Daniel 2:19,20 – “Blessed Be the Name”

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

¹⁹Then to Daniel in the vision of the night a mystery was revealed. Then he blessed the God of the heavens. ²⁰Daniel answering and saying,

Blessed be the name of the God from the ages upon the ages,

because the wisdom and the power are to Him.

Answered prayer. How amazing is it when we pray and get to see God answer? In v18, we just read, “Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of Heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.” The young men together turned to God and prayed.

Think for a minute what they were doing. Here are young men in a foreign land. The greatest king on earth has decreed they are to be executed. There is no “sanctuary” where they can hide. They can’t escape. There is no appellate court or any constitutional right to fair trial. They have at most a few hours to live.

Because they’re human, they had to be in great fear. Yet, in their fear, they turned to God for mercy. “… he that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Heb 11:6).

What they needed and what they’re asking for is impossible. Humanly speaking there is no way we can know what someone else dreamed, much less what it meant. And to be unable to do so meant they were about to be executed, and again, they have absolutely no escape. Humanly speaking, they are about to die. Period.

Yet they have a God to whom “impossible” means nothing. “With God all things are possible.” And so with David they pray, “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusts in Thee: yea, in the shadow of Thy wings will I make my refuge, ’til these calamities be passed by. I will cry unto God Most High; unto God who performeth all things for me” (Ps 57:1,2).

I’m not facing anything so serious as my impending execution, but I certainly know how these guys feel. As I sit here early on a Monday morning, I’m headed into work where there are a number of situations which are very frightening to me. Some are more serious than others, but all remind me that I’m living at the end of myself. My son and his wife just gave us a new grand-daughter, but there are uncertainties all around her health. Whether at work or at home, I need to and want to get results that in many ways I simply don’t have the power or perhaps the wisdom to secure. My grand daughter’s health hangs in the balance. At work, people are depending on me. What to do? Well, obviously, we’ll all keep praying for our little girl and I’m confident my son and his wife will get the best medical care available. I’ll head in to work and make the phone calls, do the calculations, do everything that is within my wisdom and power, and then I must trust this God who does in fact “dwell among men.” I must go on trying to be kind, trying to treat other people with respect, and, rather than turning on them, I need to turn to the God of Heaven and believe that He will in fact work all things together for my good. Then, like the guys here, it is, of course, wonderful when we actually get to see the answer to those prayers right before our eyes!

But whether we do or don’t, Daniel’s response is still true: “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever; wisdom and power are His.” This God who does in fact “dwell among men” is worthy of our praises and our deepest trust. Daniel and his friends turned to this God and He delivered them. He did for them what was impossible. And I love the first thing Daniel says, “Wisdom and power are His.” The two things we all lack – wisdom and power – actually belong to our God! It wouldn’t be enough if He had wisdom but then lacked the power to use it. But it would be a sad thing indeed if He had power but lacked the wisdom to use it benevolently. To our God belong both!

This is precisely why the psalmist can say of the godly man, “Surely he will never be shaken … He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, confident in the Lord” (112:6,7). The more we know our God, the more we can walk confident in Him. The more we know Him, the more we learn that in fact “wisdom and power are His.” Faith very often ends up a matter of believing this in spite of our fears. I often (usually) don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make things turn out “right.” And even if I think I know, I most of the time live keenly aware that too many things seem out of my control. I don’t have the power. But God does. “Wisdom and power are His.” And so we pray. And so we invite others to pray with us. And sometimes we get to see those prayers answered right before our eyes. And sometimes we don’t.

But the people who know their God just keep on praying, keep on loving and giving, keep on trying. Sometimes they (we) fail, but no matter what, He goes on being worthy of praise, the God to whom belong wisdom and power.

All praise to Him who reigns above, in majesty supreme;

Who gave His Son for man to die, that He might man redeem.

Blessed be the Name.

Daniel 2:14-18 – “The People Who Know Their God”

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

¹⁴Then Daniel returned counsel and discernment to Arioch, the chief of the bodyguards of the king who had come to kill the wise men of Babel, ¹⁵anwering and speaking to Arioch the officer of the king, “Upon what a decree being harsh from before the king?” Then Arioch explained the matter to Daniel. ¹⁶And Daniel went in and sought from the king time he would give to him and the meaning to declare to the king. ¹⁷Then Daniel went to his house and explained the matter to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, ¹⁸and mercies to seek from before the God of the heavens about this mystery that they should not kill Daniel and his companions together with the rest of the wise men of Babel.

What a different story we read compared to the first thirteen verses! There we found a bunch of people utterly at the end of themselves, angry and turning on each other. Now what do we find? We find Daniel and his friends, probably rustled out of bed in the wee hours of the morning and informed they were about to be executed. And what did they do? They answered with “wisdom and tact,” they requested time with the expressed intention of giving the king what he was asking for, and, rather than turning on Arioch or each other, they together turned to God. What a difference.

That is “the people who know their God.”

The distraught wise men in verse 11 had exclaimed, “No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among men.!” They did not know the God of Heaven, so when suddenly their lives were imperiled, they had nowhere to turn. But Daniel and his friends live in a different world. They live in a world where there is a God who does in fact “dwell among men.” They worship a God who says, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you and you will honor Me” (Ps 50:15). They worship a God with whom they share a love relationship, as when He says of His people, “‘Because he loves Me,’ says the Lord, ‘I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges My name. He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him’” (Ps. 91:14,15).

Daniel and his friends don’t have to turn on each other. They have a God to turn to.

And see what a difference it makes. Ever since we’ve met them, they’ve faced one painful trial after another. Yet in 1:8, Daniel “asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way …” and in 1:9, “God had caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel …” Then in 1:12, Daniel asked, “Please test your servants …” In 1:20, the king found them “ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom.” Now again, they are faced with difficulty and Daniel speaks to Arioch, “with wisdom and tact.” And finally we see the source of all this apparent calmness -- they gather together “to plead for mercy from the God of Heaven.”

They are people “who know their God.”

They have a source of strength of which others know nothing. They have a refuge to run to when fear would drive them, like the others, to turn to lies and murder.

Now, in the real world, you can bet they are anything but calm inside. They are about to be murdered. You can bet they know the very depths of fear and trembling. They’re just people. “Terrified” is probably a fitting adjective at this point. But as they quake inside, they don’t explode on the outside. They continue to conduct themselves with “wisdom and tact.”

That’s what knowing God does for us. I would like to suggest we go through all the emotions any other human being goes through. We know fear and anger and hate. We know the same temptations to turn on others in our trials. And too often we do. But we don’t have to. We have a Rock, a Refuge, a Strong Defender, a Shield, a Savior, a Friend, a Hope. And so, in our hours of terror and trouble, we can turn to Him and not on each other.

“What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear …”

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

 Look full in His wonderful face.

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His glory and grace.”

What a blessing it is to sit here some 2600 years later and be turning myself to this same God who in fact does “dwell among men.” What a blessing to be one of “the people who know their God!”

Daniel 2:4-13 – “Turning to God”

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

⁴And the Chaldeans said to the king [in] Aramaic, “O king, live to ages. Tell the dream to your servants and we will declare the interpretation.” ⁵The king answering said to the Chaldeans, “The word/thing from me is gone/assured. If you do not make known the dream and its interpretation, you will be taken [by] limbs and your houses will be made a dunghill. ⁶And if you declare the dream and its interpretation, you will receive gifts and a present and great honor from before me. Therefore, declare [to] me the dream and its interpretation.” ⁷They answered again and saying, “O king, tell the dream to your servants and we will declare its interpretation.” ⁸Answering and saying the king, “From certain I knowing that the time you buying because you see that assured/departed from me the word/thing. ⁹But if the dream you will not make known to me, one [is] your law and lying and corrupted words you have conspired together to say before me until the time be changed. Therefore, the dream tell to me and I will know that its interpretation you declare to me. ¹⁰The Chaldeans answered before the king and saying, “There is not a man upon the earth who the matter of the king is able to declare because every king, chief, and lord a matter like this not has he asked to any of magician and astrologer and Chaldean. ¹¹And the matter which the king asking [is] difficult and other not there is who can declare it before the king except gods whose dwelling, it is not with flesh.” ¹²Therefore was the king angry and very enraged. He was saying to destroy to the all of the wise men of Babel. ¹³And the law proceeded and the wise men [were] being killed and they sought Daniel and his friends to be killed.

There is so much that could be noted in these verses. However, what strikes me most is what a common but sad picture it is -- people living in a world without God.

Here is Nebuchadnezzar, trying to be a king over a vast empire. He has this dream and knows it needs to be interpreted, but he cannot do that himself, so he calls for the people he thinks should be able to help him – but they can’t. Then there are the wise men. Like Daniel, they’ve been through extensive training and now depend on their “skills” to provide themselves and their families a living. Suddenly the king is demanding of them things they cannot do and threatening to murder them if they do not.

Right in the middle of it all, the wise men lament, “No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among men.”

Therein is the problem with it all. The true and living God does “live among men!” “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory …” (John 1:14). Jesus Himself is the very embodiment of God’s personal presence among us. He is our “very present help in trouble” (Ps 46:1). But not to know Him, not to know He is present, leaves us humans cast upon an ocean too wide and mountains too high.

Now, it is true that to some extent we can “make things work.” People all over the world do it all day every day. But we also face too many situations where we simply do not have the power to do what we want to do or get what we want to get or achieve whatever is expected of us. And that is when things get ugly. Nebuchadnezzar is a very powerful king. But he can’t interpret his own dream. So how does he respond when the guys can’t help him? He flies into a violent murderous rage. He has come to the end of himself and finds himself powerless to get what he wants. So he makes unreasonable demands on the people around him, only to find they can’t do what he wants either.

I would suggest he isn’t so different from the rest of us. Yes, he is a raging, cruel, and totally unreasonable tyrant, and it seems almost unbelievable he could actually murder an entire people-group because they can’t meet his unreasonable demands. But I fear most of us are only restrained from such cruelty by the fact we don’t possess his power. I have to sadly admit if I had the power to “right click delete,” there are a lot of people who might not live very long. But I don’t. So what do I do when I come to the end of myself? What do I do when the doctor can’t cure my problem? When the mechanic can’t fix my car? When the IT guy can’t fix my computer? When I’m looking for solace and my spouse doesn’t seem to “be there” for me? When I need a raise and the company won’t give me one? When the lawn mower won’t start? What do I do?

And think about the wise men. If they had the power to know the king’s dream, they would certainly do it. But they don’t. They too have come to the end of themselves. And what does it mean? That they are about to be murdered. One item of exegetical interest is the statement in v13, “So the decree was issued to put the wise men to death.” I translated it, “And the law proceeded and the wise men [were] being killed.” There is room for debate whether we should understand the words to imply the decree was simply issued “to put the wise men to death” (leaving the possibility no one had yet died when Daniel steps in) or whether “the wise men were being killed” (that Daniel actually stayed the executions which were already in progress). The Aramaic will allow either understanding, but I would suggest the most natural translation is that, in fact, “they were being killed.” In support of that, the Septuagint translated it with a Greek imperfect, which also would be most naturally translated, “they were being killed.” I would suggest too that in light of the violent rage Nebuchadnezzar was in, the executioners would jump on the task, fearing they themselves might incur his murderous wrath. Probably the group of men standing before the king were executed immediately – perhaps right in front of Nebuchadnezzar’s eyes – then the executioners headed out to round up and murder the others.

So, when these wise men come to the end of themselves, it is not just an unfortunate inconvenience. It’s the end of their lives! Is that not often how we feel? To come to the end of myself isn’t just unfortunate. There’s always something at stake, something I want or need very badly (at least in my own mind). But I can’t get it. I can’t make it happen. In this case, one could suggest the wise men got themselves into this – claiming to be able to discern the will of the gods, to foretell the future – and building an entire occupation on this deception. But we often “get ourselves” into a lot of trouble too. What matters at that point is that we have, in fact, come to the end of ourselves.

But what does all of this prove? What does it mean when we “come to the end of ourselves?” It tells us we need God. We need a power that rises above our problem, that rises above the people who can’t (or don’t care to) help us, that rises above people who have the power to hurt us. We need God and we need Him to be a God who does in fact “dwell among men.”

Nebuchadnezzar and his wise men have come to the end of themselves but they don’t know the God who “dwells among men.”

In this case, sadly, they turn on each other. It is interesting to note how in verse 8, the king says, “From certain I knowing that the time you buying …” The reason why I underline the “I” and “you” is because, in Aramaic (as in Hebrew and Greek), they don’t normally actually state the pronouns. The “I” and “you” are usually part of the verb – unless they want to emphasize them. In the Aramaic they are in fact stated. The conversation has clearly turned adversarial at this point and even the original language tells us it has come down to “me against you.” Both sides have come to the end of themselves and what do they do? Turn on each other.

But stop for a minute and think it is actually good to come to the end of yourself(!). If I get to that point and, like these guys, turn to lies and murder, that’s bad – but, if at that point, I do in fact turn to this God who dwells among men, then the end accomplished is the best of all. Rather than turning on each other, we need to turn to God. Without a doubt, I can say that’s what brought me to the Lord to begin with – as a young man, I thought I had it all figured out, that I knew what I wanted and needed, but the longer I lived the more I realized it wasn’t working. I was headed for some kind of desperate conclusion when one day the Lord turned on the lights and I knew it was Him I needed. Jesus stepped into my life to be my God who “dwells among men.” And since then it has been a daily experience of constantly coming to the end of myself and turning to Him. At present I can actually say I am learning to embrace this reality all day every day – that I exist “at the end of myself,” that all day every day I need Him to do what I cannot. Everything I need to do, everything I need to accomplish, everything I need to be, is somehow beyond me. There is much I can do, but I already know it isn’t enough – and that’s actually how it is supposed to be. I need God. To exist as a human being is actually to live my life doing all I can do, while depending on God to do what I cannot. That is life. We live it “at the end of ourselves.”

Here’s a quote from the Southern Pulpit that expresses this same thought:

“What a striking picture is here presented us of Nebuchadnezzar and his wise men trying, by human devices, to arrive at the mind of God! How we yearn for man when we behold his boundless aspirations confronted by his impotent nothingness! But it was well that human skill should first exhaust its resources in endeavouring to know the mind of God. It was a proper prelude to God’s revelation, this confession of impotence: ‘There is none other that can show it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.’ It is a law of God’s providence that He will not intervene until man has discovered his own absolute inability, and felt his imperative need.”

Nebuchadnezzar and his wise men have come to the end of themselves. And so they turn on each other. They should have turned to the true and living God, but they don’t know Him. But Daniel does. Fortunately for them, it is also not true that “There is not a man upon the earth who the matter of the king is able to declare …” Yes, there is a man. But not because the man is able, but because he knows the God who is able, because he knows how, when he comes to the end of himself, to turn to the God who can do what he cannot.

May we all embrace the fact that our very existence is “at the end of ourselves,” that we need God all day every day. And rather than turning on each other, may we turn to Him. “Seeing we have such a High Priest, Jesus, … let us come boldly unto the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:14-16).

I can’t resist closing with the words of the old hymn:

I need Thee every hour,

Most gracious Lord;

No tender voice like Thine

Can peace afford.

I need Thee, oh, I need Thee;

Every hour I need Thee;

Oh, bless me now, my Savior!

I come to Thee.

Daniel 2:4,5 – “Real World”

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

⁴And the Chaldeans said to the king [in] Aramaic, “O king, live to ages. Tell the dream to your servants and we will declare the interpretation.” ⁵The king answering said to the Chaldeans, “The word/thing from me is gone/assured. If you do not make known the dream and its interpretation, you will be taken [by] limbs and your houses will be made a dunghill.”

This is the point where Daniel begins to write in Aramaic rather than Hebrew. He will stay in Aramaic until the end of chapter 7. As I began to examine the text in Aramaic, I had the same uneasy feeling I had years ago before I had the privilege of actually studying Greek and Hebrew. I learned early how to use a Concordance and how to look up the definitions of the Greek and Hebrew words in the Bible. However, I quickly realized that understanding another language goes far beyond simply being able to translate the words themselves. To truly understand the text in its original language one must understand the grammar, the constructions, verb conjugations, etc. To not know those things is to realize the actual original text is to me obscure. And for me that is untenable. I want to know for myself as much as can be known, so I am confident I understand, as far as possible, exactly what the Lord said … and what He did not. As I peruse these Aramaic words, I don’t recognize the way in which they indicate articles or the construct/absolute relationships, or even the pluralities, much less the conjugations. Again, that is untenable to me. So I’ve ordered a book on Aramaic and will have to develop at least a rudimentary understanding of the language and its differences from Hebrew. However, I must say, as frustrating as it is not to be able to work with this text, it is exciting to me to think of delving into another language!

As far as the passage before us, I want to record a couple of expository thoughts and then ponder a couple of the practical applications I see. From an expository perspective, probably the biggest issue is the translation of the king’s response to the Chaldeans. In my translation above, I included alternative words to reflect the uncertainties. The question is whether Nebuchadnezzar is saying, “The thing (the dream) is gone from me,” (i.e. he’s forgotten it) or “The command from me is certain,” (i.e. he’s made up his mind and you’re in trouble!). There are scholarly people on both sides of the argument, so I will just conclude I don’t know which it is. If he is saying “It’s gone from me,” then we are certain that he has forgotten the dream. If he’s saying, “I’ve made up my mind,” then we don’t know if he’s forgotten or if he is perhaps deliberately testing the Chaldeans. There is the thought that Nebuchadnezzar has his doubts about these guys and he’s decided to test them – if they really do have the power to interpret dreams, then they should also be able to tell what the dream was. Basically, to believe this, we have to go with the second option of the translation.

But, again, I don’t see any conclusive arguments on either side. So I’ll just say I don’t know which it is – which also means I don’t know exactly what’s going on in Nebuchadnezzar’s head.

The other exegetical issue I see is the meaning of the word for what the king is threatening to do to their houses. I’ve translated it “…your houses will be made a dunghill.” The word translated “dunghill” could mean a lot of things. In addition to “dunghill” it could mean “a pile of rubble,” or even the idea of “an outhouse.” Apparently oriental kings were in the habit of all three. The bottom-line is that not only will these guys get drawn and quartered, but in some way their houses will be destroyed too. I think that is as much as we can say with certainty.

From a practical perspective, this situation is exactly what believers face every day as they work and live in the real world. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to work under bosses who are just as volatile and cruel as Nebuchadnezzar. “The king” wants something and you’d better give it to him or you’re fired! Few of us are likely to be drawn and quartered or have our houses torn down, but too often people have to work in a very similar environment of fear.

Consider the case before us: The Chaldeans have built an entire industry on their ability to foretell the future by interpreting things. If a king or someone else possessing the financial means was to retain their services, they might interpret the movements and positions of the stars, they might examine the entrails of sacrificed animals or the falling of arrows, or, perhaps they might interpret someone’s dream. Their art was fortunetelling by interpretation. This was no doubt a significant part of Daniel’s training at Babylon U. And this is precisely why their services were retained by the palace – to provide guidance to the king based on interpretations of prognosticating events.

We may suspect they were largely charlatans but, nevertheless, all their trade promised to do was to interpret things. Now the king wants something and it matters not to him they never claimed they could do what he’s asking. In that world, what he is asking of them is totally unreasonable.

But he wants it, and they’re close at hand, so they’d better give it to him or they’re fired.

People who work largely in “Christian” organizations rarely have to work under such arbitrary cruelty. In fact, I would observe that is probably one of the main reasons people seek to work in “Christian” businesses – to escape the world of cruel capricious bosses. I have the good fortune to be an engineer who works mainly with municipal clients. Engineers as a group are very pleasant to work with as they are rarely screamers. In all my career, I’ve never heard a raised voice in our office unless it was a visiting client or contractor or someone else who was upset about something. And municipal clients tend to be very patient people. On the other hand, I have worked in industrial settings and with industrial clients where such is not the case. Like Nebuchadnezzar, they want everything yesterday and you’d better give it to them or you’re fired. And it matters not one whit if what they’re asking is impossible. It may not matter that it is clearly outside your area of expertise. They want it and you’d better get it … or else.

Peter didn’t say without cause, “Servants, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh” (I Peter 2:18). He goes on in that chapter to call us to follow Jesus’ example, reminding us “When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats” (v23a). His answer of course was “He entrusted Himself to Him to judges justly” (v23b).

Such is the world believers often find themselves in. It is the real world even if it’s ugly. It’s one of the places where faith is the only answer. Like Jesus, and like Daniel and his friends, we have to learn how to live, to do our jobs, to do our best, trusting the Lord Himself, even as we live under the specter of totally unreasonable demands. As with Daniel and his friends, our Lord goes with us into the workplace. Even there He is still “a very present help in trouble.” Even there He is “working all things together for our good.” Daniel will overcome this situation by faith, by taking the problem to the Lord in prayer, and by trusting the Lord to enable him to do even that which is impossible. He lived in the real world, and you and I can be like him today, living in our own real world.

The other thing we ought to take from this passage is a determination not to be like this ourselves. It is very easy to get in a position of authority or power and then be cruel in our expectations of those around us. It begins at home with how husbands and wives treat each other and how they treat their children. Then it extends to how we treat the clerk at the grocery store, the kid who mows our grass, our doctors and nurses, our mechanics and plumbers, our children’s teachers and coaches, and everyone else from whom we feel we have a right to expect “performance.” And that includes at work, how we treat those who work for us. Even when we ourselves are under a lot of stress and perhaps very unreasonable demands, we mustn’t use that as an excuse to make unreasonable demands on those who work under us.

Ruthie came home from school once and told me about a harrowing event which occurred during her gym class that day. She particularly noticed how it frightened and upset the other girls, then made the astute observation, “They have no one to trust.” As the Chaldeans are faced with this fearful demand of the king, they too have “no one to trust.” But Daniel does … and so do we.

Let’s all be the more determined to “take the Lord with us” to work. We may not be able to escape that world of cruel unreasonable demands. Unfortunately it is the real world. But we have a Lord who urges us to “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” We have someone to trust.

Daniel 2:2,3 – “Answers”

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

²And the king said to call to the magicians and to the astrologers and to the sorcerers and to the Chaldeans to tell the king his dreams and they came in and they stood to the face of the king. ³And the king said to them, “I have dreamed a dream and it disturbs my spirit to know the dream.”

There are a number of very practical observations we can make from these verses, but I will restrain myself and only mention a couple. First of all notice that we all need others. Here we have the king of the most powerful nation on earth. If anyone could ever say, “I need no one. I only command,” it would have been Nebuchadnezzar. But here he is calling for help. He can’t do it all. He needs other people to provide their gifts, their expertise.

And so do we.

The older I get the more I am amazed how much we depend on each other. The old saying is true: “No man is an island.” It is interesting to me to read the entire poem from which that old saying is taken:

“No man is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man’s death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee” (John Donne, 1624).

Probably most of all, though, this passage makes me thankful for the Word. Here is Nebuchadnezzar suddenly needing answers. Suddenly something is beyond him. He wants to know something. He wants something explained to him. And where does he go? He calls for “the magicians and the astrologers and the sorcerers and the Chaldeans.” Can they help him? We all know the answer is no. He turns to them, needing them to help him, and yet we all know he is going to be disappointed.

How often is it we all go to others hoping they’ll help us? It could be going to the doctor or perhaps to a financial advisor. It could be to a mechanic or a plumber. As we briefly saw above, we need each other. And sometimes the people we go to can help us. And sometimes they can’t. Sometimes they can’t because they simply don’t have the knowledge. Sometimes they don’t help because all they’re really interested in is taking our money. Sometimes they themselves think they have the answers but they really don’t. But for whatever reason, we end up living in a world where sometimes others can help us and sometimes they can’t. Sometimes we can get answers and sometimes we don’t.

This is where the Word steps in. It won’t tell me how to fix my furnace, but one thing I know – if it has answers for the questions I ask, I know those answers are true. The furnace guy might mislead me, but the Bible never will.

Other than the Bible, the two best books I ever read were, “Knowing God,” by JI Packer, and “How Should We Then Live?” by Francis Schaeffer. In Schaeffer’s book, I first was led to ponder the truthfulness of truth. Schaeffer makes the case for why we need a source of absolute truth in our lives, why we need a place where we can go and get truth we know is true, and of course that place is the Bible. I love Jesus’ words, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!” I have lived my life hearing the Lord saying, “Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things thou knowest not” (Jer 33:3). I spend this time digging in the original languages, tearing apart the words and phrases and verses … because I want to know the truth. I want answers. So much of life I still don’t understand, but as I have studied the Bible these last nearly 35 years, the Lord has taught me again and again. So much I do understand that I did not before.

But it means so much to me that, when I do find answers in the Bible, I know they’re true. I have lots of questions about a lot of things, and it is frustrating to live in a world where I can’t get answers. I’ve been a runner all these years, which drives me to read books all about running. I have learned some really helpful things, but I would say 90% of what I’ve read either wasn’t helpful at all or, as I’ve come to realize, was simply wrong. That is, for me, very, very frustrating. But I don’t have that problem with the Bible. Everything it has taught me is true. Every truth I learned has been a stepping stone to more. Each truth has been just one more brick in the building of my life. And it’s a solid building.

But poor Nebuchadnezzar. Where does he go? I’m reminded of Isaiah 8:19,20: “When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the Law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this Word, they have no light in them.”

Nebuchadnezzar is about to find out “they have no light in them.”

I feel his pain.

But I also know the joy he’ll feel when God’s man steps up to the plate and gives him real answers.

“Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

I love true truth!

Daniel 2:1 – “Dreams”

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

¹And in the year of second to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams and his spirit was disturbed and his sleep was upon him.

My, my. This verse is so full of interesting observations. I’ll try to be brief!

First, two exegetically significant observations – as usual, the antagonists explode over the statement that this occurs in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. They all whine and cry over the fact that Daniel and his friends were in a three year training program and then exclaim it makes no sense this could have occurred in the second year, since the result is Daniel and his friends’ promotion to significant positions. “Surely they would have to have completed their training before they could reasonably be expected to have received positions!” they exclaim.

As I explained in my last post, such objections only betray the ignorance of those who think they’ve found a fault in God’s Word. As I observed before, one has to be very careful when dealing with ancient people’s timelines. They viewed and recorded time very differently than we do. And may I point out that the reference to the three year training program was recorded only a few verses before? If this reference to the second year created such a glaring inconsistency, it would have been addressed back then. But it didn’t. Daniel himself and the people he was writing to saw no contradiction or inconsistency. His words made perfect sense to them. Our problem is we don’t think like them, nor do we have the immediate facts they had. It is possible Nebuchadnezzar served a co-regency with his father Nabopolassar for a year or two and this reckoning is starting with the period of his independent reign.

It is also possible there is no contradiction at all. As I said before, sometimes ancient peoples didn’t count the first year of a king’s reign. In other words, they didn’t start their reckoning until the New Year actually began. If Daniel’s training started during this “uncounted” period before the New Year, and if the dream occurred very soon after Daniel’s graduation, his “three-year” training program could have then quite logically been completed in the “second” (reckoned) year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign.

The bottom-line is we don’t know, but they obviously did. It is all very interesting to ponder how it fits together but I would maintain it is the heights of ignorance and arrogance to think the chronology somehow casts doubt on the veracity of this book or the Bible itself.

The second exegetically significant observation is in the final words of the verse. These words are usually translated something like, “… his mind was troubled and he could not sleep.” As my translation indicates, it literally says, “…and his sleep was upon him.” Those words don’t immediately make sense to us. What does it mean “his sleep was upon him?” It seems to me if Daniel wanted to tell us that the king couldn’t sleep, he could have said something like, “his sleep left him.” I would rather suggest the idea is the exact opposite, that his sleep was “upon” him in the sense that he did in fact keep on sleeping. In other words, perhaps he awoke with some vivid apprehension of what he had dreamed but promptly fell back asleep. This would possibly explain why he will then ask the magicians to tell him what the dream was – as his own memory is very vague. At any rate, that is the understanding I will assume to be true – that he awoke enough to be troubled but then went back to sleep so that, in the morning when he awoke, he still felt disturbed but couldn’t remember exactly what it was he had dreamed.

On to more practical observations. I think it is interesting to observe the man himself. He is a king. And not just any king – he is the king of the most powerful nation on earth. He is surrounded by wealth and power and no doubt every possible delight any young king could ask for. But he still has to sleep. And he can have “bad” dreams that disturb him. Interesting – all the armed guards around him and the softest bed under him cannot protect him from his own humanity. He is, in the end, just a man. Just like us. Great and small, rich and poor, male and female, we are all just people.

Somewhat along these lines, though, it is worth observing that “greatness” not only does not protect us from our humanity, it actually often makes things worse! Eccl 5:12 observes, “The sleep of a working man is sweet … but the abundance of the rich permits him no sleep.” In Esther 6:1, we find another great king whose sleep is disturbed. The fact is that “greatness” carries with it cares and troubles that are spared to the rest of us. Joan and I used to laugh when we left the house on vacation, knowing we didn’t really have to “worry” about someone breaking into our house. We had nothing worth stealing! How different it would be for someone living in a palatial mansion! Poverty has its advantages! People occasionally ask me if I’m looking to become a principal in our company. I tell them no, that I will certainly do what duty requires, but that I maintain no delusions about the “glories” of leadership. I am quite content to just do my job and let someone else lose sleep over all the worries of actually running a business. Nebuchadnezzar’s troubled sleep reminds us that “greatness” often comes at a cost.

Finally – and this where I really have to force myself to be brief – I note that the Lord is here communicating great truth through a dream. As I pondered this verse, I was amazed to recall how many times in the Bible the Lord communicated to people through dreams. Joseph immediately comes to mind, with his own dreams, the butler and cupbearer’s, and the Pharaoh’s. There was Abimelech warned in a dream about Isaac. God came to Solomon in a dream. He spoke to Joseph, Mary’s husband in a dream about her pregnancy, then warning them to flee to Egypt, directing them to return to Israel, then warning them away from returning to Judea, so they settled in Nazareth. Pilate’s wife was warned about Jesus in a dream and Peter was instructed by the dream of the sheet full of creatures. And this is only a portion of it all.

It’s also interesting that the Lord spoke not only to good people but also to evil kings. That would seem peculiar to us, but there it is.

I would observe that our God is a great Communicator. The opening verses of the Bible record, “And the Lord said, ‘Let there be …’” “The Lord said.” From the very beginning, He was speaking. The Bible ends with Him still speaking, saying, “Yes, I am coming soon.” The entire Bible is God’s Word – God speaking. “The heavens declare the glory of God.” And Jesus is “the Word of God.” The gods people imagine are often silent. The Deists thought the Creator set the universe in motion, then disappeared. Sometimes we feel as if “the heavens are brass.” But the truth is our God is the Great Communicator. If we don’t hear Him, the fault is of necessity on our part, not His.

This reference to dreams in particular, makes one wonder why, if He used dreams so extensively in the ancient world, why He doesn’t seem to today. I think the answer is almost entirely addressed in Hebrews 1:1,2: “In the past God spoke to our fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by his Son …” Although the Lord can communicate any way He wants any time He wants, yet Jesus Himself is the very Word of God. All those communications in the Old Testament were just parts and pieces of God revealing Himself to man. They were but “shadows of things to come.” The fullness of God’s revelation of Himself to man is not given in dreams or visions, but in the Living Word Himself. The ancient peoples and the Jews in particular had only the words of the prophets, their dreams and visions, to reveal God to them. But we have God Himself in the person of our Lord Jesus. For Nebuchadnezzar to have this prophetic dream, for Daniel to interpret it, and all the rest, might seem “great,” the fact is that what we have is far greater. We see Jesus.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that “dreams” might be a very captivating topic but we have something far better. We have the Living Word. God can choose to speak any way He wants any time He wants, but we need to keep our gaze fixed on Jesus. For myself, I believe in the sufficiency of the Scriptures, the doctrine that the Bible as we have it is the completed revelation of God and we need not look elsewhere for truth. But even having said that, we ought not be somehow content to know the written Word. It is there to point us to the Living Word. Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered, “Philip, have I been with you so long and you still don’t know Me?”

Jesus is “the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of His Person…”

Daniel was a privileged fellow to live in the age of dreams. But what you and I have is far better!