Daniel 2:49

At Daniel’s request, the king also promoted Daniel’s three friends to positions of authority within the provincial administration (cf. Daniel 2:17-18). Daniel himself remained in the palace and was available to Nebuchadnezzar as an adviser when the king needed him. God prepared for the arrival of thousands of exiled Judahites (in 597 and 586 B.C.) by placing men in authority who were sympathetic to their needs (cf. Joseph).

"Thus Daniel, the obscure Jewish captive who could have been lost to history like many others if he had compromised in chapter 1, is now exalted to a place of great honor and power. Like Joseph in Egypt, he was destined to play an important part in the subsequent history of his generation." [Note: Walvoord, p. 78.]

"This chapter, so basic to an understanding of all God’s dealing in history and prophecy, reveals three important truths: 1. God, not man is sovereign in world affairs. . . . 2. Our sovereign God has a plan for the world. . . . 3. God is ordering history according to His plan." [Note: Campbell, p. 27.]

B. Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image ch. 3

There is a logical connection between the image that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream (ch. 2) and the image that he had built on the plain of Dura (ch. 3). Perhaps he got the idea for the statue he built from the statue he saw in his dream. He forgot, however, the lesson that he had learned about Yahweh’s sovereignty (Daniel 2:47). Evidently thoughts of his position as the head of gold made him proud.

We know that this chapter describes events that followed those in chapter 2 because Daniel’s three friends had assumed their positions of administrative leadership in Babylon (Daniel 2:12). How much later is unclear, though it seems that several years had elapsed. Dyer believed the likely background for these events was a coup attempt against Nebuchadnezzar that occurred in December 595 and January 594 B.C., which the Babylonian Chronicles record. [Note: Dyer, p. 706.] The Septuagint translation of Daniel 2:1 dates these events in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar (about 587 B.C.), though that is not necessarily true. Whitcomb speculated that this event may have occurred shortly after the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem (about 585 B.C.). [Note: Whitcomb, p. 53.] Such an empire-wide demonstration of the superiority of Babylon’s gods and king would have been understandable then. What follows is the account of a ceremony designed to unify the empire under Nebuchadnezzar’s leadership, which normally would have happened fairly early in his reign (closer to 605 B.C.).