7Once more they replied, “Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will interpret it.” 8Then the king answered, “I am certain that you are trying to gain time, because you realize that this is what I have firmly decided: 9If you do not tell me the dream, there is just one penalty for you. You have conspired to tell me misleading and wicked things, hoping the situation will change. So then, tell me the dream, and I will know that you can interpret it for me.”
10The astrologers answered the king, “There is not a man on earth who can do what the king asks! No king, however great and mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or astrologer. 11What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among men.” 12This made the king so angry and furious that he ordered the execution of all the wise men of Babylon. 13So the decree was issued to put the wise men to death, and men were sent to look for Daniel and his friends to put them to death.
Although the incentives—positive and negative—were strong, there was no way the wise men could meet the king’s demand. They therefore repeated their request that the king tell them the dream so they could explain what it meant. They argued, “There is not a man on earth who can do what the king asks!” And of course they were right in saying that. They respectfully accused the king of being unfair: “No king, however great and mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or astrologer.” They pleaded that the information which Nebuchadnezzar was demanding of them lay with the gods. “No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among men.”
But nothing they said could change the king’s mind. He accused them of conspiring to tell him wicked and misleading things. “Tell me the dream, and I will know that you can interpret it for me.” These words again seem to indicate that the king had not forgotten the dream, but that he wanted to test the ability and the truthfulness of his wise men. After all, weren’t they with their secret arts supposed to be able to get in touch with the gods and obtain information hidden from the average person? Although the wise men were being perfectly honest with the king, he suspected them of being dishonest and disloyal and did what he had threatened to do. “He ordered the execution of all the wise men of Babylon.” The royal decree was so general that it included Daniel and his three friends, even though at the time they may not have even completed their training.
Think of what a frightening experience this must have been for the four young men. Remember that they had been taken from their homeland against their will. In Babylon they had remained loyal to the God of their fathers, even at the cost of personal embarrassment. And what had it gotten them? A visit from Nebuchadnezzar’s squad of executioners, who assembled all the men who were to be put to death. What these four men could not have known is that this was God’s way of bringing Daniel before the king and of securing prominent positions for all four in the Babylonian government.
Martin Luther once summarized a valuable truth by saying, “It’s God’s way to empty us first before filling us with his blessing. Before God leads us into the light he lets us experience darkness; before we can enjoy the blessings of life we must learn what death is.”