not appear correctly when you read this.) 
 
You write, "and the army also is referred to as an abomination or abominations." You have not mentioned where such a reference is found.  Nowhere in the Hebrew Bible is an army referred to as an "abomination" or "abominations." The Heb. word translated "abominations" in Daniel 9:27c is  שקוצים .  This word, either in the singular or plural, occurs 28 times in the Hebrew OT and in all but three instances the reference is clearly to a pagan god or its image.  In Jeremiah 13:27, this word in the plural is rendered "detestable acts" in NIV, but these acts are still related to idolatry. In Zechariah 9:7, the context is again idolatry, leaving only Nahum 3:6, where it means "filth." Therefore there is overwhelming lexical support for taking   שקוצים  in Daniel 9:27c as a reference to some idolatrous images or representations, which is my understanding. Specifically, I have applied the term to Roman imago standards, upon which a three-dimensional image of an emperor appeared.  As you know, Roman emperors were deified and worshipped as gods. Each imperial Legion would have an imago, carried on a staff at the head of the legion by a imaginifer.  The image was that of the emperor then in power or of the emperor who had "raised" or "formed" the legion. Four legions besieged Jerusalem in AD 70, viz., V Macedonica, XII Fulminata, XV Apollinaris and X Fretensis. As each of them had their imago standard, the plural form שקוצים   is most apposite.                                         

 

You write, "But in any case, our translation should be based on lexical, grammatical, and syntactical points, and not on our understanding of the fulfillment of a prophecy. " My interpretation of Daniel 9:27 is certainly guided by what I consider to be its most probable fulfillment in history, but its stays within what is lexically and grammatically permitted and is consistent with what the book of Daniel says elsewhere. The same cannot be said of understanding of "abominations," which has absolutely no lexical support anywhere. As you yourself have conceded, the sense I attach to  כנף  is "not impossible."  Apart from its usual sense of bird wings, it also bears such meanings as "edge" or "end" ("ends of the earth,"Job 37:3; 38:13); "corners" ( "four corners of the earth," Ezekiel 7:2, ); extremity, or loose flowing end, of a garment (Deuteronomy 22:12; 1 Samuel 15:27). It is therefore entirely possible therefore that  כנף  refers to the part of a Roman standard bearing the image of an emperor, which was fixed to the end of the pole and was like its "wing."

 

The words   ועל כנף שקוצים משמם  I understand as a prophetic description of the imago standards--there would have been four corresponding to the four legions--as they lay or stood on the altar of burnt offering in the temple subsequent to the fall of Jerusalem on 8 Gorpaeus (probably 8 September) in AD 70: "and upon the wing of abominations is one causing desolation". (As I mentioned in the last post, the "one causing desolation" is the Roman emperor.) Though Josephus does not mention any such event, his narrative of events after the fall of the city certainly allows it (see BJ 6:403-419; 7:1).                   

 

It is instructive to compare how the word pterux (meaning 'wing')  was used in ancient Greek with the use of  כנף in Hebrew. According to  "An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon," based on Liddell and Scott's "Greek-English Lexicon," the meanings of pterux  include 'anything like a wing [such as] the flap or skirt of a coat of armour' and 'the broad edge of a knife or spear.' The following , too,  are cited on a website I came across as meanings  of pterux:  'lobe of the lungs,' 'blade of a steering-paddle,' 'feathery foliage,' 'point of a building,' 'shoulder-blade,' 'sails,' 'fence,' 'wall,' 'fin' (of fish). (With regard to this last, the comment of Isaac Fried, list member, is apposite here:  "[כנף] is also related to the post-biblical סנף SNP, 'branch', and סנפיר 'fin', of Lev. 11:9.") You'll see that there is some overlap with the  meanings of כנף .  There is also  epi to pterugion tou ierou in Matthew 4: 5 and Luke 4:9.   pterugion  is a diminutive of pterux  and means "winglet." Of course, ancient Hebrew is not ancient Greek, but, in view of the similar variety of meanings attested for  כנף in the Hebrew scriptures, limited a corpus as it is, I do not see any difficulty in seeing this Hebrew word being used in this prophetic passage to refer to that part of a Roman imago standard which had the image of the emperor, which, was fastened to the end of a pole and indeed bore some resemblance to a wing (pictures of Roman imago standards available on the web). In any case, the use of the word שקוצ  elsewhere in the Hebrew scriptures point to  שקוצים  in Daniel 9:27 as being a reference to idolatrous images and hence the phrase "X of  שקוצים " is most naturally understood as referring to some part of some idolatrous images or objects.  Furthermore, as I mentioned in my last post, that Mark uses the masculine participle  esthkota with  bdelugma, (Mark 13:14), suggesting that he thought of the latter as being a representation or image of a god or deified man.  Luke's parallel to Mt. and Mk. reads, "But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that her desolation [Gr. ERHMWSIS] is near" (Luke 21:20). Note that Luke omits Matthew's "spoken of through Daniel the prophet" and Matthew and Mark's "let the reader understand." This is because Luke gives the interpretation of Matthew and Mark's words ("the abomination of desolating standing in the holy place/where it should not be"). Since the abomination cannot be the armies per se--I have demonstrated it above--it must relate to something associated with them, viz., the imago standards they carried.

    

You further write

 

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I agree with you that the prophetic words point to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem (66—70 CE). But why bring in Antiochus IV Epiphanes? The writer of 1 Maccabees may very well have read the book of Daniel and applied the words about the שקוצים to Antiochus IV. But the other words in v. 27 do not fit this king. We may also note that Matthew 24:15 says in connection with the understaning of the abomination: "Let the reader use discernment." Perhaps Matthew was familiar with 1 Maccabees and did not agree with the interpretation of the abomination in this book.

 

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LJ: You have misunderstood me. I did not apply Daniel 9:27 to Antiochus IV Epiphanes. What I said was that the Romans placing the imago standards on the altar of burnt offering in AD 70 after the fall of the city follows "the precedent of Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 B.C., who set up an idolatrous altar on top of the altar of burnt offering, which the writer of Maccabees calls TO BDELUGMA THS ERHMWSEWS [1 Maccabees 1:54; > cf. Daniel 8:13; 11:31])."

 

Leonard Jayawardena