Daniel 4:28-37

HOMILETICS

SECT. XVI.—NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S MADNESS (Chap. Daniel 4:28)

“Riches are not for ever; and doth the crown endure to all generations?” History presents us with many and great contrasts occurring in the experience of individuals, even in the course of a single day. The monarch who in the morning has swayed the sceptre over millions of his fellow-men, in the evening has been a solitary exile or a dishonoured corpse. Herod Agrippa, in the height of his prosperity, receives in the morning the idolatrous acclamations of thousands, and in the evening is the pitiable subject of a loathsome and incurable disease (Acts 12:21). But perhaps the most remarkable of such contrasts is that presented in this chapter. The most exalted of earthly monarchs in the morning, is in the evening eating grass with the beasts of the field. The section before us contains the fulfilment of the king’s dream and its interpretation. That fulfilment took place in the infliction of a species of madness, of which other instances are known, though happily of rare occurrence [119].

[119] The madness of Nebuchadnezzar, and so the genuineness of the whole chapter, denied by some from the absence of any mention of the occurrence in any other book of the Old Testament, and in any ancient heathen author. But mention in the former is unlikely; and the Greek historians are regarded as entirely worthless in respect to the older history of Asia; these writers, even Herodotus himself, saying nothing about Nebuchadnezzar at all. The object of the Chaldean historians, Berosus and Manetho, was to exalt their own nation, who were, therefore, not likely to mention the circumstance. Yet Berosus says that Nebuchadnezzar, after completing the threefold circumvallation around Babylon, “fell into a feeble state of health and died, having reigned forty-three years.” Abydenus, though in a confused manner, confirms the Scripture account, and says: “After this, as the Chaldeans relate, on ascending to the roof of his palace, he became inspired by some god [madness generally considered by the ancients as an inspiration], and delivered himself thus: ‘Babylonians, I, Nebuchadnezzar, foretell you a calamity that is to happen, which neither my ancestor Bel nor Queen Beltis can persuade the fates to avert. There shall come a Persian mule [one having parents of different countries], having your own gods in alliance with him, and he shall impose servitude upon you with the aid of a Mede, the boast of the Assyrians. Rather than this, would that some Charybdis or sea had engulfed him in utter destruction, or that he had been forced some other way through the desert, where there are no cities, and no path trodden by man, but where wild beasts feed and birds roam, where he must have wandered among rocks and precipices; and that I had found a happier end before becoming acquainted with such a disaster.’ Having thus said, he expired.” Even Bert-holdt is obliged to confess that “this rare legend is in its chief points identical with our account.”—Hengstenberg. A still more remarkable confirmation, however, has been discovered in a portion of the great Standard Inscription among the cuneiform monuments of the Babylonian empire brought to light by Rawlinson. Nebuchadnezzar there appears to say, after describing the construction of the most important of his great works: “For four years the seat of my kingdom did not rejoice my heart. In all my dominions 1 did not build a high place of power: the precious treasures of my kingdom I did not lay up. In Babylon, buildings for myself and the honour of my kingdom I did not lay out. In the worship of Merodach, my lord, the joy of my heart, in Babylon, the seat of his sovereignty, and the seat of my empire, I did not sing his praises; I did not furnish his altars with victims. Nor did I clear out the canals.”—Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, quoted by Dr. Taylor.

I. The time and place of the infliction. The time, twelvemonths after the dream—a sufficient period allowed for repentance. The opportunity, however, not improved. Sickbed resolutions often soon forgotten. Mere natural impressions evanescent. The time of the stroke was during the day, that it might be the more conspicuous as from the hand of God. The place was Babylon and the king’s own palace (Daniel 4:29). A palace, however gorgeous and well defended, not impervious to the stroke of affliction or the shaft of death.

II. The king’s employment at the time. “He walked in (or upon) the palace of the kingdom of Babylon” (Daniel 4:29). Perhaps walking on the roof and enjoying the prospect of the beautiful city on which he looked down, or promenading with his queen and courtiers in the celebrated hanging gardens of the palace. We have also the thoughts he was indulging and the language to which he was giving utterance. The king spake and said, “Is not this great Babylon [120], that I have built [121] for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:30). ‘The king was indulging in self-gratulation and glorying in the works of his own hands. Babylon was indeed at that time a glorious city, and Nebuchadnezzar was the person who had enlarged and beautified it [122]. But, like Herod Agrippa at Cæsarea, he gave not God the glory. In raising Babylon to the pitch of grandeur which it had attained, he had done it only to himself. He was now worshipping the idol of his own hands, and himself as its creator. God was not in all his thoughts. To forget God the great sin that characterises prince and peasant in an unregenerate state. The sin for which the nations shall in justice be “turned into hell,” as robbing God of His glory (Psalms 9:17; Psalms 50:22).

[120] “Great Babylon.” The whole city, we are told, formed a perfect square, each side of which was 15 miles long, making a circuit of 60 miles, and an area of 360 square miles. Its walls were perhaps the most stupendous that ever existed. Constructed of brick, cemented together with bitumen, which grows hard by being exposed to the air, they rose to the height of 350 feet, and were 87 feet thick! Twenty-five magnificent streets, running in parallel lines, 150 feet wide and 15 miles long, traversed the city from north to south, being intersected by 25 others of similar dimensions from west to east; these streets being terminated by a hundred brazen gates, and forming by their intersections 626 large squares with a circumference of 600 feet. What was most admired, however, was the temple of the god Bel and the two royal palaces; these last occupying a space of nearly three square miles, containing the celebrated hanging gardens, formed on vaulted terraces 4000 feet square, rising one above the other to the height of the walls; the topmost platform having a spacious basin filled with water from the Euphrates, forced up by a powerful hydraulic engine.—Gaussen.

[121] “Which I have built.” בְּנָה (benah), “he built,” designates here not the building or founding of a city; for the founding of Babylon took place in the earliest times after the Flood (Genesis 11.), being dedicated to the god Belus, or the mythic Semiramis, in prehistoric times; but the building up, the enlargement, the adorning of the city “for the house of the kingdom,” or a royal residence.—Keil.

[122] In the Standard Inscription the king says of Babylon, “The city which is the delight of my eyes, which I have glorified.” It is known that after Nebuchadnezzar had finished his military career, he set himself to improve his territory and beautify his capital. According to Herodotus, the city was built on both sides of the Euphrates, the extent of the outer wall being about 56 miles, though Ctesias makes it only 42; the area being thus five or six times that of London. The houses were frequently three or four storeys high. In each of the two divisions of the city was a fortress or stronghold, the one being the royal palace, the other the temple of Bel. The two portions of the city were united by a bridge, at each extremity of which was a royal palace. The city was not only renovated throughout by Nebuchadnezzar, but surrounded with several lines of fortifications, and increased by the addition of a new quarter. Having finished its walls and adorned its gates, he constructed a new palace, in the grounds of which, in order to gratify the taste of the queen, he formed the celebrated hanging gardens. Rawlinson, in his Appendix to Herodotus, quoted by Dr. Rule, says, “The more northern mound, now called the Mujellibeh, and crowned with the building called the Kasr, is undoubtedly a construction of Nebuchadnezzar, and may be almost certainly identified with the new palace, adjoining his father’s (Nabopolassar’s), which is ascribed to him. The size of this mound, about 700 yards each way, shows the area covered by the palace mentioned in our text. The buildings here are of superior material; and the sculptures and bas-reliefs found in them give evidence of superior magnificence. Solid masses of masonry, consisting of pale yellow bricks of excellent quality, each one, with very rare exceptions, stamped with the name and titles of Nebuchadnezzar, give attestation to the truth of his recorded exclamation, ‘Is not this great Babylon which I have built?’ ”

III. The infliction itself (Daniel 4:31). The king was struck with a species of madness, in which the sufferer imagines himself a beast and acts as such [123]. The stroke was—

(1.) Sudden. The words of vainglory were still in his mouth when there fell a voice from heaven, heard by Nebuchadnezzar if by no other, “O king Nebuchadnezzar! to thee it is spoken, The kingdom is departed from thee, &c. The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar” (Daniel 4:31). God’s strokes often slow, but sudden when they come “While they say, Peace and safety! then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:3).

(2.) Terrible. Reason was dethroned. The king suddenly imagines himself a beast, and begins to exhibit the instincts, cravings, and actions of such. As a madman, he is obliged to be removed from human society. “He was driven from men and did eat grass as oxen.” He was probably confined in a field, whither perhaps his changed instinct now led him, and where, as if bound with iron fetters, he indulges a bovine appetite with the beasts among which he herds. “Nebuchadnezzar,” says Matthew Henry, “would be more than a man, and God justly makes him less. God puts on a level with the beasts the man that sets up for a rival with his Maker.” The kingdom, as a matter of course, is for the time taken from him and administered by his nobles. His nails and the hair of his head and beard are allowed to grow, until the one looks like birds claws, and the other like eagles’ feathers. Alas, poor king! how changed from the glorious monarch surveying his city from the luxurious hanging gardens! And yet only a picture of the much sadder change that takes place with the sinner that is “driven away in his wickedness” by death. “The rich man died and was buried, and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment.”

(3.) Irremediable. Physicians might not be wanting, but physicians were in vain. Means might be employed to remove the madness, but means were utterly powerless. The science and skill of the wise men could effect nothing. The magicians, sorcerers, and Chaldeans tried their arts to no purpose. The case was hopeless in respect to any aid from man. It was not hopeless, indeed, in regard to God; but till the “seven times “were fulfilled, and it pleased God to remove the affliction, all the powers of earth and hell would be ineffectual. That time would mercifully come; but till then, no created might could break those “bands of iron and brass.” Resemblance and contrast to the case of the finally impenitent. No remedy to the burning tongue and still more burning conscience. Whoever enters the doleful regions of the lost leaves hope behind. As in Nebuchadnezzar’s case, there is hope from God for the sinner while on earth; but, at the bourne that separates the visible from the invisible world, the law is, “He that is filthy, let him be filthy still” (Revelation 22:11; Hebrews 9:27).

[123] In the view of Hengstenberg, the case was this: There is often in madness a violent desire after a free, solitary, wild life. In Nebuchadnezzar’s case, they humoured this propensity so far as it was feasible; only they had him watched that he might fall into no danger, and bound him with fetters that he might do himself no mischief. Probably they took care also that he should haunt those places only where he would not be exposed to the gaze of his subjects. Others, however, as Grotius, understand the binding with a band of iron and brass as referring to his kingdom, which was to be secured to him, rather than to his person. Probably both are intended. Keil observes that the malady of Nebuchadnezzar was that which is called insania zoanthropica, or, in the case of those who think themselves wolves, lycanthropia,—a malady in which men regard themselves as beasts, and imitate their manner of life. Dr. Pusey, who also considers the king’s madness a case of lycanthropy, quotes Dr. Brown, Commissioner of the Board of Lunacy for Scotland, who agrees in the same view, and says that the king probably “retained a perfect consciousness that he was Nebuchadnezzar during the whole course of his degradation.”

IV. Its continuance. “Seven times “were to pass over Nebuchadnezzar, and doubtless did so. “At the end of the days,” says the king himself in his relation of the case, “I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and my understanding returned unto me” (Daniel 4:34). The time, whatever it was—most probably seven years, as in chap. Daniel 11:13, margin, (see note [124] under the preceding section)—at length came to an end. What man could not effect, God then in His mercy did. The removal apparently connected with a humble acknowledgment, perhaps with an act of penitence and prayer. “I lifted up mine eyes unto heaven” [125]. Power in a single look that has submission, penitence, and prayer in it. “Look unto me and be ye saved.” “They looked unto Him and were lightened.” With such a look to heaven, in a mercifully granted gleam of consciousness, the king’s deliverance came. “And mine understanding returned unto me.” The seven dark and dismal years came to an end.

[124] “And I was established in my kingdom.” The supposed unlikeliness of this has been made an objection to the genuineness of the book. But, as Hengstenberg remarks, “several causes surely concurred to prevent the nobles from thinking of a change of rulers. Nebuchadnezzar was the pride of the nation; from his successor, Evil-Merodach, only mischief could be looked for; the highest officers in the realm must expect under him a deposition from their rank, as is so frequently the case in the East on a change of rulers. The general and the individual interest combined, therefore, to determine them to reserve the crown as long as possible for Nebuchadnezzar, in whose name and authority they were certainly not reluctant to rule without control.” To these reasons it may be added that the time during which the malady should continue was left uncertain, and might be short; or, if certain, the regency would only be for a definite period.

[125] “I lifted up mine eyes unto heaven.” Thus paraphrased by Grotius: “I prayed to the God of heaven.” By Junius: “Before, I looked prone to the earth; now I looked up to heaven.” By Calvin: “Now I regarded the hand of Him that smote me, and acknowledged God to be a just Judge and the Revenger of the proud.”

V. The result (Daniel 4:34). The result an obvious change for the better in Nebuchadnezzar’s spiritual condition. Probably his real conversion to God. The last thing related of him by the Spirit of God is the humble public confession which he made, and the noble testimony to the true God which, for the benefit of all men, he delivered in the edict contained in this chapter. With this mental deliverance and spiritual change came also restoration to his royal rank, and to more than his former prosperity. His case strikingly similar to that of Job, whose captivity the Lord turned after his penitent humiliation and confession (Job 42:1). Calvin observes that Nebuchadnezzar did not raise his eyes to heaven till God drew him to Himself, and that the dream was a kind of entrance and preparation for repentance. “As seed seems to lie putrid in the earth before it brings forth its fruit, God sometimes works by gentle processes, and provides for the teaching, which seemed a long time useless, becoming both efficacious and fruitful.” From Nebuchadnezzar’s madness we may notice—

1. The danger and intoxicating effect of long-continued prosperity. Israel was guarded against the sin into which Nebuchadnezzar fell, and which entailed on him his heavy affliction. “Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, &c. Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, &c. And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God; for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:11).

2. The abominable nature of pride in the sight of God. This especially the sin into which Nebuchadnezzar’s prosperity led him, and of which he makes special confession. Pride both a rivalry and a robbery of God, a deifying of the creature and an ignoring and despising of the Creator. The sin of Satan and of unregenerate men in general. “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God. God is not in all his thoughts” (Psalms 9:4).

3. The ability of God to abase and punish the proud. The lesson especially learned by Nebuchadnezzar from his affliction. Mind and body both under God’s control, and dependent on Him for their healthful preservation. His sustaining hand withdrawn, reason is dethroned, and the man of genius and intellect becomes a drivelling idiot. Diseases of every kind are but His servants and do His bidding. To madness, paralysis, and pain He has but to say “Come, and it cometh” (Matthew 8:9).

4. The certainty of divine threatenings unless averted by repentance. Months had passed away since the dream that so much disturbed the king’s peace. The dream and its interpretation, with the solemn exhortation of the prophet, had in the midst of his prosperity been forgotten. But God forgets not His threatenings. Judgment, though delayed, yet slumbers not. The warning unheeded, the hour of its fulfilment comes.

5. Mercy mingled with judgment in the present world. Gracious hopes held out to the penitent. The door of repentance kept open. Hope held out even to Nebuchadnezzar that the threatened punishment might be delayed, and would not be perpetual. What was faintly held out to him is made bright and clear to us in the Gospel. The bow in the cloud. In wrath God remembers mercy. The blood of the Surety shed, Justice can sheath her sword. This gracious state of things, however, confined to the present life. “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the judgment.”

6. The benefit of sanctified affliction. Nebuchadnezzar’s madness his greatest mercy. His loss of reason, and with that of everything but life, a greater gain to him than all his conquests. “Children,” said Themistocles, “we should have been undone, had we not been undone.” The best medicines often bitter and bad to take. “If our charity reach so far as to hope that Nebuchadnezzar did find mercy, we must admire free grace, by which he lost his wits for a while that he might save his soul for ever.”—M. Henry. It would be correct, though a paradox, to say he never truly had his senses till he lost them. So with multitudes; it was never well with them till it was ill.

7. The following are other useful reflections from the passage:—
(1.) Sin is of a hardening nature, retaining its hold in defiance of warnings and even of repeated punishments.

(2.) The most exalted of human beings is but an insignificant atom in the hand of Infinite Power.

(3.) God is never unmindful either of His threatenings or of His promises, which leave the impenitent nothing to hope, and the believing nothing to fear.

(4.) The punishments which God inflicts upon the wicked here or hereafter have relation to their character and demerits.

(5.) As the possession of reason is the highest distinction of man, so the continuance of our mental sanity, which might in one moment be deranged, either in sovereignty or in judgment, ought to inspire our most devout and daily gratitude to Him who is the author of it.—Cox.

8. The great lesson that Nebuchadnezzar was to learn from his affliction was GOD’S SUPREMACY AND GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD, or that “the heavens do rule” (Daniel 4:26). Two great disputes in the world, the one moral and the other intellectual. The first, whether God or man shall rule,—whether His will or mine shall be done. The second, whether an intelligent Supreme Being exercises a continual rule and providence in the world, or whether all happens according to blind fate or fixed natural laws; in other words, whether or not “the heavens do rule.” Objections against this:—

(1.) All things appear to happen according to fixed law, and to follow in a natural sequence of cause and effect.
(2.) The good suffer as well as the bad.
(3.) The innocent often suffer with and through the guilty.
(4.) The existence of sin and suffering at all in the world.
(5.) Men of the worst character often the highest and most prosperous.
(6.) Infants suffer and die.
(7.) The best and most useful often cut off prematurely in the midst, or even at the very beginning, of their usefulness. General answer to these objections:—We only know and see a part of God’s dealing. The web of Providence unfinished. Divine plans require time for their development. Eternity will solve all mysteries. What we know not now we shall know hereafter. Here we know only in part or in a fragmentary manner. Things will probably appear hereafter in a different light from what they do here. God alone sees the end from the beginning. Apparent evil often real good. Finite minds unable to judge the divine procedure. The present state subservient and preparatory to another. Special arguments that “the heavens do rule:”—
(1.) Right conduct, as a rule, brings peace and happiness.
(2.) Evil often overruled for good.
(3.) The wicked often signally and unexpectedly punished.
(4.) Sin and wrong-doing, as a rule, followed by suffering.
(5.) A sudden arrest often laid on high-handed wickedness.
(6.) Great events often made to turn upon and spring out of insignificant incidents.
(7.) Human life, on the whole, a state of comparative comfort, and the course of the world one of comparative regularity.
(8.) The laws of Nature beneficent, and such as to make suffering a consequence of sinning.
(9.) The history of nations, but more especially that of the Jewish people.
(10.) The facts of Christianity, with its origin, extension, and results even at the present day.