This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.
This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.
This is the dream, and its interpretation we do tell before the king.
This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation of it before the king.
Daniel — A Hebrew exile at Babylonian and Persian courts sees empires rise and fall, a Son of Man coming with clouds, and seventy weeks locating Messiah in time. The canon's densest apocalyptic text — and its most interpretively contested.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread — the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The verses this one reaches2
Joseph replied, “This is the interpretation: The three branches are three days.
To You, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, because You have given me wisdom and power. And now You have made known to me what we have requested, for You have made known to us the dream of the king.”
Voices3
This is the dream,.... Which Nebuchadnezzar dreamed, but had forgot, and was now punctually and exactly made known to him; for the truth of which he is appealed unto; for, no doubt, by this account, the whole of his dream, and every circumstance of it, were brought to his mind: and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king; for though both the dream, and the interpretation of it, were only revealed to Daniel; yet he joins his companions with him, partly because they were now present, and chiefly because they were assisting to him in prayer for it.
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)reformed
This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king - Daniel here speaks in his own name, and in the name of his companions. Hence, he says, we will tell the interpretation. It was in answer to their united supplications Dan 2:18, that this meaning of the vision had been made known to him; and it would not only have been a violation of the rules of modesty, but an unjust assumption, if Daniel had claimed the whole credit of the revelation to himself.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)evangelical
But to Nebuchadnezzar, a heathen prince, they were represented by a gay and pompous image of a man, for he was an admirer of the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them. To him the sight was so charming that he was impatient to see it again.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710puritan
