[3] This exaltation of
human caprice into a divine right creates powerful supports for itself in
claims to superhuman wisdom and in the attainment of the power of wealth. The
provoking assumption of superiority, by which Tyrian diplomacy regarded its
plans and decisions as the only right ones, and was able to back them up by all
the weight of its huge resources, is mentioned also in Zech. 9.2 as a habit
characteristic of Phoenicia, and in that passage, as in this, we find an ironic
emphasis placed upon it. There is no other way in which the almost admiring
language of vv. 3 and 4 can be interpreted. This would be still more impressive
if, as Van den Born conjectures, we are here meeting a fragment taken from a
Tyrian royal hymn. When Daniel is named in it as a proverbial manifestation of
wisdom, then some figure of the past known throughout the whole Syrian region
must be referred to. This excludes the Daniel of the Old Testament book bearing
that name. It is very probably the king of that name known from Ugaritic
testimonies who is also named in 14.14-20 (cf. above, pp. 189f.) and belongs to
that class of hero who is also a sort of demi-god. (Walther Eichrodt, Ezekiel
[trans. Cosslett Quin; Old Testament Library; Philadelphia: The Westminster
Press, 1970], 391)