But there is a God in heaven that reveals secrets, and makes known to king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Your dream, and the visions of your head upon your bed, are these;
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George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Times. In the Old Testament, this commonly signifies when Christ shall appear; but in the New, it refers to the end of the world. (Calmet)
Avoiding the blemish of adulation but cleaving to the truth, he courteously suggests that it is to the king [God has shown these things], |30 for it was to him that God had revealed secrets concerning what was to occur in the last times. Now either these "last days" are to be reckoned from the time when the dream was revealed to Daniel until the end of the world, or else at least this inference is to be drawn, that the over-all interpretation of the dream applies to that final end when the image (D) and statue beheld [in the dream] is to be ground to powder.
He does not say, "The visions of thine eyes," lest we should think it was something physical, but rather: "of thy head." "For the eyes of a wise man are in his head" (Eccl. 2:14), that is to say in the princely organ of the heart, just as we read in the Gospel: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they are ones who shall see God" (Matt. 5:8). Again: "What (E) are ye meditating in your hearts?" (Matt. 9:4). To be sure, other authorities in treating of this chapter [i.e., Matt. 9], conjecture that the authoritative part of the soul (to hegemonikon) lies not in the heart but, as Plato says, in the brain.
Therefore it is only in vain that thou inquirest (other MSS have: "that he inquire") of men as to something which is known only to God in heaven. Also, by indirectly drawing Nebuchadnezzar away from the worship of many gods, Daniel directs him to the knowledge of the one (true) God.
