Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream

“Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret.” Daniel 2:47

   Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon with immense riches and power. He also had taken Judah captive. Yet while God had allowed Babylon, at least temporarily, to be more powerful than God’s chosen people, Nebuchadnezzar would learn that God is more powerful than any king or false god.

   God allowed Nebuchadnezzar to dream “…dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him.” (Daniel 2:1) He didn’t know what they meant, so he called “…the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans,” (Daniel 2:2) He couldn’t remember the dream, so he told them to tell him the dream itself as well as the interpretation. They could not do that. They told him to tell them the dream, and of course they could have made up any interpretation they chose.

   The king was furious. He realized, and rightly so, that if the advisers could not tell him the dream, they were phonies, and they prepared “…lying and corrupt words to speak before me…” (Daniel 2:9). They insisted that only “the gods” were able to show him the dream. The king, in his anger, commanded for all spiritual advisers in Babylon to be killed. Unfortunately, this order included Daniel and his three friends: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

   Daniel found out the reason for the order and asked the king for a little time. The king gave it. Daniel and his friends prayed for God to give them mercy. God gave Daniel the dream. Daniel told the king he had dreamed about a giant statue with a gold head, silver chest and arms, brass belly and thighs, iron legs, and feet part iron and part clay. Then, as Daniel 2:34-35 says, “…a stone was cut out without hands,” which struck the image, destroyed it, and “...became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.”

   Daniel explained that the gold head represented Nebuchadnezzar himself, a powerful king. The silver chest and arms represented another kingdom, not so powerful, that would come after his; followed by a “third kingdom of brass,” (Daniel 2:39) and a fourth kingdom strong as iron. The iron kingdom would be divided but would be “…partly strong, and partly broken.” (Daniel 2:42) The stone cut out without hands represented God’s kingdom that would break in pieces and consume all other kingdoms and last forever.

   Daniel had told the king what the others could not. He told the dream and the interpretation, as God had shown him. The king was impressed. He said, “Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret.” (Daniel 2:47)

   Nebuchadnezzar knew his other advisers were fakes and Daniel’s God was, as he himself admitted, “…a God of gods, and a Lord of kings,” The king would have done well at that point to fire his other advisers and start worshipping the true God. After all, his dream made it clear that his kingdom would end one day, but God’s kingdom would never end.

   Unfortunately, the dream about him being the gold head also seemed to go to his head. Daniel 3, which we will see in another essay, tells how he had a huge gold statue built and commanded that any who did not worship it would be cast into a burning fiery furnace. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were forced into a tough spot, but they made the right decision, and Nebuchadnezzar would see God’s power again.