AN
EXPOSITION,
W I T H P R A C T I C A L O B S E R V A T I O N
S,
OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
D A N I E L
THE
book of Ezekiel left the affairs of
Jerusalem
under a doleful aspect, all in ruins, but with a joyful prospect of all in
glory again. This of Daniel fitly follows. Ezekiel told us what was seen, and
what was foreseen, by him in the former years of the captivity: Daniel tells
us what was seen, and foreseen, in the latter years of the captivity. When God
employs different hands, yet it is about the same work. And it was a comfort
to the poor captives that they had first one prophet among them and then
another, to show them how long, and a sign that God had not quite cast
them off. Let us enquire, I. Concerning this prophet His Hebrew name was Daniel,
which signifies the judgment of God; his Chaldean name was Belteshazzar.
He was of the tribe of
Judah
, and, as it should seem, of the royal family. He was betimes eminent for
wisdom and piety. Ezekiel, his contemporary, but much his senior, speaks of
him as an oracle when thus he upbraids the king of Tyre with his conceitedness
of himself: Thou art wiser then Daniel, Ezek. xxxviii. 3. He is
likewise there celebrated for success in prayer, when Noah, Daniel, and Job
are reckoned as three men that had the greatest interest in heaven of any,
Ezek. xiv. 14. He began betimes to be famous, and continued long so. Some of
the Jewish rabbin are loth to acknowledge him to be a prophet of the higher
form, and therefore rank his book among the Hagiographa, not among the
prophecies, and would not have their disciples pay much regard to it. One
reason they pretend is because he did not live such a mean mortified life as
Jeremiah and some other of the prophets did, but lived like a prince, and was
a prime-minister of state; whereas we find him persecuted as other prophets
were (ch. vi.), and mortifying himself as other prophets did, when he ate
no pleasant bread (ch. x. 3), and fainting sick when he was under
the power of the Spirit of prophecy, ch. viii. 27. Another reason they
pretend is because he wrote his book in a heathen country, and there
had his visions, and not in the land of Israel; but, for the same reason,
Ezekiel also must be expunged out of the roll of prophets. But the true reason
is that he speaks so plainly of the time of the Messiah's coming that the Jews
cannot avoid the conviction of it and therefore do not care to hear of it. But
Josephus calls him one of the greatest of the prophets, nay, the
angel Gabriel calls him a man greatly beloved. He lived long an active
life in the courts and councils of some of the greatest monarchs the world
ever had, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius; for we mistake of we confine the
privilege of an intercourse with heaven to speculative men, or those that
spend their time in contemplation; no, who was more intimately acquainted with
the mind of God than Daniel, a courtier, a statesman, and a man of business?
The Spirit, as the wind, blows where it lists. And, if those that have much to
do in the world plead that as an excuse for the infrequency and slightness of
their converse with God, Daniel will condemn them. Some have thought that he
returned to Jerusalem, and was one of the masters of the Greek synagogue; but
nothing of that appears in scripture; it is therefore generally concluded that
he died in Persia at Susan, where he lived to be very old. II. Concerning this
book. The first six chapters of it are historical, and are plain and easy; the
last six are prophetical, and in them are many things dark, and hard to be
understood, which yet would be more intelligible if we had a more complete
history of the nations, and especially the Jewish nation, from Daniel's time
to the coming of the Messiah. Our Saviour intimates the difficulty of
apprehending the sense of Daniel's prophecies when, speaking of them, he says,
Let him that readeth understand, Matt. xxiv. 15. The first chapter, and
the first three verses of the second chapter, are in Hebrew; thence to the
eighth chapter is in the Chaldee dialect; and thence to the end is in Hebrew.
Mr. Broughton observes that, as the Chaldeans were kind to Daniel, and gave
cups of cold water to him when he requested it, rather than the king's wine,
God would not have them lose their reward, but made that language which they
taught him to have honour in his writings through all the world, unto this
day. Daniel, according to his computation, continues the holy story from the
first surprising of Jerusalem by the Chaldean Babel, when he himself was
carried away captive, until the last destruction of it by Rome, the mystical
Babel, for so far forward his predictions look, ch. ix. 27. The fables
of Susannah, and of Bel and the Dragon, in both which Daniel is made a party,
are apocryphal stories, which we think we have no reason to give any credit
to, they being never found in the Hebrew or Chaldee, but only in the Greek,
nor ever admitted by the Jewish church. There are some both of the histories
and of the prophecies of this book that bear date in the latter end of the
Chaldean monarchy, and others of both that are dated in the beginning of the
Persian monarchy. But both Nebuchadnezzar's dream, which Daniel interpreted,
and his own visions, point at the Grecian and Roman monarchies, and very
particularly at the Jews' troubles under Antiochus, which it would be of great
use to them to prepare for; as his fixing the very time for the coming of the
Messiah was of use to all those that waited for the consolation of Israel, and
is to us, for the confirming of our belief, That this is he who should come,
and we are to look for no other.
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