One of the most powerful and chilling portrayals of the insanity of rejecting God—which we do whenever in words or actions we proudly affirm our own greatness and achievements—is Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4.
Daniel 4 is that strange chapter in the book of Daniel which shows that the greatest man on earth, the moment he proclaims his own greatness, is humbled by the truly greatest God of heaven. He spends seven years on all fours, rooting around the ground like an animal.
In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis called it “the great sin.” Do you know what that sin was? He goes on to say…
“There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone in the world loathes when they see it in others; and of which hardly any people, except some Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. There is no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves; and the more we have it in ourselves, the more we dislike it in others” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980), p. 109).
This vice is the sin of pride. Lewis called it “the great sin” because of the enmity it created not only between man and man, but between man and God. You see, sin is imagining that we deserve to be in the place of God. Again, C. S. Lewis said, “It was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the completely anti-God state of mind” (Mere Christianity). This is why God hates pride (Prov. 6:16-17; 8:13). “God abhors those people worst who adore themselves most” (William Secker, The Consistent Christian).
Robert Rayburn notes: “Pride is the idolatry of the self. It is the nature of pride as competition with God – the displacing of God by the self at the center – that has led many Christian thinkers through the ages to regard pride (superbia) as the mother sin and the essential element in all sin” (“Pride and Humility,” Tabletalk, May 2008, p. 64).
Pride is essentially stealing glory from God, believing that we deserve the credit and glory for what we have made of ourselves. Nebuchadnezzar will commit this vertical larceny, standing on his balcony basking in the glory of his achievements, proclaiming “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” (Dan. 4:30).
America’s greatest theologian, Jonathan Edwards, said this about pride:
Pride is a person having too high an opinion of himself. Pride is the first sin that ever entered into the universe, and the last sin that is rooted out. Pride is the worst sin. It is the most secret of all sins. There is no other matter in which the heart is more deceitful and unsearchable. Alas, how much pride the best have in their hearts! Pride is God’s most stubborn enemy! There is no sin so much like the devil as pride. It is a secret and subtle sin, and appears in a great many shapes which are undetected and unsuspected.
Jesus told the story of two men who lived in Jerusalem. This is found in Luke 16:19-31.
One was a humble, poor beggar who loved the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The other was a proud, wealthy man who looked down upon the poor beggar and never took the time to look up to the living and true God.
They died about the same time. Since Lazarus, the poor beggar, was trusting in Jesus Christ alone for his salvation, he immediately went to Heaven. The wealthy man died and found himself in the torment of Hell (Hades/Sheol). Now he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus at his side. He begged and pleaded that Abraham would send Lazarus to him for just a moment so he could dip his finger in water and cool his tongue because he was in such agony.
Abraham answered, “No.” He said, “There is a great chasm fixed so that no one in Heaven can cross over into Hell and no one in Hell can ever cross over into Heaven.” In other words, there is no crossing over from one realm to another, so therefore no assistance can come to you.
Do you remember what the wealthy man said next?
Then the proud, wealthy man begged and pleaded with Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to his five brothers to tell them about this place of torment so they would not end up there. The wealthy man now understood how his pride and prosperity had kept his heart away from the Lord, and he was desperate to get his message out so his family would not end up in the same torment.
He said, “I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment” (Luke 16:27, 28). Can you feel the urgency and the passion of this proud, wealthy man to get this message out? Ah, but it was too late; there was now nothing he could do.
Nebuchadnezzar, here in Daniel 4, had this same sense of urgency and passion to get that same message out to those whose hearts were so filled with pride and whose lives were so filled with prosperity that they had no room for the true and living God. The lesson he learned is recorded in the last sentence of his testimony: “Those who walk in pride [God] is able to humble” (Daniel 4:37). The lesson Nebuchadnezzar learned came from the worst experience of his life, but today from Heaven he would tell you it was the best thing that ever happened to him.
It is best that we learn this lesson as well. For both the Old and New Testaments warn us: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” (Prov. 3:34; James 4:6)
And 1 Peter 5:6 tells us, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”
James Montgomery Boice’s commentary entitles this chapter, “The Sin that God Will Not Tolerate.” All sin will be judged. Many sins are judged in this life; all sins will be judged in the life to come. Thus in using this title I am speaking in a different sense, and what I want to point out is that although God does temporarily tolerate some sins in this world, yet there is one sin that God does not seem to countenance.
Napoleon is portrayed by the artists he commissioned to memorialize him as a strutting little man, standing defiantly with his right hand pushed between his vest buttons or as a hero astride a fiery steed, pointing the way for his troops to cross the Alps. His bicorn hat made instantly recognizable and imitated at costume parties through the years. He was proud, a man driven by ambition to conquer Europe.
On the morning of the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon was describing to his commanding officers his strategy for that day’s campaign. He said, “We’ll put the infantry here, the cavalry over there, and the artillery in that spot. At the end of the day, England will be at the feet of France and Wellington will be the prisoner of Napoleon.”
One commanding officer responded, “But we must not forget that man proposes and God disposes.”
With typical arrogance, the little dictator pulled his body to its full five-feet-two and replied, “I want you to understand, sir, that Napoleon proposes and Napoleon disposes.”
Victor Hugo, the novelist, wrote, “From that moment, Waterloo was lost, for God sent rain and hail so that the troops of Napoleon could not maneuver as he had planned, and on that night it was Napoleon who was prisoner of Wellington, and France was at the feet of England.”
Again pride is #1 on God’s hate list. “There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes” (Prov. 6:16, 17a). While the remainder of the “seven deadly sins”—lust, sloth, greed, and so on, have been recategorized as harmless peccadilloes, pride is still generally reckoned deservedly to go before the fall.
Proverbs hits the issue of pride hard:
“The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.” (Prov. 16:5).
“To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.” (Prov. 8:13)
So God obviously hates pride. It takes God off the throne and puts ourselves on the throne, making us sovereign over our lives. We determine what is best for us and how we live. The biggest problem with pride is that it is so easily seen in others, but we find it hard to admit in ourselves.
And here is what pride leads to…
“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Prov. 16:18)
“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” (Prov. 11:2)
In God’s grace and mercy to us, he sometimes uses life’s difficult experiences to remove the blinders from our eyes and show us what our hearts really harbor. He exposes and confounds our pride in order to transform us from the inside out.
Spurgeon said: “No matter how dear you are to God, if pride is harbored in your spirit, He will whip it out of you.” In fact, it is a sign of God’s love that He will whip pride out of us. And that is what God is going to do for Nebuchadnezzar.
God has been dealing with Nebuchadnezzar now for decades. There were times when Nebuchadnezzar seemed close to bowing his knee to God Most High (Dan. 2:47; 3:28-29), but he had never crossed that line of committing himself totally to being a worshipper of Yahweh alone. It seems that the events of this chapter were necessary as the tipping point in Nebuchadnezzar’s faith journey.
Overview
This chapter is unique in Scripture. It is the one time that a Gentile monarch narrates a story. It is Nebuchadnezzar’s personal testimony of how God took him from where he was to where He wanted him to be, and Nebuchadnezzar tells in his own language exactly how God dealt with him. We have Paul’s testimonies in the book of Acts, but this is the only personal testimony in the Old Testament. And again, what makes it so unique is that it is the testimony of a Gentile.
The key to understanding these early chapters, and perhaps the entire Book of Daniel, comes in the second verse of the book, “And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his god in Babylonia and put in the treasure house of his god” (Dan. 1:2).
By this symbolic act Nebuchadnezzar was asserting that his gods were stronger than Jehovah. And so it seemed. We know that God permits others to triumph over his people for his own reasons, generally to bring judgment for sin. The temporary victory of evil persons does not mean that God is not more powerful than evil or that he will not ultimately be victorious. Yet this is what Nebuchadnezzar thought. These opening chapters of Daniel show Jehovah teaching this proud monarch that neither his gods nor Nebuchadnezzar himself was stronger than the Most High. God is God! “My glory I will not give to another,” says God. He does not allow Nebuchadnezzar to give God’s glory to another in this story.
So after two to three decades since the first one, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that no one but Daniel can interpret: a tree grows to a great height and provides food and shade for animals, yet a command is given for it to be chopped down to a stump (4:5-7, 8=16). The lesson of the dream once again concerns God’s rule over earthly kings and kingdoms (v. 17): Nebuchadnezzar is the tree (vv. 20-22), and God will humble him if he does not repent and practice righteousness (vv. 25-27). God fulfills the dream by giving him the mind and behavior of a beast (vv. 29-33). Once God restores Nebuchadnezzar’s faculties, the king praises God and declares his unconquerable sovereign power (vv. 34-37).
Nebuchadnezzar wanted the whole world to know what God had done for him. It is apparent from our study of the first three chapters of Daniel that God has been dealing with Nebuchadnezzar’s heart. This is the third time that the Babylonian king has been confronted by his Maker.
Outline
- Judgment on Royal Arrogance (4:1-37)
- Nebuchadnezzar Confesses God’s Everlasting Dominion (4:1-3)
- Nebuchadnezzar Is Afraid Because of a Dream’s Content (4:4-5)
- The Wise Men of Babylon Fail to Interpret the Dream (4:6-7)
- Nebuchadnezzar Tells Daniel the Dream (4:8-18)
3′. Daniel Successfully Interprets the Dream (4:19-27)
2′. Nebuchadnezzar Is Humiliated Because of the Dream’s Fulfillment (4:28-33)
1′. Nebuchadnezzar Confesses God’s Everlasting Dominion (4:34-37)
This narrative begins with the lesson Nebuchadnezzar learned as a result of the events recounted in this chapter and ends with the same exclamation: God’s dominion is forever (1 and 1′). Also common to 1 and 1′ is language addressing everyone who dwells on earth (vv. 1, 35).
The next sections of the chiasm relate Nebuchadnezzar’s dream that troubles him (2) and this dream becoming a reality that humbles him (2′). In the former, he prospered in his palace but became fearful (2), and in the latter he became prideful in his palace and experienced the dream’s fulfillment (2′).
3 and 3′ provide a contrast between the Babylonian wise men and Daniel. Even though Nebuchadnezzar told his wise men the dream, they did not even attempt to interpret it. Daniel, however, interpreted the dream after the king described its content.
Nebuchadnezzar’s description of the dream is the central section (4) of this chapter. This description is itself an inclusio, marked by the language in verses 8-9 and 18 that includes the name “Belteshazzar,” a reference to “the spirit of the holy gods,” and a recognition of the wise men’s inability contrasted with Daniel’s ability. Within the inclusio (vv. 8-9, 18) are two distinct subsections: verses 10-12 and verses 13-17. The first subsection describes the activity of the tree (vv. 10-12), while the second subsection relates the command of the watcher against that tree (vv. 13-17). Each subsection begins similarly: “The visions of my head as I lay in bed were these: I saw, and behold . . .” (v. 10) and “I saw in the visions of my head as I lay in bed, and behold . . .” (v. 13).
Chapter 4 stands out from chapters 1-3 as first-person narration from Nebuchadnezzar’s point of view (cf. 4:1, 4, 18 24, 27). Only in this chapter of the book does someone other than Daniel convey a first-person account (cf. 8:1; 9:2; 10:2; 12:5). There is a brief transition to a third-person vantage point in 4:28-33, but the verses surrounding it (vv. 1-27, 34-37) are the king’s account. Chapter 4 is the last chapter in the book featuring Nebuchadnezzar as a character.
Perhaps we commit vertical larceny (stealing God’s glory) much more than we realize. Perhaps we quest for personal glory more than we think. Perhaps, in some way, we stand on our balcony and take credit for what only God can produce.
Perhaps we’re not too far from Nebuchadnezzar’s sin.
This Old Testament story is a warning to us today, and in the story, God uses Daniel to warn Nebuchadnezzar (see 4:24-27). Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s second dream and pleads with him to “break off your sins by practicing righteousness.”
When you read this story, you must meditate on how incredible God’s mercy is. In the face of the arrogance and murderous self-glory of Nebuchadnezzar, God has every holy reason to rise in righteous intolerance and wipe this man from the face of the earth. Everything this worldly ruler stood for was an abomination to the Lord Almighty. It should stun you that God stooped first to warn him.
Again, we find ourselves in the shoes of Nebuchadnezzar. If you’re God’s child, you are blessed with the convicting, warning, merciful ministry of the Holy Spirit.
The question is: are you listening?
When the Holy Spirit blesses you with convicting grace, it will be tempting to harden your heart and argue for your righteousness. It will be tempting to claim your biblical literacy and theological knowledge as evidence of your spiritual maturity.
When the Holy Spirit visits you with a merciful warning, it will be tempting to compare yourself to others and argue that you are surely more righteous than they are. It will be tempting to ignore these warnings if God chooses to use people who you think are unqualified or less mature than you.
Grace Still Amazes 