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of the God of Israel. This testimony is given in the following book. Daniel 2 contains a remarkable dream of Nebuchadnezzar, which none of the Chaldean wise men could tell to the king or interpret. But God made it known to Daniel in answer to prayer, so that he could declare and explain to the king the visions he saw in his dream, representing the four great world-powers, and their destruction by the everlasting kingdom of God. Daniel 3 describes the wonderful deliverance of Daniel's three friends from the burning fiery furnace into which they were thrown, because they would not bow down to the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Daniel 4 (in Heb. text 3:31-4:34) contains an edict promulgated by Nebuchadnezzar to all the peoples and nations of his kingdom, in which he made known to them a remarkable dream which had been interpreted to him by Daniel, and its fulfilment to him in his temporary derangement, - a beast's heart having been given unto him as a punishment for his haughty self-deification, - and his recovery from that state in consequence of his humbling himself under the hand of the almighty God. Daniel 4 makes mention of a wonderful handwriting which appeared on the wall during a riotous feast, and which king Belshazzar saw, and the interpretation of it by Daniel. Daniel 6 narrates Daniel's miraculous deliverance from the den of lions into which the Median king Darius had thrown him, because he had, despite of the king's command to the contrary, continued to pray to his God.
The remaining chapters contain visions and divine revelations regarding the development of the world-powers and of the kingdom of God vouchsafed to Daniel. The seventh sets forth a vision, in which, under the image of four ravenous beasts rising up out of the troubled sea, are represented the four world-powers following one another. The judgment which would fall upon them is also revealed. The eighth contains a vision of the Medo-Persian and Greek world-powers under the image of a ram and a he-goat respectively, and of the enemy and desolater of the sanctuary and of the people of God arising out of the last named kingdom; the ninth, the revelation of the seventy weeks appointed for the development and the completion of the kingdom of God, which Daniel received in answer to earnest prayer for the pardon of his people and the restoration of Jerusalem; and, finally, Daniel 10-12 contain a vision, granted in the third year of the reign of Cyrus, with further disclosures regarding the Persian and the Grecian world-powers, and the wars of the kingdoms of the north