Daniel 2:3

And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) I have dreamed.—It has been questioned whether the king had really forgotten his dream, or whether he only pretended to have done so in order that he might prove the skill of his wise men. The conduct of the Chaldæans (Daniel 2:10) makes the latter hypothesis possible. However, it is more in accordance with what is stated about the anxious condition of the king’s mind to assume that he remembered a portion of the dream, but that he had lost the general outline of it.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:1-13 The greatest men are most open to cares and troubles of mind, which disturb their repose in the night, while the sleep of the labouring man is sweet and sound. We know not the uneasiness of many who live in great pomp, and, as others vainly think, in pleasure also. The king said that his learned men must tell him the dream itself, or they should all be put to death as deceivers. Men are more eager to ask as to future events, than to learn the way of salvation or the path of duty; yet foreknowledge of future events increases anxiety and trouble. Those who deceived, by pretending to do what they could not do, were sentenced to death, for not being able to do what they did not pretend to.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream - That is, clearly, to know all about it; to recollect distinctly what it was, and to understand what it meant. He was agitated by so remarkable a dream; he probably had, as Jerome remarks, a shadowy and floating impression of what the dream was - such as we often have of a dream that has agitated out minds, but of which we cannot recal the distinct and full image; and he desired to recal that distinctly, and to know exactly what it meant. See Daniel 2:1.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. troubled to know the dream—He awoke in alarm, remembering that something solemn had been presented to him in a dream, without being able to recall the form in which it had clothed itself. His thoughts on the unprecedented greatness to which his power had attained (Da 2:29) made him anxious to know what the issue of all this should be. God meets this wish in the way most calculated to impress him.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

He remembered the fact in general, but could not repeat it perfectly, much less know the meaning of it; yet it had left such an impression on him, as put him into great perplexity. The Lord hath ways to affright the greatest men in the world, in the midst of their security and jollity.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream,.... What before is called dreams is here expressed in the singular, a dream; for it was but one dream, though it contained in it various things; this the king could remember, that he had a dream; for it had left some impression on his mind, though he could not call to mind what it was about. Aben Ezra makes mention of one of their Gaons or Rabbins, that affirmed that Nebuchadnezzar knew his dream, but was willing to try the wise men; but, as he observes, he could not surely believe the words of Daniel:

and my spirit was troubled to know the dream; both that, and the meaning of it; he says nothing as yet about the interpretation of it; concluding that, if they could tell him the dream, they could explain it to him; or then it would be time enough to inquire after that.

Geneva Study Bible

And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream. The Revised Version improves the English of the verse by putting the verb in the present, "My Spirit is troubled to know the dream." The Septuagint Version has the appearance of a paraphrase, "And the king said to them, I have seen a dream, and my spirit is troubled, and I desire to understand the dream." It is an unusual combination "to see a dream;" from its unusualness the reading of the Septuagint is to be preferred. In old Hebrew ל (l) and ז (z) are not unlike each other, nor are מ (m) and י (y). Yet these two, letters are the only differences between halamti, "I have dreamed." and hazithi. "I have seen." The Peshitta has haloma hazith, which gives the same combination, and would indicate that here too the Aramaic original is shining through It is however, difficult to see how such a word as ahpatz. "I wish," could drop out of the Massoretic. The must natural solution is that the translator added θέλω to complete the sense. Certainly a link is awanting as it stands in the ordinary interpretation of this verse. Theodotion agrees with the Massoretic, while the Vulgate paraphrases the last clause, "And the king said to them. I have seen a dream, and confused in mind I have forgot what I saw." The king has been perturbed by the dream, and his perturbation leads him to wish to knew the dream - not necessarily what the dream actually had been, but what it meant. Thus in Daniel 1:17 Daniel had understanding "in all visions and dreams;" this meant that he knew the meaning of dreams and visit us. The other versions give us no assistance to explain this. Archdeacon Rose says, "The king here plainly intimates that, though the dream had troubled and perplexed him. he could not remember what it was." It does not appear to us quite so plain It is certainly not impossible to imagine that, while the king had been strongly affected by the dream, he might not remember distinctly what it was. If, however, he had no remembrance of the dream, and only the feeling of perturbation, any grandiose vision might have been brought before him, and he would not have been able to check it, or say that was not the dream he had had. If, again, he had some fragmentary remembrance, he naturally would have told what he remembered, in order that they might reconstruct his dream for him. Nebuchadnezzar's great purpose is not merely to see again his dream, but really to test these soothsayers that promised so much. If they could with such certainty as they professed tell what was about to happen, surely it was no great demand that they should know this dream of his. The king seems merely to have made the general statement, and left the soothsayers to tell at once the dream and interpretation. There sits the king with troubled brow, and there stand before him the principal adepts at interpretation of dreams. Some have found it a difficulty that God should reveal the future to a heathen monarch. But in the parallel case of Pharaoh this occurred; certainly the future revealed to him was the immediate future of the, land he ruled, whereas the dream of Nebuchadnezzar extended in its revelation to the very end of time. Archdeacon Rose refers to Pilate's wife and her mysterious dream at the trial of our Lord. The revelation as given to Nebuchadnezzar served a double purpose - it gave emphasis to it when, not an obscure Hebrew scholar got the vision, but the great conqueror; further, it gave an occasion for bringing Daniel into prominence, and gave thus to trim and to his companions an opportunity of showing their fidelity to God. This gave an occasion for miracles, the effect of which was to strengthen the Jews in their faith. Daniel 2:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

As to the king's demand, it is uncertain whether he wished to know the dream itself or its import. The wise men (Daniel 2:4) understood his words as if he desired only to know the meaning of it; but the king replied (Daniel 2:5.) that they must tell him both the dream and its interpretation. But this request on the part of the king does not quite prove that he had forgotten the dream, as Bleek, v. Leng., and others maintain, founding thereon the objection against the historical veracity of the narrative, that Nebuchadnezzar's demand that the dream should be told to him was madness, and that there was no sufficient reason for his rage (Daniel 2:12). On the contrary, that the king had not forgotten his dream, and that there remained only some oppressive recollection that he had dreamed, is made clear from Daniel 2:9, where the king says to the Chaldeans, "If ye cannot declare to me the dream, ye have taken in hand to utter deceitful words before me; therefore tell me the dream, that I may know that ye will give to me also the interpretation." According to this, Nebuchadnezzar wished to hear the dream from the wise men that he might thus have a guarantee for the correctness of the interpretation which they might give. He could not thus have spoken to them if he had wholly forgotten the dream, and had only a dark apprehension remaining in his mind that he had dreamed. In this case he would neither have offered a great reward for the announcement of the dream, nor have threatened severe punishment, or even death, for failure in announcing it. For then he would only have given the Chaldeans the opportunity, at the cost of truth, of declaring any dream with an interpretation. But as threatening and promise on the part of the king in that case would have been unwise, so also on the side of the wise men their helplessness in complying with the demand of the king would have been incomprehensible. If the king had truly forgotten the dream, they had no reason to be afraid of their lives if they had given some self-conceived dream with an interpretation of it; for in that case he could not have accused them of falsehood and deceit, and punished them on that account. If, on the contrary, he still knew the dream which so troubled him, and the contents of which he desired to hear from the Chaldeans, so that he might put them to the proof whether he might trust in their interpretation, then neither his demand nor the severity of his proceeding was irrational. "The magi boasted that by the help of the gods they could reveal deep and hidden things. If this pretence is well founded - so concluded Nebuchadnezzar - then it must be as easy for them to make known to me my dream as its interpretation; and since they could not do the former, he as rightly held them to be deceivers, as the people did the priests of Baal (1 Kings 18) because their gods answered not by fire." Hengst.