Nebuchadnezzar’s 2nd Dream & Humiliation
This entire chapter is an open letter from Nebuchadnezzar to all the people of earth.
😐 Does that include us?
Well, I suppose it does.
🤓 That’s cool – getting a letter from King Nebuchadnezzar.
🤔 If it was to all people’s do you think it was written in a bunch of different languages?
🤓 Yeah! Could there be a copy in ancient Egyptian or Chinese?
I suppose there could be copies of it in other ancient languages buried in some long-lost cache of ancient records.
🤨 We should get into archeology and go looking for them.
☝🏼🤓 And it could be the basis for an adventure film… Raiders of the Lost Archives!
If there are snakes involved, 🐍 I’m out. Let’s get back to Daniel 4.
In this letter Nebuchadnezzar gives the account of his years of absence. If he were alive today, we’d probably call it his “testimony.”
He loses his reason for “seven period of time,” (probably seven years) as judgement for his pride and cruel wickedness. In the end he learns that the Most High (Yahweh) is in fact in charge of everything.
In the dream, Nebuchadnezzar is depicted as a great tree. And it’s interesting that the tree of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon is (in some ways) a bit like the tree of Christ in the Kingdom of God.
Nebuchadnezzar’s tree:
“The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth. Its leaves were beautiful and its fruit abundant, and in it was food for all. The beasts of the field found shade under it, and the birds of the heavens lived in its branches, and all flesh was fed from it.”
Daniel 4:11-12 ESV
Christ’s “tree” of the Kingdom of God:
“And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.””
Mark 4:30-32 ESV
The Bible begins and ends with a tree; the Tree of Life. Earthly kingdoms are but a poor imitation of the eternal kingdom of God. They are like the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Their fruit promises that people can be like God and know for themselves what is good and evil- on their own; without any input from God. But rebel trees always get cut down. John the Baptist told the arrogant religious leaders…
“Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Matthew 3:10 ESV
And that’s what happened to Nebuchadnezzar. His tree was cut down.
This whole episode is further evidence of what the king was told in his first dream about the future kingdoms. It is Yahweh who raises up and establishes kings and their kingdoms, and Yahweh Who may take them down as He wills; no matter how powerful.
The only kingdom that is truly powerful and permanent is the Kingdom of Heaven.
I’d like to take a moment to look at the characters mentioned in the dream – The Watchers. Who are they?
“I saw in the visions of my head as I lay in bed, and behold, a watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven.”
Daniel 4:13 ESV
This is obviously an angelic being. This is the only place in the Bible where angels are called “Watchers.” That’s what they’re called in the Book of Enoch. And they can be “holy ones” or rebels.
What people call “The Book of Enoch” is known by scholars as “First Enoch” because, technically, there are 3 books of Enoch. (Enoch 2 & 3 were composed later probably between the 1st and 6th centuries AD). First Enoch is the one alluded to and quoted in Jude in the NT. In fact, if you read 1st Enoch chapters 1-11, then Jude and 2 Peter 2 will make much more sense.
The Book of Enoch is organized like the Bible. It’s a book full of books.
The first book within the Book of Enoch is called The Book of the Watchers. (Click the link to read it yourself). It elaborates on the content of Genesis chapter 6: the fallen angels and the Nephilim giants. It also explains some things that Jude and Peter refer to: the “spirits in prison” which are never explained in the Bible. In chapters 12-16 Enoch is sent by God to announce to the fallen and imprisoned watchers that there is no chance of them ever getting out. They will receive no peace, no mercy, and no forgiveness. They are staying in prison until the final judgment after 70 generations.
In this way, Enoch is similar to Jesus. He also went and made an announcement to the spirits in prison:
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.”
1 Peter 3:18-20 ESV
Jesus is preaching to a very specific group. These are not human dead. These are “spirits in prison” who did some particular act of disobedience “in the days of Noah.” That profile best fits the fallen angels described in Enoch and Genesis 6.
🤔 What do you think Jesus said to them?
Maybe it was, “I win.”
In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, his sentence was decreed by the watchers in partnership with Yahweh.
“The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men.’”
Daniel 4:17 ESV
When interpreting the dream, Daniel reviews how the watcher has announced the judgment on Nebuchadnezzar and says,
“this is the interpretation, O king: It is a decree of the Most High, which has come upon my Lord the king,”
Daniel 4:24 ESV
🤔 So which is it? Who made the decision? God or the watchers?
Yes.
😐
Remember the scene with King Ahab and Jehoshaphat in 1 Kings 22 where the prophet Michaiah tells what he saw “behind the scenes” in the heavens? How God is surrounded by His angelic sons, “the host of heaven,” and He announces what He plans to do and then invites the collaboration of the heavenly host on how to get it done.
Daniel 4 is further evidence that this is how God works. He invites His family to have a real role in “the family business” of running the universe. We tend to think of angels as being more like minions or robots instead of intelligent, capable sons that God loves. The angels didn’t hatch from cosmic eggs or materialize from stardust or roll out on an assembly line in the heavenly angel factory. God made them. He is their progenitor; their Father. That’s why they are called “the sons of God” in Genesis 6, Deuteronomy 32, Psalm 82, and Job 1,2, and 38. And what’s really amazing is…
“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
John 1:12-13 KJV
(Also: Gal. 4:4-7, 1 John 3:1-2, Rom. 8:14-17)
When a person is “born again” they have to have a new Father. And the Apostle John says that the Father who desired us to be born is none other than God.
🤔 So… if God is the Father of the born-again Christian… and God is also the Father of the angels… does that make the angels our… siblings?
Well… I’m pretty sure that’s how families work.
🤓 Angelic brothers… That is SO cool!
😐 My brother is anything but angelic.
As are most earthly brothers.
After 7 years, Nebuchadnezzar’s mind was restored. And he was a changed man.
“Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.”
Daniel 4:37 ESV
We don’t know if Nebuchadnezzar kept his faith in God, but after a long lesson like that, it’s very possible he did.
I mean, that statement… it’s more than a lot of church-goers would profess. In fact, I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if we were to bump into old Nebuchadnezzar in heaven some day.
I can’t say the same for his grandson. We’ll meet him – absolute wretch – in the next chapter.
To The Reader 