ms. Now at the
end of the days that the king had said he should bring them
in, then the prince of the eunuchs brought them in before
Nebuchadnezzar. And the king communed with them; and among
them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and
Azariah: therefore stood they before the king. And in all
matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of
them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians
and astrologers that were in all his realm."

The Hebrew children that king Nebuchadnezzar desired to be brought were
to be already possessed of knowledge; they were to be further instructed
in the learning and tongue of the Chaldeans. But when the four Hebrew
children were brought before the king, and he communed with them, he
found them wiser than his own wise men.

No account is given of the questions asked by the king, or of the
answers made by the four young Hebrews; so it is merely a conjecture
that possibly some question bearing on the calendar may have come up.
But if it did, then certainly the information within the grasp of the
Hebrews could not have failed to impress the king.

We know how highly the Greeks esteemed the discovery by Meton, in the
86th Olympiad, of that relation between the movements of the sun and
moon, which gives the cycle of nineteen years, and similar knowledge
would certainly have given king Nebuchadnezzar a high opinion of the
young captives.

But there is evidence, from certain numbers in the book which bears his
name, that Daniel was acquainted with luni-solar cycles which quite
transcended that of the Jubilees in preciseness, and indicate a
knowledge such as was certainly not to be found in any other ancient
nation. The numbers themselves are used in a prophetic context, so that
the meaning of the whole is veiled, but astronomical knowledge
underlying the use of these numbers is unmistakably there.

One of these numbers is found in the eighth chapter.

"How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice,
and the transgression of desolation, to give both the
sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said
unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall
the sanctuary be cleansed."

The twelfth chapter gives the other number, but in a more veiled form:--

"And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the
waters of the river, when he he