Before class
Assyria and Babylon make a tangle in the bottom left of the spread, and p. 76 is the clearest way through it: it enlarges that corner and letters the places A to J in the order to read them. Give that page a little extra time when you read pp. 72–77. Print Big-Print Stretch 10 and tape the four sheets into one strip. Mark Jeremiah 29, Daniel 2 and Ezra 1 in your Bible. For the statue, cut four paper strips, one each in gold, gray, brown and black.
Opening · 5 minutes
Open the book at p. 75 and cover everything on the statue except its head. Ask, “What do you think this head is made of?” Someone will say gold. Then tell it like a story: “A great king saw a statue like this in a dream, and he wanted to know what it meant. A young man who had been carried away from his home as a captive stood in front of the king and told him. Today we are going to find that king’s face on the chart, and find out what happened to the young man and his people.”
At the chart · 15 minutes
1Two streams at the bottom left. The word ASSYRIA, in the bottom left corner, is where to begin; show the broad band of its kings. Then point to the thin pink stream just above it: that is Babylon. Let the class follow the thin stream until it bends down into Assyria’s band at 680 and stops. Ask which key that is, and help them to Key 5 · A stream that ends in another is a conquest. Then read 2 Chronicles 33:11 and ask why an Assyrian army would take Manasseh to Babylon. The bend answers it: Assyria ruled Babylon too (p. 76).
2Judah’s band drops. Move up to Judah’s band and slide right with the class through Manasseh and Josiah to the short last blocks. Ask them to find three dates on or near it: 606, when Daniel goes with the first captives; 599, when King Jehoiachin goes; and 588, when “Jerusalem taken, the temple burnt.” Show how the band ends and thin lines fall into Babylon’s stream. Point out that Daniel was taken in the first group, years before the city fell; the table on p. 77 sets out all three with their chapters in Kings (pp. 72, 77).
3Seventy years, then the way back. Find Belshazzar’s feast at the top edge and read the four words on the wall. Follow Babylon’s stream until it runs into Persia’s green band in 538. Then find the decree of Cyrus, 536, and show that Adams prints it directly under his note on the fall of 588, so the end and the way back are read together. Ask a child to subtract 536 from 606. When they say seventy, read Jeremiah 29:10. Finish with pin 7: Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah, three lines rising home (pp. 72–73, 78).
4The statue and the line that does not end. Go back to p. 75 and hand out your four paper strips. Let the class match each metal to Adams’ label and then find that empire’s stream on the spread: gold for Babylon, silver for Medo-Persia, brass for Alexander’s empire, iron for Rome, which is still a small kingdom down below in these columns. Each stream ends. Then run your finger along the line of names just under the stream of time, Josiah, Jeconiah, Salathiel, Zerubbabel, and read Daniel 2:44 over it (p. 75).
Talk it over · 15 minutes
Judah’s band stops in 588, but the people do not disappear. What does the picture of lines dropping into Babylon and climbing back out tell you about how God kept his word?
Listen for: Listen for the promise of Jeremiah 29:10 and the seventy years Adams counts from 606 to 536. If the class only sees punishment, bring them back to the lines rising out of Persia’s band at pin 7.
Isaiah named Cyrus long before he was born, and Cyrus himself said the LORD had charged him to build a house at Jerusalem. What does a Persian king doing God’s work tell you about who rules the streams?
Listen for: Good answers bring Isaiah 44:28 and Ezra 1:2 together: God named the king and gave him his task before he was born. If the talk drifts into guessing what Cyrus believed, keep the class to what the two verses actually say.
Nebuchadnezzar’s face is the largest thing at the bottom of the spread. Where is his empire by the right edge, and what does that say about the words “head of gold”?
Listen for: Listen for the band ending in 538 and running into Persia. If the class is ready, point them to Daniel 4:30–37, where the king learns who gave him his kingdom.
To close
“And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings …”Daniel 2:21 · KJV
Father, when the powers of our own day look as large as Nebuchadnezzar’s face, remind us that you set up kings and remove them, and that you bring your people home.
With younger children (6–10)
Faces and colors carry this stretch for a young child. Let them find the king’s big face inside the stream and read the number beside it, 43, then find Alexander on his horse at the right side. Show them the statue on p. 75 and let each child color a paper statue in four bands, gold, silver, brass and iron. Then tell them simply that every one of those kingdoms ended, but God brought his people home after seventy years, and let them find the lines going back up.