5 The king replied to the astrologers, “This is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble. 6 But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. So tell me the dream and interpret it for me.”
7 Once more they replied, “Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will interpret it.”
8 Then the king answered, “I am certain that you are trying to gain time, because you realize that this is what I have firmly decided: 9 If you do not tell me the dream, there is just one penalty for you. You have conspired to tell me misleading and wicked things, hoping the situation will change. So then, tell me the dream, and I will know that you can interpret it for me.”
10 The astrologers answered the king, “There is not a man on earth who can do what the king asks! No king, however great and mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or astrologer. 11 What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among men.”
Dream-interpretation is a cottage industry on the charismatic side of things (John Paul Jackson comes to mind), but telling someone what their dream was rather than what it meant is something that requires a hands-on God to do. A good psychologist can give an interperetation of a dream, but the king here wasn't looking for a head-shrinker, he was looking for something only God could do.
The "gods" couldn't do that, since they aren't living in the first place; it is true that those false deities "do not live among men" since they flat out do not live. If I can borrow from Renfield in Love at First Bite-"All those gods are dead. Don't you have One that's alive and keek-ing?"
Daniel did have that on his menu, as do we.
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