The Signs of the Times, vol. 11

September 10, 1885

“Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream” The Signs of the Times, 11, 35.

E. J. Waggoner

THE SABBATH-SCHOOL.

LESSON FOR THE PACIFIC COAST—OCT. 8

Last week our lesson left us with Daniel about to relate and interpret the dream which had made so wonderful an impression on the mind of Nebuchadnezzar, who could not recall any portion of it. This week we have the dream itself, and a portion of the interpretation. Without the least hesitation, Daniel repeated the dream, which we quote entire. SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.1

“Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.” Daniel 2:31-35. SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.2

In this dream, by these symbols, the Lord had shown Nebuchadnezzar what should be “in the latter days.” Verse 28. Beginning with his own time, the history covered by this dream reaches to the end of time. This is shown by the fact that the four divisions of the image, marked by the four different metals, represented four empires, the last of which was to be dashed in pieces by the setting up of the everlasting kingdom of God, represented by the stone which smote the image. Verses 44, 45. Immediately after relating the dream, the prophet addressed the king as follows: “Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.” Verses 37, 38. SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.3

These verses are as plain a statement of fact as any in the Bible. Two things are told. First, that Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom was represented by the head of gold, and second, that his empire was universal. The second item was of course well known to Nebuchadnezzar; the first must have riveted his attention. We say that the head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom, because the prophet immediately adds, “And after thee shall arise another kingdom;” and the Babylonian empire did not give place to another until twenty-three years after the death of Nebuchadnezzar. SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.4

The extent of the empire is indicated in verse 38: “And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.” This means universal dominion. A few years later, the prophet Jeremiah bore testimony to the same effect. The kings of Tyre, Edom, Moab, etc., with Zedekiah, king of Israel, were contemplating a revolt from Babylonian rule. To show them the folly of such an attempt, the prophet, by the command of the Lord, sent messengers to them, saying, “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Thus shall ye say unto your masters; I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me. And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the very time of his land come; and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him.” Jeremiah 4:4-7. SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.5

This language is not figurative nor hyperbolical. It is plain history, and is substantiated by the writings of profane historians. The “Encyclopedia Britannica,” art. “Babylonia,” after telling how Nabopolassar, ruler of the province of Babylonia, revolted from Assyrian rule, says:- SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.6

“The seat of empire was not transferred to the southern kingdom. Nabopolassar was followed in 604 by his son Nebuchadnezzar, whose long reign of forty-three years made Babylon the mistress of the world. The whole east was overrun by the armies of Chaldea, Egypt was invaded, and the city of the Euphrates left without a rival.” SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.7

The city of Babylon is described at great length by Rollin (“Ancient History,” Vol. 1, book 3, chap. 1), and by Prideaux (“Connexion,” Vol. 1, book 2). Our space, however will allow us to give only the brief yet very clear description given by Herodotus, as quoted by Lenormant (“Ancient History of the East,” Vol. 1, book 4, chap. 5, section 3). It is as follows:- SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.8

“The city stands on a broad plain, and is an exact square, a hundred and twenty furlongs in length each way, so that the entire circuit is four hundred and eighty furlongs. While such is its size, in magnificence there is no other city that approaches to it. It is surrounded, in the first place, by a broad and deep moat, full of water, behind which rises a wall of fifty royal cubits in width, and two hundred in height. SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.9

“And here I may not omit to tell the use to which the mould dug out of the great moat was turned, nor the manner wherein the wall was wrought. As fast as they dug the moat, the soil which they got from the cutting was made into bricks, and when a sufficient number were completed, they baked the bricks in kilns. Thus they set to building, and began to brick the borders of the moat; after which they proceeded to construct a wall itself, using throughout for their cement hot bitumen, and interposing a layer of wattled reeds at every thirtieth course of the bricks. On the top, along the edges of the wall, they constructed buildings of a single chamber, facing one another, leaving between them room for a four-horse chariot to turn. In the circuit of the walls are a hundred gates, all of brass, with brazen lintels and side posts. The bitumen used in the work was brought to Babylon from the Is, a small stream which flows into the Euphrates at the point where the city of the same name stands, eight days’ journey from Babylon. Lumps of bitumen are found in great abundance in this river. SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.10

“The city is divided into two portions by the river, which runs through the midst of it. The river is the Euphrates, a broad, deep swift stream, which rises in Armenia and empties itself into the Erythrean [Arabian] Sea. [The river does not flow directly into the Arabian Sea, but into the Persian gulf.] The city wall is brought down on both sides to the edge of the stream; thence from the corners of the wall there is carried along each bank of the river, a fence of burnt bricks. The houses are mostly three and four stories high; the streets all run in straight lines, not only those parallel to the river, but also the cross streets which lead down to the water side. At the river end of these cross streets are low gates in defense that skirts the stream, which are, like the great gates in the outer wall, of brass, and open on the water. SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.11

“The outer wall is the main defense of the city. There is, however, a second, inner wall, of less thickness than the first, but very little inferior to it in strength. The center of each division of the town was occupied by a fortress. In the one stood the palace of the kings, surrounded by a wall of great strength and size; in the other was the sacred precinct of Jupiter Belus, a square inclosure, two furlongs each way, with gates of solid brass, which was also remaining in my time.” SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.12

The royal cubit was twenty-one inches. The reader will therefore see that the outer wall of the city was eighty-seven feet thick, and three hundred and fifty feet high. The city being divided into two parts by the Euphrates, the banks of which were protected by walls, the following means of passage was devised:- SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.13

“In each of these walls were twenty-five gates, corresponding to the number of the streets which gave upon the river; and outside each gate was a sloped landing-place, by which you could descend to the water’s edge, if you had occasion to cross the river. Boats kept ready at these landing-places to convey passengers from side to side; while for those who disliked this method of conveyance, a bridge was provided of a somewhat peculiar construction. A number of stone piers were erected in the bed of the stream, firmly clamped together with fastenings of iron and lead; wooden draw-bridges connected pier with pier during the day, and on these, passengers passed over; but at night they were withdrawn, in order that the bridge might not be used in the dark. Diodorus declares that besides this bridge, to which he assigns a length of five stades (about 1,000 yards), and a breadth of thirty feet, the two sides of the river were joined together by a tunnel, which was fifteen feet wide and twelve high to the spring of its arched roof.”-Seven Great Monarchies (Rawlinson), Fourth Mon., chap. 4, par.6. SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.14

The public buildings of the city were on the same magnificent scale. Of one of them we read:- SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.15

“The most remarkable edifice in Babylon was the temple of Bel, now marked by the Babil on the northeast, as Professor Rawlinson has shown. It was a pyramid of eight square stages, the basement stage being over 200 yards each way. A winding ascent led to the summit, and the shrine, in which stood a golden image of Bel, forty feet high, two other statues of gold, a golden table forty feet long and fifteen feet broad, and many other colossal objects of the same precious material.”-Encyclopedia Britannica, art. Babylon. SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.16

“The great palace was a building of still larger dimensions than the great temple. According to Diodorus, it was situated within a triple incloser, the outermost wall being twenty stades, the second forty stades, and the outermost sixty stades (nearly seven miles), in circumference. The outer wall was built entirely of plain baked brick. The middle and inner walls were of the same material, fronted with enameled bricks representing hunting scenes. The figures, according to this author, were larger than the life, and consisted chiefly of a great variety of animal forms.”-Rawlinson’s Fourth Mon., chap.4, par.9. SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.17

“But the main glory of the palace was its pleasure ground-the ‘hanging gardens,’ which the Greeks regarded as one of the seven wonders of the world. This extraordinary construction, which owed its erection to the whim of a woman, was a square, each side of which measured 400 Greek feet. It was supported upon several tiers of open arches, built one over the other, like the walls of a classic theater, and sustaining at each stage, or story, a solid platform, from which the piers of the next tier of arches rose. The building towered into the air to the height of at least seventy-five feet, and was covered at the top with a great mass of earth, in which there grew not merely flowers and shrubs, but trees also of the largest size. Water was supplied from the Euphrates through pipes, and was raised (it is said) by a screw working on the principle of Archimedes.”-Id., par. 10. SITI September 10, 1885, page 550.18

The city, thus briefly outlined, well deserved the title given to it by the prophet,-“The glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency.” It was brought to this state of grandeur by Nebuchadnezzar, whose life almost measured the length of the empire, and did fully cover the period of its glory. The empire dates, however, from about the accession of his father as governor of Babylon, in 625 B.C. (Encyc. Breit.), and with whom Nebuchadnezzar was associated in the year 606, the date of the beginning of the seventy years’ captivity of the Jews. Three years later, in 603, the prophecy under consideration begins. SITI September 10, 1885, page 551.1

To the mind of man it would seem that the city so substantially built must stand forever, but God had spoken to the contrary. Said he: It “shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.... But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there,” etc. See Isaiah 13:19-22. Also Isaiah 14:23: “I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts.” SITI September 10, 1885, page 551.2

Now learn how completely the “besom of destruction” did its work, and know that no word of the Lord shall ever fail:- SITI September 10, 1885, page 551.3

“The traveler who passes through the land is at first inclined to say that there are no ruins, no remains, of the mighty city which once lorded it over the earth. By and by, however, he begins to see that though ruins, in the common acceptation of the term, scarcely exist, though there are no arches, no pillars, but one or two appearances of masonry even, yet the whole country is covered with traces of exactly that kind which it was prophesied Babylon should have. Vast ‘heaps or mounds, shapeless and unsightly, are scattered at intervals over the entire region where it is certain that Babylon anciently stood, and between the ‘heaps’ the soil is in many places composed of fragments of pottery and bricks, and deeply impregnated with nitre, infallible indications of it having once been covered with buildings.”-Rawlinson, Fourth Mon., chap. 4. par. 15. E. J. W. SITI September 10, 1885, page 551.4

“Whom Shall We Obey?” The Signs of the Times, 11, 35.

E. J. Waggoner

We have received the following from a subscriber in Ohio:- SITI September 10, 1885, page 552.1

“I have been a reader of your paper since last spring, and am much interested in the reading of it. I am of your belief in regard to the Sabbath, but am at a loss to know what to do. The commandment says Sabbath, and our civil law is very strict on Sunday observance. Paul says, ‘Servants, obey your masters,’ ‘Obey the magistrates,’ and many other passages teach us the same thing. If we disobey the law, we disobey the Testament; if we do that, we disobey God. Give me light.” SITI September 10, 1885, page 552.2

This we can easily do. Once Peter and John were brought before the magistrates, and were commanded with threatenings as not to speak any more in the name of Jesus. Without the least hesitation they replied: “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” Acts 4:19, 20. This refusal to obey the command of the magistrates was no idle boast, for when the two apostles were liberated, they went to preaching the same as before. Then the whole company of apostles were arrested and thrown into jail. When they were brought before the rulers, and reminded of the prohibition that had been laid on them, Peter, and all the other apostles answered boldly, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” Acts 5:29. SITI September 10, 1885, page 552.3

It is the duty of every man to live a quiet, peaceful life. We are to submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake (1 Peter 2:13), and to be subject for conscience sake (Romans 13:5). But it would be impossible for a man to break the law of God for the Lord’s sake, or to disobey God for conscience sake. Therefore the sacred writers evidently mean that we are to obey men when civil laws do not interfere with the law of God. We are to be subject to the “higher powers,” but there is no earthly power equal to God. He is the Most High. We say emphatically, that when human laws directly conflict with the law of God, those human laws must be broken. And the man who thus breaks human law, in order that he may keep God’s law, will have a conscience void of offense both toward God and toward man. SITI September 10, 1885, page 552.4

This is one of the first principles of human law. Blackstone in his commentary says that if a law of man is in direct opposition to the law of God, we are in duty bound to break that law. Earthly rulers derive their power from God, therefore they have no power to contravene his will. SITI September 10, 1885, page 552.5

The three Hebrew children in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar, refused to obey the monarch’s of unqualified demand for every one to bow before the image which he had set up. Daniel 3. The fact that their refusal would subject them to serious “inconvenience,” did not affect them in the least. They boldly told the king that they would not disobey God in order to please him, took the consequences, and by their sturdy faithfulness gained a place in the inspired role of honor (Hebrews 11) as those who through faith “quenched the violence of fire.” They did not know, however, that they would be thus delivered, but that made no difference. SITI September 10, 1885, page 552.6

Daniel, also, the only man of whom it is recorded that the Lord sent him a message telling him that he was “greatly beloved,” had a similar experience. He was a faithful servant of the king, leaving no duty unperformed, and yet when a decree was issued interfering with his duty to God, he paid no attention to it. In his forced disregard of the edict, he honored the king with all the respect possible, but much as he honored the king, he honored God more. Who does not know that these faithful men, who dared to obey God in spite of the laws and threats of kings, were more faithful in the surface of the rulers than were any of the troop of time-serving politicians who professed great respect for the laws of men, while they despised the authority of God? SITI September 10, 1885, page 552.7

It is more difficult for people to reason correctly in regard to the Sabbath than about almost anything else. Christians who applaud Daniel and his companions for their course, are afraid to keep the Sabbath of the Lord, lest they should offend man. Suppose the Government should pass a law making it obligatory on men to blaspheme the name of God; would the brother feel that he is in duty bound to swear? Suppose a law should be passed commanding him to steel, would the brother’s conscience compel him to steal? If adultery were made legal, and severe penalties were pronounced against those who should refuse to engage in it, would he feel it to be his plain duty to violate the seventh commandment? Of course he would not. Well, the third, seventh, and eighth commandments are on the same foundation as the fourth. God says: “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in yet thou shalt not do any work.” No man, nor set of men, nor entire nation, has any right to pass a law conflicting with that. They have no right to say that any individual shall not keep that day, or to attempt to compel him to refrain from working on any other day; for the commandment which sets apart the seventh day for rest, also sets apart the other six days for work. If the civil law says, You must keep Sunday instead of the Sabbath, it is not only my privilege, but it is my duty to break that law. Under whatever circumstances we are placed, we must remember that “we ought to obey God rather than men.” That sentence settles the whole matter. SITI September 10, 1885, page 553.1

So far as this special case is concerned, we would say that we have many hundred brethren in Ohio, and none of them have as yet found any serious difficulty in keeping the Sabbath. Should they be brought to the issue where they must decide between God’s law and a conflicting civil law, we trust that they would have no hesitancy in deciding what to do. E. J. W. SITI September 10, 1885, page 553.2