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So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife, and she bare him a son. And the women said unto Naomi, "Blessed be the Lord that hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel. And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age; for thy daughter-in-law which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath borne him."

And Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse unto it. And the women, her neighbors, gave it a name, saying, "There is a son born to Naomi, and his name is Obed."

This same Obed is the father of Jesse, who is the father of David.

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THE VISION OF BELSHAZZAR

By LORD BYRON

NOTE. According to the account given in the fifth chapter of Daniel, Belshazzar was the last king of Babylon, and the son of the great king Nebuchadnezzar, who had destroyed Jerusalem and taken the Jewish people captive to Babylon. The dramatic incident with which the second stanza of Byron's poem deals is thus described:

"In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote."

After all the Babylonian wise men had tried in vain to read the writing, the "captive in the land," Daniel, was sent for, and he interpreted the mystery.

"And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

"This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.

"TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.

"PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians."

The fulfillment of the prophecy thus declared by Daniel is described thus briefly: "In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom."

HE King was on his throne,

THE

The Satraps' throng'd the hall; A thousand bright lamps shone

O'er that high festival.

1. The satraps were the governors of the provinces, who ruled under the king and were accountable to him.

A thousand cups of gold,
In Judah deem'd divine—
Jehovah's vessels hold2

The godless Heathen's wine.

In that same hour and hall
The fingers of a Hand
Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand:
The fingers of a man;-
A solitary hand
Along the letters ran,

And traced them like a wand.

The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless wax'd his look,

And tremulous his voice:-
"Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear,
Which mar our royal mirth."

Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill;
And the unknown letters stood
Untold and awful still.
And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore;

But now they were not sage,

They saw-but knew no more.

2. These were the sacred "vessels that were taken out of the

temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem."

3. The terms Chaldea and Babylonia were used practically synonymously.

4. Babel is a shortened form of Babylon.

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"Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom pass'd away,
He, in the balance weigh'd,
Is light and worthless clay;
The shroud, his robe of state;
His canopy, the stone:
The Mede is at his gate!

The Persian on his throne!"

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