Daniel 4:18

Dan 4:18 This dream I king Nebuchadnezzar have seen. Now thou, O Belteshazzar, declare the interpretation thereof, forasmuch as all the wise [men] of my kingdom are not able to make known unto me the interpretation: but thou [art] able; for the spirit of the holy gods [is] in thee.

Ver. 18. This dream I king Nebuchadnezzar have seen.] Such as would have resolution, must fully relate their doubts. {Gen 41:17}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Dan_4:18

This dream I, Nebuchadnezzar, have seen.

Nebuchadnezzars Dream

I. THE SYMBOL.

1. A tree (v. 10). An image common in both Old and New Testament. The image of prosperity; and that both of the righteous, as in Psa_1:3, and of the wicked, as in Psa_37:36 (Prayer Book ver.). In this latter passage note the verbal coincidence between it and Dan_4:4.

2. A tree growing to an immense size (v. 11-13). Like that in Mt Eze_17:22-24; Eze_31:3-9. Significant of wide dominion.

3. A tree condemned by a decree from Heaven (v. 13, 14), reminding us of the Baptists words (Mat_3:10), and of our Lords (Luk_13:7; Mat_21:19).

4. A tree spared (v. 15-17); though to be cut down to its stump, it was not to be entirely destroyed, but left to shoot forth and grow again.

II. THE INTERPRETATION.

1. The Chaldean magi could not explain its meaning (v. 6, 7).

2. Daniel, being called, felt it to be so terrible that he hesitated to reveal it (v. 18, 19). Like Samuel with Eli (1Sa_3:15).

3. He broke the dread news gently. Led the kings mind to review his vast power and majesty (v. 20-22). Pointed out his forgetfulness of God in the midst of his earthly splendour (v. 25). Announced the judgment that God had decreed against him to bring down his pride (v. 24).

4. He then became a preacher of righteousness, in exhorting the king to repentance and amendment, if perchance the chastisement might be averted (v. 27).

III. THE FULFILMENT.

1. The king is not ashamed to acknowledge the supremacy of the King of kings, whose royal Heavenly decree was accomplished even upon the mighty monarch of the world (v. 28).

2. But not till a day of grace had been mercifully given. Twelve months passed by, and Nebuchadnezzar was still revelling in his pride and self-exaltation (v. 29, 30).

3. The terrible judgment then fell suddenly upon him (v. 31-33). He became mad, and like a brute beast, for a period denoted by the mystic expression seven times, which probably means the time of the perfecting of Gods purpose concerning him.

4. At the end of this time he was restored to reason and to royal dominion. The lesson had been learnt. He gave God glory, and acknowledged Him as King (v.34-37). Conclusion. From this page of Old Testament history let us learn:

1. How the effect made upon us by religious impressions wears off in course of time. God has to repeat His revelations and providential dealings.

2. How many ways God has of warning us.

3. How long a time God gives sinners in which to come to repentance.

4. How pure is the fulfilment of His word. (T. H. Barnett.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

[Daniel 4:18] And its foliage (וְעׇפְיֵ֤הּ): [Regarding the beginning of the verse, "And its foliage..."] And the verse following it [i.e., this entire verse, which repeats the description from Daniel 4:9] does not need explanation (אֵין צָרִיךְ פֵּרוּשׁ - ein tzarich perush).

Ibn Ezra on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0); and “Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah - trans. by M. Friedlander, 1873” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Here Nebuchadnezzar repeats what he had formerly said about seeking an interpretation for his dream. He understood the figure which was shewn to him, but he could not understand God’s intentions nor even determine its relation to himself. On this point he implores Daniel’s confidence; he affirms his vision in a dream to induce Daniel to pay great attention to its interpretation. Then he adds, with the same purpose, All the wise men of his kingdom could not explain the dreary; where he confesses all the astrologers, and diviners, and others of this kind to be utterly vain and fallacious, since they professed to know everything. For some were augurs, some conjectures, some interpreters of dreams, and others astrologers, who not only discoursed on the course, distances, and orders of the stars, and the peculiarities of each, but wished to predict futurity from the course of the stars. Since, therefore, they boasted so magnificently in their superior knowledge of all events, Nebuchadnezzar confesses them to have been impostors. But he ascribes this power in reality to Daniel, because he was endued by the divine Spirit. Hence he excludes all the wise men of Babylon from so great a gift through his having proved them destitute of God’s Spirit. He does not assert this in so many words, but this meaning is easily elicited from his expressions implying all the variety of the Chaldean wise men. Then in the second clause he exempts Daniel from their number, and states the reason to be his excelling in the divine Spirit. Nebuchadnezzar, therefore, here asserts what is peculiar to God, and acknowledges Daniel to be his Prophet and minister. When he calls angels holy deities, we have mentioned this already as an expression which ought not to seem surprising in a heathen, uninstructed in the true doctrine of piety, and only just initiated in its elements. But we know this common opinion respecting angels being mingled together with the one God. Hence Nebuchadnezzar speaks in the ordinary and received language when he says, the spirit of the holy gods dwells in Daniel. It now follows:

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(18) This dream.—More correctly translated, This in a dream I saw—i.e., it was communicated to me in a vision.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18. Nebuchadnezzar closes his description of his dream by appealing to Daniel to interpret it.

for the spirit &c.] See Dan_4:8.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

This dream I King Nebuchadnezzar have seen,.... So things were represented to him by a vision in a dream:

now thou, O Belteshazzar, declare the interpretation thereof; at once, directly; as he was well assured he could, by what he had already done; having both told him his dream when forgotten by him, and the meaning of it; and therefore doubted not but he could interpret his dream, being told him:

forasmuch as all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to make known unto me the interpretation; he had sent for them, even all of them; he had told them his dream, but they could not interpret it; see Dan 4:6,

but thou art able, for the spirit of the holy gods is in thee; he not only knew his ability from former experience, but for the reason here given; of which he might have more proofs than one, that the Spirit, not of impure deities, of the gods and demons of the Heathens, but of the one true, living, and holy God, who knows all things, dwelt in him; see Dan 4:9.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

This dream I king Nebuchadnezzar have seen - This is the dream which I saw. He had detailed it at length as it appeared to him, without pretending to be able to explain it.

Forasmuch as all the wise men of my kingdom ... - Dan 4:7.

But thou art able ... - See the notes at Dan 4:9.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

18, 19. Compare Dan_4:8 and Dan_2:17-26. Daniel is at first greatly troubled and “astonished as it were for a moment” (Bevan), but when Nebuchadnezzar encourages him he replies that he is troubled not so much because of his inability to interpret the dream as because the interpretation will trouble the king. The words of Daniel here are in the highest degree diplomatic and courteous, and in agreement with current usage at the Babylonian and other courts, while at the same time no jot or tittle of the truth is omitted or glossed over for fear or favor.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

This dream I King Nebuchadnezzar have seen. Now thou, O Belteshazzar, declare the interpretation thereof, forasmuch as all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to make known unto me the interpretation; but thou art able; for the spirit of the holy gods is in thee. This verse is wholly omitted in the Septuagint. On the other hand, the verse in the Septuagint which occupies this place is totally different from anything in the Massoretic text: "Before me was it cut down in one day, and its destruction was in one hour of the day, and its branches were given to every wind, and it was driven out and dragged forth, and it ate the grass of the earth, and it was delivered to a guard, and in brazen fetters and shackles was it bound with them. I marvelled exceedingly at these things, and the sleep departed from mine eyes." The first thing that strikes one with this is the fact that it is a translation from Aramaic. The clause, "in brazen fetters and shackles was it bound with them," seems nearly demonstrative of this. jEn pedaiv kaidaiv calkaiv ejdeqh uJp aujtwn is not a sentence which any one would naturally write in Greek, but the sentence is natural if the translator followed his Aramaic original slavishly. If, then, this is correct, the hypothesis of a falsarius is reduced to that of an Aramaic falsarius, who intruded this verse into the Aramaic original which was conveyed down to Egypt. On the other hand, the verse in the Septuagint completes the narrative which the Massoretic text leaves unfinished. This may be used. as an argument against the authenticity of this version, as the need of completion may have suggested the mode in which the need was to be supplied. But it is also to be noted that there is present the same mixture of sign and thing signified, which, natural in a dream, is so unnatural in ordinary narration, that the falsarius who had observed the incompleteness of the Massoretic text, and had the necessary skill to supply the want, would not have increased the confusion, already manifest enough. When we turn to Theodotion, we see symptoms of trouble, "This is the vision which I Nebuchadnezzar the king had, and thou, Beltasar, tell the interpretation, because none of the wise men of my kingdom were able to show me its interpretation; but thou, Daniel, art able, because a holy spirit of God is in thee." The introduction of the Jewish name Daniel in the midst of a speech in which he is always elsewhere addressed by his Bahylonian name, is suspicious. The repetition, in this as in the Masoretic, of the original incongruity that Daniel, the head of the court magicians, is only summoned after the other magicians have proved unable to solve the mystery of this dream, is to be noted. The Peshitta here partly follows the same text as that followed by Theodotion, and partly that of the Massoretes. Like Theodotion, "Daniel" is inserted, but, following the basis of the Massoretic text in opposition to Theodotion, it has "a spirit of the holy gods." There seems no possibility of imagining the LXX reading to have developed from the Massoretic, or vice versa. If there were any proof of Dr. C. H. H. Wright"s hypothesis, that our present Daniel was a condensation of a larger work, it might be supposed that the Massoretic represented one condensation, and the LXX another. The Septuagint at this point inserts, "And having risen early in the morning,. I summoned Daniel, the ruler of the wise men and chief of the interpreters, and related to him the dream, and he showed all the interpretation of it." In Genesis 41. we have two accounts of Pharaoh"s dream, first in connection with his actual dreaming, and next in his narrating to Joseph his experience. If the original tract from the union of several of which we imagine our book has been compiled from which this chapter is condensed contained, like Ge 41, two accounts of Nebuchadnezzar"s vision, and the Egyptian recension followed one condensation of this tract, and the Palestinian another, the phenomena are explicable without the idea of a vague gratuitous variation, such as that of which, on the traditional view, the writer of the Septuagint has been guilty. On the ground that the Massoretic text may represent also a true text of Daniel, another fragment of the original document, we may examine it a little more closely. The king declares the dream to Daniel in a way that indicates a certain attestation of the accuracy of the report of what he had seen. "This is the dream which I Nebuchadnezzar the king saw." Then follows the command to declare the interpretation, "You are master of magicians. I have duly brought before you an accredited dream which I have had, fulfil now your office, interpret to me my dream." This much is natural. What follows is an obvious interpolation. It contradicts what has preceded, which, by implication, asserts Daniel"s duty to interpret, and therefore the probability that not last, but first, would Daniel have been appealed to. It contradicts also what follows, which is a commendation of Daniel"s powers, which, as known to the king, ought to have led him at once to summon him, as the Septuagint says Nebuchadnezzar did. The commendation of Daniel appears an addition to get over the difficulty, but, like many other attempts of the same kind, it fails, and really adds to the confusion.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Nebuchadnezzar adds to his communication of his dream a command to Daniel to interpret it. The form פּשׁרא (its interpretation) is the old orthography and the softened form for פּשׁרהּ (cf. Dan 4:6).

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)