So Daniel went back to Arioch, who had been put in
charge of the execution. He said, "Call off the execution! Take me to the
king and I'll interpret his dream." Arioch didn't lose a minute. He ran to
the king, bringing Daniel with him, and said, "I've found a man from the
exiles of Judah who can interpret the king's dream!" The king asked Daniel
(renamed in Babylonian, Belteshazzar), "Are you sure you can do this—tell
me the dream I had and interpret it for me?" Daniel answered the king,
"No mere human can solve the king's mystery, I don't care who it is—no
wise man, enchanter, magician, diviner. But there is a God in heaven who solves
mysteries, and he has solved this one. He is letting King Nebuchadnezzar in on
what is going to happen in the days ahead. This is the dream you had when you
were lying on your bed, the vision that filled your mind: While you were
stretched out on your bed, O king, thoughts came to you regarding what is
coming in the days ahead. The Revealer of Mysteries showed you what will
happen. But the interpretation is given through me, not because I'm any smarter
than anyone else in the country, but so that you will know what it means, so
that you will understand what you dreamed. What you saw, O king, was a huge
statue standing before you, striking in appearance. And terrifying. The head of
the statue was pure gold, the chest and arms were silver, the belly and hips
were bronze, the legs were iron, and the feet were an iron-ceramic mixture.
While you were looking at this statue, a stone cut out of a mountain by an
invisible hand hit the statue, smashing its iron-ceramic feet. Then the whole
thing fell to pieces—iron, tile, bronze, silver, and gold, smashed to bits. It
was like scraps of old newspapers in a vacant lot in a hot dry summer, blown
every which way by the wind, scattered to oblivion. But the stone that hit the
statue became a huge mountain, dominating the horizon. This was your dream. And
now we'll interpret it for the king. You, O king, are the most powerful king on
earth. The God of heaven has given you the works: rule, power, strength, and
glory. He has put you in charge of men and women, wild animals and birds, all
over the world—you're the head ruler, you are the head of gold. But your rule
will be taken over by another kingdom, inferior to yours, and that one by a
third, a bronze kingdom, but still ruling the whole land, and after that by a
fourth kingdom, ironlike in strength. Just as iron smashes things to bits,
breaking and pulverizing, it will bust up the previous kingdoms. But then the
feet and toes that ended up as a mixture of ceramic and iron will deteriorate
into a mongrel kingdom with some remains of iron in it. Just as the toes of the
feet were part ceramic and part iron, it will end up a mixed bag of the
breakable and unbreakable. That kingdom won't bond, won't hold together any
more than iron and clay hold together. But throughout the history of these kingdoms,
the God of heaven will be building a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor
will this kingdom ever fall under the domination of another. In the end it will
crush the other kingdoms and finish them off and come through it all standing
strong and eternal. It will be like the stone cut from the mountain by the
invisible hand that crushed the iron, the bronze, the ceramic, the silver, and
the gold. The great God has let the king know what will happen in the years to come.
This is an accurate telling of the dream, and the interpretation is also
accurate."
Rock, paper, scissors. Gold, silver, ceramic,
bronze and iron. Who wins?
Daniel acknowledges that only God, not man, can
solve the mystery of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. The significance of the
magnificent statue that the King saw in his dream was revealed by God through
Daniel. Babylon and the King are represented by the golden part of the statue.
The silver part represented the next countries that rule, followed by the
bronze and then a mixture of the common clay and iron, which shows a divided
nation and yet one that crushes all things. These metals represent the
respective kingdoms: Babylon, Medes and Persian, Greece, and Rome. Daniel was
explaining what was going to happen in the future to Babylon.
Daniel declares to the King that the God of
Heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed—it will endure
forever. Amazing that God introduced that concept of heaven—His heavenly
kingdom—early in the history of mankind. Spiritually this is significant since
this was happening in a Gentile area of the world and Daniel was telling them
about his God, the God of the Hebrews. He was like a missionary to that area.
God had a plan to spread His teachings around the world and He did this through
Daniel as he was taken into captivity in Babylon. Daniel was that man of
integrity who was already respected by the King of Babylon and that made his interpretation
even more credible. Are your words credible? Do they reflect your integrity? Are you telling others about God?
Lord, may the words of
my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to You.
© 2012 by Mickey M. Hunacek. All rights reserved.
Scripture from The Message, except where noted.
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