Daniel 2
Kingdoms of Men, Kingdom of God
(Daniel 2)
Jason Procopio
A few years ago, Netflix launched their online streaming platform and effectively changed the way we watched TV and movies.
The crown jewel of their initial offerings was a show called House of Cards. It’s hard to see House of Cards the same way today (for reasons I won’t go into), but at the time, it was a game-changer. Very dark, very intelligent, and very addictive. And one of the reasons it was so addictive is that it followed the stories of two people (Frank and Claire Underwood) who would stop at nothing—and I mean nothing—to get for themselves what we all secretly want: power.
Power is the ultimate tempter, even if you’re not interested in using your power against anyone else. When you have power, you’re free from constraint. Every problem becomes (theoretically) solvable. So when we don’t have power, we want power to escape our problems; and when we get power, we always want more.
The problem is that human beings were not designed to wield ultimate power. Omnipotence is an attribute that God alone possesses—and every time human beings try to obtain for themselves attributes that belong to God, sooner or later, things go badly.
This is the dynamic we see at play in Daniel chapter 2.
Daniel 2 is one of those passages of the Bible that just seems strange upon first reading, but which becomes more and more amazing the more deeply we delve into it. It’s a long chapter (49 verses), so to not overwhelm us all at once, I’ve asked Aurélie to read chunks of the passage for us, which we’ll see as we go along.
(Just a quick note, which changes absolutely nothing for us, but we mentioned it last week: beginning at verse 4 of this chapter, until the end of chapter 7, the original text switches from Hebrew to Aramaic, the court language of Babylon. A lot of theories have been put forward as to why the switch is there, but the most likely reason is that from this point until the end of chapter 7, the subjects dealt with aren’t focused mainly on God’s people (the Hebrews), but on God’s reign over all peoples, including the Babylonians.)
We’re going to begin with chapter 2, verses 1-23.
1 In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him. 2 Then the king commanded that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king. 3 And the king said to them, “I had a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream.” 4 Then the Chaldeans said to the king in Aramaic, “O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation.” 5 The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, “The word from me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you shall be torn limb from limb, and your houses shall be laid in ruins. 6 But if you show the dream and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. Therefore show me the dream and its interpretation.” 7 They answered a second time and said, “Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show its interpretation.” 8 The king answered and said, “I know with certainty that you are trying to gain time, because you see that the word from me is firm— 9 if you do not make the dream known to me, there is but one sentence for you. You have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the times change. Therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can show me its interpretation.” 10 The Chaldeans answered the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who can meet the king’s demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. 11 The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.”
12 Because of this the king was angry and very furious, and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed. 13 So the decree went out, and the wise men were about to be killed; and they sought Daniel and his companions, to kill them. 14 Then Daniel replied with prudence and discretion to Arioch, the captain of the king’s guard, who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon. 15 He declared to Arioch, the king’s captain, “Why is the decree of the king so urgent?” Then Arioch made the matter known to Daniel. 16 And Daniel went in and requested the king to appoint him a time, that he might show the interpretation to the king.
17 Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, 18 and told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. 19 Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. 20 Daniel answered and said:
“Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,
to whom belong wisdom and might.
21 He changes times and seasons;
he removes kings and sets up kings;
he gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding;
22 he reveals deep and hidden things;
he knows what is in the darkness,
and the light dwells with him.
23 To you, O God of my fathers,
I give thanks and praise,
for you have given me wisdom and might,
and have now made known to me what we asked of you,
for you have made known to us the king’s matter.”
An Impossible Situation (v. 1-23)
OK, so if you remember last week, we saw that God had given the kingdom of Judah into the hands of the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, who invaded Jerusalem and brought a large number of its citizens into exile. Among the exiles were four young Hebrews (Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah), who were brought into the king’s palace to be integrated into society and serve the king. They resisted their integration—and instead of being punished for it, God actually made things work out perfectly for them. He gave them wisdom and intelligence and health, and he gave Daniel the ability to interpret dreams. So they were brought into active service of the king.
That’s where we left them last week. And that’s why it’s surprising that, such a short time later, it all seems to be falling apart.
The king, Nebuchadnezzar, has a dream which bothers him. We’ve all had dreams like that, dreams that stick to us—where someone’s mean to us in the dream, so we have to make a concerted effort to be happy to see that person, even if in reality they didn’t do anything to us.
But here we have a next-level bad dream. The king doesn’t understand it, and it bothers him so much that he puts an insane test to his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and wise men. He tells them, “You’re going to interpret my dream, but I need to make sure you can really do it, so first, you have to tell me what my dream was.”
It’s an impossible request. There are a number of dreams which are common to most people, but the king’s dream is not one of those (as we’ll see). There is no way anyone would be able to guess what he had dreamed. And the wise men tell him as much—v. 11:
The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.
So the king decides, “Okay, all you guys are worthless. Death to all of you.”
And this actually starts to happen—v. 13, the decree goes out, and the wise men are about to be killed, and they come after Daniel and his friends (because they are among the wise men of the kingdom). Daniel (wisely) asks for just a little time to see he can figure out what’s going on with this dream.
And that is where we see the first major turn in this story.
Daniel and his friends don’t lean over books. They don’t strategize. They don’t hold a meeting to see if they can find a solution.
V. 17-18:
17 Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, 18 and told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
How often do we come up against situation where no possible solution is in sight, and yet we still try like mad to find one?
Now, some people will ask God for help and simply wait around for God to change things. That’s not what happens here. In what follows, Daniel isn’t inactive: he asks to speak to the king; he bravely gives the king some pretty bad news.
But none of Daniel’s activity would have been possible, had his first instinct not been to pray, and to ask his friends to pray. His confidence in God’s sovereignty is so great and so natural that faced with this impossible situation, he doesn’t see it as an impossible situation…only impossible for him. But God is sovereign, and God is wise—he knows what needs to be done, and he can do what needs to be done.
So Daniel and his friends pray, and that night, God answers. He gives Daniel a vision which not only shows him the king’s dream, but explains what it means—as he says in v. 19, the mystery was revealed.
And in response to God’s answer, Daniel does what many of us don’t think to do when God answers our prayers: he prays again.
His prayer is telling. We saw this last week: Daniel, the author of this book, made it abundantly clear in chapter 1 that God was completely sovereign over the events that had taken place—that’s what he wants to show in this book. And that knowledge was already well anchored in him at this point. Daniel prayed because he trusted in God’s sovereignty, and in his prayer, he celebrates and rejoices in God’s sovereignty.
V. 21:
21 He changes times and seasons;
he removes kings and sets up kings;
he gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding...
Now remember—Daniel still doesn’t know what the king is going to do. The king isn’t exactly the most stable person: he wants to kill all the wise men in the kingdom because they couldn’t do something impossible. So even if Daniel comes to him with what he had asked, there is no guarantee he will relent.
And yet, Daniel celebrates in the truth that God removes kings and sets up kings (v. 21). Even kings like Nebuchadnezzar.
He had prayed with his friends that God would reveal this mystery to them (v. 18) so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. God answered their prayer for revelation—the mystery is solved. So Daniel has no reason to doubt he won’t answer their prayer for protection as well.
Now, armed with the answer to the mystery, Daniel asks to see the king.
Let’s read with Aurélie beginning at v. 24.
24 Therefore Daniel went in to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He went and said thus to him: “Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon; bring me in before the king, and I will show the king the interpretation.”
25 Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste and said thus to him: “I have found among the exiles from Judah a man who will make known to the king the interpretation.” 26 The king declared to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation?” 27 Daniel answered the king and said, “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked, 28 but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these: 29 To you, O king, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this, and he who reveals mysteries made known to you what is to be. 30 But as for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your mind.
31 “You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. 32 The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
36 “This was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation. 37 You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, 38 and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all—you are the head of gold. 39 Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. 40 And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. 41 And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. 43 As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.
Kingdoms of Men (v. 24-45)
I know his interpretation isn’t finished, but let’s stop there for a moment.
Daniel comes before the king, and like we said before, his coming ready to tell the dream to the king lends him enormous credibility—there’s no way he could have guessed this incredibly strange dream on his own.
But there are two things that make Daniel’s encounter with the king particularly impressive.
The first is that Daniel is completely honest from the very beginning that nothing he’s about to say comes from him. In v. 11, the wise men told the king that no one could do what he was asking, except the gods. But now, in v. 28, Daniel says,
...but THERE IS A GOD in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days...
Now it may seem like an offhand remark, but this was an incredibly dangerous thing for Daniel to say to the king. Remember what we saw last week. Upon arriving in the king’s palace, Daniel and his friends were given new names. They were forced to learn a new language and the literature of their new home. They were given a new diet (at least that was the intention). All of these efforts were made to cause them to forget who they were, and where they had come from.
But in telling Nebuchadnezzar that there is God in heaven who reveals mysteries has spoken to him, and revealed the meaning of his dream, he is effectively telling the king that his efforts to erase their identities didn’t work. They still remember who they are, and they still worship their God.
So that being said, Daniel tells the king his dream. This great image (v. 31), a statue, with a gold head, chest and arms of silver, middle and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron mixed with clay. A stone comes out of nowhere and shatters the feet, and then the rest of the statue comes crashing down and the pieces are blown away. And the stone becomes a huge mountain that fills the whole earth.
You can imagine Nebuchadnezzar getting really excited at this point—this guy is the real deal! This was no common dream, and he didn’t guess anything (he couldn’t have)—Daniel knows what’s going on in this dream.
Which he explains starting in v. 36. The different parts of the statue represent kingdoms.
The head of gold is Nebuchadnezzar himself.
Babylon had long been a great kingdom, but had risen to new heights of greatness in the short time since Nebuchadnezzar had become king. He was now “the king of kings” (v. 37)—not that King of kings, but rather the most powerful king at that time in history. And again, we see Daniel’s incredible courage here: he clearly says in v. 37 that not only did the revelation of the dream come from God, but the king’s own power and might as well. V. 37-38:
You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, 38 and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all—you are the head of gold.
So this time Daniel affirms God’s sovereignty—not just over dreams and mysteries, but over everything: kingdoms and kings, people and where they live, animals and birds… The only reason Nebuchadnezzar has such power over all of these things is because God gave it to him.
Next, Daniel explains the silver and bronze portions of the statue—and this is where things get really interesting. He says (v. 39) that
Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you [this is the silver portion], and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth.
In other words, Nebuchadnezzar’s reign isn’t going to last forever, and neither is his kingdom. Another kingdom will come after that won’t be quite as great, and then another kingdom after that, whose reign will cover all the known world.
And although Daniel couldn’t have known it at the time, this is exactly what happened. In 539 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar’s son Belshazzar (whom we’ll meet in chapter 5) is killed, and with his death, the Medo-Persian empire assumes control of Babylon, setting up Darius the Mede (whom we’ll also meet) as king.
Some two hundred years later, in 331 B.C., the “kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth,” actually shows up—it’s the kingdom of the Greeks established by Alexander the Great. We know today that Alexander actually did conquer all the known world at that time in history and (as the story goes), when he arrived at the end of his campaign, “he wept because he had no more worlds to conquer.”
If that weren’t enough, Daniel then moves on to the fourth kingdom (v. 40-43)—the kingdom represented by the legs of iron and the feet of iron and clay.
As we know now, the kingdom whose reign supplanted that of the Greeks was the Roman Empire.
Daniel’s description of this part of the statue is a remarkably accurate description of the Roman Empire, although it is still centuries in the future. Stronger and longer-lasting than any empire up to that point in history… And yet, because their reach far exceeded their grasp, the empire ultimately fell apart.
Now, it is possible to pick out minute details here and say, “Hang on a minute—that can’t be Rome, or that can’t be Greece.” It’s possible to debate on exactly which kingdoms he’s talking about here. (I personally think the common view that these four parts of the statue represent these four kingdoms is perfectly fitting.)
But we have to be careful not to miss the forest for the trees; God, through Daniel, isn’t just making historical predictions. He’s also communicating something using prophetic and apocalyptic language.
Think about why each kingdom is described, in this picture of the statue, by a different type of metal. These different metals, and what these kingdoms did, reflect what human beings have always done. As you move down the statue, from the head to the toes, the metals get stronger and stronger, while getting less and less valuable. Gold is more precious than silver, silver more precious than brass, brass more precious than iron… And yet iron is stronger than brass, brass is stronger than silver, and silver is stronger than gold.
Each successive kingdom, in order to build up greater things for themselves, trades in something of value for something else which gives more power.
Our tendency as human beings is always to trade what is truly valuable for those things which will simply make us stronger—those things we think will give us power, or financial stability, or independence, or freedom to do what we want to do.
But even the strongest kingdom described here (the “iron” kingdom at the end) finds that its strength is limited—it is iron mixed with brittle clay, and it smashed to pieces when the rock comes along. Even the Roman Empire had limited strength, and didn’t last forever.
Each successive kingdom is stronger than the last…and yet loses more and more of what actually matters.
But a kingdom is coming in which this will not be the case—which is what we see in v. 44-45.
44 And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, 45 just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”
The Kingdom of God (v. 44-45)
Now if you know your New Testament, the beginning of v. 44, in which Daniel says that a day is coming when the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, should immediately sound familiar to you. In the gospels (and most strikingly in Mark’s gospel), when Jesus begins his public ministry, here is what characterizes it. Mark 1.14-15:
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Jesus will repeatedly say that the kingdom of God came through him. He didn’t say “the kingdom is coming”; he said “the kingdom is here.”
The kingdom has come in Jesus Christ: God made man, who took our rebellion against God on himself and suffered the consequence of our sin in our place. What every empire has tried to do, and done wrong, God has done right. Rather than beating peoples into submission, he draws them to his Son; and through the finished work of his Son, God reconciles us with himself, makes us citizens of his kingdom. He unites us to himself and to each other through the finished work of Christ.
So this prophecy—that God would come and set up his kingdom—has already begun to be fulfilled. The kingdom has come in Christ.
Christ is the “stone” the king saw in his dream—the stone, which destroys the feet of the statue and then becomes a mountain which fills the whole earth.
This image too, like the language of the kingdom, is echoed multiple times in the New Testament. Just one example, in Matthew 21.42-44:
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
“ ‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”
The stone in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream is not a human kingdom of such power and might that all other world powers become inconsequential.
The stone is Jesus Christ, the King of God’s kingdom.
Now it would be natural to look at the rest of the king’s dream, in which the stone comes and basically busts up the statue, and grows into a mountain—a kingdom which dominates all other kingdoms—and think, That doesn’t sound like what Jesus did.
Jesus did not set up a kingdom which brought an end to all other kingdoms; and there is not one global kingdom today, with Christ as its King.
That’s true. But if you’ve been with us for a while, remember what we saw on multiple occasions in the gospel of Luke. The kingdom has come in Christ—it has been inaugurated, it has begun to make its mark on this broken earth, and ever since Christ’s ascension to heaven, it continues to move forward.
And one day, Jesus Christ will return to this earth, and he will renew the earth and renew his people, and on that day, the kingdom of God will be the kingdom of the entire world, in perfect and joyful submission to Christ.
Now, how do you think the king of Babylon will react to hearing this news? He’s just heard that his power is limited and finite, that there will be other, more powerful kingdoms than his, including one kingdom which arguably represents everything Nebuchadnezzar wants for himself: total power over the whole earth.
How does he react? Let’s finish our reading with v. 46-49:
46 Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face and paid homage to Daniel, and commanded that an offering and incense be offered up to him. 47 The king answered and said to Daniel, “Truly, your God is God of gods and Lord of kings, and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery.” 48 Then the king gave Daniel high honors and many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon. 49 Daniel made a request of the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon. But Daniel remained at the king’s court.
The Goal (v. 46-49)
So what Daniel describes here is essentially the goal of this entire story—this is what God was going for in giving this dream to the king, and in giving Daniel the ability to interpret that dream.
First of all, God is seeking to be glorified. After hearing the interpretation of his dream, the king is not bothered—he’s amazed. He set up an impossible challenge for his wise men, and one of them actually met that challenge, through what he says is the power and wisdom of his God.
So Nebuchadnezzar recognizes, publicly (by commanding that an offering and incense be offered), the strength and wisdom of Daniel’s God. God is publicly glorified by the worship of a pagan king who doesn’t know him.
The second goal of this exchange is to set Daniel and his friends up in places of power. Daniel is made ruler over the province of Babylon (like Joseph in Egypt) and chief of the wise men; and Daniel’s friends are chief leaders in the city’s affairs. Again, God is doing something here, and it’s bigger than any of them—he puts his players where they need to be to make that happen.
So you see, already in these first two chapters, we see God acting, in a small way, the same way he acts on a large scale all the time. God sovereignly guides kingdoms and health and circumstance to fulfill his will. We saw him do it with Judah and Babylon, with Daniel and his friends in exile, and now with Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel.
But this dream states that God performs this same guiding work on a much larger scale, with multiple kingdoms over centuries, and that one day his sovereignty will be known globally—his kingdom will be the kingdom of the earth.
James Boice helpfully notes that because Daniel’s interpretation of the king’s dream precedes many of the events by hundreds of years, he gives us proof that the Bible is divinely inspired—that God himself is the one who predicted these things. “But,” he says,
“they are also proof of God’s sovereignty, which is the dominant theme in Daniel. How so? It is because the only way in which God can foretell what is going to come about in history is if God is in control of history. He is able to foretell what will happen because he has determined what will happen and because he has the power to make it happen.”
We speak so often about these truths because these truths, anchored in us over time and by the Holy Spirit, cause us to become more and more like Daniel. When Daniel learns the king plans to kill him, he doesn’t panic; he doesn’t run; and he doesn’t count on his own wiles to get him out of an impossible situation.
Daniel has such confidence in God that his first instinct is to pray when he needs help. And Daniel has such confidence in God that he is not afraid to act when God gives him an opportunity to do so.
Brothers and sisters, our God acts—so we can act as well. Our God reigns—so we can pray to him and trust him to help. Our God is sovereign—and one day, all creation, and all men, will know it.
