Daniel 2:31-36 – “What Does it Mean?”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

³¹You, O king, were seeing and behold, a certain image great. That image great and brightness extraordinary, standing before you, and its appearance fearful. ³²That image head of fine gold, its chest and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze ³³its legs  of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. ³⁴You were seeing until a stone was cut out of not hands and it struck the image upon its feet of the iron and the clay and it crushed them. ³⁵Then were crushed together the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold and they became like chaff of threshing floors of summer and the wind took them away and all of a trace not was found of them and the stone which struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. ³⁶This the dream and its meaning we will tell before the king.

As I have been studying these verses, I’ve been trying to see them as Nebuchadnezzar would have at this point. It’s easy for us to read them and know – of course, it’s the four kingdoms of the world and kingdom of Christ. But at this point, Nebuchadnezzar has no idea. It’s just this strange statue that gets destroyed and the mountain that grows. What could that possibly mean?

Nebuchadnezzar is clueless. And so would you and I be if we were standing there at that moment. The king at this second would be dumb-struck by the fact that Daniel has just done the impossible – he has told him what he dreamed and he knows what he’s told him was correct, and he knows that is utterly impossible. You and I would certainly be amazed too as we stood there listening, but this murderous, raging king is suddenly sitting there cowed before this young man with obviously supernatural insight.

But he still doesn’t know. Nebuchadnezzar still hasn’t the slightest clue what the dream means. If he had forgotten it, he now remembers it clearly, as Daniel has recalled it. If he did remember it but wanted someone to tell it to him first – just to be sure they were legit – then certainly Daniel has removed all doubt as to his ability to interpret it. But still no one but Daniel knows what it means.

The king needs to know. He wants to know. He wants very badly to know. Everyone else he thought could help him has let him down. And here is Daniel, standing before him, and at this point, the king knows he can explain the dream. Finally there is someone who can help him.

I want to just pause and note how that is the same world we all live in. There is so much that happens I don’t understand. So much that doesn’t make sense. I am constantly barraged with situations where we may know a bunch of facts, but we are clueless what to do with them. It is such a joy to suddenly have someone who does seem to understand, someone who can explain it to me, someone who can make sense of it all. Daniel is that guy right at this moment for Nebuchadnezzar.

I wonder how often we as believers are that person for someone else? Maybe we don’t even realize we’re doing it? Maybe we hold within us the “light” and don’t even realize when it’s shining into someone else’s heart? As an engineer, I certainly want to be that person for others. They often look to me to “figure out” what to do about this or that, or to explain to them why this or that is happening – and what to do about it. It’s always nice when I can confidently give them good direction that helps them. But sometimes I have to scratch my head and say, “That’s a good question.” Sometimes the Lord very clearly helps me to find answers for them, which is always cool – and sometimes I just don’t know. In my own heart, I have the Lord to fall back on – I can trust Him to make it clear, if I really need to know. But others don’t have that underlying confidence to lean on. Even then, I wonder if the light of our hope shines out? And of course, life is bigger than water mains with too much pressure and pumps that won’t run. People are living in a world where too many things don’t make sense.

 But it all makes perfect sense to our God.

He knows exactly what Nebuchadnezzar’s dream means. And because Daniel knows this God who knows, he knows too. And Nebuchadnezzar knows he is about to explain it to him.

What a wonderful thing for the king to have a real believer in his presence, to have someone whom he is confident really can answer his questions, explain things that don’t make sense. Once again, I wonder how often we are that person in someone else’s life? If we are, like Daniel, it will only be because God has enabled us. It certainly is never anything in us. “To Him belong wisdom and power.” But the Lord may choose to do it through us. When He does, I hope I’m humble enough to be used. Once again, I suspect most of the time we don’t even know we’re doing it, but that is all the more reason to just stay humble and try to love, try to listen, try to say kind things to people – and hope through all of that, maybe the Lord is shining light and hope into someone else’s heart.

Daniel could do it – and so can we.

So what does it mean anyway?

We’ll just have to keep studying!