Daniel 2:24-25
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Arioch had direct orders from the king and now Daniel is giving him orders. Daniel has a certain boldness about him that is admirable. Arioch realized this and honored Daniel by taking him back to the king. Daniel was the one who was in control here. Daniel, this young 19-20-year-old held the ability to give life or death. His goal was to save as many lives as he could, so he stopped the execution, at least until he talked to the king.
Read 26-30
The king has waited long enough, and he officially asks Daniel if he can tell him what he saw in his dream and if he could interpret it. Daniel makes sure he explains the lack of ability in all the other wise men, he tells the king that no wise man, enchanter, magician, or diviner could explain these mysteries. He goes on to explain, only God in heaven can reveal these of dreams.
Daniel shows compassion here, his explanation, along with the first he asked was for the executions to not take place just yet are proof of his merciful heart. He is also, setting himself apart. He wants it to be known that he serves The God and they serve false gods.
In vs. 29 Daniel gives God a new name, he calls him “he that revealeth secrets”. In this confusing world we live in, it should give you peace to know that God is the one who reveals secrets, he is the one who reveals mysteries.
The conversation between Daniel and Neb, is led with Daniel giving “words of knowledge”. It reads like, “you were lying in bed and you were thinking about the future, you were thinking about what will come to pass.” That is where the kings dreams began, he was pondering life, thinking about the future and what it would like for him and that is when he fell asleep and that is when God spoke to him via dreams and vision.
This is a “word of knowledge” because no one except the king and God would know what Neb was thinking about. Not even the enemy can read your thoughts. God mad it clear to Daniel what the king was thinking about as he nodded off to sleep. God will give you a word of knowledge to get the attention of the person he wants you to minister to. God will give you knowledge of a person that only God can ever know. This immediately got the kings attention.
Verse 30 gives us even more clues to the character of Daniel. We can add to that long list of amazing qualities the word humble. Daniel was incredibly humble. He gives all credit for his abilities to God. He makes it known that the mystery was revealed “TO” him, it didn’t originate from him. He adds that it wasn’t revealed to him because he was smarter than anybody else. It was revealed to him for no other reason than to give the interpretation to the king so that he could understand all of it.
Read vs. 31-35
What we have here is one massive prophetic dream. This dream literally covers from the time of King Neb past us and extends into the future to where Jesus returns to earth to set up his earthly kingdom.
The vision was of a statue, not an idol, a statue. The statue is described to be large, enormous, its dazzling and awesome in appearance. It is a statue in the shape of a human.
The head is made of pure gold.
The chest and arms are made of silver.
The belly and thighs are bronze.
The legs are iron
The feet are partly made of iron and partly made of baked clay.
Then the dream began, in the dream the king was looking at the statue and he saw a rock being cut out. It wasn’t cut out by a human though. It was supernaturally being cut out. The rock then strikes against the feet of the statue and smashes them. Then suddenly the all the other parts of the statue were broken to pieces. The pieces all crumbled to the ground like grain and a wind blew over them blowing all the pieces away. Nothing was left after the wind blew. Not a trace of the statue was left behind.
The rock that struck the statue remained and it suddenly turned into a big mountain. The mountain was so huge it covered the entire earth.
Let’s take a moment to analyze the dream at this point.
- The statue is decreasing in value as it goes down
- It is also becoming more brittle/fragile as it goes down
- Its top heavy. The gold on top is twice as heavy as the feet
Overall, this statue, made to look like a human body, is fragile and prone to fall, and that is exactly what happens to it in verse 34. The slightest strike against it and it all crumbles, it all falls to the ground.
The rock that struck the statue was not made by human hands. But the rock had massive power, it struck the feet of the statue with a crushing blow. Causing the top-heavy statue to crumble into pile of rubble that was blown away as though it was nothing but a pile of dust.
Imagine receiving this dream about something so powerful and forceful, atomic bomb like, that would strike the earth and cause all of humanity to be wiped out as though it never existed.
Now how do you even begin to interpret a dream like this?? We will figure this out next week.
Homework: make a list of each dream detail and then list beside it what it biblically represents.
