Verses 17-21 Daniel and his fellows kept to their religion and God rewarded them with eminence in learning. Conscientious temperance will always do more, even for the comfort of this life, than sinful indulgence. People will not believe the benefit of avoiding excess, and of a spare diet, nor how much they contribute to the health of the body, unless they try. And we cannot better improve our interest in any with whom we have found favour, than to use it to keep us from sin. It is easier to keep temptation at a distance, than to resist it when near. Daniel avoided defiling himself with sin and we should more fear that than any outward trouble. Those who would excel in wisdom and piety, must learn betimes to keep the body under. It is much to the praise of young people, not to covet or seek the delights of sense. When God's people are in Babylon they need take special care that they partake not of her sins. These youths scrupled concerning the meat, lest it should be sinful. Whatever they called him, he still held fast the spirit of an Israelite. Verses 8-16 The interest we think we make for ourselves, we must acknowledge to be God's gift. It is painful to reflect how often public education tends to corrupt the principles and morals. All their Hebrew names had something of God in them but to make them forget the God of their fathers, the Guide of their youth, the heathen gave them names that savoured of idolatry. Nebuchadnezzar ordered that these chosen youths should be taught. It is the interest of princes to employ wise men and it is their wisdom to find out and train up such. From this first captivity, most think the seventy years are to be dated. Verses 1-7 Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, took Jerusalem, and carried whom and what he pleased away. (1-7) Their refusal to eat the king's meat. The captivity of Daniel and his companions. Though there are considerable difficulties in explaining the prophetical meaning of some passages in this book, we always find encouragement to faith and hope, examples worthy of imitation, and something to direct our thoughts to Christ Jesus upon the cross and on his glorious throne. The book of Daniel is partly historical, relating various circumstances which befel himself and the Jews, at Babylon but is chiefly prophetical, detailing visions and prophecies which foretell numerous important events relative to the four great empires of the world, the coming and death of the Messiah, the restoration of the Jews, and the conversion of the Gentiles. He was persecuted for his religion, but was miraculously delivered and lived to a great age, as he must have been about ninety-four years old at the time of the last of his visions. He was there taught the learning of the Chaldeans, and held high offices, both under the Babylonian and Persian empires. He was carried captive to Babylon in the fourth year of Jehoiachin, B. Daniel was of noble birth, if not one of the royal family of Judah.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |