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Mesopotamian tradition places the world tree at the center of the world, reaching heaven and shading every land. Daniel echoes that tradition in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, then has God cut the tree down to humble the Babylonian king in his own imagery.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
The Building of Ningirsu Temple
Gudea Cylinders
Ancient Near East
The seven stones surrounding the house are there to take counsel with its owner. Its chapel for funerary offerings is as pure as the clean abzu. The stone basins set up in the house are like the holy room of the lustration priest where water never ceases to flow. Its high battlements where pigeons live is ... Eridug ... E-ninnu offers rest to pigeons, it is a protective cover with large branches and a pleasant shade, with swallows and other birds chirping loudly there. It is Enlil's E-kur when a festival takes place in it. The house's great awesomeness settles upon the whole Land, its praise reaches to the highlands, the awesomeness of the E-ninnu covers all lands like a garment. The house has been built most sumptuously by its lord. It was built on a pedestal by Ninĝišzida. Its foundation pegs were driven in by Gudea, the ruler of Lagaš.
Date: 2125 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Daniel 4:10
Hebrew Bible
9 saying, “Belteshazzar, chief of the magicians, in whom I know there to be a spirit of the holy gods and whom no mystery baffles, consider my dream that I saw and set forth its interpretation! 10 Here are the visions of my mind while I was on my bed. “While I was watching, there was a tree in the middle of the land. It was enormously tall. 11 The tree grew large and strong. Its top reached far into the sky; it could be seen from the borders of all the land. 12 Its foliage was attractive and its fruit plentiful; on it there was food enough for all. Under it the wild animals used to seek shade, and in its branches the birds of the sky used to nest. All creatures used to feed themselves from it. 13 “While I was watching in my mind’s visions on my bed, a holy sentinel came down from heaven.
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Notes and References
... a tree in the midst of the earth: The location in the midst of the earth suggests that this is the cosmic tree, a widespread symbol in world religion and well known in the ancient Near East. Its cosmic character is more pronounced in the Old Greek, verse 8 ("The sun and moon dwelt in it and illumined the whole earth"), but the Greek text is not necessarily the more primitive for that reason. The most obvious and frequently cited parallel is found in Ezekiel 31, where the pharaoh is likened to a cedar of Lebanon, which "towered high and set its top among the clouds" (verse 10). The parallel is clearest in Ezekiel 31:6: "All the birds of the air made their nests in its boughs; under its branches all the beasts of the field brought forth their young." Also relevant is the allegory in Ezekiel 17:1-10, where the Davidic house is represented as a cedar of Lebanon, whose top is transplanted and becomes a vine ...
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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