Chapter
2
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream is revealed to
Daniel—The king saw a great image, a stone cut from the mountain without hands
destroyed the image, and the stone grew and filled the whole earth—The stone is
the latter-day kingdom of God.
1 And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar
dreamed adreams, wherewith his spirit wasbtroubled, and his sleep brake from him.
2 Then the king commanded to call the amagicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and
the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before
the king.
3 And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was
troubled to know the dream.
4 Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in aSyriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the
dream, and we will bshew the
interpretation.
5 The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is agonefrom me: if ye will not make known unto me the
dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be bcut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a
dunghill.
6 But if ye shew the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye shall
receive of me gifts and rewards and great honour: therefore shew me the dream,
and the interpretation thereof.
7 They answered again and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream,
and we will shew the interpretation of it.
8 The king answered and said, I know of certainty that ye would gain the
time, because ye see the thing is gone from me.
9 But if ye will not make known unto me the dream, there is butone decree for you: for ye have prepared
lying and corrupt words to speak before me, atill the time be changed: therefore tell me the
dream, and I shall know that ye can shew me the interpretation thereof.
10 ¶The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man
upon the earth that can shew the king’s matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or
astrologer, or Chaldean.
11 And it is a rare thing that the
king requireth, and there is none other that can shew it before the king,
except the agods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.
12 For this cause the king was angry and very furious, and commanded to
destroy all the wise men of Babylon.
13 And the decree went forth that the wise men should
be slain; and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain.
14 ¶Then Daniel answered with counsel and wisdom to Arioch the captain of
the king’s guard, which was gone forth to slay the wisemen of Babylon:
15 He answered and said to Arioch the king’s captain, Why is the decree so ahasty from the king? Then Arioch made the thing
known to Daniel.
16 Then Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would give him
time, and that he would shew the king the interpretation.
17 Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known toaHananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions:
18 That they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this
secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
19 ¶Then was the asecret revealed
unto Daniel in a night bvision.
Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.
20 Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever:
for awisdom and might are his:
21 And he changeth the atimes and
the bseasons: he cremovethkings,
and setteth up kings: he giveth dwisdom unto
the wise, andeknowledge to them that know understanding:
22 He arevealeth the deep and secret things: he bknoweth what isin the darkness,
and the clight dwelleth with him.
23 I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given
me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee:
for thou hast now made known unto us the
king’s matter.
24 ¶Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had ordained to
destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went and
said thus unto him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon:
bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation.
25 Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus
unto him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known
unto the king the interpretation.
26 The king answered and said to Daniel, whose aname wasBelteshazzar, Art
thou able to make bknown unto
me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof?
27 Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which
the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, theaastrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto
the king;
28 But there is a God in heaven that arevealeth bsecrets,
and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days.
Thy cdream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are
these;
29 As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon
thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that arevealethsecrets maketh known to thee what shall come
to pass.
30 But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for anyawisdom that
I have more than any living, but bfor their sakes that shall make known the
interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy
heart.
31 ¶Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great aimage. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; andbthe form thereof was terrible.
32 This image’s head was of fine
gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
34 Thou sawest till that a astone was
cut out bwithout hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to
pieces.
35 Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken
to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors;
and the wind carried them away, that noaplace was
found for them: and the bstone that
smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
37 Thou, O king, art a king of
kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a akingdom, power, and strength, and glory.
38 And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and
the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler
over them all. Thou art this ahead of gold.
39 And after thee shall arise another akingdom inferior to thee, and another third
kingdom of brass, which shall bear brule over
all the earth.
40 And the fourth akingdom shall
be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall
it break in pieces and bruise.
41 And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and
part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the
strength of the airon, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry
clay.
42 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay,so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly
broken.
43 And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle
themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even
as iron is not mixed with clay.
44 And in the adays of
these bkings shall the God of heaven cset up a dkingdom,
which shall never be edestroyed:
and the fkingdomshall not be left to other people, but it shall gbreak in pieces andhconsume all these ikingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
45 Forasmuch as thou sawest that the astone was cut out of the mountain without hands,
and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the
gold; the great God hath madebknown to
the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.
46 ¶Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, andaworshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should
offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him.
47 The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is, that your aGod is a bGod of gods, and a cLord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing
thou couldest reveal this secret.
48 Then the king made Daniel a agreat man,
and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of
Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon.
49 Then Daniel requested of the king, and he aset Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, over the
affairs of the province of Babylon: but Daniel bsat in the gate of the king.
President Rudger Clawson elaborated on Daniel’s interpretation of
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream: “The … world of today is witness of the fact that the
very things which the great image stood for have occurred so far as time has
gone. History certifies to the fact that King Nebuchadnezzar was the head of
gold. The Medes and Persians, an inferior kingdom to Babylon, were the arms and
breast of silver. The Macedonian kingdom, under Alexander the Great, was the
belly and thighs of brass; and the Roman kingdom under the Caesars was the legs
of iron. For mark you, later on the kingdom, or empire of Rome, was divided.
The head of the government in one division was at Rome and the head of the
government in the other division was at Constantinople. So these two great divisions
represented the legs of iron. Finally, the Roman empire was broken up into
smaller kingdoms, represented by the feet and toes of iron and clay.” (In
Conference Report, Apr. 1930, p. 32).
Elder Orson Pratt, in explaining why the toes were shown as being partly
iron and partly clay, said that “the feet and toes were governments more modern
to grow out of the iron kingdom [Roman Empire], after it should lose its
strength. These are represented by the ten toes or ten kingdoms which should be
partly strong and partly broken. They should not have the strength of the legs
of iron, but they should be mixed with miry clay, indicating both strength and
weakness.” (In Journal of Discourses,18:337.)
President Spencer W. Kimball further clarified the prophecy with the
following explanation:
“Rome would be replaced by a group of nations of Europe represented by
the toes of the image.
“With the history of the world delineated in brief, now came the real
revelation. Daniel said:
“‘And in the days of these kings [that is, the group of European
nations] shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be
destroyed …
“This is a revelation concerning the history of the world, when one
world power would supersede another until there would be numerous smaller
kingdoms to share the control of the earth.
“And it was in the days of these kings that power would not be given to
men, but the God of heaven would set up a kingdom—the kingdom of God upon the
earth, which should never be destroyed nor left to other people.
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was
restored in 1830 after numerous revelations from the divine source; and this is
the kingdom, set up by the God of heaven, that would never be destroyed nor
superseded, and the stone cut out of the mountain without hands that would become
a great mountain and would fill the whole earth.” (In Conference Report, Apr.
1976, p. 10.)
(28-14) Daniel 2:44–45. How Is It That the Kingdom Set Up by
God Will Consume the Other Kingdoms?
Section 65 of the Doctrine and Covenants tells of the
fulfillment of the rest of Daniel’s prophecy. The Prophet Joseph Smith prayed
that the ecclesiastical kingdom of God, which was established on the earth in
his day, might roll forth that the future kingdom of heaven might come.
“During the millennium the kingdom of God will
continue on earth, but in that day it will be both an ecclesiastical and a political kingdom. That is, the Church (which is
the kingdom) will have the rule and government of the world given to it.”
(Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon
Doctrine, p. 416.)
That millennial kingdom can also be properly referred to as the kingdom
of heaven, as Joseph Smith did in his inspired prayer
recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 65. The establishment of that
kingdom is what the Lord taught the Saints to pray for in the Lord’s Prayer
when He said, “Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10; see also Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:230). The coming forth
of the kingdom on the earth is what Daniel saw when the stone rolled forth and
smote the image, eventually filling the whole earth.
President Brigham Young taught: “The Lord God Almighty has set up a
kingdom that will sway the sceptre of power and authority over all the kingdoms
of the world, and will never be destroyed, it is the kingdom that Daniel saw
and wrote of. It may be considered treason to say that the kingdom which that
Prophet foretold is actually set up; that we cannot
help, but we know it is so, and call upon the nations to believe our testimony.
The kingdom will continue to increase, to grow, to spread and prosper more and
more. Every time its enemies undertake to overthrow it, it will become more
extensive and powerful; instead of its decreasing, it will continue to
increase, it will spread the more, become more wonderful and conspicuous to the
nations, until it fills the whole earth.” (In Journal of Discourses, 1:202–3.)
(28-15) Daniel 2:49. Daniel Prospered Because of His
Righteousness
President Spencer W. Kimball summarized the qualities that Daniel
possessed and the blessings his obedience to God brought him: “The gospel was
Daniel’s life. … In the king’s court, he could be little criticized, but even
for a ruler he would not drink the king’s wine nor gorge himself with meat and
rich foods. His moderation and his purity of faith brought him health and
wisdom and knowledge and skill and understanding, and his faith linked him
closely to his Father in heaven, and revelations came to him as often as
required. His revealing of the dreams of the king and the interpretations
thereof brought him honor and acclaim and gifts and high position such as many
men would sell their souls to get.” (In Conference Report, Mexico and Central
America Area Conference 1972, p. 31.)
(28-16) Daniel 3:1–18. Three Hebrews Who Were True to God in
Spite of Threats and Pressure
Daniel did not stand alone as an exemplary young man. His three
companions demonstrated the same unswerving loyalty and devotion to God. Of
them Elder Spencer W. Kimball said: “We remind ourselves of the integrity of
the three Hebrews, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who like Daniel defied men
and rulers, to be true to themselves and to keep faith with their faith. They
were required by decree of the emperor to kneel down and worship a monumental
image of gold which the king had set up. In the face of losing caste, of losing
position, of angering the king, they faced the fiery furnace rather than to
fail and deny their God. The cunningly devised scheme worked as the vicious
planners expected. The dedication must have been exciting with the people from
far and near attending. Had there ever been such an image? such a spectacle?
Ninety feet of gold in the form of a man—what could be more scintillating, more
sparkling? There must have been almost countless people milling in the streets
and in the area where the gigantic image stood when the herald announced the
procedure and the decree that all must kneel at the sound of the music and all
must worship the image. Neither the cunning of the deceivers, the conspiring,
cunning tricksters, nor the fear of the king and what he could do to them,
dissuaded the three courageous young men from their true path of rightness.
When the prearranged sounds of the cornet, flute, harp and other instruments
reverberated through the area and the masses of men and women everywhere filled
their homes and the streets with kneeling worshippers of the huge golden image,
three men refused to insult their true God. They prayed to God, and when
confronted by the raging and furious emperor king, they courageously answered
in the face of what could be certain death: [Daniel 3:17–18.]” (Integrity,Brigham
Young University Speeches of the Year [25 Feb. 1964], p. 18.)
