Daniel Interprets the Dream
Daniel first secures the lives of the other wise men by asking Arioch not to destroy them and requesting an audience with the king. Before giving the content of the dream, he denies that any human wisdom or occult skill can produce the answer and instead points to the God of heaven who reveals mysteries and future realities. Daniel presents himself not as the source of insight but as the servant through whom God makes the king's thoughts known.
T24herefore Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, “Do not execute the wise men of Babylon! Bring me before the king, and I will give him the interpretation.” 25Arioch hastily brought Daniel before the king and said to him, “I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who will tell the king the interpretation.” 26The king responded to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to tell me what I saw in the dream, as well as its interpretation?” 27Daniel answered the king, “No wise man, enchanter, medium, or magician can explain to the king the mystery of which he inquires. 28But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the latter days. Your dream and the visions that came into your mind as you lay on your bed were these: 29As you lay on your bed, O king, your thoughts turned to the future, and the Revealer of Mysteries made known to you what will happen. 30And to me this mystery has been revealed, not because I have more wisdom than any man alive, but in order that the interpretation might be made known to the king, and that you may understand the thoughts of your mind.
Daniel describes the dream itself: a dazzling statue with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet mixed with iron and clay. Then a stone cut without human hands strikes the statue at its feet, shattering the whole image until the fragments are blown away like chaff. The stone then becomes a great mountain that fills the whole earth.
31As you, O king, were watching, a great statue appeared. A great and dazzling statue stood before you, and its form was awesome. 32The head of the statue was pure gold, its chest and arms were silver, its belly and thighs were bronze, 33its legs were iron, and its feet were part iron and part clay. 34As you watched, a stone was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and crushed them. 35Then the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold were shattered and became like chaff on the threshing floor in summer. The wind carried them away, and not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that had struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
Daniel interprets the dream by identifying Nebuchadnezzar as the golden head and then describing a series of inferior but powerful kingdoms that will follow, culminating in a divided kingdom marked by mingled strength and brittleness. In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will establish a kingdom that is never destroyed, never passed to another people, and destined to crush all the others while standing forever. The stone cut without human hands therefore represents God's own decisive intervention in history and the permanence of His kingdom over every empire.
36This was the dream; now we will tell the king its interpretation. 37You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given sovereignty, power, strength, and glory. 38Wherever the sons of men or beasts of the field or birds of the air dwell, He has given them into your hand and has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold. 39But after you, there will arise another kingdom, inferior to yours. 40Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron; for iron shatters and crushes all things, and like iron that crushes all things, it will shatter and crush all the others. 41And just as you saw that the feet and toes were made partly of fired clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom, yet some of the strength of iron will be in it — just as you saw the iron mixed with clay. 42And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. 43As you saw the iron mixed with clay, so the peoples will mix with one another but will not hold together any more than iron mixes with clay. 44In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will shatter all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, but will itself stand forever. 45And just as you saw a stone being cut out of the mountain without human hands, and it shattered the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold, so the great God has told the king what will happen in the future.