26. I make a decree, That in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel: for he _is_ the living God, and stedfast for ever, and his kingdom _that_ which shall not be destroyed, and his dominion _shall be even_ unto the end. 27. He delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions. 28. So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian. Here ends the historical portion of the book of Daniel. PART II. PROPHETIC SECTION. CHAPTER VII. [HEBREW.] [Sidenote: B.C. 541.] 1. In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, _and_ told the sum of the matters. 2. Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. --The known world.-- 3. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. --Symbolical of Four powerful dynasties.-- [Sidenote: B.C. 490.] 4. The first _was_ like a lion, and had eagle's wings: --Medo-Persian empire.-- I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, --Persia defeated by Greece at Marathon.-- and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given unto it. --Was transformed by Greek art and civilization. 5. And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, --The Hellenes, or Greece and her colonies in their palmy days-- and it raised up itself on one side, --faced in the direction of Persia-- and _it had_ three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: --3 columns of strength, viz:--Athens, Sparta and Thebes. The vision made its appearance 21 years before the Alliance was formed. The ribs therefore, had not knit in place when the heavenly visitor made known the fact of their future union. The alliance lasted 93 years, see Thucydides III. 69.-- and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh --destroy hundreds of thousands in your Persian and civil wars. 6. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, --The Macedonian Empire-- which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it. Philip king of Macedon subjugated the disunited Greek States at the battle of Chaeronea in B.C. 338, and Alexander the Great conquered a kingdom extending from Greece to India in B.C. 336. 7. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, --Roman Empire.-- and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it _was_ diverse --a republic, not a kingdom-- from all the beasts that _were_ before it; and it had 10 horns.