therefore ye wish me, by your repeated requests to relate the dream, only to gain time, to extend the case, because ye fear the threatened punishment (Klief.). דּי כּל־קבל, wholly because; not, withstanding that (Hitz.). As to the last words of Dan 2:8, see under Dan 2:5.
Verse 9
Dan 2:9 הן דּי is equivalent to אם אשׁר, quodsi. “The דּי supposes the fact of the foregoing passage, and brings it into express relation to the conditional clause” (Kran.). דּתכון does not mean, your design or opinion, or your lot (Mich., Hitz., Maur.), but dat is law, decree, sentence; דּתכון, the sentence that is going forth or has gone forth against you, i.e., according to Dan 2:5, the sentence of death. חדה, one, or the one and no other. This judgment is founded on the following passage, in which the cop. וis to be explained as equivalent to namely. וּשׁחיתה כּדבה, lies and pernicious words, are united together for the purpose of strengthening the idea, in the sense of wicked lies (Hitz.). הזמנתון is not to be read, as Häv., v. Leng., Maur., and Kran. do, as the Aphel הזמנתּוּן: ye have prepared or resolved to say; for in the Aphel this word (זמן) means to appoint or summon a person, but not to prepare or appoint a thing (see Buxt. Lex. Tal. s. v.). And the supposition that the king addressed the Chaldeans as the speakers appointed by the whole company of the wise men (Kran.) has no place in the text. The Kethiv הזּמּנתּוּן is to be read as Ithpa. for הזדּמּנתּוּן according to the Keri (cf. hizakuw הזּכּוּ for הזדּכּוּ, Isa 1:16), meaning inter se convenire, as the old interpreters rendered it. “Till the time be changed,” i.e., till the king either drop the matter, or till they learn something more particular about the dream through some circumstances that may arise. The lies which Nebuchadnezzar charged the wise men with, consisted in the explanation which they promised if he would tell them the dream, while their desire to hear the dream contained a proof that they had not the faculty of revealing secrets. The words of the king clearly show that he knew the dream, for otherwise he would not have been able to know whether the wise men spoke the truth in telling him the dream (Klief.).
Verse 10
Since the king persisted in his demand, the Chaldeans were compelled to confess that they could not tell the dream. This confession, however, they seek to conceal under the explanation that compliance with the king's request was beyond human power, - a request which no great or mighty king had ever before made of any magician or astrologer, and which was possible only with the gods, who however do not dwell among mortals. דּי כּל־קבל does
