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relation to Israel, till the time of the Messianic kingdom (Daniel 2 and 7), but lingers particularly in the period lying at the beginning of this development, i.e., in the heathen kingdoms standing nearest the exiles, namely, the Chaldean kingdom and that of the Medes which subdued it (Daniel 6). The second part (Daniel 8-12), on the contrary, passing from the Chaldean kingdom, lingers on the development of the heathen world-power towards the time of its end, in the Javanic form of power, and on the Median and Persian kingdom only in so far as it immediately precedes the unfolding of the power of Javan. But, setting aside this explanation of the world-kingdoms, with which we do not agree, the contents of Daniel 9 are altogether overlooked in this view of the relations between the two parts, inasmuch as this chapter does not treat of the development of the heathen world-power, but of the kingdom of God and of the time of its consummation determined by God. If we inspect more narrowly the contents of the first part, we find an interruption of the chronological order pervading the book, inasmuch as events (Daniel 6) belonging to the time of the Median king Darius are recorded before the visions (Daniel 7 and 8) in the first and third year of the Chaldean king Belshazzar. The placing of these events before that vision can have no other ground than to allow historical incidents of a like kind to be recorded together, and then the visions granted to Daniel, without any interruption. Hence has arisen the appearance of the book's being divided into two parts, an historical and a prophetical.
In order to discover a right division, we must first endeavour to make clear the meaning of the historical incidents recorded in Daniel 3-6, that we may determine their relations to the visions in Daniel 2 and 7. The two intervening chapters 4 and 5 are like the second chapter in this, that they speak of revelations which the possessors of the world-power received, and that, too, revelations of the judgment which they drew upon themselves by their boastful pride and violence against the sanctuaries of the living God. To Nebuchadnezzar, the founder of the world-power, when he boasted (Daniel 4) of the building of great Babylon as a royal residence by his great might, it was revealed in a dream that he should be cast down from his height and debased among the beasts of the field, till he should learn that the Most High rules over the kingdom of men. To king Belshazzar (Daniel 5), in the midst of his riotous banquet, at which he desecrated the vessels of the holy temple at Jerusalem, was revealed, by means of a handwriting on the wall,