And the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain. As the Aramaic stands, it might be translated as does Professor Fuller, "And the decree went forth, and the wise men were being slain;" the וֹ of co-ordination maybe regarded as here used of Subordination.
Further, the use of the participle for the preterite is not by any means uncommon in Daniel, certainly mainly in the principal clause, as in verse 5 of the present chapter. Noldeke, in his 'Syriac Grammar,' 278a, gives examples of the passive participle being used as here in the subordinate clause.
The Septuagint is very condensed, but possibly drawn from a similar text, only such extreme condensation is unlike the translator elsewhere. It is possible that some part of the פְּקַד. (peqad), "to decree," was used, perhaps the participle hithpael.
It is possible that the verb qetal was in the infinitive. Theodotion renders, "And the decree went forth, and the wise men were slain." This, though a possible translation, does not fit what we find represented to be the circumstances, as verse 24 seems to assume that the wise men were not yet destroyed.
On the other hand, it would be hardly possible to imagine the king allowing these wise men who had refused to answer his question, to go out of his presence in safety and unbound. It would seem more natural to imagine that they were carried off to prison, and that all the soothsaying class were intended to be gathered together in prison, in order that the vengeance of the king might be more appallingly manifest.
The sentence looks at first sight to us as too savage to be true, but just as savage proofs of vengeance were given by Asshurbanipal. And they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain. The Septuagint translation of this clause is somewhat paraphrastic, "And Daniel was sought for and all those with him in order to be put to death."
The want of an antecedent to fix the nominative of the verb probably led to the sentence assuming its present mould; but "all" seems to have no word to occasion it. Theodotion follows the Massoretic text closely; so also does the Peshitta.
It is clear from this that Daniel and his companions had not been summoned into the royal presence when the question concerning the dream was put to the wise men. This would seem to contradict the statement of Daniel 1:19, "Therefore stood they"—to wit these Hebrew youths—"before the king."
Their position was probably like those who had passed the examination for the Indian Civil Service—they are accepted, but they have still a season of study, and then, after they go out to India, they occupy only subordinate situations at first.
While permited to enter the ranks of the soothsayers and astrologers to the court, they were placed at first only in the lower grades, and would have to rise by degrees, and in ordinary circumstances a long time would elapse before they would be summoned into the immediate presence of the sovereign.
On the reading of the LXX; Daniel and his friends would not, because they were Jews, and not Chaldeans. One has only to turn to the Talumdic tales to see how unlike this reasonable position is to the ordinary Jewish fictitious narrative.
The Book of Daniel is not nearly prodigal enough in wonders to be a representative of the Jewish Midrash. It is further clear that the decree of the king went beyond those who had actually been in his council-chamber on that merest-able day.
The idea of the king probably was that the treason which he had found in the heads of the various classes of Chaldean soothsayers would have permeated all the members. Babylonian and foreign, as well; therefore he orders them all to suffer a common fate.
Wieseler's hypothesis, that this event took place close to the end of the three years of study which had been assigned to these youths, would suit the statement of events which we find here; although it is not necessary, yet on this assumption, the succession of events as narrated in this chapter becomes perfectly natural.