Daniel 8:14 and the Cleansing of the Sanctuary

NOTE: This article, the first of four, was originally written for a committee studying certain problems in the book of Daniel. It was felt that the material was suitable for a dual purpose, aside from the committee records. First, the manu­script was rewritten under the title "Further Observations on Tsadaq" and appeared in seminary Studies, vol. IV, No. 1, 1966. Second, it was deemed worth while to make this valuable material available in this present form and to sub­mit it to THE MINISTRY for the benefit of our ministerial workers. We hope other contributions on different topics may appear in our journals in due course.

H. W. LOWE Chairman, Research Committee

Hence the criticisms are not necessarily unfair. They have some point and some force; several consider them to constitute quite a strong argument. In any case, they are worthy of careful and prayerful con­sideration.

It will be our purpose in these articles to show, that while the Hebrew word Tsadaq= can, in places, be translated as has been indicated, in Daniel 8:14, taking into consideration the context and the entire background in which the Hebrew word is used, the most suitable rendering is "cleansed." This does not mean that it doesn't have a wider meaning—by no means —but that at the time the prophecy was given, and restricted by the contextual un­derstanding, the cleansing in this place re­fers to what took place in the service of the great Day of Atonement in Israel (see Leviticus 16). Hence, we stress that the most suitable term to be used in Daniel 8: 14 as we have just mentioned is cleansed.

Some time ago someone mentioned that we have been influenced on this matter by the Spirit of Prophecy writings. Whether there is any point to this observation can be determined after we have examined the question to see exactly what the emphasis really is. It has been our privilege to see about every available reference to this text in the published books and articles by El­len G. White. It seems evident from the data available that when she quoted this text, or even referred to it, she used the expression cleansed just as we find it in our K.I.V. Bible' A critic, of course, might remark that this, on her part, was quite a natural thing to do because her Bible was the K.I.V. translation. We could recognize some point in this observation, but there is something very important at this junc­ture that must also be taken into consider­ation. Mrs. White did use the K.J.V. Bible, but she also used other translations, and there are several indications of this in her writings.' At least one of these translations —that of Rabbi Leeser—has "justified" in the text of Daniel 8:14. So Ellen G. White was well acquainted with this alternate rendering and could have chosen this, as she did other renderings when they better expressed the thoughts that had been given to her. But no Every time, she used the word cleansed. This undoubtedly has had some part in the emphasis we have placed on this question through the years.

We will now give study to our reasons for believing that the word cleansed is the word that should be used in Daniel 8;14 as already mentioned.

1.    This is the translation in many Eng­lish Bibles.

While there are a number of translators who, in their English Bibles, have empha­sized "justified," "made righteous," et cet­era, as we have already seen, we must not overlook the fact that there are many who rendered the Hebrew word as "cleansed."^'

2.    It is rendered "cleansed" in the Sep­tuagint.

One of our Biblical reasons for empha­sizing the word "cleansed" in Daniel 8:14 is not necessarily that it is so translated in the K.J.V. There is something much older than this. Fully 2,200 years ago it was felt in Jewish circles that the time had come for the Sacred Scriptures to be translated into the Greek language. About 70 Hebrew scholars were given this task, and this took quite a time to complete. This translation is known as the Septuagint—LXX—and is dated from the third to the second cen­tury, B.C.

When these learned men came to the translation of Daniel 8:14 they decided to render the Hebrew verb Tsadaq by the Greek word kathariza, a word, the primary meaning of which is to cleanse, to purify. Just what led them to do this, we can only conjecture at the moment, but they were undoubtedly governed by the context and other factors. This again, happens to be the only place where they rendered the verbal form this way. In all other places a Greek word like dikaioo ("make right­eous") was used.

Some Bible students have felt that this again is nothing more than an isolated in­stance, for as just mentioned, it is the only place where it is so used in more than' 500 uses of this Hebrew word. So again, we are given the reason as a scribal error. This reason, however, doesn't seem to be very applicable, for there isn't much chance of a mistake in putting dikaioo for katharizo, or vice versa. If the words were alike in spelling, it would be different. No, we must conclude that the LXX translators did what they did deliberately. They evi­dently had good reason for it, and it seems to me that in all honor and humility we should recognize that they should know what the Hebrew word meant in Daniel 8:14 in that setting, in that context, much better than we do today. Remember, they lived and worked about three centuries after the concept was expressed by Daniel; we live twenty-two centuries later.

3. The word cleansed is evidently inti­mately related to the Day of Atonement (see Leviticus 16).

This has been our teaching all through the years, for it was on the great Day of Atonement that the people, the altar, and even the sanctuary itself were cleansed.

Isaac Leeser (Jewish scholar), although his translation of the Bible gives "justi­fied," does give a very significant footnote, which reads: "Rashi explains, 'when the iniquities of Israel are atoned for.' " This makes it clear that one prominent Jewish commentator, at least, recognized the con­nection between the "cleansing" in Daniel 8 and the services of the Day of Atonement. The Hebrew expression as it appears in Rashi's Hebrew Commentary is kaphar anon Yisrael, which means "atonement" or "reconciliation for the iniquities of Israel."

One Jewish rabbi gave me a fuller trans­lation of Rashi's comments. It was: "The sins of Israel shall be atoned for . . . and they [the people] will be redeemed with everlasting salvation by our King Messiah."

This is significant, indeed—especially the connection with the Messianic rela­tionship, and the fact that the cleansing is mutually equated with the work of atone­ment. This, of course, has been our own conviction and teaching for many decades.

Another thing in this connection is that in Leviticus 16 the word for "cleanse" in verses 19 and 30 is tahar, which means "to be clean," "to cleanse," "purify." But in Daniel 8:14 the word in Hebrew is Tsadaq, and in Ezekiel 45:18, "cleanse" is from the Hebrew word chata—to sin, to purge, et cetera. Here are three different Hebrew words, each with its own distinctive mean­ing, and yet, in the LXX these three words —in Leviticus 16:19, 30; Daniel 8:14; and Ezekiel 45:15—are all rendered by katha­rizo, the Greek word for "cleansed," or "purified."

4. We are not alone in our understand- ing that in Daniel 8:14 the word should be "cleansed."

a.      At least two Jewish Bibles give "cleansed"—those published by Hebrew Publishing Company and by a publishing house in Jerusalem.

b.     C. F. Keil remarks: Tsadaq primarily means to be just, which is not here suit­able, for it must be followed by "from the defilement of the temple" (p. 3O2).'

c.      Frank Zimmermann writes: "The cleansing of the temple would be exactly the concern of the author. . . . The translation therefore should have been here, 'And the temple shall be cleansed.' " —P. 2622

d.     A quite modern commentary gives the following:

Be restored: literally, "be justified." If we hold to the Massoretic text, the meaning is that so long as the temple continued polluted it lay under con­demnation, but when cleansed and restored, would justify itself for use again as a place where sacrifices could be offered. The Hebrew of this passage, how­ever, is hardly tolerable, and the Greek hatlzaristhe­setai indicates that the translators understood it to mean cleansed. Ginsberg (op. cit., p. 42) shows how the Hebrew might have arisen from the Ara­maic l'1¹, "shall be cleansed."—The Interpreter's Bible, on Dan. 8:14.

e.      Louis Ginsberg confirms this.

Referring to Zimmerman, he maintains he is right, and the Hebrew should read zakah qodesh ["cleanse the sanctuary"] rather than Tsadaq qodesh ["justify the sanctuary"]."

5. In the Miller movement, and in pre-Miller days, the general understanding was "cleansed."

In the great Second Advent Movement, from around 1820 to 1847-1850, there were many proponents who made reference to Daniel 8:14. Calculations on the prophetic periods such as the 2300 days, the 70 weeks, et cetera, were abundant, and men­tion was frequently made of the expression "Then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." While there were varying views expressed as to what this meant, there seems to have been general agreement at least that the translation at the end of Daniel 8:14 should be "cleansed." Quite a list of leading ex­positors who emphasized this in those days can be seen in L. E. Froom's monumental work Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol­ume 4."

6. Many modern Bible commentators, while urging "justify" or "made righteous" in Daniel 8:14, have no difficulty in using "cleansed" because of their application to the Maccabean period.

In doing this they are largely following the example of Josephus," where he uses the Greek katharizO, and then "purified," in his English edition. No list of these commentators is being given, but this con­cept is advocated by many of them. The references to the Maccabean episode are in 2 Maccabees 2:18; 10:3, 5, 7; 14:36. They seem to find no problem with the translation of Tsadaq in this application.

So, in the light of the data as herein listed, we have excellent reasons for our understanding that the text should read, in the light of the context in Daniel 8:14, "Then shall the sanctuary be cleansed."

(Our next article will carry the study of this text still further.)