DANEL (Dān’ēl). — An Eastern figure mentioned in Ezek 14:14–20 to demonstrate the inexorability of God’s judgment against an unfaithful land, even were Noah, D., and Job present—i.e., the greatest of the just (and therefore their intercession).
The same is done in Ezek 28:3 to measure the pretended divine omniscience of the nāgīd (“prince”) of Tyre, Ithobaal III.
From these two passages it may be inferred that D. was a historical personage, father of sons and daughters, living after Noah but before Job, probably in the time of the patriarchs, renowned among the Phoenicians and the peoples of the Near East, not an Israelite, endowed with virtues such as to bear comparison with those of Noah and Job, and possessed of a wisdom that became proverbial.
An ancient Jewish-Christian tradition confused him with the prophet Daniel because of the similarity of name (the Masoretes in Ezek 14:14–20 and 28:3 propose Dānī’ēl instead of Dān’ēl in the present text), of wisdom, and through ignorance of other famous Daniels of antiquity.
The Ugaritic legend of D. (or of Aqhat), recovered at Ras Shamra, depicts a figure named Dn of the Mt Rpe and Gzr Mt Hrnmj as administering justice: “Behold Dn of Mt Rpe! / Behold Gzr of Mt Hrnmj! / He rises and sits before the gate, / beneath the magnificent trees that are by the threshing-floor, / and there he judges the widow’s case and establishes the orphan’s right” (I D 19b–25a).
In II D 6:45 the goddess ‘Anat calls him: “The wisest (or wisdom) of men.” The wisdom and rectitude of this D. account for his renown among the Phoenicians, leading Dussaud, Albright, Virolleaud, and others to identify him with the D. of Ezekiel. C. Barton, on the other hand, links D. with Zebulon, eponymous ancestor of the Zebulonites; Dhorme with Dan, eponymous ancestor of the Danites; H. Stocks traces the D. of Ezekiel, that of the canonical Book of Daniel, and the apocryphal Enoch and Jubilees to a single tradition. Rationalists regard the prophet Daniel as a literary derivation from D., who had already become legendary in Ezekiel. The hypotheses of Barton, Dhorme, H. Stocks, and the rationalists lack solid foundation. One may (or must) exclude the identification of D. with the prophet Daniel. Between the D. of Ezekiel and the Ugaritic D. there are evident similarities; yet, lacking a secure version of the Ugaritic legend of D. and deficient in other control data, it does not seem prudent at present to conclude with full certainty that the two are identical. Ezekiel therefore remains the only secure source concerning D.