Daniel 2

Wesley: one dream of many parts; he remembered the fact in general but could not repeat it. The Lord hath ways to affright the greatest men in the midst of their security. A court.

The dream comes from God, but the sleepless tossing is Nebuchadnezzar’s own. Arminian readers note how God unsettles the powerful without overriding them: the king is troubled into seeking answers, and his response is still his to make.

Calvin: uncommon, not his first dream. God did not suffer him to rest. The dream sent from heaven; then, astonished, he slept again and forgot the vision. God blotted remembrance to increase the sting, drawing him by secret chains until Daniel should give both dream and meaning.

Effectual rule, not a bare permission after a bad night. The forgotten dream is God’s actual hand. Shared with Wesley: the Lord affrights; the king is troubled. How that rule meets the king’s rage is the fork already named in 1:2.

Magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, Chaldeans summoned to tell the dreams. Wesley: astrologers who pretended skill in natural and supernatural things; sorcerers using diabolical arts; Chaldeans a national, noble name the magicians assumed.

The king turns to his ordinary advisers. Summoning them is policy, not a sermon against “expertise.” They will fail; the failure is theirs. Daniel is not in the room yet.

Calvin: the dream caused the king to feel God to be its author. Terror compelled him to summon all the Magi. The art of conjecturing from dreams is rash; a true interpreter does not follow fixed rules but waits for God’s gift.

God uses even this call to empty the court of its boast. On this both agree: they stand before the king. Liberal learning is not the same as this claim to read a forgotten dream.

“I had a dream; my spirit is troubled to know it.” Wesley: he remembered the fact in general, not perfectly; the impression left great perplexity. The Lord affrights the greatest in their security.

He wants to know. Desire and dread are creaturely under God’s troubling. He will ask wrongly; the asking is still asking.

Calvin: great confidence of the Chaldeans will meet a riddle divinely set. The king confesses ignorance; the object exceeds him. God speaks to unbelievers in broken accents; seeing they do not see.

The trouble is God’s sting still working. Common ground: he is troubled to know. Interpretation will not come from the room he has filled.

Tell the dream, we will show the interpretation.” Wesley: from hence all is written in the Chaldee language to the eighth chapter. The Chaldeans answer with a court greeting. They promise interpretation if they may hear. Human confidence under a God who has hidden the dream. The yes they offer is earnest and empty.

Calvin: not a simple prayer—they order the king to be cheerful, as if explanation were at hand. Impostors liberal in words. They pretend a science of which they know nothing.

God will make a laughingstock of this confidence. Agreed on both sides: they ask to be told. Daniel’s later gift will not be this art sold for pay.

The word is firm: dream and interpretation, or torn limb from limb, houses ruined. Wesley will mark one decree he will not retract (v. 9). Tyranny is named as tyranny, not as a slogan against empire.

The king pronounces his sentence. The Most High rules; this cruelty is still Nebuchadnezzar’s. Agency is not canceled by the sting of v. 1.

Calvin: he requires more than they professed. God wished to make a laughingstock of their boasting. The wrath is furious, beyond wild beasts; the Magi, as far as concerned the king, were innocent of this crime. The Lord wished the miracle observed: if the king had let them depart, the anxiety might have been buried.

God allows the anger to burn without restraint so Daniel will be seen. The sentence is death. Injustice and providence are not the same thing.

Gifts, rewards, great honor if they show both. Wesley’s later piety in Daniel will refuse to arrogate the skill. Here the king buys what cannot be sold.

The king offers a bribe. Magicians might have taken it; they cannot earn it. The fork is not money; it is whether revelation is gift.

Calvin: he tries flattery where horror failed. Magi made a gain of predictions; when knowledge is saleable it is adulterated. Where avarice reigns, truth is extinguished. The king will not spare expense, and is furious when the reward buys nothing.

The market cannot purchase what God has locked. Gifts are offered. Daniel will later ask for time, not for pay.

A second time: tell us the dream, we will interpret. Wesley’s magicians will soon confess that revelation must come from God. This still pretends otherwise.

They double the same ask. Persistence here is not faith; it is the only tool they have. Human limits are being told the truth about themselves.

Calvin: a fair reply that does not mitigate wrath. He is hurried by diabolic vehemence, governed by God’s secret counsel, that Daniel’s explanation might be more noticed. They persist in foolish self-conceit, blinded by the devil.

Even their true limit (we need the dream) serves the larger emptying. Common to both: they cannot start without the facts. God has removed the facts.

“You are trying to gain time; the word from me is firm.” Wesley: one decree, not retracted. A king reads delay as fraud. Delay will later be Daniel’s request for prayer, not stalling.

The charge is half right about the Magi and will be wholly wrong about Daniel. Time can be prudence or evasion. Agency will show which.

Calvin: he loads them with a new crime—impostors who delude. If they deceived others it arose from being self-deceived. The king pursues the blindest impulse of his rage. Divinely tormented, he cannot rest until explanation comes.

The rage that will not wait is still inside the sting God fastened. Common ground: the word is firm. Daniel’s later day will be gift, not the Magi’s stall.

One sentence; lying words till times change; tell the dream so I know you can interpret. Wesley: I will not retract my sentence.

A tyrant’s logic—prove the gift by doing what no man can. The demand is unjust; it is still a demand. “Until the situation changes” will soon be answered by the God who changes times (v. 21), not by court bargains.

Calvin: another argument to convict them of cunning. They boast they can interpret a dream still unknown. Rashness and fraud detected. Always the same fury until God brings Daniel forward.

God uses even this false test. The true interpreter will tell the dream first because God gives both. Both readings: one sentence stands. Times do not change by Magi waiting.

No man on earth can meet this; no great king has asked it. Wesley: the magicians confessed that knowledge and revelation must come from God, and therefore what Daniel did was not of any human strength. They speak truly about man. The confession is not yet faith in Israel’s God. Human inability is named plainly. The next verse will misplace the dwelling of God.

Calvin: they excuse themselves; the king will not admit it, impelled by wrath and by divine instinct to show Magi, sorcerers, and astrologers mere impostors. God wished to extol His servant Daniel and separate him from the herd.

Their true sentence (no man) is God’s means of emptying the guild. On this both agree: no man on earth. The God of heaven will not stay outside the story.

Difficult; no other who can show it except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh. Wesley’s observation: they confessed revelation must come from God. They are right that flesh cannot invent the dream; they are wrong if they mean the Lord will not speak in Babylon.

The Most High may dwell with His people even in exile. Daniel will ask and pray (vv. 16–18). Grace that reveals is gift, not a god locked above flesh. No slogan about incarnation here beyond what the text will show: God does answer from heaven to men on earth.

Calvin: slow to confess ignorance; compelled in extremity. The object surpasses human ingenuity. They say gods or angels only can interpret—unbelievers’ persuasion of intermediate deities. Men clothed in flesh cannot so raise themselves as to perceive all secrets. The king’s ears deaf; God spurred him by furies.

They almost tell the truth and then miss the God who draws the king by secret chains. Common ground: the thing is too hard for man. Daniel’s God will prove He reveals secrets without becoming a Chaldean idol.

Wesley will mark that Daniel by prudence and piety saved their lives. The fury is a king’s, not a cue for politics.

The king’s wrath is real, and his command is meant in earnest. The Most High rules; this slaughter order is still Nebuchadnezzar’s sin. Second causes are not theater. God can overrule a decree without having authored the cruelty as cruelty.

Calvin: beyond former denunciation to actual command. God wished Daniel brought forward. If superstition fails, madness succeeds. The king a hundredfold more infuriated, left destitute of those from whom he hoped all things. Divinely tormented into this rush.

God governs even this rage toward the revealing of His servant. He is not the author of the king’s injustice. Common ground: the command goes out. Mercy will meet it in a youth not yet summoned.

Decree out; wise men about to be killed; they sought Daniel and his companions. Wesley: not called at first because of their youth, which the Chaldeans despised. Three observations: revelation must come from God; the Lord held the governor’s hands so he did not slay Daniel with the first; Daniel by prudence and piety saved the magicians’ lives.

Four youths under a death sentence they did not earn in this scene. Youth despised is a court fact. The Lord holding hands does not annul Arioch’s search; it meets it.

Calvin: some already slain; Daniel at first not required, then sought when the Magi were dragged out. Tyrants will not undertake inquiry. God justly punishes the Chaldeans; Daniel condemned though not called, the injustice of edicts that do not inquire.

Providence includes the unjust net that catches the innocent, that the miracle may be public. Both traditions agree: they look for Daniel to kill him. The next verse is prudence inside that net.

Daniel returned answer with counsel and prudence to Arioch, captain of the guard. Wesley: the Lord held the governor’s hands; Daniel by prudence and piety saved lives. Asking well is still asking.

“Prudence”—counsel under the Most High. Grace assists a composed reply; it does not replace the reply. No Pelagian leftover—he is already the man God has given learning—and no fatalism that treats the decree as unanswerable.

Calvin: God wonderfully snatches His own from the jaws of death. Arioch spares him when he slew others: Daniel’s life in the hand and keeping of God, who restrained mind and hand of the prefect. He inquired concerning the counsel and the edict. Presence of mind in a sudden terror is God’s singular gift.

The Spirit governs the composure. Shared with Wesley: held hands, and a prudent word. The fork is how that holding meets Daniel’s asking.

“Why is the decree so urgent?” Arioch makes the matter known. Wesley’s held hands now include a captain who explains instead of striking.

Daniel’s question “Why?” is a fair one. Urgency is the king’s; information is Arioch’s. Human speech under God’s holding. Daniel cannot pray about what he has not heard.

Calvin: he obliquely blames haste and ingratitude—not called, yet to be slain. Arioch explained; Daniel was ignorant of the whole matter. Terror would have seized him; he was divinely strengthened to seek time composedly.

Even the question is gift. The matter is made known. Time to pray (v. 18) depends on this telling.

Daniel went in and requested a time, and he would show the king the interpretation. Wesley: prudence and piety; lives spared. He does not yet have the dream; he asks anyway, which the next verses will fill with prayer.

A serious petition to an actual king. The Most High who gave favor in 1:9 now meets another ask. Daniel is not bargaining a miracle on the calendar; he seeks room to seek God. Faith that will not stall like the Magi still uses time as means. Second causes stand: the king can refuse.

Calvin: Arioch not without fear in giving introduction; God had taken Daniel into His confidence and so bent the prefect. Time granted most probably because Daniel confessed he hoped in God’s kindness and would return with a new revelation; the king would never have permitted doubt. He expected what he obtained.

The audience and the day are God’s hand, including a youth’s words. Held in common: he asked, and time is appointed. Thanksgiving and the God who changes times belong to the next range.