Daniel 2:5

Context
2:5 The king replied¹ to the wise men, “My decision is firm.² If you do not inform me of both the dream and its interpretation, you will be dismembered³ and your homes reduced to rubble!

Daniel 2:12-13

Context

2:12 Because of this the king got furiously angry⁴ and gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. 2:13 So a decree went out, and the wise men were about⁵ to be executed. They also sought⁶ Daniel and his friends so that they could be executed.

[2:5] ¹tn Aram “answered and said,” a common idiom to indicate a reply, but redundant in contemporary English.

[2:5] ²tn It seems clear from what follows that Nebuchadnezzar clearly recalls the content of the dream, although obviously he does not know what to make of it. By not divulging the dream itself to the would-be interpreters, he intends to find out whether they are simply leading him on. If they can tell him the dream’s content, which he is able to verify, he then can have confidence in their interpretation, which is what eludes him. The translation “the matter is gone from me” (cf. KJV, ASV), suggesting that the king had simply forgotten the dream, is incorrect. The Aramaic word used here (אַזְדָּא, ’azda’) is probably of Persian origin; it occurs in the OT only here and in v. 8. There are two main possibilities for the meaning of the word: “the matter is promulgated by me” (see KBL 1048 s.v.) and therefore “publicly known” (cf. NRSV; F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 62-63, §189), or “the matter is irrevocable” (cf. NAB, NIV, TEV, CEV, NLT; HALOT 1808 s.v. אזד; cf. also BDB 1079 s.v.). The present translation reflects this latter option. See further E. Vogt, Lexicon linguae aramaicae, 3.

[2:5] ³tn Aram “made limbs.” Cf. 3:29.

[2:12] ⁴tn Aram “was angry and very furious.” The expression is a hendiadys (two words or phrases expressing a single idea).

[2:13] ⁵tn The Aramaic participle is used here to express the imminent future.

[2:13] ⁶tn The impersonal active plural (“they sought”) of the Aramaic verb could also be translated as an English passive: “Daniel and his friends were sought” (cf. NAB).