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Bible Dictionaries
Daniel
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or DANIEL . 1. Two passages in the Book of Ezekiel ( Ezekiel 14:14-20; Ezekiel 28:3 ), written respectively about b.c. 592 and 587, mention a certain Daniel as an extraordinarily righteous and wise man, belonging to the same class as Noah and Job, whose piety availed with God on behalf of their unworthy contemporaries. All three evidently belonged to the far-distant past: Ezekiel’s readers were familiar with their history and character. Daniel, occupying the middle place, cannot be conceived of as the latest of them. He certainly was not a younger man than the prophet who refers to him, as the hero of the Book of Daniel would have been. For Daniel 1:1-3 makes the latter to have been carried into captivity in b.c. 606, a mere decade prior to Ezekiel 14:2 . See Abigail. 3 . A priest who accompanied Ezra from Babylon to Jerusalem ( Ezra 8:2 , Nehemiah 10:6 ). He was head of his father’s house, and traced his descent from Ithamar. At 1Es 8:29 the name is spelled Gamelus or Gamael , which probably rests on a corrupt Heb. text. Driver ( Daniel , p. xviii.) notes that amongst his contemporaries were ‘a Hananiah ( Nehemiah 10:23 ), a Mishael ( Nehemiah 8:4 ), and an Azariah ( Nehemiah 10:2 ); but the coincidence is probably accidental.’ It is, however, quite as likely that the author of Dn. borrowed the three names from Nehemiah.
J. Taylor.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Daniel'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/d/daniel.html. 1909.
