Nebuchadnezzar's Second Dream (Daniel 4)

Daniel's friend King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream about a large magnificent tree.  An angel descends from heaven and orders the tree to be cut down.  The stump of the tree is to remain and live among the animals until seven times pass.

This upsets King Nebuchadnezzar who assembles his usual advisors to interpret it.  Eventually, it is Daniel's turn.  Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar that the king will lose his sanity for seven years and he will live among the animals.  After this time, the king will acknowledge God and both his sanity and kingdom will be restored.

I am unaware of any other time in the Bible where God takes away people's free will like this.  We will encounter demoniacs in the New Testament who have lost their free will, but this is different. 

A practical question emerges - if the king loses his free will, how can he acknowledge God?  It would seem like it should be a free acknowledgement of God to count.  A few possibilities come to me:

1.  The animals already acknowledge God and this is a natural fruit of being an animal.  It was only at seven years where God allowed him to speak like a human and acknowledge God.

2.  At seven years, God will give a taste of free will back to him.  At that point, he will see the mess of what his body has become, remember what Daniel said, and then understand.

There is also an interesting nuance in the language in the chapter.  It appears to be structured like this:

Verses 1-3 - Nebuchadnezzar praises God in the first person.  He is speaking from personal belief and conviction that God is "Most High".

Verses 4-27 - Nebuchadnezzar speaks of the dream and interacting with Daniel in the first person.  He also quotes himself and refers to Daniel as being filled with the spirits of the gods.  Here, there is no indication that he believes God is "Most High".  However, he is quoting himself.

Verses 28-33 - Nebuchadnezzar becomes like an animal.  The language is in the third person.  

Verses 34-37 - Nebuchadnezzar's sanity is restored and he praises God as the "King of Heaven".  The language is now in the first person.

I think Nebuchadnezzar wrote all of chapter 4.  Most of it is in the first person from his perspective with the exception of the break where he becomes an animal.  There, he is no longer himself and takes no ownership of what happened.  He can only talk about it in the third person because it was so different than his normal life and in fact, it was not his conscious state.

Similarly, the language about God takes a similar journey.  It begins and ends with a reflection about the sovereignty of God.  What he states in the middle reflects the idea that God is one of many gods, but he is quoting himself in the past tense.  Rather, chapter 4 is his own spiritual journey.  It begins with where he is now and then explores how he got there.  

The fiery furnace (Daniel 3)

King Nebuchadnezzar makes a large golden image and decrees everyone should worship it when they hear the official music.  It could very well have been that he got this idea from the dream in which Daniel - and Daniel's God! - said that the head of gold of the statue was Babylon. 

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to worship this statue.  Their enemies tell the king who questions them.  They tell the king that they refuse to worship this statue and will rely on their God for deliverance.  

This angers the king who throws them into a fiery furnace.  The fire is so hot that it kills the soldiers that took the three Jews to the fiery pit.  The king then notices that four individuals are walking around the fire and that one of them looks like the "son of the gods". 

He releases them from the fiery furnace and there is no indication at all they were in the promising of fire, not even smoke on their clothes.  The king then praises their God, and what seems to be a growing pattern for him, the king decrees that anyone who blasphemes their God be cut into pieces.  He also promotes them as administrators within the empire.

The king was probably hoping that this fourth man come out and talk with the king.  That would have been an interesting conversation.  In the text, he later says that this figure was an angel sent to protect them and no longer describes him as a "son of the gods".

Daniel 3 presents another lesson for those in Babylonian captivity - do not worship the local gods.

Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel 2)

King Nebuchadnezzar has a disturbing dream that leaves him quite shaken.  In fact, his actions afterwards are rash and impulsive.  We see very little of him as a man, but his response seems to be a far contrast to the wisdom he exercised in Daniel 1 in which he educated select people of the royal family of Judah.

The king wants the dream interpreted and summons his magicians and enchanters.  He does not tell them the dream because he wants the interpreter to tell him the dream.  This shows some bit of skepticism and even some wisdom.  He wants proof that the interpretation is correct and the proof is that the interpreter must tell him what the dream actually was.

The magicians cannot tell him what the dream was.  

The king overreacts and decrees that all of the wise men of the realm must die.  We are not just talking about the magicians, but also all the wise men.  This is basically a Stalinist purge of the all the advisors of Babylon.  The king does not trust anyone.  The over-inclusive group includes Daniel and his three comrades.

The soldiers come to put Daniel to death and he immediately asks for a delay to see the king himself.  That night, he gets a vision from God in which he sees the dream that the king had and the next day, goes before the king and interprets it.

The dream was of a statue made of different materials.  A golden head, arms and chest of silver, thighs of bronze, and legs of iron and clay.  A massive stone smacks and breaks the statue.  Daniel interprets the statue to be represent a succession of empires beginning with the golden head of Babylon.  There will be three other empires before the kingdom of God comes, an empire more powerful than others.

The king is impressed.  He falls prostrate and gives Daniel a promotion - an entire province to administer.

There are a few similarities with that of Joseph and Pharaoh's dreams in Genesis 41.  In particular, the man of God interpreted the dream and the king was so impressed that he immediately gives the man of God a significant power and authority.  One interesting difference between them is that the Pharaoh told Joseph what the dreams were.  But that does not matter too much because as Daniel's story shows, God would just reveal the dream to another if necessary.

So, as for the statue, I think the common interpretation from the Christian perspective is the following:

1.  Golden head = Babylon (this is stated in the text)

2.  Chest/arms of silver = Persian empire (text states it is an inferior empire)

3.  Bronze thighs = Greek empire (text states it will take over the entire world; although the Alexander the Great did not literally conquer all 7 continents of the world, he conquered the entire known world and famously cried because there was nothing else to conquer.  Bronze was the choice metal of the Greek infantry)

4.  Iron legs = Roman empire (The Romans used a lot of iron in their infantry and the text states that it would be an empire divided.  Divisions of empires happen in just about every empire, the Greek itself was partitioned into 5 after Alexander's death.  But the Roman empire was famously divided between the Roman and the Byzantine, but this did not happen until it had reached its height)

From a Christian perspective, the rock hitting the iron legs represents the kingdom of God emerging during the Roman empire.  This would be Christ.

So, a few interesting questions:

what effect this would have on the Jewish captives in Babylon?  

How do contemporary Jews today interpret this?  (similarly, how they deal with the crucified Messiah of Isaiah?)

Was God's primary purpose of giving this dream to King Nebuchadnezzar simply to promote Daniel?  God could have given this dream directly to Daniel.  So, I think it perhaps it was.

Daniel at Babylon (Daniel 1)

Daniel was born in Judah.

King Nebuchadnezzar sieged Jerusalem and his army carried away people and goodies back to Babylon.

While in Babylon, the king decides to use people of the royal families of Israel (and perhaps others nation's he conquered) into his service.  He gives them a period of a few years of educate to learn the Babylonian language as well as their literature.

The story focuses on four people, of which Daniel is the principal.  Presumably, there were others as well.

They are given the king's choice food and wine.  Daniel rejects it.  The text refers to the king's food as defiling food.  Daniel asks for him and his three friends to be given a vegetarian diet for ten days and after this time, they are healthier than those eating the king's food.

Here we have the first stage of the Babylonian captivity.  The central question is how to remain a Jewish identity while in Babylon.  The first big issue is food.  We know about all the rules from Leviticus.  Well, there were no prohibitions about eating vegetables in contrast to all the meat rules.  So, the answer proposed in Daniel 1 about how to remain Jewish - go vegetarian.

Other parts of acclimating are acceptable.  For instance, each of the three other men are given local Babylonian names and they are forever more commonly known by their Babylonian names -  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Likewise, the whole introduction focuses on their future role within the Babylonian empire.  They learn the language, get a local education, and will be administrators within this country.  These are acceptable ways to acclimating to the local area.  

After several years, Daniel and his three friends surpass the other pupils.