Dan. 2; 7
IT may be well here to notice that the book of Daniel is divisible from its nature into two nearly equal parts. The first six chapters may be regarded as the first volume, the last six as the second. This is not at all an arbitrary division. It is one founded on the contents of the book. For the early chapters consist of visions which the Gentile king saw, or facts of a moral kind that befell one or other of the monarchs of Babylon vindicating God's mind and sure judgment; whereas the last half of the book communicates visions which the prophet saw. Accordingly there is a marked difference between the two portions, even when they treat of the same subject matter. We see this clearly by comparing the seventh chapter with the second. They go over the same ground precisely, but in a different way. The earlier of the two gives the public history of the world as made known to the first man whom the God of heaven made monarch of all mankind, as well as of the lower creation (chap. 2: 37, 38); in the later (chap. 7.) we have a presentation of it to a saint, and details in relation to the Lord and the saints at the end of the age.
Nebuchadnezzar was not able to enforce his sway universally—man never is. But as far as the sovereign gift of God was concerned, it was wheresoever the sons of men dwelt. Cyrus, the Persian, extended his sway somewhat more; Alexander of Macedon, a great deal farther still (ver. 39). But it was the Romans who did more than any before them. This was the last empire of the tour, to which God gave to conquer and rule the then known world, leaving outside of it races that were then uncivilized, our own included, but afterward to become the most important peoples of modern times. The Britons up to the Christian era were rude and undisciplined. So were the Germans as wild and fierce as the Britons, and the Gauls little better, though successively more or less reduced by the Roman arms. You all perhaps know the famous Julius Caesar visited our country in the south; as others followed and tried to conquer the Caledonians; but the mountains protected those hardy warriors, and the Romans had no particular sway beyond the well-known limits that sever the Highlands from the Lowlands.
However that may have been, here we have God giving in the first part of the book a comprehensive view of the great imperial powers in the history of the world. There was first the vigorous and splendid empire of Babylon. Man had sought and contended for undisputed and supreme power; but it had never been seen before. Thus we see in scripture the haughty ambition of the Assyrian power: and, even after its fall in the destruction of Nineveh, the rising up of the Egyptian, till Nebuchadnezzar overthrew it at Carchemish. Babylon had been but a subject province of Assyria till the Chaldees gave new courage and strength against its suzerain. For they were among the active enemies that destroyed Nineveh, combining with their Median and Persian allies. Whatever the pretension, the Assyrians did not succeed in getting a universal empire. Egypt sought the same thing afterward, but Nebuchadnezzar crushed any such aspiration. God had decided to exalt a hitherto inferior kingdom. Who on earth then would have thought of Babylon? Yet was it chosen of God to hold this new place of imperial power. It had under Merodach Baladan become independent no doubt, but it was soon put down again and made tributary to Assyria. Hitherto they appear to have been chiefly of Hamitic race; but some time before the Chaldees gave them a new impetus, coming down from the northern mountains, being of Japheth, from which source were the races that overspread Europe.
But whatever the providential course that wrought, the empire of the world depended on another and all-important turning point. Israel, Judah even, had proved utterly unworthy to be the leader of the kingdoms of the earth. They ought to have been a central witness as a people to all the surrounding kingdoms, a pattern of righteous government under the law of God that all the nations might take heed and see the blessing of having the Lord Jehovah for their God. All this, however, had completely and shamefully broken down before God allowed Babylon to be anything but a power aspiring to independence, but not yet succeeding even in this. When it rose for a little, it was friendly toward Judah, as we may learn from Isa. 39
You remember how, after recovery from his sickness, Hezekiah the king displayed his treasures to the ambassadors from Babylon, and how the prophet was promptly sent to announce that all should be carried to Babylon without a remnant, and his own sons captives and eunuchs there. No such destiny had God allowed to the Assyrian, who on the contrary fell under an immense disaster, even the destruction of a mighty host of them, through the angel's intervention. A hundred and eighty-five thousand in their camp were left dead corpses in a single night. Do you ask how these facts were not acknowledged by the ancients? How could you expect a vainglorious and idolatrous king like Sennacherib to publish his own shame under the evident interposition of the living God?
These ancient despots were ready enough to blazon their successes on enduring pillars or other monuments of pride. Who ever heard of people disposed or ready to acknowledge their own defeats, especially when the defeat was of divine origin as in this instance? And if such be the might of Jehovah's angel, what of His hand? In fact, God then held things in the balance, until first Israel and then Judah proved altogether failing to present the picture of a righteous people here below. Had He continued to keep Judah after Manasseh and others, it would have been God supporting His own in the wickedness of the kings and the people. He cannot deny Himself. For those who know His nature and ways, it is impossible to conceive His doing otherwise than He did in their case; and so He warned them early. “Hear this word that Jehovah hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:1, 2). Who finds anything like this in the Vedas or the Sutras, in the Zend-avesta or the Yih-king, the Kuran or the like?
The spurious sacred books of men rather flatter and puff up their votaries, while they harden their hearts to destroy better men who refuse their impostures. God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men that hold the truth in unrighteousness. He will not sanction but punish those who couple His name with their own evil; and is it not most just? The Epistle to the Romans declares His grace to the ungodly, who, when they confess the name of the Lord, are brought into the richest spiritual blessing. But if they insult the God Who blesses them, what can be before them but righteous judgment? God is not mocked. So the gospel declares. But Israel is still kept as a people to be blessed of God. They are in a truly abnormal state, having been for many centuries without a king and without a prince, and without a sacrifice and without a pillar, and without an ephod and teraphim. What is there that remains to Judaism but dry and empty form? All they can do in Jerusalem is to wail. But this is not the spirit or language of those who have the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ. These may and ought to confess their sins; but if they be not happy, there is something wrong with their faith or their state. They who believe the gospel have the deepest, highest, surest, and simplest grounds for rejoicing in the Savior. “Rejoice in the Lord always,” said the apostolic prisoner from Rome; “again I will say, Rejoice “; as he said of himself, “Yea, and if I be poured forth upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all.”
Those that in faith of Christ read the New Testament, or the whole Bible (for one likes it as a whole and not merely its latest part), cannot but glean from it very considerable good. But if they practice what is contrary to the word, the Holy Spirit of God is grieved and therefore makes them miserable in the sense of their unfaithfulness; for He witnesses against their faults till they judge themselves before God. But their regular state is one of peace and joy in believing.
( To be continued D.V.)