Daniel 2:24 - Meaning and Application

Here we have the opening of Daniel’s telling of the dream and its meaning.

He first asks that the order against the wise men of Babylon be reversed (Daniel 2:24). He goes at once to Arioch and tells him that his order is no longer needed: “Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon.” Some of those men may have deserved death as magicians, according to God’s law, but this was not a crime worthy of death or chains. So let them not be wrongly killed. Let them live, though they are rightly shamed for being helpless where a prophet of the Lord could succeed.

This teaches us something important. Since God shows common kindness to both the evil and the good, we should do the same and be ready to save even bad men (Matthew 5:45). A good man is a public blessing. God once gave Paul the lives of everyone sailing with him, and they were spared because of him. In the same way, Daniel was the reason the wise men were preserved, even though they later gave him no thanks for it (Daniel 3:8).

Daniel then offers his help with confidence, saying that he can go to the king and tell him both the dream and its meaning, and he is brought in to do so (Daniel 2:24, Daniel 2:25). Arioch hurries him before the king, hoping to win favor by presenting Daniel. He pretends that he had been looking for Daniel to interpret the dream, when in truth he had been seeking him to carry out the king’s sentence against him. That is how palace officials often work, trying in every way to please the ruler and make their own service look useful.

Daniel also uses this moment to put shame on the magicians and honor on God. The king admits that Daniel’s claim is bold and asks whether he can really do it (Daniel 2:26): “Are you able to make known to me the dream?” Daniel seems young and inexperienced compared with the king’s seasoned wise men, so the king doubts him. But the less likely this looked to the king, the more God would be glorified in Daniel’s success. God often chooses weak, foolish, and despised people to confound the wise and powerful, so that the greatness of the power is clearly his, not theirs (1 Corinthians 1:27, 1 Corinthians 1:28).

Daniel then uses the occasion to strip the false credit from the magicians and soothsayers (Daniel 2:27). “This secret they cannot show the king,” he says. Their art cannot reach this point. So the king should not be angry with them for failing to do what they cannot do. He should rather give them up, since they cannot help him. The lesson is plain: when we see how creatures fail to satisfy us, our esteem for them should go down, and our expectations from them should be lowered. They can go only so far and no farther.

Daniel then turns the king’s mind to the one living and true God, whom he worships (Daniel 2:28). “But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets.” That is the heart of the matter. The limits of created things should drive us to the limitless power of the Creator. There is a God in heaven, and it is a great mercy that there is, who can do for us and reveal to us what no one on earth can. This includes the hidden meaning of redemption and the secret purposes of God’s love in it, the mystery hidden for ages and generations. Divine revelation gives light where human reason fails, and it makes known to kings and to the poor what even the philosophers and politicians of the heathen world, with all their oracles and divining arts, could never discover (Romans 16:25, Romans 16:26).

Daniel also confirms that the king was right to think the dream mattered. It was no ordinary dream, no empty play of a restless mind. It was a message from God, a beam of light from the world above, telling of great matters and coming changes in this lower world. God made known to the king what would happen in the latter days (Daniel 2:28), that is, in the times still to come, reaching even to the setting up of Christ’s kingdom in the world, which was to appear in those latter days (Hebrews 1:1).

Daniel adds that the thoughts that came into the king’s mind were not just the kind of thoughts dreams usually recycle from the day’s concerns (Daniel 2:29). Some think these were the king’s waking thoughts before sleep, when he was wondering what would become of his rising power and what his kingdom would eventually become. In that case, the dream was God’s answer to those thoughts. When God plans to reveal something, he often prepares people for it first.

At last, Daniel humbly says that this secret was not found out by his own merit or skill (Daniel 2:30). It was revealed to him, but not because he had more wisdom than anyone else alive. He makes it clear that he was no better than others, and that he did not earn this favor from God. It is fitting for those who are highly favored by God to stay humble. They should set aside any thought of their own wisdom or worth, so that God alone gets the praise for all the good they are, have, and do, and so that everything is seen as flowing from his free kindness and perfect work in them.

The secret was made known to him, not for his own sake, but for the sake of others.

For the sake of his people, that is, for the sake of those who would hear and share the interpretation with the king. Daniel also meant his fellow believers, his companions in trouble, who had helped him through their prayers and so may be said to have taken part in making the interpretation known. He hoped that their lives would be spared, that they would gain favor and be promoted, and that all the Jewish people would benefit in their captivity. The note here is simple: humble people are always ready to think that what God does for them, and through them, is really more for others than for themselves.

For the sake of his prince, that is, the king. Some understand the earlier words this way: “Not because of any wisdom in me, but so that the king may know the meaning, and that you may know the thoughts of your own heart.” In other words, Daniel wanted the king to receive an answer, find peace about what had been troubling him, and learn how he should act toward God’s church. God showed this matter to Daniel so that Daniel could pass it on to the king. Prophets receive in order to give. What God reveals to them is not meant to stay with them, but to be shared with those who need it.