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But
that is not necessarily true, as we are going to see in just a minute.
In many cases it just means that they have completed a course of study
as a result of hard work. Nebuchadnezzar, frustrated and wanting to
sleep, finally called for the wise men.
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And
the king said to them, “I had a dream, and my spirit is
anxious to understand the dream.” (NASB) Dan. 2:3 |
The wise men reacted as most of us would. They asked the king to tell
them the dream.
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Then
the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic: “O king, live
forever! Tell the dream to your servants, and we will declare
the interpretation.” (NASB) Dan. 2:4 |
Nebuchadnezzar’s magicians, the conjurers, sorcerers and Chaldeans
are surprised when he uses the old carrot and stick routine. He threatens
them with punishment and then tries to motivate them with rewards.
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The
king answered and said to the Chaldeans, “The command from
me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its
interpretation, you will be torn limb from limb, and your houses
will be made a rubbish heap. “But if you declare the dream
and its interpretation, you will receive from me gifts and a
reward and great honor; therefore declare to me the dream and
its interpretation.” (NASB) Dan. 2:5-6 |
The
king doubted their ability to honestly interpret his dream. That may
be the reason he waited so long to take his dream to them. Ancient
historians state that mistakes were made in divination just as in
medicine. Cicero said there was error, superstition, and fraud in
divination. A historian writes that Sennacherib separated some diviners
into groups in order to determine if their report was truthful (Oppenheim.
Ancient Mesopotamia. Univ. of Chicago Press. 1983). Nebuchadnezzar
must have been disappointed before with bad information from his wise
men too!
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The
False Prophets. In recent years, Nostradamus, a sixteenth
century medical doctor, has been hailed as a great modern day prophet.
Books have been written about his prophecies. The media has featured
him. But many are not aware that most of his supporters disagree about
the interpretations of his prophecies. In fact, the majority of his
supporters agree that he is accurate less than 50 percent of the time.
His prophecies are referred to as “quatrains” and were written
in French. Among his supporters, less than 10 percent agree upon the
meaning of the quatrains and less than 6 percent agree that any have
been fulfilled. The symbolism in Nostradamus’ quatrains has to
be tweaked to make them “prophetic.” God has said the test
of a true prophet is that he is never wrong (Deut. 18:20-22). This
means that Nostradamus is not a true prophet. When we come to the
book of Daniel, we do not need to tweak them. Daniel is a true prophet
of God.
Only
The Gods. But the magicians, conjurers, sorcerers and Chaldeans
insist the dream be shared.
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They
answered a second time and said, “Let the king tell the
dream to his servants, and we will declare the interpretation.”
The king answered and said, “I know for certain that you
are bargaining for time, inasmuch as you have seen that the
command from me is firm, that if you do not make the dream known
to me, there is only one decree for you. For you have agreed
together to speak lying and corrupt words before me until the
situation is changed; therefore tell me the dream, that I may
know that you can declare to me its interpretation.” The
Chaldeans answered the king and said, “There is not a man
on earth who could declare the matter for the king, inasmuch
as no great king or ruler has ever asked anything like this
of any magician, conjurer or Chaldean. Moreover, the thing which
the king demands is difficult, and there is no one else who
could declare it to the king except gods, whose dwelling place
is not with mortal flesh.” (NASB) Dan. 2:7-11 |
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