Introduction
George Washington once said, “Few men have the virtue to withstand the highest bidder.” He was right. Most people have a price. A truly uncompromising man or woman is a very rare commodity. But that’s exactly the kind of person God looks for to do His work. He wants choice servants for choice ministries.
Daniel was such a person–he wouldn’t compromise (Dan. 1). So God used him to reveal His redemptive plan for Israel and the nations of the world. In Daniel 2 we find the most comprehensive prophetic picture of human history in the Old Testament. God chose Daniel because his uncompromising virtue and character put him in a position to influence the world through his prophecy.
The first 30 verses of chapter 2 divide into two simple thoughts: the forgotten dream (vv. 1-13) and the unforgettable Daniel (vv. 14-30). Daniel received a divine commission to reveal God’s plan in the midst of a crisis.
Lesson
I. THE FORGOTTEN DREAM (vv. 1-13)
A. The Dream (vv. 1-3)
1. The king’s response (v. 1)
“In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, and his spirit was troubled, and his sleep went from him.”
In Daniel 2:28-29 Daniel says to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, “Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these: As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter.” Lying in his bed one night, Nebuchadnezzar wondered what would happen to the world after he died.
Cataclysmic things had already taken place. The Babylonians had recently supplanted the Assyrian Empire and decisively defeated Egypt, which would never fully rise from its ashes. Israel had been taken captive, and Judah was in the process of dissolution.
Apparently God gave Nebuchadnezzar several dreams because the Hebrew word translated “dreams” is plural. But I believe one particular dream gave him the most anxiety. The Hebrew word translated “troubled” refers to a deep disturbance. Ordinary dreams can trouble a person, but not with the intensity indicated here. Nebuchadnezzar’s dream troubled him because it was God ordained.
Dreams Ordained to Reveal the Truth
It was not that unusual for God to reveal His plans in dreams to people in the past. Numbers 12:6 says that the Lord spoke to the prophets in visions and dreams. In Genesis 28:10-15 Jacob had a dream that promised him the land of Palestine. God spoke in dreams to Joseph (Gen. 37:5-10), Abimelech (Gen. 20:3), and Solomon (1 Kings 3:5-15). God revealed to Pharaoh in a dream that Egypt would experience seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine (Gen. 41:1-8). Through a dream God indirectly provided encouragement to Gideon and his men (Judg. 7:13-15). God no longer speaks through dreams because He has completed His revelation. Hebrews 1:2 says He “hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” But in former days, God chose to speak through dreams.
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream panicked him. To make matters worse he couldn’t remember much of the details. (I believe God removed most of it from his memory.) Since only the fear of the dream remained, the king probably spent the remainder of the night in sleepless anxiety. By morning he was an emotional wreck.
2. The king’s request (vv. 2-3)
“Then the king commanded to summon the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, to show the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king. And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.”
a) Gathering the experts
Nebuchadnezzar appealed to the brain trust of the Babylonian Empire to help him figure out his dream.
(1) Magicians–The Hebrew term translated “magicians” refers to fortune-tellers. It can also refer to scholars. In ancient societies it wasn’t unusual to see the two roles combined.
(2) Astrologers–These stargazers charted the positions of the stars and tried to determine peoples’ destinies on the basis of how they were arranged, much like those who make up horoscopes claim to do today.
(3) Sorcerers–These spiritualists and enchanters were mediums who attempted to talk with the dead.
(4) Chaldeans–Originally from southern Babylonia, the Chaldeans eventually rose to a place of prominence in the courts of Babylon after Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar’s father, himself a Chaldean, became king. Supposedly they were the wisest and most knowledgeable in the arts and sciences of Chaldea (Babylon).
As so many people do today, the king sought out the so- called experts. The king’s advisors believed in the importance of dreams, so they were anxious to help out the king.
The Chaldean Dream-Reading System
The Chaldean “experts in dreams worked on the principle that dreams and their sequel followed an empirical law which, given sufficient data, could be established…. Dream manuals, of which several examples have come to light [see A.L. Oppenheim, "The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 46.3 (1956): 203ff] consist accordingly of historical dreams and the events that followed them, arranged systematically for easy reference. Since these books had to try to cover every possible eventuality they became inordinately long; only the expert could find his way through them, and even he had to know the dream to begin with before he could search for the nearest possible parallel” (Joyce G. Baldwin, Daniel: An Introduction and Commentary [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1978], pp. 86-87).
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
