Putting Down Kings

Welcome to Halting Toward Zion, the podcast where we limp like Jacob to the Promised Land and talk about life, the universe, and everything along the way. I’m Emily Maxson here with Greg Uttinger.

We’re talking today about Nebuchadnezzar. We are chronologically in the Babylonian exile. We’ve been talking about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, or Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. We’ve been hopping back and forth between Daniel and Ezekiel, as far as our text goes, and we are coming today to Daniel 4 and Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a tree, first of all.

We were talking earlier about why we’re talking about Nebuchadnezzar, and I, with a degree of smart-aleckness said, “Because that’s what’s next.” God thought it was important.

I want to point something out that I haven’t mentioned yet and don’t want to forget to mention. Do you realize that in the first four chapters of Daniel there is only one person who appears in each, and it’s not Daniel. It’s Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar is actually – to use literary terms – the dynamic character. He’s the one who changes the most. The young men, yes, they come of age. They mature in their faith. They take a stand. But Nebuchadnezzar goes from blatant pagan conqueror anti-Christ to a godly man who God uses to write scripture.

In fact, until we get to Dr. Luke in the gospels, he is the only Gentile who gets to write an entire chapter of scripture. He wrote it probably in his own thinking not as scripture as such, but he wrote it as a letter to the world – his world, which was quite large at the time – to tell them about his conversion. So it’s also one of those rare things in scripture, a conversion story, from a king.

Talk about politically incorrect. Here is a civil ruler using the channels of civil authority to tell people that he’s been converted to worship the God of Israel, the God of heaven, and that they should take note and consider doing likewise.

Boy, he would get flack today if he were an American president trying to do this, and unfortunately the flack would not be simply from the secular media. There would be a lot of Christians who would say, “That’s mixing church and state.” There are still Christian scholars and Christian denominations who haven’t forgiven Constantine for ending persecutions of Christians.

And that’s a funny thing that people come after Nebuchadnezzar for, after the scriptural account. They say that this conversion is not witnessed by any other document, so they say, “Oh, this is clearly false because there’s no other evidence that Nebuchadnezzar converted to Yahweh worship.”

Well, of course nobody else would write it down, because that means they lost. It wouldn’t be in any other religion’s interest to document the most powerful king in the world converting to the religion of Yahweh.

We have enough trouble trying to document the Christian convictions of our own presidents. There is still real debate as to whether Washington and Lincoln were Christians, and honestly I favor Lincoln over Washington because Lincoln had pastors whose churches he attended who said, “Of course he’s a Christian.” Washington’s a little more difficult. He kept his religion very private and never spoke about it in public, except in the broadest and most generic nature and nature’s God kind of stuff.

In America we have this marvelous tradition where every presidential candidate and elected official has to make mention of God and probably make mention of the Bible. He may not do any more than that, however. He may not use the name of Jesus. He may not speak of the Trinity. He may not speak of the law of God. He can only speak vaguely because we expect that, but when we come afterwards and try to track down his Christian faith, we have those dear Christian souls who say, “He mentioned God. See? He’s obviously a Christian.”

“Don’t you know how politics and propaganda work?”

Then there are others who say, “Well yeah, he mentioned God, but everybody did so that’s no evidence.”

“Well, in itself, no.”

“But he went to church.”

“Yeah, but that was probably window dressing.”

“What do you want exactly?”

I’m reminded, for other reasons, of Shakespeare. Was he really a Christian? What do you want? His writings reflect a Christian worldview. He was a member of the Anglican church. And he not only reflected a Christian worldview, he talks about forgiveness and the blood of Christ, not as a major theme because he’s doing tragedies mostly, and he’s not writing gospel tracts, and yet the understanding is clear. He does not attack it. He uses it and supports it, and he was a member of a church, and we know nothing otherwise against his character except he was an actor. If you want to believe that no actor can be saved, well, there you go.

This is interesting in that Nebuchadnezzar comes right out and says, “Look, I worship the God of heaven and he’s a very specific God. He’s not a god in general. He’s not the gods I used to worship. He is the God of Daniel, however.”

With that in mind, let’s find out about this proclamation he makes, this letter he writes, and just talk about some things in it as we go along. This is Daniel 4 –

Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; Peace be multiplied unto you.

Now, of course his kingdom was not worldwide, but in terms of the world they knew it covered a lot of territory – not as big actually as Persia or Greece or Rome, but still plenty big.

I thought it good to shew the signs and wonders that the high God hath wrought toward me. How great are his signs! and how mighty are his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation.

Here is a God who rules in the earth and is able to do signs and wonders, things that defy naturalistic explanation. Now he’s going to tell us about what exactly in the world he experienced.

I Nebuchadnezzar was at rest in mine house, and flourishing in my palace.

“Things were going fine. I’d conquered the world and was sitting back and relaxing.” He wanted to be remembered more as an architect and builder than as a conqueror – a brilliant general, secular historians tell us, up there along the lines of Napoleon and Alexander, but he rebuilt Babylon. He built the hanging gardens, tradition says, refurbished what had been the Tower of Babel, built his own palace, and made it a beautiful city.

We should talk more about the hanging gardens later, if we have time.

Okay. You probably know more about them than I do, actually. So he’s there just thinking about all of this, and apparently falls asleep.

I saw a dream which made me afraid…

This is not the kind of thing that world conquerors normally do.

Admit they got scared?

Yes, from a dream. Even in things like the Cuban missile crisis, it had to be long over before anybody came out and said, “Boy, that was terrifying. We almost blew up the world.” You don’t play that card until you have to, but he’s admitting it freely so he’s already kind of breaking the mold here.

…and the thoughts upon my bed and the visions of my head troubled me. Therefore made I a decree to bring in all the wise men of Babylon before me, that they might make known unto me the interpretation of the dream.

This should sound familiar. Been there, done this.

Then came in the magicians, the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers…

Various brands of magic practitioners. And this time he doesn’t insist that they tell him the dream first. He just blurts it out. He says –

I told the dream before them; but they did not make known unto me the interpretation thereof.

Okay, kind of like last time, but last time he met Daniel and this time he doesn’t go to Daniel right away, which is interesting. You would think he would remember how this played out last time and just say, “Cut out the middleman. Call Daniel in,” but he doesn’t. But at last finally Daniel comes in.

But at the last Daniel came in before me, whose name was Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god…

That is, the god he’d worshiped so far, all of his life until now.

…and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods…

Gods – that’s Elohim so it could mean plural pagan gods or it can mean the Creator, and that seems to be the intent here.

…and before him I told the dream, saying, O Belteshazzar, master of the magicians, because I know that the spirit of the holy gods [or of the Holy God] is in thee, and no secret troubleth thee, tell me the visions of my dream that I have seen, and the interpretation thereof. Thus were the visions of mine head in my bed…

This time he remembers it quite vividly and does not hesitate to tell what he saw.

I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great.The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth…

Meaning as far as you went. Some people have used this to argue for a flat earth, but we move on.

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.

Various religions and mythologies have their Tree of Life or their cosmic axis or their Yggdrasil or their world ash tree – some kind of great cosmic thing the world spins around that often looks like a tree, so the first thought would be, whatever this is, it’s really, really important. It’s important not simply in some kind of magical cosmic sense but it’s socially important, because the beasts and the fowls and everything rest in it, lodge in it, find shadow in it, and all flesh is fed of it. So this is more than just your ordinary garden apple tree. This is something big and special and really tall and it casts its shadow to the ends of the earth, apparently.

I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and, behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven;

It’s “a watcher, even a holy one.”

Is this an angel of some sort?

Apparently, yes, some kind of angelic presence. It’s probably not the watcher out of the Marvel universe who stands on the moon and watches earth and records. This is someone who works for God, a holy one. He came down from heaven.

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. 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. 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.

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.

This dream I king Nebuchadnezzar have seen. Now thou, O Belteshazzar, 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.

So why didn’t he call Daniel? Probably because he had a pretty good idea of where this was going. There are some sorts of news we don’t want. There are reasons we don’t phone back our doctor.

Let me clarify a question here. The angel said all of these things in the dream?

Yeah.

That’s not even the interpretation. That’s just the dream?

That’s just the dream. It’s pretty clear already.

So did he really need Daniel to…

No, he didn’t really need Daniel.

He was looking for someone to tell him it meant something else.

Yeah, pretty much. The amazing thing is that all the other wisemen couldn’t even get that far. Whether it was because they really couldn’t make sense of it, or because they had a sneaking suspicion where it went and they didn’t want to be the ones to say it is another matter. The only question is, “So this tree is…what?”

There’s, “Let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him.” That’s pretty clear. This thing is a human being with a man’s heart, and he’s going to lose the man’s heart and get that of a beast. “Nebuchadnezzar buddy, who do you think this is?”

“Who’s having the dream?”

Yeah. Who’s having the dream? Oh, Nebuchadnezzar’s having it. Right, Nebuchadnezzar. Yes, Nebuchadnezzar is having it. So what are we supposed to make of this?

First of all, Nebuchadnezzar is having this dream. He is a pagan king, and although he has been influenced on two occasions, maybe three, by Daniel and his friends and has acknowledged that their God is kind of special and unusual and can work miracles, and he likes Daniel and his friends apparently, although that wasn’t clear as of the last chapter when he threw three of them into the fiery furnace, but apparently they got along afterward –

The amazing thing is that God is revealing himself to a Gentile, an unbeliever even – not just a Gentile, but a Gentile unbeliever – who arguably has kind of played the role of anti-Christ. I mean he’s looted and sacked Jerusalem, taken away their king, set up another king, has laid siege to it, and at some point in here – I don’t know what year this is in his reign – if he hasn’t already, he’s going to destroy the city and the temple and carry the rest of the people captive. It is to such a person that God comes with a dream.

Now truly it is a terrible dream, a frightening dream, and yet like all of God’s messages, if God is still talking to you there’s hope. Some people have trouble with that. “God wouldn’t just come and say, ‘Judgment, destruction, doom, gloom, Sodom and Gomorrah.’”

That’s what Jonah said.

Yeah, Jonah is a good case in point. That’s exactly what Jonah said. But as long as God is still talking, even if he doesn’t say, “Repent,” you might as well try it because what have you got to lose right now? And there are times were God has accepted such repentance. He’s turned from his wrath.

Another example I was thinking of was Saul when he tries to consult with the evil spirit and Samuel shows up. People have argued, “That can’t really be Samuel because he would plead with him to repent.” No, he wouldn’t. We’ve been there and done that.

He spent his whole life doing that. He’s not going to do it after he’s dead.

Yeah, and that got nowhere. But he does talk to him and tell him, “You have 24 hours.” He’s already laid down everything Saul needs to do. Saul knows the gospel. Saul knows the need for repentance. Samuel in one last miracle by God’s grace is allowed to point out, “Judgment is right ahead. The train tracks are broken at the bridge. You’re about to go into the pit. Anything come to mind here?” Apparently not. So here is God revealing what could be a very terrible judgment.

We’re told what’s going to happen. Seven times will pass over him. I think writers have generally assumed seven years. It doesn’t say years but it may be years – seasons? months? probably more than days – long enough to make some kind of huge effect upon himself and upon the community in which he lived, his advisors and lords and such. Again it is going to be a significant judgment, and as Daniel hears this he is astonished.

Before we go on, going back to the point I was almost trying to make and should have – why is God talking to a Gentile king? At the moment, this Gentile king happens to be the caretaker of God’s people. For better or worse, whether they like it or not, whether the man is a God-fearer or not, here is the man who is the king of the covenant people, the one who rules over them, and he has been put there by God.

In fact, we don’t simply see it as, “Well, it happened so therefore God intended it.” In Jeremiah God says, “I’ve given all these kingdoms to Nebuchadnezzar, my servant. Submit. And if you don’t, I will judge you,” and he says this specifically to Judah.

When Zedekiah, the king of Judah, tries to get out of it, Jeremiah says, “No, surrender. Go out to him. You’ll live. The city will not fall.”

“But I’m afraid and stuff will happen…”

“No, just go do it.”

“Nooo, but thank you. Go back to your prison cell.”

Because of this role that God has given him, and that he will give other pagan kings – we can think here of Cyrus and Darius and some of these others – they are in effect Messiah figures, and thus the tree, the Tree of Life.

There are a couple sections of scripture, one we know well enough from Matthew 13. This is one of the agricultural parables. Jesus is talking about seeds and trees and such, and in verse 31 he says this –

The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all seeds but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

Here he’s emphasizing growing from something small to something big, but this image of a tree in which the birds come and lodge is common to both, and it’s not a bad thing. I’ve actually heard Bible teachers say, “Well, in scripture, birds are bad evil things because they’re unclean, so this just means the kingdom of God is going to descend into degradation and wickedness and evil powers and demons will come and nest in it.” Leaven is always evil is bad enough, but this is really distorting the parable.

The other passage is in Ezekiel, who was writing about the same time that Daniel was ministering. This is Ezekiel 17 starting in verse 22 –

Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar and will set it. I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon an high mountain and eminent. In the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit and be a goodly cedar, and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing. In the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell. And all the trees of the field shall know that I the LORD have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish. I the LORD have spoken and have done it.

That seems to be a picture of again Messiah’s kingdom, so there’s some similarity. It’s easy to think that only good whole pure men are fit types of Christ, but the very office itself can point to Christ. He’s the king of the world. Our evangelical friends may have trouble with that. “The king of the world, we know who that is. That’s anti-Christ.” No, it’s not.

That’s the funny thing about typology, is that it’s so often two sides of the same coin. The anti-Christ is not on a purely syntactical level. The anti doesn’t mean necessarily that he’s standing in opposition to Christ, although that’s what it means in English, but in the Greek the sense is much more he’s standing in the place of Christ. That can be a distortion and very much against Christ, or it can be he’s standing in his place representing Christ in a distorted way.

That’s something of what we have here. Nebuchadnezzar is supposed to be a Christ figure, but he’s not because of his personal character. We might think, “Well, there’s his public policy. He’s a tyrant. He wages war. He’s a conqueror, a warmonger. He’s warred against God’s people,” and yet when Daniel comes to analyze this he doesn’t point to any of that. He points to his ongoing work as a magistrate.

The problem with the way he conducts it is not that he’s not in touch with the best policies and the right procedures or he needs to restructure his Cabinet, he needs to reorganize the flow of power – none of that. Let’s look and see what Daniel says to all this.

Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was astonished 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.

Daniel has come to be fond of Nebuchadnezzar and to wish him well, despite the fact he’s still a pagan. He’s going to repeat the dream, largely.

The tree that thou sawest, which grew and was strong, whose height reached unto the heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth, 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. 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.

How messianic is that? “God has put you here in this role,” and that’s a major theme here. “This is not an accident of history. You didn’t get this because you were so smart and clever and powerful and such a great warrior. God has put you here, knowing full well that you’re an unbeliever, that you worship false gods. God has co-opted your reign in favor of his own kingdom. What are you going to do about that, because right now God is threatening judgment. You’re not doing it right.”

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. This is the interpretation, O king…

Do we need one? I think you just kind of implied it.

…and this is the decree of the most High, which is come upon my lord the king.

Yes, it’s announced by angels, but they’re not the originators. There is a God in heaven who stands behind all of this, the God who you say you appreciate. Well, you better start appreciating a whole lot more.

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.

“You have to acknowledge the sovereignty of God. You have to acknowledge his providential rule over creation.”

You know that the American Constitution says we can never ask a presidential candidate or office holder that question – “Do you believe in the sovereignty of God? Do you believe in his providential role?” We are forbidden to give any kind of religious test whatever to our public officials.

God did not hesitate to have a litmus test for Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel says, “This is God. It’s not enough for you to acknowledge that there’s this great god out there someplace who does nifty stuff for his servants. That’s insufficient. You’re going to have to acknowledge publicly and officially this doctrine we call the sovereignty of God. You’re going to have to become an operating Calvinist and announce it on paper.”

“I can’t do that. This is a pagan kingdom. The rest of the people don’t believe in that. How can you put yourself forward as a representative of the people when you’re going to say that you don’t share their religion?”

“God put me here?”

It’s also worth noting that God put him there before he made this confession.

Yes. God did not wait until he was converted. God put him in place to use him, and since he hasn’t gotten the clue, God is now intervening in his life in a very personal private and public way to get his attention.

God not only rules over the kingdoms of the world, but he gives them to whomsoever he will. If a kingdom has a king, God put that king there. We struggle with that sometimes as Christians, and particularly as American conservatives. “There’s no way God gave us our current president.”

“Sorry, yes, he did.”

“But he’s not a good man,” and everything follows, all the critiques. Yes, that kind of means that God thought that’s what we deserved, apparently, that he is in fact a proper representative of the American people. Does God have other plans beyond that? I don’t know. Have you been praying for our president lately? Daniel was concerned about his king, even though he was a pagan.

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.

“God’s going to do you a great favor. He’s going to hold your kingdom intact until you come back.”

We don’t know who received the power, who was the steward. It might have been Daniel himself, might not have been, but God used some means to make sure the kingdom didn’t fall apart. Probably part of it was Daniel’s assurance that, “He’s going to be sane again and you better have done the right thing when he is.”

Now, here’s where Daniel tells him what he needs to do –

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.

“Again, not your public policies, your philosophical determinations, your worldview. You have specific sins and you need to repent. You need to stop committing them,” and particularly he highlights showing mercy to the poor. “You’ve got a lot of wealth. There are poor people in your kingdom and your city. What have you done for them lately?”

Now, is this a welfare system? No. The king actually owned everything. In the American system, the federal government really isn’t supposed to be owning everything. In fact, it probably wasn’t supposed to own everything it does own now. Military bases and a plot of land for Washington DC was about as far as the founding fathers envisioned.

And military bases were questionable.

Yes. Embassies maybe, but it was very limited in what they were to own. But the king actually did own everything. Basically the king got rich and then he used his own private money to do whatever he wanted, whether it was to commit money to other lords or to programs or to people or to whatever he needed.

So Daniel basically says, “You are filthy rich. You got that way by conquering nations. Whatever, the fact is you have the money. There are poor people who need it.” This is personal charity. Yes, after a form it is governmental charity…

Only because the king is the government personified.

Yes, so this is not primarily a public or official reprimand or instruction. This is a personal one. “You have personal sins and you need to repent of them personally.”

Does the character of a ruler matter to God? Obviously. And what needs to happen is not a change in public policy, although that may follow and often will and should, but first of all how are you treating your wife? How are you treating your employees, your secretary? Are you trying to seduce her? Are you padding your expense account? Are you kicking your dog? Are you dumping trash in your neighbor’s yard?

What are you doing in your practical everyday affairs? Are you slandering people? Are you lying about them? What are you doing that is drawing God’s wrath down upon you? Let’s start with your private life. Let’s start with your personal character.

There was a time when personal character was an issue for American presidents. There was always the pushback on religious areas, but in terms of personal character – yes, there was always the two-party system, everyone attacking everybody’s personal character, so that was a given, but as late as Grover Cleveland we have this, “Wait, didn’t you have an illegitimate child?”

“Yes, but I’m a better president than the other guy.”

“Oh, okay.”

Then we get to John F. Kennedy and it was like, “There’s lots of stuff going on here, but the media really likes the guy so they’re not going to tell us anything.” Then we get to Bill Clinton, who is caught, as it were, red-handed and pants down, and suddenly the liberals are all, “But personal character doesn’t really matter. The question is, is he a good president?”

God has a different opinion on this. God looks at the man. Yes, he distinguishes the man in the office, and yet if the man is wicked it is eventually going to contaminate the office. And if the man is wicked, whether he’s in office or not, God still will have words with him. It’s just a question of how public they’re going to be, and how much the rest of the kingdom is going to be affected by it.

This was a huge problem with the Roman philosophers, if you can call them philosophers, since they didn’t really go in for that, being Romans. With Marcus Aurelius and classical authors, there is this distinction between public morality and private morality that is really unsustainable.

The Bible certainly doesn’t recognize any such division. Yes, it actually does matter, and our founding fathers in saying that we may not ask any religious question betrayed the nation, or what was becoming a nation at that point. All of the colonies and then the states had religious tests on their books. They were often very simple. “Do you believe in the God of the Bible? Do you accept the Protestant Christian religion? Do you at least believe the Bible is the Word of God and there is a last judgment?”

That shows up a lot because their assumption was, “If you don’t believe you’re going to have to answer one day for all this, why should we trust you? What is going to compel you to act in a civically righteous manner if you don’t believe there’s a God you’re going to have to answer to.” With others it was even clearer. “We’re not going to ask you what flavor of Christian you are, but you better be some kind of Christian if you’re going to hold office in this state.”

When we get to the federal Constitution, that was wiped away, presumably to keep those denominations and sects happy who were afraid of a state church, but there were ways that could have been phrased. It may not have been easy, but you could do something like, “Do you confess the doctrines confessed at Nicaea? Do you believe in the Creator God of scripture who is Father, Son, and Spirit? Do you believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world?” There are some very simple things that could have been asked. “Do you believe the Bible is the Word of God?” That would have eliminated a lot.

How about a simple moral question – “Have you cheated on your wife lately?” Given the Bible’s standard for church leaders you would think that civil leaders should have to answer similar questions. “How many prostitutes have you visited this week?” Why don’t we ask those questions? Because we don’t want to talk about their sins, because then we might have to talk about ours. Let’s just not talk about morality. Let’s make it an ethically-neutral field, where if you’re a good administrator that’s all that really matters.

That’s not what happened with Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel said, “If you repent, maybe God will postpone the judgment and lengthen your time of peace,” and apparently to some extent that happened.

All this came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of twelve months he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. 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?

Again, it was his building projects – not his prowess as a warrior or his genius as a tactician and strategist, but he was a great builder, and what we have that’s leftover, which is not a lot, gives us some hint that it was enormous and it was beautiful. Herodotus describes Babylon and his description is breathtaking. It was a huge beautiful city encompassing fields and pastures, with a river running through it and walls that chariots could pass each other on. So you think this is just manly pride, but God sees it differently.

While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken…

Notice that God calls him King Nebuchadnezzar, because that is part of this. We would say, “You old scumbag” probably, but God doesn’t. God treats him with the respect that God himself has imbued him with. He is a king. He’s just a wicked one.

The kingdom is departed from thee. 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.

We keep coming back to that theme of God’s sovereignty.

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.

Awhile back I noted that oxen and eagles are cherubic animals, but I thought then where’s the lion and the man? My wife said, “The lion has just been humbled to be an ox, as has the man.” Babylon in Daniel 7 is portrayed as a winged lion, and even there the emphasis is, “Yeah, and he gets his wings plucked.” So there are hints here of, “Nebuchadnezzar, you were a cherubic guardian of Israel. God honored you by letting you guard and take care of his people, and you screwed it up. So you get to go out in the field and eat grass like an ox.” How the stomach processes this, I don’t know, but God arranged for it.

Technically this is called boanthropy. It’s like lycanthropy, but lyca- is ‘wolf’ and bo- or bovine is ‘cow,’ for whatever that’s worth. And he’s out there for however long seven times is.

And at the end of the days, 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 for ever…

This is not a God who evolves out of chaos. This is an eternal God.

…whose dominion is an everlasting dominion…

Sovereignty of God.

… and his kingdom is from generation to generation.

He rules in the affairs of men.

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…

God’s will vs human will? God wins.

…and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?

It’s kind of like Rahab’s confession, quick and to the point, and it stresses the sovereignty of God, his complete control of history.

At the same time my reason returned unto me and for the glory of my kingdom, mine honour and brightness returned unto me, and my counsellers and my lords sought unto me and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me. Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment, and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.

I’m sure there are people who are unsatisfied because there’s no mention of him embracing the promise of Messiah or pointing to Israel or even to scripture, and yet his profession is more than we require of most people who come forward for church membership, baptism, or even just to receive Christ at the altar. It’s a profound recognition of the greatness of God, and not just God’s abstract greatness out there, his transcendence, but his immanence, his power and his reign right here.

“This is not a chance that happened to me. God did this to me. God humbled me. God took away my mind. God made me live like a beast, and then he graciously gave me back my kingdom. And my response is not resentment or chagrin, it is thanksgiving that he has humbled me and put me in a place where I can do good, and the first thing I want to do is tell the world about this God.”

It’s a pretty good confession and it comes at a key moment in redemptive history when we are turning the corner toward the Restoration and toward the scattering of Israel throughout the world, and the preparation for Messiah. God lets a Gentile king not only shepherd his people, but converts him, brings him to faith, and lets him write scripture.

Remember that the Hebrews had a king, depending on where we are in the timeline. He’s either cowering in Jerusalem or he’s in a prison cell in Babylon. This is the king with whom God works, and
“This is not the way it’s supposed to happen because God only works with nice Jewish people.” Israel needed to reevaluate her perceptions of history and politics and of the way God does things.

A covenant with God. There’s so much we could dig into here. I don’t think we have time to go into the gardens. I wanted to talk about them not because I know much about them as gardens, but just the typology of the garden in the city.

The garden in the city, and Babylon is a counterfeit to Jerusalem, most certainly. It was four-square. It’s a city of rivers, and in the center is this ziggurat. And depending on whether these were two separate things or the same thing – and I’ve seen interpretations that run both ways, that the ziggurat itself was a garden. Was that the hanging gardens or were the hanging gardens something else?

Whatever the case, the heart of the city was up high like a mountain and occupied with gardens that are somehow mechanically watered, because it takes some effort to pump water up there.

And this is the most beautiful city in the world, the best city in the world. It’s not one that’s urbanized and turned to concrete. It’s one that has life in the middle, but it’s not the life of Christ.

But they are offered a chance here, and we must assume, because destruction comes, that most people reject it. We don’t see a whole lot of hope here.

In the next story we do see the Queen Mother who comes forward and tells Belshazzar, “There’s this guy named Daniel.” She may have been a God-fearer. She may have been a believer. She may have realized, “He’s the only one who could save us out of this mess. You better talk to him, you little brat,” but she can’t say that to the king, so she has to kiss up and all.

So there probably were some people here and there who did profit, who may have come to Christ through this testimony. And who knows, in the hinterlands, the outlying lands, this decree went throughout all the world, and no doubt it got people’s attention. Now, what God did with that we have no way of knowing, but it is scripture and yet it was published throughout his empire. Again, this would be like the American State Department at the behest of the President taking a passage of scripture and sending it by federal mail to every citizen in the country, saying, “This is what your president believes. Take it seriously.”

Again, most people would scream, “Separation of church and state,” and those screaming the loudest might just be church people, particularly people affected by something called two-kingdom theology, in fact.

But Nebuchadnezzar does not see two kingdoms. He sees one kingdom. He works for the king, and his job is to forward the progress of that kingdom in time and history, and God’s kingdom is moving to becoming Messiah’s kingdom, as he already knew from his previous vision. The kingdom that God of heaven will set up in the last days is the kingdom of Messiah, and all that God is doing through Nebuchadnezzar – “No, it’s not about you, Nebuchadnezzar, so you can be glorified. You’re a tool. You’re an instrument. Go with that and be helpful, or resist that and be broken.”

God let him do a little of both, and in the end he comes out and says, “This king is truth. This king is mercy. This king is judgment. Fear him.” Only eternity will tell us how many people listened to him.

This is just one final nugget. Maybe you have something to say about this idea. The conversion into something that eats vegetables rather than meat – might that be a harkening back to the covenant with Noah, where God gave the animals to man for food? Sort of a withdrawing of that, even?

That’s an interesting thought. I thought you were going to do something simpler like, “Is vegetarianism a good thing?” That’s a far more covenantal discussion.

That makes sense to me. I hadn’t thought about it before because I’ve never heard anyone say that, but that’s an interesting thought. Yes, he becomes beast-like, so in that sense sub-human, but you’re right. Since the flood, all of humanity have fallen under the Noahic covenant, and it’s not a common grace covenant. It’s a redemptive covenant, but it embraces everybody. In that sense it’s common grace in that special grace overflows and everybody is bound by it. When God gave it, the only people on earth were believers, God-fearers, Noah and his family, so it was given to the church.

I’d love to talk more about that, because I’ve been mulling over that a lot lately. But I’m trying to stay focused here.

But you’re right, that marked mankind. Mankind was given dominion over the animals, so that should immediately take us back to Noah and to Genesis and to Adam.

Because before Noah, all of the herbs of the field were given for food, but not the animals.

But with Noah it changes, so I think you may be right. We’re going all the way back again. The Noahic covenant was an advance over the covenant at the garden gate. God gave man more privileges and more responsibilities – the privilege of executing murderers. He put the sword in the hand of the state officially. That’s a huge thing.

Now Nebuchadnezzar has lost that, both figuratively in that he can’t eat meat, he can only eat grass, and literally. And then oxen don’t hold swords in their hands, so he’s lost it, and he personally doesn’t hold a sword. He can’t rule. He can’t hold a scepter. He can’t hold a sword.

We’ve gone backward. We’ve devolved. This is anti-evolution, both covenantally and biologically. There’s a good deal of judgment here. This is spectacular.

Remember, up front he called it “How wonderful are his signs.” Yeah, this is pretty wonderful. This is amazing, and the world should have stood back and said, “Whoa!” but as with so many things, the world doesn’t always say whoa when it should.

That is all the time we have. I feel like we could talk for so long about Nebuchadnezzar. It’s just fascinating stuff, but we should do some recommendations, and I have one all ready. My recommendation is a board game, if you are into board games. David gave me this one for Christmas and we’ve played it at least once a week ever since. It’s called Wingspan.

The premise is you have a bird sanctuary and you’re trying to build the best bird sanctuary. It has a bunch of different birds in it that are all beautifully drawn, and there’s information from the Audubon Society on each of them, so as you’re playing this game you’re getting to know different birds, which is very fun. I’ve already identified a few that I see at the park down the street from me that I didn’t know before, because we’ve been playing this game. It's a lot of fun.

It’s a good balance for us because David is competitive and I am not, and I have a shorter attention span for these sort of things. It takes about 45 minutes to play, and again it’s very beautiful. It’s one where you kind of have to think ahead, but it’s not a burdensome amount of thinking ahead. I’m not very good at thinking very far ahead, so David and I are pretty evenly matched. It’s a balanced game.

So thinking and aggression cancel each other out or something? Is that what I hear you saying?

They’re different strengths.

Okay. Sounds good. I could not think of anything, so I turned to my beloved wife and said, “What do you recommend?” and she said, “People should read the book of Judges,” and I said, “Okay, I’ll do that.” She said, “No, that’s my recommendation. You have to come up with one.” So I’m going to say you should read the book of Judges to your children. That’s not what she said.

“But it’s full of sex and violence, Greg.”

Yeah, that’s why you should read it to your kids. [laughing]

She just got through teaching the book of Judges to her 6th grade class and there were numerous stories, particularly the two big stories at the end, that her kids – no surprise here – had never heard of, and said, as so many people do when they hear about them, “That can’t be in the Bible.”

Not only are we not reading it to your kids, but we’re not reading it. Pastors aren’t teaching and preaching through it.

The other thing that goes with this, though – and Kate did say, “This is where you meet real people,” and she’s right. These are very real people, full of flaws, spiritual and otherwise. It’s easy to say, “Well, these are people who tried to walk the path of righteousness and just utterly failed, and mostly they’re there to show us how we can shipwreck.”

That’s not why they’re there. A number of them are listed in the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11. They are examples of godliness. “But godly people should be perfect!” Aha, and that would include you? “Well, I’m better than them.” Really, are you now? Can we talk about certain things in your private life? “Well, no, that’s personal.” Yeah, their personal things got splattered on the pages of scripture for our learning.

So you can look at these guys and you can see, yes, there are places where they failed, but here’s the thing that goes with that. Because there are real failures there, we get in the habit of saying that anything we don’t understand or that we wouldn’t do must be a failure. Sometimes we exaggerated it to the point of making up stuff.

It does not take a very close reading of Judges or of Hebrews 11 to say that Jephthah obviously did not burn his daughter in the fire. Read the text carefully. What is it actually saying? And yet it’s amazing how many people not only believe that that’s what he did, but will write commentaries defending that and be willing to argue with you about it. “No, that’s what it says!” That is not what it says.

Again, it doesn’t take a great deal of reading, but you have to slow down and get rid of your preconceptions that all these people are failures and wicked, and you are so much better than they are. You’ve got to stop and realize, “Wait, these are ordinary believers just like me.” Once you come to terms with that, that’s actually a great encouragement. “You mean I don’t have to be a super saint for God to use me?”

When I was a kid there was a saying, “God will not use an unclean vessel.” God’s got nothing but unclean vessels to work with, unless you include justification by faith, in which case all of his people are holy and he’s not seeing iniquity in Israel.

Judges I think robs us of some of our moralism and perfectionism and pietism. It makes us think like real people in the real world, and once you get there it’s a marvelously entertaining book. It is full of action and surprises and weirdness, all the stuff that goes into good novels and good adventure stories, and thus is a great book to read to your kids. Kids will eat it up. It’s adults who draw back and say, “Ooo, that’s gross. I’m afraid it will upset my child.”

God gave it to his covenant people, and to willfully withhold it from our children is a sin against our children. In reading it to them and trying to answer their questions, we may learn more about God and his covenant, his ways with men, and ourselves than we knew before.

So read the book of Judges. Read it to your children. Let them enjoy it, and when you don’t get something, read closer and try to figure out what’s going on. If God says this is a spirit-filled man who was full of faith, you better figure out how that works and it will teach you something about yourself.

There’s wonderful humor in the book of Judges, too, which is another shock to the Victorian Christian sensibilities. “God thinks this is funny? But it’s horrible.” Maybe there’s such a thing as godly black humor.

Exactly. “So he put the sword in this guy’s belly and excrement came out and my kids are laughing at it. God’s telling dirty stories!”

Come on, get over it. This should be your first hint that your sense of morality is wrong, not God’s, and that may cause you to reevaluate a lot of things. So read the book of Judges and read it to your kids. Enjoy it and laugh with it.

Thank you so much for this conversation. It’s been a delight. I wish we had more time for this one especially, but we look forward to next week. Thanks also to David, our producer and my lawfully-wedded husband.

A little bit of housekeeping. We are coming up on a little bit of a hiatus recording-wise. It’s a combination of lots of factors. Bryan has a lot going on. David and I have a lot going on. We’re going to get Gretchen out to visit her great-grandparents, Lord willing, so we’re going to have to take a little break from recording.

We will endeavor to not leave you with nothing but rather leave you with something, so we will be releasing episodes every other week instead of weekly, I believe starting this coming week – just so you’re aware. We’re still here for you, we just might not be here for you as often.

You can still email us anytime day or night at [email protected]. You can follow us on GoodReads, or follow me. I think Bryan is also on GoodReads. Are you on GoodReads yet, Greg?

I don’t know about this GoodReads thing. You’ll have to tell me about it later.

It’s great.

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