Читать книгу A Thousand Years of Jewish History - Maurice H. Harris - Страница 35

In seeking to realize this critical time of "storm and stress," we shall be aided somewhat by taking a glimpse at its literature. For here we see pictured the struggles and sufferings experienced and the alternate hopes and fears that swayed the heart of the nation, far better than in the record of the historian.

A work reflecting these times, the Book of Daniel, is perhaps the latest of the Bible books. The book throws light on the epoch and the epoch is the key to the book. Daniel is written in the form of a revelation of events that were to happen centuries later, made known through dream and vision to the God-fearing Daniel, one of the Babylonian exiles. These visions are presented as foretelling the main incidents after the exile. The pictures grow in detail as they reach the Maccabean uprising (168 B.C.E.), showing that the author probably belonged to this time.

The first picture is the dream of King Nebuchadrezzar, which Daniel—who is as wise as he is good—is able to interpret. The dream presented an image with a head of gold, breast and arms of silver, the lower limbs of brass and iron mixed with clay. A stone cut without hands destroyed the image and then grew to a mountain that filled the earth. In the light of later events, it is thus explained: The golden head was Babylon, the silver breast and arms the kingdom of Media, the bronze trunk Persia, the lower limbs of baser metal and clay represented the Greek empire, split up into many principalities, thus bringing the picture down to the rule of Antiochus Epiphanes. What did the "stone" represent? It expresses the faith of the writer in Israel's eventual triumph and the spread of Judaism over the world. But it was doubtless written when the outcome was still uncertain, perhaps in the very height and heat of the struggle.

The same march of events is later repeated in visions to Daniel himself. The four empires are depicted in the figures of beasts that give the same assurance of Israel's ultimate victory. "The greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and all dominions shall serve and obey Him."

In another vision our attention is focused on the events nearer the Maccabean time. First a ram with two horns is the Medo-Persian empire. Next a he-goat represents Greece, its horn Alexander the Great. Four horns that uprose in its place are the four kingdoms into which his empire was split—Macedonia, Thrace, Syria and Egypt, while a little horn that overthrows Judah's sanctuary is none other than Antiochus Epiphanes.

A last vision drops metaphor and mentions the kingdoms by actual name. The persecutions under Antiochus are vividly depicted:

"They shall profane the Sanctuary, even the fortress, and shall take away the continual burnt offering; and they shall set up the abomination that maketh desolate. And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he pervert by flatteries; but the people that know their God shall be strong and do exploits. They that be wise among the people shall instruct many. Yet they shall fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by spoil many days. Now when they shall fall they shall be helped with a little help (the Maccabees). … And some of them that be wise shall fall, to refine them and to purge and to make them white."