The King’s Change of Heart
“Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and His ways judgment: and those that walk in pride He is able to abase.” Daniel 4:37
After telling Daniel his dream, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon demanded that Daniel give him the interpretation of it, but it would not be what the king expected, far from it. Daniel was somewhat fearful, not because he couldn’t interpret the king’s dream, but because he could which gives us an indication that Daniel knew that God’s judgment was about to fall on Babylon’s king. He was confident that God would reveal it to him, but he didn’t know how the king would react, hence his fear. Daniel remained silent for a time, worried also about how the king’s reaction would affect Daniel’s fellow Jews who were held in captivity. After some time passed, Daniel finally summoned the courage to tell the king the message of the dream and let the chips fall where they may.
Daniel began the interpretation by repeating the king’s description of his dream. He then began to break it down into its various parts. The tree was Nebuchadnezzar himself whose kingdom had grown to cover much of the known world, and there had never been another kingdom as rich and powerful as his. That was the “good news”, but then on to the “bad news”. The cutting down of the tree, leaving only a stump surrounded by bands of iron and brass amid a field of grass was a picture of Nebuchadnezzar driven from his royal, wealthy throne by men and made to live like an animal, eating grass and being wet and miserable for seven years. The purpose in Nebuchadnezzar’s undergoing such a humbling, degrading, and intimidating time in his life would be so that he would come to know that God rules over men and can place any man He chooses in any position He chooses. The men who were to drive him from his throne and the reason for them doing so were not revealed. The minds of these men would be directed by God. Man has free will, but God knows man’s heart and how he will react in every situation. By this, God uses unbelievers to carry out His plans, but their choice to do good or evil is theirs to make.
Nebuchadnezzar’s downfall and subsequent time living as an animal would only be temporary but would last as long as necessary to bring him to acknowledge the God of heaven as the one true God. This was the meaning of the stump and roots being left in the ground. The king would be able to reclaim his throne when he confessed that it was God who alone gave him the privilege to reign among the inhabitants of Babylon. The bands of brass and iron which would surround the stump were placed there to ensure the king’s inability to remove himself from this bondage until the time of his confession.
Daniel urged the king to please accept his counsel concerning the king’s lifetime of selfish, egotistical, hedonistic, and sinful behavior. Nebuchadnezzar was being given an opportunity to avoid a sentence of a temporary life in the wilderness among the beasts of the field. All he had to do was to humble himself and become a benevolent, loving, and merciful ruler to the poor and needy. Great cities were usually built on the backs of the poor who were forced into slave labor to be able to eat. If the king had a change of heart prior to the fulfillment of the dream, perhaps he would have been more receptive to the ways of God which could have possibly led to a belief in the promise of a Redeemer. To his detriment, Nebuchadnezzar would not follow Daniel’s counsel. He apparently thought that he was too big and important to fail.
God was exceedingly patient with Nebuchadnezzar, giving him an entire year to repent. The king would walk among the halls of his palace, admiring the grandeur and beauty and never considering God who had allowed him his privileged life. He believed that everything that he had accumulated and had accomplished was all of his own doing. All of a sudden, a voice came down from heaven, saying, “O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; The kingdom is departed from thee” (4:31). Soon a group of men, unknown to us, removed him from the palace to the countryside. His dream had come true. He lived like an animal, ate grass like oxen, remained wet with dew, his hair and beard grew long and matted, and his nails grew long and sharp like those of the claws of birds. He remained this way for seven years. He had no memory of his past.
When the seven years were up, God restored Nebuchadnezzar to his right mind just as quickly as it had been taken from him. I can picture him standing up as all of his memories flooded back into his mind except for one thing: gone was the arrogance, ego, and pride that had consumed his entire previous life. He realized that his entire being was dependent on God. He turned his eyes toward heaven, praising “the God of Israel who lives forever and whose dominion is everlasting from generation to generation” (4:34). When a sinner comes to see himself or herself how God sees them, that is, one whose sin has caused a broken fellowship with the Creator, and upon that conviction turns away from sin and places faith in Jesus Christ, his or her attitude should be one of gratitude and praise. Sometimes it requires a “wilderness experience” of one sort or another to awaken a sinner to his or her need of the Savior. We should be forever grateful that God loves us enough to do whatever is necessary to woo us into a right relationship with Him particularly when we consider what an extremely high price God paid to bring reconciliation to us.