Page 37 - The Prophet-statesman a Drama of Daniel

CHAPTER VIII

THE KING DREAMS A DREAM

Nebuchadnezzar and Rhea had enjoyed an evening of joy and tranquility in the

solitary companionship of their luxurious apartment. She reclined on the divan and
listened as he sat in his favorite chair and read aloud to her from a historic scroll that he
had ordered brought to him from the royal library. Rhea was possessed of a cultured
mind, and though not so learned as her husband, was able to grasp whatever was read

or taught to her in whatever field of study. She could thus share with her husband his
intellectual delights.

Since the college graduation, she had frequently spoken in conversation of the

young Hebrews whom her royal husband had incorporated into his government,
particularly the chosen four, who were the high-honor graduates. Rhea had also several
times expressed interest in some of the historic origins of the Hebrews, who though now
conquered by the Chaldeans yet, retained a unique dignity and character. “There seems

to cling to those young men especially, an aroma of fragrance, an inexplicable loftiness,
that their humiliation and suffering has neither dissipated nor effected,” Rhea remarked.

“Since you are so strangely interested in these people I will have Sheshack the

chamberlain, bring to me the scroll that he spoke to me of, telling of the sojourn of their
multitude in Egypt, and of the man Moses, who seems in early life to have been a
favorite of their great queen Hatshepsut,” said the King.
“Please do so, my lord, and we shall have a delightful evening together. I shall keep

you to myself, at least for that once!”

Nothing was more alluring to Nebuchadnezzar than an evening spent with his
beloved. He read to her of the oppression of Israel in Egypt, under Rameses and

Thothmes I, and later of their exodus under the leadership of Moses, erstwhile protege
of Queen Hatsepshut, the remarkable opening of the Red Sea to permit their passage
followed by the destruction of the hosts of Pharaoh as they pursued them. The record

went on to show that Jahveh, their God, had miraculously led them by a pillar of cloud
by day and a pillar of fire by night: that he had rained bread from heaven for their
sustenance in the wilderness and brought water from a rock to assuage their thirst; that
after a period of wandering they finally entered the land of the Canaanites and
conquered them with many more manifestations of great power by Jahveh their God. It

was even written that on one occasion He caused the sun to stand still in the heavens to
aid them in battle.