Friday 13 January 2012

Dreams about kingdoms and a Kingdom

Daniel 2 introduces one of the exegetical challenges of the book of Daniel. At 2:4b the text changes from Hebrew to Aramaic and remains in Aramaic right through to the end of chapter 7. This crosses the major division in the book, 1-6//7-12. The textual history of Daniel is complicated and not fully understood.
It is possible that the Aramaic section works on a chiastic structure:
A                                                            B
ch2: dream                                              ch7: dream
      four earthly kingdoms and God's Kingdom
ch3: story - Jews faithful in face of death  ch6: story - Jew faithful in face of death
ch4: story - royal hubris humbled             ch5: story - royal hubris humbled

If this is an intentional chiasm I still don't know how it takes forward the textual history problem, unless at some time someone had an incomplete Hebrew text and added in the Aramaic section from an already existing Aramaic text. Go on, stop the unsubstantiated suppositions here!

Dreams are never condemned in the OT as a means of revelation. Revelation is one of the key themes of chapter 2, only Daniel's God can reveal mysteries.
vv. 1-13 - Nebuchadnezzar sets a test for his sages which they are unable to meet.
vv. 14-23 - Daniel intervenes to stop the punishment of the sages, he prays and God answer his prayer then Daniel blesses the God who is in control and answers prayer.
vv. 24-28a - Daniel's first 'but'. I can't tell you, no wise man can tell you, 'but' there is a God who can.
vv. 28b-35 - a second and third 'but'. The purpose of God revealing the dream is to instruct the king. There may be a series of human kingdoms 'but' God's eternal Kingdom is coming and cannot be stopped.
vv. 36-45 - Daniel explains the dream where the main point is the coming superiority of God's Kingdom over all other kingdoms
vv. 46-49 - Nebuchadnezzar blesses the God of Daniel. Not as a monotheist, God above all other gods. He recognises God's ability to reveal - cf. v. 22.

But
a) what is unknown to humans is known and revealed by God alone.
b) there is a God in heaven, which does not mean he is removed from us, but that he chooses to reveal himself and his purposes to us.
c) this God is establishing his Kingdom - cf. Isa 2:2, 6:3, 11:9 and other parallel references to stones and mountains for God's Kingdom.

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