Daniel 2:49

These verses close the long story of the king’s dream. Nebuchadnezzar demanded that his wise men tell him the dream as well as its meaning, and they failed him (Daniel 2:10–11). In his fury he decreed that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed (Daniel 2:12). Daniel and his three companions asked the God of heaven for mercy (Daniel 2:17–18), and God revealed the secret to Daniel in a night vision (Daniel 2:19). When Daniel stood before the king, he gave all the credit to “a God in heaven that revealeth secrets” (Daniel 2:27–30). He told the king of a great image whose parts stood for kingdoms that would rise one after another, and of a stone cut out without hands that would break them all, because the God of heaven would set up a kingdom that would stand for ever (Daniel 2:44–45).

“Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face” is the king’s first answer to all of this. The verb nᵉphal means to fall or to prostrate oneself, and falling on the face was a gesture of the deepest respect, submission or worship, made before gods or before very powerful rulers. Here the most powerful ruler of his age makes it to a foreign captive. A short while earlier the same king had ordered the death of every wise man in Babylon, and now he lies on the ground before one of them. Daniel’s God has brought the proudest man in the world low, and this is only the beginning of what God will do with him. The humbling goes much further in Daniel 4, where Nebuchadnezzar is brought down and then restored.

“The king answered unto Daniel, and said.” His answer is a reply to the whole revelation he has just heard, and he begins it with “Of a truth it is”, an emphatic way of saying that what follows is certain. Then he gives Daniel’s God three titles.

The first is “a God of gods”. ʼĕlâhh is the Aramaic word for god or God, matching the Hebrew Eloah. Set beside its own plural, it makes a superlative that names Daniel’s God as highest over every god that people worship, the many gods of Babylon among them.

The second is “a Lord of kings”. Mârêʼ means a master, sovereign or owner, one who rules what is his, and it comes from a root meaning to domineer. Spoken by the king of Babylon himself, the phrase means that every ruler on earth, however great, answers to Daniel’s God.

The third is “a revealer of secrets”. Gᵉlâh means to uncover, and it can also mean to send into exile. God uncovers what is hidden, above all his own plans and what is still to come. The word for secret, râz, comes back at the end of the verse: “seeing thou couldest reveal this secret.” The king’s whole confession rests on what he had just witnessed. A dream that he alone had seen had been told to him by a captive from Judah, and his astrologers and magicians with all their arts had failed where Daniel’s God succeeded.

“Then the king made Daniel a great man.” The melek, the king, uses his absolute authority to raise Daniel at once. The verb rᵉbâh means to increase or to make great, and Daniel’s standing, honour and power all grew together. The “many great gifts” were tokens of high honour and of the king’s personal trust, as such presents were in the royal courts of that day.

The king gave Daniel two offices. He made him “ruler over the whole province of Babylon”, the region of the capital city and its surrounding territory, which made him its chief administrator. He also made him “chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon.” The wise men, chakkîym, were the professional class of royal advisers, the astrologers, magicians and Chaldeans who interpreted omens and the heavens for the king. Their arts had failed, and they had stood under sentence of death. Now a servant of the God of heaven presided over them, and the wisdom God gives was set publicly above all the wisdom of Babylon.

The man raised so high was a captive, taken from Judah when Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem and brought up in the king’s court (Daniel 1:1–6). God had done something like this before, when Pharaoh set Joseph over all the land of Egypt (Genesis 41:39–44). Behind the king’s gratitude stands the God who says, “them that honour me I will honour” (1 Samuel 2:30). Hannah sang that the LORD brings low and lifts up (1 Samuel 2:7), and Proverbs says that humility and the fear of the LORD bring riches, honour and life (Proverbs 22:4). Daniel gave God the glory before the king, and God gave Daniel honour in the king’s sight.

“Then Daniel requested of the king.” The verb bᵉʻâʼ means to seek, to ask or to make a petition, and from a man now in high favour such a request carried weight. Daniel’s first use of his new influence was to ask for others. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had shared the danger of the king’s decree and had prayed with him for the secret, and now the king “set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, over the affairs of the province of Babylon.”

The word for province, mᵉdîynâh, means an administrative district, properly a jurisdiction. “Affairs”, ʻăbîydâh, means work, labour or business, so the three friends took on the daily running of the province. Daniel’s request shows his loyalty to the companions who had stood with him, his generosity in sharing what God had given him, and his wisdom in placing more of God’s people where they could serve and support one another. Their faithfulness would soon be tested in that very place. Scripture tells of others God raised in the courts of foreign kings, such as Mordecai, who was next to King Ahasuerus and sought the good of his people (Esther 10:3), and Proverbs says that a man diligent in his business shall stand before kings (Proverbs 22:29).

The stone of the king’s dream, cut out without hands, is the kingdom of Christ, whose kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36) and yet will fill all things. Nebuchadnezzar’s bow before Daniel is a small picture of the homage the whole world will pay to the Son, for God has given him a name above every name, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:7–11). The same passage tells how he “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” before he was exalted, and Daniel’s rise from captive to ruler follows that pattern on a small scale. The second psalm calls the kings of the earth to be wise and to serve the LORD with fear (Psalm 2:10–11), and here one of them begins to do so.

Daniel revealed one secret by God’s gift. Christ is himself the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), the one “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3), and the Son who has declared the Father to us (John 1:18). The king called Daniel’s God “a Lord of kings”, and Christ bears the name King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16). All power in heaven and in earth is given to him (Matthew 28:18), and he is before all things, and by him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17).

The last verse of the passage gives a picture of this too. Daniel sat in the gate of the king, close to the throne, and Christ is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:3), where he intercedes for his people (Romans 8:34). Daniel asked for places for his friends, and Christ sends his disciples out as his witnesses (Acts 1:8), gives gifts to his church for its work (Ephesians 4:11–12), and promises that those who endure will reign with him (2 Timothy 2:12, Revelation 5:10).

This scene shows a God who rules the kings of the earth and can bring the proudest of them to his knees. He knows what is hidden from every human mind, and he reveals it to his servants when he chooses. He honours those who honour him, and he gives them places where his name is spoken before the powerful. A captive from a conquered people became the one through whom the king of Babylon confessed the God of heaven.

Daniel’s part in it was to pray with his friends, to give God the glory before the king, and then to share the favour he received. The same God holds every ruler and every nation in our own day, and his kingdom is the one that stands for ever. That is good ground for praying for those in authority and for serving faithfully wherever he has placed us.