p. 2 | STONES CRYING OUT by Lee S. Wheeler

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 21, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 47.

STONES CRYING OUT.

By Lee S. Wheeler

Thoughts from the Babylonian Section of the Museum, Pennsylvania University.

A SENSE of awe steals over the mind familiar with Bible prophecies, as one enters the Babylonian and General Semitic Department of the museum of the Pennsylvania University, said to be the best collection of these antiquities in the United States. They have been resurrected from the grave where God buried them twenty-five hundred years ago, and as we gaze upon the stony faces of "the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation," and listen to the translation of their inscriptions, it is as if one rose from the dead to bear God’s message to the living, "that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men." Dan. 4:17.

Opening my Bible at the first chapter of Daniel, I read of the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, in the third year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, B.C. 606: "And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God; which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure-house of his god." Daniel was among the captives.

All this seems but as of yesterday, as current history, while looking upon the numerous bricks, inscribed by Nebuchadnezzar himself, brought from the ruins of his temple at Babylon, probably the very temple where these vessels were treasured. In another case near by are the images of his gods.

Before me also as I write is an inscribed cylinder of Nebuchadnezzar, recording his repairs upon the tower of Babel, that most ancient monument of Babylon. The inscriptions upon the clay cylinders and tablets are in very finely-executed characters. Here are the seals with which they stamped their bricks, and a variety of smaller ones of lapis lazuli, and other beautiful stones for smaller documents.

Could these bricks talk, would they tell of the toil of the Jewish slaves? Did Daniel ever look upon these bas-reliefs in the halls of the palaces of Babylon? Did they echo the triumphal shouts of the returning armies that had conquered the world? and was the cry of suffering captives mingled with the shouts of victory?

Did these stony eyes of sculpture look down upon the scenes described in the book of Daniel? Did they see Nebuchadnezzar when his heart was lifted up in pride, deposed from his kingly throne, until he learned that "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will"? Did they see that hand that wrote upon the wall the awful sentence, "God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it"?

In this show-case are Babylonian jewels of finely-wrought gold, set with stones; pieces of golden chain perhaps similar to that which Belshazzar had put about the neck of Daniel for interpreting the fatal writing. Here is the crumbled fabric of a vail woven of threads of gold, which I am told was found covering the spot where once was a face in one of the sarcophagi.

The figures in alabaster also show this people to have been proud and haughty, dressing in garments fringed and richly ornamented. They were fierce, and luxuriated in the wealth of plundered nations, and exulted in their power to oppress.

Said Nebuchadnezzar to the three Hebrews, when he threatened them, "And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?" Yet at length he learned to say, "Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and His ways judgment; and those that walk in pride He is able to abase."

Interesting among the objects is an inscribed Hebrew tombstone from the banks of the Euphrates. It recalls the captivity of this people, their servitude, and that touching psalm which says: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion." Ps. 137:1-3.

Thither also Seraiah came, and read the roll of Jeremiah’s prophecies, which foretold the utter desolation of Babylon, that it should become "heaps," "without inhabitant," etc. Chapters 50 and 51. And when he had read it he tied a stone to it, and cast it into the Euphrates, saying in the words of the Lord, "Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her."

They no doubt also there read the prophecies of Habakkuk, given before the captivity, foretelling God’s visitations upon the works of the Chaldeans, "because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein." Chapter 2:8. He declared of their city, "built with blood," that their stones should "cry out of the wall, and the fastening out of the timber witness against it." Verse 11, margin. They may even then have looked upon the buildings containing

these very stones and bricks. But could they have dreamed that in this far-off day men from England and the United States, with that same Bible as a guide-book, containing these very prophecies, would wander over the heaps of these buried cities by the Euphrates, and, digging up these stones, sculptured slabs, and broken inscriptions, bricks, necklaces worn by their proud and rich, pottery, sarcophagi, winged lions, and bulls, from the mounds of more than twenty centuries, would float them off to the other side of the world to London and Philadelphia?

But what does all this strange fulfilment of prophecy mean? Has it some connection with God's words to Daniel, "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased"? And, again, "The words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand."

Are not these stones crying out a warning to the nations whither God has brought them? Are they not opening up to men's attention the wonderful experiences of the book of Daniel? "All flesh is grass," "but the word of our God shall stand forever."