Читать книгу Bible Characters - Joseph Parker - Страница 14

And straightway the king repented in sackcloth and ashes, and God stayed the doom. But twelve months from that time we see Nebuchadnezzar walking in his palace and boasting: “Is not this my great Babylon that I have built by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty!” And behold, while he yet spake a voice came from Heaven, saying: “Thy kingdom hath departed.” And undoubtedly God then touched his reason, and straightway he ran madly through the gates to eat grass.

But his kingdom had not passed from him forever, and, according to the prophet’s word, at the end of seven years—or, possibly, seven months—his reason came back, and he returned to his palace. All his princes and officers gathered about him. Then he immediately sent out a new proclamation, and its closing words show his repentance, and how Daniel had brought this mighty king to God:

“And at the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto Heaven, and my understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored Him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation.

“At the same time my reason returned unto me, and for the glory of my kingdom mine honor and brightness returned unto me, and my councilors and my lords sought unto me. I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me.

“Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol the King of Heaven, all whose works are truth and His ways judgment, and those that walk in pride He is able to abase.”

And then he passes from the stage. This is the last record of him, and undoubtedly he and Daniel now walk the crystal pavement together. That mighty monarch was led to the God of the Hebrews by the faith of this Hebrew slave, and just because he had a religion and dared to make it known.

But now we lose sight of the prophet for a few years, perhaps fifteen or twenty. The next we hear is that Belteshazzar is on the throne—possibly as regent. He is believed to have been a grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. One day he said he would make Daniel the third ruler of the people if he would interpret for him the handwriting on the wall. He was probably second himself, and Daniel would be next to him. Of this prince we have only one glimpse. The feast scene is the first and last we have of him, and it is enough. It was a great feast, and fully a thousand of his lords sat down together. In those days feasts sometimes lasted six months. How long this one lasted we do not know. The king caroused with his princes and satraps and all the mighty men of Babylon, drinking and rioting and praying to gods of silver and gold and brass and stubble—just what we are doing today, if we bow the knee to the gods of this world. And the revelers, waxing wanton, even go into the temple and lay sacrilegious hands on the sacred vessels that had been brought away from Jerusalem, and drank wine from them—drank toasts to idols and harlots. And, undoubtedly, as they are drinking they scoff at the God of Israel.

I see these revelers swearing and rioting when, suddenly, the king turns pale and trembles from head to foot. Above the golden candlesticks, on a bare space on the wall, he sees the writing of the God of Zion. He distinctly sees the terrible fingers. His voice shakes with terror, but he manages to falter out: “Bring in the wise men! Any man who can read the handwriting I will make third ruler of the kingdom.”

Then the wise men come trooping in, but there is no answer. Not one of them can read it. They are skilled in Chaldean lore, but this stumps them. At last the queen comes in and whispers: “O king, there is a man in the kingdom who can read that writing. When your grandfather could not interpret his dreams he sent for Daniel, the Hebrew, and he knew all about them. Can we find him?”

They did find him, and now we see the man of God again standing before a king’s throne. To the king’s hurried promises of gifts and honors Daniel replies: “You can keep your rewards.” Quietly he turns his eyes on the writing. He reads it at the first glance, for it is his Father’s handwriting. He says:

“Mene—Thy kingdom hath departed from thee.

“Tekel—Thou art weighed in the balance, and art found wanting.

“Upharsin—Thy kingdom is divided. It is given over to the hands of the enemy.”

How these words of doom must have rung through the palace that night!

And the destruction did not tarry. The king recovered himself, banished his fears, and went on drinking in his hall. The mystery and its interpretation were as an idle tale. He thought he was perfectly secure. He had deemed the great walls of Babylon thoroughly safe. But there was Darius besieging the city; the enemy was right upon him. Was that safe? While they reveled, the river Euphrates, that flowed under the walls, was turned into another channel. The hosts of Medes and Persians rushed through, unobstructed, and in a few minutes more battered down the king’s gate and broke through the palace guard into the inmost palace chamber. And the king was slain, and his blood flowed in that banquet hall.

We are next told Darius took the throne and set over the people 120 rulers, and over these three presidents, of whom Daniel was first. And so we find him in office again. I do not know how long he was in that position. But by-and-by a conspiracy took head among his fellow officers to get rid of him. They got jealous and said:

“Let’s see if we can get this man removed. He has bossed us long enough—the sanctimonious old Hebrew.”

And then he was so impracticable, they could not do any thing with him. There were plenty of collectors and treasurers, but he kept such a close eye on them that they only made their salaries. There was no plundering of the government with Daniel at the head. He was president of the princes, and all revenue accounts passed before him. I can overhear the plotters whispering: “If we can only put him out of the way, we can make enough in two or three years to retire from office, have a city house in Babylon and two or three villas in the country—have enough for all our days. We can then go down to Egypt and see something of the world. As things now are, we can only get our exact dues, and it will take years to get any thing respectable. Yes, let us down this pious Jew.”

Well, they worked things so as to get an investigating committee, hoping to catch him in his accounts. But they found no occasion for fault against him. If he had put any relatives in office it would have been found out. If he had been guilty of peculation, or in any way broken the unalterable statutes of the kingdom, it would have come to light. What a bright light was that, standing alone in that great city for God and the majesty of law!

But at last they struck on one weak point, as they called it—he would worship no one but the God of Israel. The law of his God was his only assailable side. The conspirators reasoned in their plotting:

“If we can only get Darius to forbid any one making a request for thirty days except from the king himself, we shall trap him, and then we can cast him among the lions. We will take good care to have the lions hungry.”

And the hundred and twenty princes took long council together. “Take care,” they said; “you must draw up the paper which is to be signed by the king with a deal of care and discretion. The king loves him, and he has influence. Do not speak of the movement outside this meeting. It might come to the ears of the king, and we must talk to the king ourselves.”

When the mine is all ready, the hundred and twenty princes come to the king and open their business with flattering speech. Naturally, we hear these men saying: “King Darius, live for ever!” They tell him how prosperous the realm is, and how much the people think of him. And then they tell him, in the most plausible way that ever was, that if he would be remembered by children’s children to all ages, just to sign this decree. It would be a memorial of his greatness and goodness for ever. And the king replies graciously: “What is the decree you wish me to sign?” Casting his eye over the paper, he goes on: “I see no objection to that.” In the pleasure of granting a request he thinks nothing of Daniel, and the princes carefully refrain from jogging his memory. And he asks for his signet ring, and gives the royal stamp. The edict has become one of the laws of the Medes and Persians, that alter not. It reads: “Any man that worships any God but me for thirty days shall be cast into the lions’ den.”

The news spreads all through the city, and quickly gets to the ears of Daniel. I can imagine some of them going to the prophet and advising him about the edict, saying: “If you can only get out of the way for a little time—if you can just quit Babylon for thirty days—it will advance your own and the public interest together. You are the chief secretary and treasurer; in fact, you are the chief ruler in the government. You are an important man and can do as you please. Well, now, just you get out of Babylon. Or, if you will stay in Babylon, do not let them catch you on your knees. At all events, do not pray at the window toward Jerusalem. If you must pray, close that window, pull down the curtain and put something in the keyhole.”

I can imagine how that old prince, Daniel, now in his gray hairs, would view such a proposition—that he desert his God in his old age. All the remonstrances that must have been made fell dead. He just went on praying as usual three times a day, with his face toward Jerusalem. This old prophet found plenty of time to pray, though secretary and treasurer of the most important empire of the world. And besides his own business, he had to attend, doubtless, to much belonging of right to those hundred and twenty. But he would never have been too busy or ashamed at a prayer meeting to stand up for God.

Daniel had a purpose, and he dared to make that purpose known. He knew whom he worshiped. The idea of looking back to church records of long ago to see whether a man has professed religion is all wrong. In Babylon they knew whom Daniel believed on. These hundred and twenty knew the very day after the passage of the edict. He knows they are watching near his window when the hour comes for prayer. He can see two men close at his side, and he knows they are spies. Perhaps they may be taking down every word he says for the papers.

The moment comes, and Daniel falls on his knees. In tones even louder than ever he makes his prayer to the God of Israel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He does not omit to pray for the king. It is right to pray for our rulers. The reason they are not better, oftentimes, is just because we do not pray for them.

And now the spies rush to the king and say, “O Darius, live for ever! Do you know there is a man here in your kingdom who will not obey you?”

“Will not obey me? Who is he?”

“Why, that man Daniel.”

And the king says: “I know he will not bow down and worship me. I know that Daniel worships the God of Heaven.”

Then the king sets his heart to deliver him, all the day, from those hundred and twenty men. But they come to him and say: “If you break your law, your kingdom will depart. Your subjects will no longer obey you. You must drive him to the lions’ den.”

So Darius is compelled to yield, and at last he gives the word to have Daniel sent away and cast into the den of lions. These men take good care to have the den filled with the most hungry beasts of Babylon. He is thrown headlong into the den, but the angel of God flies down, and Daniel lights unharmed on the bottom. The lions’ mouths are stopped. They are as harmless as lambs. The old prophet, at the wonted hour, drops on his knees and prays, with his face toward Jerusalem, as calmly as he did in his chamber. And when it gets later he just lays his head on one of the lions and goes to sleep. Undoubtedly no one in all Babylon sleeps more sweetly than does Daniel in the lions’ den.

In the palace, the king can not sleep. He orders his chariot, and early in the morning rattles over the pavement and jumps down at the lions’ den. I see the king alight from his chariot in eager haste, and hear him cry down through the mouth of the den: “O Daniel, servant of the living God! Is thy God, whom thou reverest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?”

Hark! Why, it is a resurrection voice! It is Daniel, saying: “My God is able. He hath sent one of His angels, and hath shut the lions’ mouths.”

I can see them now just embrace each other, and together they jump into the chariot and away they go back to the palace to breakfast.

I want to say something further about Daniel. I want to refer to how an angel came to him, and, as we read in the twelfth chapter of Daniel, told him he was a man greatly beloved. Another angel had come to him with the same message. It is generally thought this last angel was the same one spoken of in Revelations—first chapter and thirteenth verse—as coming to John when banished to the Isle of Patmos. People thought he was sent off there alone, but he was not; the angel of God was with him.

And so with Daniel. Here, in the tenth chapter and fifth verse, he says: “Then I lifted up mine eyes, and behold, a certain man clothed with fine linen, and otherwise arrayed as God’s messenger, who cried: ‘O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words which I speak unto thee, and stand upright, for unto thee am I now sent.’ ”

It was Daniel’s need that brought him from the glory land. It was the Son of God right by his side in that strange land. And that was the second time when the word came to him, saying he was greatly beloved. Yes, three times a messenger came from the throne of God to tell him this. I love to speak of that precious verse in the eleventh chapter—the thirty-second verse: “The people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits.” I also love to speak of the twelfth chapter and second and third verses: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt; and they that be wise shall shine as the stars of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”

This was the angel’s comfort to Daniel, and a great comfort it was. The fact with all of us is that we like to shine. There is no doubt about that. Every mother likes her child to shine. If her boy shines at school by reaching the head of his class, the proud mother tells all the neighbors, and she has a right to do so. But it is not the great of this world that will shine the brightest. For a few years they may shed bright light, but they go out in darkness, without an inner brightness. Supplying the brightness, they go out in black darkness.

Where are the great men who did not know Daniel’s God? Did they shine long? Why, we know of Nebuchadnezzar and the rest of them scarcely a thing, except as they fill in the story about these humble men of God. We are not told that statesmen shall shine; they may, for a few days or years, but they are soon forgotten. Look at those great ones who passed away in the days of Daniel. How wise in council they were! How mighty and victorious over hundreds of nations! What gods upon earth they were! Yet their names are forgotten—written only in the grave. Philosophers, falsely so-called—do they live? Behold men of science—scientific men they call themselves—going down into the bowels of the earth, digging away at some carcass and trying to make it talk against the voice of God! They shall go down to death, by-and-by, and their names shall rot.

But the man of God shines. Yes, he it is who shall shine as the stars for ever and ever. This Daniel has been gone for 2,500 years, but still increasing millions read of his life and actions. And so it shall be to the end. He will only be better known and better loved; he shall ever shine the brighter as the world grows older. Of a truth, they that be wise and turn many to righteousness shall shine on, like stars, to eternity.