《The Biblical Illustrator – Daniel (Ch.0~3)》(A Compilation)
General Introduction
Over 34,000 pages in its original 56 volume printing, the Biblical Illustrator is a massive compilation of treatments on 10,000 passages of Scripture. It is arranged in commentary form for ease of use in personal study and devotion, as well as sermon preparation.
Most of the content of this commentary is illustrative in nature, and includes from hundreds of famous authors of the day such as Dwight L. Moody, Charles Spurgeon, J. C. Ryle, Charles Hodge, Alexander MacLaren, Adam Clark, Matthew Henry, and many more. The collection also includes lesser known authors published in periodicles and smaller publications popular in that ara. Unlike modern publishers, Exell was apparently not under any pressure to consolidate the number of pages.
While this commentary is not known for its Greek or Hebrew exposition, the New Testament includes hundreds of references to, and explanations of, Greek words.
Joseph S. Exell edited and compiled the 56 volume Biblical Illustrator commentary. You will recognize him as the co-editor of the famous Pulpit Commentary (this commentary is even larger than the Pulpit Commentary). This remarkable work is the triumph of a life devoted to Biblical research and study. Assisted by a small army of students, the Exell draws on the rich stores of great minds since the beginning of New Testament times.
The Biblical Illustrator brings Scripture to life in a unique, illuminating way. While other commentaries explain a Bible passage doctrinally, this work illustrates the Bible with a collection of:
· illustrations
· outlines
· anecodtes
· history
· poems
· expositions
· geography
· sermons
· Bible backgrounds
· homiletics
for nearly every verse in the Bible. This massive commentary was originally intended for preachers needing help with sermon preperation (because who else in that day had time to wade through such a lengthy commentary?). But today, the Biblical Illustrator provides life application, illumination, inspiriation, doctrine, devotion, and practical content for all who teach, preach, and study the Bible.
00 Overview
DANIEL
INTRODUCTION
THE WORLD EVENTS OF THE TIME OF THE CAPTIVITY. The seventy years captivity opens just after the overthrow of one of the great monarchies, and the destruction of one of the great cities (Nineveh) of the ancient world, which had kept its ground for upwards of a thousand years. It ends with the fall of one that in the colossal greatness of its power and the magnificence of its buildings, surpassed all others. It begins with the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, and ends with that of Cyrus. It was a time of vast migrations, and struggles of races and of creeds. The religion of Buddha was working its mighty change in India, and altogether beyond the horizon of the Babylonian Empire. The religion of Zoroaster was entering on a new and more energetic life, and the books which embody that faith were assuming their present shape. Not less wonderful was the synchronism of events in regions that lay then entirely out of all contact with the history of the Bible. Then it was that Epimenides, and the Orphic brotherhoods that traced their origin to him, were altering the character of the earlier creed of Greece, as represented by the Homeric poems, that Pythagoras and his disciples were laying the foundations of an asceticism which developed into a philosophy, that Solon was building up the intellectual and political life of Athens. In the far West, Rome was already rising into greatness. The walls of Servius Tullus, yet more the organization of the constitution which bears his name, were marking out the future destiny of the City of the Seven Hills as different from that of any other town in Italy. In the far East, Confucius was entering on his work as the teacher of an ethical system which, whatever may be its defects, has kept its ground through all the centuries that have followed, and been accepted by many millions of mankind, which, at present, modified more or less by its contact with Buddhism, divides with that system the homage of nearly all tribes and nations of Turanian origin. Of many of these great changes we can only think with wonder at the strange parallelisms with which the great divisions of the human family were moving on, far removed from each other, in the order which had been appointed for them. Those which connect themselves directly with the rise and fall of the great, Chaldean monarchy will serve to show how, “in sundry times and divers manners,” God has taught men to feel after him, and it may be, find him. For centuries before the birth of Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon had been carrying on, with varying success, a struggle against the great Assyrian Empire, which had its capital (Nineveh) on the Tigris. (Dean Plumptre.)
THE MAN DANIEL AND HIS PROPHETIC BOOK. We have in Daniel, a man of intense religious feeling and a pure patriot, and one possessed also of great ability and s powerful mind upon which numerous and weighty influences were brought to bear. Can we wonder if he viewed the world with a different eye from that of the exiled priest, Ezekiel, living in penury among the poor Jewish colonists planted on the river Chebar? Or from that of Jeremiah, struggling against all the evil influences which were dally dragging the feeble Zedekiah and the decaying people of Jerusalem, down to ruin? Or even from that of Isaiah, whose rapt vision, spurning this poor earth, soared aloft to the spiritual glories of Messiah’s reign, and sang how the sucker, springing up from Jesse’s cut-down lineage, and growing as a root in a dry ground, should by its wounds, owing to the world healing, and by its death, purchase for mankind life? But each of these had his own office and his special message; and Daniel’s office was to show that the Christian religion was not to be an enlarged Judaism, but a Judaism fulfilled and made free. Its outer husk was to fall away, its inner beauty to reveal itself, and instead of a Church for the Jews, there was to be a Church for all mankind. In the Book of Daniel we find no trace of that old contempt for the Gentiles, which the Jews had grafted on the feelings in which they might indulge, of gratitude to God for their own many privileges. Babylon to him is the head of gold; other realms are of silver, brass, or iron, all precious and enduring substances, though the last was mingled with miry clay. In the colossal image, Judea finds no place, because thus far its influence upon the world had been nought. And when God s universal empire grinds to powder these world powers, though Israel had been God’s preparation for the reign of Christ, yet that is passed over, and its establishment is spoken of as God’s direct doing--a stone cut out of the mountain by no human hands, but by a Divine power. We know how Daniel loved his nation, and how, even in extreme old age, he still prayed with his face towards Jerusalem; but he places out of sight, the work of his country and of his Church, and sees only the world’s history, and the share which it has in preparing for the universal dominion of God. As a corrective to the outer form of previous prophecy, this was not only most precious but absolutely necessary. A careless reader up to this time might have supposed that the Gentiles had no part in God s purposes. True that the old promises in the Book of Genesis included them, but as Judaism developed, the Gentiles were pushed more and more into the background, and became the object of prophecy apparently only in their connection with Judea, or as the future subjects of Judah’s Messiah. We, as we read the words of the prophets, cannot help finding proofs everywhere, that what Daniel taught was no new interpretation, but the true meaning of the whole prophetic choir. The Jew saw no world-wide purpose, not merely because.patriotism and national pride closed the avenues of his mind, but also because the outer form of prophecy was Jewish, and gave a basis to the narrow interpretation put upon the prophetic teaching by the current national thought. But here the outer form is entirely changed, and the man who was the mighty pillar of their strength in their days of disaster, sets the world before them in a completely different aspect, ignores their old standards of thought, and declares that their Jehovah was as much the God and Father of the whole Gentile world as he was their own. But clear and plain as was his teaching, the Jews refused to it their assent; their synagogue did not include Daniel among the prophets, but placed his book among the “Hagiographa,” “the sacred writings,” between those of Esther and Ezra. Nor was this place so altogether wrong; for even now, with its numerous points of resemblance to the Apocalypse of St. John, it would rightly hold a place between the Old and New Testaments. It would be hard indeed to spare Malachi from that position, with his ringing announcement of the nigh coming of the Forerunner. But the Apocalypse holds to the Christian Church the same relation as that held by Daniel to the Church of the Jews. The one raised the veil for the covenant people of old, and gave them an insight into, and guidance through the weeks and years that were to elapse before Messiah’s first Advent; the second raises the veil for the Church of Christ, gives its glimpses of the world’s history, and of God’s work in it until its Lord comes again. (Dean Payne Smith.)
THE BOOK OF DANIEL:--this is assigned in the Hebrew canon to the third division, called Hagiographa. The first chapter is introductory to the whole book, giving an account of the selection and education of Daniel and his three companions by direction of the king of Babylon. The prophecies that follow naturally fall into two series. The first, occupying chapters 2 to 7, is written in Chaldee from the middle of the fourth verse of chapter 2. It unfolds the relation which God’s kingdom holds to the heathen powers, as seen in a twofold vision of the four great monarchies of the world, in the form, first, of an image consisting of four parts, and then of four great beasts rising up out of the sea, the last monarchy being succeeded by the kingdom of the God of heaven, which shall never be destroyed; in the protection and deliverance of God’s faithful servants from the persecution of heathen kings and princes; in the humbling of heathen monarchs for their pride, idolatry, and profanation of the sacred vessels belonging to the sanctuary. Thus we see that the first three of these six chapters correspond to the last three taken in an inverse order--the second to the seventh the third to the sixth, and the fourth to the fifth. The second series, consisting of the remaining five chapters, is written in Hebrew. This also exhibits the conflict between God’s kingdom and the heathen world, taking up the second and third monarchies under the images of a ram and a he-goat. There follow some special details relating to the nearer future, with some very remarkable revelations respecting the time of the Messiah’s advent, the destruction of the holy city by the Romans, the last great conflict between the kingdom of God and its enemies, and the final resurrection. The intimate connection between the Book of Daniel and the Revelation of John must strike every reader of the Holy Scriptures. They mutually interpret each other, and together constitute one grand system of prophecy extending down to the end of the world. Both also contain predictions, the exact interpretation of which is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, till the mystery of God should be finished. The unity of the Book of Daniel is now.generally conceded. “The two leading divisions are so related, that the one implies the existence of the other. Both have the same characteristics of manner and style, though a considerable portion of the book is in Chaldee and the remainder in Hebrew.” This being admitted, the book as a whole claims Daniel for its author; for in it he often speaks in the first person; and in the last chapter the book is manifestly ascribed to him. The uniform tradition of the Jews ascribed the book to Daniel. It was on this ground that they received it into the canon of the Old Testament. The objection that they did not class Daniel with the prophets, but with the Hagiographa, is of no account. Had the book belonged, as the objectors claim, to the Maccabean age, it would not have found a place in the Hagiographa any more than in the prophets. The First Book of Maccabees, which contains authentic history, was never received into the Hebrew canon, because, as the Jews rightly judged, it was written after the withdrawal of the spirit of prophecy. Much less would they have received under the illustrious name of Daniel, a book written as late as the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, more than three centuries and a half after Daniel. That they should have done this through ignorance is inconceivable; that they could have done it through fraud is a supposition not to be admitted for a moment, for it is contrary to all that we know of their conscientious care with regard to the sacred text. The language of the book agrees with the age of Daniel. The writer employs both Hebrew and Chaldee, thus indicating that he lives during the period of transition from the former to the latter language. His Chaldee, like that of Ezra, contains Hebrew forms such as do not occur in the earliest of the Targums. His Hebrew, on the other hand, agrees in its general character with that of Ezekiel and Ezra. Though the Hebrew survives as the language of the learned for some time after the Captivity, we cannot suppose that so late as the age of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabees, a Jewish author could have employed either such Hebrew as Daniel uses or such Chaldee. The author manifests intimate acquaintance with the historical relations, manners and customs belonging to Daniel’s time. Under this head writers have specified the custom of giving new names to those taken into the king’s service; the threat that the houses of the magi should be made a dunghill; the different forms of capital punishment in use among the Chaldeans and Medo-Persians; the dress of Daniel’s companions; the presence of women at the royal banquet, etc. The real objection to the book lies, as already intimated, in the supernatural character of its contents, in the remarkable miracles and prophecies which it records. The miracles of this book are of a very imposing character, especially adapted to strike the minds of the beholders with awe and wonder; but so are those also recorded in the beginning of the Book of Exodus. In both cases they were alike fitted to make upon the minds of the heathen, in whose presence they were performed, the impression of God’s power to save and deliver in all possible circumstances. The prophecies are mostly in the form of dreams and visions; and they are in wonderful harmony with Daniel’s position as a minister of State at the court of Babylon, and also with the relation of Judaism to the heathen world. In the providence of God, the history of His covenant people, and through them of the visible kingdom of heaven, had become inseparably connected with that of the great monarchies of the world. How appropriate, then, that God should reveal in its grand outlines, the course of these monarchies to the final and complete establishment of the kingdom of heaven! In all this we find nothing against the general analogy of prophecy, but everything in strict conformity with it. (E. P. Barrows, D.D.)