Daniel’s Reward

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 6, 1868

Daniel’s Reward.

WHEN Belshazzar, the sacrilegious idolator, was alarmed at the mysterious writing upon the wall of his banqueting-room, he promised Daniel that if he would make known the interpretation of those words which the miraculous hand had inscribed, he should be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and be proclaimed the third ruler in the kingdom. Daniel performed the task and received the reward. But here the question arises, Why was the third rank promised to him? Why not the second, which he seemed to have enjoyed under Nebuchadnezzar, as Joseph had done under Pharaoh, and Mordecai under Ahasuerus? To this question there has for a long time no satisfactory answer. But in the year 1854, Sir Henry Rawlinson made the important discovery from documents obtained from the ancient site of “Ur of the Chaldees,” that Nabonadius, the son-in-law and successor of Nebuchadnezzar, associated with him in the government during the latter years of his reign, his son Belshazzar, and allowed him his royal title. There were, therefore, two kings at that time; Belshazzar himself occupied the second place of honor, and hence the highest portion to which any subject could be elevated was that of the third personage in the empire.