God’s Word for You
Daniel 2:26-28 About the latter days
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, September 9, 2025
26 The king asked Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), “Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?” 27 Daniel replied, “No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, 28 but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the latter days. Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you lay on your bed were these:
Are you (really) able? The king’s question is more amazed than haughty, although in English it could be read either way. In contrast with the arrogance of the chief executioner, the king is presented as a man who sincerely wanted to learn the answer to his question and not at all as an irritated bloodthirsty tyrant.
“No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain,” Daniel says. He repeats the objection of the astrologers and turns it into a true statement. They were complaining, but he is confessing his faith. He makes the change take place with the word barum, “But, nevertheless.” Perhaps some readers might be familiar with Professor Tolkien’s book, “The Lord of the Rings.” In it, Tolkien poked fun at his colleague and friend, C.S. Lewis, who was always speaking slowly about things and “not being hasty” with the character Treebeard. One of Treebeard’s common words was “Baroom,” which I take to be a lengthening of this word, meaning, “nevertheless, nevertheless.” Tolkien used Biblical and other languages extensively in his books.
There is “a” God in heaven who reveals mysteries. Does Daniel hint or acknowledge that there are other gods besides the One true God? Not at all. But Nebuchadnezzar is a polytheist almost by necessity at the head of his sprawling multi-faceted pagan nation. Daniel’s words “imply the total inability of the heathen gods as well as of their priests and wise men to reveal secret things.” None of your gods could ever do what you ask, O King, but there is a God in heaven who can. They are man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell (Deuteronomy 4:28). More than that, they are gods that cannot save (Isaiah 45:20).
Daniel affirms that God has eternal foreknowledge of all things. That is not to say that he is, in any way, the author of evil things, but that he has perfect knowledge of all things before they happen, and of course, remembers all things that have taken place. This is according to Daniel’s own words: “There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the latter days” (Daniel 2:28). “This foreknowledge extends alike over good people and evil people. But it is not a cause of evil or of sin which compels anyone to do something wrong; the original source of this is the devil and man’s wicked and perverse will. Neither is it the cause of man’s damnation; for this man himself is responsible. God’s foreknowledge merely controls the evil and imposes a limit to its duration, so that in spite of its intrinsic wickedness it must minister to the salvation of his elect” (Formula of Concord, Epitome XI:4).
“Latter days” here is acharith yomiyah in Aramaic, “after days.” We sometimes translate this as “last day,” but in this case Daniel is speaking about things that are mere decades and centuries ahead; not all of what he says is about the end times. The same is true of passages such as Isaiah 2:2; Isaiah 9:1; Daniel 10:14, and Hosea 3:5. “Latter days” is not just generally in the future, nor without any qualification in the very end of time. Instead, it is truly “in the Messianic future.” That is to say, this vision is bound together with God’s holy plan of saving mankind from their sins, and touches on those specific times when Christ will come to do this. In fact, Nebuchadnezzar’s dream is a clear and obvious calendar of when Christ will come: carefully, specifically, clearly and without a doubt illustrating each successive kingdom in world history from Nebuchadnezzar himself, the head of gold (“You, O King, are the king of kings,” Daniel 2:37), to the Persians and Greeks that would follow, and on into the days of the Roman Empire, about which Daniel will give many specific details. Here at last was a guidebook for God’s people. Just as Jeremiah gave them the calendar of the seventy years to cheer them up until the end of the exile (Jeremiah 25:11), so also Daniel would give them the calendar of seventy “sevens” until the anointing of the Most Holy Christ himself (Daniel 9:24).
Therefore we see that God has given a clearer and ever more clear prophecy of the coming of Jesus, so that when he finally appeared among men and proclaimed the Gospel and himself as the Son of God, men were without excuse, but only the very lowly and humble actually accepted him. God be praised forever that we have heard the same Gospel message and been brought to faith, had our sins washed away, and await his return in judgment in the most latter days of all.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.