2:1 And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar dreamed 2 dreams; and his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him. Then the king com- manded to call the magicians, and the enchanters, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for 3 to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king. And the king said 4 unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream. Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in the Syrian language, O king, live for ever: tell thy ser- 5 vants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation. The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if ye make not known unto me the dream and the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill. 6 But if ye shew the dream and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of me gifts and re- 7 wards and great honour: therefore shew me the dream and the interpretation thereof. They answered the second time and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will shew 8 the interpretation. The king answered and said, I know of a certainty that ye would gain 9 time, because ye see the thing is gone from me. But if ye make not known unto me the dream, there is but one law for you: for ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me, till the time be changed: therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye 10 can shew me the interpretation thereof. The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king’s matter: forasmuch as no king, 11 lord, nor ruler, hath asked such a thing of any magician, or enchanter, or Chaldean. And it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can shew it before the 12 king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh. For this cause the king was angry 13 and very furious, and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. So the decree went forth, and the wise men were to be slain; and they sought Daniel and his companions 14 to be slain. Then Daniel returned answer with counsel and prudence to Arioch the captain 15 of the king’s guard, which was gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon; he answered and said to Arioch the king’s captain, Wherefore is the decree so urgent from the king? 16 Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel. And Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would appoint him a time, and he would shew the king the interpretation. 17 Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and 18 Azariah, his companions: that they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his companions should not perish with the rest of the wise men 19 of Babylon. Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel 20 blessed the God of heaven. Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever 21 and ever: for wisdom and might are his: and he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to 22 them that know understanding: he revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what 23 is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him. I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast now made known unto 24 me what we desired of thee: for thou hast made known unto us the king’s matter. There- fore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went and said thus unto him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation. 25 Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus unto him, I have found a man of the children of the captivity of Judah, that will make known unto the king 26 the interpretation. The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation 27 thereof? Daniel answered before the king, and said, The secret which the king hath de- manded can neither wise men, enchanters, magicians, nor soothsayers, shew unto the king; 28 but there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and he hath made known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head 29 upon thy bed, are these: as for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets hath made known to thee

30 what shall come to pass. But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but to the intent that the interpretation may be made 31 known to the king, and that thou mayest know the thoughts of thy heart. Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This image, which was mighty, and whose brightness 32 was excellent, stood before thee; and the aspect thereof was terrible. As for this image, his 33 head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his 34 legs of iron, his feet part of iron, and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and 35 brake them in pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the 36 image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. This is the dream; and we will 37 tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art king of kings, unto whom 38 the God of heaven hath given the kingdom, the power, and the strength, and the glory; and wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee to rule over them all: thou art the head 39 of gold. And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee; and another third 40 kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron 41 that crusheth all these, shall it break in pieces and crush. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry 42 clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall 43 be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men; but they shall not cleave one to 44 another, even as iron doth not mingle with clay. And in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these king- 45 doms, and it shall stand for ever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass here- 46 after: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure. Then the king Nebu- chadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should 47 offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him. The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth your God is the God of gods, and the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing 48 thou hast been able to reveal this secret. Then the king made Daniel great, and gave him many great gifts, and made him to rule over the whole province of Babylon, and to be chief 49 governor over all the wise men of Babylon. And Daniel requested of the king, and he ap- pointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, over the affairs of the province of Babylon: but Daniel was in the gate of the king.

The Four Monarchies and the Messianic King- dom.

THE chief subject of chaps. 2-7 is the four world monarchies, which, having succeeded each other, finally usher in the kingdom of God. This subject is presented to us in two visions, one of which (chap. 2) opens, the other (chap. 7) closes the first part. The dream of the king and its interpretation (chap. 2) opened up to Daniel a glance into the future of the kingdoms of the world, disclosed to him a whole circle of visions, and thus prepared him for the reception of further and more special revelations; so that the event possessed for him the character of a preparatory education. God caused the world power, viewed in its totality, to appear to Nebuchadnezzar under the figure of a colossal human form, whose head of gold represents the Babylonian, whose breast and arms of silver the Medo-Persian, whose body and loins of brass the Graeco-Macedonian, whose legs of iron and feet partly iron and partly clay, the Roman empire, with its Germano-Slavonic offshoots. In accordance with the general plan of the prophecy, those kingdoms only are mentioned which stand in some relation to the kingdom of God; but of these none is left out. The establishment of the kingdom of God is the aim of His creation, the end of His government of the world. The kingdom of God is the invisible root which sustains and supports the kingdoms of the world—the invisible power by which the kingdoms of the world are smitten and crushed down. The duration, importance, and dignity of the kingdoms of the world is fixed by their nearer or remoter connection with the kingdom of God. It would be utterly valueless to know beforehand the fate and history of all the kingdoms of the earth, which bear either a very distant or no relation whatever to the kingdom of God. For whatever history they may have, it is insignificant, since it exerts but a slight influence, or none at all, in delaying or advancing the last and final development of things, the crushing of the kingdoms of the world by the kingdom of God” (Menken). Auberlen.

Chap. 2. In this chapter we have an account of the dream of Nebuchadnezzar and its interpretation by Daniel after the Chaldeans had failed to describe and interpret it. The dream itself contains a general outline of the subsequent revelations to Daniel in regard to the world powers. It occurred many years before the other visions. At this time the kingdom of Babylon was approaching to its highest glory. In the later visions of Daniel it was in its last extremity. Rose.

Nebuchadnezzar is greatly troubled by a dream which he cannot recall; his Chaldean magi cannot help him to it; but Daniel reveals to the king his dream and its interpretation. Thereupon the king acknowledges the great superiority of the God of Daniel, and promotes him and his three friends to high positions of trust in the State. H. C.

1. And in the second year. The date would be about the sixth year of Jehoiakim, in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s sole sovereignty after the death of his father Nabopolassar; about four years after the date in chap. 1: 1, and shortly after chap. 1: 18. B. C.—The second year, according to the Babylonian account, or the fourth, according to the Jewish—that is, in the second year of his reigning alone, or the fourth of his reigning jointly with his father. Bp. Newton.—Daniel, writing the following history in Chaldee, for the use of the Chaldeans, follows the computation of time in use among them. W. Lowth.

Dreams. Though it was but one continued dream, it contained a succession of various events. Wintle.—Dreams are usually the mere fancies of the mind during sleep, and of no account as indicating future events. But the God who made us is able to reach our minds no less while we sleep than while we are awake; and hence can determine our dreams as truly and perfectly as the succession and character of our waking thoughts. Hence he was wont in ancient times to manifest Himself to men in their dreams, as here in the case of this Chaldean king. This dream troubled him and made sleep impossible. It left his mind painfully anxious, as if it foreboded some great calamity; while yet he could not recall the particular points of the dream. Much less could he reach its prophetic significance.

2. In this emergency the king called in the aid of those classes of men who professed skill in the occult sciences and in auguries of future events. Most if not all of the unevangelized nations of all history have had such men, often known as a special class under some distinctive name. Here are four different terms of designation. The word rendered “magicians” means sacred scribes—priests of religion. The next term, rendered “astrologers,” is several times translated “magoi” (magi) in the Septuagint. The magoi are the “wise men” who came from the East (Matt. 2: 1) to inquire for the new-born Messiah whose star they had seen, and therefore came to worship Him. The second and the third terms imply, in the original Hebrew, the use of occult arts, secret practices, by which their authors pretended to have communication with invisible powers or agencies, and to learn from them what no unaided human mind could attain. The term Chaldean, as used in this connection, denotes a learned class who retained the language and the wisdom of the ancient Kaldi people. H. C.

Their magi, or learned men, were a numerous and important class. The movements of the heavenly bodies, the qualities of metals and minerals, prognostications of the future, explanations of dreams and similar subjects constituted their studies; and as they claimed great skill in the art of foretelling the future, they acquired a position of extraordinary influence. They were the priests of the Chaldean nation, and taught the worship of the sun, moon and planets. In their creed they acknowledged one Supreme Being, the maker and governor of the world; but practically, as in the case of the Egyptians, this sublime truth was lost under the popular notion of many gods. Bel, or Belus, the supreme god of Babylon, was worshipped with extraordinary honors; and a magnificent temple was built for him by Nebuchadnezzar. W. G. B.

4. The Chaldeans spoke to the king “in Syriac,” the usual language of the country. From this point to the end of chap. 7 the author of this book wrote in this dialect, here called “Syriac,” but in the original “Aramaic,” and more generally known as the Chaldee.

5,6. The Chaldean wise men steadily demand that the king shall tell his dream. The king has lost it, and hence demands no less persistently that they shall give him both his dream and its interpretation. Feeling intensely anxious to know it, he resorts to the utmost terror of his supreme power of life and death over his subjects, and threatens them the most terrible and disgraceful death if they fail, backing up this penalty by the promise of immense rewards if they are successful. It is plain that God is shaping this matter to test the intrinsic futility of their pretensions to superhuman knowledge, and to bring out in the most public manner his own infinite superiority over them all.

10,11. Forced upon impossibilities as the sole condition of life, the Chaldeans are emboldened to speak out plainly even before this absolute and terribly stern monarch. They assure him that the thing he demands is beyond all human skill, and that no reasonable king ever before made such demands as this upon men of their profession. This admission was of the utmost importance in its bearing upon Daniel and Daniel’s God. It shows, moreover, that they had a distinct conception of a higher intelligence, some great mind or minds possessed of knowledge and forecast far beyond that of men.

13. Daniel and his three associates (“fellows”) seem not to have been present among the magicians, astrologers, etc., who were summoned before the king, and hence knew nothing of this transaction. But now that death is the doom of all the wise men, they are less disposed to count out Daniel and his three friends. All this, whether well or ill intended on their part, was of the Lord, who is wont to make the wrath of man work out His own praise. H. C.

14–16. Another proof is here supplied of Daniel’s “counsel and wisdom.” He first inquires of Arioch into the facts of the case, and then, by his judicious remonstrances, induces that officer to suspend the execution of the king’s decree till he had obtained an interview with Nebuchadnezzar. When we compare the request that “the king would give him time” with the royal language to the assembled magicians, “I know of certainty that ye would gain the time,” we perceive not only an evidence of the estimation in which Daniel continued to be held at court—for it appears that his wish was immediately granted—but a demonstration in the continued and effective superintendence of Divine Providence, that “the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water; He turneth it whithersoever He will.” F. A. Cox.

17, 18. Concerning this secret. “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God” (De. 29: 29). And to Him Daniel applies in the moment of trial. He anticipates as it were the gracious promise of our Saviour to united prayer (Matt. 18: 19), by calling on his companions to join him. Nor was the answer long delayed. Rose.

Daniel not only evinced his desire, by the invitation given to his companions, that they should participate in the credit and the safety he expected, but showed a profound sense of the necessity of united, as well as importunate prayer. He requested them all to solicit “mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret.” F. A. Cox.

The last part of verse 18 contains a touch of great beauty. It is thoroughly like the character of Daniel that in his prayer he should make no distinction between believer and unbeliever, between himself and the proud Chaldean priests. The same clause indirectly asserts the position assigned to “Daniel and his fellows.” B. C.

19–23. The revelation was made to Daniel forthwith, in the manner of a vision by night. He is at once conscious that God has given him the secret prayed for and so much desired, and hence he breaks out in grateful praise for this blessing. The expressions “wisdom and might are His,” “He changeth the times and the seasons;” “He removeth kings and setteth up kings,” are evidently suggested by the subject-matter of the king’s dream, which is now both revealed and expounded to Daniel. The central idea of that dream is (as we shall see) the changing course of empire and the Divine agency in casting down one great world-ruling dynasty and setting up another in its stead. In most sublime strains Daniel celebrates also the omniscience and foreknowledge of Jehovah: “He revealeth the deep and secret things,” such as no mortal eye can reach; “He knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with Him.” Dwelling Himself in light unapproachable and full of glory, nothing present, past or future can be dark to His all searching eye. H. C.

It was from the prophecy recorded in this chapter that the distinction first arose of the four great empires of the world, which hath been followed by most historians and chronologers in their distribution of times. These four empires, as they are the subject of this prophecy, are likewise the subject of the most celebrated pens both in former and in later ages. Not but there have been empires as great or greater than some of these—as those of the Tartars, for instance, and of the Saracens, and of the Turks—and we may think perhaps that they were as well deserving of a place in this succession of kingdoms, and were equally worthy to be made the objects of prophecy, being as eminent for the wisdom of their constitutions, the extent of their dominion and the length of their duration. But these four empires had a particular relation to the Church and people of God, who were subject to them in their turns. They were therefore particularly predicted; and we have in them, without the intermixture of others, a line of prophecy extending from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar to the full and complete establishment of the kingdom of the Messiah. He who is Arbiter of kingdoms and Governor of the universe can reveal as much of their future revolutions as He pleaseth; and He hath revealed enough to manifest His providence and to confirm the truth of religion. What Daniel said upon the first discovery of these things well may we say, after the completion of so many particulars, “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever; for wisdom and might are His; and He changeth the times and the seasons; He removeth kings, and setteth up kings; He giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding; He revealeth the deep and secret things; He knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him” (verses 20–22). Bp. Newton.

28. Introduced into the king’s presence in the early morning, after declaring that the king’s secret could only be revealed by the God in heaven, in the name of that God, Daniel recites the dream. After completing the narration, he affirms its truth with absolute assurance. Then, without even waiting for the king’s acknowledgment of its correctness, Daniel proceeds with the same assurance to declare its interpretation. B.

But there is a God in heaven. Daniel’s great modesty in disclaiming all merit or extraordinary wisdom on his own part; his piety in giving the glory to God alone, and at the same time his skill and dexterity in preparing the king’s attention, and gradually opening his understanding to the reception of the truth and the acknowledgment of the one true God, are very remarkable. Wintle.—The king, as Jerome justly observes, had a prophetic dream that, the saint interpreting it, God might be glorified, and the captives and those who served God in captivity might receive great consolation. We read the same thing of Pharaoh. Bp. Newton.—This marvellous narrative must have as its basis essential truth. It could not have been an invention. It would not have served its purpose, nor were there men who could invent it at the time supposed. It fits into the historical crisis in which the Bible puts it. It was to the king a true revelation of the counsels of God. Gilbert.

31–45. This passage is in two parts—the dream (verses 31–35) and its interpretation (verses 37–45). The dream is symbolic—one connected, compact series of symbols; the interpretation renders these symbols into literal language. The symbols scarcely need any comment. The language itself is plain. Here is one huge image of the human form, the head of gold being the first part; the breast and arms of silver the second; the belly and thighs of brass the third; the legs, feet and toes, part iron and part clay, the fourth. Then a stone cut from the mountain without hands smites the image upon its feet, but breaks in pieces the whole image and scatters it to the winds of heaven; and then itself becomes a great mountain and fills the whole earth. A stone is a proper symbol of an agency that comes to break a huge metal image. That it is “cut from the mountain without hands” indicates that the Messiah was born and brought forth before the world as King of nations by Divine rather than human agencies; while His smiting the great image to its destruction denotes the power of God in His providential government, overturning guilty nations. The interpretation shows that the central idea of the dream is the course of empire; the rapid succession of great world monarchies. Of these the first four are of the earth, earthly—mere human kingdoms. The fifth is in some respects peculiar, being “set up by the God of heaven.” The points affirmed here of this fifth kingdom are that it first destroys and then supersedes all the other kingdoms; that it shall not pass over into the hands of other races and people, as those that preceded it had done; that it shall not be transient, like them, but enduring; and finally it shall be in a higher sense than they, universal in extent, filling all the earth. Both Jesus Christ and His inspired apostles, by taking up these words of Daniel and applying them to the reign of Christ, become themselves so far forth the interpreters of Daniel’s prophecy, certifying to us that in their view the Spirit who spake by Daniel meant by this fifth kingdom that of the Gospel age whose king was Jesus the Messiah. Let it be borne in mind that of these five kingdoms, four are in point of origin earthly; the fifth heavenly; four are of this world; the fifth is “not of this world;” four are of the sort well known to profane history; the fifth is of the sort little known except in sacred history—a kingdom whose defined purpose is “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” Though eminently spiritual, it yet none the less controls the external life—unto universal righteousness. H. C.

31. Thou, O king, savest, and behold a great image. It represents a body of four great nations, which should reign over the earth successively—viz., the people of Babylonia, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans. And by a stone cut out without hands, which fell upon the feet of the image, and brake all the four metals to pieces, and “became a great mountain and filled the whole earth,” it further represents that a new kingdom should arise after the four and conquer all those nations, and grow very great and last to the end of all ages. Sir Isaac Newton.—A great, terrible human figure is not an improper emblem of human power and dominion; and the various metals of which it was composed not unfitly typify the various kingdoms that should arise. The order of their succession is clearly denoted by the order of the parts, the head and higher parts signifying the earlier times, and the lower parts the latter times. Bps. Chandler and Newton.—Grotius acutely observes that this image appeared with a glorious lustre in the imagination of Nebuchadnezzar, whose mind was wholly taken up with admiration of worldly pomp and splendor; whereas the same monarchies were represented to Daniel under the shape of fierce and wild beasts (chap. 7), as being the great supporters of idolatry and tyranny in the world. W. Lowth.

32. This image’s head was of fine gold, which Daniel interprets (verse 38), “Thou art this head of gold;” thou, and thy family, and thy representatives. The Babylonian therefore was the first of these kingdoms; and it was fitly represented by the “head of fine gold” on account of its great riches: and Babylon, for the same reason, was called by Isaiah “the golden city” (chap. 14:4). Daniel addresses Nebuchadnezzar as if he were a very powerful king and his empire very large and extensive: “Thou, O king, art a king of kings.” (See verses 37 and 38.)

His breast and his arms of silver. Which

Daniel interprets (verse 39), “And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee.” The kingdom which arose after the Babylonian was the Medo-Persian. The two hands and the shoulders, saith Josephus, signify that the empire of the Babylonians should be dissolved by two kings. The two kings were the kings of the Medes and Persians, whose powers were united under Cyrus, who was son of one of the kings and son-in-law of the other; who besieged and took Babylon, put an end to that empire, and on its ruins erected the Medo-Persian, or Persian, as it is more usually called, the Persians having soon gained the ascendancy over the Medes. This empire, from its first establishment by Cyrus to the death of the last king, Darius Codomannus, lasted not much more than two hundred years.

His belly and his thighs of brass. Which Daniel interprets (verse 39), “And another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.” Alexander the Great subverted the Persian empire. The kingdom therefore which succeeded to the Persian was the Macedonian; and this kingdom was fitly represented by brass; for the Greeks were famous for their brazen armor, their usual epithet being, “the brazen-coated Greeks.” The interpretation of Daniel in Josephus is, that another, coming from the west, completely armed in brass, shall destroy the empire of the Medes and Persians. This third kingdom is also said to “bear rule over all the earth,” by a figure usual in almost all authors. Alexander himself commanded that he should be called the king of all the world—not that he really conquered the whole world, but he had considerable dominions in Europe, Asia and Africa—that is, in all the three parts of the world then known; and Diodorus Siculus and other historians give an account of ambassadors coming from almost all the world to congratulate him upon his success, or to submit to his empire; and then especially, as Arrian remarks, did Alexander appear to himself and to those about him to be master both of the earth and of the sea. The Seleucidæ, who reigned in Syria, and the Lagidæ, who reigned in Egypt, successors of Alexander, might be designed particularly by “the two thighs” of brass. And of all his successors they alone might be pointed out, because they alone had much connection with the Jewish Church and nation.

33. His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Which is thus interpreted by Daniel: “And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron.” (See verses 40-43.) The Romans succeeded next to the Macedonians, and therefore in course were next to be mentioned. The Roman empire was stronger and larger than any of the preceding. The Romans brake in pieces and subdued all the former kingdoms. The iron was “mixed with miry clay,” and the Romans were defiled with a mixture of barbarous nations. Bp. Newton.

40. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron. While there was a diminution of splendor from the gold and silver of the Oriental monarchies, there was an increase of strength; as iron is the strongest of the metals, so the Roman empire which succeeded that of the Greeks was the most powerful of them all. Forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that crusheth all these, shall it break in pieces and crush. The Roman empire not only broke down that which preceded it, and extended its dominion more widely than any one of the others had done, but it had a much greater solidity and cohesion than the rest. This explanation has until quite recently been universally accepted. No other view would have been thought of, apparently, but for two reasons. One is the notion that the Book of Daniel is not the production of the prophet bearing that name, but belongs to a much later period—that of the Maccabees—and that the prophecies of this book are either past history dressed in the garb of prophecy, or possibly predictions of ancient date which were rewritten and modified into accordance with the history. Hence it is claimed that the predictions of a specific nature cannot go beyond the time of the Maccabees, and that therefore the Roman empire can find no place there. A second reason is drawn from a comparison of passages in subsequent chapters. The fourth kingdom of this second chapter is doubtless the same as the fourth beast of chap. 7, which had ten horns, among which there came up a little horn (verses 7, 8), which made war with the saints (verse 21), and spoke against the Most High (verse 25). This has been thought to be parallel to the little horn spoken of Daniel 8:9 sqq., which undoubtedly refers to Antiochus Epiphanes and his persecution of the Jews and suppression of the worship of the temple. This little horn sprang up upon the he-goat representing the Greek empire of Alexander and his successors. It is hence inferred that the fourth kingdom of chaps. 2 and 7 must likewise be, not the Roman, but the Greek empire, and that the three preceding kingdoms spoken of in these chapters must be prior to it. Various attempts have accordingly been made to make out three empires before that of the Greeks. This can only be done by dividing some one of the empires previously recited into two. Some have proposed to divide the Babylonish empire into two. The first kingdom is expressly declared (verse 38) to be that of Nebuchadnezzar; it has been said that the second kingdom is the Babylonish empire under Belshazzar (chap. 5). This, however, is not (verse 39) “another kingdom,” but the very same, with a simple change of the ruling monarch. Again, it has been proposed to divide the Medo-Persian empire into, first, an empire of the Medes under Darius, and then an empire of the Persians under Cyrus and his successors. But the Medes and the Persians are always combined as acting together and united under one government. The change from Darius the Mede to Cyrus the Persian was to a ruler of a different dynasty, but the empire was unchanged; and it is so represented in Dan. 8, where the ram with the two horns (verse 3) is confessedly the Medes-Persian empire, the two horns denoting the Median followed by the Persian rulers. It has still further been proposed to divide the Greek empire into, first, the empire of Alexander, and then the divided empire of his successors. But this is as impracticable as either of the preceding suggestions. The empire of Alexander and his successors was the same, only broken up into parts. The fourth kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream can be no other than the Roman empire, which corresponds with the description given in both chap. 2 and chap. 7 in every particular. W. H. G.

The singular amalgam of iron and clay in the fourth kingdom is worth notice. No sculptor or metallurgist could make a strong unity out of such materials, of which the combination could only be apparent and superficial. The fact to which it points is the artificial unity, into which the great conquering empires of old crushed their unfortunate, subject peoples, who were hammered, not fused, together. “They shall mingle themselves with the seed of men” (verse 43) may either refer to the attempts to bring about unity by marriages among different races, or to other vain efforts to the same end. To obliterate nationalities has always been the conquering despots’ effort, from Nebuchadnezzar to the Czar of Russia, and it always fails. This is the weakness of these huge empires of antiquity, which have no internal cohesion, and tumble to pieces as soon as some external bond is loosened. There is only one kingdom which has no disintegrating forces lodged in it, because it unites men individually to its king, and so binds them to one another; and that is the kingdom which Nebuchadnezzar saw in its destructive aspect. A. M.

There is a clear and unambiguous statement of the rise of four kingdoms; the four not to be contemporaneous, but successive; not originating from the same power, but diverse one from the other; not confined to the sway of a domestic sceptre, but kingdoms of conquest and power, bearing rule over the subject nations. An extension of dominion is predicated of the third, an exceeding strength of the fourth. In a word, there is here a conspicuous and connected prophecy of the most comprehensive changes and revolutions wrought on the face of the ancient world.

It is generally and rightly admitted that the same four powers or kingdoms are described in the second and seventh chapters. The fourfold partition of the respective symbols, the various minutiae of analogy and agreement, indicate a coincidence which leads to a certainty through the literal interpretation annexed to and completing the revelation of those visions. Of itself the duplication is not unimportant; it adds to the steadiness of the prediction. Differences of imagery have been rightly attributed to a difference of character in the revelation; in chap. 2 the powers are taken from the sphere of the inanimate, and represent the purely external and unconscious side of the subject; in chap. 7 they are chosen from the sphere of the animate, and illustrate typically the living conscious element of the prophecy. Nebuchadnezzar saw things only from without. The powers of the world in their fullest glory were to him but component parts of one splendid colossal figure bearing the outward appearance of a man; they rested upon but one and the same geographical base—the eastern world: the power of God’s kingdom in its highest splendor was but humble as a “stone cut without hands.” Daniel penetrated deeper into the vision. He saw that the kingdoms of the world were, notwithstanding their defiant attitude, of a nature animal, plastic, and lower than human. Pagan minds were exhibited to him dull and ignorant of God, as the image, however costly, is ignorant of its maker. Only in the kingdom of God, that humble corner-stone “coming not with observation,” was embosomed all that was powerful and eternal. Accordingly to the prophet the kingdom of God is, from the very outset, superior to the kingdoms of the world. Gold, silver, brass, iron—the puppet-work of man’s hands is ground to powder by the stone, the work cut without hands. B. C.

According to the modern view, “the empires can be no other than those of the Babylonians, Medes, Persians and Greeks, who all placed the centre of their power in Babylon, and appeared to have exhibited on one stage the great types of national life. The Roman power was at its height when Christ came, but the Egyptian kingdom, the last relic of the empire of Alexander, had just been destroyed, and thus the ‘stone cut without hands struck the feet of the image,’ and Christianity forever destroyed the real supremacy of heathen dominion.” The strangest part in the passage quoted above is the assertion that the stone cut without hands struck the image on its feet, in close connection with a statement that the last relic of the Greek empire had passed away before the coming of Christ. In fact, from beginning to end this interpretation appears to be only an adaptation of the prophecy to the interpretation, instead of adapting the interpretation to the prophecy. The very circumstance, which appears to indicate that the fourth empire must be in existence at the coming of Christ—i.e., that the stone smites the image on the feet, is thus thrust aside to make the prophecy answer the exigencies of a theory.

The ancient interpretation therefore appears to have at least the merit of being deduced from the conditions of the prophecy and the course of the world’s history. And certainly, the analogy suggested by Professor Westcott between the empires of ancient and modern history is very little calculated to recommend his interpretation. The fact seems rather to be, that since the destruction of the Roman empire no power has appeared, except for a few years at some particular epochs, which could be said to occupy the place in modern history which those empires did in the ancient world. Rose.

45. Of the stone cut out without hands, three things are specified—its origin, its duration, and its destructive energy. The origin is heavenly, in sharp contrast to the human origin of the kingdoms symbolized in the colossal man. That idea is twice expressed: once in plain words, “the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom;” and once figuratively, as being cut out of the mountain without hands. By the mountain we are probably to understand Zion, from which, according to many a prophecy, the Messiah King was to rule the earth (Ps. 2; Isa. 2: 3). The fulfilment of this prediction is found not only in the supernatural birth of

Jesus Christ, but in the spread of the Gospel without any of the weapons and aids of human power. Twelve poor men spoke, and the world was shaken and the kingdoms remoulded. The seer had learned the omnipotence of ideas and the weakness of outward force. A thought from God is stronger than all armies, and outconquers conquerors. By the mystery of Christ’s incarnation, by the power of weakness in the preachers of the cross, by the energies of the transforming Spirit, the God of heaven has set up the kingdom. It “shall never be destroyed.” Its Divine origin guarantees its perpetual duration. The kingdoms of man’s founding, whether they be in the realm of thought or of outward dominion, “have their day, and cease to be,” but the kingdom of Christ lasts as long as the eternal life of its King. He cannot die any more, and He cannot live discrowned. Other forms of human association perish, as new conditions come into play which antiquate them; but the kingdom of Jesus is as flexible as it is firm, and has power to adapt all conditions in which men can live to itself. It will outlast earth, it will fill eternity; for when He “shall have delivered up the kingdom to His Father,” the kingdom which the God of heaven set up will still continue. It “shall not be left to other people.” By that seems to be meant that this kingdom will not be like those of human origin, in which dominion passes from one race to another, but that Israel shall ever be the happy subjects and the dominant race. We must interpret the words of the spiritual Israel, and remember how to be Christ’s subjects is to belong to a nation who are kings and priests.

The destructive power is graphically represented. The stone, detached from the mountain, and apparently self-moved, dashes against the heterogeneous mass of iron and clay on which the colossus insecurely stands, and down it comes with a crash, breaking into a thousand fragments as it falls. “Like the chaff of the summer threshing floors” (Dan. 2:35) is the débris, which is whirled out of sight by the wind. Christ and His kingdom have reshaped the world. These ancient, hideous kingdoms of blood and misery are impossible now. Christ and His Gospel shattered the Roman empire, and cast Europe into another mould. They have destructive work to do yet, and as surely as the sun rises daily will do it. The things that can be shaken will be shaken till they fall, and human society will never attain its stable form till it is moulded throughout after the pattern of the kingdom of Christ. The vision has no reference to the quickening power of the kingdom; but the best way in which it destroys is by transformation. It slays the old and lower forms of society by substituting the purer which flow from possession of the one spirit. That highest glory of the work of Christ is but partially represented here; but there is a hint in Dan. 2:35 which tells that the stone has a strange vitality, and can grow, and does grow, till it becomes an earth-filling mountain. A. M.

It is a growing kingdom. At first it was small, but it had in it an expansive power; it was “a little stone hewn out of a mountain without hands,” but it shall become “a great mountain, and fill all the earth.” It has grown, and is growing, “and of its increase there shall be no end.” “He must increase; He shall reign until all things are put under Him.” He goes on “conquering and to conquer;” the last enemy shall be overcome and be bound to the wheels of His chariot. The Scriptures are much occupied in these things. Prophets thought as much of missions, their labors and their successes as we do; they employed the most glowing language and the sublimest strains in their predictions of the glory of Messiah’s kingdom in the latter day; they snatch from earth and heaven, from the sun, the moon and stars, the fairest and the grandest images, to represent the state of the Church at that desired period; they levy a tribute upon universal nature, and make all things contribute to illustrate, as they will in reality contribute to advance, this kingdom. R. Hall.

In striking contrast with the fixed limits and definite proportions of human civilizations is the indefinite size and shape of the kingdom of God. The stone is an appropriate symbol of it, the rough stone taken out of the quarry, not the stone crystallized into the mathematical facets of a gem. The statue, moulded by human arts, shares in the limitations of man’s own nature. Made by God, the stone shares in His infinitude. The mystic stone in the vision grew and expanded until it became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. The landscape consisted of itself and its shadow. It presents a different aspect from each new point of view. The uniform monotonous despotisms of antiquity were created by man for his own aggrandizement; they had therefore fixed bounds of space and duration beyond which they could not pass. But the kingdom of God is the creation of Divine love and grace, and therefore it unfolds with the need of man, and develops new capacities of blessing him, and endures forever.

The dream of the night has become the grandest fact of history; the vision of a heathen monarch has become the reality of Christendom; and every age will give the vision and the dream a grander and yet grander interpretation. God has made the stone which the builders rejected the headstone of the corner; and on it is built all that is most precious and enduring in the world—the Church which was bought with the blood of Christ, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. The living stones built upon the Living Stone will partake of the life, durability and value of their foundation. H. Macmillan.

In the midst of a great empire, powerful and crafty above all former empires, more extensive and better organized, suddenly a new kingdom arose. Suddenly in every part of this well-cemented empire, as if by some general understanding, yet without any sufficient system of correspondence or centre of influence, ten thousand orderly societies, professing one and the same doctrine, sprang up as from the earth. It seemed as though the fountains of the great deep were broken up and some new forms of creation were thrown forward from below, the manifold ridges of some “great mountain” crossing, splitting, disarranging the existing system of things, levelling the hills, filling up the valleys—irresistible as being sudden, unforeseen and unprovided for—till it “filled the whole earth.” . . . If there be a moral governor over the world, is there not something unearthly in all this, something which we are forced to refer to Him from its marvellousness, something which from its dignity and greatness bespeaks His hand? The Gospel dispensation is confessedly a singular phenomenon in human affairs, whether we consider the extent it occupies in history, the harmony of its system, the consistency of its design, its contrariety to the existing course of things and success in spite of that contrariety, and lastly the avowed intention of its first preachers to effect those objects which it has really attained. They professed to be founding a kingdom different from any that had been before, as disclaiming force, in this world yet not of this world, while yet it was to be of an aggressive and encroaching character, an empire of conquest and aggrandizement, destroying all former powers, and itself standing forever. And, in matter of fact, it exists to this day with its territory spread over more than the world then known to the Jews. Newman.

46,47. Profoundly impressed with the greatness of Daniel and of Daniel’s God, and quite too oblivious of Daniel’s personal disclaimer (“not for any wisdom that I have more than any living”) the king fell prostrate before Him and gave command that an oblation and sweet odors should be offered to Him. This must be ascribed to his heathen ideas. Still it did not preclude from his mind a strong conviction of the supremacy of the God of Daniel. His profession of faith on this point is (for the time) very strong. H. C.

47. When the king asks Daniel if he is able to make known the dream and its interpretation, he reminds him that there had been no power in the gods the diviners served to enable them to do this; “but there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the King Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days.” And throughout he ascribes everything to this God whom he served—the dream itself, the interpretation, the existence and power of the Babylonian empire in the person of the king before him—and all the historical developments which the vision prefigured. This he succeeded in impressing with such force upon the king’s mind as at the close drew from him the memorable declaration, “Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings.” Kitto.

48,49. Promotion followed, and Daniel is advanced to the position of prime minister for the province of Babylon and head-man over the whole fraternity of magicians, soothsayers, priests of religion and of science. At his request his three friends also are promoted to important trusts. Daniel’s place in the gate of the king put him next the royal person as his first counsellor—a position of the very highest trust and influence. Such were the first and immediate results of the Divine favor to Daniel in revealing the secret of the king’s dream. H. C.

Upon the capture of Babylon, Daniel retained his high office, being made chief of the three presidents of the empire by Darius the Mede, and becoming thus exposed to the envy of the princes, he was by their artifices cast into the den of lions. The reign of Darius seems to have been short, and his scheme for the division of the empire into satrapies (6 : 1) was not carried out by Cyrus, and remained in abeyance until the time of another Darius, the son of Hystaspes. But Cyrus knew the worth of Daniel, and apparently he continued in office all the rest of his days (6 : 28). He never returned to Judea, being on the accession of

Cyrus to the throne too far advanced in years. As he was taken to Babylon a year before Nebuchadnezzar began his reign, and as that monarch reigned forty-three years, and Daniel was still alive in the third year of Cyrus (10 : 1), he must have attained to a ripe old age. R. P. S.

Noticeable Facts and Truths Suggested by the Chapter and its Connections.

The grand features of the then future were first disclosed in symbol to a heathen monarch. The probable reasons were : to give prominent place and influence to Daniel and his three companions ; to produce an ulterior effect upon the mind of Nebuchadnezzar, in order to the accomplishment of God’s designed results ; more deeply to emphasize and effectually to proclaim the great events of the future.

The highest knowledge and truest wisdom has ever been found, as here, among the studious disciples of the true God. Baseless professions and counterfeits of wisdom, and baneful errors of induction have proceeded from those alien or hostile to Jehovah. This is true now, as in the period of the ancient Chaldean science.

In this prophetic revelation, afterward so clearly fulfilled, read an emphatic commentary upon Isa. 46 : 9, 10.

Human knowledge is attained only through disclosures made by the Divine mind. Prayer, by which such disclosures are granted, is therefore both philosophical and necessary. Its results in the case of Daniel and his friends are only exceptional in the prophetic character of the disclosure. The promise of wisdom is to all, and the measure promised is that of every one’s need. “If any lack wisdom let him ask of God who giveth to all liberally.”

In the result of the prayer of the friends, we find an illustration in advance of Christ’s word respecting the agreement of two or three in asking anything of God.

God rules in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth. He createth and breaketh down kingdoms. All the course of empire and the particular history of nations and peoples is ordered with reference to the final kingdom, the universal dominion, of Christ. Nations and conquerors, individuals and events work toward the establishment of that dominion. Well, therefore, may we labor, pray, hope for and expect its coming. B.

Kingdoms that Die, and the Kingdom that Lives.

To the law of decay in human affairs there is one grand and marvellous exception. God has a kingdom in this world, which lives. It deserves mention in illustration of this exception, that the work of God in redemption is the only thing in human history that dates back to the beginning of time. God’s work in this world is the only thing now living that goes back into antediluvian history. It is the only thing which links the whole of human history together. Other things fall, die, rot by the side of this ; this lives on to the world’s end.

The contrast between the kingdoms of men and the kingdom of God is further seen in the mysterious vitality of right in this world, in its conflicts with wrong. Evil, organized never so deftly, becomes effete. Good seems robust and always growing. The right, in the outset of a great conflict with wrong, is always underneath ; yet it always comes uppermost.

The contrast between God’s kingdom and the kingdoms of this world is further seen in an anomalous suspension of the law of decay in some cases of historic immortality. The only men who are destined to live while the world lives are those who are in some way especially identified with the kingdom of Christ. The only nations which will escape the decline and fall which have thus far made up the dismal round of history are those which shall be given to Christ, and shall realize the Christian ideal of national life in the civilization of the future. The perpetuity of the Hebrew nation is the great miracle of history, unparalleled by the fate of any other people on the globe under similar conditions. They live because they were once, and are to be again, the chosen people of God in executing the purposes of redemption. It is the glory of the Christian Church that it is the Church of the living God, in which is concentrated all that is eternal in this world’s history. It is identified with God, and God is identified with it. Its work is God’s work. Already its history laps over into another world. It has sent forward its advance guard in innumerable hosts who are waiting for the rear guard. But a little stream divides them. That stream itself is populous with the multitudes who are crossing over.

It is a privilege—is it not ?—to be a member of the Church of Christ ; to constitute one of this mighty and immortal host ; to bear the name which it bears ; to unite in its songs, and be remembered in its prayers ; to be identified with its work, and to share its rewards ; to be counted worthy of its sufferings, and to earn the fruit of its heroism : what has life to offer to a good man of lofty aspirations which can bear comparison with this? I never think of a child of God outside of the Church of Christ but with feelings of unutterable compassion.

He is losing so much which might be his; he is failing to achieve so much which might swell his reward at the Master’s coming! Phelps.