Deeper Reflection
The Aramaic verb, yeda – to know, to make known – is a key word in Daniel 2. The word is repeated 11 times in referring to knowing and making known Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and its interpretation.¹⁴ But Nebuchadnezzar’s dream consists of “mysteries” (vv.27, 28, 29, 30) – “the profound and hidden things” of God (Dan 2:22). And no one can know these things of God unless the God “who reveals mysteries” reveals and makes them known (vv.27-29).There are “the secret things” that “belong to” the infinite God that will remain concealed, but there are “the things revealed” by God to us in “the words of His law” that “belong to us” for us to live by (Deut 29:29). But what God has revealed in the Scriptures requires us to know and understand them. And just like Daniel, we cannot know and understand what God has revealed in His Word by “any wisdom residing” in us (v.30). We may, consciously or unconsciously, attempt to know and understand God and the things of God with human and worldly wisdom. When we do so, we will not only be unable to know and understand, but understand wrongly or falsely. We need the Lord to “open the Scriptures to us” and “open” our “minds to understand the Scriptures” (Lk 24:27, 32, 45). When the Lord does that “our hearts [will be] burning within us” (Lk 24:32). Is your reading of the Scriptures “burning” or boring? We need God to give us “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation” to enlighten us to know God and the things of God (Eph 1:17-18).

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¹³ 1 Corinthians 2:16; Ephesians 1:17-18; Colossians 3:1-2 ¹⁴ Daniel 2:5, 9 [two times], 22, 23 [two times], 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 45