Last week, we heard of God’s judgment upon His people because of their continued sin and rebellion against Him. Many Jews were carried away into captivity in Babylon. Daniel and his three friends were young, talented people and were carried away to learn the ways of the Babylonians, and then serve the Babylonian government and king, as advisors, if all went well. God was with them and blessed them, as they sought to follow God’s will as well as they could in a very difficult culture. God hel...
Last week, we heard of God’s judgment upon His people because of their continued sin and rebellion against Him. Many Jews were carried away into captivity in Babylon. Daniel and his three friends were young, talented people and were carried away to learn the ways of the Babylonians, and then serve the Babylonian government and king, as advisors, if all went well. God was with them and blessed them, as they sought to follow God’s will as well as they could in a very difficult culture. God helped them, so that they were far superior to others who were brought to serve the Babylonian leaders.
As Chapter Two of Daniel begins Nebuchadnezzar, the leader of Babylon, had a very disturbing dream and wanted his regular advisors to interpret the dream for Him. Probably to test his advisors, he asked them to tell him what his dream was and then to tell what it meant. The advisors try to stall and buy time because how were they to know all this? Finally they admit, “There is not a man on earth who can meet the king’s demands” (2:10). Only the gods could know what he asks, and they are far away from human beings (2:11). Nebuchadnezzar is so angry with them that he orders that all the wise men of Babylon are to be destroyed. When Daniel and his friends find out about this, Daniel wisely and discreetly asks what is going on. When he finds out, he asks for permission to see the king himself.
Before he goes, Daniel asks his Jewish friends to pray for God’s mercy and help with this “mystery” of the dream (2:17-18). This is an important theme in the Book of Daniel and later on in the Scriptures - revealing mysteries in God’s plans for the future, for the Jewish nation, for the rise and fall of other nations and empires, and for the coming of the Savior, Jesus, and the coming of God’s eternal kingdom. Most important is revealing that God cares about all people and nations and wants to help and bless all , through Jesus. (See Romans 16:25-27 and Ephesians 3:3-6, as examples of this mystery being revealed.) Both Daniel, and Revelation in the New Testament, are examples of mysteries and their being revealed through numbers and dreams and visions and unusual events. Reading Daniel helps us understand more about the Book of Revelations, given to John. We will talk more about this later.
In Daniel 2:18, God gives a vision to Daniel himself, revealing what Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was and what it meant. Daniel is ready to see the king, but first he thanks and praises God for revealing everything to him. The one true God, His eternal God, is in charge of times and seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings; He reveals deep and hidden things and shines light in the darkness (2:20-23). The God of heaven controls even the stars. The stars have no control over us, in spite of what astrology, etc., says. Daniel even speaks on behalf of his fellow advisors - that none of them be killed, even though they have been not been helpful to Nebuchadnezzar (v24). Daniel does not practice the “cancel culture” we often see today. He cares about his fellow workers and wants to help them.
Daniel is then quickly taken to the king and is able to explain what Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was and what it meant. He begins, though, by making it clear that it was not by his own wisdom and power, but only through the God of heaven (2:27-30) Who draws near and helps His people, unlike the false idols of the Babylonians, “whose dwelling is not with flesh” (2:11). The closeness of the one true God became even clearer with the coming of God the Son, Jesus, in the flesh to reveal God’s “grace and truth." (See John 1:1,14-18 and Hebrews 1:1-2.)
Daniel shows the dream of Nebuchadnezzar as his seeing a great, bright, mighty image, with a head of fine gold, a chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, and its feet of iron and clay. A stone, not cut by human hands, then comes and hits the feet of the image and shatters them and the whole image collapses and disappears. The stone then becomes a great mountain and fills the earth (Daniel 2:31-35).
Daniel then describes the meaning of this dream (2:36-45). The golden head is the Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar and leaders following. After the Babylonian Empire, three other empires come and go. These are usually described as the Medo-Persian Empire, followed by Alexander the Great and the Greek Empire, and then the Roman Empire. The point is that earthly kingdoms come and go, as history clearly showed, as time went on after Daniel’s time. It is still true today. This was not an evolution into better and better kingdoms, through human progress. Parts of the image become “inferior” over time (2:39). Finally there are “feet of clay” - a term still used for human weakness, a characteristic of all human beings.
Against all this comes a stone, not cut by human hands, that shatters everything, and becomes a great mountain, filling the earth. This is an everlasting kingdom, coming during the Roman Empire and set up by the God of heaven, in the midst of earthly kingdoms (2:44-45). There had been other prophecies in the Old Testament of a Stone to come. See Psalm 118:21-23 and Isaiah 8:13-14, and how Jesus applies these prophecies to Himself in Matthew 21:42-44. Peter, in Acts 4:11-12, clearly say that Jesus is that Stone, on which the Kingdom of God, the church, all believers in Jesus, is built. There is no other way to salvation than through Jesus. See also Ephesians 2:19-22 and I Peter 2:4-10, etc. One is either built on Jesus, by God’s grace, or one stumbles over Jesus and falls by rejection and unbelief. The everlasting nature of God’s kingdom is also tied to Jesus, the Rock. See John 12:36, 1 Corinthians 15:20-25, and Revelation 11:15, for example.
Finally, all enemies will be defeated and there will be only everlasting peace through Jesus for believers. How do we end the Lord’s Prayer? The kingdom and power and glory forever and ever are not with an earthly leader like Nebuchadnezzar, strong as he was (2:37), but with the true King of kings, Jesus. (See Revelation 1:5, 17:14, 19:16, etc.) We take comfort, in these days of an important election. God is still in charge and at work, no matter what human beings decide, for good or for ill. We pray for good, as we see it, but trust God above all.
Of course, not all this is fully clear at the time Daniel tells and writes this. It awaits the revelation through Christ and the New Testament, including the Revelation to John. Nebuchadnezzar honors Daniel for what he reveals (2:46-49) though maybe as much for his being able to describe the actual dream, along with the revelation, which does recognize Nebuchadnezzar’s power at least for a while. Nebuchadnezzar was right, though he likely did not fully believe it himself, when he said, “Truly, your God is God of gods and Lord of kings, and a revealer of mysteries.” This could be called the key theme to the rest of the Book of Daniel, as well.
Daniel’s friends are promoted, too, and Daniel remains an advisor to Nebuchadnezzar and others following him. We don’t know for sure, but likely Daniel also taught God’s Word when he could, including prophecies of a coming star and a king born from the Jews. The wise men came the East, and the word for the Magi, in Matthew 2:1-2 is a Persian word, from Medo-Persian times.
Sadly, Nebuchadnezzar continues to be a polytheist, following more than one God. In Daniel, Chapter 3, he builds a great golden image, 90 feet high and 9 feet across, (could he have been inspired in a bad way by his dream of a golden head?) Note the contrast between an idol built by human hands, and Jesus, the eternal Son of God, the Stone not cut out by any human hands (Daniel 2:34). Nebuchadnezzar commands everyone to do what he says and worship this image he made and indirectly, at least, to honor him and his words more than the Word of God, which allowed only for the worship of the One True God. The three friends of Daniel are reported as disobeying the command of the king, and they are the three men thrown into a fiery furnace, as a punishment. We will hear more of that next week along with Daniel 4 and 5, if possible. God cares for His people, in bad times as well as good, as we shall see.
