John Calvin Commentary Daniel 4:18

"This dream I, king Nebuchadnezzar, have seen; and thou, O Belteshazzar, declare the interpretation, forasmuch as all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to make known unto me the interpretation; but thou art able; for the spirit of the holy gods is in thee." — Daniel 4:18 (ASV)

Here Nebuchadnezzar repeats what he had formerly said about seeking an interpretation for his dream. He understood the figure that was shown to him, but he could not understand God’s intentions nor even determine its relation to himself. On this point, he appeals for Daniel's assured interpretation; he affirms his vision in a dream to induce Daniel to pay great attention to its interpretation.

Then he adds, with the same purpose, All the wise men of his kingdom could not explain the dream; where he confesses all the astrologers, diviners, and others of this kind to be utterly vain and fallacious, since they professed to know everything. For some were augurs, some conjecturers, some interpreters of dreams, and others astrologers. These not only discussed the course, distances, and orders of the stars, and the peculiarities of each, but also wished to predict the future from the stars' movements.

Since, therefore, they boasted so magnificently of their superior knowledge of all events, Nebuchadnezzar confesses them to have been impostors. But he ascribes this power in reality to Daniel, because he was endowed with the divine Spirit. Hence he excludes all the wise men of Babylon from so great a gift, having found them to be destitute of God’s Spirit.

He does not assert this in so many words, but this meaning is easily gathered from his expressions, which refer to all the different types of Chaldean wise men. Then, in the second clause, he exempts Daniel from their number and states the reason to be Daniel's preeminence through the divine Spirit. Nebuchadnezzar, therefore, here affirms what is unique to God and acknowledges Daniel to be His prophet and minister.

When he calls angels holy deities, we have mentioned this already as an expression that should not seem surprising in a pagan, uninstructed in the true doctrine of faith and only just beginning to learn its basic principles. But we know this common view that angels were often conflated with the one God. Hence Nebuchadnezzar speaks in the ordinary and accepted language when he says, the spirit of the holy gods dwells in Daniel. It now follows: