Daniel 1:5 And the king appointed them a daily provision of the king's meat, and of the wine which he drank: so nourishing them three years… Charles Lamb, who made all the world laugh at his humour, and then afterward made all the world weep at his fate, who outwitted everybody, and was at last outwitted of his own appetites, wrote thus: "The waters have gone over me; but out of the depths, could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth to whom the flavour of the first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of his life, or the entering upon some newly-discovered paradise — could he look into my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will; to see his destruction and have no power to stop it, yet feel it all the way emanating from himself; to see all godliness empty out of him, and yet not able to forget the time when it was otherwise; to bear about the piteous spectacle of his own ruin — could he see my feverish eye, feverish with last night's drinking, and feverishly looking for to-night's repetition of that folly — could he but feel the body of the death out of which I cry hourly with feeble outcry to be delivered, it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth in all the pride of its mantling temptation." (T. De Witt Talmage.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the king appointed them a daily provision of the king's meat, and of the wine which he drank: so nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the king. |
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