Diving into Daniel: The King has Dreams
Daniel 2:1-13; 2 Kings 25:6-7 - God’s revelation can only be known and interpreted through His plan and through the people He has selected.
“Now in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; and his spirit was troubled and his sleep left him. Then the king gave orders to call in the magicians, the conjurers, the sorcerers and the Chaldeans to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king. The king said to them, “I had a dream and my spirit is anxious to understand the dream.” Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic: “O king, live forever! Tell the dream to your servants, and we will declare the interpretation.” The king replied to the Chaldeans, “The command from me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you will be torn limb from limb and your houses will be made a rubbish heap. But if you declare the dream and its interpretation, you will receive from me gifts and a reward and great honor; therefore declare to me the dream and its interpretation.” They answered a second time and said, “Let the king tell the dream to his servants, and we will declare the interpretation.”
The king replied, “I know for certain that you are bargaining for time, inasmuch as you have seen that the command from me is firm, that if you do not make the dream known to me, there is only one decree for you. For you have agreed together to speak lying and corrupt words before me until the situation is changed; therefore tell me the dream, that I may know that you can declare to me its interpretation.” The Chaldeans answered the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who could declare the matter for the king, inasmuch as no great king or ruler has ever asked anything like this of any magician, conjurer or Chaldean. Moreover, the thing which the king demands is difficult, and there is no one else who could declare it to the king except gods, whose dwelling place is not with mortal flesh.”
Because of this the king became indignant and very furious and gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. So the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they looked for Daniel and his friends to kill them.”
Daniel 2:1-13 NASB1995
Well, things were rather easy to understand in the Book of Daniel as I studied the passages through chapter 1. Now, in the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar II has dreams and his sleep is disturbed because of these dreams. Naysayers about the authenticity and timeline of Daniel jump on this statement about it being the “second year of his reign”. Was this before Daniel and his friends completed their training or was it after? Looking at commentary, there are many who are in the “before the end of the training” camp and just as many who believe that the timelines allow this to be right after their training. Here is what Enduring Word says about the timeline:
a. In the second year: It is difficult to understand the exact time this speaks of. Some commentators say this happened while Daniel was in his three-year training course; others say that it was soon after he finished.
i. The ancient Babylonians spoke of the beginning and end of the reign of their kings in a way that often overlapped years. Therefore, the year 602 B.C. could be both the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign and after three years of training for the Hebrew youths.
b. His spirit was so troubled that his sleep left him: There was something disturbing about this dream and Nebuchadnezzar knew that it was unusually significant.
The king calls in his magicians, conjurers, sorcerers and Chaldeans. The use of the word “Chaldeans” here is also controversial, with the naysayers about the authenticity of Daniel noting that the use of the word in this context would be a mistake that would be made if the writer was from the second century BC. Enduring Word addresses this concern, too:
d. The Chaldeans: This is the first mention of the Chaldeans as a class of soothsayers to the king. Critics take the use of this word as a mistake that only a second century B.C. writer would make. Critics suppose that in Daniel’s day, the term Chaldean was only used as a racial designation, describing what the Chaldeans thought was the master race who ruled Nebuchadnezzar’s superpower empire.
i. But linguistic research has demonstrated that the Babylonian word for an astrologer-priest and their word for their supposed master race were homonyms, both having the sound Chaldean (kas-du in Babylonian), but each retaining their own meaning. This is the same way that the English sound tu can mean to, two, or too.
ii. Daniel’s understanding of this is clear from the text, because he also used the term Chaldean in its racial sense (Daniel 3:8 and 5:30).
The king tells this group that he wants them to tell him the dream and to interpret it for him as his spirit is anxious to understand it. The Chaldeans address him in Aramaic and tell him that if he tells them about the dream, then they will declare the interpretation. Beginning at this point in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 2:4) until Daniel 7:28, the text is written in Aramaic. Aramaic was the language of the Babylonian empire. Bible scholar Henry Morris is quoted in Precept Austin about Aramiac:
From this point, Daniel's account is significantly written in Aramaic (same as Syriac, the language of ancient Syria, and practically identical with the Chaldaic language of the Babylonians). It returns to Hebrew at Daniel 8:1. Thus, the Babylonian section of Daniel is in the language of the Babylonians, a fact that helps confirm the authenticity of the entire book. Because of its remarkably fulfilled prophecies, skeptics and liberals have tried to assign its writing to a much later date, after the events prophesied had taken place. The internal evidence of the book, however, indicates that it could only have been written by a man fluent in the language of Nebuchadnezzar's court. The inclusion of certain Persian and Greek words in the account still further indicates that the writer was connected with the court of Nebuchadnezzar where he would have contact with emissaries from different nations.
Fascinating!! I have read the Book of Daniel many times in a cursory manner in those Bible in One Year programs and I was today years old (well, actually just a few days ago when I started the Daniel devotions) when I learned that a large portion of this book was originally written in Aramaic. Another commentator noted that this was the language of the Gentiles that Daniel became part of and Daniel 2-7 deals with Jehovah’s rule over the Gentiles. They would not have understood it in Hebrew.
Well, the king is pretty clear in his command, again, that they will tell him the dream and its interpretation or he would have them torn limb from limb and their homes turned into rubbish. Sounds like a nice, patient guy! Consider what he did to Zedekiah:
“Then they captured the king and brought him to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and he passed sentence on him. They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him with bronze fetters and brought him to Babylon.”
2 Kings 25:6-7 NASB1995
According to some commentators, a preferred dismemberment practice in those days was to tie the limbs of the unfortunate person to four trees. The trees were bent inwards and tied at the top. Then the top rope was cut and…well, you can imagine it, if you want. I know that large horses were also used for this practice and were pointed in the four cardinal directions. According to Herodotus the Greek historian (as noted in Precept Austin), Darius I, about 100 years later, massacred all of his wise men and their houses were made into refuse dumps or public toilet facilities.
The king does say that they will be rewarded substantially if they can do this task. The Chaldeans once again ask for the king to tell them the dream and they will interpret it. Now some scholars, at this point, believe that Nebuchadnezzar had forgotten the dream but still had a lingering sense of foreboding. I believe he remembered the dream and was testing these “wise men” to see if they could, through some supernatural power, access the dream and interpret it. If he had forgotten the dream, the Chaldeans could make up any kind of bizarre nightmare scenario and claim to interpret it. He tells them they are bargaining for time and there is only one course of action for them if they can’t come through with the answers.
The Chaldeans finally give up the idea that they can respond to this impossible task as mortal men. They tell the king that there is no one on earth who could tell the king what he was looking for and only the gods could do this feat of first knowing the dream (without it being described) and interpreting it. They essentially accuse the king of being unreasonable for asking for such a thing. I like what Enduring Word says about this passage:
a. There is not a man on earth who can tell the king’s matter: When the Chaldeans said this they admitted that true revelation comes from God down to man. They understood – perhaps against their own inclinations – that revelation was not the achievement of man.
i. Despite all their wisdom – real and imagined – these wise men had no answer for Nebuchadnezzar, because only God could bring an answer to the king.
ii. “They were like some modern ministers of our own day who spend their time studying philosophy, psychiatry, psychology, social science, political science, and then continue under the pretense of being God’s messengers to men.” (Lehman Strauss)
b. No king, lord, or ruler has ever asked such things: The strategy of the wise men was to convince the king that he was unreasonable, not that they were incompetent.
c. Except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh: As far as these pagan magicians, astrologers, and wise men knew, this was true. They did not know what we know so plainly since the revelation of Jesus – that He is Immanuel, God with us (Matthew 1:23).
Well, Nebuchadnezzar blows his top at this equivocation and gives out orders to kill all of the wise men of Babylon. That apparently includes Daniel and his friends; he either knows about their skills or this is just after they were presented to him. This is good commentary from Bruce Campbell, quoted in Precept Austin:
The abject confession of the "wise men" is striking and set the stage for Daniel who is "a man upon the earth to tell the king's matter," a man in touch with the true God in heaven who will reveal the dream and its interpretation to His servant. But the humiliation of the king's advisers is also the humiliation of human wisdom. Dr. Joseph A. Seiss rightly observes that the failure of the wise men shows "the incompetence of all mere human resources, learning and power to ascertain the mind and will of God apart from His own revelations." In an astute survey of the history of human thought, Seiss asserts, "Here was a full grown heathenism of more than a thousand years. Here were the combined strength and wisdom of the most noted schools in the highest acme of their glory… If these men failed, it was the laying prostrate of all the wisdom, power, and art of man… It proves to me, one brief utterance, that all the religions, arts, sciences, philosophies, attainments, and powers of man, apart from God's inspired prophets and all-glorious Christ, are but emptiness and vanity as regards any true and adequate knowledge of the purposes and will of Jehovah or of the destinies of man… It is to the modest Daniels and the humble Nazarenes, after all, that the proud world must come to find out His mind and purposes.” [emphasis by Precept Austin].
My next devotional examines Daniel 2:14-24 - Daniel requests time, finds his friends, they pray and receive insight, they thank God and Daniel goes to the King.
Heaven on Wheels Daily Prayer:
Dear Lord: Thank you for the knowledge that I am learning about the Book of Daniel. Your revelation is a wonder and has come through people whom You appoint to be part of Your plan. Amen.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Commentary from Enduring Word by Precept Austin is used with written permission.
Precept Austin was accessed on 3/21/2025 to review commentary from Daniel 2:1-13.