Thus fell Babylon, and with it the Babylonish empire, B. C. 538, having continued from the reign of Nabonassar who founded it, B. C. 747, two hundred and nine years.
"After thee," said the prophet to Nebuchadnezzar, "shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee;" and we have now reached it. Hereby we are brought down in the great image to the breast and arms of silver (Dan. 2:32, 39); and in the series of the four great beasts, by which the same governments of earth as were signified by the four divisions of the metallic image, were again shown to Daniel (chap. 7:5, 17,) we have reached the second, and have before us—the bear.
But as if the Lord would impress the truth upon the hearts of men with line upon line, precept upon precept, the great events of the world's history from this point onward, are by yet another series of symbols brought again before us.
In the third year of the reign of Belshazzar, Daniel had another vision, in which he saw a Ram, He-goat, and Little Horn. Dan. 8.
This ram with his two horns was declared plainly by Gabriel to the prophet to be the kings of Media and Persia (verse 20); which kingdom being now under consideration, we will notice a few of his distinguishing features and the fitness of their application. His two horns were high, says the prophetic description, and the higher came up last. This has been already alluded to, and we need only to say further that the two horns denoted the two divisions of which the empire consisted, namely, the Medes and Persians; like the two arms of the image; that it was against the Medes that war was at first waged by Neriglissar, whereupon Darius, king of the Medes, called Cyrus to his assistance as an ally, who immediately responded by coming to his aid at the head of an army of thirty thousand Persians. And during the whole war, until the complete subversion of the Babylonish empire, the regal power was in reality vested solely in Darius, while Cyrus was only commander-in-chief of the combined armies. Accordingly, upon the taking of Babylon, he placed his uncle Darius upon the throne; and hence we read in Daniel that Darius the Median took the kingdom, although Cyrus had performed all the work of its subjugation. But shortly after this event he married the daughter of Darius, and with her received the kingdom of Media in reversion after her father's death. He died about two years after the taking of Babylon; and Cyrus, having succeeded his father a short time before in the kingdom of Persia, now added Media also to his other dominions, and became absolute monarch of the whole. "The higher came up last."
Daniel saw the ram pushing westward, northward, and southward. This may well refer to the operations of Cyrus from his first coming out of Persia to the taking of Babylon, while he lay abroad in the field pushing his conquest in all those directions, till he had at length subdued, says Prideaux, "all the East from the Egean sea to the river Indus, and thereby erected the greatest empire that had ever been in Asia to that time." The ram was not seen pushing eastward, for Persia lying to the east, its conquests were chiefly toward the west; as it is said of the bear: he raised himself up on one side, that is, extended his dominion chiefly in one direction. The three ribs which the bear had in its mouth, are interpreted to mean the three kingdoms of Babylon, Lydia, and Egypt, which the Persians conquered and grievously oppressed. The bear may well represent the nature of the Persian kingdom; for, says Paxton, "The Syrian bear in strength and ferocity scarcely yields to the lion; and ancient historians stigmatize the Medes and Persians as the greatest robbers and spoilers that ever oppressed the nations;" but the ram with two horns was its well-known national emblem. It was usual for the Persian kings to wear a diadem made like a ram's head, of gold. Cyrus, from the time that he took on him the whole government, on the death of Darius, B. C. 536, reigned seven years. In his first year he issued his royal decree for the rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem, and the return of the Jews to their own land. From the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezar, B. C. 606, to this year (536) had been just seventy years, the length of the captivity which God had threatened to his people; and as they terminated he remembered mercy in the midst of judgment, and put a period to their bondage by moving upon the heart of the king of Persia to grant them a restoration to their own land. Cyrus was succeeded by his son, Cambyses, who reigned seven years and five months. He is called in Scripture Ahasuerus.
After the death of Cambyses, one of the Magi, called Smerdis, usurped the kingdom, feigning himself to be Smerdis the brother of Cambyses, who had been slain. But the fraud was discovered and he was slain after a reign of only seven months. He is called Artaxerxes in Ezra 4:7.
Darius, a Persian noble, called Darius Hystaspes, then took the kingdom and reigned thirty-six years. From him the succession of Persian kings and the length of their reign is as follows:— 1. Xerxes, who reigned twenty-one years. He is mentioned in Dan. 9:2, as one who should stir up all against the realm of Grecia. He went against Greece with an army of five millions. 2. Artaxerxes Longimanus, who reigned forty-one years. His reign commenced B. C. 464. His seventh year would therefore be B. C. 457; and in this very year Ezra received his commission for the restoration of Jerusalem. Ezra 7. This is an important fact, as will appear hereafter in the examination of the seventy weeks and twenty-three hundred days. Dan. 8:9. 3. Darius Nothus, nineteen years, to B. C. 404. 4. Artaxerxes Mnemon, forty-six years, to B. C. 358. 5. Ochus, twenty-one years, to B. C. 335. 6. Arses, two years, to B. C. 337. 7. Darius Codomannus, who was the last of the Persian kings, and reigned four years, to the fatal battle of Arbela, B. C. 331. The character given of this prince, says Prideaux, is "that he was for his stature and make of his body the goodliest person in the whole Persian empire, and of the greatest personal valor of any in it, and of a disposition mild and generous; but having the good fortune of Alexander to encounter with, he could not stand against it. And he had been scarce warm on the throne before he found this enemy preparing to dismount him from it." This rough goat that now cometh from the west upon the face of the whole earth, will claim attention in our next. U. S.
