Daniel 2:11

11 What you ask is difficult, Your Majesty. No one can tell what you dreamed except the gods, and they don't live with humans."

Daniel 2:11 Meaning and Commentary

Daniel 2:11

And it is a rare thing the king requireth,
&e.] Meaning not scarce, or seldom heard of; for they had before asserted it never had been required; but that it was hard and difficult, yea, with them, and as they supposed with any other, impossible to be done: and there is none other that can show it before the king, except the
gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh;
these men own there was a God, though, they held, more than one; and the omniscience of God, though they seem to have no notion of his omnipresence; and to suggest as if he had no concern with mortals; had no regard to men on earth, nor communicated the knowledge of things unto them. Jarchi, Aben Ezra, and Saadiah, interpret this of angels, who are incorporeal; but the superior deities of the Gentiles are rather designed; who were supposed to dwell in heaven, and to have no conversation with men on earth; these, it is owned, could declare to the king what he desired, and no other; and therefore should not persist in his demand on them.

Daniel 2:11 In-Context

9 If you don't tell me the dream, you'll all receive the same punishment. You have agreed among yourselves to make up a phony explanation to give me, hoping that things will change. So tell me the dream. Then I'll know that you can explain its meaning to me."
10 The astrologers answered the king, "No one on earth can tell the king what he asks. No other king, no matter how great and powerful, has ever asked such a thing of any magician, psychic, or astrologer.
11 What you ask is difficult, Your Majesty. No one can tell what you dreamed except the gods, and they don't live with humans."
12 This made the king so angry and furious that he gave an order to destroy all the wise advisers in Babylon.
13 So a decree was issued that the wise advisers were to be killed, and some men were sent to find Daniel and his friends and kill them.
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