CHAPTER II.
DANIEL AND HIS TIMES
"DANIEL the prophet." None can have a higher title to the name, for it
was thus Messiah spoke of him. And yet the great Prince of the Captivity would
himself doubtless have disclaimed it. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the rest, "spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;" (2 Peter 1:21) but Daniel uttered no such
"God-breathed" words. [1]
Like the "beloved disciple" in Messianic times, he beheld visions, and
recorded what he saw. The great prediction of the seventy weeks was a message
delivered to him by an angel, who spoke to him as man speaks with man. A
stranger to prophet's fare [2]
and prophet's garb, he lived in the midst of all the luxury and pomp of
an Eastern court. Next to the king, he was the foremost man in the greatest
empire of antiquity; and it was not till the close of a long life spent in
statecraft that he received the visions recorded in the latter chapters of his
book.
To understand these prophecies aright, it is essential that the leading events
of the political history of the times should be kept in view.
The summer of Israel's national glory had proved as brief as it was brilliant.
The people never acquiesced in heart in the Divine decree which, in distributing
the tribal dignities, entrusted the scepter to the house of Judah, while it
adjudged the birthright to the favored family of Joseph;
[3]
and their mutual jealousies and feuds, though kept in check by the
personal influence of David, and the surpassing splendor of the reign of
Solomon, produced a national disruption upon the accession of Rehoboam. In
revolting from Judah, the Israelites also apostatized from God; and forsaking
the worship of Jehovah, they lapsed into open and flagrant idolatry. After two
centuries and a half unillumined by a single bright passage in their history,
they passed into captivity to Assyria; [4]
and on the birth of Daniel a century had elapsed since the date of their
national extinction.
Judah still retained a nominal independence, though, in fact, the nation had
already fallen into a state of utter vassalage. The geographical position of its
territory marked it out for such a fate. Lying half-way between the Nile and the
Euphrates, suzerainty in Judea became inevitably a test by which their old enemy
beyond their southern frontier, and the empire which the genius of Nabopolassar
was then rearing in the north, would test their rival claims to supremacy. The
prophet's birth fell about the very year which was reckoned the epoch of the
second Babylonian Empire. [5]
He was still a boy at the date of Pharaoh Necho's unsuccessful invasion
of Chaldea. In that struggle his kinsman and sovereign, the good king Josiah,
took sides with Babylon, and not only lost his life, but compromised still
further the fortunes of his house and the freedom of his country. (2 Kings
23:29; 2 Chronicles 35:20)
The public mourning for Josiah had scarcely ended when Pharaoh, on his homeward
march, appeared before Jerusalem to assert his suzerainty by claiming a heavy
tribute from the land and settling the succession to the throne. Jehoahaz, a
younger son of Josiah, had obtained the crown on his father's death, but was
deposed by Pharaoh in favor of Eliakim, who doubtless recommended himself to the
king of Egypt by the very qualities which perhaps had induced his father to
disinherit him. Pharaoh changed his name to Jehoiakim, and established him in
the kingdom as a vassal of Egypt (2 Kings 23:33-35; 2 Chronicles 36:3, 4).
In the third year after these events, Nebuchadnezzar, Prince Royal of Babylon,
[6]
set out upon an expedition of conquest, in command of his father's
armies; and entering Judea he demanded the submission of the king of Judah.
After a siege of which history gives no particulars, he captured the city and
seized the king as a prisoner of war. But Jehoiakim regained his liberty and his
throne by pledging his allegiance to Babylon; and Nebuchadnezzar withdrew with
no spoil except a part of the holy vessels of the temple, which he carried to
the house of his god, and no captives save a few youths of the seed royal of
Judah, Daniel being of the number, whom he selected to adorn his court as vassal
princes. (2 Kings 24:1; 2 Chronicles 36:6, 7; Daniel 1:1, 2) Three years later
Jehoiakim revolted; but, although during the rest of his reign his territory was
frequently overrun by "bands of the Chaldees," five years elapsed before the
armies of Babylon returned to enforce the conquest of Judea.
[7]
Jehoiachin, a youth of eighteen years, who had just succeeded to the
throne, at once surrendered with his family and retinue, (2 Kings 24:12) and
once more Jerusalem lay at the mercy of Nebuchadnezzar. On his first invasion he
had proved magnanimous and lenient, but he had now not merely to assert
supremacy but to punish rebellion. Accordingly he ransacked the city for
everything of value, and "carried away all Jerusalem," leaving none behind "save
the poorest sort of the people of the land." (2 Kings 24:14)
Jehoiachin's uncle Zedekiah was left as king or governor of the despoiled and
depopulated city, having sworn by Jehovah to pay allegiance to his Suzerain.
This was "King Jehoiachin's captivity," according to the era of the prophet
Ezekiel, who was himself among the captives. (Ezekiel 1:2)
The servitude to Babylon had been predicted as early as the days of Hezekiah; (2
Kings 20:17) and after the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy respecting it,
Jeremiah was charged with a Divine message of hope to the captivity, that after
seventy years were accomplished they would be restored to their land. (Jeremiah
29:10) But while the exiles were thus cheered with promises of good, King
Zedekiah and "the residue of Jerusalem that remained in the land" were warned
that resistance to the Divine decree which subjected them to the yoke of Babylon
would bring on them judgments far more terrible than any they had known.
Nebuchadnezzar would return to "destroy them utterly," and make their whole land
"a desolation and an astonishment." (Jeremiah 24:8-10; 25:9; 27:3-8) False
prophets rose up, however, to feed the national vanity by predicting the speedy
restoration of their independence, (Jeremiah 28:1-4) and in spite of the solemn
and repeated warnings and entreaties of Jeremiah, the weak and wicked king was
deceived by their testimony, and having obtained a promise of armed support from
Egypt, (Ezekiel 17:15) he openly revolted.
Thereupon the Chaldean armies once more surrounded Jerusalem. Events seemed at
first to justify Zedekiah's conduct, for the Egyptian forces hastened to his
assistance, and the Babylonians were compelled to raise the siege and withdraw
from Judea. (Jeremiah 37:1, 5, 11) But this temporary success of the Jews served
only to exasperate the King of Babylon, and to make their fate more terrible
when at last it overtook them. Nebuchadnezzar determined to inflict a signal
chastisement on the rebellious city and people; and placing himself at the head
of all the forces of his empire, (2 Kings 25:1; Jeremiah 34:1) he once more
invaded Judea and laid siege to the Holy City.
The Jews resisted with the blind fanaticism which a false hope inspires; and it
is a signal proof of the natural strength of ancient Jerusalem, that for
eighteen months (2 Kings 25:1-3) they kept their enemy at bay, and yielded at
last to famine and not to force. The place was then given up to fire and sword.
Nebuchadnezzar "slew their young men with the sword in the
house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old
man, or him that stooped for age; he gave them all into his hand. And all the
vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of
the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought
to Babylon. And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of
Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the
goodly vessels thereof. And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away
to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons, until the reign of the
kingdom of Persia: to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah." (2
Chronicles 36:17-21)
As He had borne with their fathers for forty years in the wilderness, so
for forty years this last judgment lingered, "because He
had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place." (2 Chronicles 36:15)
For forty years the prophet's voice had not been silent in Jerusalem;
"but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words, and misused His
prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was
no remedy." [8]
Such is the sacred chronicler's description of the first destruction of
Jerusalem, rivaled in later times by the horrors of that event under the effects
of which it still lies prostrate, and destined to be surpassed in days still to
come, when the predictions of Judah's supreme catastrophe shall be fulfilled.
[9]