Daniel 2:27

Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king;

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(27) The secret . . .—In this and the next verse Daniel justifies the astonishment of the king, and explains to him that what the wise men had stated was perfectly true. The “gods whose dwelling was with flesh” (see Note on Daniel 2:11) could not reveal the secret, but there was a God in heaven who had made it known. Daniel here teaches us what Scripture lays down elsewhere (Genesis 20:3; Genesis 41:16; Genesis 41:25; Genesis 41:28; Numbers 22:35), that all power of prediction is to be excluded from heathen gods, and is possessed by wise men only so far as they acquire it through the God of heaven.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:24-30 Daniel takes away the king's opinion of his magicians and soothsayers. The insufficiency of creatures should drive us to the all-sufficiency of the Creator. There is One who can do that for us, and make known that to us, which none on earth can, particularly the work of redemption, and the secret designs of God's love to us therein. Daniel confirmed the king in his opinion, that the dream was of great consequence, relating to the affairs and changes of this lower world. Let those whom God has highly favoured and honoured, lay aside all opinion of their own wisdom and worthiness, that the Lord alone may be praised for the good they have and do.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded, cannot the wise men ... show unto the king - Daniel regarded it as a settled and indisputable point that the solution could not be hoped for from the Chaldean sages. The highest talent which the realm could furnish had been applied to, and had failed. It was clear, therefore, that there was no hope that the difficulty would be removed by human skill. Besides this, Daniel would seem also to intimate that the thing, from the necessity of the case, was beyond the compass of the human powers. Alike in reference to the question whether a forgotten dream could be recalled, and to the actual "signification" of a dream so remarkable as this, the whole matter was beyond the ability of man.

The wise men, the astrologers ... - On these words, see the notes at Daniel 1:20. All these words occur in that verse, except גזרין gâzerı̂yn - rendered "soothsayers." This is derived from גזר gezar - "to cut, to cut off;" and then "to decide, to determine;" and it is thus applied to those who decide or determine the fates or destiny of men; that is, those who "by casting nativities from the place of the stars at one's birth, and by various arts of computing and divining, foretold the fortunes and destinies of individuals." See Gesenius, "Com. z. Isa." 2:349-356, Section 4, Von den Chaldern und deren Astrologie. On p. 555, he has given a figure, showing how the heavens were "cut up," or "divided," by astrologers in the practice of their art. Compare the phrase numeri Babylonii, in Hor. "Carm." I. xi. 2. The Greek is γαζαρηνῶν gazarēnōn - the Chaldee word in Greek letters. This is one of the words - not very few in number - which the authors of the Greek version did not attempt to translate. Such words, however, are not useless, as they serve to throw light on the question how the Hebrew and Chaldee were pronounced before the vowel points were affixed to those languages.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

27. cannot—Daniel, being learned in all the lore of the Chaldeans (Da 1:4), could authoritatively declare the impossibility of mere man solving the king's difficulty.

soothsayers—from a root, "to cut off"; referring to their cutting the heavens into divisions, and so guessing at men's destinies from the place of the stars at one's birth.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

He reckons up here all sorts of divination, to show that divine things, and the secrets of God, cannot be comprehended by man without special revelation; and that those who presume to do it arrogate too much to themselves, and that it is too tyrannical to require it of any, and that upon pain of death; for, saith Daniel, they cannot do it.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Daniel answered in the presence of the king,.... Boldly, and without fear:

and said, the secret which the king hath demanded: so he calls it, to show that it was something divine, which came from God, and could only be revealed by him, and was not to be found out by any art of man:

cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers show unto the king; this he premises to the revelation of the secret, not only to observe the unreasonableness of the king's demand upon them, and the injustice of putting men to death for it; but that the discovery of the whole might appear to be truly divine, and God might have all the glory; it being what no class of men whatever could ever have made known unto him. The last word, rendered "soothsayers" (u), is not used before; the Septuagint version leaves it untranslated, and calls them Gazarenes; and so Saadiah says, it is the name of a nation or people so called; but Jarchi takes them to be a sort of men that had confederacy with devils: the word signifies such that "cut" into parts, as the soothsayers, who cut up creatures, and looked into their entrails, and by them made their judgment of events; or as the astrologers, who cut and divide the heavens into parts, and by them divide future things; or determine, as Jacchiades says, what shall befall men; for the word is used also in the sense of determining or decreeing; hence, Saadiah says, some interpret it of princes, who by their words determine the affairs of kingdoms: by some it is rendered "fatalists" (w), who declare to men what their fate will be; but neither of these could show this secret to the king.

(u) sectores, Cocceius, Gejerus. (w) "Fatidici", Munster, Tigurine version; "qui de homine determinant hoc, vel illo modo ipsi eventurum esse", Jacchiades.

Geneva Study Bible

Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king;

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

27. in the presence of] before (R.V.), as Daniel 2:9.

demanded] simply asked, which is all that ‘demand’ formerly expressed. ‘Like Fr. demander, to ask, simply; not as now in the stronger sense of “to ask with authority, or as a right,” ’ (W. A. Wright, Bible Word-book, s.v.). So Exodus 5:14; 2 Samuel 11:7; Job 38:3. ‘Demand’ in the modern sense would suit these passages; but the Hebrew word used is the one that ordinarily means ‘ask.’

can neither wise men, enchanters (Daniel 2:2), magicians, nor determiners (of fates) declare unto the king] The terms are all indefinite in the original. ‘Determiners’ (also Daniel 4:4, Daniel 5:7; Daniel 5:11), viz. of future destinies, whether by observation of the heavens (Isaiah 47:13), or by other means. The Babylonians were famed for their astrology, and in classical times the idea of astrologer was that which was almost entirely associated with the term ‘Chaldaean’ (cf. above, p. 13). The verb (strictly, to cut), in the general sense of decide, decree, occurs in the Targums and in Syriac, and once also in the Aramaizing idiom of Job (Job 22:28); cf. the cognate subst., Daniel 4:14; Daniel 4:21. In this particular application, however, it is at present known only in the Biblical Aramaic.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 27. - Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, show unto the king. The differences between this and the Septuagint are but slight and unimportant. To render it literally, the LXX. is, "Daniel, having spoken out in the presence of the king, said, The mystery which the king saw is nut the showing of the wise men, the astrologers, the sorcerers, the magicians." There seems to have been a confusion between עֲנָה ('anah), "to answer," and צְנָה (tzenah), "to cry out;" the latter word is unsuitable in the present connection. The change from שׁאל to חזה is unlikely to have been the result of any mistake in the writing of the original. It may have been the Greek scribe who misread ἠρώτησεν into ἑώρακεν. Theodotion and the Peshitta present no peculiarities worthy of notice. Jerome translates asbshaphim by magi, as usual, following the Peshitta. It is to be observed that here again we have a list of the different classes of soothsayers, and the class of Chaldeans is omitted, as also those marked as mecashphim in ver. 2; instead, occupying the same place in the catalogue, is gazrin. This may have been the original word, as evidently the real meaning was not known either in Egypt or Asia Minor, as both the LXX. and Theodotion transfer the word. The Peshitta translates this word by asuphe, in reality the corresponding one to the second word in the Chaldee. This would seem to show that the word had disappeared from Eastern as well as Western Aramaic. It is derived from gezar, "to eat." Behrmann ('Das Buch Daniel') derives it thus, and says that it refers to the fact that those who studied nativities divided the heavens into sectiones or segmenta. This was precisely what the "Chaldeans" of classic times did; hence it is quite a possible thing that Chaldeans was inserted in some Greek translations, and got into the Aramaic from the Greek. The word does not seem to be used for , astrologers" in the Talmud. The occasion of Daniel's narrating the impotence of the other wise men in presence of the task set them by the king is that probably he recognized the accent of surprise in the king's tone. As if he said, "Yes, it is perfectly true, what none of these wise men could do, I, a mere youth, undertake to do." There is nothing of contempt for them in this, as is seen in the following verse. There may be a shade of rebuke implied to the king, who had demanded from men what they could not do. They had declared that only the gods could reveal this to the king. And what Daniel says is not in opposition to this, but confirmatory of it. Daniel 2:27

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

To the question of the king, whether he was able to show the dream with its interpretation, Daniel replies by directing him from man, who is unable to accomplish such a thing, to the living God in heaven, who alone reveals secrets. The expression, whose name was Belteshazzar (Daniel 2:26), intimates in this connection that he who was known among the Jews by the name Daniel was known to the Chaldean king only under the name given to him by the conqueror - that Nebuchadnezzar knew of no Daniel, but only of Belteshazzar. The question, "art thou able?" i.e., has thou ability? does not express the king's ignorance of the person of Daniel, but only his amazement at his ability to make known the dream, in the sense, "art thou really able?" This amazement Daniel acknowledges as justified, for he replies that no wise man was able to do this thing. In the enumeration of the several classes of magicians the word חכּימין is the general designation of them all. "But there is a God in heaven." Daniel "declares in the presence of the heathen the existence of God, before he speaks to him of His works." Klief. But when he testifies of a God in heaven as One who is able to reveal hidden things, he denies this ability eo ipso to all the so-called gods of the heathen. Thereby he not only assigns the reason of the inability of the heathen wise men, who knew not the living God in heaven, to show the divine mysteries, but he refers also all the revelations which the heathen at any time receive to the one true God. The וin והודע introduces the development of the general thought. That there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, Daniel declares to the king by this, that he explains his dream as an inspiration of this God, and shows to him its particular circumstances. God made known to him in a dream "what would happen in the end of the days." אחרית יומיּא equals הימים אחרית designates here not the future generally (Hv.), and still less "that which comes after the days, a time which follows after another time, comprehended under the הימים" (Klief.), but the concluding future or the Messianic period of the world's time; see Genesis 49:1.

From דּנה אחרי in Daniel 2:29 that general interpretation of the expression is not proved. The expression יומיּא בּאחרית of Daniel 2:28 is not explained by the דּנה אחרי להוא דּי מה of Daniel 2:29, but this אחרי relates to Nebuchadnezzar's thoughts of a future in the history of the world, to which God, the revealer of secrets, unites His Messianic revelations; moreover, every Messianic future event is also an דּנה אחרי (cf. Daniel 2:45), without, however, every דּנה אחרי being also Messianic, though it may become so when at the same time it is a constituent part of the future experience and the history of Israel, the people of the Messianic promise (Kran.). "The visions of thy head" (cf. Daniel 4:2 [5], Daniel 4:7 [10], Daniel 4:10 [13], Daniel 7:1) are not dream-visions because they formed themselves in the head or brains (v. Leng., Maur., Hitz.), which would thus be only phantoms or fancies. The words are not a poetic expression for dreams hovering about the head (Hv.); nor yet can we say, with Klief., that "the visions of thy head upon thy bed, the vision which thou sawest as thy head lay on thy pillow," mean only dream-visions. Against the former interpretation this may be stated, that dreams from God do not hover about the head; and against the latter, that the mention of the head would in that case be superfluous. The expression, peculiar to Daniel, designates much rather the divinely ordered visions as such, "as were perfectly consistent with a thoughtfulness of the head actively engaged" (Kran.). The singular הוּא דּנה goes back to חלמך (thy dream) as a fundamental idea, and is governed by ראשׁך וחזוי in the sense: "thy dream with the visions of thy head;" cf. Winer, 49, 6. The plur. חזוי is used, because the revelation comprehends a series of visions of future events.