LESSON I.—PROPHECY ILLUSTRATED BY NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S DREAM.
(Study for Sabbath, January 2.)
QUESTIONS.
1. Repeat Deut. 29:29. What things does this text say belong unto God? To whom do those things belong which have been revealed? What is a revelation?
2. Repeat Amos 3:7. Through whom does the Lord here promise to reveal His secrets?
3. Repeat Hosea 12:10. Through whom does the Lord say He has spoken? Has He given more than one vision? What has He made use of in thus giving light through the prophets? What word might be used in place of "similitudes"?—Symbols.
4. What prophetic book in the Old Testament deals most largely in similitudes or symbols?—The book of Daniel, written in the days of Babylon and of Medo-Persia?
5. By what symbol was the future revealed in the dream of Daniel 2? Dan. 2:1, 31.
6. Describe the experience of the king in seeking an interpretation of his dream. Verses 2-10. What confession was wrung from the wise men of Babylon? Verse 11.
7. Were there any in Babylon who had knowledge of a God able to make known His ways in human flesh? Relate their experiences. Verses 13-23.
8. What bold request did Daniel make of the chief captain, and with what result? Verses 24-30. Note 1.
9. What was the dream of the king? Repeat verses 31-35.
10. What kingdom was symbolized by the head of gold? Verses 37, 38.
11. What metal represents the second universal kingdom, and what is said of that power? Verse 39, first part. What power followed Babylon? Dan. 5:28.
12. What did the brazen portion represent? Dan. 2:39. What kingdom followed Media and Persia? See Dan. 8:20, 21.
13. What metal represented the kingdom symbolized by the legs and feet of the image? Give the prophet's description of this kingdom. Dan. 2:40-42. What power answers to the symbol? Note 2.
14. Will these smaller kingdoms that have arisen out of the fourth monarchy of Rome ever be joined as one again? Verse 43. Note 3.
15. What will be the next step in the prophecy? Verse 44. Is there any doubt about it? Verse 45. How sure is prophecy declared to be? 2 Peter 1:19-21.
16. Repeat first sentence of Dan. 2:28. Then for whose special benefit was this prophecy given?
NOTES.
1. The special providence of God is seen in giving the dream; in causing it to make such an impression on the king's mind that he could not forget that he had had a remarkable dream; in thus exposing the fraud of the so-called wise men of Babylon; in causing the king to overlook the wisest man in all Babylon, when he summoned the wise men to make known the dream; in causing the king to grant Daniel time (verse 16), which he had refused to do for the others; in thus bringing the king to acknowledge the true God (verse 47); in thus promoting Daniel to an exalted place in the kingdom, for the further accomplishment of the divine purpose.
2. The mighty empire that followed Grecia was Rome. Gibbon, the historian, adopts the very symbolism of the prophecy to describe the character of this crushing power as the successor of the earlier universal kingdom, speaking thus: "The arms of the republic, sometimes vanquished in battle, always victorious in war, advanced with rapid steps to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the ocean; and the images of gold, or silver, or brass, that might serve to represent the nations or their kings, were successively broken by the iron monarchy of Rome." Later in its history the strength as of iron was weakened, and after the division into lesser kingdoms, the empire was indeed "partly strong and partly brittle," as the marginal reading puts it.
3. It is well known that, by intermarriage, the royal houses of Europe are more or less closely related; but by none of these matrimonial alliances have ruling houses been able to reunite the divided empire, which is to remain divided until the stone smites the image.
