Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.
There are two themes in Daniel chapter two.
The primary theme is Nebuchadnezzar's image.
The consequences of this dream and its interpretation are huge. It becomes one of great importance as it describes to us the details of the four great empires of history. One doesn't have to be very discerning to see that Babylon, then Persia, then Greece, and then Rome have been the great world empires. Even the description of the toes, part iron and part clay, serves well to describe our current world. Roman influence is still dominant, though not nearly as defined as it once was.
This serves to verify the Word of God. No prognosticator could have possibly predicted the future in such detail as we find in the book of Daniel. The account also draws the alert soul to Christ as the image and dream ends with the destruction of this image and the empires associated with it, by the stone cut without hands - a clear representation of Jesus Christ.
The secondary theme is the contrast between Nebuchadnezzar's wise men and Daniel and his three friends.
Nebuchadnezzar knew of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He had met them, observed them, and found them to be ten times better than all the magicians in his realm.[1] But still, it was not them he sought out to relieve his troubled thoughts. The people of this world often recognize the value of the Christian faith while at the same time ignoring that value. Very often they, as Nebuchadnezzar did, are willing to dismiss the people of faith, lumping them in with all the "religions" of the world, assuming they will be as useless to them as all of religion.
When one finds a person of true faith in Christ, he will find a means to relieve his troubled soul. That person knows how to take them to Christ.
#Daniel2Image #ProphecyFulfilled #StoneCutWithoutHands #NebuchadnezzarsWiseMen #FaithVsWorldlyWisdom
Relieving Troubled Souls: Daniel and the Dream of Empires
[1] Daniel 1:20 (KJV)
And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king enquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm.
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