Daniel 2:5 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The thing is gone from me: this was of God, that these impostors should be made infamous, by detecting their ignorance and their arrogance, and that this should be a step to Daniel's honour, for knowing the king's dream and interpreting it, neither of which the Chaldeans could do. With the interpretation thereof: if they do not both, saith the king. Cut in pieces, and your houses, & c, this was a usual punishment in those parts of the world; thus Samuel cut Agag in pieces, 1 Samuel 15:33 1 Chronicles 20:3. Thus David dealt with the Ammonites. And the like was in making houses a dunghill. The like we have Daniel 3:29; and thus they did to the house of Baal, made it a draught-house to this day, by Jehu's command, 2 Kings 10:27. The like did Darius threaten to them that would alter his decree for building the house of God, Ezra 6:11. This commination argued the king's wrath to be excessive and furious, in punishing for not doing what was above their human strength, and which the Chaldeans never arrogated to themselves; yet was this a just reward to these men, that were so presumptuous.