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belief that it acts independently, - that it rules and governs in the world, - that even the future, to a certain degree, is in its hands. The Lord must show to it that it is only an instrument in His hand for the furthering of His plans, - that He is the only independent agent in history, - that it is He who directs the course of the whole world, and therefore that all that happens to His people in His own work. And He must, on this account, lay open to it the whole future, that He may show to it that He knows it all, even to the very minutest events, - that it all lies like a map before His eyes, - and that to Him it is history; for He who fully knows the whole future must also be the same who governs the whole development of the world. Omnipotence cannot be separated from omniscience.” Only by virtue of such acts of God could the shaking of the faith of the heathen in the reality and power of their gods, effected through the fall and destruction of one world-kingdom after another, become an operative means for the preparation of the heathen world beforehand for the appearance of the Saviour who should arise out of Judah.
But as all the revelations of God were first and principally intended for Israel, so also the wonderful manifestations of the divine omnipotence and omniscience in the exile, which are recorded in the book of Daniel. The wonders of God in Egypt had their relation to Israel not only in their primary bearing on their deliverance from the house of bondage in Egypt, but also in a far wider respect: they were intended to show actually to Israel that Jehovah, the God of their fathers, possessed the power to overcome all the hindrances which stood in the way of the accomplishing of His promises. With the dissolution of the kingdom of Judah, the destruction of Jerusalem, the burning of the temple, and the dethronement of the royal house of David, the cessation of the offering up of the Levitical sacrifices, the carrying away of the king, the priests, and the people into bondage, the kingdom of God was destroyed, the covenant relation dissolved, and Israel, the people of Jehovah, driven forth from their own land among the heathen, were brought into a new Egyptian slavery (cf. Deu 28:68; Hos 8:13; Hos 9:3). The situation into which Israel fell by the carrying away into Babylon was so grievous and so full of afflictions, that the earnest-minded and the pious even might despair, and doubt the covenant faithfulness of God. The predictions by the earlier prophets of their deliverance from exile, and their return to the land of their fathers after the period of chastisement had