DANIEL 2 - NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S DREAM REVEALED
In the first chapter, Daniel establishes his credentials as a young man whom God could trust - he had proved faithful to God’s laws in refusing to defile himself by accepting a diet of unclean food which would have compromised his Hebrew faith. Three years have passed since then and he is now employed in some lowly position in Nebuchadnezzar’s court.
Nebuchadnezzar had yet to have a personal encounter with the God of Israel. When a person is not in a personal relationship with God, it leaves him or her open to superstition. What a sad state it is to be dominated by fears of bad luck. I was in my office car park when a lady came to speak to me. She liked the car, but said "she wouldn’t want it because it would bring bad luck - the colour was green!" And what’s more the registration numbers added up to 13!
To the superstitious, dreams and other events outside our normal consciousness take on an importance of their own. It must be said that God can and has spoken to people in dreams and no doubt the incident in this chapter is one of them. Nebuchadnezzar was deeply disturbed by it; it reminds us how helpless mankind is when it comes to facing the ultimate questions of life. Someone said that there is a "God-shaped gap" in our lives which nothing else will fill.
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream made him insecure, frustrated and angry because it showed up his limitations as a man and the story shows how he snapped. How vulnerable we humans are - for nine-tenths of the time we are cool and controlled and then something takes us in an unguarded moment. We show a chink in our armour and we let ourselves down in something we do or say. This has happened to public figures with high reputations, but when they thought the TV recording gear had been turned off, used language which they never used in public.
Nebuchadnezzar lost his temper with his wise men when they made the reasonable request that Nebuchadnezzar should tell them the dream he had had so they could give him its meaning. The trouble was that he did not trust them. If he gave them some hints they were given to "flannel" their way in providing some explanation, but now they were stuck. The wise men panicked and said the king was asking the impossible, that which only the gods could reveal. That was it; Nebuchadnezzar commanded Arioch, the captain of the guard to seize the magicians and hound them off to their death.
Daniel was blissfully unaware of this until he was arrested by Arioch. He was only a young graduate and was not invited to join his professors when it came to an audience before the king - it would not have done for the brilliant young man to outshine his seniors! And so we see:
THE PERIL HE FACED
Daniel and his companions were brought suddenly into peril through no fault of their own. There was a great commotion as the wise men and other suspects were rounded up for the slaughter, but Daniel knew nothing of the panic and despair of the others. He knew that in all this trouble God was still in charge; he was not thrown off balance by the shock and begin to question the faithfulness of his God. It is not until times of sudden upheaval that one can tell whether a Christian has built up the reserves of faith in God. The test often comes suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue, and then it is too late to make further preparation. The time for preparation is now, today and every day, to seek to know God better by a regular exercise of prayer and Bible study and build up reserves of faith.
Daniel reacted differently from the other religious men in Babylon because he is in touch with a God who cares for people and can help them in their need. God had always meant that the people of Israel should be a light to the other nations, just as Christians are meant to be the light and salt of the earth. This confidence in God gave Daniel a poise and serenity that disarmed Arioch. Daniel calmly lowered the temperature by inquiring as to what exactly was the trouble and could he help? He must have convinced the captain of the guard that he could do some good as he was allowed an audience with the angry king and was able to get a stay of execution.
Daniel had a quiet confidence that God would provide a solution, but there is no brash attempt to convert Nebuchadnezzar. He knew that something had to be done between himself and God before he did anything else and so we discover:
THE PRAYER HE OFFERED
Daniel was a very practical believer in God. He knew it was not sufficient to believe vaguely that God would somehow solve the problem. A life-threatening problem had suddenly arisen. How would he react? How would we react? Daniel was well prepared for the emergency, not because he had any foreknowledge, but because of his daily habit of communion with his God. You see, he already was a man of prayer. In a later chapter we learn that he had a place of prayer in his house, a special room where the windows were open towards Jerusalem. That was the source of his inner strength.
God’s work must be done in God’s way, and that way is prayer. He urgently requested his three companions to join with him in earnest prayer that wisdom from the God of heaven would be given to him. They had a prayer meeting. This is the pattern that our Lord said we should follow because of the enormous value of united prayer. "If two of you shall agree on earth concerning any matter, whatsoever it may be that they shall ask, it shall come to them from my Father" (Matt 18:19). Someone has said that a problem shared is a problem halved, especially if it is with the Lord and his own people.
The faith of the young men was rewarded. The secret of the king’s dream was revealed to Daniel during the night, but did he rush off to Nebuchadnezzar? No, he had a greater priority for the story goes on to tell of:
THE PRAISE HE RELEASED
Daniel burst into a hymn of praise, giving glory to God for having intervened (20-23), freely acknowledging that it is God alone who can reveal the times and seasons which affect the destiny of mankind. The first two lines of the hymn are very much words found in the Psalms and in Job and it is more than likely that Daniel recalled them with gratitude. That is a model for us to follow.
It is God who is the fount of true wisdom, the only one who knows what the future will bring. Daniel thanked God that he had given him an understanding beyond the reach of human resources. It was as if a blind man had been blessed with the miracle of sight. How Daniel rejoiced in God’s provision at a critical time. That experience is one which has been shared by many a Christian who has known the sufficiency of God in a time of need. But do we always remember to return thanks to God for answering our prayers?
When Daniel had offered his prayer of thanksgiving he was ready to return to Nebuchadnezzar where we learn of:
THE PROPHESY HE INTERPRETED
Daniel was quickly brought into the audience chamber by Arioch who was one never to miss a trick in proving what a good servant of the king he was. When he announced Daniel he made it seem it was a piece of personal success on his part. This just illustrates how conceited the heart of man can become, but what a contrast to Daniel’s approach. Here was a golden opportunity to "show off" and take credit for coming into possession of the dream and its meaning. If Daniel had been an opportunist the least he would have done would have been to infer that he was brighter than the wise men. But no, he was most careful to disclaim any human ability in the matter.
Daniel was careful to give God the glory. He told Nebuchadnezzar that the whole thing was beyond all human wisdom but there was a God in heaven who was a revealer of secrets and he had made known to Nebuchadnezzar what was to happen in the future. This is an important principle that Christians depart from at their peril, for God will not give his glory to another. It is no wonder that God could and did use Daniel - he knew he could trust him.
After getting the record straight, Daniel plunged straight into recounting to Nebuchadnezzar the vision he had seen. "Sir," he said, " you saw a great image. It was huge and terrifying. Its head was of pure gold; arms and chest of silver; trunk and thighs of bronze. Its legs were of iron, and its feet part iron and part clay. Then as you were watching, a stone, one that had not been cut in a quarry, struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and smashed it to pieces ... it was ground to dust and the wind blew it away. And then the stone that had broken the image began to get bigger and bigger, until it became a huge mountain, and finally filled the whole earth" (32-35).
As the vision was recounted to Nebuchadnezzar, he would be thinking of the glories of his empire, but what would happen after this? He knew that his life was limited in time and he wondered if all he had accomplished would crumble into dust? This sort of crisis brings us back to reality; it shows us how helpless we are, that is, unless we are in a right relationship with God.
The king was rendered speechless, but Daniel knew it was the right dream. He knew God does not make mistakes. But what could it mean? Daniel was brutally frank in explaining its meaning to Nebuchadnezzar. His empire, although represented by the gold head, would soon pass away. Kings may rule and dictators may govern and make proud statements like Hitler, who said the Third Reich would last a thousand years, forgetting that above and beyond them all is the Almighty Sovereign whom Daniel referred to as "The God of the heavens". It is God who entrusts power to those in authority and they are accountable to him.
Daniel went on to explain that just as the head of gold gave way to the arms and chest of silver, so Nebuchadnezzar’s mighty Babylonian empire was to be succeeded by a kingdom inferior to its predecessor, and similarly down the body. Daniel gives no hints as to the identity of the successor empires, so what are we to make of them?
The book of Daniel, like its counterpart the book of Revelation, in the New Testament, has been a happy hunting ground for those who like to unravel future events foretold only in symbols, but leaving aside the extremists, there are three principal schools of interpretation. There is the "preterist" view which says that the prophecy merely describes in veiled language of Daniel’s own time and not later than the second century before Christ. This view states that the only benefit it offers for the present day are the lessons that we can draw from them, and of course that is what we trying to do whenever we meditate on the Scriptures. However most Christians believe that there is wider meaning which reaches out into later centuries.
The second school of thought is the "historicist" school which maintains that the events foretold in prophecy include the Christian era and that many of them have or are being fulfilled. The third school of interpretation is the "futurist" view which understands much of the prophecies as relating to the period following the removal of the Church from the world at the Second Coming of our Lord. But which is right? This is a case where one can say with all reverence that "only God knows".
What we can do is to compare Scripture with Scripture so as to form a view of what we believe while at the same time being open to receive new light on the subject and above all being tolerant of other people who hold an alternative position. When it comes to the future we "see through a glass darkly". We need to remember the words of Jesus to his disciples at his ascension, "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority" (Acts 1:7).
Having said that, what do we make of the second, third and fourth future kingdoms represented by the parts of the image made of silver, bronze and iron, and then of a mixture of iron and pottery? The Babylonian empire, in one form or another had lasted for many centuries. Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that after him another kingdom would arise, inferior to his. Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that his empire had been ordained by God to rule over the earth, and so it was rightly depicted as gold. As silver is of less value than gold, there is little doubt that the arms and chest of silver denotes the Medo-Persian empire which eventually conquered the Babylonians.
The third kingdom, shown in the image by the bronze trunk and thighs, said Daniel, would rule over all the earth. This is particularly applicable to the kingdom of Greece founded by Alexander the Great, whose conquests were so extensive that he commanded that he should be called "king of all the earth" and wept that there were no more worlds to conquer.
The fourth kingdom would be strong, hard as iron, crushing and breaking everything which came in its way, but in its final state it would be a divided kingdom, sometimes firm and sometimes brittle, just as the feet and toes of the image were a mixture of iron and baked clay. Many students of prophecy identify the Roman empire with the iron and clay legs and feet of the image.
Others are not so certain, believing it refers to the Greek empire, which caused such distress to the Jews about 160 years before the birth of Jesus. At that time there were was a strong nationalist movement of the Jews under Judas Maccabaeus which resulted in a terrible persecution. The book of Daniel was rediscovered and became a source of great comfort at a time of distress. A great deal has been made of this, to the extent that it has been suggested that the book itself was written at that time, drawing upon a tradition of Daniel and writing it up as prophecy when all the time it was history. Naturally this view does not commend itself to Evangelicals who have a higher view of the Scriptures as God’s Word!
When we look at Daniel’s explanation of the vision of the image we find that he was not too concerned about defining exactly what the four empires represented, but to fix in Nebuchadnezzar’s mind the certainty of the coming and triumph of a greater kingdom - the kingdom of God. The whole climax of the vision is the destruction of the image by a supernatural means by a stone that suddenly fell on the feet of the image and crushed the whole to dust.
When would this world shattering event take place? It would be, said Daniel, "in the time of those kings" (44). What can this mean? Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that the feet of the image had ten toes and as that part was represented by the mixture of iron and pottery, it seems likely that they represent the powers at the time of the coming of the all-powerful stone. This passage has similarities with chapter 7 dealing with the vision of the four beasts one of which had ten horns and there has been much speculation about their identity, much of it fanciful, such as fitting in the various dictators who have arisen. For example, there are Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin, or at the time when there were ten countries in the European Common Market, that was a favourite candidate, but now there are many more members and still increasing, it is not givrn such prominence!
The view I favour is that the image represents "the world" as thought of politically and culturally in opposition to true spiritual values. We know it speaks of past empires - the Babylonian and its successor, the Medo-Persian - and in all probability, the Greek and Roman empires. But it can also represent more recent powers and authorities in their repression of human beings created in God’s likeness, such as Napoleon’s empire, British imperialism or Hitler’s Third Reich. It can also represent things in our contemporary world. It can be a warning against the excesses of the capitalist and communist systems. It can stand for any system that refuses to follow the standards of the Kingdom of God. It can stand for anything which takes the place of God in our lives.
These kingdoms or powers eventually fall apart and are absorbed into another, as we have seen in our lifetime, but a day is coming when they will be destroyed for ever. God revealed to Nebuchadnezzar its coming through "the stone cut from a mountain by no human hand" (45). That stone must be the Lord Jesus Christ. In the New Testament he is described as "a stone that will make men stumble" (Matt 3:2) and "a rock that will make them fall" (1 Pet 2:6-8). His is the kingdom that "the God of heaven will set up which shall never be destroyed".
The Lord Jesus came in great humility at his incarnation and was rejected of men, but that was not the end, for God raised and exalted him, and the day is coming when he will return in power and glory to execute judgment upon a guilty world and finally establish his eternal kingdom. In the words of "The Messiah", "he shall reign for ever and ever. Hallelujah!"
Nebuchadnezzar was simply bowled over. He fell on his face and worshipped Daniel. He paid homage to Daniel as a prophet of "the God of gods and Lord of Kings and a revealer of mysteries" (47). He probably meant these fine and true words at the time, but his response to the truth was not deep enough to change him radically, and it cannot have been an act of repentance or conversion for he soon reverted to his paganism and pride. It is a reminder that religious experiences can often stimulate an impressive response at a superficial level and yet leave people unchanged. Emotional experiences can lead to a moment when the human will and the Spirit of God meet but unless there is a spiritual transaction the old nature will reassert itself. Perhaps this is why, sadly, there are many decisions but few conversions to Christ.
Well, Daniel had a memorable day. He began it by being on the list for execution and ended it with a rapid promotion as the chief executive of the central province of Babylon. But in all this Daniel kept his head and his humility. He went out of his way to recommend that his three companions share the work with him, and so they were appointed administrators in the surrounding area.
We might say that Daniel was in the right place at the right time, but there was more to it than that; he was in the place where God could use him, ready and willing to be God’s servant. That was the secret of his success.
