The Book of Daniel by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 21, 1908

The Book of Daniel

By Editor

Introductory

THE EDITOR

It will be profitable to trace the course of events for a century or a little more preceding the downfall of Jerusalem and the captivity of Judah in Babylon. This history will clearly reveal the development of the apostasy which led up directly to the great crisis in Jewish history.

In the days of Ahaz, king of Judah, a confederacy was formed between Remaliah, king of Israel, and Rezin, king of Syria, for a campaign against Jerusalem. In fear of the result of such a combination of forces, King Ahaz sought counsel from Isaiah, the prophet, who then foretold the definite time of the captivity of Israel: “It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass. For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken in pieces, so that it shall not be a people.” These words were uttered B. C. 742-1, and a limit of sixty-five years from that time was established for the continuance of the kingdom of Israel.

This prophecy was literally fulfilled. In the reign of Pekah, king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, reduced the ten tribes to tribute, and carried some of them into captivity. At a later date Shalmaneser successfully besieged Samaria, carried Israel away captive into Assyria, and placed them “in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.” At the close of the sixty-five years mentioned by Isaiah, in the year 697-6 B. C., Esarhaddon, son of Sennacharib, king of Assyria, made an invasion, and by carrying captive another detachment of Israelites, destroyed the national existence of the ten tribes. Israel was never again restored to her place as a nation, and thus the word concerning Ephraim was literally fulfilled, “It shall not be a people.”

A little later the prophet Isaiah foretold in general terms the inevitable result of that decline of true religion among the people which had made their service a mere formality, and in which outward ceremonies had taken the place of the consecration of heart and life. The disaster which was already impending was set forth in these words: “Forasmuch as this people draw nigh unto me, and with their mouth and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment of men which hath been taught them; therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.” Only a score of years before Nebuchadnezzar’s victorious army was at the gates of Jerusalem, this same foreview of the approaching trouble was presented through the prophet Habakkuk, including the more definite predictions that the Chaldeans would be the agent used to accomplish God’s purpose, and that the fulfilment would come in the generation then living. His words were these: “Behold ye among the nations, and look, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days, which ye will not believe though it be told you. For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, that march through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling-places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves; their horsemen press proudly on: yea, their horsemen come from far; they fly as the eagle that hasteth to devour. They come all of them for violence; the set of their faces is forwards; and they gather captives as the sand.”

Separation from the World

It was the Lord’s purpose that the children of Israel should be a separate people unto himself, that they might be witnesses to the nations of his saving grace and power; but the people lost sight of the fact that it was the direct manifestation of the presence of God which was the means of separating his people from the world; and filled with a sense of self-sufficiency as being the chosen people, they built up a wall of separation between themselves and the nations about them, and thus refused to be the messengers of the gospel to the world. Again and again did the Lord turn their attention to their mission by sending Jonah, the prophet, to Nineveh; and Elijah, the prophet, “to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon;” and Elisha, the prophet, to Naaman the Syrian; but they persistently refused to obey the call, and in thus shutting away light and blessing from the people who were in darkness, they extinguished the light in their own hearts. But the Lord was slow to anger, and of great mercy; and in his desire that the truth might be proclaimed even to the people of Babylon, in a miraculous manner he awakened a spirit of inquiry in that heathen city, so that messengers might be sent to Jerusalem, to whom the gospel of his saving power might be made known. The experience was briefly this: Hezekiah, the king of Judah, was stricken with a fatal sickness. In answer to his earnest prayer, the Lord gave him assurance through the prophet Isaiah, that fifteen years would be added unto his life. And the prophet declared: “This shall be the sign unto thee from Jehovah, that Jehovah will do this thing that he hath spoken: behold, I will cause the shadow on the steps, which is gone down on the dial of Ahaz with the sun, to return backward ten steps.” The prediction was fulfilled, and “the sun returned ten steps on the dial whereon it was gone down.”

This remarkable phenomenon was observed in far-off Babylon. To the astrologers, the star-gazers, the prognosticators, who were constantly watching the heavenly bodies, this turning back of the clock in the heavens was a wonder indeed; and in the absence of modern means of communicating news, it served as Heaven’s announcement to all peoples that the God of heaven was able to save and to deliver those who sought help from him. The word was carried to Babylon, and “Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah; for he heard that he had been sick and was recovered.” This was a distinct call for preaching the gospel of Him who heals all diseases, and forgives all iniquities. To Hezekiah was granted an opportunity of exalting the saving power of God, and of sending to Babylon the message that the God of the people of Jerusalem is not like “the gods of the peoples of the earth, which are the work of men’s hands.” But instead of showing the king’s messengers the spiritual treasure which had been deposited at Jerusalem, Hezekiah “showed them all the houses of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious oil, and all the houses of his armor, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them not.”

In thus exalting himself instead of exalting God, in thus showing that his mind was upon material things, rather than upon spiritual truth, and in thus showing to the men from Babylon what was in his own house rather than what was in God’s house, Hezekiah sealed the fate of Jerusalem, and made it necessary that the work should be done in adversity which would not be done in prosperity.

When the people attempted to shut up the glory of the temple to themselves, and to make it an excuse for their own sins instead of the channel of forgiveness for all peoples; and when even those whom the Lord sent to Jerusalem to inquire after the gospel message, were given a view of human glory rather than of the divine glory, then it was evident that the people who would not go forth willingly as messengers must go forth as captives. The visible walls of Jerusalem

which had been substituted for the invisible “wall of fire round about” must be broken down. That glorious temple in which the people had trusted, saying, “The temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, are these,” must be destroyed, and the service of the temple which they had put in the place of the true service of the Lord must be discontinued. This was made known through the prophet Isaiah, and the record states: “Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon. Then said he, What have they seen in thy house? and Hezekiah answered, All that is in my house they have seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shown them. Then said Isaiah unto Hezekiah, Hear the word of Jehovah of hosts: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in thy house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith Jehovah.”

The true interpretation of this experience is thus given: “Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him; for his heart was lifted up: therefore there was wrath upon him, and upon Judah and Jerusalem. . . . In the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart.”

A Remarkable Experience

At the very time when the results of apostasy were thus being foretold through the prophet Isaiah, God sought to turn the hearts of the people unto himself by working a marvelous deliverance in their behalf. Eight years after the first deportation of Israel by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, “did Sennacharib king of Assyria come up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them.”

As the next step in the campaign, he “sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great army unto Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem.” Boasting of his superior power and of the inability of any of the gods of the nations to deliver out of his hand, Sennacharib threatened the people of Jerusalem in these words: “Wheron do ye trust, that ye abide the siege in Jerusalem? Doth not Hezekiah persuade you, to give you over to die by famine and by thirst, saying, Behold our God will deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria? . . . Were the gods of the nations of the lands in any wise able to deliver their land out of my hand? Who was there among all the gods of those nations which my father utterly destroyed, that could deliver his people out of my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of my hand? Now therefore let not Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you after this manner, neither believe ye him; for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand, and out of the hand of my fathers: how much less shall your God deliver you out of my hand?” In delivering the message of the king, Sennacharib’s servants “cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language unto the people of Jerusalem that were on the wall, to affright them, and to trouble them; that they might take the city. And they spake of the God of Jerusalem, as of the gods of the peoples of the earth, which are the work of men’s hands.”

In his extremity King Hezekiah sought unto Isaiah, the prophet, who delivered the Lord’s message against Sennacharib in these words: “The virgin daughter of Zion hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee. Whom hast thou defied and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel. . . . Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither shall he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same way shall he return, and he shall not come into this city, saith Jehovah. For I will defend this city to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.”

To prevent the possibility of glorying in human power, and to make it clear to Judah and to all the nations that there is a God in heaven more mighty than the “gods of the peoples of the earth,” the promised deliverance was wrought in a manner evidently miraculous. “Jehovah sent an angel, who cut off all the mighty men of valor, and the leaders and captains, in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth from his own bowels slew him there with the sword. Thus Jehovah saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacharib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all others, and guided them on every side.”

The nations were greatly impressed with this revelation of the power of the true God, in the deliverance and protection of his people, “and many brought gifts unto Jehovah to Jerusalem, and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah; so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations from thenceforth.” The victory over Sennacharib was gained by the direct intervention of the God of heaven, and the trophies of this victory should have been constant reminders of the nothingness of man and the greatness of God,—the very essence of the gospel of righteousness by faith,—and the exaltation of Hezekiah king of Judah in the sight of all nations ought to have furnished an opportunity for exalting the power and the mercy of the King of heaven, who had wrought this marvelous thing for the salvation of Jerusalem. But, alas for human pride! These very reminders of Jehovah’s salvation were perverted into an evidence of human power and greatness, and the blessing was turned into a curse.

The Last Steps in Apostasy

But because Hezekiah and his people had humbled their hearts before the Lord in view of the predicted disaster, “the wrath of Jehovah came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah,” but in due time the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled. Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, “seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that they did evil more than did the nations whom Jehovah destroyed before the children of Israel;” and although Jehovah sent messages of reproof to his people, “they gave no heed,” and as a consequence, “Jehovah brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh in chains, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon.” When Manasseh humbled himself greatly, and entreated the Lord, his supplication was heard, and he was restored to Jerusalem and to his kingdom; but the hold which Babylon had thus gained upon Jerusalem seemed never to be fully broken, and in spite of the earnest efforts for reform put forth in the reign of Josiah, the people departed farther and farther from God. Their service of formality became an abomination in the sight of the Lord, and they lost their protection against the nations about them. The king of Egypt deposed Jehoahaz and made Eliakim, his brother, king of Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. This Jehoiakim was king at Jerusalem when Nebuchadnezzar led his conquering army against it.

This brief outline furnishes the historical background for the book of Daniel, and in the light of these facts the interpretation of this book will be more clear and more forcible.