MEANWHILE A SMALL TRIBE OF PERSIAN SHEPHERDS HAD GONE ON THE WARPATH AND HAD DESTROYED THE MIGHTY EMPIRES OF WESTERN ASIA.CYRUS,THE PERSIAN KING,ALLOWED THE JEWISH EXILES TO RETURN TO THEIR OWN COUNTRY.THE MAJORITY OF THE JEWS,HOWEVER,WERE PERFECTLY HAPPY IN THE COMFORTABLE BABYLONIAN CITIES AND REMAINED WHERE THEY WERE.BUT A SMALL MINORITY,WHICH TOOK ITS RELIGIOUS DUTIES SERIOUSLY,RETURNED TO THE RUINS OF JERUSALEM,REBUILT THE TEMPLE AND MADE IT THE ABSOLUTE AND ONLY CENTRE OF THE WORSHIP OF JEHOVAH FOR ALL THE JEWS IN EVERY PART OF THE WORLD
Early during the seventh century before the birth of Christ a small Semitic tribe,called the Kaldi (or Chaldeans),had left its desert home in Arabia and had moved northward.
After many adventures and several unsuccessful attempts to break into the domains of Assyria,the Kaldi had at last made common cause with the wild mountain-people who lived to the east of the Mesopotamian plain.
Together they had defeated the Assyrian armies and had taken and destroyed the city of Nineveh.
Upon the ruins of the old empire,Nabopolassar,the chiefrain of the Chaldeans,had then founded a kingdom of his own which is now called New Babylonia by some historians and Chaldea by others.
His son,Nebuchadnezzar,had greatly strengthened the boundaries of his inheritance.And Babylon had become (what it had been three thousand years before)the centre of the old civilized world.
During his interminable war with his neighbours,Nebuchadnezzar had overrun and had conquered that remnant of the old Jewish state which was known as Judah,and he had transplanted several colonies of Judaeans (or Jews)from the shores of the Mediterranean to the banks of the Euphrates.
His relations,however,with his Jewish subjects were pleasant enough,although somewhat indifferent.
Like all stern monarchs,Nebuchadnezzar took a great interest in fortune-telling.The man who could successfully explain a dream was certain to find favour in the eyes of the King.
Such a man,it seems,was the prophet Daniel.
According to the book which bears his name (but which was written four hundred years later)Daniel was a young Judaean prince who had been taken,together with three of his young cousins,to Babylon that he might there be educated at the Chaldean court.
The four boys were very faithful servants of Jehovah.
They obeyed his holy laws in all details.
For example,when they were given the regular palace food,they refused to eat it and insisted upon meat and vegetables which had been prepared according to those ancestral regulations which prescribed in detail how cows and sheep should be slaughtered and how vegetables should be cooked.
Fortunately,the Chaldeans were tolerant and easy-going and the little captives were given whatever they asked for.
They were diligent and eager boys.
They learned all that the Babylonian schools could teach them and promised to be useful subjects of their adopted country.
Now it happened during the last years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign that the old King had a dream.
He called his “wise men”together and bade them explain it to him on pain of death.The “wise men,”quite reasonably,said:“Tell us the dream,Your Majesty,and we shall do our best to give you an explanation.”
“I have forgotten my dream,”he answered.“But I know positively that I dreamed something or other.It is your business to tell me both what I dreamed and what it means.”
The magicians begged for mercy.
They asked their ruler to be reasonable.
“How can any man tell another that which the other does not know himself?”they shouted.
Eastern tyrants,however,are not interested in such details.
Without further ado,Nebuchadnezzar condemned all his “wise men”to the gallows.
He seems to have been in a bad humour on that particular day.He gave orders to kill not only these particular men who had failed in their duty,but to rid his court once for all of every magician and sorcerer.
An officer was despatched to the quarters of Daniel and his friends that they might share the fate of all their fellow-conjurors.
But Daniel,who in many respects was like Joseph,had made friends with the military men at the Babylonian court.He asked the captain of the guard to give him a short respite.
Meanwhile,he would try to see what he could do.
He laid himself down to sleep and immediately Jehovah revealed to him the dream which Nebuchadnezzar had most inadvertently lost.
The next morning,the captain,whose name was Arioch,took Daniel before Nebuchadnezzar.The King was still greatly worried and was willing to give this young foreigner a chance.
Daniel first retold the dream,a strange story connected with the political events of four hundred years later.
Then he explained it.
As a result of his cleverness,he gained the everlasting gratitude of his royal master,who made him governor of the city of Babylon and who appointed Shadrach,Meshach and Abednego,his three companions,to be the rulers of three rich provinces.
All this was very pleasant but it did not last long.For,according to the unknown author of these Chapters,Nebuchadnezzar,in his dotage,became addicted to a form of imageworship which was as foreign to the taste of the intelligent Chaldeans as to that of the Jews.
He ordered a large statue to be made.It was ninety feet high and nine feet wide and entirely covered with gold.It stood in the plain of Dura where it could be seen from far and wide.At a given signal (the blowing of many trumpets)all the people of the country were expected to prostrate themselves before this image and to worship it.
Shadrach,Meshach and Abednego,however,could not do this.They remembered the Second Commandment.They refused to obey the royal edict.All the people went down upon their faces,but Shadrach,Meshach and Abednego remained standing upright.
They knew the punishment which awaited them.