40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Daniel 2:1-30 (Episode 510)

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that greatly troubles him. The king can't find anyone to interpret the dream for him, and he promises death for all the wise men. And Daniel requests an opportunity to go to God for the interpretation. Have a listen. Follow 1517:  Instagram X/Twitter More from 1517: Give to the June 1517 Podcast Network Fundraiser! Learn more about the 1517 Podcast Network Fundraiser 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education New Books from 1517 Publishing: By Water and the Word by Brian Thomas Being Family by Dr. Scott Keith A Reasoned Defense of the Faith by Adam Francisco Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Dr. Christopher Richmann The Essential Nestingen: Essays on Preaching, Catechism, and the Reformation More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

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40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. you can go to 1517.org slash podcast check out all the other podcasts are living over there and while you're over there make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing sign up for some academies you know watch some videos read some articles sign up for an event come out to san diego there's still some tickets left for that come hang out with chad myself and a whole bunch of other people wesley huff scott keith magnus pearson i mean have you ever heard magnus pearson if you've never heard magnus man come here the the lutheran swede just bring it uh it's good It's good stuff.

You can go over there and grab some tickets to that. We'd love to see you there. Chad, we are in Daniel chapter 2, last episode. We got a little introduction about, you know, hey, what's this guy Daniel doing over there in the faraway land? What's happened? And who are these other guys that we know as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, which it turns out is names that they were given and not their actual names. But somehow we have capitulated and went with the pagan names on these guys. Sorry about that, guys.

So we got to hear about all that and kind of learned that it wasn't like these were the only four guys or anything that were in captivity. But we kind of zoom in on these guys and figure out that these guys are a little bit different, got some talents, as it were. They are identified as maybe being a little exceptional. Yeah, so they're going to, of course, stand out. They're ten times better, as the chapter says, ten times better than all the other magicians and enchanters that were in his kingdom. Of course they were. I mean, they were God's chosen of four, right? So, yeah, they stand out.

They're elevated, given some authority, some responsibility. And when we switch now into Chapter 2, we're going to hear about him again, although the focus in Chapter 2 is going to be primarily upon our friend Daniel, although he's going to be working with his three friends. So the opening verse of Chapter 2 is going to set us in what's called the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. This is probably actually the right after these guys have finished their training. So you may remember from the previous episode, they had about three years of education. And this is the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. But probably what happened was, so we discussed this briefly at the beginning of the book, how depending on where you lived, they counted the reigning years differently.

Some people counted them, you know, if it's a partial year, that was the first year. Some only counted from the first calendar year. so this is probably actually right at the end of their three years of uh actually being instructed in you know all the babylonian literature and whatnot so they've just the recent graduates how's that recent graduates and in the second year of the reign of nebuchadnezzar he had dreams and these weren't just your your regular dreams because we're told that his spirit was troubled and his sleep left him so this of course this is hard this takes you back to uh the last third of genesis right i mean you got pharaoh here we are there's a lot i mean there's so many

parallels here between what went on with joseph and then what goes on with with daniel they're like biblical cousins both these guys are uh able to interpret dreams both of them rise to prominence in the kingdom. Of course, both of them are Israelites. Both of them feature in the salvation story in that way. So here we have once more a foreign, a Gentile king who has these troubling dreams. So what does he do? Verse two says that he's going to find out what this is all about. So the king commanded that the magicians and the enchanters and the sorcerers and the Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his his dreams and so they came in and stood before the king so these guys i mean we could go over the difference between the the various groups but

i don't really think that's necessary you know they all everybody has their particular specialization whether yours is you know magic or you know the spells or you know certain sacrifices or called the ends is just kind of a broad term for your your wise men probably also specialists in interpreting dreams. But obviously this was a pretty serious dream because the king is going to get to the bottom of it. Before we go any further though, these guys who are commanded to stand before the king, this wouldn't have been the first time that they were asked to interpret a dream of some sort, you know. So they were probably expecting to come in and for the king to say, hey, I need you to interpret this dream for me. Here's what happened. Here's what I dreamed

and give me the interpretation. So they're in for a surprise, needless to say. Yeah, it seems that this dream really bothers him. And it is one of those things like where these guys have these dreams and when they describe the dream, you're like, I mean, if I had that dream, I would not be searching high and low for the explanation. I would be like, that was weird. i've had i mean i don't remember my dreams too often but um you know i've had a nightmare before

in my life and they're way worse than any of the stuff that it's not like you know joseph i saw some fat cows and i saw some skinny cows and if i had that dream i'd be like i'd probably tell you i might be like chad i had the craziest dream i said it's a bunch of fat cows and then like some skinny cows and the skinny cows were eating the fat cows like i don't know what i ate but like it I was – I must have eaten some bad beef or something because that was weird. But I wouldn't be like if I don't find the interpretation here. So it lets you know that there's something more than just the dream itself because the dream – these dreams themselves, it doesn't make a ton of sense that this would bother you so much unless God was not letting this dream escape your mind, right? If you had this dream, you would think it was weird, and then by noon, you'd never think about it again.

Yeah, I think there's a couple things going on here. First, yeah, obviously, this wasn't just your run-of-the-mill dream. I mean, I have some pretty—my wife will tell you, I usually tell her my dreams in the morning. And, well, we both just shake her head because I have some of the weirdest, wackiest dreams, the interpretation of which I don't think I even want to know if there is, Because I'm afraid of what it might mean. But yeah, so this was not your typical dream because it, yeah, deeply troubled him. And he had to get to the bottom of it. That's the first thing to keep in mind. The second thing is that, you know, I think most of us, whether we're talking Christians or non-Christians, you know, we don't really think our dreams are God telling us to do something or to know about something. And in that way, I mean, we are very different from large segments of the ancient world who did.

I mean, they thought God regularly communicated with them through dreams. So, I mean, kind of keeping both of those things in mind. And one more thing that's important to know disculturally is that dream interpretation was such a big deal in all these ancient cultures. They had manuals of dream interpretation. So here's your dream. Here's what it means. Or here's some symbols in your dream. So here's what they represent.

This sounds like a scam. This is like, you're like, you know what I'm going to go into? Dream interpretation. I'm going to interpret dreams. And all you got to do is be kind of good at inventing some symbology. Yeah, that's all you got to do. And I think, of course, we haven't got to it yet. But I think that is exactly what Nebuchadnezzar expects these guys are going to do.

They're going to say, yeah, if you've done this a while, you can get creative and you can interpret some dream, especially in a way that's going to flatter your superior, in this case, the king. So going on, verse three, here's what the king says to them. He says, I had a dream and my spirit is troubled to know the dream. Then the Chaldeans said to the king in Aramaic, okay, so here we just kind of a side note here. In Aramaic, it signals that from this point, and not just from this point to the end of the chapter, but from this point through several chapters to come, in fact, most footnotes, most Bibles have a footnote that says like to the end of chapter seven, this is in Aramaic, that now we've switched.

We switched everything up to this point was Hebrew. Now we're switching to Aramaic, which is kind of a cousin language. And I think I mentioned in the first episode that it's about 55% of Daniel is in Aramaic, which makes it a unique book in the entire Old Testament for having that much. Ezra is about a third Aramaic.

And then Jeremiah chapter 10, verse 11 is in Aramaic. But, you know, most biblical books are strictly or exclusively in Hebrew. So from this point on, we switched to Aramaic, which was the kind of the universal language, the lingua franca of this part of the ancient world. So anyway, they're speaking in Aramaic, and here's what they say. O king, live forever. Tell your servants the dream, and we will show you the interpretation. This is laying it on a little thick, right? So this is what I mean by like it seems like you brought in some guys that are like, oh, king, may you live forever.

Is this dream troubling you? You tell me this dream. I'll tell you what it means. And this guy is ready to just give him some – try to discern what it is that this king would like to hear and then tell him exactly that. And I do like that the king is like, yeah, and that's the one thing I'm not really here for. Yeah. Yeah, he cuts them off. Verse five, the king answered and said to the Chaldeans, the word for me is firm. So don't argue, right? Here's the firm word I have for you.

If you, and this is so brutal too, if you don't 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, so that's the bad news. 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. Isn't there sort of implied in this, because you're like, okay, if somebody told you this, like, if you don't interpret this dream for me, I'm going to rip your arms off. And you're like, okay, I have a lot of motivation right now to come up with an interpretation of this dream. But it does seem that like implied in this is like when you interpret this dream, if it's some kind of future thing, like it better happen.

Or like I don't think it's like just if you don't give me an interpretation right now only, but it's like if I determine that this interpretation is incorrect, it's not going to go well. Yeah, both of these are – both of those are going on. So they're in a tough situation. Yeah, you got to say something. You can't say, oh, I can't interpret it. This is not good. Yeah, you can't simply say, well, we can't do that because you have, there's no C option, right? A, you want to be torn limb from limb and your house is laid in ruins, or do you want to be, you know, greatly, greatly rewarded? And of course, this is not an empty threat. Remember, this is the guy who, next chapter, will throw Daniel's three friends into the fiery furnace.

And this is the same guy who will take the last king of Jerusalem and bring him before him, execute his kids before this guy's eyes, and then blind him. So the last thing he sees is his own children being executed. So that's this Nebuchadnezzar. I mean, the guy is not uttering epi threats. he probably tears people limb from limb and on on a regular basis so here's their their response to this is in verse 7 they answered a second time and said let the king tell his servants the dream and we will show its interpretation so you know come on just let us know we'll give you the interpretation just tell us a dream verse 8 the king knows what's going on he answered and said

I know with certainty that you are trying to gain time, because you see the word for me is firm. If you don't make known the dream 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. Oh, see, now this is tough. You're in a bind now. Because it seems that the king is saying, like, probably he's maybe used these guys before, you know? So these are like his go-to dream interpreters here. And he's like, yeah, I don't think your record's that good. So here's how we're going to do it this time. I'm not going to tell you the dream. You tell me the dream and its interpretation.

How about that? This is a tough situation to be in. Yeah, well, he knows this is nothing more than delay tactics, right? You know, you guys are trying to buy some time here. And you're all going to be in cahoots. You're going to, you know, huddle up and say, all right, what should we say? You know, okay, all right, this is how we should interpret the dream. And that way the king will be happy, all that kind of stuff.

you have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words to me till the times change probably meaning you know till you know things happen i forget about it uh or it's just not that important to me anymore or whatever goes on between now and when you finally get back to me you're just you're buying time you're gonna lie to me you're gonna deceive me i know how i know how you operate so verse 10 says the uh the call begins answer the king and here's what they said there's 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 well there's an understatement of the of the year the king the thing that the

king's ass is difficult and no one can show it to the king except the gods whose dwelling is not with flesh so they got several kind of arguments here uh first of all nobody's ever asked us to do this before no one's ever asked us to tell the dream and then its interpretation plus there's no human being who's going to be able to do this i mean it's not just difficult it's impossible the only people who could do this are the gods and they don't dwell with us they're the dwelling is not with with flesh they're you know far removed from us mere mere mortals so this is some good babylonian theology by the way yeah when you yeah this is when you kind of get into the the theological system of the babylonians they're saying hey you know sure uh any of the the pantheon

of gods, they would know what the dream is, because presumably one of the gods is the one who gave you this dream, who sent the dream into your head. So of course they know, but good luck with that, because they don't dwell with mere mortals. They dwell, you know, they might have temples here, but they're not actually dwelling with us. Quite an anti-Israelite theology going on there. Yeah, very different from, I mean, you hear that, like, hey, these guys don't dwell with us, and it's hard not to think of the opening verses of John, right, where John makes this distinction, the Word was made flesh and dwelled or tabernacled, you know, right in our midst. So that is very different. Yeah, yeah, it's a nice John 1.14 contrast there.

and it made plus i mean the fact that of course god always wanted to dwell in the midst of the israelites right he had his tabernacle he had his temple uh he wanted to be right where right where his people are and nebuchadnezzar really good uh like gets them on the back foot here because it does seem that they came in pretty confident like yeah man all right oh there's a reward gonna be a play like all right we just got to come up with a really good interpretation here guys it's gonna be great and then uh yeah the curveball uh oh i'm not gonna tell you the dream you're gonna tell me the dream and its interpretation yeah this day is not going well for these guys they're just like um that's not how our uh how our hustle works okay right

so uh and if they weren't already nervous uh and and afraid well they're certainly going to be now because the reaction of the king, verse 12 tells us, because of this, so in response to these words, the king was angry, very furious, and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon

be destroyed. Yeah, so no minor infraction, and so no minor penalty. A little collective punishment here too. There's probably a bunch of wise men that were like, wait a minute, let me see if I can make some, I'll at least guess what your dream is.

I'll use some vague language. Maybe it'll fit whatever happened in your dream. So the decree goes out that the wise men were to be killed. And, of course, among these, this broader group, is Daniel and his companions. So they sought Daniel and his companions to kill them. So here's Daniel's reply. Daniel replied with prudence and discretion to this fellow named Ariok, who was the captain of the king's guard, who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon. He declared Ariok the

king's captain. Why is the decree of the king so urgent? Why this rush to execute all these people? So Ariok made the matter known to Daniel. And Daniel went in and requested the king So, I mean, he goes right to, right to Nebuchadnezzar himself, went in to request to the king to appoint him a time that he might show the interpretation to, to the king. So Daniel's, yeah, I mean, he's acting prudently. He's, he evidently is able to gain the attention of the king and actually to, I mean, to persuade him, even though the king was very furious. At least Daniel was able to talk him into saying, hey, listen, I wish we knew what he said when he made this request. But he was able to convince him, say, give me some time. And if you give me some time, I will show you the interpretation.

And no doubt he also said, I will show the dream to you as well, since that's what Nebuchadnezzar demanded. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it says he was prudent and had some discretion. So probably went in there and said, hey, this is a big ask, but let me go to my God and see if I can come up with something for you. And then if I'm, you know, you can always kill me later, but give me a shot at this. Yeah, and if our timeline is correct, and it hasn't been very long since these guys finished their education, Well, Daniel and his three friends would have been very much kind of in the forefront of Nebuchadnezzar's mind because he found them 10 times better than all their fellow students. So he listened to Daniel, gave him some time.

So verse 17 says— Well, Nebuchadnezzar knows that Daniel has a different God. And so part of it might be like him, you know, appealing to that, being like, well, I mean, yeah, your guys might not be able to do this. But, you know, I happen to know the giver of dreams. So let me go ask him. Yeah, which is kind of strange to us. But I mean, this would have been very common in that ancient world. When you have polytheism, I mean, there's not.

Yeah, there's competition between the gods for your attention, but not the kind of competition that we already think of. I mean, the gods, as I often say, the gods are fine with you, you know, theologically sleeping around because none of them demanded your complete obedience and worship. And if you're a ruler like Nebuchadnezzar, it was to your advantage to have people from worshiping different gods. You know, maybe, you know, let's say you and I, we're polytheists, we're serving a king. Well, maybe the gods that I tend to favor aren't giving an answer, but hey, the gods that you worship, they will give you an answer. So, yeah, just practical wisdom from Nebuchadnezzar's theological perspective. So Daniel goes 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. I love the way that's phrased, told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery. So it's not like, yeah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were going to go start making demands of God. Hey, you got to do this for us. uh we need you to tell us this rather they're asking god to do the same thing we ask him to do all the time to be merciful to help us out to give us give us grace so that we'll be able to

do whatever it is we're asking him to show mercy to us for and of course in this case to show mercy so they would be able to understand the mystery and therefore therefore be saved yeah yeah i mean Daniel goes to his buddies, but then he just goes straight to God, right? Which is—that's the thing to do. You're like, I'm not going to be able to come up with this on my own. This is the thing also, is that you might be like, ooh, maybe I should start recording my dreams. You need to understand that God is setting all of this up, right? So this dream is bugging Nebuchadnezzar because God's having it bug him.

and he's going to give like it's not that it's not that dreams are important it's it's what god has used this is just a tool in god's hand to do something else yeah because you could definitely get like weird and um and start being like well maybe i need to start thinking about like my dreams and and go and asking god and all this kind of stuff and you're like well that's not uh dreams everyone has dreams or most i mean most people have dreams um a lot of times in the Bible. And it's not that every dream is so important. It's just like something that God can use to accomplish something else. Yeah, because dreams are prominent in the scriptures. We can easily kind of get the impression that, oh, but yeah, every dream

must be important. Well, no, everybody in the Bible was dreaming and we have very few dreams recorded. Yeah, they happen to feature in some pretty prominent narratives. Genesis, of course you have a lot of dreams in genesis it dreams here of course you've got dreams or visions that are happening in the gospels in the book of acts but these are these stand out in a way that is unmistakable yeah and in this case of course this dream is yeah like you said god gave this dream because he's the god not just of heaven but of history and he wanted this opportunity to put Daniel in a place so that Daniel could interpret the dream for Nebuchadnezzar, but more specifically, so that as this dream is interpreted, then we have laid out for us

this long span of history that's coming up, which of course is going to culminate in the Messianic kingdom. That's where all this is going. Basically, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream because God wanted people to know when the Messiah was going to come or the kingdom in which the Messiah was going to come. So this is all serving a Christ-centered purpose, the entire dream, its interpretation. This whole scenario was set up in order that God could tell us about the coming of his Son.

Yeah, it would be a mistake if you read the Bible and your takeaway was I should seek dreams. That would be – I'm reminded there's a – this is an aside, but I always liked it. There's an old Rich Mullins song from like an early, early album where he says, they told me, boy, just follow your heart, but it only led me to my chest. They said, boy, just follow your nose,

but my direction changed every time I went and moved my head. They said, boy, just follow your dreams, but dreams are full of misdirection. So I seek the father of hearts, the maker of noses, and the giver of dreams. Oh, that's good. Yeah. That is good. I haven't heard that one. It's great.

So Daniel's going to the giver of dreams. He's not, like, going to go pursue dreams. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, every time I try to follow my dreams, it doesn't end well. Those are all bad advice. Follow your heart, follow your nose, and follow your dreams are all not great. No. Yeah, take it from someone who has done all three of those.

They don't take you in places that you want to be. uh that they take you to places where god has to reach down to where you're now stuck and pull you out yeah get you back where he wants you to be yeah okay so the uh the companions uh the free friends and daniel well they they do they do the seeking of the mercy from the god of heaven and verse 19 tells us that god answered then the mystery was revealed to daniel in a vision of the night. So you could say that Daniel has his own dream, although here it's referred to as a, as a vision, but, uh, we're not told what it was yet. We're going to have to wait for that. And in between, Daniel is going to sing this song or pray this prayer in which he blesses the God of

heaven. And here's what he says. Blessed be the name of the God. 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 ask of you, for you have made known to us the king's matter. So I love that second verse where he says he changes times and seasons, he removes kings and sets up kings, because that's basically a summary of what we're going to hear when we get

to the interpretation of the dream, although it's more like we're removing kingdoms and setting up kingdoms. But that's important because what Daniel 2 is teaching us is that, of course, history is not just a sequence of events that happen, but history has a Lord. It's a Lord of not just our salvation and the Lord of creation, but he's also the Lord of history. And even though it might not be easy or even possible for us oftentimes, especially we're in the middle of it, to understand what's happening historically, never think that, oh, yeah, this history is like, you know, what's the saying? One damn thing after another, however that goes.

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's history is being guided by this providential hand and guided in such a way as always to serve his purposes and his people and the growth of his kingdom. And in this particular case, we're given in the interpretation what is coming over the next few centuries, which is going to culminate in the establishment of a kingdom that will have no end. Yeah. I mean sometimes people struggle with the tension between God being sovereign and he's all-powerful and he gets his – accomplishes his will and how that works with everyday life and like – I mean are any of my decisions my decisions? And in matters of salvation, of course, you would say that you have, like, there's no free will there, that you're just dead in sin. And even your appetite for sin means that none of your even regular choices are completely free will choices because you're influenced by your desire for sin. But it's not as though you don't make decisions and you have no responsibility or anything like that.

Our buddy Bruce Hillman had this really good example. I thought it was really good where he was talking about this. Like how does God accomplish his will throughout history but also you feel like you're living a regular life and you're making decisions and God does allow you to do things that he doesn't want you to do. that's pretty obvious in scripture he's not making anyone uh do the things he doesn't want them to do right um so there's like how does that work and this isn't a perfect analogy and if you push too hard on any analogy it breaks down but um but he said it's kind of like they sort of the scope of history is like uh everyone being on a cruise ship and on this ship you could do like lots of stuff like so like if you and I are on a cruise Chad we could decide that we're going to

go to the bar or maybe we go to the pool or we go play shuffleboard or we could go to a show or we can eat or we can sleep in or we can choose who we hang out with and all this different stuff but what you can't do is go into the the you know the captain's cabin and say hey we're not going here anymore we're not going to go to Spain we're going to go to Australia okay like that's what we've decided he's like, no, like this thing is headed in one direction. Okay. And that's where we're going. So you can do a lot of different stuff over here, but like I'm the captain of this ship and like I said, it's not perfect,

but I think it's helpful. It is helpful. Yeah. I like that. I like that analogy because yeah, the ship, it being guided, the captain has the course, right? Yeah. And yeah, we, there's, There's nothing that's going to change the course that God himself has determined. And that's a great analogy, actually, for this chapter, because the course is going to be, as we'll hear in a second, from one kingdom to another kingdom, from gold to silver to bronze to iron. That's a direction that the boat's moving. Yeah.

Yeah. And there's no change in that, whether you go to the buffet or you go to the pool or whatever. But we're going to this. We're going this direction. Yeah. in the end try try as much as you want as you move around that ship to change the the course of the ship it ain't gonna happen it's going where god wants it to go okay so after that's we're at verse 23 so after daniel uh however you want to characterize this as a blessing as a prayer

as a hymn after he says these words by the way i do like the writing style here it is like it is this is like totally an aside just uh giving props to the author here but i do like that the author doesn't reveal what it is that daniel knows this is a good way to keep people reading like just like as a as a mechanism uh this is good writing where oh yeah yeah where you're like wait a minute what was it well i want to know what this dream was and you're like well you don't have to you have to keep reading the book yeah yeah this is the author's own delay tactic right it's yeah it is a great way you you suddenly suggest and then like you go on this commercial break or he's you you foreshadow uh but you're gonna yeah you don't

spill the beans right away you got to create some anticipation yeah it's good so verse 24 kind of picks up the narrative and says therefore daniel went in to ariok that's the guy the king appointed to destroy the wise men of babylon and he went and said to him he says don't destroy the wise men of Babylon, bring me in before the king, and I will show the king the interpretation. Then Ariok brought in Daniel before the king in haste and said thus to him, and I love how he represents this to the king. He says, I have found among the exiles from Judah, a man who will make known to the king the interpretation. It just cracks me up when I read that it's like like this was entirely he's doing like ah man i've been searching high and low

king and i i found the guy so you know kudos to me for finding this guy among of all people the exiles from judah who's going to be able to solve the the puzzle for the king and you know what's great about this too is that daniel's not just trying to save his own skin and the skin of his three buddies. If we're bringing this sort of, Daniel is, these are the Christians, right? These are the true God worshipers. These other guys are like, not just pagans, but they're like involved in witchcraft and who knows what else, right? These aren't like things that God is pleased with. Yet Daniel is not interested in seeing them all murdered, which is a little informative because Daniel could be like, well, maybe I'll just change this whole thing for God.

And a good start would be by getting rid of all the seers and interpreters and we'll get rid of all this dark magic or whatever the heck it is that's going on here. I mean, that's probably a benefit if that's all gone. But Daniel does see these people as people and doesn't want them all wiped out, which is maybe a little instructive about how you deal with. Maybe even people of a different religion, you're like, well, I'm not really interested in seeing human beings wiped out for any reason. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is love in action, right?

Yeah. Rather than taking advantage of this opportunity to take out people that are idolaters, he actually is acting in service to them as much as he is to his own friends in his own life. so verse 26 says the king declared to daniel and we're reminded now of his babylonian name whose name was bel testazar so the king says to him are you able to make known to me the dream that i've seen and its interpretation daniel answered the king and said no wise men enchanters magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked. But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are

these. To you, O king, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this, and he who reveals mysteries, made known to you what is to be. As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king and that you may know the thoughts of your mind. This is a lot of humility going on here. This would be a great chance for Daniel to step up and say, yeah, I mean, I certainly am much wiser than all these other guys, and because of this wisdom that I have, I'm able to interpret exactly, not just tell you the dream, but also its interpretation. Daniel is honing in here on the fact that you can forget about all the gods of

Babylon because they're not going to be able to help you, but there is a God in heaven who can do this. In fact, he revealed to me this mystery so that I can make it known to you what's going to happen in latter days or what would be after this or what is to be. So R.D. Daniels dropping some pretty strong hints here that before he actually gives the dream and his interpretation, that this is concerning not just now, but what is going, what's coming down, down the line. Yeah. Yeah. You've got to love that he doesn't—he takes this as an opportunity not to say, well, lucky you, I and I alone actually can do this, but to say, listen, nobody, including me, can do this. So, I mean, this is a way to proclaim God, like the true God, to the king, right? So Daniel really says, it's not much difference between me and these other guys.

I just know somebody that they don't know. Yeah, I was looking here. Oh, yeah, here it is. So it's a lot like what Joseph told Pharaoh. This is Genesis 41. It is not in me. God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer. So, I mean, Joseph did the same thing, right?

joseph daniel are both accenting the fact that well if you want to know what's going on i mean it's i'm just the mouthpiece here the god in heaven is the one who has made known to you same god who made known to pharaoh what was what was going to be going down and when we come back for the next episode then we'll begin to get the details picking up with verse 31 yeah this is what i love is that we get to follow the author's example and not tell you the dream I mean, obviously, you could just read ahead. But, yeah, we're going to leave you right there. And then next episode, we'll get to what is this dream that is bothering King Nebuchadnezzar so greatly.

We'll get into that next episode. Chad, I'll see you then. All right. See you then. I'll see you next time.