“611. THE LOST DREAM—DANIEL 2”

The Lost Dream—Daniel 2

It is not unusual to have a dream of great significance and interest, but which yet passes from the mind when we awake. We remember how deeply it interested us—how nearly it seemed to concern us; but our utmost efforts are vainly exerted to retain the circumstances, so effectually do they elude our grasp.

One night the great king, Nebuchadnezzar, had such a dream. He awoke in a state of alarm, horror, and dismay, as one to whom something most solemn and threatening had happened; but he vainly strove to recover the circumstances which had left upon his mind an impression so deep.

To us there would be no resource in such a case; but this king of Babylon had one, which, as he judged, ought in such a case to be effectual. His court was crowded with men of learning and science, which science embraced the pretension to a curious variety of occult knowledge, by which the adepts claimed to be able to uncover the secret things that were hidden from eyes less learned. No ancient people were so much devoted as the Babylonians to the sciences; and in this, the testimony of history entirely agrees with that of the sacred books. From both sources, we learn that there were several classes of these persons, who devoted themselves to the different branches of learning and curious arts; for in the ancient East, and, indeed, in the modern East—what was really known of science was always connected with some kind of charlatanry or other—that is to say, the learned were not content with the credit of what they did know, but connected with it the pretension to some occult and peculiar knowledge beyond. Thus astronomy, which owes much to the Chaldeans, and of which they have indeed the credit of being the inventors, was intimately connected with astrology; so that, in fact, the two formed but one science, of which the latter branch was deemed by far the most important, and to which the real science was little more than the handmaid. This is still the case in the East, and was so formerly with us. In the original record of the trial and conviction of Thomas Burdett, John Stacy, and Thomas Blake, in 1477, for constructive treason, the accusation is, that they imagined and compassed the death of the king and prince by calculating their nativities, “to know when they should die;” and thus, “in order to carry their traitorous intention into effect worked and calculated, by art, magic, necromancy, and astronomy, the death and final destruction of the king and prince.” Note: Athenaeum, May 15, 1852.

In our text, the four classes of Babylonian adepts are described as “the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans.” They professed to be able, by the different arts of their respective orders, to interpret dreams and prodigies, and to foretell things to come. Of these four orders, the first is supposed by some, and the last by others, to have been the magi, in whom the occult science was connected with the priestly character. This is the only one of these orders which can be recognized in the Assyrian sculptures, from the peculiar dress of the functionary, and from the distinctive offices in which he is seen to be engaged, which shows that he was certainly a priest, and therefore a magician or a diviner of one of the classes mentioned here; for it is known that, as in other countries, and eminently in this, the priests were also diviners. The priestly diviner, as represented in the sculptures, wears a peculiar dress, which, as it is only otherwise represented upon the persons of gods and deified persons, may be regarded as sacerdotal. The garb is rich and picturesque, and comprehends a jeweled headband and bracelets. This personage is usually represented with a gazelle upon his left arm, and a flower in his right hand; but the former is sometimes wanting. Taken altogether, the figure may give the reader a good idea of the class of persons so often mentioned in Daniel.

Magian Priest

The king having at his disposal the services of so many sorts of learned persons, who professed that nothing was hidden from their various arts, did not see reason to despair of recovering his lost dream. He sent for them, and required them to tell him his own dream, and then to interpret it to him. At this they were confounded; and they informed the king that they were quite ready to interpret any dream related to them, but to tell a dream which the dreamer had himself forgotten, passed their power. The tyrant was wroth at this, and declared, that if they did not, they should be cut in pieces, and their houses made a dunghill. Of the former punishment we have spoken lately. It was known among the Jews; for “Samuel hewed Agag in pieces.” But the latter, rendering the very abode of the culprit a memorial of abomination, occurs only in Babylonian and Persian decrees. Note: See the other instances in Ezr_6:11; Dan_3:29. This custom, to the extent of destroying the house of the offender, also existed at Athens, in which city many spots, according to Xenophon, remained vacant, where the habitation had either been destroyed by fire, or erased by a decree of the people. “No sooner was a citizen accused of high treason, or some such crime, than immediately his house was demolished, as a vessel is broken that has contained poisonous liquor. Neither was it lawful to rebuild there; for the very ground was supposed to become fatal and execrable, from the crimes of its former possessors.”—De Pauw, Philosophical Dissertation on the Greeks, i. 40.

On hearing this, the unhappy enchanters declared, with some heat, that there was no man upon the earth who could meet this requirement nor was there ever any king that taxed to this extent the skill of his diviners. The king’s reply shows that he began to doubt their pretended skill altogether, seeing that they avowed their incompetency in a matter by which that skill would be really tested. He remarked astutely, that if they told him the dream, he should then have proof that they were able to furnish the interpretation. Now there is much good sense in this, although we may be at the first view disposed to take part with the diviners, and to consider that they were harshly dealt with. But Nebuchadnezzar justly considered their telling him the dream itself, was such a test of their competency to furnish the interpretation afterwards, as it was not unreasonable, on their own principles, to require of them; because the same divine power which could communicate to them the interpretation, as they professed, could also communicate to them the dream itself.

The diviners, however, could only, in their despair, exclaim that none could declare what the king required, “except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.”

Daniel, although not present, was of the same opinion. He, after his examination, had been advanced into the order of learned men; and when the king decreed a general slaughter of that order, as he did in his wrath, the four Hebrew youths were about to share that doom, when Daniel, confident that the Lord he served could impart this secret to him, implored a respite in the execution of this sentence. This was granted. Then they gave themselves unto prayer; and God heard them, and revealed the whole matter to Daniel in a night-vision. Indeed, as it was clearly meant by Him who gave the king his dream, that it should be interpreted to him, it cannot be questioned that the honor of the interpretation was reserved for Daniel, in order that he might be advanced to such a position, as would enable him to protect and aid his exiled brethren, and that respect might be secured for the God they served.

And here observe, that Daniel never attempts to make his life more pleasant, by suppressing the fact that he abhorred idolatry, and that the God he served was the only real and true God. On the contrary he boldly and faithfully avows it on all occasions, in season and (as some would judge) out of season; and there is nothing of which he manifests anxiety so sustained and constant, as that the Lord shall have all the honor of all the great things He enables his servant to accomplish. So, when the king asks him if he is able to make known the dream and its interpretation, he reminds him that there had been no power in the gods the diviners served to enable them to do this; “but there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days.” And throughout, he ascribes everything to this God, whom he served—the dream itself—the interpretation—the existence and power of the Babylonian empire, in the person of the king before him—and all the historical developments which the vision prefigured. This he succeeded in impressing with such force upon the king’s mind, as at the close drew from him the memorable declaration: “Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings.”

Considering that this God was, in the king’s view, one of the many gods of nations he had conquered, this was much to bring his proud mind to, though it fell far short of the truth, that He was the only God, and that beside Him there was no god. But we have no evidence that this admission, wrung from him by the irresistible force of present conviction, made any abiding impression upon his mind or conduct. The lesson he had to learn was, therefore, to be more severely taught.

Meanwhile, however, Daniel was promoted to great and distinguished honors. Not only did he receive “great gifts;” not only was he promoted to the high office of Rab-mag, which made him chief of the learned order to which he belonged; but, to give him the strength in sustaining it, which, as a foreigner of adverse religion, he so much needed, the civil government of the metropolitan province of Babylon was committed to him. Thus Daniel became, so to speak, both Lord Chancellor and Minister of the Home Department; and the union of both offices in one person probably gave him a degree of power and influence in the state, not inferior to that of the viziers and prime ministers of modern times.

Daniel did not forget his friends in this his advancement. They were, at his request, promoted to high employments in the department over which he presided.

Autor: JOHN KITTO