Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1899-07-06
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.
THOUGHTS WORTHY or. CALM
REFLECTION.
A Pleasant, Interesting, and Instruct
i've Lesson, and Where 1t May He
FONDA Learned and Concise Re-
view Of the Same.


in them are among the most fascinating
in the Old Testament to children, and
the book as a whole is full Of interest to
Christians of all ages; yet concerning
scarcely any book is there so much con.
fusion, so much discussion, so much alb
surd misinterpretation. For ali but the
youngest scholars some mention of the
considerations that affect the book as q
whole should precede these lessons.
1. The Contents. The book falls nat
urally into two PARTS: ~ Chapters 1-6,
the adventures, of Daniel and his compan.
ions during the reigns Of ACKNOWLEDGMENT.
Belshazzar and Darius the Mede. (2)
Chapters TIP, the visions of Daniel, set,
ting forth in symbolic fashion the historic
events of the eastern world down to and
including the reign of Antiochus Epiph'
anes, the Syrian monarch who prosecuted
the Jews (B. G. 175-16N.
2. Historical Outline. 1t is stated
dan. /: 1; 2, o. that Daniel was among
the youths of noble blood taken to Baby
lon by Nebuchadnezzar in the third yea
of Jehoiakim, king Of judah. Jehoiakim
was a son of Josiah, the good king who
had been killed in the battle of Megiddo
by Pharaoh-necoh, king Of Egypt, in 600
b. G. After Josiah's death his son Je-
hoahaz reigned three months, but was
then supplanted, under the direction Of
Pharaoh necoh, by his brother Jehoiakim,
who reigned eleven years. During that
time he was alternately a vassal of Egypt
and Babylon, the two great rival powers
whose war for supremacy was now rag
ing. For these facts see 2 Kings %: Fl
"a: 2. This account, however, does not
mention the captivity of Jehoiakim. For
that we must look to 2 Chron. SO: 6 and
Dan. /: 2. Great changes had been go
ing on during these years in the valley
of the Euphrates. 1t will be remembered
that almost up to this time, for several
centuries, Assyria, with capital at Nine
veh, had been the dominant power, the
people Of Babylon being subjects of the
Assyrian kings with varying degrees Of
oppression. It was the Assyrians who
had hitherto troubled Israel and Judah.
Tiglath Pileser and Sargon and Sennach-
crib, who figured so largely in the history
of the two Hebrew kingdoms during the
latter part of the preceding century TAO
70D were Assyrians. But the Babylon
ian Nabopolassar (625-605) by enlisting
the aid Of many wild tribes, successfully
rebelled against the waning kingdom Of
Assyria, and in COZ completely destroyed
its capital Nineveh. From that time on
for sixty-eight years Babylon was the
ruler of the eastern world.
One rival that at first threatened trou-
BILE, Pharaoh-necoh Of Egypt, was utter
ly defeated in Cos at Carchemish, on the
Euphrates, by the son Of NabopOlassar,
the Prince Nebuchadnezzar. In the fol.
lowing year, by his fathers death, this
prince became king. His reign lasted
from G04-561, and was largely devoted to
wars against various subject nations
which revolted from the Babylonian pow
er, relying upon Egypt for aid-Judah
being among them, which after seventeen
years of turbulent and violent intrigues
and plots, was punished by the destruc
ton Of Jerusalem and captivity of a large
part Of the people in 5S7.
3. Purpose and date of the Book. This
is one of the most controverted subjects
in all the Old Testament criticism. 1t
was formerly the universal and is now
the conservative view that this book was
written by Daniel in his later life, when
he had been raised to power through
faithfulness and the favor of jehovah
that is, in the time of Darius and Cyrus
dan. g: 2S). According to this view
chapters 7-12 are predictions Of centuries
to come. Their correspondence with the
history of the Persian supremacy, the
career of Alexander the Great, and the
Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties, is so
close that few other examples of predic
ton so minute and detailed are to be
found in the Old Testament. The pur-
pose of the book, according to this view,
was to encourage the Jews of generations
following the writer's time in their fidelity
to national beliefs and to Jehovah, by
showing them the good results of such
fidelity in the case of Daniel pointing out
the ultimate defeat of hostile kings and
nations in a series of visions.
A multitude of considerations, far too
numerous and involved to be here fairly
presented, have been used by some mod
ern scholars to support the terrible perse-
cution of the Jews in the reign of Anti
ochus Epphanes (B. G. 170-16O when
the people were most hopeless and crush
ed under the oppressor and needed en-
enlargement in the form of a reminder of
the past mercies of Jehovah. We cannot
here tell, even in outline, the story of
that age. After the death Of Alexander
the Great, the Macedonian, in 1923 b. c.,
Ills great elhpilt, WuiCu iuCiuueu tut
whole eastern world, was divided among
his generals. Two Of them, Ptolemy and
Seleucus, received respectively Egypt and
Syria. Their descendants, known as the
Ptolemaic and Seleucid monarchs, ruled
those countries with exceptions) until
the Roman conquest in the first century
b. G. They were usually fighting each
other. The Seleucid kings at the begin
ming of the second century B. G. cruelty
prosecuted the Jews; and this cruelty
eliminated with Antiochus ~, called
Epiphanes C'illustrious') who reigned
176-164. In 167 a priest Mattathias,
with his five sons, John, Simon, Judas
Maccabaeus, Eleazar and Jonathan, be-
gan revolt which was ultimately sue
cessful, after decades of fighting, in gain
ing Jewish independence. This is known
from the surname of Judas as the Mac
abaean age. 1t is perhaps the most be-
roic age Of Hebrew history, and our chief
sources of information concerning it are
the books of Maccabees (called apcrry-
phal because not included in the canon of
the Old TESTAMENT and the works Of
Josephus.
explanatory.
There is no space left to comment upon
the lesson; but IL needs little explanation.
1t should be pointed out that the act of
Daniel and his companions in refusing the
kings food and drink was quite as much
a hygienic as a religious self-denial.
Whatever its motive, il certainly deserves
a practical and literal Interpretation for