(No. 5)

In Isaiah 44:28, we read:"He (King Cyrus) is My shepherd, and shall perform all My pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built, and to the Temple, Thy foundation shall be laid." History records that at the close of the seventy years' captivity in Babylon Cyrus did issue two decrees, one to rebuild the Temple and the other to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. But how did Isaiah know that a king named Cyrus would issue such decrees fully one hundred years before Cyrus was born? There is just one explanation:the Bible is God's book.

Daniel 8:21 predicts that one would come forth out of Greece and conquer this combined kingdom of the Medes and Persians. Alexander the Great did this very thing fully 200 years after Daniel died.

Daniel 8:22 predicts that Alexander's great kingdom would be divided into four parts. It was so divided after his death. These four parts were Macedonia, Thrace, Egypt and Syria.

In Daniel 11:2 we have a remarkable prediction:"Behold there shall stand up three kings in Persia, and the fourth shall be far richer than they all, and by his strength, through his riches, he shall stir up all against Grecia. (4) And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken."

These three kings were Cambyses, Smerdis and Darius. The fourth, the richest of them all, was Xerxes. Herodotus tells us he stirred up his people against Greece, and then invaded that country with two and a half million men; but was utterly defeated at Salamis 480 B.C. How did Daniel know these facts fully one hundred years before Xerxes was born?

-From"The Bible:Its Christ and Modernism," by T. J. McCrossan, 213 pp. $1.00.