quickly reported to Nabuchodonosor, who, in his fury at meeting with any persons who dared to dispute his sovereign decree, ordered them to be brought before him. When they came before the king, they were asked if it was true that they had refused to fall down and adore. They replied, 'We have no occasion to answer thee concerning this matter. For behold, our God, whom we worship, is able to save us from the furnace of burning fire, and to deliver us out of thy hands, O king. But if He will not, be it known to thee, O king, that we will not worship thy gods, nor adore the golden statue which thou hast set up.' Nabucho donosor was filled with fury, and commanded that the furnace should be heated seven times more than it had been accustomed to be heated; and he commanded the strongest men in his army to bind Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, and to cast them into the furnace of burning fire. They were then cast into the furnace of burning fire, with their coats, their caps, their shoes, and their garments on; for the king's commandment was exceeding urgent, and the flame of the fire was so hot that it slew those men that cast them in. The king's servants, however, ceased not to heat the furnace with brimstone and tow, pitch and dry sticks, so that the flame mounted above the furnace forty-nine cubits high. But the angel of the Lord went down with Sidrach and his companions into the furnace, and drove the flame away, and made the midst of the furnace like the blowing of a wind bringing dew, and the fire touched them not at all, nor troubled them nor did them any harm. Then the three with one mouth praised, glorified, and blessed God in the furnace, saying, 'Blessed art Thou, O Lord the God of our fathers, and worthy to be praised and glorified and exalted above all for ever; and blessed is the holy name of Thy glory, and worthy to be praised and exalted above all in all ages.'

Then Nabuchodonosor the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and said to his nobles, 'Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered the king, and said, 'True, O king.' He answered and said, 'Behold, I see four men loose, and walking in the midst of the fire, and there is no hurt in them; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.' Nabuchodonosor, overcome by the miracle of their deliverance, cried aloud and said, 'Blessed be the God of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, who hath sent his angel and delivered his servants who believed in Him, and who changed the king's word, and delivered up their bodies that they might not serve nor adore any god except their own God. By me therefore this decree is made, that every people, tribe, and tongue, which shall speak blasphemy against the God of Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, shall be destroyed, and their houses laid waste; for there is no other God that can save in this manner.'

This same Nabuchodonosor was afterwards afflicted with madness, as a judgment on his pride. He was driven away from among men, and did eat grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of

heaven, till his hairs grew like the feathers of eagles, and his nails like birds' claws.

At the end of seven years his senses were restored to him, as Daniel had foretold; and in the records of his kingdom it was written:

NABUCHODONOSOR GIVES GLORY TO THE GOD OF HEAVEN.

Now at the end of the days, I, Nabuchodonosor, lifted up my eyes to heaven, and my sense was restored to me; and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and glorified Him that liveth for ever; for His power is an everlasting power, and His kingdom is to all generations.

And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing before Him; for He doth according to His will, as well with the powers of heaven as among the inhabitants of the earth; and there is none that can resist His

hand, and say to Him, Why hast Thou done it?

At the same time my sense returned to me, and I came to the honour and glory of my kingdom; and my shape returned to me; and my nobles and my magistrates sought for me, and I was restored to my kingdom, and greater majesty was added to me.

Therefore I, Nabuchodonosor, do now praise and magnify and glorify the King of heaven; because all His works are true, and His ways judgments, and them that walk in pride He is able to abase.

§ 76. The kingdom of the Chaldeans falls, and the empire of the Medes and Persians comes in its place. Daniel in the den of lions.

Baltassar, the grandson of Nabuchodonosor, made a great feast to all his nobles, and during the banquet he bethought himself to command the vessels of silver and gold which Nabuchodonosor had carried away from the Temple in Jerusalem to be placed on the table. As they were drinking out of them, and praising their gods of wood and stone, behold, there appeared fingers as it were of the hand of a man writing over against the candlestick, on the surface of the wall of the king's palace. Then the king's countenance was changed, and he called for his soothsayers to read the writing; but they all declared they could neither read the writing nor declare the interpretation to the king. Daniel was now called, and having reminded the king of the warning he had had in what had befallen Nabuchodonosor, to which warning he, the king, had given no heed, he interpreted the writing thus-Mane, God hath numbered thy kingdom, and hath finished it; Thecel, thou art weighed in the balance, and art found wanting; Phares, thy kingdom is divided, and is given to the Medes and Persians. The same night, says the Book of Daniel, Baltassar the Chaldean was slain, and Darius the Mede succeeded to the kingdom, being three score and two years old.

The Chaldean kingdom which thus perished was only a change of dynasty in the great Assyrian empire, that had fixed its seat in Babylon instead of Ninive, and the power that followed is the one known in history as the empire of the Medes and Persians. Cyrus, after his victory over Baltassar, left Cyaxares, his father-in-law, with the title of king, to regulate the internal affairs of the kingdom. This Cyaxares, called in the Scripture 'Darius the Mede,' took Daniel, who had been a confidential minister of state during the preceding dynasty, and advanced him to the highest office in the kingdom. Here his wisdom and capacities for business excited the envy and jealousy of the other princes, who began to scheme his destruction. They said, 'We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel except perhaps concerning the law of his God.' With this view they came to Darius, and persuaded him to sign a decree, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which may not be changed, that whosoever, for the space of three months, shall ask any petition of any god or man, save of thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions.'

Then, carefully watching Daniel, they obtained evidence of his being found praying and making supplication to his God three times a day, as he was wont; on which they went and accused him before the king as disregarding the law. The king hearing this was greatly grieved, and he even laboured till sunset to save Daniel; but the princes, perceiving the king's inclination, said to him, 'Know thou, O king, that the law of the Medes and Persians is, that no decree which the king hath made may be altered.' Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel,

and cast him into the den of the lions.

And the king said to Daniel, Thy God, whom thou always servest, He will deliver thee.' And a stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den, which the king sealed with his own ring, and with the ring of his nobles, that nothing

should be done

without taking

supper, and meat was not set before him, and even sleep departed from him. Then

the king, rising very early in the morning, went in haste to the lions' den, and coming near to the den, cried with a lamentable voice to Daniel, and said to him, Daniel, servant of the living God, hath thy God, whom thou servest always, been able to deli

ver thee from the lions?' Daniel, answering the king, said, 'O king, live for ever; my God hath sent His angel, and hath shut up the mouths of the lions, and they have not hurt me; forasmuch as before Him justice was found in me; yea, and before thee, O king, have I done no offence.'

The king was exceeding glad when Daniel came forth from the den without any hurt upon him; and by the king's commandment, those who had accused Daniel were cast into the lions' den, they and their wives and their children, and they did not reach the bottom of the den before the lions caught them, and broke all their bones in pieces.

Daniel among the prophets has received the singular gift of being chosen to fix the time of the coming of Messias. In the first year of Darius the Mede, Daniel himself relates, 'I set my face to the Lord my God, to pray and to make supplication, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes; and while I was yet speaking, behold, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, flying swiftly, touched me

at the time of the evening sacrifice. And he instructed me, and spoke to me, and said, "O Daniel, from the beginning of thy prayers the word. came forth and I am come to show it to thee, because thou art a man of desires; therefore do thou mark the word, and understand the vision."'*

DANIEL'S VISION OF MESSIAS THE PRINCE.

Seventy weeks are shortened upon Thy people and upon Thy holy city, that transgression may be finished, and sin may have an end, and iniquity may be abolished; and everlasting justice may be brought, and vision and prophecy may be fulfilled, and the Saint of Saints may be anointed.

Know thou therefore, and take notice: that from the going forth of the word, to build up Jerusalem again, unto Christ the Prince, there shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks; and the street shall be built again, and the walls in straitness of times.

And after sixty-two weeks Christ shall be slain; and the people that shall deny Him shall not be His. And a people with their leader that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be waste, and after the end of the war the appointed desolation.

And he shall confirm the covenant with many in one week; and in the half of the week the victim and the sacrifice shall fail; and there shall be in the temple the abomination of desolation; and the desolation shall continue even to the consummation, and to the end.

Daniel in the den of lions is a figure of Jesus Christ in the hands of the Jews; and his deliverance from the den is a figure of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Fifth Subdivision.-The Restoration under the Persian Empire.

§ 77. Zorobabel and the decree of Cyrus for the rebuilding the Temple. Babylon was taken by the army of Cyrus in the year B.C. 539. Cyaxares the Median, the Darius of the Book of Daniel, remained in Babylon as regent of the empire, while Cyrus went to prosecute his wars in Syria. In the second year of his regency Darius died, and Cyrus the following year (536 B.C.) returned to Babylon as the sole head of the new Persian empire, and there issued the decree which authorised all the Jews who were zealous in behalf of the law of their fathers to return to Jerusalem, and rebuild the Temple and altar to the God of heaven.

* BRIEF EXPLANATION OF THE PROPHECY.-The period of seventy weeks, 490 years, comprises three lesser periods: seven weeks for the work of restoration of the Jewish State in straitness of times; sixty-two weeks as the continuance of this restoration; and one week in which Christ, having confirmed the covenant, should be slain.

Dating from the decree given to Esdras-whom the Jews regarded as a second Moses-to restore the law (i.e. to build up Jerusalem again), in the month Nisan (March) 4256 of the Julian period, 490 years bring us to the year 4746 of the Julian period, which was the exact year of the death of Christ, in the same month Nisan, on the Cross. The work of restoration occupied forty-nine years under Esdras and Nehemias in very troubled times; the restoration of Esdras continued for 434 years (sixty-two weeks), until John the Baptist. "The law and the prophets,' said Christ, 'continued until John.' During the last week Jesus Christ confirmed the covenant-by the ministry of His forerunner John, and in His own person; and towards the middle of it He was slain, and the Saint of Saints was anointed at His burial.

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