Are you wiser than Daniel? Is no secret hidden from you? – Ezekiel 28:3

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 24, 2017): Ezekiel 28

  . For some, the identity of Daniel can be no other than the wise man of Judah who was carried into exile at the beginning of the Babylonian exile. But the struggle with that identification is that Daniel was a contemporary of Ezekiel. While it is possible, and maybe even probable that the legend of Daniel would have been on the rise during the exile, especially within the community of exiles of which Ezekiel was a part, the important question is how fast could the rise of Daniel happen? By the end of Daniel’s life this was likely, but at the beginning of the exile, Daniel was a very young man, and it seems that many of his early exploits were initially kept secret and did not become part of the lore of the people until much later. Even the famous incident of Daniel in Lion’s Den did not happen until at least 40 or 50 years after the exile began. And that would seem to be too late for this prophecy (written somewhere around the ten to fifteen-year mark.)

An alternative explanation is that it is not Daniel, but Danel, a man known from ancient times (possibly even someone who lived in the same era as Abraham.) In the ancient Ugaritic texts, Danel is known as a judge, an intelligent man who was known for his compassion, judging the cause of the widow and the case of the fatherless. But the case for Danel is also not without its problems. First, critics argue that Danel is never described as a righteous man, or even a wise man (although the wisdom of Danel would seem to be assumed by his ability to judge and his compassion for the weak of his society). Secondly, Danel was a worshipper of Ba’al, and so some consider it very unlikely that Ezekiel would ever have found him worthy of mention. A final argument against the identification of Danel is that there is over 800 years difference between the text that describes Danel and the writing of Ezekiel, but nowhere else in the various Hebrew texts is Danel mentioned. This, of course, assumes that there are no other undiscovered documents that mention Danel that Ezekiel was aware of but which are now forgotten. It also assumes that all of the stories that the people of Judah knew and told to each other are written down in the Holy Texts. But neither of these conditions would seem likely.

In spite of the arguments against the identity of Ezekiel’s wise man being Danel, Danel would still appear to be the best option that we currently have available to us. But no matter who the identity of the man is, he was a universally known man of wisdom to the people of the exile. And he had become the model of a wise man, someone who was identified throughout the stories told by the culture – and the stories that were taught to the children that described the appearance of real wisdom. 

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 29