The second year of Nebuchadnezzar would be BC 603 as the Babylonians do not include the year of ascension of the king. This matches the three-year period mentioned in chapter 1. Hence the incident in chapter 2 should have happened immediately after the three years of training. God continued to reveal his plans to Nebuchadnezzar through the dreams and visions during his reign. Luckily, he had Daniel’s presence in his court to interpret them accurately.
The Babylonian department of wise men had four divisions. The magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers. Nebuchadnezzar wanted to put all of them through an acid test. Though Nebuchadnezzar remembered his dream, he intentionally did not reveal it to his group of wise men. Instead, he asked them to convey the dream and interpret it for him. The magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers had no clue how to interpret an unknown dream. They instead tried to convince the king to tell the dream so that they can apply their textbook interpretation logic for visions and dreams.
Nebuchadnezzar is not new to his Wise men’s familiar pattern of interpretation. He considered his dream to be special, a message for future, revealed directly by God and hence to be interpreted carefully. He set the timeline for his wise men to reveal it. If not, he decided to destroy all of them along with their family and property. The men who enjoyed royal privileges till last night were suddenly at risk of losing everything. They are so sure that no one in the planet earth can reveal the dream except God. Though they have temples for Martuk (Babylonian God) and offered many sacrifices to them, they don’t know how to approach their God and get an answer to King’s question.
Nebuchadnezzar was not convinced with this answer. He ordered to start the execution of wise men and turn came to kill Daniel. Bible says Daniel spoke to them in wisdom and convinced the king to provide additional time to reveal the dream. The hope of entire Babylonian wise men community hinges on one man, a slave from Judah and a fresh graduate from the Babylonian school. If he could interpret the dream the execution will stop or otherwise no one will be spared.Daniel went back to his friends and asked for their prayer support. A humble prayer to plead for God’s mercy so that their lives will be saved. On that very night, God heard their prayer and revealed the dream to Daniel in his vision.
What a day it would have been? Everybody knew the execution order of wise men was put on hold on the request of a Jewish slave. The hope of Babylonian intellectuals lies with this young man who was previously known as Daniel and currently known as Belteshazzar. As King’s servant Arioch lead Daniel to King’s court, one of the two outcomes is for sure. If Daniel fails, none of the wise men including Daniel will get a chance to see the end of the day or if he succeeds, he will be promoted to the highest position in the kingdom.
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