GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
DANIEL 2:4-6
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4 Then the astrologers said to the king in Aramaic, “O King, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will explain it.” 5 The king replied to the astrologers, “I have made my decision: If you do not tell me what my dream was and explain it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses made into piles of rubble. 6 But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive gifts and rewards and great honor from me. So tell me the dream and explain it to me.”
A few minor details seem to fly past in the light of the strange horror of the King’s demands. He is so upset and shaken by his dream that he demands the impossible. But of course, he has heard the country’s astrologers and fortune-tellers making claims that seem to be impossible all his life. If they can predict the future and the weather and the deaths of kings and princes, surely they should be able to reach a couple of hours into the past to tell him what is was that he dreamt.
They began with a common flourish, words that they probably spoke without even thinking about them, “O King, live forever.” And with those words, the original text switches from Daniel’s native Hebrew to the courtly Aramaic of Babylon. A dialect of Akkadian known as Babylonian was the former language of the people and was the language of Babylonian literature. Sumerian (sometimes called Chaldee in older commentaries) was an ancient tongue dating back to the time of Abraham, and was the language of religious texts and certain scholarly and scientific uses. Aramaic had become the more usual popular language for everyday use among the people. Daniel continues using Aramaic from this point until the end of chapter 7. This includes all of what we might call the Sunday school stories of Daniel: The dream of the king (chapter 2), the fiery furnace (chapter 3), the king’s madness (chapter 4), the handwriting on the wall (chapter 5), the lions’ den (chapter 6) and the first of Daniel’s own dreams, the four beasts (chapter 7).
Why would the prophet present these things in Aramaic, the ordinary Babylonian tongue, and revert to Hebrew for the later visions about the last days and the coming of Christ? Daniel was willing to share his experiences with the common people of Babylon, but as for the end of the book? Professor Jeske says simply: “The Babylonians and Persians could not have cared less about the special future in store for God’s people. And so in chapters 8-12 of his book the author described this future in Hebrew, the language of ancient Israel” (People’s Bible, p. 149).
But what about the king’s threat? “I will cut you into mincemeat! I will pull down your houses and turn them into piles of horse manure!” This is the gist of the threat and the fairly literal meaning of the Aramaic clauses. The subsequent promise of various rewards fell on deaf and stunned ears. None of that mattered because none of them, not one, could do what the King asked.
What he threatened must have horrified them. Each one of them knew that, although trained, although experienced, although intelligent, they were, deep down, liars and charlatans. They couldn’t do what the King demanded.
“I will have you cut into pieces.” When this is spoken to someone else, it is unfortunate; “too bad for him,” one might think. But what would a man feel when the King’s eyes are looking into his own, and these terrible words come into his ears? Pieces. Mincemeat. Limb from limb. There is no getting around that fact that death by execution is unpleasant, but that death by dismemberment is a hideous and terrifying prospect. Of all the forms of killing a man, only the cross could be worse.
It is the shame of the cross that the people remembered most. “The offense of the cross,” Paul called it (Galatians 5:11). And in Hebrews it is called “shameful” (Hebrews 12:2). Painful, yes; excruciatingly. But shameful because it drove all dignity, all of a man’s privacy, any sense of decency from him at his most vulnerable hour; the hour of his death. Naked, in agony, mocked, tortured, bleeding, even robbed as he was dying– such was the fate of every man who was crucified. But our Lord took this on as a volunteer. Imagine him saying to Nebuchadnezzar: “No! Let them all go free, and make mincemeat of me!” This is the sort of Savior we have. He took our punishment– our well-deserved punishment, earned by our sins of every sort– and he actually, physically, really did this. Not with Nebuchadnezzar, but with the King of kings, his own holy Father, who stood in judgment of all mankind. “He humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:8). He heard the threat from his own Father and said, “No, not them. Do it to me instead. He was willing to get cut up into little pieces. Mincemeat. Torn limb from limb. That might have taken five or ten minutes. But they did worse. They tortured him all night and they crucified him all day, and he did it to pay for our sins. This is the Savior we have. Praise his holy holy name.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Daniel 2:4-6 The threat