Interpretation of Dreams (Daniel 2)

Announcement: Because it would fit better into my life and has just basically been a thing anyway, I will be changing the time of these blog posts from morning to noon. So you can expect this blog to update in the future at noon on Mondays and Fridays. Thank you!

With our wonderful background knowledge, we are ready to get into a nice run-down of the different sections of the book. (I promise we won't have another background post next week.) Remember that the focus of this book (and the Aramaic chapters in particular) is to show God's sovereignty at a time when it looks like the Babylonian gods are stronger than He is.

But how does our familiar story about Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a statue made of all sorts of material actually show God's sovereignty? It does in more ways than you might think. Let's dig in. 

(I have been much cheaper with my writing style, since I started this exposition on Daniel; I'm sorry, but it takes a lot of time to write exposition, so something had to go.)

We're going to start after Nebuchadnezzar has his dream, and the language of the book shifts to Aramaic. It is here that we see Nebuchadnezzar's magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, and Chaldeans (hereafter just Chaldeans because that's what the book does) come and ask for the dream, so they can interpret it.

This group of people is important. This group of people is essentially a collection of religious people who would reign the power of the Babylonian gods to answer a given question. Nebuchadnezzar hopes that they will be able to interpret his dream.

But apparently, he has forgotten his dream entirely. This shouldn't be a problem clearly as the gods of Babylon will be sure to reveal to the Chaldeans what he dreamed too. And if they shan't, then the Chaldeans will be exposed as frauds and be cut into pieces and their houses will be made into... yeah. That's totally Nebuchadnezzar. Totally.

But shocker! The gods of Babylonian do not reveal to the Chaldeans the dream! It's almost as if the Babylonian gods don't exist or something. Sarcasm aside, the beginning parts of this chapter clearly show that the Chaldeans do not have the power that they claim to have, and it does place suspicion on the power of their gods.

Indeed, the words of the Chaldeans in verse 10-11 are rather telling,

"The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king's matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean. And it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh."

Oh, only the gods can reveal it. That seems problematic, since they don't dwell among us. How are we supposed to respond to this?

Well, Nebuchadnezzar is rash, so he decrees that all the wise men get killed. And so they obviously go after Daniel and his fellows because they fall into this category. You may think it bad storytelling that I introduce that Daniel and his fellows are wise men here, but take it up with the Bible. It seems that God was trying to stress that the story is not actually about Daniel, but rather His own power.

Daniel asks the king for time to know the dream and the interpretation thereof. The king grants it for some reason, probably the hand of God. And so Daniel went back and told his companions, and they prayed to the God of Heaven. Indeed, these verses are ones that specifically highlight the process by which God and not man revealed the truth of the dream. In verses 17-23, we read,

"Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions: That they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him. I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king's matter."

The secret was revealed to Daniel, and he recognizes that it was God who revealed this to him and spends the time to praise Him, revealing to the world, that God is able to resolve issues of dreams that according to the Chaldeans, no man can reveal.

It is interesting to note that the Chaldeans would have been religious people that the selected audience of this text would have respected and listened to, meaning that this whole interpretation of the dream thing has great significance to them because the Chaldeans essentially said it was impossible.

And so Daniel reveals the dream and its interpretation to the king. But when he does so, he tends to want to highlight the fact that you know, the Chaldeans couldn't do it, but God can. The emphasis in these verses (as in the rest of the chapter) is on the superiority of God over the Chaldeans. Look in verses 27-30,

"Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. 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: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass. But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart."

So the dream itself is also kinda important in showing God's sovereignty over the nations. We will examine this in more detail with the future visions of the book of Daniel, starting in chapter 7.

But for now, let's examine that Nebuchadnezzar saw a statue, where the head was of gold, breast and arms of silver, his belly and thighs of brass, his legs of iron, and his feet of iron and clay.

And they all fell to pieces because a stone "made without hands." That expression indicates a divine intervention, where God comes in and destroys this statue.

Daniel interprets this dream as portraying the nations of the world that would come after Babylon, which was the strongest of them and the golden head. In hindsight, we can see how this proved true as the Babylonian empire was conquered by the Medo-Persians, who were conquered by the Greeks, who were conquered by the Romans, and so on. This is a very relevant showing of God's sovereignty over the nations and His ability to fulfill His prophecies.

But it actually wouldn't have meant all that much to the Babylonians or the Jews at the time, as they couldn't look back to hindsight to see that this was true. Instead, they would look to authorities that they trusted to make sense of the strange turn of events, which is probably why this account ends with Nebuchadnezzar's proclamation in verse 47,

"Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret." 

Indeed He is.

Introduction to the Arimaic Section (Daniel 2-7)

I do thus verily apologize for the complete lack of post on Monday. I have an excuse, but I assume that you won't want to hear it, so if that assumption is true, you can skip to the next paragraph. So, I had a debate tournament this weekend, and got behind in schoolwork for the first time in my college career. So I didn't post on my blog. Probably justifiable. But I have caught up by now and can reenter my responsibilities.

So today, we enter into Daniel 2, Let's begin with reading the first three verses,

"And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him. Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew 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."

Then in verse 4, we read the Scripture state that, "Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack."

Syriack is the King James way of saying Aramaic. And at this point until the end of chapter 7, the book of Daniel is written in Aramaic. At first, it is easy to write this off as simply useless trivia, but wait one moment. We believe that the Bible is written more purposefully than this.

If you are writing, you don't usually change the language in which you are writing. Even if you happen to know multiple languages, you are not likely to suddenly change from one language into another. Indeed, you are not likely to change even from one piece of jargon to another at any given time within the same writing.

So why does this particular book switch into Aramaic when that is generally considered bad literary form? It is not enough to write this off as unimportant because the author of the book clearly made this decision for a reason. We need to understand what that reason is.

So let's remember from two weeks ago, the background of the time. Those throughout the world are convinced because of the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem that the Babylonians god at their weakest are strongest than God is at His strongest.

We then remember that this book is all about proving that the God of Israel really is stronger than all other gods, and indeed that there are no other gods. In Hebrew, this book communicates to the Israelites, but basically that only communicates to the Israelites.

Historical background (once more from Dr. Miller's Old Testament class): at this time, the primary language of almost all the world is Aramaic. So communicating in Aramaic is to communicate to the rest of the world. Chapters 2-7 are a section of the book of Daniel, which are written so as to communicate to the whole world.

So what does the Lord want to say to the entire wor? Well, let's look a moment at the structure of this Aramaic section.

Chapter 2: Nebuchadnezzar has a dream, interpreted by Daniel and Daniel alone sharing God's power over the nations.
Chapter 3: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednago travel into a fiery furnace, but God shows his power in delivering them.
Chapters 4-5:  God shows His power over individual rulers by tearing Nebuchadnezzar down to the level of a beast, and then putting the writing on the wall to end Belshazzar's reigns
Chapter 6: God shows His power in delivering His servant Daniel.
Chapter 7: God shows his power over that nations by Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the statue.

You might notice a few similarities here. Indeed, this structure is very chiastic.

And in a chiasm, the most important part if put in the middle of the structure. So the Lord seems to be stressing that He is more powerful than the most powerful of rulers in the world. All else doesn't stand; the Lord is God and He is sovereign over all.

The Aramaic section is a powerful section of the book and honestly the reason why I decided to do this expositional analysis on the book of Daniel. I look forward to looking at you next week.

Eating Vegetables to Get Fat (Daniel 1)

Last week, I announced that I was going to start a series with the book of Daniel. This is the least-thought through decision I have had in a while, but it seems pretty exciting to me right now, so let's go for this.

After detailing clearly that the book of Daniel seems to be about the question of God's sovereignty at a time when His sovereignty can be specifically challenged and questioned because it appears that the gods of Babylonian have bested Him. The book looks at how that God has given Israel into the hand of Israel. No need to fret about Babylonian control - God knows what He's doing.

So how does this work from the very beginning of the book? The very first chapter details one of the more popular events of this time period in the Bible. The fact that a few teenagers refused to eat drink and wine from the king, and instead opted for vegetables. What in the world does this have to do with the power of God exactly?

Well, let's take the text from the beginning. So in verses 3-4, the king is bringing up a whole bunch of skillful Israelites to serve as advisers for the king. This is a common practice at the time, where conquering nations will just take advantage of the young crop of skills that they just conquered.

Verse 5 though mentions a very specific regimen of food that has been specifically designed to prepare them to come before the king. This is the very regimen that "Daniel and his fellows" would not agree to eat because they had purposed in their hearts not to defile themselves with the portion of the king's meat (verse 8).

The reason why this would be defiling is unclear. It seems unlikely that it was because it went against Levitical laws as there was never a prohibition against wine. Sacrificing to idols is possible because in some instances wine was actually sacrificed to idols. It could have been as simple as allegiance to the king. Really, our answers are all kinda speculative, which means that our answer is not actually important. If this detail mattered the Lord would have made it clear what He wanted us to see.

But when Daniel and his fellows reject the food, there is a very specific response. The eunuch seems a bit afraid. Daniel 1:10 explains,

"And the prince of the eunuchs said unto Daniel, I fear my lord the king, who hath appointed your meat and your drink: for why should he see your faces worse liking than the children which are of your sort? then shall ye make me endanger my head to the king."

Hey, apparently, Daniel's suggestions about eating pulse and water is not a very favorable position. It is supposed to leave them to be thin and sickly after this time. That seems to be an indication that maybe this isn't a health plan, guys! It's not a recommendation for our diets!

But what is more important about this, is that when Daniel and his fellows are actually healthier, or more specifically, "fairer and fatter in all flesh" after ten days, then there must be something supernatural about this particular occasion. Maybe the Lord just blessed His servants for their obedience to Him. Hmmmm... Strange.

And then we get a brief overview of the success that Daniel and his fellows have in Babylon. Because God is not done blessing His people. And you know, He has the power to do that.

Maybe we shouldn't be concerned that we're under Babylonian control. Or put in your own life, God is in control, regardless of whatever situation you are in. You have no need to fret, God will continue to bless you, though not always in circumstance. Just trust the Lord.

Apparently I forgot to schedule this to get posted. Which stinks.