"haunt The lucid interspace of world and world,"
and are too far above mankind to mingle with their thoughts.[291]
Thereupon the unreasonable king was angry and very furious, and the decree went forth that the magi were to be slain _en masse_.
How it was that Daniel and his companions were not summoned to help the king, although they had been already declared to be "ten times wiser" than all the rest of the astrologers and magicians put together, is a feature in the story with which the writer does not trouble himself, because it in no way concerned his main purpose. Now, however, since they were prominent members of the magian guild, they are doomed to death among their fellows. Thereupon Daniel sought an interview with Arioch, "the chief of the bodyguard,"[292] and asked with gentle prudence why the decree was so harshly urgent. By Arioch's intervention he gained an interview with Nebuchadrezzar, and promised to tell him the dream and its interpretation, if only the king would grant him a little time--perhaps but a single night.[293]
The delay was conceded, and Daniel went to his three companions, and urged then to join in prayer that God would make known the secret to them and spare their lives. Christ tells us that "if two shall agree on earth as touching anything that they ask, it shall be done for them."[294] The secret was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night, and he blessed "the God of heaven."[295] Wisdom and might are His. Not dependent on "lucky" or "unlucky" days, He changeth the times and seasons;[296] He setteth down one king and putteth up another. By His revelation of deep and sacred things--for the light dwelleth with Him--He had, in answer to their common prayer, made known the secret.[297]
Accordingly Daniel bids Arioch not to execute the magians, but to go and tell the king that he will reveal to him the interpretation of his dream.
Then, by an obvious verbal inconsistency in the story, Arioch is represented as going with haste to the king, with Daniel, and saying that _he_ had found a captive Jew who would answer the king's demands. Arioch could never have claimed any such merit, seeing that Daniel had already given his promise to Nebuchadrezzar in person, and did not need to be described. The king formally puts to Daniel the question whether he could fulfil his pledge; and Daniel answers that, though none of the _Khakhamîm_, _Ashshaphîm_, _Chartummîm_, or _Gazerîm_[298] could tell the king his dream, yet there is a God in heaven--higher, it is implied, than either the genii or those whose dwelling is not with mortals--who reveals secrets, and has made known to the king what shall be in the latter days.[299]
The king, before he fell asleep, had been deeply pondering the issues of the future; and God, "the revealer of secrets,"[300] had revealed those issues to him, not because of any supreme wisdom possessed by Daniel, but simply that the interpretation might be made known.[301]
The king had seen[302] a huge gleaming, terrible colossus of many colours and of different metals, but otherwise not unlike the huge colossi which guarded the portals of his own palace. Its head was of fine gold; its torso of silver; its belly and thighs of brass; its legs of iron; its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.[303] But while he gazed upon it as it reared into the sunlight, as though in mute defiance and insolent security, its grim metallic glare, a mysterious and unforeseen fate fell upon it.[304] The fragment of a rock broke itself loose, not with hands, smote the image upon its feet of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces. It had now nothing left to stand upon, and instantly the hollow multiform monster collapsed into promiscuous ruins.[305] Its shattered fragments became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, and the wind swept them away;[306] but the rock, unhewn by any earthly hands, grew over the fragments into a mountain that filled the earth.