Daniel 2:5 (BSB)

The king replied to the astrologers, “My word is final: If you do not tell me the dream and its interpretation, you will be cut into pieces and your houses will be reduced to rubble.

From Daniel 2. Also in the ESV.

Commentary on Daniel 2:5

  • John Calvin (Reformed), Calvin's Commentaries on Daniel 2:5: Here the king requires from the Chaldeans more than they professed to afford him; for although their boasting, as we have said, was foolish in promising to interpret any dream, yet they never claimed the power of narrating to any one his dreams.
  • Matthew Henry (Presbyterian), Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Daniel 2:1-13: We meet with a great difficulty in the date of this story; it is said to be in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Dan 2:1. Now Daniel was carried to Babylon in his first year, and, it should seem, he was three years under tutors and governors before he was presented to the king, Dan 1:5. How then could this happen in the second year?
  • John Gill (Reformed Baptist), Exposition of the Old and New Testaments on Daniel 2:5: The king answered and said to the Chaldeans,.... In the same language they spoke to him: the thing is gone from me; either the dream was gone from him; it was out of his mind, he had forgot it, and could not call it to remembrance; he had been dreaming of monarchies and kingdoms, which are themselves but dreams and tales, and empty things that...
  • Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (Reformed), Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible on Daniel 2:5: The thing--that is, The dream, "is gone from me." GESENIUS translates, "The decree is gone forth from me," irrevocable (compare Isa 45:23); namely, that you shall be executed, if you do not tell both the dream and the interpretation. English Version is simpler, which supposes the king himself to have forgotten the dream. Pretenders to supernatural knowledge often bring on themselves their own punishment. cut in pieces-- (Sa1 15:33).