But: Good News Translation considers “Then” a better transition word in this context (similarly An American Translation and Moffatt). But the majority of English versions retain that contrastive conjunction, since there is a contrast between victory in verse 43 and alarm in this verse. Note, however, that Revised English Bible leaves the conjunction untranslated.

Tidings: the same Hebrew word is translated elsewhere as “report” (Isa 53.1). It comes from the same root as the verb “to hear” and so carries the idea of “things heard.” In this case it has been rendered “rumours” (New English Bible/Revised English Bible and Moffatt), “reports” (New Jerusalem Bible, New Revised Standard Version, and New Jerusalem Bible), or simply “news” (Good News Translation).

Go forth with great fury: compare verse 11, “moved with anger, shall come out….”

Exterminate and utterly destroy: the two verbs in Hebrew mean more or less the same thing and have been rendered by a single verb in Bible en français courant, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch and Good News Translation.

Many: in a number of languages it will be required to make this more precise: “many people.”

The Parthians (in the eastern part of the Seleucid Kingdom) and the Armenians (to the north) proved to be somewhat turbulent. So Antiochus IV had to go to these regions to reestablish order.

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René & Ellington, John. A Handbook on Daniel. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .