Commentary on Daniel Vol 1 (1-6)

BOOK OF THE PROPHET DANIEL

NOW FIRST TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL LATIN, AND COLLATED WITH THE FRENCH VERSION, WITH DISSERTATIONS, NEW TRANSLATION OF THE TEXT, AND COPIOUS INDICES,

BY THOMAS MEYERS, M.A.

VICAR OF SHERIFF-HUTTON, YORKSHIRE

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE The Prophecies Of Daniel are among the most remarkable Predictions of The Elder Covenant. They are not confined within either a limited time or a contracted space. They relate to the destinies of mighty Empires, and stretch forward into eras still hidden in the bosom of the future. The period of their delivery was a remarkable one in the history of out race. The Assyrian hero had long ago swept away the Ten Tribes from the, land of their fathers, and he in his turn had bowed his head in death, leaving magnificent memorials of his greatness in colossal palaces and gigantic sculptures. The Son of the renowned Sardanapalus, the worshipper of Assarac and Beltis, had already inscribed his name and exploits on those swarthy obelisks and enormous bulls which have lately risen from the grave of centuries. The glory of Nineveah, passed away, to be restored again in these our days by the marvelous excavations at Koyunjik, Khorabad, and Nimroud. Another capital had arisen on the banks of the Euphrates, destined to surpass the ancient splendor of its ruined predecessor on the banks of the Tigris. The worshipper of the eagle-headed Nisroch -- a mighty leader of the Chaldean hordes -- had arisen, and gathering his armies from their mountain homes, had made the palaces and halls of Nineve a desert, had marched southwards against the reigning Pharaoh of Egypt -- had encountered him at Carchemish -- hurried on to The Holy City, and carried away with him to his favorite capital the rebellious people of the Lord. Among them was a captive of no ordinary note. He was at that time a child, yet he lived to see this descendant of the hardy Chasdim grow great in power and fame -- to hear the tale of the fall of Tyre, and "the daughter of the Zidonians," and of the triumph over Pharaoh Hophra, whom modern researches have discovered in the twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt's kings. At length the haughty conqueror returns, and dreams mysteriously. This forgotten prisoner becomes the only interpreter of wondrous visions of Empires about to arise and spread over distant centuries. The dreamer is at length gathered to his fathers, yet the interpreter lives on through the reign of the grandson, and explains a mysterious writing on the palace wall, amidst revelry which ends in the city's overthrow. Cryus and his Persians, Darius and his Medes rise rapidly to power, and the Prophet rises with them -- till envy throws the aged Seer into a lion's den. But he perishes not till he has seen visions of the future history of mankind. The triumphs of Pitasia and Macedon are revealed -- the division of Alexander's Empire -- the wars of his successors -- the wide-spread dominion of Rome -- the overthrow of the Sacred Sanctuary by Titus -- and The Coming Of Messiah to regenerate and to rule the world when the seventy weeks were accomplished.

The Roll of the Book, containing all these surprising announcements, has naturally excited the attention of the Scholars and Divines of all ages. Among the voluminous Comments of the laborious Calvin, none will be received by the British public with more heartfelt interest than his Lectures upon Daniel. The various illustrations of Daniel and the Apocalypse with which the press has always teemed, display the hold which these Divine Oracles have taken of the public mind. Various theories of interpretation have been warmly and even bitterly discussed. The Praeterist, and the Futurist, the German Neologian, and the American Divine, have each written boldly and copiously; and the public of Christendom have read with avidity, because they have been taught that these predictions come home to our own times, and to our modern controversies. Abstruse arguments and historical discussions have been rendered popular, through the expectation of seeing either Pope or Turk, or, perhaps, the Saracen in The Willful King, and The Little Horn. If Napoleon the First, or Napoleon the Second, if an Emperor of Russia, or a Pharaoh of Egypt, can be discovered in the King of the South, pushing at the King of the North -- then the deep significance of the Prophecy to us is at once acknowledged, and the intensity of its brightness descends directly upon our own generation. If the "twelve hundred and ninety Days" of the twelfth Chapter be really years, then the blessing of waiting till "The Time of The End" seems to be upon us, since The French Revolution, and the waning of the Turkish sway, and the Conquests of Britain in the East, are then foretold in these "words" which have hitherto been "closed up and sealed."

Whether any of these theories be true or false, they have exercised a mighty power over the imaginations of modern Writers on Prophecy, and have so attracted the minds of Theologians to the subject, as to give force to the inquiry, What was Calvin's view of these stirring scenes? Without anticipating his Comments, it may be replied, that he disposes of the important question in a few lines. "In numeris non sum Pythagoricus," is the expression of both his wisdom and his modesty. In attempting, however, a solution of these great problems in Prophecy, the opinions of The Reformers are most important, and among them all none stands higher as a deep and original thinker than the Author of these Explanatory Lectures. It is enough for this our Preface to remark, that the bare possibility of the contents of this Book corning home to the daily politics of Europe and the East, adds a charm and a zest to the following pages, which no infirmity in the Commentator can destroy.

In these Introductory Remarks, we shall allude to the present state of opinion respecting the Genuineness and Authenticity of the Book itself, touching upon some of the conjectures advanced since Calvin's time to the present, and adverting to the skepticism of German Neology and the bold speculations of the amiable Arnold. …