A Second Bad Dream
King Nebuchadnezzar has had another terrifying dream. Once again his court magicians and wise men cannot interpret his dream. Greatly troubled, the Babylonian king summons his Hebrew servant Daniel to interpret this dream which has disrupted the king’s life of relative ease and comfort. Daniel will reveal that the unsettling circumstances foretold in Nebuchadnezzar’s previous dream are soon to come to pass. In the prior dream (as recounted in Daniel 2), the king saw a frightening metallic stature with a head of gold, which represented the king and his empire. But that kingdom will fall before a series of empires yet to follow. Nebuchadnezzar and his vast kingdom will come to an end–replaced by the Persian empire then just beginning to rise to power. Now in old age, Nebuchadnezzar remains convinced that his kingdom is mighty and that it stands as a testimony to his own accomplishments and greatness. But as a consequence of these two dreams, the king is beginning to realize that his kingdom is no match for YHWH. YHWH rules all the kingdoms of the earth from heaven. His kingdom is not of this world. His kingdom is eternal. None of this can be said of any earthly kingdom, including Nebuchadnezzar’s.
We pick-up where we left off last time with v. 19 of Daniel 4, when the king had another troubling dream and then summoned the Hebrew prophet (Daniel) to interpret the dream for him. Ironically, it was Daniel (a believing Jew), who, in gaining favor with the king after interpreting his first dream successfully was appointed prefect over Nebuchadnezzar’s pagan court magicians. The king’s magicians fail again and so it falls to Daniel to explain to the king what his second dream foretold–events which Nebuchadnezzar probably suspected (based upon his previous terrifying dream years before), yet which now brought him to a breaking point.
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