the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles God's of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Final InLORD of hosts.

Remember

ye

junction

the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with 5 the statutes and judgments.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, 10 lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Notes

DANIEL

p. I, 1. 1. The third year. Yet it was the fourth year of Jehoiakim which coincided with the first of Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. xxv. 1). We see, however, from ii. 1, that Nebuchadnezzar's dream came in his second year, after Daniel's three years' training (i. 5), so that the reference of i. I carries us back to the last year of Nabo-Polassar, when Nebuchadnezzar had not actually ascended the throne; though it is not improbable that he was associated with his father as sovereign.

p. 2, 1. 4. There is some doubt about the name Belteshazzar. It may be 'Beltis protect the king' (though in this case we should have a teth for a tav), but perhaps more probably it is "Balatsu-usur' (protect his life), with the name of the deity, perhaps Bel, implied before it. Cp. the name Baladan. Shadrach, probably=command of Aku,' the moon-god. Meshach is more doubtful, but it may='Who is like Aku?" Cp. Michael, 'Who is like God?' Abed-nego should, of course, be Abednebo, 'servant of Nebo,' perhaps due to a copyist's mistake; unless, indeed, it was intentionally altered, in the spirit which changed 'Baal' into 'Bosheth.'

p. 7, 1. 13. The king's dream of the colossal image, however we explain the Four Kingdoms, should be studied in close connection with Daniel's first vision (chap. vii.). To the heathen king those kingdoms appear in their splendour, and yet they are but a metal image in which no true life dwells. To the prophet there are four distinct living agencies, instinct with a terrible life for ill, yet alike in both it is shown how the kingdoms of this world are brought to an end at the manifestation of God's kingdom. To the king is shown a stone 'cut without

hands. . . and filling the whole earth,' as opposed to a statue wrought by human art; to the prophet comes the higher conception of a 'Son of Man,' the Manhood to be afterwards 'taken into God.'

p. 9, 1. 20. If we may believe the LXX., the events of this chapter occurred in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, after an inspection of his dominions from India to Ethiopia. On this view, the great image might mark the close of a period of conquest, and inaugurate a period of peace.

p. 12, 1. 9. 'Hats,' This would seem to suggest turbans,' but 'cloaks' is perhaps the true translation.

p. 12, 1. 14. At this point the LXX. inserts a prayer of Azariah, followed by the hymn we know as the 'Benedicite,' or the Song of the Three Children, which are included in our Apocrypha.

p. 12, 1. 25. 'the Son of God,' we must render 'a Son of (the) Gods,' R.V. The meaning which Nebuchadnezzar attached to this phrase is of course moulded by his Babylonian belief. He believed in a plurality of Divine beings, and is startled to find how far reaching was the power of a God of whom he recked not, who had sent His angel (v. 28), whose divinity in a sense he recognises, to deliver his worshippers. Christians who view the story of the miracle as absolute history may see in the Deliverer the only Son of God Most High. The wording of the Chaldee is of course what might be looked for from a heathen king.

p. 13, 1. 21. When at the height of his power, and apparently towards the end of his reign, another vision comes to the king, and Daniel explains to him in what terrible sort he is to learn the lesson that 'the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men.' While the king was in the very act of boasting of the Babylon which he had built for the honour of his majesty,' the doom fell, and for 'seven times' his dwelling was with the beasts of the field, and he ate grass like oxen. This was clearly a case of a disease occasionally met with, in which, while the inner human consciousness remains, the patient thinks he is changed into an

animal, and acts more or less in conformity with that fancy. In this state of dual consciousness the king remained, till, God's purpose satisfied, he is able to bless God, and his reason returns. Till then, we may suppose, a regency would be exercised by some of the Magians. The fact of modern cases is itself sufficient to show that the phenomenon is a perfectly credible one; and if it said that there is no reference to it in the inscriptions, we confess that we are no more surprised by this than by Sennacherib's silence as to God's judgment on his army. Yet Berosus mentions an illness of Nebuchadnezzar's, and Abydenus says that Nebuchadnezzar, when on the roof of his palace, was inspired by a god to declare the fall of the Babylonian empire at the hands of a Persian mule.'

p. 18, l. 18. In spite of some remaining difficulties, the history in this chapter receives striking confirmation from the monuments. Belshazzar was the eldest son of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, his mother being not improbably a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar (cp. vv. 2, 11, 18). He was also the commander-in-chief of his father's army. From a most important tablet, discovered by Mr. T. G. Pinches, which, however, is unfortunately mutilated in the latter part, we learn the following points. In the seventeenth year of Nabonidus, on Tammuz 14 (June-July), Cyrus entered Sippara without fighting, and Nabonidus fled. On Tammuz 16, Cyrus's general, Gobryas, entered Babylon without fighting. (In the case of so vast a city as Babylon we may fairly suppose that a considerable time must elapse before the whole could be occupied.) On Marchesvan 3 (Oct.-Nov.), Cyrus entered Babylon and established peace,' and Gobryas, his governor 'appointed governors in Babylon.' On Marchesvan II, 'the son of the king died.' (Such is the reading of a somewhat doubtful clause by Mr. Pinches and other experts.) And from Adar 27 to Nisan 3 'there was lamentation in the country of Accad.' After the flight of Nabonidus, Belshazzar might well be spoken of as 'king, and the statement as to his death in Daniel harmonises with that in the tablet; for the Bible