Original Meaning

Nebuchadnezzar’s Decree to Praise the Lord (4:1–3)

THE LAST TWO chapters concluded with Nebuchadnezzar’s praise of the Lord, but Daniel 4 departs from the pattern and begins (as well as ends) with Nebuchadnezzar’s praise. one of the effects of this structure is to remove suspense concerning the nature of the outcome, but it does raise the reader’s interest in discovering what leads to Nebuchadnezzar’s joyful outburst. Another effect of the preface to the story, as Dana Fewell points out, is that “as an official proclamation, the piece has an air of reality, an atmosphere of authority.”7

The outburst is more than spontaneous; it has the form of an official proclamation directed throughout the world. As a matter of fact, Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom stretched from what is today Egypt to western Iran and from modern Syria into Saudi Arabia, encompassing many different cultures and language groups.

The content of his praise is somewhat general, but it highlights God’s sovereignty and the wonderful nature of his interaction with the world. The following story is the specification of the events behind the general praise.8

Bridging Contexts

WHO IS IN control? As we turn our attention to the relevance of Daniel 4 today, we are tempted to pick up quickly on verse 37b. That God humbles the proud is a message as clearly relevant to today as it was at the time of Nebuchadnezzar. However, to move directly to this important moral lesson bypasses the overarching concern of the chapter, which is that God protects his faithful people in spite of the odds. The purpose of the story is to encourage their confidence in the light of their helplessness before a seemingly all-powerful human ruler.

After all, while most people are not bound in chains and forced into slave labor, Nebuchadnezzar controls their fate, at least seemingly. This account of his dream and madness rips away the facade and shows the reality of who is in control—not Nebuchadnezzar, but God, who calls the shots. Again, fitting in with a major theme of the book, this chapter teaches that God is sovereign (see Introduction). He uses Nebuchadnezzar as he uses all human powers, even those hostile to his name, for his own purposes. Nebuchadnezzar is Yahweh’s tool. The king wins victories only when God gives them to him (Dan. 1:1–2); he understands his dreams only when God reveals their meaning through Daniel, his servant (chs. 2 and 4). Nebuchadnezzar cannot harm a hair on the head of one of God’s people (ch. 3). The book of Daniel reveals that the Babylonian king is powerless in his own right.

Nebuchadnezzar himself has a hard time seeing it this way. After all, he leads the army, and his treasuries pay for the tremendous building efforts that take place during his reign. As he looks at other men and women around him, he obviously is the most powerful. Not only can he make and break other individuals, but whole nations bow before him. He sits on his throne and people cower because they know he has the power of life and death over them.

The book of Daniel, however, does not portray Nebuchadnezzar as an unsympathetic figure. Daniel appears to care about him and seems honestly chagrined when a difficult fate is decreed for him. As readers, we feel the same ambivalence. The doxological introduction to this chapter in particular makes us feel that Nebuchadnezzar is on our side again, and throughout the chapter there is no harmful move against God’s people. Indeed, after another failure of his native band of dream interpreters to come through for him, he quickly sends for Daniel, whom he compliments from his pagan perspective as having the “spirit of the holy gods” in him.

However, even if we, along with Daniel, want Nebuchadnezzar to avoid his terrifying fate, the text does not allow our hopes to blossom. Although chronologically there is a gap of twelve months between the warning (v. 27) and the fulfillment of its threat, narratively there is no time, for the very next verse (v. 28) quickly tells us “all this happened to King Nebuchadnezzar.”

The danger of pride. When we turn to the warning and its consequences, the account becomes a story of the danger of pride. Pride, in the negative sense, is a conception of one’s self-worth that exceeds the bounds of propriety. In the Bible, as we will see in the next section, those bounds are clearly associated with seeing our every achievement, status, and possession as gifts from God.

In our present story, Nebuchadnezzar’s vision of his accomplishments focuses solely on himself. As he looks out on the great city of Babylon, he sees the work of his own hands alone. Thus, God gives him a traumatic lesson to teach him the source of all his abilities and capacities by removing even his reason. Let Nebuchadnezzar glory in himself now as he roams the wilderness with the other animals, ripping grass from the ground with his teeth.

His reason, his exalted position, his wealth, and his power are ultimately returned to him, but only after he acknowledges God’s ultimate sovereignty. His restoration begins with the simple gesture of looking to heaven—a cry for help and the recognition of a superior power. It culminates in the praises delivered at the beginning and end of the chapter. God took this prideful, self-centered man and humbled him. Once he acknowledged that “all the peoples of the earth [including himself] are regarded as nothing” (v. 35), God makes him something again.

Is this a lesson for all of us? Again we are faced with the question of the relevance for us of a historical account that could have a unique, time-bound significance. After all, we are speaking of someone who played a special role in the history of God’s redemption. In one sense, none of us is like Nebuchadnezzar. But we have already seen that the historical narratives, particularly those in the first part of Daniel, have a broader purpose than simply historical remembrance. Earlier we quoted 1 Corinthians 10:6 to that effect; here let me cite Romans 15:4: “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

Nonetheless, we must also reckon with another source of discontinuity. Nebuchadnezzar was no ordinary human in another sense; he was king of the most powerful political entity in the world. In a sense, his power far exceeded that of any individual living today. The president of the United States has been called the most powerful individual alive, but unlike Nebuchadnezzar he is a temporary and elected official with restricted powers. On a human level, Nebuchadnezzar had none of those restrictions.

But even though Nebuchadnezzar may be an extreme example, pride potentially resides in all human beings. But does all pride get the same dramatic treatment as Nebuchadnezzar, or was the psalmist right when he said in Psalm 73:3–12:

I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

They have no struggles;

their bodies are healthy and strong.

They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills.

Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence.

From their callous hearts comes iniquity; the evil conceits of their minds know no limits.

They scoff, and speak with malice; in their arrogance they threaten oppression.

Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.

Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance.

They say, “How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?”

This is what the wicked are like— always carefree, they increase in wealth.

This we will explore in the next section.

The example of Jesus. But before we turn to Contemporary Significance, we need to introduce one more perspective on the passage that will also be more fully developed in the next section. We have already recognized that Jesus himself indicates that there are many passages of the Old Testament that pertain to his coming (Luke 24:25–27, 44–49).18 As Augustine said so well, “the New Testament in the Old is concealed, the Old is in the New revealed.”

Even without Jesus’ invitation and Augustine’s catchy motto, how could those of us who read the New Testament fail to think of Christ in the light of Nebuchadnezzar’s pride and shame? After all, Nebuchadnezzar was a mere man who glorified himself as if he were a god. Paul sings the following praise concerning Jesus (Phil. 2:6–11):

Who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

What can we make of the truly glorious one, God himself, who voluntarily humbles himself to take on the flesh of humankind in the light of a mortal who takes on divine airs?

Contemporary Significance

TAKING COMFORT IN KNOWING God is in control. As mentioned above, the overarching message of this chapter repeats an already common theme in the book. No matter what the odds, God is in control. Fate, or even intentional evil, may seem to have the upper hand against us, but the reality is that God is in control. In the present chapter, we observe this as God effortlessly reduces the most powerful man in the most sophisticated city in the world to a beast-like state in the wilderness.

God’s people are called to take comfort in this truth, whether they lived at the time of Nebuchadnezzar, at a later time of persecution, or even today. Today Christians in certain parts of the world feel the chain of persecution and oppression because of their faith. Just within the past few months of the time of the writing of this commentary, the media has reported incredible instances of Christian persecution at the hands of government authorities. A recent issue of Christianity Today contains reports of execution by beheading of two Filipino Christians in Saudi Arabia, of government officials who interfere with the spreading of the gospel in Serbia, and of attacks on the house churches of China.19

We as Christians in America and England, though chafing at occasional restrictions of the exercise of our religion, do not really experience true religious persecution at the hands of the state. Nonetheless, all Christians, including those of us who have unprecedented freedom to exercise religion, understand the feeling of facing an obstacle that seems insuperable. We all encounter an enemy over which we seem to have no power, whether that foe is a crippling disability, a psychological disorder, a terminal disease, an abusive spouse, or the like. In this sense, the message of Daniel is for all of us, not just the politically oppressed. No one escapes the frustrations and chaos of a world suffering from the effects of the Fall (Rom. 8:18–27).

God humbles the proud. But is the message of Daniel 4 true? Is God able to humble those who walk in pride (v. 37)? Is God able to defeat those who harm us and overcome the obstacles to life and faith that threaten to engulf us? Or is Daniel 4 just a thrilling story with little connection to reality?

(1) We have seen above that the composer of Psalm 73 had his doubts. It seemed to him that the arrogant had no problems. The Teacher in the book of Ecclesiastes struggled as well. His faith taught that the godly would prosper and arrogant and evil people would languish, but that is not what he saw in the world. Not only that, but he saw death as the ultimate victor over life, rendering all the good deeds and achievements of life meaningless. Even in death, the wicked were honored: “There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own hurt. Then too, I saw the wicked buried—those who used to come and go from the holy place and receive praise in the city where they did this” (Eccl. 8:9b-10).

Isn’t this also our experience? Who are the famous, the powerful, the wealthy, the tanned and smiling faces we see out there? Are they the faces of the saints? Occasionally, but more often than not they are the faces of those who sneer at religion and serve to undermine it.

But if we look more closely at the Bible, we do see that God humbles the proud. It began in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve enjoyed a close and intimate relationship with their Creator in the Garden. As the well-known story continues, however, their trust in God diminished, and they came, at the prompting of the serpent, to trust their own judgment. In a word, pride instigated them to break the one commandment that their friend and God told them to observe. As a result, their idyllic life in the Garden was transformed to a life of hard work and drudgery “under the sun.” They exchanged their glory for shame and ended up being humbled.20

Another story with notable connections to Daniel 4 is the account of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. Again, pride led to rebellion, even an assault on heaven itself. Human beings presumed to be godlike by building a staircase to heaven. God, however, intervened, reducing the arrogant to humility and scattering them over the face of the earth.

The humble faithful can find comfort in these accounts of the reversal of pride into shame. Indeed, the psalmist of Psalm 73 finally came to his senses (vv. 17–22). He was like a “brute beast” before God until he “entered the sanctuary of God" and “understood [the] final destiny” of the arrogant and prosperous people, who ignored or attacked God. In other words, his vision was expanded beyond immediate circumstances. While the proud ultimately will be "swept away by terrors” (v. 19), he proclaims as one of the oppressed faithful (vv. 23–24):

Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.

Certainly, I would agree that the passage cannot be read as a certain affirmation of life after death. However, I think it is wrong to attribute to this psalmist, struggling with the fact that proper rewards and punishments do not seem to be handed out in this life, a naive idea that “it’s all going to turn out all right after all in this life.”

And apart from Old Testament anticipation, the New Testament makes it even more clear that God is in control. He has won a victory over an enemy even more powerful than Nebuchadnezzar, over a kingdom even more deadly and oppressive than the Babylonian empire. He has defeated Satan and death itself. The book of Revelation, often likening the powers of evil to Babylon of old, shows God’s ultimate victory on behalf of his faithful people.21

(2) But before we pass on, we cannot neglect a warning. While Daniel 4 demonstrates God’s ability to humble the arrogant leader of a foreign oppressive empire—an enemy “out there,” so to speak—we must be careful concerning the pride that can infect our own lives. Christians are not immune from a pride that removes our eyes from God and places them squarely on ourselves. Indeed, it is precisely in situations like ours in the West, where we do not face active persecution, that this danger is most obvious.

After all, Christians have succeeded in business, in sports, in media, and in religion. We run large companies, score touchdowns in the NFL, write popular books, and pastor megachurches. The danger is there as we watch the thousands (or even the tens of thousands) of people who flock into our church to feel confident about the attractiveness of our preaching. The danger is there to feel satisfaction in the number of books we have sold or awards we have won. We have the same tendencies that Adam had as he walked intimately with God, but then trusted his own judgment more than God.

In other words, the message that God humbles the proud is not only a comfort; it is a warning to us all. With the psalmist (and unlike Nebuchadnezzar) we must remember Psalm 127:1:

Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.

Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain.

With Paul, rather than praising ourselves for our accomplishments, we must remember to boast only in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:29, 31; 2 Cor. 10:17).

Redemptive shame. This message is an important one to remember in our present day and age, where self-esteem is in and guilt and shame are out. Many people think that shame is inherently evil and that we must foster a strong sense of self-worth in ourselves and in others.

Don’t get me wrong. There is such a thing as a false sense of shame. Indeed, we must help people recognize when their shame is based on an incorrect perception or a false standard of success.22 But there is also a true and redemptive sense of shame that we should not hide under the carpet. A true shame is a shame engendered as a result of our rebellion and sin before God. It is when our sin is exposed before God and, at times, before other people, that our embarrassment can propel us into the arms of God.

This redemptive shame is the shame experienced by Nebuchadnezzar. His overweening pride was rightfully exposed, and he was shown to be a brute beast on his own power; even his sanity was a gift from God. His humiliating experience compelled him to look at God again, and he was restored to his former dignity.

Again, several psalms illustrate this dynamic. Psalm 30 embeds the story of someone whom God blessed so that he prospered greatly. However, he forgot that his success was a gift and began to focus his eyes on himself. At that point, God turned his back on the psalmist and let him feel the shame of powerlessness (Ps. 30:6–7):

When I felt secure, I said, “I will never be shaken.”

O LORD, when you favored me, you made my mountain stand firm;

but when you hid your face, I was dismayed.

This psalm, however, is not a lament; it is a psalm of thanksgiving. The shame that the author experienced caused him to flee to God again. The result is clear: “You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy” (v. 11).

Our God is a God who turns shame into rejoicing. But he does not do this by some sort of magical fiat. The gospel story is the story of God himself experiencing shame on our behalf. He subjected himself to the humiliation of the cross. Christ felt shame, but he underwent the experience in order to free us from shame and invite us to the glory of the resurrection. “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2).

Jesus endured the shame of the cross because of joy—joy in glorifying his Father, and joy in redeeming his brothers and sisters (see Heb. 12:11–12). We are invited to bear his disgrace and offer ourselves as a sacrifice of praise to God’s glory and goodness.23

1. Grammatically, this expression is ambiguous and could be translated “the spirit of the (holy) God” with reference to Yahweh, but Nebuchadnezzar’s use of such a phrase at this stage of the story would be strange. See B. Becking, “‘A Divine Spirit Is in You’: Notes on the Translation of the Phrase ruah ‘elahim in Daniel 5,14 and Related Texts,” in The Book of Daniel in the Light of New Findings (Leuven: University Press, 1993), 515–19.

2. N. W. Porteus, Daniel: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965), 65, rightly argues the pivotal nature of verse 25 in the chapter.

3. Note that Dan. 2:4b–7:28 is written in Aramaic rather than in Hebrew.

4. See the discussion in Collins, Daniel, 221.

5. A helpful discussion may be found in Collins, Daniel, 217–18. The Prayer of Nabonidus was first published in 1956 by J. T. Milik; cf. F. M. Cross, “Fragments of the Prayer of Nabonidus,” IEJ 34 (1984): 260–64.

6. Eusebius refers to this as the book of Abydenus, “Concerning the Assyrians”; cf. Collins, Daniel, 218–19, who gives a translation of the text.

7. Fewell, Circle of Sovereignty, 89.

8. Porteous, Daniel, 67, points out that Nebuchadnezzar’s language, particularly in v. 3, is similar to that found in the hymns of the Psalter (esp. Ps. 145:13).

9. Cf. Collins, Daniel, 22; Longman, Fictional Akkadian Autobiography.

10. S. Parpola, “The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy,” JNES 52 (1993): 167.

11. Ibid., 167–68.

12. Though there it usually refers to evil or fallen angels, cf. the Book of the Watchers (I Enoch 1–36)

13. A helpful discussion may be found in P. Coxon, “The Great Tree of Daniel 4,” in A Word in Season, J. D. Martin and P. R. Davies, eds. (Sheffield: JSOT, 1986), for the argument that the seven periods are symbolic rather than indicative of any specific time indicator (94), and for the assertion that the bands are of cultic significance (105).

14. M. Roaf, Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East (New York: Facts on File, 1990), 192–93. Of course, Herodotus’s report would be a century after Nebuchadnezzar, but the city’s opulence was at its height under Nebuchadnezzar. Indeed, he built the Hanging Gardens for his Median queen since she was used to hilly forests, not the flat plain on which Babylon was built.

15. Calvin, Daniel I, 189–90.

16. Many scholars (cf. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel, 112; Baldwin, Daniel, 109) diagnose Nebuchadnezzar’s illness as boathronpy or lycanthropy, where a human being thinks himself or herself as an ox, dog, or wolf. According to Baldwin, it is rarely seen today because the mentally ill are less likely to be allowed to roam the countryside. John Walton in a personal communication has drawn my attention to the fact that the description of Nebuchadnezzar’s “symptoms” is not very different from common Mesopotamian descriptions of those who are outside of civilization. Enkidu in the Gilgamesh Epic, Ahiqar in exile, the citizens of destroyed cities in city laments, Lugalbanda when abandoned by his companions—all are described in beast-like terms. Nebuchadnezzar considered himself the founder of Babylonian civilization, and he was driven out of it.

17. Fewell, Circle of Sovereignty, 101.

18. See above, pp. 26–27.

19. Christianity Today 41 (September 1, 1997): 70–71, 86–87.

20. See P. Coxon, “Another Look at Nebuchadnezzar’s Madness,” in The Book of Daniel in the Light of New Findings, ed. A. S. van der Woude (Leuven: University Press, 1993), 211–21.

21. We will reserve further discussion of this topic until the later chapters of Daniel, as the book’s focus turns from the stories centered in foreign courts to an account of Daniel’s vision of the future. G. K. Beale’s point that Christ’s title in Rev. 17:14 has its origin in Daniel 4:37 is relevant here. He argues that “by the application of this title to Christ, the author may view God’s sovereign humbling of the King of Babylon in Dan 4 as a typological prophecy of Christ’s sovereign defeat of the end-time foe who is closely associated with eschatological Babylon” (see “The Origin of the Title ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords’ in Revelation 17.14,” NTS 31 (1985): 620

22. For a helpful examination of false shame, see L. B. Smedes, Shame and Grace: Healing the Shame We Don’t Deserve (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993)

23. The quote from Heb. 12:2 and the concluding paragraph are taken from D. B. Allender and T. Longman III, Cry of the Soul (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993), 209; see chapters 14 and 15 for a more extensive discussion of the destructive power and redeeming possibilities of shame.

Original Meaning

The Dream Report and the Search for an Interpreter (4:4–18)

NEBUCHADNEZZAR NOW BEARS witness to the great and supernatural experience that he underwent. He speaks in the first person, employing a form similar to neo-Babylonian royal inscriptions.9 He begins by stating his prosperity and contentment. The chapter is not dated, but apparently comes at a time when the Babylonian kingdom experiences stability and success.

A dream, however, intrudes into the king’s peaceful mind, tormenting him with doubt and fear. His first impulse is to call his professional wise men into his presence. Unlike his earlier dream he tells them the present dream’s content, but they are still unable to offer a suitable interpretation. Their failure is a bit mystifying because Daniel’s later interpretation is not all that surprising. Nonetheless, the wise men’s failure causes the king to call Daniel.

On a psychological level, the modern reader might ask why he waited to call Daniel, considering his earlier success. The text does not give us the king’s motives, but the delay does differentiate Daniel from those who used traditional dream interpretation techniques and emphasizes his superiority, who is wise only because of the gift Yahweh has given him.

That Nebuchadnezzar still really hasn’t “gotten it” is indicated by the parenthetical comment at the end of verse 8. He refers to Daniel by his Babylonian name, which connects him to the king’s native god. Moreover, he speaks of Daniel as the one in whom the “spirit of the holy gods” dwells. Being a polytheist, Nebuchadnezzar has the intellectual framework to subsume Yahweh into his already existing theology.

The king then relates the contents of his dream. Its main feature is a huge tree in the middle of the land. This tree provides shade for all the animals, and its branches are the home of all the birds. The tree is the cosmic tree. It is planted in the “middle of the land,” thus a kind of axis mundi. It is a symbol of fertility, growth, and prosperity. It is not only a symbol of life, but also a life-giver, providing sustenance and protection to the animals.

This use of the tree as an image of the life-giving nature of the king has previously been used in biblical tradition (cf. Ezek. 17:1–10; 31:3–14, both also in judgment contexts). The story also connects with the ancient Near East. There is little about a “sacred" or “cosmic” tree in the literature of Mesopotamia, but the tree occurs as a major motif in the iconography. As Parpola has pointed out, “the Tree represents the divine world order maintained by the king as the representative of the god Assur, embodied in the winged disk hovering above the tree.”10 He alerts us to the fact that sometimes the king takes the place of the tree in the iconography; “in such scenes the king is portrayed as the human personification of the Tree. Thus if the Tree symbolized the divine world order, then the king himself represented the realization of that order in man, in other words, a true image of God, the Perfect Man.”¹¹ The implications for Daniel 4 are clear: Nebuchadnezzar’s dream shows that he identifies himself with the cosmic tree; he is the keeper of the cosmos, the true image of God, the Perfect Man.

After the description of the tree, the king narrates the plot. It begins with the appearance of a “messenger” (an Aramaic word better translated “watchman” or “watcher,” cf. NIV footnote). No doubt a supernatural being is meant (cf. the word’s apposition with “holy one”), which reminds us of the frequent use of the word “watchers” for angels in intertestamental literature.12

The watcher barks orders for the dismantling of the cosmic tree. All that is to be left is the stump, and around the stump a bronze band is to be placed. The stump indicates that even though the tree is to be desolated, it is not to be killed. The roots are not touched. The band of iron and bronze that is placed around the stump is a mystery to interpreters. Perhaps it emphasizes the fact that the tree is not to be killed, since the band protects what is left. This interpretive approach would be strengthened if such a practice were known from the ancient Near East, but no such evidence is available. others argue that the mention of the band is the first move from tree imagery to beast imagery. Indeed, the metaphors of the dream are a mixed lot, moving from tree to beast; the tree becomes a beast wandering the earth for “seven times,” usually understood to be years.13

The dream ends with the watcher’s proclamation concerning the motive behind this desolation. It is clearly expressed in verse 17: “that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men.”

With his account of the dream concluded, Nebuchadnezzar turns with confidence to Daniel in order to hear its interpretation.