b shazzar must have been the laft Babylonish king, and confequently the Nabonadius of Ptolemy. 3dly, This laft king was not a ftranger to the family of Nebuchadnezzar; for the facred text makes him his defcendant. 4thly, Darius is faid to have governed the kingdom by the laws of the Medes and Perfians; which cannot be fuppofed, till after the Medes and Perfians had conquered that kingdom. Had this Darius been Nabonadius the Babylonish king, he would certainly have governed by the Babylonifh laws, and not by the laws of his enemies, the Medes and Perfians, who were in hoftility againft him all his reign, and fought his ruin. 5thly, Darius is faid to have divided his empire into 120 provinces, which could not have been true of the Babylonifh empire, that never having been large enough for it. But it must be understood of the Perfian empire only, which was vaftly larger. And afterwards, on the conqueft of Egypt by Cambyfes, and of Thrace and India by Darius Hyftafpis, it had feven other provinces added to its former number; and therefore, in the time of Efther, it confifted of 127 provinces. And this having been the divifion of the Perfian empire at that time, it fufficiently proves the former to have been of the fame empire alfo: for if the Perfian empire from India to Ethiopia contained but 127 provinces, the empire of Babylon alone, which was not the feventh part of the other, could not contain 120. The testimony which Scaliger brings to prove Nabonadius to have been. a Mede by defcent, and by election made king of Babylon, is very abfurd. In the prophecy of Nebuchadnezzar, delivered to the Babylonians a little before his death, concerning their future fubjection to the Perfians, which is preferved in the fragments of Megafthenes, there are thefe words: A Perfian mule fhall come, who, by the help of your own gods fighting for him, fhall bring flavery upon you, whofe affiftant, or fellow-caufer herein, thall be the Mede.' By which Mede is plainly meant Cyaxares, king of Media, who was confederate with Cyrus in the war, wherein Babylon was conquered. But Scaliger faith it was Nabonadius; and hence proves that he was a Mede, and quotes this place in Megafthenes for it. If you ask him, why he faith this, his answer is, that the perfon, who is in that prophecy faid to be the affiftant of Cyrus, and fellow-caufer with him in bringing fervitude upon Babylon, muft be Nabonadius, because he was an affiftant and fellow-caufer with him herein in being beaten and conquered by him. This argument needs no answer, it is fufficiently refuted by being related. And therefore Ifaac Voffius well Daniel v. 11. 13. 18. 22. Daniel vi. r. d Apud Eufeb. Præp. Evan. lib. 9. well obferves, that the arguments which Scaliger brings for this are indigna Scaligero, i. e. unworthy of Scaliger. Chronologia Sacra, p. 144. C After Cyrus had fettled his affairs at Babylon, a he went into Perfia, to make a vifit to his father and mother, they being both yet living; and, on his return through Media, he there married the daughter of Cyaxares, having with her for her dowry the kingdom of Media, in reverfion after her father's death; for fhe was his only child: and then with his new wife he went back to Babylon. And Cyaxares, being earnestly invited by him thither, accompanied him in the journey. On their arrival at Babylon, they there took counsel, in concert together, for the fettling of the whole empire; and, having divided it into the 120 provinces which I have before spoken of, they diftributed the government of them among thofe that had born with Cyrus the chief burden of the war, and beft merited from him in it. Over thefe were appointed three presidents, who, conftantly refiding at court, were to receive from them, from time to time, an account of all particulars relating to their refpective government, and again remit to them the king's orders concerning them. And therefore, in these three, as the chief minifters of the king, was intrufted the fuperintendency and main government of the whole empire. And of them Daniel was made the firft. To which preference, not only his great wifdom (which was of eminent fame all over the Eaft), but alfo his feniority, and long experience in affairs, gave him the jufteft title: for he had now, from the fecond year of Nebuchadnezzar, been employed full 65 years as a prime minister of state under the kings of Babylon. However, this ftation advancing him to be the next perfon to the king in the whole empire, it ftirred up fo great an envy against him among the other courtiers, that they laid that inare for him, which caft him into the lions den. But he being there delivered by a miracle from all harm, this malicious contrivance ended in the destruction of its authors: and Daniel being thenceforth immoveably fettled in the favour of Darius and Cyrus, he profpered greatly in their time, as long as he lived. In the first year of Darius, Daniel computing, that the feventy years of Judah's captivity, which were prophefied of by the prophet Jeremiah, were now drawing to an end, f earneitly prayed unto God, that he would remember his people, and grant reftoration to Jerufalem, and make his face again to shine upon the holy city, and his fanctuary, which he bad placed there. I 3 Whereon, Whereon, in a vifion, he had affurance given him by the angel Gabriel, not only of the deliverance of Judah from their temporal captivity, under the Babylonians, but alfo of a much greater redemption, which God would give his church in his deliverance of them from their fpiritual captivity under fin and Satan, to be accomplished at the end of 70 weeks, after the going forth of the commandment to rebuild Jerufalem, that is, at the end of 490 years. For, taking each day for an year, according as is ufual in the prophetic ftile of fcripture, fo many years 70 weeks of years will amount to, which is the cleareft prophecy of the coming of the Meffiah that we have in the Old Teftament: for it determines it to the very time, on which he accordingly came, and by his death and paffion, and refurrection from the dead. completed for us the great work of our falvation. Cyrus, immediately on his return to Babylon, had iffued out his orders for all his forces to come thither to him, which, at a general muster, he found to be 120,000 horse, 2000 fithed chariots, and 600,000 foot. Of these having diftributed into garrifons as many as were neceffary for the defence of the feveral parts of the empire, he marched with the reft in an expedition into Syria, where he fettled all thofe parts of the empire; reducing all under him as far as the Red fea, and the confines of Ethiopia. In the interim Cyaxares (whom the fcriptures call Darius the Median) ftaid at Babylon, and there governed the affairs of the empire, and during that time happened what hath been above related concerning Daniel's being caft into the lion's den, and his miraculous deliverance from it. d And, about the fame time, feem to have been coined those famous pieces of gold called Darics which, by reafon of their fineness, were for feveral ages preferred before all other coin throughout all the Eaft: for we are told that the author of this coin was not Darius Hyftafpis, as fome have imagined, but an ancienter Darius. But there is no ancienter Darius mentioned to have reigned in the Eaft, excepting only this Darius, whom the feripture calls Darius the Median. And therefore it is moft likely, that he was the author of this coin, and that, during the two years that he reigned at Babylon, while Cyrus was abfent from thence on his Syrian, Egyptian, and other expeditions, he caufed it to be made there, out of the vast quantity of gold, which had been brought thither into the treafury, as the fpoils of the war which he and Cyrus had been fo long engaged in; from d Harpocrat on. Scholiaftes Ariftophanis ad Ecclef. p. 741. 742. Suidas tub voce Axpenis. b from whence it became difperfed all over the Eaft, and alfo into Greece, where it was of great reputation. According to Dr Bernard, it weighed two grains more than one of our guineas; but the fineness added much more to its value; for it was in a manner all of pure gold, having none or at leaft very little alloy in it; and therefore may be well reckoned, as the proportion of gold and filver now ftands with us in refpect to each other, to be worth 25 fhillings of our money. In thofe parts of fcripture which were written after the Babylonish captivity, thefe pieces are mentioned by the name of Adarkonim, and in the Talmudifts by the name of Darkonoth, both from the Greek Auguxoi, i. e. Darics. And it is to be observed, that all thofe pieces of gold, which were afterwards coined of the fame weight and value by the fucceeding kings, not only of the Perfian but alfo of the Macedonian race, were all called Darics, from the Darius that was the first author of them. And these were either whole Darics or half Darics, as with us there are guineas and half guineas. с But, about two years after, Cyaxares dying, and Cambyfes being alfo dead in Perfia, d Cyrus returned, and took on him the whole government of the empire; over which he reigned seven years. His reign is reckoned, from his firft coming out of Perfia, with an army for the affiftance of Cyaxares, to his death, to have been 30 years; from the taking of Babylon nine years, and from his being fole monarch of the whole empire, after the death of Cyaxares and Cambyfes, feven years. Tully reckons by the first account, f Ptolemy by the fecond, and Xenophon by the third. And the first of these seven years, is that first year of Cyrus mentioned in the firft verfe of the book of Ezra, wherein an end was put to the captivity of Judah, and a licence given them, by a public decree of the king's, again to return into their own country. The feventy years, which Jeremiah had prophefied should be the continuance of this captivity, were now just expired: for it began a year and two months before the death of Nabopollaflar,after that Nebuchadnezzar reigned 43 years, Evilmerodach two years, Nerigliffar four years, Belshazzar 17 years, and Darius the Median two years; which being all put together, make juft 69 years and two months; and, 1.4 Cyrop. lib. 8. Where Xenophon faith, that Cyrus reigned after the death of Cyaxares feven years. and, if you add hereto ten months more to complete the said 70 years, it will carry down the end of them exactly into the fame month, in the first year of Cyrus, in which it began in the laft fave one of Nabopollaffar, i. e. in the 9th month of the Jewish year, which is the November of ours. For in that month Nebuchadnezzar first took Jerufalem, and carried great numbers of the people into captivity, as hath bee: before related. And that their release from it happened alfo in the fame month may be thus inferred from fcripture. The first time the Jews are found at Jerufalem after their return, was in their Nifan, i. e. in our April, as will hereafter be fhewn. If you allow them four months for their march thither from Babylon (which was the timea in which Ezra performed the like march), the beginning of that march will fall in the middle of the December preceding. And if you allow a month's time after the decree of releafe for their preparing for that journey, it will fix the end of the faid captivity, which they were then releafed from, exactly in the middle of the month of November, in the first year of Cyrus; which was the very time on which it began, juft 70 years before. And that this firft of Cyrus is not to be reckoned, with Ptolemy, from the taking of Babylon, and the death of Belshazzar, but with Zenophon, from the death of Darius the Mede, and the fucceffion of Cyrus into the government of the whole empire, appears from hence, that this laft is plainly the fcripture reckoning for therein, after the taking of Babylon, and the death of Belshazzar, Darius the Mede b is named in the fucceffion before Cyrus the Perfian, and the years of the reign of Cyrus are not there reckoned, till the years of the reign of Darius had ceased; and therefore, according to fcripture, the first of Cyrus cannot be till after the death of Darius. с There can be no doubt, but that this decree in favour of the Jews was obtained by Daniel, When Cyrus firft came into Babylon, on his taking the city, he found him there an old minifter of ftate, famed for his great wifdom all over the Eaft, and long experienced in the management of the public affairs of the government; and fuch counsellors wife kings always feek for: and, morcover, his late reading of the wonderful hand-writing on the wall, which had puzzled all the wife men of Babylon befides, and the event which happened immediately after, exacly agreeable to his interpretation, had inade a very great and fresh addition to his reputation; and therefore, on Cyrus's having made himfelf mafter of the city, he was foon called for, as a perfon that was beft able to advife and direct about the fettling of the go a Ezra vii. 9. Daniel vi. 40. vernment Compare Daien! ix. 1. with the reth chap. ver. 1. |