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Abstract
There are several extant Geʿez commentaries to Daniel that address the four kingdoms motif in the course of their interpretations of Daniel 2 and 7. All of these commentaries share an interpretive approach that grows out of and continues the dream interpretations we already find within Daniel’s narratives. In their interpretation of the statue in Daniel 2 and the four animals in Daniel 7, they decode the symbolic elements that Daniel and the interpreting angel left vague or unexplained, such as the identity of the four kingdoms. There are differences, however, in how the different com-mentaries decode these elements. In one case, these differences are con-tained within a single commentary, which draws attention to and seeks to negotiate the tensions created by inherited interpretive traditions that dis-agree with each other. One of these inherited traditions is Hippolytus of Rome’s commentary to Daniel, which offers a four kingdoms sequence of Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece, and Rome. While this sequence finds agreement in some Ethiopic commentaries, it also conflicts with traditions inherited from Syriac exegesis, which identify the four kingdoms as Baby-lon, Media, Persia, and Greece.