As always, here’s my fairly
literal translation of these verses:
19Then Daniel (to whom his name
Belteshazzar) was horrified for a moment and his thoughts terrified him. The
king answering and saying, “Belteshazzar, the dream and the meaning [of it], do
not let terrify [you].” Belteshazzar answering and saying, “My lord, the dream
[let be] to ones hating you and the meaning of it [let be] to your enemies.”
This, I believe, is actually a rather profound verse for us
to pause and consider. Given a hurried glance, it appears to be simply a “matter
of fact” sort of statement, merely progressing the story we’re reading.
However, having parked on it and pondered it for several days, I would suggest
it rather contains deeply spiritual truth we ought all to take to heart.
Once again, what we’re reading is the Bible. We’re reading a
book about life and how to live it well. We’re “walking with the wise” because
we want to observe and glean from their wisdom, so we can be like them. The man we are
observing is Daniel, a man who, along with his three friends has already deeply
impressed us with his faith, humility, work ethics, and courage. Also, once
again, I want to remind myself he is at work, that he is serving under a raging
tyrant boss and king in the worst possible place on the face of the earth:
Babylon. He has to suffer being called Belteshazzar after the name of
Nebuchadnezzar’s god Bel and his position is serving as chief sorcerer over a
bunch of back-stabbing charlatans. This is the king who destroyed Daniel’s
homeland, deported him to the far end of the Fertile Crescent, and tried to
kill his friends in a fiery furnace.
Right off the bat, try to be honest. What would be your
first response to hear that the Lord is going to reign down judgment on such a
king, such a man in such a place?
And if you were given the assignment to warn such a man in
such a place, what sort of tone of voice would you likely use? What would be
your demeanor as you pronounced his judgment upon him?
I would suggest we all likely would pursue one of two paths.
We would either take up the mantle of the “fiery prophet,” angrily dishing out
our Divinely justified revenge, emboldened knowing we “speak for God,” and (in
our heart of hearts) enjoying the moment, the feeling that finally we have “won.”
Or we would realize that the message we have to deliver is very
unpleasant and may likely incur in this man anger rather than fear. As we often
say, “Don’t shoot the messenger!” We are keenly aware when what we have to tell
people is something that they utterly will not want to hear, and most of us
have probably learned to artfully avoid such encounters. In Daniel’s case, he is probably more than
aware that what everyone else tells Nebuchadnezzar is exactly what he wants to
hear. He is a man accustomed to being flattered and who, in an instant, can
have people executed if they displease him in any way.
It’s interesting that none of the magicians “could interpret
the dream.” One has to wonder, if their reticence wasn’t somewhat due to the
obviously negative premonitions the dream portended. I can almost hear them
saying, “I’m not going near that one!” I would almost bet, had it even
suggested success and prosperity, they would have fallen all over themselves “interpreting”
it for the king.
But here stands our Daniel. Can we all notice he did neither?
He didn’t angrily call down judgment , nor did he, like the charlatans, retreat
in self-serving cowardice. The truth of the dream hits him like a thunderbolt
and in the shock of its realization he understandably goes dumb and visibly
troubled for “a moment.” In the old KJV, it is translated, “for an hour,” but
the word is better translated “a moment.” It’s just a general word for a short
amount of time.
And in that moment, that short amount of time, Daniel not
only understands the dream and sees the horrors it portends, but he must also
decide how he will respond. All of that happens “in a moment.” We’ve all been
there. We’ve all received shocking news or watched as someone else did. There
is that “moment” of being dumbfounded, then the slow formation of how we’ll respond.
I suppose it’s true that those moments reveal a lot about who we really are. In
those moments, we don’t necessarily even have time to pause and consider, “How
should I respond to this?” Such moments are probably classic cases where “out
of the goodness of his heart, a good man brings forth good things, whereas…”
I would suggest it is true that Daniel responds well precisely
because he is “a good man.” Day in and day out, at his job and as he lives his
life, he has been constantly making all the little choices that add up to “a
good man.” Now when he gets hit with a thunderbolt, what comes out of his heart
are “good things.”
The “moment” is long enough and no doubt Daniel’s
dumbfounded countenance is obvious enough Nebuchadnezzar can see something is terribly wrong. He
already knows it must be bad news. So he encourages Daniel not to be afraid to
tell him the truth.
Can I suggest to us that at this very minute this encounter
hangs between heaven and hell? How Daniel responds, the look on his face, the tone
of his voice -- all come together to
determine whether the words he speaks will draw the king toward the Lord or
push him away. We can’t see his face, but listen to Daniel’s words: “My lord, the dream [let be] to ones hating
you and the meaning of it [let be] to your enemies.” What is he
communicating? Can I suggest respect, loyalty, sympathy, and love?
Let me include three quotes from old reformed pastors:
“Though this king were a tyrant,
and an enemy of God and his people, yet the prophet is grieved for him, and
prayed for him that God would avert his judgments from him, and lay them rather
upon his enemies, Jeremiah 29:7,” Matthew Poole (ca. 1660).
“…this he said, not merely as a
courtier, but as one that heartily wished and prayed for his peace and
prosperity; and to show that he had no ill will to the king in the
interpretation of the dream, but was his hearty faithful servant and minister,”
John Gill (ca. 1740).
“This verse reveals the heart of
Daniel as well as any in the entire book of Daniel. He knew the meaning of this
dream and how well Nebuchadnezzar deserved what was to come upon him. Nevertheless,
Daniel’s heart was concerned for the king and grieved over what he had to tell
him.” Dr. Thomas Constable (ca. 1760).
This is another one we’d better all “put
in our pipe and smoke it.” Our “fire and brimstone” kind of evangelical “militancy”
is a far cry from what we see here in this man Daniel. One old pastor called it
“sympathy” and urged us all to see how important “sympathy” is in our relationships
with others. As we’ll see in a few verses, it doesn’t look like the king
listened very well, but notice he didn’t shut Daniel out either. When at the
end of the chapter we see him come to his senses, he will remember who told him
the truth – and I would suggest because Daniel shared that truth in genuine
obvious loyalty and sympathy, it was easy for the king to embrace him.
When Joan and I were at Purdue, there
was a man who would come and preach on the green. He was all anger and shouting
and condemnation. Us college kids saw him as nothing but entertainment. I don’t
know if he was a born-again man or not or whether what he was preaching was
actually the Gospel, but his manner was so offensive I doubt if a single young
person ever listened. How much different our Daniel? “My
lord, the dream [let be] to ones hating you and the meaning of it [let be] to
your enemies.”
Daniel lived some 600 years before Paul
would write to the Corinthians, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and
angels and have not love…I am nothing,” but being a truly godly man, he had
learned it for himself. I realize more and more that every conversation we have
we must be speaking from a heart of love. Not to love is already to have
failed. We may “get” whatever it is we wanted, but we can write it down of a
certainty we did not speak for God.
God help us all to practice minute by
minute learning how to love the people He puts around us. Then in those
difficult situations, especially when people are being in some way difficult or
challenging, may the love we’ve been storing in our hearts make its way to our
mouths and our faces – like it did with Daniel. May the Lord teach us how to
love even raging tyrant kings who destroyed our homeland and drug us away and
gave us a name we would despise and threw our best friends in a furnace. In the
more immediate, may He help us learn to genuinely love people who are impatient
with us, or treat us like we’re stupid, or any of those other heinous crimes humanity
commits against us! May we remember minute by minute that we speak for Him. We
are servants of the Most High God and, as they say, “the only Jesus some people
will ever meet.”
What a fine example our Daniel is. He
was a man of real faith. And what does real faith do? It makes us like Jesus. Lord
make us like Him.
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