Daniel 11:12

Months ago, the Daily Dose of Hebrew went over Daniel 11:12:

וְנִשָּׂא הֶהָמוֹן וְרָם לְבָבוֹ וְהִפִּיל רִבֹּאוֹת וְלֹא יָעֽוֹז׃

And when the multitude is taken away, his heart shall be exalted, and he shall cast down tens of thousands, but he shall not prevail.  [ESV]

In the Hebrew, it's a bit easier to see the relationship between "be exalted" and "cast down."  Both have meanings that could also refer more literally to directions.  Their combination in this context, with opposing forces going different ways (the king's heart is exalted while his enemies are cast down), provides an added degree of emphasis.

I also noticed a small feature in the Vulgate:

et capiet multitudinem et exaltabitur cor eius et deiciet multa milia sed non praevalebit

The phrase "multa milia" (many thousands) alliterates, and the repetition involved lends a small sense of this abundance.

Daniel 9:19

A few months ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Hebrew video on Daniel 9:19:

אֲדֹנָי ׀ שְׁמָעָה אֲדֹנָי ׀ סְלָחָה אֲדֹנָי הַֽקֲשִׁיבָה וַעֲשֵׂה אַל־תְּאַחַר לְמַֽעֲנְךָ אֱלֹהַי כִּֽי־שִׁמְךָ נִקְרָא עַל־עִירְךָ וְעַל־עַמֶּֽךָ׃

In the ESV, this is:

"O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive.  O Lord, pay attention and act.  Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name."

There are three vocatives referring to God in roughly the first half of the verse ("'O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive.  O Lord, pay attention and act.'"), and these are paralleled with a single vocative in the second half ("'Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.'").  To some degree, the placement of these vocatives indicates the Trinity:  three Persons but one God.

Daniel 5:23

Last month, I read Daniel 5 (in the ESV) after running across a reference to it in an Emily Dickinson poem ("Belshazzar had a letter"), and I noticed a chiasm highlighting opposites in a section of verse 23 where Daniel tells Belshazzar:

You have praised

the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, 

but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways,

you have not honored.

When I lookt up the Aramaic in the Step Bible, however, I discovered that this structure isn't original; both clauses have the same structure, with the direct object preceding the verb.  Here are the two Daily Dose of Aramaic videos on this section of the verse:

In the NIV, this section is translated as "You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or undersatnd.  But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways."

Daniel 3

I've been following along in the Daily Dose of Aramaic's series on Daniel.  I noticed that throughout chapter three (verses 6, 11, 15, 17, 20, 21, 23, 26), there's a redundant description:  "the burning fiery furnace."  There are fires in furnaces, and fires burn; neither of these words is really necessary.  This redundant description, however, may demonstrate the severity of Nebuchadnezzar's threat or indicate the extreme heat of the furnace even before it is "heated seven times more than it was usually heated" in verse 19.