Daniel 2:1 - Meaning and Application

We first meet a difficulty about the date of this story. It says it happened in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign (Daniel 2:1). Yet Daniel was taken to Babylon in Nebuchadnezzar’s first year, and it seems he spent three years under training before he was brought before the king (Daniel 1:5). So how could this be in the second year?

One way to understand it is this: even if three years were set aside for the training of the other young men, Daniel may have advanced so quickly that he was used in service after only one year. Then, by the second year, he had already become important. Others think this means the second year after Nebuchadnezzar began to rule alone, or perhaps the fifth or sixth year after he began to rule with his father. Some read the phrase as meaning, “in the second year,” that is, the second year after Daniel and his friends stood before the king. I prefer one of these explanations to the idea that this happened in the thirty-sixth year of Nebuchadnezzar, after his conquest of Egypt. Ezekiel shows that Daniel was already known for wisdom and for powerful prayer long before that, so this event must belong early in Nebuchadnezzar’s reign.

We should notice, first, the trouble Nebuchadnezzar was in because of a dream he had, but then forgot (Daniel 2:1). He dreamed dreams, that is, one dream made up of several parts, or a dream that filled his mind as if it were many dreams. Solomon speaks of many dreams that are strange and mixed up, full of useless things (Ecclesiastes 5:7). In itself, Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was no stranger than many ordinary dreams, where people often see things far removed from real life. What made this dream special was the strong impression it left on him. That showed it had come from God and carried a prophetic meaning.

The greatest people are not free from the worries that disturb sleep at night. In fact, they are often more open to them. The sleep of the working man is often sweet and sound, and the sleep of a sober person is free from confused dreams. But wealth brings its own cares, and excess in food or drink brings restless dreams. Nebuchadnezzar was a troublemaker against God’s people, Israel, but here God troubled him. The Lord who made the soul can make his judgment reach it. The king had guards around him, but they could not keep worry out of his mind.

We do not know how much unrest lies hidden in people who live in great splendor and what looks like comfort. We look at their houses and may envy them, but if we could see their hearts, we would pity them. All the wealth and pleasures under this mighty king’s control could not give him even a little rest when his troubled mind drove sleep away. But God gives sleep to those he loves, because they come to him as their rest.

Second, Nebuchadnezzar tested his magicians and astrologers to see whether they could tell him what dream he had forgotten. He called them at once to tell him his dream (Daniel 2:2). There are times when we keep the feeling of a thing but lose the picture of it. We cannot say what it was, but we still know how it affected us. That is what happened here. The dream had slipped from Nebuchadnezzar’s memory, yet he was sure he would recognize it if someone told it to him again.

God arranged this so Daniel would receive greater honor, and with him, the God of Daniel. Sometimes God carries out his purposes by taking things out of people’s minds, just as he does by putting things into them. The magicians were likely proud to be called into the king’s chamber, thinking this would show off their skill and bring them honor. The king told them only that he had dreamed a dream (Daniel 2:3).

They answered him in the Syriac tongue, which then was the same as Chaldean, though the two languages are now different. From this point on, Daniel also uses that language, or form of Hebrew, for the same reason that Jeremiah 10:11 is written in that language. It was meant to show the Chaldeans the foolishness of idolatry and lead them to know and worship the true and living God. The stories in these chapters point in that direction. But chapters 8 and onward, which are meant to comfort the Jews, are written in their own language.

The magicians answered the king with polite words and asked him to tell them the dream, promising with confidence to explain it (Daniel 2:4). But the king insisted that they first tell him the dream itself, because he had forgotten it and could not repeat it. If they could not do that, they would all be put to death as liars and deceivers. They would be cut to pieces, and their houses would be made into a heap of refuse (Daniel 2:5). If they could do it, they would be rewarded and given higher rank (Daniel 2:6). They knew, as Balaam knew about Balak, that the king could raise them to great honor and give them the reward that evil workers often love so much.

So they would do all they could to please the king. If they failed, it would not be because they lacked good will, but because they lacked power. God ordered this so the magicians of Babylon would be humbled, just as the magicians of Egypt had once been. In both places, God’s people were mocked and treated as small, but in both places God made his truth honorable by silencing those who opposed it.

The magicians had reason on their side. They said the king must tell them the dream, and then, if they failed to interpret it, the fault would be theirs (Daniel 2:7). But unchecked power does not listen to reason. The king became angry, spoke harshly to them, and without any solid reason accused them of hiding the answer on purpose. Instead of blaming their inability and the weakness of their art, which would have been fair, he accused them of making up lies and corrupt words to speak before him.

How unreasonable and absurd this charge was! If the magicians had claimed to tell the king his dream and had fooled him with lies, he could rightly have accused them of falsehood and deceit. But they had honestly admitted their weakness, and he still treated them as if they were tricking him. This shows how foolish unchecked anger can be, and how easily great men think they may follow their own wishes against reason, fairness, and every sound rule.

When the magicians begged him to tell them the dream, their request was fair and sensible, but he accused them of stalling to gain time (Dan 2:8), until the times changed (Dan 2:9). He may have thought they were waiting for his desire to fade, or for him to forget the dream, so they could later invent an answer and make him accept it. The shape of the dream was already slipping from his mind, and once it was gone, he would not be able to prove them wrong. So he demanded that they tell him the dream at once.

Their plea was useless. First, they said no one on earth could recover the king’s dream, Dan 2:10. There are settled ways to judge what a dream means, if the dream is known. But no one can discover the dream itself unless something is given to work from. They admitted that the gods can reveal a person’s thoughts (Amo 4:13), for God understands our thoughts from far away (Psa 139:2), before we think them, while we ignore them, and after we have forgotten them.

Those who can do this are gods, who do not live in flesh (Dan 2:11), and only they can do it. Human beings live in flesh. Even the wisest and greatest people are covered by the weakness of their bodily life, which blocks their full understanding of spiritual things and their actions. But the gods, being pure spirit themselves, know what is in man. Here the magicians show both their ignorance and their limited truth. They speak of many gods, though there can be only one infinite God. Yet they do confess something that even nature teaches, that there is a God who is Spirit and who knows the thoughts of men perfectly, in a way no human ever can.

This confession of God’s complete knowledge is forced out of these idolaters. It brings honor to God and shame to them, because they knew there is a God in heaven, before whom all hearts are open, all desires are known, and no secret is hidden. Yet they prayed to dumb idols, which have eyes but do not see, ears but do not hear. Second, they argued that no king on earth would ask such a thing, Dan 2:10. This shows they were used to dealing with kings and powerful rulers, not ordinary people, and that they lived at the mercy of such men. In contrast, God’s word and Christ’s gospel are given to the poor.

Kings and rulers have often asked unfair things of their subjects, but even they thought no one would ever ask something this unreasonable. So they hoped his imperial majesty would not insist on it. But it was all useless. When anger sits on the throne, reason is pushed aside. He was angry and very furious, Dan 2:12. Those who will not be persuaded by reason are often only made more bitter by it, and they press ahead in rage with what they cannot defend in fairness.

Then came the sentence against all the magicians of Babylon. There was one decree for them all (Dan 2:9), and all were condemned without exception. The order went out that every one of them must be killed (Dan 2:13), and Daniel and his friends, though they knew nothing about the matter, were included too. Here we see the usual injustice of absolute power. Nebuchadnezzar appears as a true tyrant, speaking death when he cannot speak sense, and treating as traitors men whose only fault was that they wanted to serve him but could not.

We also see the just punishment of false pretenders. However unfair Nebuchadnezzar’s sentence was, God remained righteous. Those who had deceived people by claiming to do what they could not do were now condemned to death for being unable to do what they had never truly promised.