'First' in the Bible

Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.

At the first light of dawn the king got up and hurried to the lions’ den.

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream with visions in his mind as he was lying in his bed. He wrote down the dream, and here is the summary of his account.

“The first was like a lion but had eagle’s wings. I continued watching until its wings were torn off. It was lifted up from the ground, set on its feet like a man, and given a human mind.

“While I was considering the horns, suddenly another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. There were eyes in this horn like a man’s, and it had a mouth that spoke arrogantly.

The shaggy goat represents the king of Greece, and the large horn between his eyes represents the first king.

In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, a Mede by birth, who was ruler over the kingdom of the Chaldeans:

In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the books according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet that the number of years for the desolation of Jerusalem would be 70.

while I was praying, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the first vision, came to me in my extreme weariness, about the time of the evening offering.

On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river, the Tigris,

“Don’t be afraid, Daniel,” he said to me, “for from the first day that you purposed to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your prayers were heard. I have come because of your prayers.

In the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up to strengthen and protect him.

The king of the North will again raise a multitude larger than the first. After some years he will advance with a great army and many supplies.

“At the appointed time he will come again to the South, but this time will not be like the first.