Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Daniel · About this commentary
The Secret Revealed in the Night
Daniel 2:19-23
19 Then the secret was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. · WEB
The answer comes in a night vision, and Daniel's first act is not to run to the king but to bless the God who removes kings — a doxology that states the theme of the whole book.
Then the secret was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven Daniel 2:19.
The prayer is answered the same night, and the sequence of the two sentences is the point. Daniel holds the one piece of information in the empire that can stop an execution — including his own — and his first move is worship. A man in a hurry would be sprinting; this one stops to give thanks, and the hymn he sings is the interpretation before the interpretation.
Blessed be the name of God forever and ever; for wisdom and might are his Daniel 2:20.
Wisdom and might — exactly the two commodities the chapter has been about. Babylon has might and had just confessed to running out of wisdom. Both belong, in their unborrowed form, to God, and forever and ever is aimed straight at the dream: the kingdoms in the metal image will each have their turn at wisdom and might, and each will hand them on.
He changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings Daniel 2:21.
This is the book in one verse, and it is sung by a condemned foreigner about the most powerful monarch alive. God removes kings and sets up kings — the vocabulary that will govern chapter four's decree Daniel 4:17, the writing on Belshazzar's wall Daniel 5:26, and the whole march of the image from gold to clay. And he changes the times and the seasons: history has a hand on it. The one who arranges the epochs is the reason a prophecy of empires is possible at all — and the phrase will return, twisted, when a later power will plan to change the times and the law Daniel 7:25 and finds the prerogative is not his.
He gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals the deep and secret things. He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him Daniel 2:21–22.
The answer to the Chaldeans' despairing theology Daniel 2:11: heaven does speak to flesh. He knows what is in the darkness — including whatever went through a king's mind in the dark and left him nothing in the morning — and the light dwells with him, so what is hidden is not hidden from him and need not stay hidden from those he tells Psalms 139:11–12 1 John 1:5.
I thank you and praise you, O God of my fathers, who have given me wisdom and might Daniel 2:23.
The close is personal and careful. The God of my fathers — the covenant God, in Babylon, still his. The gifts he names as given to him are the very two he had just ascribed to God alone, which is how a servant holds a gift: real, and on loan. Then the reason for the thanks, with no self-interest in it: you have made known to us the king's matter — not you have saved my life, though that is included. The four had prayed together and the plural stays in the thanksgiving.
settled What this mark means