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and owed them to no power superior to his own. Therefore God suddenly took from him his reason, and in this degraded state he remained for seven years, acquiring the tastes and habits of a brute animal, at the end whereof it pleased the Lord to restore him to his senses, and to afford him a knowledge of what he had undergone, and why he had undergone it, that he might thenceforth praise and honour the King of Heaven, all whose works are truth and his ways judgment, and might own that those who walk in pride he is able to abase.* After his death, the only action recorded of his son and successor, Evil-Merodach, is his kind treatment of the captive king of Judah, Jeconiah, whom he took out of the prison where he had long languished, and restored to a state of comfort and honour, though retaining him at Babylon for the rest of his days. Belshazzar, however, the next king, was of a dissolute and profane character, as he showed on the very last night of his reign, when, his city being now besieged by Cyrus the Persian, though well knowing what great things God had done to his grandfather, Nebuchadnezzar, he dared to provoke him, by using the sacred vessels taken out of the temple at Jerusalem, in his riotous and idolatrous feast. In the midst of it, an hand appeared, and wrote on the wall of his palace words which Daniel alone could explain to him, signifying that God had numbered and finished his kingdom; that he was weighed in the balance and found wanting; that his kingdom was divided and given to the Medes and Persians. This assurance from God received an immediate fulfilment; that very night the Persian army, having turned the waters of the river into a reservoir, which they had secretly dug for the pur

* Dan. iv. 37.

+ Dan. v. 25-28.

pose (and that they would act thus had been foretold by Isaiah,)* entered the city by the channel so laid dry, and obtained possession of it, slaying its king. Although Cyrus was in truth the chief director of this enterprise, he suffered his aged uncle, Darius, the Median, to enjoy the fruits of it during the remainder of his life; and it was during his government that Daniel's faith and constancy was put to trial by a decree which was issued, placing the king in the stead of God, forbidding prayers to be offered to any but him. When Daniel, who continued his public devotions as usual, was brought up for judgment, the king, who valued him, perceived his error, and strove in vain to remedy it: the law of the Medes and Persians," Daniel's enemies said, "must not be broken," and consequently that pious servant of the Lord was cast into a den filled with fierce lions, and the king passed a night of grief and anguish, hoping, yet not venturing to believe, that his God would preserve him. But faith, that great wonder-working power, the faith of Daniel, prevailed to stop the mouths of the hungry lions.† When Darius went in the morning to the cave, he found Daniel alive and unhurt; and, filled with indignation at his accusers, cast them into it, whom the lions tore in pieces in a moment. The adversary of our souls, "like a roaring lion, seeketh whom he may devour:" against those who "resist him, steadfast in the faith,' he can do nothing; it is those only who through wickedness are like himself, whom he gets into his deadly power, and destroys for ever.

* Isaiah xliv. 27.

+ Heb. xi. 33.

1 Pet. v. 8, 9.

CHAP. XXXVII.

THE RESTORATION.

THE seventy years of captivity, announced in the prophecies of Jeremiah, being at length completed, God made good his promise of restoration to the afflicted remnant of his people, by putting it into the heart of Cyrus, who was now the undisputed sovereign of all western Asia, to send them back to their own land, with permission and encouragement to rebuild their city and temple. Daniel was now become a very aged man, and probably did not long survive his miraculous deliverance from the den of lions. The fame, however, of that wonderful event must no doubt have reached the ears of Cyrus, and have induced him to treat Daniel with the same consideration as had his uncle Darius the Mede, and the kings of Babylon before him. Daniel, therefore, would have ample opportunity of explaining to Cyrus the part, which, long ago, by the mouth of his prophet Isaiah, the God of Israel had allotted him, in bringing about the restoration of his people and, showing him also that the term of their seventy years' captivity was now expired, would lead him to signalize the first year of his reign by this act of sound policy, as well as of compassion. For it is not in reigning over lands laid waste, and cities ruined, not in trampling under foot a debased multitude of trembling slaves, that the true glory of kings is shown; but rather in building again the old waste places, in raising up the foundations of many generations, in being called "the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in,' "* and especially in enabling their subjects

* Isaiah lviii. 12.

to worship God with all convenient decency and peace, that their royal functions are most worthily discharged, and their names receive the most abundant blessing. Herein we see as it were an earnest of those many glorious prophecies, which assured to the Church of God in after ages the support and ministration of the Gentiles; prophecies, which are now fulfilled in part, and after a spiritual manner, and which shall receive, when the end draweth nigh, their entire and literal completion. When Cyrus dismissed such of the Jews as were willing to return to their own country, he did not suffer them to depart in a state of destitution, but bestowed upon them, besides other marks of his royal favour, that which they doubtless valued more than all, the collection of sacred vessels and utensils of their former temple, which, after its destruction, had been preserved in Babylon fulfilling in this instance also, a prophecy of Jeremiah, who had said that there those vessels should be until the day that the Lord would visit them then would He bring them up, and restore them to their place.*

It appears that many of the Jews, being now kindly treated by Cyrus, felt no inclination to return to their own land, and endure the difficulties and hardships which its desolate condition led them to fear they might encounter; so that the number of those who went back, under the command of Zerubbabel, did not greatly exceed forty-two thousand persons, chiefly of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, though not perhaps without a mixture of the other tribes. Zerubbabel, the son of Salathiel, and grandson of Jechonias, whose long imprisonment at Babylon and subsequent release has been already mentioned, though not allowed to take the title of king, appears to have

* Jer. xxvii. 22.

been the representative of David's royal house, by both the lines descending from his sons Nathan and Solomon, and is therefore mentioned in both the genealogies of our Saviour Christ. He was, in consequence, the natural leader and commander of the people in their homeward expedition, and being ably seconded by the high-priest, Joshua, the son of Josedech, took active measures, when he arrived in Judea, to prepare for the needful restorations at Jerusalem. When all was ready, they laid with solemn ceremony the foundations of the house of the Lord; and while the younger and more sanguine portion of the people, rejoicing at the beginning of so good a work, shouted for gladness, those who had seen the former temple, and knew how little probability there was, with their diminished means, that this could ever equal it in splendour, lamented aloud; so that it was hard to "discern the noise of the shout of joy, from the noise of the weeping of the people."* And indeed, so far as mere outward beauty was concerned, their fears were realized the prophet Haggai, after the house was built, said to its builders, "Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? And yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the dry land, and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts; and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts." The privilege peculiar to the second temple, which so much raised it in dignity above the first, was the personal presence of our

Ezra iii. 13.

+ Haggai ii. 3—7.

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