Daniel 2:1

NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S DREAM OF THE DECLINE OF ALL WORLD-KINGDOMS.

1. In the second year See note Daniel 1:1. “By the most natural way of counting, the three years were the accession year of Nebuchadnezzar, his first year, and his second year, precisely as our Saviour’s three days in the grave were Friday, Saturday, and Sunday” (Trumbull). Many scholars by a slight change of the text read “twelfth” instead of “second.”

Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams Dreams had a great influence on the Assyrian and Babylonian kings, as their inscriptions prove. (See also note Daniel 4:5-7.) The god of dreams, Makhir, is often referred to. The dreams recorded of various kings, and especially the Babylonian “Dream Books,” show that apparitions of animals were considered especially fateful the appearance of a lion, a jackal, a dog, a mountain goat, a stag, etc., each containing a supernatural portent for good or evil. (See Jastrow, Babylonian Religion, pp. 329-351, 402-404.) The records of Assurbanipal, for example, are rich in such omens. The deity appears in a dream to encourage the king; he sends him a message spoken to a priest in a vision and another written on the disk of the moon; he even, on one occasion, appears to Gyges, king of Lydia, the enemy of the king, and commands him to pay homage to his servant Assurbanipal, which command is at once obeyed. So Merodach is said to have appeared in dreams to Nabonidus, the father of Belshazzar, directing and guiding him.