Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Daniel · About this commentary
There Is a God in Heaven
Daniel 2:24-30
24 Therefore Daniel went in to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He went and said this to him: “Don’t destroy the wise men of Babylon. Bring me in before the king, and I will show to the king the interpretation.” · WEB
Daniel's first move with the answer is to save the men who failed, and his first words to the king strip every particle of credit from himself.
Don't destroy the wise men of Babylon. Bring me in before the king, and I will show to the king the interpretation Daniel 2:24.
Before he speaks to the king, Daniel speaks for the men whose incompetence had nearly killed him. He could have let the decree run its course — their elimination would have left the field to him. Instead his first use of a divine revelation is to save the lives of pagan diviners, which is what the mercies he had prayed for look like when they are passed on Daniel 2:18 Matthew 5:44. Their guild survives, and will still be around in later reigns Daniel 4:7 Daniel 5:7, never once grateful. The kindness was not an investment.
Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said this to him: "I have found a man of the children of the captivity of Judah" Daniel 2:25.
Arioch takes the credit — I have found a man — for a man who had sought him out. It is a small, entirely believable piece of court behavior, and the narrator lets it stand. Daniel does not correct him, and does not object to the label: of the children of the captivity of Judah. The captive identity is not something to be lived past; it is about to be the whole point.
The secret which the king has demanded can't be shown to the king by wise men, enchanters, magicians, or soothsayers Daniel 2:27.
Invited to display his superiority, Daniel begins by conceding the whole case for the defense. The four guilds are named and cleared: they could not do it — nor, by implication, can he. Before God is credited, every human channel is closed, and the man about to be honored takes his stand alongside the men who failed rather than above them.
But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days Daniel 2:28.
The hinge of the chapter, and the answer to the Chaldeans' verdict that the gods dwell not with flesh Daniel 2:11. They were right that only heaven could know and wrong that heaven would not say. Notice who is named as the recipient: God has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar — the dream was a disclosure to the king, and Daniel is delivering mail addressed to someone else. The latter days sets the scale: not next season's campaign but where history is going, the phrase Scripture reserves for the far end of the road Genesis 49:1 Isaiah 2:2 Micah 4:1.
But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living Daniel 2:30.
He says it twice, in case the first time was mistaken for modesty. He has no advantage over any living — not over the magicians, not over the king. Then he states the two purposes God had in the disclosure, and neither is Daniel's promotion: that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your heart. The second is the more searching. The dream was aimed at the man who dreamed it, at what he had been thinking on his bed about his own permanence Daniel 2:29. God let this king ask a question he could not answer, in order to tell him the truth about the thing he most wanted to believe was his.
settled What this mark means