Several years ago I preached a Labor Day’s message entitled “How to Work for a Jerk.” I imagine many of us have had to work with someone who is difficult and maybe even disgusting. Maybe they are brilliant, but they don’t know how to communicate well or how to get along with people. If there’s a trail of people who feel demeaned, de-energized, and hurt wherever that person goes, that’s usually an indication that you are working for a jerk.
One person online says, “My boss keeps giving me impossible tasks and then gets upset when I don’t manage to complete them. How do I explain that any engineer in my position would have the same difficulties? Ever felt that way? I imagine that Nebuchadnezzar’s chief advisors felt this way when Nebuchadnezzar demanded not only that they interpret his dream (something they could at least fake their way through), but also to repeat his dream back to him (something he could verify).
1 In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him. 2 Then the king commanded that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king. 3 And the king said to them, “I had a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream.”
So far, so good. This is what they were hired for, what they had trained for. At this point they were expecting that the king would recount his dream to them so that they could interpret it.
Then the Chaldeans said to the king in Aramaic, “O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation.” (Dan. 2:4)
You tell us the dream and we’ll tell you the interpretation. Deal? That’s the way this works, right?
Nebuchadnezzar couldn’t know for certain that the wise men would give a correct interpretation of his dream. But he could test their ability to tell him what he had dreamed. So, he throws them a curveball, one with enough juice on it to make it impossible to hit.
Notice first that from this veres to the end of chapter 7, the language of the text of Daniel changes from Hebrew to Aramaic. Aramaic is a sister Semitic language that the Jews adopted during the intertestamental period and spoke during the days of Jesus’ incarnation.
Why change to Aramaic here? Because Daniel 2-7 focus on the “times of the Gentiles” and the Gentile world powers that would dominate the middle East for the next several hundred years. Aramaic was the lingua franca of the ancient Near East and it was a fitting vehicle for God to use when speaking to and about the Gentile kingdoms. In fact, the very first words in Aramaic are the words “O King.” When Daniel gets back to Hebrew in chapter 8, he is once again dealing with prophecies that pertain primarily to the Jewish nation and its destiny.
Some have taken this reference to Aramaic and the succeeding text to be communicated in Aramaic as proof that Daniel was actually written in the 2nd century B.C. Critics of the Book of Daniel have alleged that Aramaic was not in use when Daniel is supposed to have lived, in the sixth century B.C., but that there is evidence of its use in the second century B.C., when many of them believe the book was written.
However, Aramaic was spoken even as early as the patriarchs. Jacob was referred to as a “wandering Aramean in Deuteronomy 26:5 and Laban actually uses an Aramaic loan word when he calls a pile of stones “Jegar Sahadutha” (יְגַ֖ר שָׂהֲדוּתָ֑א) erected as a memorial of the covenant between him and Jacob, while Jacob called it “Galeed” (Hebrew for the same thing). So the presence of Aramaic here does not demand that these events took place in the second century B.C. but rather in the sixth century B.C.
Now these professionals ask Nebuchadnezzar for the details of the dream so that they can provide an “interpretation” that would satisfy him. It may be mumbo jumbo, but this is what they made their living doing, just like psychics do today.
But Nebuchadnezzar was too clever to fall for their tricks. So he says…
“The word from me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you shall be torn limb from limb, and your houses shall be laid in ruins. But if you show the dream and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. Therefore show me the dream and its interpretation” (Daniel 2:5-6).
I don’t think that Nebuchadnezzar had forgotten his dream, but rather that he wanted to test these psychic experts to see if they could really do what they claimed to be able to do! They claimed to be able to do the impossible, so Nebuchadnezzar wants them to PROVE IT!
Such a capricious action on the part of a monarch is in keeping with his character and position. It may have been a snap decision arising from the emotion of the moment, or it may have been the result of frustration with these men over a long period.
The punishment for failure seems very severe (being “torn limb from limb”), but this is consistent with a method of execution used by ancient eastern monarchs. Gleason Archer described one method of dismemberment: four trees were bent inwards and tied together at the top. The victim was tied to these four trees with a rope at each limb. Then the top rope was cut and the body snapped into four pieces.
This punishment for failure was no idol threat, as proven by Nebuchadnezzar’s harsh treatment of King Zedekiah (2 Kings 25:7), two Jewish rebels named Ahab and Zedekiah (not King Zedekiah Jere. 29:22), and Daniel’s three friends in Daniel 3.
Not only would these men suffer physical harm and death, but their homes would “be laid in ruins,” thus affecting their families’ ability to survive.
It is as if Nebuchadnezzar suspected all along the emptiness of the diviner’s ability to foretell the future and was determined to put them to the test.
On the other hand, if they could succeed in interpreting the dream, he would reward them with “gifts and rewards and great honor,” which Nebuchadnezzar eventually does to Daniel.
So he made a further demand in vv. 7-11.
The Babylonian experts were now shaking in their boots. They knew they couldn’t interpret a dream that Nebuchadnezzar was unwilling to report to them. They were diviners, not prophets. They retort, “Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show its interpretation” (Dan. 2:7). Their slim hope was that Nebuchadnezzar would change his mind and now disclose his dream. They felt like they were calling his bluff.
But Nebuchadnezzar seemed to see through their ruse. The truth was surfacing that they were all bogus. Though they were the best the world had to offer, they couldn’t do the job that needed to be done.
It is possible that he had long suspected their fraud and now he saw the opportunity to put them to the test.
The king answered and said, “I know with certainty that you are trying to gain time, because you see that the word from me is firm–if you do not make the dream known to me, there is but one sentence for you. You have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the times change. Therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can show me its interpretation” (Daniel 2:8-9).
We can’t help but notice that Nebuchadnezzar here expresses little faith in his own system. While he may have had suspicions that these men were imposters, it didn’t really both him until it affect his own future and peace of mind.
Nebuchadnezzar seems about to purge his kingdom of the whole lot of these magicians who, in reality, were absolutely useless to him. Talk about high anxiety!
He sees them as trying to buy time (“gain time,” v. 8). He also accused them of agreeing to “speak lying and corrupt words before me till the times change.” In the context of this chapter (cf. 2:21), he seems to be implying, “until the regime changes and I’m no more.” Nebuchadnezzar’s accusation implies that he did remember the main facts of the dream sufficiently to detect any invented interpretation which the wise men might offer.
So he reinforces that he means for them to “tell me the dream” so that he will be assured that they can give a correct interpretation.
They immediately declare the impossibility of Nebuchadnezzar’s demand. In view of Nebuchadnezzar’s troubled spirit (vv. 1, 3), warnings of destruction (v. 5, 9a), and accusations of flattery (v. 9b), the wise men declared the impossibility of what he demanded.
The Chaldeans answered the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who can meet the king’s demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.” (Daniel 2:10-11).
Note the comprehensive phrases: “There is not a man on earth,” “no great and powerful king has asked such a thing,” of “. . . any magician or enchanter or Chaldean” (v. 10). “C’mon man, you’re expectations are out of this world.”
The Chaldeans proceeded to explain, with abundant flattery, that what the king requested was humanly impossible. No one could tell what the king what he had dreamed. Only a god could do that. Furthermore, no king had ever asked his counselors to do something like this before! The strategy of the wise men was to convince the king that he was being unreasonable, not that they were proven incompetent.
Well, how do you think that went over?
Did Nebuchadnezzar himself think such a request was unreasonable? Perhaps his previous encounter with Daniel, who had “understanding in all visions and dreams” (1:17), and who along with his three friends was “better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all [the] kingdom” (v. 20), had given Nebuchadnezzar unrealistic expectations of his own band of astrologers and magicians.
Only the immortal gods, they say, could provide this information, and the implication was that these men could not get that information from the gods. Yet normally this is precisely what they claimed to be able to provide: supernatural information.
Their confession sets the stage for Daniel’s ability to do precisely what they said no person could do, because only the God of Israel can predict the future (Isaiah 41:21-23). Here is the uniqueness of the God of the Bible, who is both able and willing to reveal His plans and purposes to mankind. And this forms the polemic in the book of Isaiah for why the God of Israel is superior to any idols: they cannot predict the future.
They were partially accurate that “no one on earth” could reveal and interpret the king’s dream; however Daniel, who was on earth, had connections with the real and true God of heaven who could interpret it.
Ironically, the ideas of the gods dwelling with man was not conceivable in Babylonian “theology,” but from the beginning of the Hebrew Scriptures, Yahweh was a God who did dwell with his people. He was in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve (Gen. 2:15-25; 3:8), his glory filled the tabernacle the Israelites carried to the Promised Land (Exod. 40:34-38), and he indwelled the temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 8:1-11). Israel’s God is not only the high and holy God whose glory fills the heavens, but also the God who dwells with those of a humble and contrite spirit (Isa. 57:15). The story of the world’s true Lord is that of a God who dwells with flesh. And, in the outworking of God’s redemptive plan, one day the Word himself would not only dwell with flesh but become flesh (John 1:14).
“By issuing this impossible challenge, the king was unconsciously following the plan of God and opening the way for Daniel to do what the counselors could not do” (Warren Wiersbe, The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: Old Testament, p. 1349).
Nebuchadnezzar was a smart man, smarter than some of our contemporaries who are fooled by psychics and astrologers, palm readers and tarot cards and seances.
Hitler and Germany were lured by evil spirits into occult practices. Before they were through, they had devasted Europe, destroyed Germany, and left the world prey to the evils that now beset it. Whatever “gods” exist, above, and beyond horoscopes and Ouija boards and incantations of black magic, they are dark, satanic “gods.”
Graham Scroggie writes: “Daniel 2:10 shows in one single sentence that all of the astrology and necromancy and oracles and dreams and mantic revelations of the whole pagan world for six thousand years are nothing but imbecilities and lies, and it proves that all the religions and arts and sciences and philosophies and attainments and powers of men apart from God-inspired prophets and an all-glorious Christ are nothing but emptiness and vanity as regards any true and adequate knowledge of the purpose and will of God” (Daniel: A Detailed Explanation of the Book).
Notice that the Chaldeans acknowledge the existence of such “gods” (v. 11), but here they confess that they were far beyond their beck and call.
Verses 12—16 then gives the king’s decree.
12 Because of this the king was angry and very furious, and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed. 13 So the decree went out, and the wise men were about to be killed; and they sought Daniel and his companions, to kill them. 14 Then Daniel replied with prudence and discretion to Arioch, the captain of the king’s guard, who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon. 15 He declared to Arioch, the king’s captain, “Why is the decree of the king so urgent?” Then Arioch made the matter known to Daniel. 16 And Daniel went in and requested the king to appoint him a time, that he might show the interpretation to the king.
The king’s patience had grown thin. He was now “angry and very furious.” He rightly judged that his soothsayers, psychics and astrologers were impotent to help him in his need, so he “commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed” (Daniel 2:12). He had no use for wise men who had no wisdom.
“As was already evident in the scale of the rewards that he promised and the punishment he threatened, Nebuchadnezzar did nothing by halves. In line with the king’s normal pattern of overreaction—it is tempting to say “overkill”—the decree of death involved far more people than those who had faced the original demand to interpret the dream. Perhaps he concluded that if the wisdom of his counselors was insufficient for this crisis, what good was it in any situation The failure of his diviners to reveal his dream and its meaning thus resulted in a decree of death for all his wise men, including Daniel and his three friends (v. 13)” (Iain Duguid, Daniel in Reformed Expository Commentary, p. 21).
Warren Wiersbe makes the point that in chapter 1 “Satan had lost one battle, but now he would try to pull victory out of defeat by having Daniel and his friends killed. The Evil One is willing to sacrifice all his false prophets in the city of Babylon if he can destroy four of God’s faithful servants. Satan’s servants were expendable, but the Lord cares for His people” (The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: Old Testament, p. 1349). On a deeper level, the king’s decree was an attempt by Satan to rid the world of Daniel. But Daniel’s life was in God’s hands.
In the midst of his anxiety the King went for the quick fix: kill them all! If he had thought it through, he may not have included Daniel and his friends. But he didn’t think it through. Fortunately, someone else slowed things down and did think things through (Daniel).
So the death warrant was signed and sent out, so that “they sought Daniel and his companions, to kill them” (Daniel 2:13). Why? Simply because they were a part of this class of advisors for the king. This was a reverse “class action lawsuit” where one person was bringng charges against a group for failure to provide services expected. Realize that it was not that Daniel had become a sorcerer, magician, or enchanter (cf. 2:2); such positions would have compromised his devotion to Yahweh. Nor had Daniel failed the king as the other advisors had. But he was simply automatically grouped in which all the others. The king was upset with all of his advisors.
What would Daniel be able to do in such a circumstance?
Grace Still Amazes 