Mystery Babylon and the Stone Kingdom, part 104—Nebuchadnezzar goes nuts!
Hello, again! We continue this lesson where we left off in part 1. We are expounding chapter 4 of the book of Daniel. This is a narrative by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of ancient Babylon, ca. 605 B. C., not to be confused with the far more ancient king of the first Babylonian Empire, King Hammurabi, ca. 1750 B.C.
In this narrative, Nebuchadnezzar is relating to Daniel a dream that he had, expecting Daniel to give him the interpretation thereof.
Daniel 4: 11 The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth:
12 The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all: the beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it.
13 I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and, behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven;
What is a watcher? —the Aramaic word is iyr {eer}, which is a Chaldean name for an angelic being who watches over the affairs of men.
14 He cried aloud, and said thus, Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches, shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit: let the beasts get away from under it, and the fowls from his branches:
15 Nevertheless leave the stump of his roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth:
16 Let his heart be changed from man’s, and let a beast’s heart be given unto him; and let seven times pass over him.
17 This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.
18 This dream I king Nebuchadnezzar have seen. Now thou, O Belteshazzar {bale-tesh-ats-tsar’}, declare the interpretation thereof, forasmuch as all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to make known unto me the interpretation: but thou art able; for the spirit of the holy gods is in thee.
19 Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was astonied [astonied means to be stunned or appalled, and in this case, I think stunned is the better rendering] stunned for one hour, and his thoughts troubled him. The king spake, and said, Belteshazzar, let not the dream, or the interpretation thereof, trouble thee. Belteshazzar answered and said, My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies.
In other words, this looked like really bad news for the king, and nobody wants to be the messenger of bad news, especially to tyrant like King Nebuchadnezzar whose simple wave of his hand could result in summary execution of anyone in his empire.
So Daniel was saying as a preface that he would rather that this dream apply to the king’s enemies, but then Daniel proceeded to give the interpretation.
20 The tree that thou sawest, which grew, and was strong, whose height reached unto the heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth;
21 Whose leaves were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all; under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and upon whose branches the fowls of the heaven had their habitation:
22 It is thou, O king, that art grown and become strong: for thy greatness is grown, and reacheth unto heaven, and thy dominion to the end of the earth.
23 And whereas the king saw a watcher and an holy one coming down from heaven, and saying, Hew the tree down, and destroy it; yet leave the stump of the roots thereof in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts of the field, till seven times pass over him;
24 This is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree of the most High, which is come upon my lord the king:
25 That they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.
26 And whereas they commanded to leave the stump of the tree roots; thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule.
27 Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquility.
So Daniel finished the interpretation and then boldly—and yet kindly, I might add—pleaded with the king of Babylon to change his ways. Of course, the king refused to repent, or to change, and hence the next verse tells us:
28 All this came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar.
Before we go on with the details of how that came about, let us go back to the previous verse to make a serious point. Out of his own compassion for the king, Daniel begged him to do what? It says in the KJV, “break off thy sins by righteousness.”
The Aramaic word translated “break off” means just that. To break off thy sins means to cease to do evil. Then it says “by righteousness.” It clearly means that his ceasing from sinning will be evident by his doing what is right.
Out of curiosity, I pulled off the shelf my Catholic version of the Bible. This one is called the Confraternity Version which has the imprimatur (meaning the official Roman Catholic stamp of approval, this by Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York, dated 1961).
As you know, Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic monk whose study of the Scriptures led him to ultimately break with Rome. He was given to see that our justification, our right standing with God was by faith in the accomplished work of Jesus Christ.
Luther had spiritually wrestled all his life with the Roman Catholic concept that our good deeds of righteousness bring about our salvation. But the light of the Word of God finally broke through in Luther’s mind, as he saw that it was by faith alone that we are saved, and not by our works, lest we should boast that it was by our own doing that we obtained salvation.
And by the way, do you see what a Babylonian concept salvation-by-works really is? ...Because is that not the lesson the king of Babylon is about to learn? We are coming to that in verse 30 in just a minute.
And so I am now going to read Daniel 4, verse 24, from the Catholic Bible. Yes, it’s the same verse as verse 27 in most Bibles but the numbering varies slightly in this Catholic version.
You might want to follow along in your Bible as I read this Catholic version. It reads: “Therefore, O king, take my advice; atone for your sins by good deeds, and for your misdeeds by kindness to the poor; then your prosperity will be long.”
Do you see how the salvation-by-works doctrine is right there in the Bible? ...if you are reading the Catholic version. But the Aramaic word does not mean to “atone.” We do not redeem ourselves by our own good deeds; we are redeemed by the atonement accomplished by the shed blood of Jesus Christ once and for all.
After we have accepted this free gift of salvation by faith, we then demonstrate by our good works that our faith is genuine. The difference between the two systems of belief is 180 degrees apart. The religious-Babylon doctrine of salvation is the doctrine of salvation by our own works.
The Bible doctrine is that salvation is the free gift of God, appropriated by faith. One final point about the Catholic translation: Let me read it again and ask you to focus on the last clause:
“Therefore, O king, take my advice; atone for your sins by good deeds, and for your misdeeds by kindness to the poor; then your prosperity will be long.”
In other words, according to Catholic theology, Daniel promised the king that if he atoned for himself by his own works that then the king’s prosperity would be long. But that is not what it says. The KJV and most other versions have some form of uncertainty attached to the king’s repentance. For example, the KJV says, “it may be a lengthening of thy tranquility.”
In other words, Daniel knew that the decree of God was immutable, but yet he offered the thought that perhaps God would go easy on him if he repented. But here is what happened.
29 At the end of twelve months he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon.
30 The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?
Alright, do you see how the king of Babylon was claiming that his greatness was due to his own power and might? The issue is humanism. We are not discussing the king’s salvation at the moment, but only drawing the parallel between who gets credit for the great work, man or God.
Who gets the credit? ... whether it is the great work of building such a magnificent city empire, or the greatest work of all, our salvation to immortality. That’s the parallel and that is the issue. Is it God’s doing or is it man’s?
31 While the word was in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; The kingdom is departed from thee.
32 And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field: they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.
33 The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.
So, from the very hour of the king of Babylon’s prideful boast, the sentence was carried out. The king went crazy, he went mad, he lost his marbles, his elevator no longer stopped at all the floors. We have many colorful figures of speech to describe either a mild or a serious mental illness that is formally called insanity.
This particular syndrome which afflicted Nebuchadnezzar and which includes the eating of grass is called lycanthropy. It comes from the Greek language wherein they combined the word for wolf and the word for man—lycanthropy.
The person who suffers from this form of mental illness imagines himself to be a wolf or some other animal. In this case, the king of Babylon imagined himself to be an ox and thus he grazed on the grass of the pasture.
Oh, by the way, have you noticed in the entertainment media in the past decade or more, the multitude of movies, TV programs and books like the Twilight series—how so many of them seem to have vampires and werewolves at their core of the theme? I wonder what to make of that. Hmmm…
34 And at the end of the days [i.e., of the seven year sentence] I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation:
35 And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?
Can the reader say “amen” to King Nebuchadnezzar’s testimony here? I certainly can!
We shall once again interrupt the story. Understand that we needed to set the table with the whole story first. Then, in the next installment, we will begin “serving up” the food which is prepared for us in this story. Stay tuned.
(To be continued.)