Albert Barnes Commentary Daniel 2:8

"The king answered and said, I know of a certainty that ye would gain time, because ye see the thing is gone from me." — Daniel 2:8 (ASV)

The king answered and said, I know of certainty that ye would gain the time - Margin, “buy.” The Chaldee word זבנין zâb^enı̂yn (from זבן z^eban) means to get for oneself, buy, gain, or procure. The Greek, ἐξαγοράζετε exagorazete, means “that you redeem time;” and so the Vulgate, quod tempus redimitis.

The idea is that they saw they could not comply with his requisition. Their asking him (Daniel 2:7) to state the dream was only a pretext for delay, in the hope that in the interval they might devise some plan to appease him or to avert his threatened indignation. It would be natural to suppose that they might hope that on reflection he would become calmer, and that, although they might not be able to recall the dream and explain it, yet it would be seen as unreasonable to expect or demand it.

The king seems to have supposed that some such thoughts were passing through their minds, and he charges them with such a project.

The king’s argument seems to have been something like this: “Those who can explain a dream correctly can just as well tell what it is as what its interpretation is, for the one is as much the result of Divine influence as the other. If men can hope for Divine help in the one case, why not in the other? Since you cannot, therefore, recall the dream, it is plain that you cannot interpret it. Your only object in demanding to know it is that you may ward off as long as possible the execution of the threatened sentence and, if practicable, escape it altogether.”

It is not improbable that what they said was more than the simple request recorded in (Daniel 2:7). They would naturally have enlarged on it, attempting to show how unreasonable the king’s demand was in this case, and their arguments would have given a fair pretext for what he here charges them with.

Because ye see the thing is gone from me - According to the interpretation proposed in (Daniel 2:5), this refers to the dream. The meaning is, “You see that I have forgotten it. I have made a positive statement on that point. There can be no hope, therefore, that it can be recalled, and it is clear that your only object must be to gain time. Nothing can be gained by delay; the matter may therefore be determined at once, and your conduct construed as a confession that you cannot perform what is required, and the sentence can proceed without delay.”

This interpretation makes better sense, it seems to me, than to suppose that he means that a sentence he had issued stipulated that if they could not recall and interpret it, they would be put to death.