How does revelation in Daniel 2 relate to apocalyptic revelation, to the term “revelation,” and to the institutionalized forms of revelation claimed by the premodern church-state? Secular modernity reacts against biblical revelation because it was used to justify the misuse of power. Without divine revelation there is no heresy, a capital offense. Modernity views with suspicion institutional entities that systematize power on the grounds of revelation, and it views with alarm the approach of wilder-eyed groups inspired by warfare in the New Testament book of Apocalypse, which is another word for revelation. But the revelation of mystery in Daniel 2 saves Judean exiles and Babylonian sages from physical violence neither could enact, so how does revelation in the Tanakh relate to claimed forms of it in premodern Europe?