Even while he was yet
speaking came the answer by the mouth of the Angel Gabriel; and not only
was it the present deliverance that it announced, but that from the
building of the street and wall in troublous times, seventy weeks of
years were appointed to bring the Anointed, so long promised, the real
Deliverer.
Daniel's prayers had won, and in the first year of Cyrus, 536, forth
went the joyful decree that Judah should return, build up the city and
Temple, and receive back their sacred vessels and treasure from the
king, to aid them in their work. Daniel being nearly ninety years old,
did not go with them, but remained to protect them at the court of
Babylon. Cyrus set up his uncle, who is commonly called Darius, to be
king in Babylon, while he returned to Persia; and Daniel, though so old
a man, was made one of the chief rulers under him, one of the three
presidents over the hundred and twenty satraps or princes over the
provinces of the great Persian empire. The envy of the Medes caused
them to persuade Darius by foolish flattery to say that whoever for a
month should make request of god or man, save of the king, should be
cast into a den of lions, and Daniel, who was not likely in his old
age to cease from prayer to his God for any terror of man, endured the
penalty, much against the king's will; but only that again God's power
might be known among the heathen, and His glory proclaimed by the
shutting the mouths of the hungry lions.
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