Daniel Episode 2: Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream

King Nebuchadnezzar's troubled dreams led to the execution of Babylon's wise men. Daniel prayed to God and received the answer, praising His wisdom and power.

- podcast transcript - 

Wes

Welcome to the Two Journeys' Bible Study podcast. This podcast is just one of the many resources available to you for free from Two Journeys ministry. If you're interested in learning more, just head over to twojourneys.org. Now on to today's episode. This is episode 2 in our Daniel Bible Study podcast. This episode is entitled Nebuchadnezzar's Dream, where we'll discuss Daniel 2:1-23. I'm Wes Treadway, and I'm here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we're looking at today?

Andy

Oh, what an exciting, what a thrilling chapter Daniel 2 is. It's so dramatic, so impressive, and we're only going to be able to go through about half of it here. And in this incredible chapter, we have this tyrant, Nebuchadnezzar, who has a dream and the dream so troubles and terrifies him that he must have an interpretation to the dream, and he threatens all of his counselors with death, immediate death, if they cannot do a miracle, if they cannot tell him what his dream was and then interpret it.

And then Daniel, concerned for his life obviously, is able to get time, to ask time from Nebuchadnezzar, and then goes with his friends, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, and they beseech the God of heaven who reveals the dream to them, and then Daniel praises God for it. And so, what we as Christian readers of this chapter get is the sovereignty of God over all of human history as revealed in the content of the dream, and we'll talk about that God willing in the next podcast. But today we set the whole thing up with a very dramatic story in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar centuries ago.

Wes

Well, let me go ahead and read Daniel 2:1-23:

"In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him. 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. And the king said to them, 'I had a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream.' Then the Chaldeans said to the king in Aramaic, 'Oh king, live forever. Tell your servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation.' The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, '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.’

"They answered a second time and said, 'Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show its interpretation.' 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.' 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.’

"Because of this, the king was angry and very furious, and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed. So the decree went out, and the wise men were about to be killed; and they sought Daniel and his companions, to kill them. 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. 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. And Daniel went in and requested the king to appoint him a time, that he might show the interpretation to the king.

“Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, and told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. Daniel answered and said, 'Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him. To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we asked of you, for you have made known to us the king’s matter.’”

Andy, what are the circumstances of Nebuchadnezzar's dream as we begin chapter 2, and how does he react to the vision?

Andy

Nebuchadnezzar is a new king. He's in the second year of his reign. He's a young man. He's dealing with a vast empire. It seems that he is in a learning process in dealing with his counselors. And as one with tremendous power, but not a lot of wisdom, a lot of experience, it seems he very much overreaches himself in this chapter to the point of being an overt and wicked tyrant. So those are the circumstances of the dream where we learn later in the chapter as Daniel interprets the dream that as he was lying in his bed, he was thinking about the future. He was thinking about what would come in future years.

Then as he has the dream, his initial reaction is one of overt terror. The dream is terrifying to him. And we're going to see this again and again in the book of Daniel. Daniel himself has dreams, visions, that terrify him. So God has the power to put thoughts in our minds that bring us tremendous distress. You'll see the same thing in chapter 4. Nebuchadnezzar has another dream of a mighty tree that gets cut down and its branches stripped, and then the writing on the wall in Daniel 5 brings Belshazzar terror. But Nebuchadnezzar's initial reaction here is one of terror, of fear.

Wes

With whom does Nebuchadnezzar consult to solve his problem? And what is their initial attitude about helping with it?

Andy

Well, we have an interesting group of people called in, and we're going to see them numbers of times through the book of Daniel, and they are losers. They just never do anything of any worth at all. They have no power, they have no insight, et cetera. These are the secular wise men, the wise men of this age. So, in the Babylonian court, they're listed as magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers. There are different translations of these words, but these are folks with different scholarly ability and also they think that they can connect with the supernatural. They're able to contact the dead, they're able to look at the positions of stars, and they study dreams. And so that's what these guys do.

Well, the king brings them in and says, "I've had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means." So he wants the interpretation. And so, they begin with this standard greeting. We hear this again and again, "Oh, king, live forever." And this is a fascinating thing. We see the same thing in the books of the Hebrew Kings, et cetera. "Oh, king live forever." This is a common statement, but this is the very problem. This is the issue. Nebuchadnezzar is not going to live forever. There is going to be a kingdom, an empire after him, actually succession of empires after him. And so they come and greet him with this throwaway phrase, "Oh, king, live forever," but that's very much the point. And they say, "If you tell us the dream, we will interpret it for you."

Now, one thing that our listeners might not know is that there was a whole system of Babylonian dream interpretation. They kept libraries, databases, so to speak, in books of dreams and their interpretation, who had the dream, what was in the dream, and then what subsequently happened. So they have this whole system of dream interpretation. They're ready to bring all that to bear on Nebuchadnezzar's new dream. That's why they're so very confident. "Tell us the dream, and we absolutely will be able to interpret it," yeah.

Wes

What do verses 5 and 6 teach us about King Nebuchadnezzar?

Andy

Nebuchadnezzar is a strong-willed leader. He is a great man. He's not a great man morally or spiritually, but he is a great man on earth. He's one of the great men that have ever lived. And he has a strong personality, and he is already made up his mind concerning this. It's pretty clear he doesn't trust the system of Babylonian dream interpretation. He really wants to know what his dream meant. He really feels that the dream was given him by God. And as it turns out, it was. And so along with the dream it seems has come a sense of its importance and an urgency within Nebuchadnezzar to get the right interpretation. But he also wants to cut through all of the malarkey and the fraud of the Babylonian dream interpretation system where they're going to, as he will say, conspire together to tell him misleading things or lies. He doesn't want any of that.

So therefore, he's posing a test. "You folks say you have contact with the supernatural, fine, prove it to me. If you can tell me what my dream was, I'll give you the right to interpret it. I'll be ready to listen to you. You will have basically proved your worth at that point. But if you can't do that…” Well, we're going to see his punishments are extreme, but this is what he's decided. He's going to tear them, basically tear them limb from limb. He's going to tear apart their houses. He's going to destroy their whole world. But on the other hand, if they are able to tell him his dream and interpret it, they'll be lavishly rewarded. It's all or nothing for them.

Wes

And here his advisors double down. They say, "Well, hold on. Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show it's interpretation." They're like, "That's not how this works. We need to know the dream, and then we can interpret it." So they're pressing for what they initially requested. Why do you think Nebuchadnezzar commands such an apparently unreasonable thing of his counselors in verses 8 and 9? And why was it so important to him to have an accurate interpretation of this dream?

Andy

Well, I think he's got that sense of urgency. I think it came with the dream. I think God is able to give rulers not just thoughts but directions of their heart. And so God put the dream in Nebuchadnezzar's mind and then an urgency to have a right interpretation. But Nebuchadnezzar rolled out the tyranny in order to get at that. And so he's wanting these astrologers and soothsayers and Chaldeans and all that, he wants them to prove their ability to interpret the dream. And so even though they basically say the same thing the second time, he's like, "No, this is not going to happen. I believe you've conspired together to tell me lying and misleading things. So this is what I've firmly decided." They may have thought he's just saying the same thing twice. "Tell me the dream and interpret it." It's like, "Okay, that sounds good."

"No, no, no. It's two separate things related. Tell me what the dream was and then tell me what the dream meant."

"We got it now. Now, we can't do that." And so the issue is you have to do a miracle if you are going to have the right to interpret the dream.

"I think God is able to give rulers not just thoughts but directions of their heart. And so God put the dream in Nebuchadnezzar's mind and then an urgency to have a right interpretation."

Wes

And this is clear in how they respond. How do they answer the king and how does their answer really help to glorify God in the end?

Andy

Oh, there's not a man on earth who can do with the king has asked. It's impossible. No king, however mighty or powerful, has ever asked such a thing of any of his counselors. So I don't know if this is the wise thing, obviously it didn't work because he's ready to go. He's ready to kill them all. But they're like, "You can't be serious. I mean, this is ridiculous." So it could be that they're actually playing on his youth and inexperience. He's a brand-new king, and it's like, "You don't seem to realize. Kings don't get to do this. You don't ask us to do a miracle." After Jesus, it's like we use the language, "You're telling me to walk on water, telling me to do a miracle?” And that's something that no king has ever asked. And so they are absolutely stunned that he would require this. They say, "What you have asked is impossible. It can't be done. No one will be able to do it. Now only God could do this, and he doesn't dwell on earth."

Wes

Why does Nebuchadnezzar react with such rage after this seemingly reasonable answer? And what does his decree show us about his nature and his authority that we've already begun to discuss?

Andy

Yeah, I think it's pretty clear from numerous accounts, or we'll see it in the next chapter as well with the fiery furnace and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, so-called that we know them as, he becomes enraged then too. He's definitely has an anger problem. And he's a tyrant. His face gets all red, and he's ready to kill them all. He basically becomes enraged. I think first of all, he's frustrated he isn't going to get what he wants. And so I think it's hard for any potentate like this guy, any mighty king, to realize the limits of their power, to realize they're right up against the limits of what they can require of people to do. "You have all power." No, you don't. And so fundamentally, he becomes enraged at being frustrated by these men and their answer, but also in that he's not going to get what he wants. And so he orders that all of the wise men, the counselors in Babylon be killed as a result. Even people that weren't even involved in it, including Daniel and his friends.

Wes

And verse 13 tells us as much. It says, "The decree went out and the wise men were about to be killed." And this includes, it says, "They sought Daniel and his companions to kill them." What character trait does Daniel display both in his response to the situation and his dealings with Arioch? And how does God use this to glorify himself?

Andy

Daniel is a man of extremely high character. We're going to see this again and again. We see the question in front of us, what kind of man was Daniel? And so in chapter 1, we see that he is a morally pure man. We see that he's committed to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and to the laws that were given to him. He's a man of self-control, a man of faith. He's a leader. He's also incredibly intelligent. He's given gifts, intellectual gifts, the ability to interpret dreams even we're told in chapter 1, and the ability to understand all the wisdom and learning of the Babylonians. He's an incredibly intelligent person. But now we have some other attributes. It says they answered Arioch, the commander of the king's guard who is an executioner, his chief executioner, he's a powerful man, a hardened military man, he speaks to him, it says, with wisdom and tact. That's my translation. What do you have in verse 14?

Wes

Prudence and discretion.

Andy

Okay, so discretion, tact, I love that. And so he's coming at Arioch with a wise and gentle and shrewd and careful approach. Shrewd is not even the right word as though he's scheming. It's just he seems to have built up also with Arioch a reputation. And so Arioch is going to give him what he asks for. He is going to give him access to the king, and the king eventually is going to give him time to interpret the dream. And so we see a lot of amazing attributes in Daniel. What kind of man does God use in a critical situation like this? When you are able to keep your head and everyone else is losing theirs, everyone else is flying off or getting emotional and running and hiding, that's remarkable. And Daniel had tremendous courage along with wisdom and tact.

Wes

As you mentioned, verse 16 really is astounding in light of what we read back in verse 8. Daniel goes in, requests the king to appoint him a time that he might show the interpretation to the king. Why do you think this enraged King was willing to grant Daniel's request?

Andy

Well, I think there's some things related to Daniel, and then there's just things related to God. Things related to Daniel are his superior character and intelligence. I think Daniel already has been highlighted as we see at the end of chapter 1, as somebody that was 10 times better than anyone else in the Babylonian court, this guy of tremendous talent. Nebuchadnezzar could recognize talent and ability.

And so his character, his approach, the fact that he has a plan, he has a specific plan for getting the king an answer. It's not an indefinite thing, but he's going to come back and give the king an answer. But more than anything, I think we ascribe it to the sovereignty of God. God was able to control Arioch first to give Daniel what he asked for, an audience with the king. And then he's able to control the king as it says in Proverbs 21:1, "The king's heart is like a watercourse in the hands of the Lord. He directs it whatever way he pleases." And so it was essential to God's plan with this whole thing to give Daniel the time he would need to find out what the dream was and interpret it.

Wes

What do we learn in verses 17 through 19 about the hidden root system of Daniel's courage and faith? And how does verse 19 display God's power?

Andy

Yeah, so we're going to see later in the book Daniel's hidden root system. You're going to see it in chapter 6, Daniel in the lion’s den, in which the commitment was that he was not allowed to pray to any God except the emperor during the next 30 days. And the reason that this decree was made in the empire at that point of the Medes and Persians was the people realized how incredibly religious Daniel was. And part of it was his habit, which is stated very clearly in Daniel 6:10, "Three times a day, he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God as he had done before, prayed toward Jerusalem." We see evidence of this also in chapter 9, where he has a beautiful and very humble prayer of confession of national sin and personal sin, even though we never see Daniel sin, but he's very humble and faith-filled. And also the angel coming with a report, a vision from heaven saying, "O man, highly esteemed." This is an angel saying, "Daniel, you are highly esteemed."

So Daniel's a completely unique individual. And so the root system here is prayer, personal prayer and piety, godliness, holiness. And so he gathers his friends together, Hannah, Mishael, and Azariah, and he wants them to pray for all of them, but pray specifically for him to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this so that God would reveal the mystery to them, and that they would not perish with all of the counselors of Babylon.

Wes

How does Daniel react to the revelation and why? We'll get to his hymn of praise in just a moment, but verse 19 tells us simply how he reacts. And then it's elaborated in this amazing answer that we'll talk about in just a moment. But in verse 19, how does Daniel react and why?

Andy

Well, first of all, what happens is God reveals the dream to him. And we're going to see the dream. It's a dream of a statue with a head of gold and chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze and legs of iron, feet partly iron, partly clay. And it's destroyed by a rock cut out, not by human hands. And the rock becomes a huge mountain that fills the whole earth. That's the dream. Well, it's an awesome dream. It's an overpowering dream. And Daniel is amazed at the dream, but he's also amazed at God answering the prayer. He's asked God for a miracle, and God has done it. And so, he praises God for this, but he came during the night, I don't know, 3:00 in the morning. So, they're praying throughout the night, praying for their lives, praying that God would reveal it, asking God to do a miracle. It's no less of a miracle than we're going to see in chapter three with the deliverance of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace.

But here it's not quite as dramatic as that, but it's still miraculous. And Daniel is blown away by the goodness of God. He praised the God of heaven, and we have his hymn of praise recorded in 20 through 23.

Wes

For what specifically then in verses 20 through 23 does Daniel praise God? And what did these verses reveal about God's power and sovereign control?

Andy

Well, you said it yourself there at the very end, he praises God for his sovereignty over the rise and fall of empires. God is sovereign over every kingdom, every empire, every political entity there has ever been. As the apostle Paul says in Acts 17, that the God who rules over heaven and earth from one man made every nation of men. And he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. That says it all. God is in charge of every thread of the tapestry of human history. Every thread. Dark or light color, it does not matter. Every theme, every thread has come from the sovereign mind of God. God is sovereign.

A subordinate theme, very important to Daniel and his friends is, the mercy God showed them and not having them die, that they would not be slaughtered. So secondarily, he praises God for his kindness and mercy in revealing the dream to him on behalf of his friends. And so, but above all, what really blows him away is the awesome power of God over all nations. And this is the very thing we see beautifully in Isaiah 40. The nations are as a drop from the bucket and as dust on the scales, there is nothing compared to him. He rules over the kingdoms of heaven and earth. He rules over everything. That's God.

Wes

What does verse 21 mean when it says, "He changes times and seasons"? And how might the phrase, "He sets up kings and deposes them," comfort us?

Andy

"He changes times and seasons." I think basically what it means is when it's time to go from summer to fall, it's time it moves. It doesn't happen automatically. We don't believe in deism where God set up the universe like a clock and then wound it up and goes away and lets it run. No, God changes times and seasons. He causes sunrises and sunsets. He's in charge of the passage of time. But not only that, because the thing before us is the rise and fall of empires. "He changes times and seasons" means when God decrees that your time is done, your time of being the most powerful nation on earth is done. It's done. God is the one that changes those times and those seasons. And I think by way of explanation, he sets up kings and then deposes them. Or as it says to Pharaoh, as scripture says to Pharaoh, Romans chapter 9, "I raised you up for this very purpose that I might display my power in you and my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."

So you think about that. Pharaoh said to Moses, "Who is the Lord? I don't know who he is." Well, the answer is, he's how you got your job. He's how you became Pharaoh. He's like, "Well, I don't know who he is." It doesn't matter. It's true. It is God who set you up as Pharaoh. "I raised you up for this very purpose. I created you. I knit you together in your mother's womb. I trained you and prepared you, and I set you on a throne."

Well, not just Pharaoh, every king there's ever been. He sets up those kings. But then when the time comes, he deposes them. What does that mean? Well, simply put, they die. Look at wicked King Herod and the book of Acts that did not give glory to God, and God struck him. An angel of the Lord struck him at the command of God and he was eaten by worms and died. Just boom, dead. Nebuchadnezzar, later his mind is going to be changing into that of an animal. God has the power to do that, and yet he didn't lose his throne. Seven years later, the throne's waiting for him. Amazing.

So, God decided Nebuchadnezzar would continue. And so Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 4 is going to celebrate that God effectively restored his glory and his throne for his own power. And he established him again as king over the Babylonian empire. That's incredible. A miracle. Nature abhors a vacuum. And a power vacuum is going to get filled by some power-hungry person, but it didn't in Nebuchadnezzar's case. Why? Because God is sovereign. God is the one who sets up kings and deposes them.

Let me say something to my listening audience. I want to say something about politics. Many Christians these days, as they look at specifically the politics of America, they look at presidential elections, they look at senatorial elections, gubernatorial elections, they look at various initiatives and constitutional works and all that, they look at all of that with a tremendous amount of alarm and a tremendous amount of dismay and discouragement. I would commend to you this book of Daniel, I'm not saying that we shouldn't be concerned, we should. We should pray. I'm not saying we shouldn't be active. We can participate as a participatory government, but we need to know one thing, and that is this, God is sovereign over all of human history. He's sovereign over human governments. It is God who sets up presidents and deposes them. God is in charge of all things.

Wes

I think, Andy, even as we hear the language of times and seasons, my mind was drawn to Ecclesiastes chapter 3 that says, "For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven." You could almost get a sense in the argument of Ecclesiastes that that's arbitrary, that there is a time set, but it just kind of happens whenever it happens. But I think if we harmonize that with what we see here, is nothing happens by accident. God rules over all of that. And so we can have great confidence in God's purposes and in the God that we praise.

Andy

In my opinion, that is the purpose of the entire book of Daniel. It is given to the Jews first to give them confidence that despite the exile at the Babylon, God is still on his throne, and Israel still has a history. Secondly, for us as Christians, to not be worried in any generation. I mean honestly, the Bible's been around for all the 2,000 years since Christ ascended to heaven. Think about what it would be like to be a European Christian as Nazi Germany rose to total dominance and power. Imagine being Corrie Ten Boom in Holland and being able to read the book of Daniel and say, "My God is still sovereign. He's still ruling."

Wes

What does verse 22 teach us about God's omniscience? And how does it refute open theism or the doctrine that God cannot know the future because human free will is so unpredictable?

Andy

Yeah. So he reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what lies in darkness. And I think the issue here is the future. The future is dark. We use the expression "The future is bright," meaning we're optimistic about it. But in this sense, the future is dark, meaning we don't know what it is. We don't know the future. And James says it very plainly, "You don't even know what will happen tomorrow." So how can we know what will happen in a year or in a hundred years or to the end of time? But God does. God knows what lies in darkness. Even the night is as light to you, it says in Psalm 139. There are no mysteries. There's nothing hidden to God. Everything in the future is not just known by God, but it's sovereignly ordained and decreed by God. And God exerts his force, his power to make it happen.

As Isaiah 10 says, "This is the hand. This is the plan, and this is the hand. The plan is the wise plan that God makes. And then the hand is his sovereign power to make it happen." Now, you mentioned open theism. Open theism is what I would call hyper-arminianism, and that is elevating human free will to such an absolute in the universe that God himself cannot know, cannot possibly know what free will decisions people will make in the future. He's only ever reacting to decisions we make. He's influencing, yes. But like us, we don't know what someone's going to do. Neither does God. And so God is constantly in a reactive state. Well friends, that does not line up with the God of the Book of Daniel. God is not in any reactive state. He changes times and seasons. He sets up kings. He deposes them. He knows what lies in darkness and light dwells with him.

Wes

Why is verse 23 such an appropriate conclusion to Daniel's praise? And what final thoughts do you have for us on this passage that we've been looking at today?

Andy

This is all about praise. I mean, why does God do all this? It's for the praise of His glory. We're going to spend eternity studying history. I'm convinced of that. We're going to spend eternity studying the history of God, and we are going to see the greatness of God's works in history. And so, Daniel 2:23 goes right to it. "I thank and praise you, oh God, for what you've done." And I thank you also for making known to us the king’s matter. You've made known to us the dream of the king, and so we would be able to survive. And so, in the midst of the soaring themes of God's majestic sovereign control over the rise and fall of empires is his concern for individual people like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. He's concerned about them, and he spares their lives. And so, God has love for the individual while he's sovereignly ruling over all of history, and that is very comforting.

"In the midst of the soaring themes of God's majestic sovereign control over the rise and fall of empires is his concern for individual people like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. He's concerned about them, and he spares their lives. And so, God has love for the individual while he's sovereignly ruling over all of history, and that is very comforting."

Wes

This has been episode 2 in our Daniel Bible study podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for episode 3 entitled Nebuchadnezzar's Dream Revealed and Explained, where we'll discuss Daniel 2:24-49. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.