Daniel 2:7 Commentary and Bible Study

The Chaldeans are increasingly worried that they are not going to be told the dream, and are going to have to do something they know they cannot do. ‘Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation of it.’ They know the limits of their powers, or rather of their trickery, and it does not extend to telling a man the secret thoughts of his heart including what he has dreamed. The king accuses them of playing for time: ‘I know of certainty that ye would gain the time’ – the original says literally, ‘buy the time’; this is more modern to our ears – ‘because ye see the thing is gone from me.’ This is a game they have often played and the king knows it. They have delayed giving a clear answer until circumstances have changed, and they have avoided the need to do or say what could only be done with real power and knowledge. But Nebuchadnezzar is not going to allow them to get away with it. He charges them with preparing lying words. They are playing for time because they see he means business, but this matter is so important to him that he will not allow them to squirm out of it. This obviously gives them an insoluble problem since they lack any real power.‘Till the time be changed’ – Nebuchadnezzar knows that this dream concerns the unfolding of future events, but he does not know precisely what. He will not let them delay until the future unfolds and they can pretend they knew it all along. He knows how to deal with deceitful men like this. Their evasiveness is going to irritate him more and more, until he thunders out a destructive edict against them which threatens their lives.