Daniel 2

In the second year of his reign, King Nebuchadnezzar dreams a dream that troubled his spirit and breaks his sleep (v. 1). He summons the whole apparatus of Babylonian wisdom - the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans - but he does not simply ask for an interpretation. He demands that they first tell him the dream itself, and threatens to have them cut in pieces if they fail. They answer, reasonably, that no king ever asked such a thing, for there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh (v. 11). The king, enraged, decrees that all the wise men of Babylon be slain - and the death sentence reaches Daniel and his companions, who were among them.³

Daniel meets the crisis not with panic but with two quiet acts. He asks the king for time, and then he goes home and gathers his friends to desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret (v. 18). The secret is opened to him that night in a vision, and his first response is not relief but worship: Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever… he changeth the times and the seasons; he removeth kings, and setteth up kings; he giveth wisdom unto the wise… he revealeth the deep and secret things (vv. 20-22). Brought before Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel refuses any credit: this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living (v. 30). There is, he says, a God in heaven that revealeth secrets.

Then Daniel tells the dream. A great image stood before the king - head… of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay (vv. 32-33). And as the king watched, a stone was cut out without hands, struck the image on its feet, and shattered the whole figure into chaff that the wind blew away - while the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth (v. 35). The interpretation is a sweep of history: kingdom would follow kingdom, each named by a metal, until in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed… and it shall stand for ever (v. 44). The chapter closes with the pagan king on his face, confessing that Daniel's God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets.²

Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.

Daniel 2 · A Stone Cut Without Hands (themed)L'AscensionGustave Doré · 1866

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Daniel 2:1-13Tell Me the Dream

1And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him. 2Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king. 3And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream. 4Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation. 5The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if ye will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill. 6But 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. 7They answered again and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation of it. 8The king answered and said, I know of certainty that ye would gain the time, because ye see the thing is gone from me. 9But if ye will not make known unto me the dream, there is but one decree for you: for ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me, till the time be changed: therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can shew me the interpretation thereof. 10The 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. 11And it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh. 12For this cause the king was angry and very furious, and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. 13And the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain.

The chapter opens with the most powerful man of his age unable to manage his own mind. Nebuchadnezzar dreams, and the dream troubled his spirit so that his sleep brake from him (v. 1). Here is the first quiet irony of the book: the king who rules the known world cannot rule his own sleep. He summons every kind of expert Babylon could field - magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, the learned Chaldeans - but his demand is extraordinary. He will not tell them the dream and ask for its meaning; he requires them to recover the dream itself and then interpret it, The thing is gone from me (v. 5). And he weights the request with terror on one side and reward on the other: fail, and ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill; succeed, and there are gifts and rewards and great honour. Whatever drives the king - suspicion that they merely flatter, or a genuine dread he cannot name - he has set a test that no human technique can pass. The whole machinery of pagan wisdom is about to be exposed as helpless before a thing only God can give.³

The wise men's reply is, in its own way, an honest confession: There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king's matter… there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh (vv. 10-11). They are right about the limit of their craft and wrong only in thinking that the limit is the end of the story. No human art can pull a forgotten dream out of another man's head; that much is true. But they assume the divide between heaven and earth is sealed - that whatever the gods know stays with the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh. The rest of the chapter is God's answer to exactly that assumption. There is a God who reveals secrets, and His dwelling is not so far from flesh that He cannot make Himself known to a praying exile in the night. The king, hearing only failure, flies into a rage and decrees death for the whole guild of wise men (v. 12) - and the sentence sweeps up Daniel and his friends, who had no part in the audience but are counted among Babylon's wise (v. 13). An impossible royal demand has become a death warrant, and the stage is set for the true God to do what no astrologer could.

Daniel 2:14-30He Revealeth the Deep and Secret Things

14Then Daniel answered with counsel and wisdom to Arioch the captain of the king's guard, which was gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon: 15He answered and said to Arioch the king's captain, Why is the decree so hasty from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel. 16Then Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would give him time, and that he would shew the king the interpretation. 17Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions: 18That 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. 19Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. 20Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: 21And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: 22He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him. 23I 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. 24Therefore 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. 25Then 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. 26The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof? 27Daniel 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; 28But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these; 29As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass. 30But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.

Watch how Daniel meets a death sentence. He does not bluster, flee, or despair. He answers Arioch with counsel and wisdom (v. 14), asks the king for time (v. 16), and then does the decisive thing: he goes home and gathers Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah that they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret (v. 18). Before there is any answer, there is prayer - and shared prayer at that, four friends pleading together with the only One who can help. Notice the word Daniel reaches for: mercies. He does not approach God as one with a claim to special treatment but as a supplicant asking for compassion. The secret was not pried loose by technique; it was given in answer to humble, urgent prayer. Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision (v. 19) - the very channel the dream itself had come through, a vision in the night. The contrast with the opening scene could not be sharper. The king commanded and threatened, and got nothing; Daniel asked for mercy, and heaven opened. The pattern is one the whole book will repeat: the kingdom of heaven answers the bent knee, not the clenched fist.

Daniel's first response to the answered prayer is not to run to the king but to break into praise, and the doxology is one of the high points of the book: Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: and he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings (vv. 20-21). Before a single word of interpretation is spoken, Daniel names the theme the dream is about to unfold. The God he blesses is the One who controls the times and the seasons - the turning of the ages, the rise and fall of eras - and, most pointedly, the One who removeth kings, and setteth up kings. In a moment Daniel will stand before the mightiest king on earth and explain a dream about thrones toppling one after another; here, in private, he confesses who is really doing the toppling. Kings imagine they take power and hold it by their own strength. Daniel sees behind the curtain: every crown is given and every crown is taken by the God of heaven. And the same God who governs empires also giveth wisdom unto the wise - the very gift Daniel has just received. The One who moves the great wheels of history also bends to answer four praying exiles. Sovereignty over kingdoms and tenderness toward servants are, in this God, the same thing.

Brought at last before the king, Daniel does something a courtier angling for reward would never do: he gives away the credit before he says a word of the answer. The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; but there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets (vv. 27-28). He first confirms that the king's experts were right about their own helplessness - no human wisdom can do this - and then names the One who can. And he is careful to keep himself out of the spotlight: this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living (v. 30). Daniel will not let the king mistake the messenger for the source. He is a window, not a lamp; the light passing through him is not his own. Standing before a man who could kill him with a word, Daniel's humility is also a kind of courage - he would rather the true God be glorified than secure his own advancement. He even discloses God's tender purpose in it all: the dream was given that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart (v. 30). The God of heaven is not merely flexing His knowledge; He is reaching for the heart of a pagan king who cannot sleep.

Christ Connection - He Revealeth the Deep and Secret Things

Daniel blesses the God who opens what no one else can open: He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him (v. 22). The mystery hidden from every wise man of Babylon is laid bare by the God in whom there is no darkness at all. The New Testament speaks in just this way of what God has made known in Christ. Paul calls the gospel the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest (Rom. 16:25-26), and says that in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3). What the astrologers could not reach by their arts, and what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, God reveals by His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God (1 Cor. 2:9-10) - the very deep… things Daniel says belong to God alone. And the One who is Himself the light of the world (John 8:12) said of His own teaching, There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known (Matt. 10:26). Daniel received a secret in a night vision and would not take credit for it - not… for any wisdom that I have (v. 30); the gospel is the far greater secret, the hidden purpose of the ages, opened not to the clever but to those who ask the God with whom the light dwelleth.

Before Daniel solved anything, he prayed - and he did not pray alone. With a death decree over his head and the clock running, his first move was to gather three friends and desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret (v. 18). Most of us reverse that order. When a crisis lands - the diagnosis, the layoff, the impossible deadline, the conversation we are dreading - we strategize first and pray last, and we tend to carry it alone, as though needing help were a weakness. Daniel shows the better way, and it is not complicated: take the thing that is keeping you up at night and, before you try to fix it, bring it to God and ask plainly for mercy - and tell a few trusted people so they can ask with you. So name the one secret or burden weighing on you this week. Then do two things before you do anything else: pray over it, asking not for what you have earned but for mercy; and ask one or two people to pray it with you. Daniel did not approach God with a claim; he came with empty hands and a request for compassion. The God of heaven answered that prayer in the night - and the same God still bends toward the bent knee.

Daniel 2:31-35A Stone Cut Without Hands

31Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. 32This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, 33His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. 34Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. 35Then 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 no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.

Daniel describes what the king saw, and the picture is overwhelming: a great image, whose brightness was excellent… and the form thereof was terrible (v. 31). It is a single towering human figure, gleaming and fearsome, plated from head to foot in descending metals - head… of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay (vv. 32-33). Two movements run through the statue at once. From top to bottom the metals decrease in value - gold, then silver, then bronze, then iron, then iron crumbling into common clay. Yet in hardness they largely increase - iron is stronger than bronze, bronze than silver. The image is at once more precious at the head and more brittle at the foot: glorious up top, unstable where it stands. And everything rests on those feet of iron mixed with clay - two materials that cannot truly bond, a foundation with a fracture built into it. Daniel is showing the king the very nature of human empire. However golden its glory, however iron its strength, it is top-heavy and standing on a flaw. The whole colossus is waiting for the blow that will find its feet.

Then comes the turn the whole dream has been building toward: Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet… and brake them to pieces (v. 34). The stone is small against the towering statue, and it comes from nowhere the king expected - not forged in any workshop, not quarried by any army, but cut out without hands. It strikes not the golden head but the feet, the point of weakness, and the entire image collapses at once: the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together (v. 35). All of it - every metal, every kingdom, the precious with the base - goes down together and becomes like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors, blown away until no place was found for them. That is the end of human empire in God's sight: not even rubble, just chaff on the wind. But the stone does not vanish with the dust it scattered. The stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. The thing that looked smallest outlasts the thing that looked mightiest - and more than outlasts it, grows until it fills the world. A kingdom not cut by human hands begins as a stone and ends as a mountain over all the earth. The dream sets the brief, brittle glory of every empire against the quiet, unstoppable expansion of the kingdom God Himself raises up.

Christ Connection - The Stone the Builders Rejected

The stone cut out without hands that shatters the image and grows into a world-filling mountain (vv. 34-35) is the most far-reaching picture in the chapter, and the New Testament gathers it up with a cluster of other “stone” texts and presses it on Israel's rulers. Jesus told a parable against the chief priests, then quoted the psalm: Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? (Matt. 21:42, citing Ps. 118:22). And He added words that ring with the language of Daniel's falling, crushing stone: whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder (Matt. 21:44)² - the very fate of the image, broken small as chaff. Peter draws the same texts together: Christ is the stone which was set at nought… which is become the head of the corner, and also a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence (1 Pet. 2:7-8; Acts 4:11). That the stone is cut without hands belongs to the same pattern: of Christ it was charged that He would build a temple made without hands (Mark 14:58), and Hebrews speaks of the greater sanctuary He entered, not made with hands (Heb. 9:11) - the work of God, not of human power. And the mountain the stone becomes, filling the whole earth, answers to the kingdom Jesus likened to a seed least of all seeds that grows into the greatest of trees (Matt. 13:31-32): a reign that begins small and quiet and ends filling the world. The image of Daniel - a stone, not quarried by any human hand, that brings down the glory of empires and rises to fill the earth - reads like a portrait drawn long beforehand of the King whose kingdom is not of this world and yet overcomes it.

Daniel 2:36-49A Kingdom Which Shall Never Be Destroyed

36This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. 37Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. 38And 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 head of gold. 39And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. 40And the fourth kingdom 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. 41And 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 iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. 42And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. 43And 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. 44And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. 45Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone 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 made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure. 46Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him. 47The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret. 48Then the king made Daniel a great 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. 49Then Daniel requested of the king, and he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, over the affairs of the province of Babylon: but Daniel sat in the gate of the king.

Daniel begins the interpretation with the one identification the dream spells out plainly: Thou art this head of gold (v. 38). Even here, in the highest compliment, he keeps the truth that the doxology already sounded. Nebuchadnezzar is indeed a king of kings, with dominion over peoples and lands and even the beasts of the field - but only because the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory (v. 37). The gold is real; the glory is genuine; and all of it is on loan. From there the interpretation moves down the statue: after thee shall arise another kingdom… and another third kingdom… and the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron (vv. 39-40). Daniel does not name these later powers or fix their dates; he sketches a succession - kingdom giving way to kingdom across the long reach of history. What he stresses is the pattern, not a calendar: each empire, however strong, yields to the next. The reader is not handed a chart to decode but a truth to feel in the bones - that the parade of human power, golden head to iron legs, is a parade of things that pass. The God who gave Nebuchadnezzar his golden hour is the God who will, in His time, hand the hour to another.

The interpretation lingers longest on the feet, where the whole image is most vulnerable: part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided… partly strong, and partly broken (vv. 41-42). Iron has real strength, but it is mixed with brittle clay, and the two will not bond: they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay (v. 43). It is a portrait of power that cannot finally hold together - alliances that fracture, unions forced but unfused, strength shot through with weakness. This is where every tower of human empire tends, the dream says: toward division and instability, however it began. And it is precisely there, at the cracked and crumbling feet, that the stone strikes. The point is not to identify a particular coalition but to see the deep truth about all of it: that what humans build, even at its mightiest, carries the fracture of clay within the iron. Earthly kingdoms are divided things, and divided things fall. The dream has been quietly preparing the reader for the contrast about to land - over against this brittle, mixed, dividing thing, a kingdom is coming that is whole, unmixed, and cannot be broken.

Now the dream reaches its summit, and the language lifts: And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever (v. 44). Every word answers the brittle image point for point. The empires were handed down from one people to the next; this kingdom shall not be left to other people - it never changes hands, never falls to a successor, because it has none. The empires were broken to chaff; this kingdom shall never be destroyed. The empires lasted an age and passed; this kingdom shall stand for ever. And note who raises it: the God of heaven sets it up - it is not seized or built by human power but established by God, the kingdom answering to the stone cut out… without hands (v. 45). Daniel seals it with a guarantee: the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure. What follows is the proof of where real power lies. The king who threatened to cut his wise men to pieces now fell upon his face, and worshipped, and confessed, Of a truth… your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets (vv. 46-47). The most powerful man on earth bows, in the end, before the God of heaven - exactly as the dream foretold that every power finally must.

Christ Connection - Of His Kingdom There Shall Be No End

The dream ends not with the fall of empires but with the rise of one kingdom that never falls: the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed… and it shall stand for ever (v. 44). The New Testament announces that kingdom as having drawn near in Christ and names its King in words that echo Daniel's. To Mary the angel promised a Son to whom the Lord God shall give the throne of his father David… and of his kingdom there shall be no end (Luke 1:32-33) - the endless kingdom Daniel saw, now tied to a name. Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God is at hand (Mark 1:15), and told Pilate, My kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36) - not raised by sword or treaty, but, like the stone, established without human hands. Later in this same book the everlasting kingdom is placed in the hand of one like the Son of man, given dominion, and glory, and a kingdom… which shall not pass away (Dan. 7:13-14) - and that is the very title Jesus took for Himself before the high priest, speaking of the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven (Mark 14:62). And the end of the story sounds Daniel's note as a shout of triumph: The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever (Rev. 11:15). Gold, silver, brass, iron - the long parade of human glory - all of it becomes chaff; and over the wreckage stands a kingdom that God Himself set up, with no end and no successor. The dream that troubled a pagan king turns out to be the oldest good news: the last King to take the throne never gives it up.

Daniel stood before the most powerful man alive and told him, to his face, that his golden kingdom would one day be chaff - and that only the kingdom of God endures. The dream sets two ways to live side by side. You can build on the image - on wealth, status, security, the things that gleam like gold and feel like iron - and one day discover they were standing on feet of clay all along, here for an age and then gone. Or you can build on the stone, the kingdom which shall never be destroyed. The honest question this chapter puts is simple: of all the things you are pouring your life into, which are gold-and-iron - real, even impressive, but temporary - and which belong to the kingdom that stands for ever? Take one concrete thing this week. Look at where your hours, your worry, and your money actually go, and name one place where you have been investing yourself in chaff as though it were the mountain. Then make one deliberate move to invest instead in what lasts - time given to God, a relationship mended, a need met, a habit of prayer begun. You are not asked to despise the gold; you are asked to stop trusting it, and to stake your life on the one kingdom the wind cannot carry away.

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Further study

Daniel 2 · Aramaic + classical Jewish commentarySefaria
The text of Daniel 2 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side. From verse 4 onward the book shifts into Aramaic, the diplomatic language of the empire - useful for the recurring title elah shemayya (“the God of heaven,” vv. 18, 19, 28, 37, 44) and for malku (the “kingdom” that shall never be destroyed, v. 44).
Daniel 2 ↔ Psalm 118 · Matthew 21 · Daniel 7 · Revelation 11Intertextual Bible
Traces the threads tying Daniel 2 to the rest of Scripture - the stone cut out without hands (vv. 34-35) read alongside the rejected stone become the head of the corner (Ps. 118:22; Matt. 21:42-44), and the kingdom that shall never be destroyed (v. 44) read beside of his kingdom there shall be no end (Luke 1:33) and he shall reign for ever and ever (Rev. 11:15).
Daniel 2 - Translators' NotesNET Bible
The NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Daniel 2 - the king's impossible demand and the wise men's reply (vv. 1-11), the shift into Aramaic at verse 4, the metals of the image and the much-discussed feet of iron and clay (vv. 31-43), and the stone and the everlasting kingdom (vv. 44-45).

Where this echoes in Scripture

Tell Me the Dream

He Revealeth the Deep and Secret Things

A Stone Cut Without Hands

A Kingdom Which Shall Never Be Destroyed

Daniel 2

Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.

Daniel 2 · A Stone Cut Without Hands (themed)L'AscensionGustave Doré · 1866

· · ·

Daniel 2:1-13Tell Me the Dream

Daniel 2:14-30He Revealeth the Deep and Secret Things

Christ Connection - He Revealeth the Deep and Secret Things

Daniel 2:31-35A Stone Cut Without Hands

Christ Connection - The Stone the Builders Rejected

Daniel 2:36-49A Kingdom Which Shall Never Be Destroyed

Christ Connection - Of His Kingdom There Shall Be No End

· · ·

Further study

Daniel 2 · Aramaic + classical Jewish commentarySefaria
The text of Daniel 2 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side. From verse 4 onward the book shifts into Aramaic, the diplomatic language of the empire - useful for the recurring title elah shemayya (“the God of heaven,” vv. 18, 19, 28, 37, 44) and for malku (the “kingdom” that shall never be destroyed, v. 44).
Daniel 2 ↔ Psalm 118 · Matthew 21 · Daniel 7 · Revelation 11Intertextual Bible
Traces the threads tying Daniel 2 to the rest of Scripture - the stone cut out without hands (vv. 34-35) read alongside the rejected stone become the head of the corner (Ps. 118:22; Matt. 21:42-44), and the kingdom that shall never be destroyed (v. 44) read beside of his kingdom there shall be no end (Luke 1:33) and he shall reign for ever and ever (Rev. 11:15).
Daniel 2 - Translators' NotesNET Bible
The NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Daniel 2 - the king's impossible demand and the wise men's reply (vv. 1-11), the shift into Aramaic at verse 4, the metals of the image and the much-discussed feet of iron and clay (vv. 31-43), and the stone and the everlasting kingdom (vv. 44-45).

Daniel 2

Daniel 2:1-13Tell Me the Dream

Daniel 2:14-30He Revealeth the Deep and Secret Things

Daniel 2:31-35A Stone Cut Without Hands

Daniel 2:36-49A Kingdom Which Shall Never Be Destroyed