Welcome back to my study/review of The Book of Daniel. If you missed the previous parts of this study, you can find them HERE.
Daniel 4:19-27
19 Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was dismayed for a while, and his thoughts alarmed him. The king answered and said, “Belteshazzar, let not the dream or the interpretation alarm you.” Belteshazzar answered and said, “My lord, may the dream be for those who hate you and its interpretation for your enemies! 20 The tree you saw, which grew and became strong, so that its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth, 21 whose leaves were beautiful and its fruit abundant, and in which was food for all, under which beasts of the field found shade, and in whose branches the birds of the heavens lived— 22 it is you, O king, who have grown and become strong. Your greatness has grown and reaches to heaven, and your dominion to the ends of the earth. 23 And because the king saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, ‘Chop down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze, in the tender grass of the field, and let him be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts of the field, till seven periods of time pass over him,’ 24 this is the interpretation, O king: It is a decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king, 25 that you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. You shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and you shall be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will. 26 And as it was commanded to leave the stump of the roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be confirmed for you from the time that you know that Heaven rules. 27 Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you: break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity.”
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I appreciate that we are told Daniel did not seem happy to be the deliverer of this news to Nebuchadnezzar.
So here in this section of verses, we revisit the story of the Babylonian King going mad. As we mentioned in the previous section, the archaeological evidence points toward King Nabonidus, not King Nebuchadnezzar, as the person form history who went mad. (If you’re interested in that, I recommend diving back into the previous section of verses.) For now, we push onward, starting with The Pulpit Commentaries‘ note on verse 19:
Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was astonied for one hour, and his thoughts troubled him. Thus far the two main recensions are agreed. The Septuagint renders practically to the same effect as our version, only that ὑπόνοια κατέσπευδεν αὐτόν means rather “suspicions disturbed him,” which is the rendering of Paulus Tellensis. There are traces in it of doublet; the rendering of the LXX. is, “And Daniel greatly marvelled, and suspicions disturbed him, and he was terrified, trembling having taken hold of him, and his visage was changed, having moved (κινήσας) his head, having been amazed one hour, he answered me in a meek voice.” Theodotion and the Peshitta are at one with the Massoretic text here. It is to be noted here that the word sha‘a, translated “hour,” has no such definite meaning; Gesenius gives, “a moment of time,” in which he is followed by Bevan, Keil, and Stuart. Ewald translates, eine Stunde, and with him agree Hitzig, Kranichfeld, Zöckler. Both the Greek versions have ὥραν, but we must bear in mind that ὥρα had not the definite meaning which we attach to “hour.” Jerome renders hera. The Septuagint adds, as we have seen, somewhat grotesquely, “having moved (κινήσας) his head, he was astonished for one hour.” This seems a case of “doublet,” that phenomenon so frequent in the Septuagint. The Septuagint rendering, “And (δὲ) Daniel was greatly astonished, and suspicions troubled him, and, trembling having seized him, he was afraid,” suggests that it is not impossible that שׂגי, “greatly,” had been read instead of שׁעה, “an hour;” but the rest is not so easily explicable. There is one case of Syriasm here in the vocalization of אֶשְׁתּוֹמַם instead of אִשׁיי. The king spake, and said, Belteshazzar, let not the dream, or the interpretation thereof, trouble thee. This clause is absent from both the Greek versions, though present in the Peshitta and Vulgate. As it stands, on the one hand, it is a departure from the epistolary style, or perhaps rather the proclamative style of the earlier portion of the chapter. On the other hand, if we think this clause an interpolation, we cannot fail to note that the kindly courtesy and consideration ascribed by the interpolator to Nebuchadnezzar is utterly unlike the character of Epiphanes as manifested to the Jews. Nebuchadnezzar saw that Daniel was filled with sorrow and apprehension at the meaning he saw in the vision, and endeavours to reassure and encourage him. If the conduct of Nebuchadnezzar is unlike that which a Jew of b.c. 170 would have ascribed to him were it his intention to present in him Epiphanes under a disguise, still more unlike is the conduct of Daniel to that which certainly would have been ascribed to him had the author intend(,d to represent him as a model of the pious Jew in a heathen court – in the court of Epi-phanes. Would Mattathias have remained astonished and speechless in the presence of Epiphanes, had it been revealed to him that Epiphanes was to be driven out to the wilds a madman? If, then, it is an interpolation, it is an early one – earlier than the Maccabean struggle. But if the interpolation be early, the book interpolated must be yet earlier. Belteshazzar answered and said, My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies. The Septuagint maintains the epistolary character of this narrative here, “And Baltasar answered me with a meek voice, This dream be to those that hate thee, and let the interpretation thereof come upon thine enemies.” Theodotion, the Peshitta, and the Vulgate are at one with the ordinary text. The feelings of Daniel towards Nebuchadnezzar seem to have been those of the highest personal loyalty, and thus in the widest contrast from the feelings that any Jew of the time of the Maccabees would have towards Epiphanes. He, Daniel, in his love for the grand impulsive despot, would have the enemies and haters of his monarch swept forth to wander as maniacs, rather than that he should so suffer.
We see a picture of Daniel as a truth-teller, but also as someone who is sincere in his service to Nebuchadnezzar.
By way of reminder of what we looked at in the previous set of verses, there is a historical account of a Babylonian King going insane. Given the size of their empire and the record-keeping that existed, you might expect this. The challenge is that the text tells us about King Nabonidus, not King Nebuchadnezzar.
(an excerpt via history.howstuffworks.com)
The Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II is one of the greatest villains of the Hebrew Bible (known to Christians as the Old Testament). In the biblical book 2 Kings, Nebuchadnezzar and his army lay siege to Jerusalem, loot gold and other treasures from the temple, abduct the Judean king and his court, and carry off 10,000 officers, artisans and skilled workers into exile in Babylon. Ten years later, Nebuchadnezzar returns and razes Solomon’s temple to the ground.
And in another unforgettable story in Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar is punished for his hubris and wanders the wilderness like a beast eating grass for seven years.
The question is: Did any of this really happen? For centuries, historians and biblical scholars have searched for clues about the real-life Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled the Babylonian Empire at the peak of its power from 605 to 562 B.C.E. We know from the archaeological record that Nebuchadnezzar was a master builder, raising Babylon to a grandeur unmatched in the ancient Near East.
But was Nebuchadnezzar really the tyrant who sacked Jerusalem and sent the Judean
Incredibly, there is an independent record of a Babylonian king going mad and wandering in the wilderness for years. But it wasn’t Nebuchadnezzar, says Frahm. In Babylonian texts, the “mad king” was Nabonidus, a king who ruled two decades after Nebuchadnezzar and ended up losing the Babylonian Empire to the Persians.
According to the records, King Nabonidus replaced the Babylonian gods with a new moon god and then led his troops on a strange campaign into the Arabian Desert to attack some towns, including Yathrib, the later Medina. He then dwelled the next 10 years in the Arabian city of Tayma.
“This sojourn of Nabonidus in Arabia for 10 years is clearly the background of the story of Nebuchadnezzar in the wilderness,” says Frahm.
There’s even physical proof of the Nabonidus story also being tied to a Hebrew sage. Four fragments discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls contained what’s now known as the Prayer of Nabonidus:
I was afflicted [with an evil ulcer] for seven years…and an exorcist pardoned my sins. He was a Jew from among the [children of the exile of Judah, and said,] “Recount this in writing to [glorify and exalt] the Name of the [Most High God].”
Frahm says that the “exorcist” in the Nabonidus account is clearly Daniel, and it’s easy to understand why the authors of Daniel would have substituted the “tyrant” Nebuchadnezzar in their retelling. (There’s no evidence that Nabonidus ate grass.)
“In this theology, where you have to be punished for the sins you committed, it makes sense that it’s Nebuchadnezzar and not Nabonidus who is said to have had this strange episode,” says Frahm.
[NOTE: It’s a really fascinating article and I recommend reading it in its entirety.]
Continuing on to verse 20, via Ellicott’s Bible Commentary:
(20) It should be noticed that both in this and in the following verse the description of the tree given in Daniel 4:11-12 is curtailed. It was observed that, on the contrary, there was an expansion of details in the interpretation of the former dream. (See Note on Daniel 4:23.)
(22) This gives us to understand that Nebuchadnezzar had arrived at the zenith of his power. The extent of his dominions may be estimated with tolerable accuracy as follows:—Northwards he possessed Armenia, and a considerable portion of Asia Minor; in the west, Syria, and at one time Egypt; southwards, his power reached the Persian Gulf; while in the east, the Medes and Elamites were subject to him. Possessing, as he did, the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, all the treasures of the known world were at his command. In his first vision he was represented as the golden head of the image. In his pride he desired the whole image to be of gold, and himself to be the image—but this was the sin for which he was to suffer.
The common belief today, regarding the size of the Empire, is that it looked as follows:
It’s worth showing the map and remembering what the text says. Does the Empire reach the literal ends of the earth? No. The text’s original audience would have understood that language to mean that the Empire was incredibly vast. They would not have expected to find Babylonian rule in Tarshish or beyond the ocean. We should thus be careful sometimes with applying a modern literalism to the text when it was not necessarily intended to be interpreted that way.
It is also worth remembering the earlier vision of the statue, and that Daniel says this Empire is the golden head of those that follow. The picture painted there was of gradual erosion and degradation. There may be deeper spiritual meanings in the text that might not make sense if we look at this from a purely physical perspective. Continuing on to verse 23, again in TPC:
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 in the beginning agrees with the text behind the Septuagint Version of Daniel 4:14. In that verse, instead of the elaborate process of cutting off branches and shaking off leaves, the Septuagint had simply, καταφθείρατε αὐτό. This confirms us in our preference of the Septuagint there. In the present instance, the Septuagint is briefer than the Massoretic text; it varies in some points, which may indicate the hand of a redactor, “And the vision which thou sawest, that an angel was sent in strength, and commanded to root the tree up and to cut it down, the judgment of God shall come upon thee.” Here, again, there is nothing of “the watcher and the holy one,” nothing of the belt of “iron and brass,” nor of the “tree having its portion with the beasts of the field,” nor that it was to be “wet with the dew of heaven.” Some of these features are mentioned in the account of the vision, but are not repeated now. Theodotion agrees with the Massoretic text. The Peshitta carries the repetition yet further, and inserts, “And his heart shall be changed from the heart of ‘t man, and the heart of a beast shall be given him.” In this the process already begun in the text of the Massoretes is carried a little further. The Vulgate agrees with the received text. Daniel rapidly notifies the principal features in the king’s dream, before he proceeds to explain it.
As the note indicates, a fair amount of scholarship has been done concerning the fact Daniel did not repeat the details of the dream, as described earlier in the chapter, verbatim. However, we can see he picked up the most important key details before explaining what they mean. This makes sense if you consider that Daniel knows the interpretation and is not happy to be delivering the news to the king. Continuing on to verses 24 and 25, at TPC, for notes providing additional details on those explanations:
This is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree of the Most High, which is come upon my lord the king. The passage in the Seventy which is parallel with this is partly in the last clause of the previous verse and partly in the verse that occupies a similar place to this in the Septuagint text, “The judgments of the great God shall come upon thee, and the Most High and his angels assail thee (κατατρέχουσιν ἐπὶ σὲ).” The change of tense here indicates that the second clause is an alternative rendering, brought into the text from the margin. In this marginal note meta has been taken as “assail,” and malka’, “O king,” has been, by transposition of the two final letters, read mela’k, “angel.” Theodotion and the Peshitta agree with the Massoretic text. The respectful tone in which Daniel addresses Nebuchadnezzar in the received text is to be observed; it is utterly alien to the boastful tone Judaism was afterwards accustomed to impute to its old saints. That there is no reference to the watchers or to their decree in this is imputed to Daniel’s recognition of its true source; but in the Septuagint there is nothing equivalent to the statement in verse 17. The fact that it is omitted here confirms the suspicion against it which we expressed in regard to the earlier verse.
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. The Septuagint Version is here much briefer, and in that better, “And they shall put thee in guard, and send thee into a desert place.” The Massoretic text, although it agrees with that from which Theodotion’s Version, the Peshitta, and the Vulgate have been translated, is pleonastic. The Vulgate drops the causative element, and simply says, “Thou shalt eat grass like the ox, and thou shalt be wet with the dew of heaven.” The Peshitta, while translating טְעַם by the aphel of ‘acal—that is to say, making the meaning causative—renders צְבַע by the passive, titzṭaba; similarly Theodotion renders it. If we are to take the words of Daniel strictly, even in the Massoretic, much more if we take the Septuagint, text, he seems to have understood the dream to point, not to lycanthropy, but to an overthrow at the hands of his enemies, when they would compel him to eat grass in his distress, and, by depriving him of every shelter, force him to be wet with the dew of heaven. There is nothing to indicate that the compulsion should work within, and that by these inner scourges the messengers of the Most High would drive Nebuchadnezzar forth to the fields.
Telling the King information like this requires a lot of faith. He might easily decide to kill or torture you. We’ve already seen him angry enough to throw Daniel’s three friends into a burning furnace.
In verse 26, Daniel lets us know the point of all of this – which is again something that is unlikely to go well with the King. via Ellicott:
(26) They commanded—i.e., the watchers. We observe, however, in Daniel 4:13 that the command is only ascribed to one of the watchers. This makes it appear that they form a council in which one acts in behalf of all.
Thy kingdom.—To make the sense plain we must supply before this word, “The interpretation of it is,” or some sentence to that effect.
Shall be sure.—Literally, shall arise. No successor shall be appointed during his life.
Do rule—i.e., the heavens, or One in heaven ruleth the kingdoms of men.
We do not know how long “seven times” is, though it is often interpreted to mean 7 years. It might be a symbolic number, as seven is often used that way. The end goal of the madness will be getting Nebuchadnezzar to confirm that the God of Israel is Most High, or less overtly as is translated “that heaven rules.” Continuing to the next verse and the end of this section, again in Ellicott:
(27) Break off.—The metaphor is taken from a refractory beast casting off the yoke. (Comp. Genesis 27:40, where it is foretold that Esau’s posterity shall “break off” the yoke of Jacob.) In Chaldee the word is used for the most part in the sense of putting on one side. Daniel therefore counsels the king to rebel against his sins, such as pride, harshness, and cruelty towards his captives, and to put all these sins aside. And how can he do this in a better manner than by practising the contrary virtues?
Righteousness.—In all wars of conquest many acts of injustice are perpetrated. The king is warned here to show justice or to act justly for the future. Similar counsel is given, though in different language (Micah 6:8). The idea of “alms” and “redeeming” is not conveyed by the Chaldee words, so that the translation “redeem thy sins by alms” is incorrect and unwarrantable.
If it may be—i.e., if Nebuchadnezzar will repent, his prosperity and peace will be prolonged.
Daniel gives the King advice on how best to live, to extend the period of time before these things come to pass. Perhaps had Nebuchadnezzar fully repented at this moment, the entire calamity would have been avoided.
As we will see in the verses that follow, the King does not order Daniel to be killed, but he also does not humble himself.
