Jewish people, and the consolation of the faithful amid all their national calamities.

II. The prophecy of Habakkuk consists of two parts; the first is in the form of a dialogue between God and the prophet, and the second is a sublime ode or hymn, which was probably intended to be used in the public service.

PART I. The prophet complaining of the growth of iniquity among the Jews (i. 1-4.), God is introduced, announcing the Babylonish captivity as a punishment for their wickedness. (5-11.) The prophet then humbly expostulates with God for punishing the Jews by the instrumentality of the Chaldæans. (12-17. ii. 1.) In answer to this complaint, God replies that he will, in due time, perform his promises to his people, of deliverance by the Messiah (implying also the nearer deliverance by Cyrus). (ii. 2-4.) The destruction of the Babylonish empire is then foretold, together with the judgment that would be inflicted upon the Chaldæans for their covetousness, cruelty, and idolatry. (5—20.)

PART II. contains the prayer or psalm of Habakkuk, in which he implores God to hasten the deliverance of his people (iii. 1, 2.), and takes occasion to recount the wonderful works of the Almighty in conducting his people through the wilderness, and giving them posSession of the promised land (3-16): whence he encourages himself and other pious persons to rely upon God for making good his promises to their posterity in after ages.

III. Habakkuk holds a distinguished rank among the sacred poets; whoever reads his prophecy must be struck with the grandeur of his imagery and the sublimity of its style, especially of the hymn in the third chapter, which Bishop Lowth considers one of the most perfect specimens of the Hebrew ode. Michaelis, after a close examination, pronounces him to be a great imitator of former poets, but with some new additions of his own, which are characterised by brevity, and by no common degree of sublimity. Compare Hab. ii. 12. with Mic. iii. 10., and Hab. ii. 14. with Isa. xi. 9,

SECTION IV.

ON THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET DANIEL.

I. Author and date. II. Analysis of its contents.-III. Observations on its canonical authority and style. — IV. Account of the spurious additions made to it.

BEFORE CHRIST, 606-534.

I. DANIEL, the fourth of the greater prophets, if not of royal birth, (as the Jews affirm), was of noble descent, and was carried captive to Babylon at an early age, in the fourth year of Jehoiachin

king of Judah, in the year 606 before the Christian æra, and seven years before the deportation of Ezekiel. Having been instructed in the language and literature of the Chaldæans, he afterwards held a very distinguished office in the Babylonian empire. (Dan. i. 1-4.) He was contemporary with Ezekiel, who mentions his extraordinary piety and wisdom (Ezek. xiv. 14. 20.), and the latter even at that time seems to have become proverbial. (Ezek. xxviii. 3.) Daniel lived in great credit with the Babylonian monarchs: and his uncommon merit procured him the same regard from Darius and Cyrus, the two first sovereigns of Persia. He lived throughout the captivity, but it does not appear that he returned to his own country when Cyrus permitted the Jews to revisit their native land. The PseudoEpiphanius, who wrote the lives of the prophets, says that he died at Babylon; and this assertion has been adopted by most succeeding writers; but as the last of his visions, of which we have any account, took place in the third year of Cyrus, about 534 years before the Christian æra, when he was about ninety-four years of age, and resided at Susa on the Tigris, it is not improbable that he died there. Although the name of Daniel is not prefixed to his book, the many passages in which he speaks in the first person sufficiently prove that he was the author. He is not reckoned among the prophets by the Jews since the time of Jesus Christ, who say that he lived the life of a courtier in the court of the king of Babylon, rather than that of a prophet: and they further assert, that, though he received divine revelations, yet these were only by dreams and visions of the night, which they consider as the most imperfect mode of revelation. But Josephus, one of the most antient profane writers of that nation, accounts Daniel one of the greatest of the prophets; and says that he conversed familiarly with God, and not only predicted future events (as other prophets did) but also determined the time in which they should happen.1

II. The book of Daniel may be divided into two parts. The first is historical, and contains a relation of various circumstances that happened to himself and to the Jews, under several kings at Babylon; the second is strictly prophetical, and comprises the visions and prophecies with which he was favoured, and which enabled him to foretel numerous important events relative to the monarchies of the world, the time of the advent and death of the Messiah, the restoration of the Jews, and the conversion of the Gentiles.

PART I. contains the historical part of the book of Daniel (ch. i.—vi.), forming six sections, viz.

SECT. 1. The education of Daniel and his companions at Babylon, on being carried thither from the land of Judah by order of Nebuchadnezzar. (ch. i.)

SECT. 2. Nebuchadnezzar's dream concerning an image composed of different metals (ii. 1—13.); the interpretation thereof communicated to Daniel (14-23.), who reveals it to the monarch (24-35.), and interprets it of the four great monarchies.

I Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. x. c. 11. § 7.

The

head of gold represented the Babylonion empire (32.); the breast and arms, which were of silver, represented the Medo-Persian empire (32. 39.); the brazen belly and thighs represented the Macedo-Grecian empire (32.39.); the legs and feet, which were partly of iron and partly of clay, represented the Roman empire (33. 40-43.), which would bruise and break to pieces every other kingdom, but in its last stage should be divided into ten smaller kingdoms, denoted by the ten toes of the image. The stone, "cut out of the mountain without hands, which brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold" (34, 35.), represented the kingdom of the Messiah, which was "to fill the whole earth," become universal, and stand for ever. (44, 45.) This section concludes with an account of the promotion of Daniel and his friends to distinguished honour.

SECT. 3. An account of the miraculous preservation of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who, having refused to worship a golden image that had been set up by Nebuchadnezzar, were cast into a fiery furnace. (iii.)

SECT. 4. Nebuchadnezzar having been punished, on account of his pride, with the loss of his reason, and driven from the conversa❤ tion of men, is restored to reason and to his throne; and by a public instrument proclaims to the world Daniel's interpretation of his dream, and extols the God of heaven. (iv.) SECT. 5. While Belshazzar is rioting in his palace, and profaning the sacred vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem, he is suddenly terrified with the figure of a hand inscribing certain words on the wall which Daniel interprets. Belshazzar is slain, and the Babylonian empire is transferred to the Medes and Persians. (v.)

SECT. 6. Daniel being promoted to the highest office in the empire under Darius, a conspiracy is formed against him. The prophet, being in consequence cast into a den of lions, is miraculously preserved; and Darius publishes a decree that all men should glorify the God of Daniel. (vi.)

PART II. comprises various prophecies and visions of things future, until the advent and death of the Messiah, and the ultimate conversion of the Jews and Gentiles to the faith of the Gospel, in four sections. (ch. vi.-xii.)

SECT. 1. The vision of the four beasts concerning the four great monarchies of the world: it was delivered about forty-eight years after Nebuchadnezzar's dream related in ch. ii. but with some different circumstances. The first beast (4.) represented the Babylonian empire: the second (5.) the Medo-Persian empire; the third (6.), the Macedo-Grecian empire; and the fourth (7.), the Roman empire. The ten horns of this beast denote ten kingdoms or principalities which arose out of it, and were signified by the ten toes of the image. (ii. 41, 42.) These ten kingdoms or principalities are variously enumerated by different writers, who have supported their respective hypotheses with great learning and ingenuity, for which we must refer the reader to their works. The following table however will exhibit the result of their elaborate researches.

3 In Lowth's Commentary on the Prophets, pp. 381, 382. 6 Dissertations on the Prophecies, vol. i. p. 267.

The number of these kingdoms was not constantly ten, there being sometimes more and sometimes fewer; but Sir Isaac Newton observes, whatever was their number afterwards, they are still called the ten kings from their first number. Besides these ten horns or kingdoms, there was to spring up another little horn (vii. 8. 24.) which Grotius and others have erroneously applied to Antiochus Epiphanes: but which is generally conceived to denote the pope of Rome, whose power as a horn or temporal prince was established in the eighth century. All the kingdoms above described, will be succeeded by the kingdom of Messiah. (9-13. 27.) SECT. 2. In Daniel's vision of the ram and the he-goat is foretold the destruction of the Medo-Persian empire (typified by the ram, which was the armorial ensign of the Persian empire,) by the Greeks or Macedonians under Alexander, represented by the hegoat because the Macedonians, at first, about two hundred years before Daniel, were denominated Ægeada, or the goat's people, as their first seat was called Eges or Ægæ, or goat's town, a goat being their ensign. (viii. 1-7. 20-22.) The four "notable" horns, that sprang up on the fracture of the great horn (S. 23.) denote the four kingdoms of Greece, Thrace, Syria, and Egypt, erected by Cassander, Lysimachus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy. The little horn which is described as arising among the four horns of the Grecian empire (9-12. 23, 24.), is by many Jewish and Christian commentators understood to mean Antiochus Epiphanes, to which hypothesis Mr. Wintle inclines; but Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, and Dr. Hales, have clearly shown that the Roman temporal power, and no other, is intended for, although some of the particulars may agree very well with that king, yet others can by no means be reconciled to him; while all of them agree and correspond exactly with the Romans, and with no other power whatever it was the Roman power that destroyed the polity and temple of the Jews, and left the nation and holy city in that desolate state in which they are to remain to the end of two thousand three hundred prophetic days, that is, years. (13, 14. 24, 25, 26.) The distress of Daniel (17. 27.) on learning the great and lasting calamities that were to befal his nation, represents him in a very amiable light both as a patriot and as a prophet, and gives an additional lustre to his glory and exalted character.

SECT. 3. While Daniel, understanding from the prophecies of Jeremiah (compare Jer. xxv. 11, 12. xxix. 10.) that the seventy years' captivity was now drawing to a close (Dan. ix. 1, 2.), was engaged in fasting and prayer for the restoration of Jerusalem (3-19.), the angel Gabriel is sent to him. (20-23.) He announces to the prophet that the holy city should be rebuilt and peopled, and should continue so for seventy (prophetic) weeks, or four hundred and ninety years; at the expiration of which it should be utterly destroyed for putting the Messiah to death. (25. 27.) The commencement of this period is fixed (25.) to the time when the order was issued for rebuilding the temple in the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes. (Ezra vii. 11.) Seven weeks, or forty-nine years, was the temple in building