Daniel 2:5

"Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in the Syrian language, “O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation.”"

Key Reflection

The Chaldeans' words reflect a typical form of royal flattery, expressing the king's divine right to rule while requesting the impossible—revealing a dream without first hearing it. This sets up the dramatic tension for God’s demonstration of power through Daniel in providing both the dream and its interpretation.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me -The Vulgate renders this, “Sermo recessit a me” - “The word is departed from me.” So the Greek,Ὁ λόγος ἀπ ̓ ἐμοῦ ἀπέστηHologosap'emouapestē. Luther, “Es ist mir entfallen” - “It has fallen away from me,” or has departed from me. Coverdale, “It is gone from me.” The Chaldee word rendered “the thing” -מלתהmı̂llethâh- means, properly, “a word, saying, discourse” - something which is “spoken;” then, likeדברdâbârand the Greekῥῆμαrēma, a “thing.” The reference here is to the matter under consideration, to wit, the dream and its meaning.

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