You’re Wrong About Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream
In reference to this week’s Former Adventist Podcast—no, Nebuchadnezzar did not remember his dream. He was not testing his interpreters just for the sake of testing; he really did not remember. You have to study more about this because you undermined the whole situation by saying the king forgot his dream.
Furthermore, Nebuchadnezzar did remember his dream which comes later in the book of Daniel about the tree cut down to a stump.
Will we go to the forever fire if we are wrong about this? NO—but it’s better that we agree in our thinking and check the Bible facts.
—VIA EMAIL
RESPONSE: We cannot be completely sure that Nebuchadnezzar did or did not remember his dream. Nevertheless, Daniel 2 never states that he forgot the dream. Verses 7–13 tell us that he did not trust his soothsayers. He told them he knew they had agreed to lie to him in order to give the king time to change his mind. So, the king said, he refused to change his orders and insisted that all of his magicians should be killed if no one could tell him the dream.
In other words, he was testing them. If they couldn’t tell him the dream, then he couldn’t trust their interpretations, either. Anyone could guess at the meaning of a dream that they were told, and his soothsayers were determined to tell the king what he wanted to hear. Nebuchadnezzar knew that if they couldn’t tell him the dream, then neither could they tell him its true meaning. In order to know what it meant, they had to have true revelation. The only way he could be sure they had true revelation was if they could tell him the dream. If they COULD tell him the dream, then he knew they had divine revelation. Only then could he be sure that their interpretation would also be correct.
Anything less than their telling him the dream left him in doubt as to their real ability to interpret the dream.
You are correct that he did not need anyone to tell him the dream about the tree stump; he already knew that Daniel had true revelation from God, so he knew that Daniel could reveal the dream’s meaning.
The story of the dream of the image not only confirmed Nebuchadnezzar’s trust in Daniel’s revelation, but it establishes God’s intervention in both the king’s life and in Daniel’s for all of us throughout history. We have this proof that God revealed His dealings with the gentile nations to a pagan king, and we never have to doubt that the dream was direct revelation from God.
Interestingly, the KJV does appear to suggest that the king forgot his dream. More modern translations, however, such as the NASB and the ESV and others, are based on older and more accurate manuscripts than was the KJV, and these translations tend to be more accurate than does the KJV. For us former Adventists, it’s helpful to understand the ways the KJV reflects some translation errors which are corrected with later translations based one earlier manuscripts. This problem will become even more crucial when we begin discussing Daniel 8:14, the verse used as the scriptural foundation for the investigative judgment doctrine.
Uncle Arthur’s Bible Stories Reveal All
I was literally listening to your podcast while packing up a bookshelf of old Uncle Arthur Adventist Bible Story books…!! Colleen is absolutely right; the books say the king didn’t remember anything about the dream! I have attached a picture for you to see of that page. It’s on the left hand side towards the bottom!
—VIA EMAIL
Response: That’s just awesome—the actual page! Thank you!
I was also struck that, near the top of the same page, it says of Daniel, “Always he tried to set a good example so that others would think well of his religion.” Good grief!
No, he did what he did because he honored and trusted GOD. He wasn’t trying to convert the Babylonians! He was living with integrity. Talk about a loaded statement designed to imprint a cultic ideal on childish minds!
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