Bible Commentary (1871–1879 Edition)
The King's Dream Fulfilled, DANIEL IV. and his Edict concerning it.
Ity Ood's providence has placed us (Jeremiah 29. 7). The wisU lioie is not so much against others, as for the king: a couunou loiiniila (2 Samuel 18. 32). It is not the language of uncharitable hatred. 30. The tree is the king. The branotua, the princes. The leaves, the soldiers. The nezzar's wife.) Hence infidels have doubted the Scripture account. But the latter is proved by thousands of bricks on the plain, the inscriptions of which have been deciphered, each marked "Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar." " Built," i. e., restored and enlarged (2 Chronicles 11. 5, 6). It is curious, all the bricks have been found with the stamped face downwards. Scarcely a figure in stone, or tablet, has been dug out of the rubbi.sh heaps of Babylon, whereas Nineveh abounds in them ; fulfilling Jeremiah 61. 37, "Babylon shall become heaps." The "J" is emphatic, by which he puts himself in the place of God; so the "my . . . my." He impiously opposes his might to God's, as though God's threat, uttered a year before, could never come to pass. He would be more than man; God, therefore, justly, makes him less than man. An acting over again of the fall ; Adam, once lord of the world and the very beasts (Genesis 1. 28; so Nebuchadnezzar ch. 2. 38), would be a god (Genesis 3. 5), tlierefore he must die Hke the beasts (Psalm 82. 6; 49. 12). The second Adam restores the forfeited inheritance (Psalm 8.
fruits, the revenues. The sliadow, the protectiou afforded to dependent states. 23. It Is t liou—He speaks pointedly, and without circumlocution (2 Samuel 12. 7). Whilst pitying the king, he uncompromisingly pronounces his sentence of punishment. Let ministers steer the mean between, on the one hand, fulminations against sinners under the pretext of zeal, without any symptom of compassion; and, on the other, flattery of sinners under the pretext of moderation, to tlie end of ^Ue eai-tli—(Jeremiah 27. 0-8.) To the Caspian, Euxine, and Atlantic seas. 24. decree of tUe Most Hlgli—what was termed in v. 17 by NebucUadncziiar " the decree of the watchers,'' is here more accurately termed by Daniel, " the decree of tlie Most High." They are but His ministers. 35. tliey gliall drive tliee—a Chaldee idiom for thou shall be driven. Hypochondriacal madness was his malady, which "drove" him under the fancy that he was a beast, to "dwell with the beasts;" v. 3t proves this, "mine understanding returned." The regency would leave him to roam in the large beast-abounding parks attached to the palace, ent grass—i.e., vegetables, or herbs In general (Genesis 3,
4-8). 31. While, &o.—In the very act of speaking, so that thei'e could be no doubt as to the connection between tho crime and the punishment. So Luke 12. 19, 20. O king ... to thee It is spoken—Notwithstanding thy kingiy power, to thee thy doom is now spoken, there is to be no further respite. 33. driven from men—as a maniac fancying himself a wild beast. It is possible, a conspiracy of his nobles may have co-operated towards his having been "driven" forth as an outcast, hairs . . . eagle's feathers—matted together, as the hair-like thick plumage of the ossifraga eagle. The "nails," by being left uncr.t for years, would become like "claws." 31. lifted up mine eyes unto heaven—whence the "voice" had issued (v. 3J) at the beginning of his visitation. Sudden mental derangement often has the effect of annihilating the whole interval, so that, when reason returns, the patient remembers only the event that immediately preceded his insanity. Nebuchadnezzar's looking up towards heaven was the first symptom of his "understanding" having "returned." Before, like the beasts, his eyes had been downward to the earth. Now, like Jonah's (Jonah 2. 1, 2,
18). they shall wet thee i. e., thou shalt be wet. till thoii know, itc.—(Psalm 83.17,18; Jeremiah 27.5.) 36. thou sSialt have known, &c.—a promise of spiritual grace to him, causing the judgment to humble, not harden, his heart, heavens do rule—the plural is used, as addressed to Nebuchadnezzar, the head of an organized earthly kingdom, with various principalities under the BupreiUH ruler. So "the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 4.
17 ; Grcrk, " kingdom of the heavens") Is a manifold organization, composed of various orders of angels, under the Most High (EphesianS 1. 20, 21; 3.10; Colossians 1. IG). 37. toroak off—as a galling yoke (Genesis 27. 40); sin is a heavy load (Matthew II. 28). LXX. and Vulgate translate not so well, " redeem," which is made an argument for Bomo's doctrine of the expiation of sins by meritorious works. Even translate it so, it can only mean, Kepeut and show the reality of thy repentance by works of justice and charity (cf. Luke 11. 41); so God will remit thy punishment. The trouble will be longer before it comes, or shorter when it does come. Cf. the cases of Hezekiali, Isaiah 38. 1-5; Nineveh, Jonah 3. .5-10; Jeremiah 18.7, 8. The change is not in God, but in the sinner who repents. As the king who had provoked God's judgments by sin, so he might avert it by a return to righteousness (cf. Psalm
4) out of the fish's belly, they are lifted up to heaven iu prayer. He turns to Him that smiteth him (Isaiah 9. 13), with tlie faint glimmer of reason left to him, and owns God's justice in punishing him. praised . . . him—praise is a sure sign of a soul spiritually healed (Psalm 116. 12, 14
Mark 5. 15, 18, 19). I . . . honoured him—implying that the cause of his chastisement was that he had before robbed God of His honour, everlasting dominion—not temporary or mutable, as a human king's dominion. 35. all ... as nothing—(Isaiah 40. 15, 17.) according to his will in . . . heaven—(Psalm 115. 3; 135. 6; Matthew 6. lii; Ephesians 1. 11.) army—the heavenly hosts, angels and starry orbs (cf. Isaiah 24. 21). none . . . stay his hand—
41. 1,2; Acts 8. 22). Probably, like most Oriental despots, Nebuchadnezzar had oppressed the poor by forcing them to labour in his great public works without adequate remuneration, if . . . lengtheningof. .. tranquillity—if haply thy present prosperity shall be prolonged. 39. twelve moitths—this respite was granted to him to leave him without excuse. So the 120 years granted Jbefore the flood (Genesis 6. 3). At the first announcement of the coming judgment he was alarmed, as Ahab (1 Kings 21.
lit., strike His hand. Image from striking the hand of another, to check him in doing anything (Isaiah 43. 13 ; 45.
9). Wliat doest thou—(Job 9. 12; Romans 9. 20.) 36. An inscription in the East India Company's Museum is read as describing the period of Nebuchadnezzar's insanity.
27), but did not thoroughly repent; so when judgment was not executed at once, he thought it would never come, and so returned to his former pride (Ecclesiastes 8. 11). in the palace—rather, upon the (flat) palace roof, whence he could contemplate the splendour of Babylon. So the heathen historian, Abydenus, records. The palace roof was the scene of the fall of another king (2 Samuel 11. 2). Tlie outer wall of Nebuchadnezzar's new palace embraced six miles; there were two otlrer embattled walls within, and a great tower, and three brazen gates. 30. Babylon that I have built—HERODOTUS ascribes the building of Babylon to Semiramis and Nitocris, his iiformant under the Persian dynasty giving him the Assyrian and Persian account. Bkrosus and Abydenus give the Babylonian accouiit, viz., that Nebuchadnezzar added much to the old fG. V. Smith.] In the so-called standard inscription read by Sir H. Rawlinson, Nebuchadnezzar relates that during four (?) years he cea.sed to lay out buildings, or to furnish with victims Merodach's altar, or to clear out the canals for irrigation. No other instance in the cuneiform inscriptions occurs of a king recording his own inaction, my counsellors . . . sought unto me—desired to have me, as formerly, to be their head, wearied witlxthe anarchy which 'prevailed in my absence (cf. note, v. 33); the likelihood of a conspiracy of the nobles is confirmed by this verse, majesty was added—my authority was greater than ever before (Job 42. 12; Proverbs 22. 4; Matthew 6. 33, "added"). 37. praise . . . extol . . . honour—He heaps word on word, as if he cannot *fty enough in praise of God. all whose works . . . truth . . . judgment i. e., are true and just (Revelation 15. 3; 16. 7). God has not dealt unjustly or too severely with me; whatever I have suffered, I deserved it all. It is a mark of true contrition to condemn one's self, and justify God (Psalm 51. 4) those' city, built a splendid palace and city walls. Heuodotus, the so-called "father of history," does not even mention Nebuchadnezzar. (Nitocris, to whom he attributes the Ueaulifying of Babylon, seems to have been Nebuchad-
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