Daniel 7:1 - Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

The Four World Empires (Daniel 7:1-8).

‘In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head on his bed. Then he wrote the dream and told the sum of the matters.'

‘In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon.' Official documents at the time were all dated by the years of Nabonidus, who was Belshazzar's father and outlived him, but Belshazzar had been given the ‘kingship' of Babylon by his father when his father spent ten years fighting, and then studying, in Arabia. We are told that his father ‘entrusted the army and the kingship' to him, probably around 556 BC (others argue for 553 BC).

Up to now we have seen Daniel interpreting other people's dreams, but now we learn that he also had dream-visions for which we were prepared in Daniel 1:17. (See also Daniel 2:28; Daniel 4:2; Daniel 4:10 for comparable phraseology). The dream does not come chronologically, for had it done so it would have come between chapter 4 and chapter 5. Rather it takes up and expands on chapter 2 once assurances have been given of the fact that the living God is able to deliver His people in the face of the greatest of kings and empires. Daniel writes the dream down to ensure a permanent record, together with its interpretation. ‘The sum of the matters' means that he wrote down the essentials, depicting the heart of things.

Daniel 7:1

1 In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel hada a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters.