Daniel 2:27 Commentary and Bible Study

The very term that Daniel uses also confirms that the king knew full well what his dream was – ‘The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king.’ For Daniel it is important to remind the king that the Chaldean religionists had no idea what the dream was, and would be therefore incompetent to interpret it; he wants to show that the wisdom of the wisest in Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom is nothing. It might sound sour, but he must expose the error of false religion. They had stolen the credit from God. Daniel wants to make it plain only the Lord can do this. But Daniel is not unsympathetic to them, because he seems to put in a word for them as he goes on. Nebuchadnezzar’s thoughts have been on the future. This great ruler was a very insecure man; he had more than a dash of paranoia. ‘What will happen to my kingdom? Will it in turn suffer violence. Will I be betrayed, assassinated? Or will a successor become more famous than me?’ These things mattered terribly to him, and were the ideas in the back of his mind at the time of his dream. So much so that cynical commentators have said the dream was not from God, but was a product of his own mind.There is a God in heaven whose purpose has been to reveal secrets to Nebuchadnezzar concerning ‘the latter days’. This is a key word for the gospel age, even though some of the vision was about events before Christ came. The most important part of the vision, the climax, was when the stone struck the image and became a great mountain. That would take place during the last of the empires represented in the vision. ‘As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass.’ Nebuchadnezzar is being shown the future and through him it will be published throughout the empire so that all will know there is a God in heaven who determines all that takes place, and does whatsoever he pleases in all the earth, and none can resist him.There is to be an explanation – ‘Thy dream and the visions of thy head upon thy bed are these’ – but before that is given Daniel is concerned to do something else. He is not going to answer, until he has witnessed to the power and knowledge of the one true God. He knows that in the godless culture of Babylon, the ability to answer the king’s dream is going to make people think he possesses some supernatural power of his own. Certainly that is what the astrologers would have claimed if they had been able to interpret it. They would have been careful to take as much credit as they could. But Daniel will not steal glory from the Lord. We see his great modesty and determination to give all glory to God. ‘He that revealeth secrets [God alone] maketh known to thee what shall come to pass. ³⁰ But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living.’ Like Paul and Barnabas (Acts 14:14) Daniel takes steps to prevent any praise coming to himself.