GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
DANIEL 2:2-3
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2 So the king gave orders to summon the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers to tell him what he had dreamed. They came in and stood before the king. 3 Then he said to them, “I have had a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream.”
The King woke from his sleep and he woke from his dream. His trouble may have been more than simply not understanding the dream. It is possible, even probable, that he honestly couldn’t remember some of the details, and the whole thing was now a confusing jumble in his mind.
The summons was made, and his professional fortune tellers were brought to him. There they were, assembled before his majesty: the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the astrologers. What I have already stated is brought out in these verses: Daniel was not among the professional men who were summoned. This makes all the more sense when we accept the text as written and allow for the likelihood that Daniel was still a student and not counted with the professionals yet.
What the king wanted from these wise men is stated twice here: “To tell him what he had dreamed” (verse 2) and “my spirit is troubled to know the dream” (verse 3). The last phrase of verse 3 has been translated with great care, just as the Hebrew words are written. Sometimes a little interpretation of the original language is important to convey the meaning to the modern reader. Dozens of verses in a row that all begin with “and it came to pass” can be tiresome and even comical when one is reading the text to children. Luther once complained, “I cannot make Moses speak German.” But sometimes it is better to leave the words in the plainest possible sense, at least in a rough translation. I cannot imagine a translation any rougher than my own usually is. But here we do not need to imply that the king was at first seeking an explanation of his dream and then changed his mind in anger, demanding that they tell him the deepest secret a person can have: the content of an unspoken dream. This was the king’s desire from the beginning, not because he was a madman, but because he seems to have lost the dream’s details or imagery himself. It troubled him to the very fiber of his being, and he couldn’t remember what it was. He was shaken, and he was shaking. It was throwing him back and forth, to and fro, as we heard in verse 1.
What are dreams? A modern evaluation seems to boil down to one thing: dreams appear to be a sorting mechanism used by the mind to take images, conversations, feelings and even intuition experienced during waking hours, and filing them away here and there in the mind or memory. It comes close to the way we used to defragment our computers in the old days before such tasks were taken away from users (today computers simply break down so that we have to buy new ones). But are there different kinds of dreams?
“There is a difference,” Leupold says, “between dreams and dreams.” He means that dreams that come to godly men, like Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph, are not altogether natural; in many cases those are not natural dreams at all. They are messages from God for godly people. Other things can cause dreams. The devil can do such things, and so can poor digestion (“a bit of underdone potato,” as Scrooge says). But with godly dreams, by which we mean dreams sent from God, we can say this: “God arouses the natural soul to be able to discern things, which according to God’s purpose are about to transpire.”
Luther explains all of this in the clearest words: “Dreams sent by God are impressed on the dreamers in such a way that they are conscious of keener feelings than is the case with the common dreams of other men and also of animals [Luther owned a dog; anyone who has watched a dog sleep does not doubt that they have dreams]. Pharaoh has the same feeling (in Genesis 41), and God moved his heart to take note of the dream, especially when it was repeated. Thus although Nebuchadnezzar no longer remembered his dream, yet he could not forget the impression it made. As a rule, such dreams are explained by divine communication, since they have originated from God” (LW 7:139).
This dream that was churning up the guts of Nebuchadnezzar was a dream from God, but not because Nebuchadnezzar was anything yet like a godly man. In fact, it was a proclamation of the law carrying with it a little gospel like a sidecar on a motorcycle. For the moment, with his astrologers and wise men present, he wondered what the dream was. He knew it was important. He had a feeling that it was incredibly important. But he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was.
He shows us with his actions what the sinful heart does without understanding why. When anyone is caught in a sin, and especially in the guilt and shame of sin, he begins to scratch and claw at everything to find a way out again. Can he blame someone else? Can he throw confusion into the people around him so that they will forget all about his sin? Can he get someone to say it wasn’t so bad, or not his fault, or even “not guilty”? The sinner will keep falling deeper and deeper into despair until he has nowhere else to turn except straight up, up to heaven, to the throne of God himself. He will have to throw himself on the mercy of God, or he is done for. If he has ever heard of it, he wants to hear the Gospel of forgiveness. If he has never heard of the Gospel, he will despair until someone preaches it to him. Then he can say: “O you who hear prayer, to you all men will come. When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions” (Psalm 65:2-3).
Nebuchadnezzar didn’t know the Gospel yet. He was searching. He was yearning. This is the whole reason behind his request. He was seeking, as Paul said to the Greeks at Athens: “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27). Therefore “Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land. Seek righteousness, seek humility– perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger” (Zephaniah 2:3). This is why he sends to us the Gospel of his love.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Archives at St Paul’s Lutheran Church https://splnewulm.org/daily-devotions/ and Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: www.wlchapel.org/connect-grow/ministries/adults/daily-devotions/gwfy-archive/2025
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Daniel 2:2-3 The request