At the time when the book of Daniel opens, the Jewish nation was subject to the Babylonians, and many of the Jews were in Babylon.
A few years before (about 610 B.C.), the king of Egypt had deposed Jehoahaz, king of Judah, and placed Eliakim, whom he named Jehoiakim, on the throne (2 Chronicles 36:2-4).
In the third year of his reign (Daniel 1:1) Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem and besieged it. The city was taken, Jehoiakim was bound with fetters, and some of the vessels of the house of God (2 Chronicles 36:7; Daniel 1:2) were carried to Babylon. Some of the people, also, among whom were Daniel and his fellows, were carried to Babylon at this time (Daniel 1:3-7). Jehoiakim, however, was allowed to remain in Jerusalem, where he reigned eight years longer (2 Chronicles 36:5).
He was then succeeded by Jehoiachin, his son, who, after a reign of three months, was taken by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon (2 Chronicles 36:9,10). With him were also taken all the royal family, the wealthy people, and the artisans, so that only the poorest people of the land were left in Judah (2 Kings 24:8-16). This was about B.C. 599.
Nebuchadnezzar then placed Mattaniah on the throne of Judah, and changed his name to Zedekiah. After a few years' reign Zedekiah rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, who again came to Jerusalem, and in the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign (about B.C. 588) he succeeded in capturing the city. Zedekiah was carried to Babylon, and with him all the people who had before been left, and the walls and palaces of Jerusalem were burned to the ground (2 Chronicles 36:11-21). This fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah 17:27, and completed the overthrow of the Jewish nation.
It will be well to notice at this point the fulfillment of a prophecy concerning Zedekiah. The prophet Ezekiel, who was then in Babylon, was directed to bring his stuff out of his house, in the day-time, in the presence of the people, and to dig through the wall and carry his stuff through at evening, covering his face at the same time, so that he should not see the ground (Ezekiel 12:3-6). Then he was directed to say to the people of Israel:
"I am your sign; like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them; they shall remove and go into captivity. And the prince that is among them shall bear upon his shoulder in the twilight, and shall go forth; they shall dig through the wall to carry out thereby; he shall cover his face, that he see not the ground with his eyes. My net also will I spread upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare; and I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there." (Ezekiel 12:11-13)
Four years afterward, Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem and besieged it. For nearly two years the siege was carried on, until
"...the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. And the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king's garden (now the Chaldees were against the city round about); and the king went the way toward the plain. And the army of the Chaldees pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; and all his army were scattered from him. So they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment upon him. And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon." (2 Kings 25:3-7)
Thus was Ezekiel's prophecy literally fulfilled, and Jerusalem was left in ruins.
Among the Jews who were carried to Babylon at the first siege of Jerusalem, was Daniel, who was of the royal line (Daniel 1:3-6). He and his fellows were chosen to go through a three years' course of study and training, in order that they might be fitted to fill offices of trust in the Babylonian kingdom. They were chosen because of their superior mental ability (Daniel 1:4). And so rapidly did they improve that at the end of the three years, when they went before Nebuchadnezzar to be examined,
"...in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm." (Daniel 1:20)
God had given "knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom" to these faithful servants of his, "and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams" (Verse 17).
Immediately after Daniel had finished his course, his talents were called into action. In the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign as sole ruler of Babylon, but the fourth year after he had begun to reign conjointly with his father, he dreamed a dream which troubled him greatly, and the more so because he could not remember what it was.
Excessively annoyed and troubled, he sent for the magicians, astrologers, and sorcerers, and demanded of them that they should tell him the dream. They replied:
"O king, live forever; tell your servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation." (Daniel 2:4)
But Nebuchadnezzar could not tell the dream, any more than they could tell the interpretation without the dream, and after parleying with them for awhile, he ordered that all the wise men of Babylon should be destroyed (see Daniel 2:1-13).
Although Daniel was not among those to whom the king had applied for an interpretation of his dream, the command was to destroy all the wise men of Babylon, and so it included him and his companions. It seems that the first intimation Daniel had of the whole affair was when the officers came to take him to the place of execution (see Daniel 2:14-15). He immediately went to the king and asked for a little time, promising that he would tell the dream and the interpretation.
Daniel did not use the respite granted to him in incantations, as the magicians would have done, but went to his house, and, with his three companions, prayed to the God of Heaven.
"Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of Heaven. Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God forever and ever; for wisdom and might are his; And he changes the times and the seasons; he removes kings, and sets up kings; he gives wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding. He reveals the deep and secret things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him. I thank you, and praise you, O you God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of you; for you have now made known unto us the king's matter." (Daniel 2:19-23)
In this action of Daniel's we have an example of true faith in God. As soon as the secret was revealed to him in the night vision, he began to praise the Lord. He did not wait to see if the king would recognize what had been revealed to him, as being his dream, but was positive that the Lord had given him just what he asked for. He evidently acted in accordance with the words of the Saviour:
"What things so-ever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them." (Mark 11:24)
If this injunction were followed by all those who seek the Lord, how much praise there would be to God for blessings conferred.
It was a trying occasion when Daniel went before the king to make known to him his forgotten dream, and one well calculated to cause a young man to tremble. If he failed, one word from the haughty monarch, who had once been disappointed, and who now believed that all his professedly wise men were knaves, would have cost him his head.
But we may be sure that Daniel did not tremble, because he knew that he should not fail. He modestly disclaimed the pos session of any natural wisdom more than other men, and said:
"The secret which the king has demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, show unto the king; But there is a God in Heaven that reveals secrets, and makes known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days." (Daniel 2:27-28)
Then without any hesitation he proceeded to tell the dream. Said he:
"You, O king, saw, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before you; and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. You saw till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them; and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth." (Daniel 2:31-35)
These verses contain in outline the history of the world from the days of Nebuchadnezzar until the end of time. Immediately after relating the dream, the prophet addressed the king as follows:
"You, O king, art a king of kings; for the God of Heaven has given you a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And where-so-ever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven has he given into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all. You are this head of gold." (Daniel 2:37-38)
How simple are the words of divine truth! In the most direct manner, and in the fewest words possible, Daniel rehearsed the greatness of the empire over which Nebuchadnezzar reigned, and declared that it was represented by the golden head of the terrible image. The expression, "You are this head of gold," does not refer to Nebuchadnezzar as an individual, but as the representative of the most magnificent empire that the world ever saw. It was to Nebuchadnezzar that Babylon owed her wonderful prosperity. Rawlinson says:
Nebuchadnezzar is the great monarch of the Babylonian Empire, which, lasting only eighty-eight years-from B.C. 625 to B.C. 538-was for nearly half the time under his sway. Its military glory is due chiefly to him, while the constructive energy, which constitutes its especial characteristic, belongs to it still more markedly through his character and genius. It is scarcely too much to say that, but for Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonians would have had no place in history. At any rate, their actual place is owing almost entirely to this prince, who to the military talents of an able general added a grandeur of artistic conception and a skill in construction which place him on a par with the greatest builders of antiquity. [1]
It was fitting, therefore, that Nebuchadnezzar should stand for the empire. The extent of the Babylonian Empire is indicated in verse 38:
"And where-so-ever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven has he given into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all." (Daniel 2:38)
This means universal dominion. A few years later, the prophet Jeremiah bore testimony to the same effect. The kings of Tyre, Edom, Moab, etc., with Zedekiah, king of Israel, were contemplating a revolt from Babylonian rule. To show them the folly of such an attempt, the prophet, by the command of the Lord, sent messengers to them, saying:
"Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Thus shall you say unto your masters: I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me. And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son." (Jeremiah 27:4-7)
This language is not figurative nor hyperbolical. It is plain history, and is substantiated by the writings of profane historians. After telling how Nabopolassar, ruler of the province of Babylonia, revolted from Assyrian rule, the Encyclopedia Britannica says:
The seat of empire was now transferred to the southern kingdom. Nabopolassar was followed in 604 by his son Nebuchadnezzar, whose long reign of forty-three years made Babylon the mistress of the world. The whole East was overrun by the armies of Chaldea, Egypt was invaded, and the city of the Euphrates left without a rival.[2]
The city of Babylon is described at great length by Rollin[3], and by Prideaux[4]. Our space, however, will allow us to give only the brief, yet very clear, description given by Herodotus. It is as follows:
The city stands on a broad plain, and is an exact square, a hundred and twenty furlongs in length each way, so that the entire circuit is four hundred and eighty furlongs. While such is its size, in magnificence there is no other city that approaches to it. It is surrounded, in the first place, by a broad and deep moat, full of water, behind which rises a wall fifty royal cubits in width, and two hundred in height.
And here I may not omit to tell the use to which the mold dug out of the great moat was turned, nor the manner wherein the wall was wrought. As fast as they dug the moat the soil which they got from the cutting was made into bricks, and when a sufficient number were completed they baked the bricks in kilns. Then they set to building, and began with bricking the borders of the moat; after which they proceeded to construct the wall itself, using throughout for their cement hot bitumen, and interposing a layer of wattled reeds at every thirtieth course of the bricks.
On the top, along the edges of the wall, they constructed buildings of a single chamber facing one another, leaving between them room for a four-horse chariot to turn. In the circuit of the wall are a hundred gates, all of brass, with brazen lintels and sideposts. The bitumen used in the work was brought to Babylon from the Is, a small stream which flows into the Euphrates at the point where the city of the same name stands, eight days' journey from Babylon. Lumps of bitumen are found in great abundance in this river.
The city is divided into two portions by the river which runs through the midst of it. This river is the Euphrates, a broad, deep, swift stream, which rises in Armenia and empties itself into the Erythraean [Arabian] Sea. [The river does not flow directly into the Arabian Sea, but into the Persian Gulf.] The city wall is brought down on both sides to the edge of the stream; thence from the corners of the wall, there is carried along each bank of the river a fence of burnt bricks. The houses are mostly three and four stories high; the streets all run in straight lines, not only those parallel to the river, but also the cross streets which lead down to the water-side. At the river end of these cross streets are low gates in the fence that skirts the stream, which are, like the great gates in the outer wall, of brass, and open on the water.
The outer wall is the main defense of the city. There is, however, a second inner wall, of less thickness than the first, but very little inferior to it in strength. The center of each division of the town was occupied by a fortress. In the one stood the palace of the kings, surrounded by a wall of great strength and size; in the other was the sacred precinct of Jupiter Belus, a square inclosure two furlongs each way, with gates of solid brass; which was also remaining in my time.[5]
The royal cubit was twenty-one inches. The reader will therefore see that the outer wall of the city was eighty-seven feet thick, and three hundred and fifty feet high. The city was divided into two parts by the Euphrates, which ran diagonally through it, the banks of which were protected by walls, and the following means of passage from one part of the city to the other was devised:
In each of these walls were twenty-five gates, corresponding to the number of the streets which gave upon the river; and outside each gate was a sloped landing-place, by which you could descend to the water's edge, if you had occasion to cross the river. Boats were kept ready at these landing-places to convey passengers from side to side; while for those who disliked this method of conveyance a bridge was provided of a somewhat peculiar construction. A number of stone piers were erected in the bed of the stream, firmly clamped together with fastenings of iron and lead; wooden draw-bridges connected pier with pier during the day, and on these passengers passed over; but at night they were withdrawn, in order that the bridge might not be used during the dark. Diodorus declares that besides this bridge, to which he assigns a length of five stades (about one thousand yards) and a breadth of thirty feet, the two sides of the river were joined together by a tunnel, which was fifteen feet wide and twelve high to the spring of its arched roof.[6]
The public buildings of the city were on the same magnificent scale. Of one of them we read:
The most remarkable edifice in Babylon was the temple of Bel, now marked by the Babil, on the northeast, as Professor Rawlinson has shown. It was a pyramid of eight square stages, the basement stage being over two hundred yards each way. A winding ascent led to the summit and the shrine, in which stood a golden image of Bel forty feet high, two other statues of gold, a golden table forty feet long and fifteen feet broad, and many other colossal objects of the same precious material.[7]
The great palace was a building of still larger dimensions than the great temple. According to Diodorus, it was situated within a triple inclosure, the innermost wall being twenty stades, the second forty stades, and the outermost sixty stades (nearly seven miles), in circumference. The outer wall was built entirely of plain baked brick. The middle and inner walls were of the same material, fronted with enameled bricks representing hunting scenes. The figures, according to this author, were larger than the life, and consisted chiefly of a great variety of animal forms.
But the main glory of the palace was its pleasure-ground- the "Hanging Gardens," which the Greeks regarded as one of the seven wonders of the world. This extraordinary construction, which owed its erection to the whim of a woman, was a square, each side of which measured four hundred Greek feet. It was supported upon several tiers of open arches, built one over the other, like the walls of a classic theater, and sustaining at each stage, or story, a solid platform, from which the piers of the next tier of arches rose. The building towered into the air to the height of at least seventy-five feet, and was covered at the top with a great mass of earth, in which there grew not merely flowers and shrubs, but trees also of the largest size. Water was supplied from the Euphrates through pipes, and was raised (it is said) by a screw working on the principle of Archimedes.[8]
The city thus briefly outlined, well deserved the title given to it by the prophet:
"The glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency." (Isaiah 13:19)
To the mind of man it would seem that the city so substantially built must stand forever, but God had spoken to the contrary. Without pause, the prophet said:
"And after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to you." (Daniel 2:39)
Jeremiah, when he spoke of the greatness of Nebuchadnezzar's empire, foretold its fall, and also told under whose reign it should fall. He said:
"And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the very time of his land come; and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him." (Jeremiah 27:7)
Thus we find that in the days of Nebuchadnezzar's grandson the kingdom of Babylon should pass away, and other nations and other kings should establish themselves, and serve themselves of this kingdom. And in the direct record of the fall of Babylon, given in Daniel 5, Nebuchadnezzar is repeatedly spoken of as the grandfather of Belshazzar, the king who was reigning in Babylon at the time of its fall.[9]
The exact fulfillment of prophecy in the fall of Babylon will be noted in the next chapter.
Notes: