Aids for Bible Readers

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 26, 1907

Aids for Bible Readers

Historical quotations and extracts from various writers which may assist the thoughtful student of the Scriptures.

The Second Beast of Daniel 7

The second beast, the bear, corresponds with the solid, heavy chest of Nebuchadnezzar's statue. The twofold division and the relative strength of the two sides, the one stronger than the other, recur in this symbol also, in that the bear is raised up on one side, ready to use the arm in which its chief strength lies. It lifts itself up heavily, in contrast with the winged rapidity of the Chaldean or Babylonian conquests. The three ribs in its mouth correspond accurately to the three kingdoms which the Medo-Persian empire swallowed up, the Lydian, Babylonian, Egyptian. It is bidden, “Arise, devour much flesh,” in conformity with the greedy, “all-eating,” character of the animal. Waste of human life was a characteristic of the Persian empire in its heavy aggressiveness. Heaviness was, after Cyrus, the characteristic of its wars.

It never moved, except in ponderous masses, avalanches, precipitated upon its enemy, sufficient to overwhelm him, if they could have been discharged at once, or had there been any one commanding mind to direct them. Like Attila or Timour, they wielded vast masses of human strength on their enemies; their armies varied from 300,000 on slighter expeditions to a million. Darius' army, with which he marched through the desolate regions of Scythia, was counted at 700,000, exclusive of his fleet of 600 ships, which would add a naval force of 120,000 men. Xerxes' expedition against Greece resembled more the emigration of vast hordes, than an army; they were calculated at above two million and a half of fighting men. Artaxerxes Longimanus, his successor, gathered two armies, each, it is said, exceeding 300,000 men, to subdue the single province of Egypt. The first was defeated chiefly through 200 Athenian ships. It is noticed how Artaxerxes gathered his army from all quarters to resist his brother Cyrus The Younger. Xenophon tells us that deserters and prisoners counted it 1,200,000, and that it was actually 900,000, a contingent of 300,000 not having arrived in time. Even its last unwarlike king brought an army of 500,000, or 600,000, to the battle of Issus; and, two years after its defeat, he gathered 1,000,000, in splendid array, to cover the plain of Gaugamela, a multitudinous host from all the nations yet left under his sway, to be mostly but the spectators of his disgrace.

“When the Persians first became a conquering people,” says Hereen, “it was their uniform practise to strengthen their armies by means of the conquered nations, who were forced to accompany them on their further advances. But when they had founded and organized their empire, and were lords of all Asia from the Indus to the Mediterranean, it would have involved endless difficulties to collect troops out of lands so distant. To do this on all little occasions, such as internal disturbances or easy wars, would have been as unmeaning as impossible. Still it continued to be their practise, that, on all great national undertakings, whether directed to the enlargement of the empire in distant lands or to meet mighty aggressions from without, such musters were made of all the subject nations, as is shown by the great arrays under Darius Hystaspes, Xerxes, and even under the last Darius.

“Even the preliminary preparations were of immense extent. The king's command issued to all nations of the empire, directing what each was to contribute, in men, horses, ships, or provisions. The commotion occasioned thereby throughout Asia lasted, before the expedition of Xerxes, for four full years. . . .

“The order of march in their own territories was marvelous; rather there was scarce any order. The men were not even separated according to nations, but formed an immense chaos. In the midst was the king with the Persians; the baggage went before. As they advanced, the inhabitants of the countries through which they passed were driven on, and had to swell the multitude. So the mass grew continually; the baggage must have become incalculable. The most inconceivable thing is the provisioning. In the countries through which they passed, corn had to be laid up long before; other was brought by ships. Else the hordes had to provide for themselves. Meals were ordered for the king and his attendants, but were given at such an expenditure that this alone exhausted the cities. . . .

“On approaching the enemy's country, the army was divided according to nations. This was connected with a muster which the king commonly made. Hence the document in which Herodotus has preserved to us an accurate list of the nations in Xerxes' army. The muster took place in Europe. Little instructive as the scene may be for military men, there could scarce be one more interesting to the observer of nations. The history of the world gives no instance, of which such a multitude and variety of nations was compressed into one spot of the earth, as appeared, each in his peculiar costume and arms, on the plain of Doriscus. Herodotus counts and describes fifty-six nations, which served by land, horse and foot, or part in the fleet. There were Indians in their cotton dress, and Ethiopians from beyond Egypt, clad in skins of lions; the black Walruchs from Gedrosia, and the nomad tribes from the steppes of Mongolia and the great Buchary; wild hunting tribes, like the Sagartians, who, without weapon of bronze or steel, caught their enemies, like the animals they hunted, in leathern lassoes, and Medes and Bactrians in rich array; Libyans with four-horse chariots, and Arabs upon camels; Phoenician mariners with numerous squadrons, and Asiatic Greeks compelled to fight against their countrymen. Never did despotism exhibit a spectacle, which began so splendidly, to end so pitifully.”

Every lineament then of the description agrees with the Medo-Persian empire; the heavy fierceness and the destructiveness of the animal; the prominence given to the one side; the three ribs, which can receive no explanation as to any other empire.—“Lectures on Daniel ‘the Prophet,’” by E. B. Pusey, D. D., London, 1869, pages 72-76.

The second kingdom is represented (verse 5) by “another beast like to a bear, and it raised itself up on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.” This is the kingdom of the Medes and Persians: and for their cruelty and greediness after blood they are compared to a bear, which is a most voracious and cruel animal. The very learned Bochart recounts several particulars wherein the Persians resembled bears: but the chief likeness consisted in what I have mentioned; and this likeness was principally intended by the prophet, as I think we may infer from the words of the text itself: “Arise, devour much flesh.” “A bear,” saith Aristotle, “is an all-devouring animal:” “and so,” saith Grotius, “the Medo-Persians were great robbers and spoilers according to Jer. 51: 48, 56.”

“And it raised itself up on one side,” or as it is in the margin, “it raised up one dominion;” for the Persians were subject to the Medes at the conquest of Babylon, but soon raised up themselves above them. “And it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it:” these Jerome “understands of the three kingdoms of the Babylonians, Medes, and Persians, which were reduced into one kingdom;” and so likewise Vatablus and Grotius; but Sir Isaac Newton and Bishop Chandler with greater propriety explain them to signify the kingdoms of Babylon, Lydia, and Egypt, which were conquered by it, but were not properly parts and members of its body. . . .

“And they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh;” this was said, as it was before observed, to denote the cruelty of the Medes and Persians. . . . Cambyses, Ochus, and others of their princes were indeed more like bears than men. Instances of their cruelty abound in almost all the historians, who have written of their affairs, from Herodotus down to Ammianus Marcellinus, who describes them as “proud, cruel, exercising the power of life and death over slaves and obscure plebeians. They pull off the skins (says he) from men alive by pieces, or all together: and they have abominable laws, by which for one man's offense all the neighborhood is destroyed.”—“Dissertations on the Prophecies,” by Thomas Newton, D. D., London, 1840, pages 226, 227.