The
prophet Daniel has a lot in common with Joseph from the book of Genesis. Both were exiles who found success working as
civil servants for a foreign king; both became important administrators in
their new homes; and most importantly, both were skilled at interpreting
dreams.
We
last left Daniel and his friends at the end of Daniel chapter 1 studying at the
University of Babylon where they are being trained to serve in the court of
King Nebuchadnezzar. The king was impressed by their wisdom and understanding,
which greatly surpassed that of any of the magicians and enchanters in his
kingdom.
Which
brings up a curious side question: What
exactly was Daniel and his friends studying?
The implication I see is that they were studying Astrology and
Divination, disciplines which our modern age would call superstition and which
the Babylonians would call science and which many Christians would call
Satanic.
Now
the text is scrupulous about always crediting Daniel’s wisdom and insights to
God; but it still seems highly likely to me that if they Babylonians were going
to be teaching him stuff, they would have been teaching him their cutting-edge
science. It may seem strange to call the
study of horoscopes Science, but in defense of the Babylonians, the underlying
premises of Astrology may be faulty, but they took it damn seriously, and the
data they compiled in their study of the stars became useful and important as
their system of Astrology developed into the science of Astronomy.
(I
once read an economist remark that many of our sciences started out as
superstition; that Astrology became Astronomy and that Alchemy became
Chemistry; and that someday we might find out what science will come out of
Economics.)
But
the point of this that I see is that those who fret that secular learning is
dangerous because it isn’t rooted in the Bible forget that Daniel managed to
emerge from a thoroughly non-Jewish course of study with his faith in God intact. I know that my own interests in history,
science and fantastic literature has given me perspectives that have, I think,
deepened my understanding of my own beliefs. I dare say that gaining an understanding
of Babylonian history, culture and laws, as well as Babylonian religion and
science, gave him insights which enabled him to better relate to the king and
to the members of his court.
But
back to the story. In the second year of
Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, the king became troubled by dreams and unable to
sleep. And here we have a discrepancy.
In
chapter 1, we are told that Daniel and his friends came to Babylon in the first
year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign and underwent three years of study, entering the
king’s service after graduation. But now
this story is taking place during the king’s second year. What’s the deal with that? Some critics have tried to explain the
discrepancy by saying that the second year mentioned here is dating from the consolidation
of his empire after Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Egyptians a couple years after
he ascended to the throne. Or it could
be that this story took place while Daniel was still an undergrad. Or it could be sloppy editing of individual
stories which originally came from diverse sources.
Nebuchadnezzar
calls together all his magicians, enchanters, sorecerors and astrologers, (“Chaldeans”
in the original text; the region of Chaldea in southern Mesopotamia was so
identified with the development of astrology that the name became synonymous
with “guys who study the stars”). He
commands them to explain his dream.
Then the astrologers answered the king in Aramaic, “O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will interpret it.” (Daniel 2:4 NIV)
Why
does the text make a point of mentioning that the astrologers were speaking in
Aramaic? Well, there’s a reason. Because at that point, the narrative switches
from Hebrew to Aramaic, and continues in that language for the rest of the
story and for much of the rest of the whole book.
Aramaic
was a language related to both Hebrew and Phoenician, spoken in the region of
present-day Syria. Abraham lived for a
time in that land, which is why it is said in the book of Deuteronomy, “My father was a wandering Aramean…”
(Deut.26:5). Aramaic was the language
spoken in Assyria, which was a dominant political force through much of the Old
Testament period, and the language was important even after Assyria became
absorbed into the Babylonian Empire and when Babylon was in turn conquered by
the Persian. It’s generally believed
that during the Babylonian Captivity, the Jewish exiles adopted Aramaic, the
lingua franca of the empire, for their everyday speech, even after they
returned to Judea. They continued using Hebrew in their Scriptures, but had
become a language of lore and of religious ritual rather than one of every day
conversation. Although the Gospels were
written in Greek, Jesus did most if not all of his teaching in Aramaic, and
some of the Gospel writers quote snatches of that language in their narrative.
It
is believed that the narrative portion of the Book of Daniel consists of
stories written during this Post-Exilic period, and for some reason, the author
of the book left them as is, rather than translating them into Hebrew. The last half of the book, consisting of a
series of prophetic visions, shifts back into Hebrew again; perhaps because
Aramaic was just to mundane a tongue to do justice to the full weirdity of
Daniel’s visions. But back to the story.
The
magicians and professional wonder-workers ask the king to tell him his dream so
that they may interpret it, but Nebuchadnezzar isn’t having any of that. He seems quite testy with his staff seers;
perhaps he doesn’t really trust them; perhaps it has occurred to him that if his
psychic friends are all that hot, he shouldn’t have to tell them what he
dreamed. Or perhaps, according to some
interpretations, he can’t remember what the dream was about and it’s driving
him crazy.
The king replied to the astrologers, “This is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piled of rubble. But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive form me gifts and rewards and great honor. So tell me the dream and interpret it for me.” (Daniel 2:5-6)
Ouch. And I thought the James Randi Challenge was
tough. The astrologers admit that what
the king asks is impossible. “What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the
gods, and they do not live among men.” (Daniel 2:11)
This
angers Nebuchadnezzar, and he orders the execution not just of his court
astrologers, but also of all the wise men of Babylon. This includes Daniel and his friend.
Daniel
has the opportunity to speak with Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard,
who has been tasked with the responsibility of gathering up all these wise
guys. He speaks to Arioch “with wisdom
and tact” and learns the whole story.
Daniel asks for a little more time so that he can try interpreting the
dream himself.
Daniel
goes back to his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, (better known as
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego) and they pray asking God for mercy and
enlightenment so that they can answer the king’s riddle and save their own
lives as well as the lives of the other magi.
In
the night, Daniel also has a dream and in it the mystery is revealed. The ghost is actually the shady banker in
disguise. Wait. Wrong mystery.
The
narrative pauses here for a moment as Daniel utters a psalm praising God as the
source of wisdom and power, who reveals deep and hidden mysteries.
Although
in this story, Daniel receives the solution to a mystery by Divine Revelation,
there are other stories involving Daniel, the canonicity of which are disputed,
in which Daniel actually employs deductive reasoning to uncover crimes, making
Daniel the only detective in the Bible.
I hope to tell some of these other stories another time.
Daniel
is brought before Nebuchadnezzar to explain it all.
“No wise man, enchanter,
magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but
there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.
He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the days to come.” (Daniel 2:27-28)
The
king’s dream was of a tremendous statue, the head of which was made of gold,
the chest and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of bronze, the legs of iron
and the feet and toes of iron mixed with clay.
As the king observed the statue in his dream, a large rock was cut out,
not by human hand. The rock struck the
feet of the statue, causing them to crumble and the entire statue to collapse
in a ruin. The rock then grew to the
size of a mountain encompassing the whole earth.
That
was the dream; but what did it mean?
The
golden head of the statue, Daniel said, represented Nebuchadnezzar himself and
his glorious kingdom, given to him by the God of heaven. The silver torso represented the kingdom
which would succeed him, spiffy, but not quite as impressive as his own. Then a third kingdom, one of bronze, which
would rule over the whole earth, and finally a fourth one, as strong as iron,
but not wholly so; a mixture of strength and weakness which would not remain
united. (And yes, this is where the expression “Feet of Clay” comes from,
meaning an underlying character flaw in an otherwise admired figure).
Finally,
the rock cut out of a mountain but not by human hands represented a kingdom
which God would someday establish which would not be destroyed but would endure
forever.
Nebuchadnezzar
was impressed by Daniel’s revelation of his dream and by the interpretation of
it. “Surely
your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries,
for you were able to reveal this mystery” (Daniel 2:47) The king gave Daniel a high position in his
court in charge of his staff magi, and appointed his friends to posts as
administrators.
But
looking back with historical hindsight, did Daniel’s prophecy come true?
The
traditional interpretation of both Jewish and Christian scholars is that Four
Kingdoms of the statue represent (1) the Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar;
(2) the Empire of the Medes and the Persians which conquered Babylon after
Nebuchadnezzar’s death; (3) the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great, who
conquered the known world, and of his successors, specifically the Seleucid
Dynasty which ruled over the former Babylonian territories and which squabbled
with the Ptolemies of Egypt for control of Palestine; (4) Rome, the mightiest
empire of all, but one which eventually fell to internal weakness and division.
Christians
like to interpret the carved by no human hand as the Christian Church, established
by God and outlasting the kingdoms of men and growing to fill the whole earth. Some later Christian groups with a more
eschatological bent, interpret the mixed feet of the statue as representing a
later successor to the Roman Empire and the rock as the Millennial Kingdom to
be established once Christ Comes Again.
More
modern scholars have been skeptical of Daniel’s prescient visions, and assume
that the kingdoms described in the dream are ones the writer would have been
familiar with. Because much of Daniel is
written in Aramaic, and because some of the later prophecies in the book seem
to specifically refer to the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucid ruler
who incited the Maccabean Revolt, it’s generally thought that the Book of
Daniel was written, or at least compiled in its final form, during the time of
the Maccabees. Under this
interpretation, the golden head remains Babylon, but the silver torso becomes
the kingdom of the Medes, and the brass belly that of the Persians. The iron legs then become the succeeding
period of Greek rulers. Except that the
Medes and the Persians did not rule one after the other; they were ethnic
divisions within the same Empire. I don’t
know how this interpretation regards the rock; perhaps as a hopeful
anticipation of a Messianic Age.
These
two interpretations are based on the assumptions that either (A) Daniel was
writing about future events revealed by Divine Revelation, or (B) Daniel was
written later using 20/20 hindsight and pretending to make predictions about
things that had already happened.
Another possibility occurs to me.
It
doesn’t take either divine foreknowledge or historical hindsight to know that
Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom wouldn’t last forever.
Eventually it would pass and be superseded by something else, and that
this new kingdom too would fade away. So
how do Daniel’s predictions about these future kingdoms compare to what really
happened?
In
some ways, the historical record of Empire in the Middle East is the exact
opposite of that predicted in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. He dreamt of four kingdoms, each succeeding
one inferior to the one before. As it
turned out, the Persian Empire was larger and lasted longer than the
Babylonian; the Greek Empire, (if we count the Seleucid Dynasty) lasted even longer,
and Rome longest of all.
True,
the Empire of Alexander covered pretty much the entire world that
Nebuchadnezzar knew about; and the Roman Empire was renowned for its strength,
yet ultimately became divided, so those points match… sort of… if we squint at
them in just the right light.
Or
perhaps Daniel was framing his interpretation in such a way to make
Nebuchadnezzar look good. “Here are the kingdoms which will succeed
your own; but none of them will be as glorious as yours.”
And
what about the Rock? I have to admit, I
like the interpretation that the Rock is Christ and the kingdom which he told
Pilate was “not of this world.”
In
the latter part of the book, Daniel revisits this prophecy; recounting a vision
of four beasts, once again symbolizing four kingdoms to come, and here he gets
even more apocalyptic; but that is another vision for another time.
