Daniel 2:5

5. Rather, “The word is gone forth from me” (R.V., margin; also Daniel 2:8). The king’s decision was final, that the dream as well as the interpretation must be given or those who laid claim to supernatural wisdom should be cut limb from limb (compare Ezekiel 16:40, and 2Ma 1:16 ) which was, with stoning, a customary punishment with the Babylonians their houses being turned into rubbish heaps and therefore dunghills (Ezra 6:11; 2 Kings 10:27; compare Records of the Past, 1:27-43). If this be literal history, it suggests either that a sign of the king’s future insanity was already showing itself (chap. iv) or else some previous friction had occurred between him and his religious advisers, this test serving as an excuse to get rid of them. The latter seems far more probable than that the king believed the magicians knew the dream but treasonably refused to tell it (Thomson). Such acts on the part of absolute sovereigns who find themselves being interfered with by influential subjects are not at all rare. Behrmann cites a parallel instance from Arabian history. A king of Yemen was visited with a dream which caused him great anxiety. So he summoned his sages and said to them, “I have had a dream which has frightened me and which I cannot forget; tell it me, and its interpretation.” The wise men answered, “Repeat to us the dream, and we will tell you the interpretation.” “No,” said the king; “for if I tell you the dream, I cannot be sure of the truth of your explanation. He who does not know the dream without being told cannot know what it means.”