Daniel 4:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

DANIEL CHAPTER 4 Nebuchadnezzar acknowledgeth God's eternal dominion, Daniel 4:1-3. He relateth a dream which the magicians could not interpret, Daniel 4:4-7. Daniel hearing the dream, Daniel 4:3-18, interpreteth it, Daniel 4:19-27. The dream fulfilled in Nebuchadnezzar's loss of dignity and reason for a time; which being restored to him, he glorifieth God, Daniel 4:28-37. The prophet Daniel here sets down another strange story, after he had finished that of the three young men: this the prophet sets forth not in his own words, but in the words of the king's own proclamation, that it might pass with undoubted credit, and without all dispute; being sent to all his vast kingdoms, and questionless put into the king's archives and court rolls, as the manner was. These three first verses of this fourth chapter are improperly annexed to the end of the foregoing third chapter, by some; seeing they are the preface of the following history. Peace be multiplied unto you, i.e. all health and happiness: this was always the form of greeting and salutation among the Eastern nations, comprehending peace, plenty, with uninterrupted joy and felicity in all comfortable enjoyments: and from them it came derived down to the penmen of the New Testament, and notes more, even peace with God in Jesus Christ, spiritual and everlasting. Now the reason hereof was, that war being the root of all misery, especially where all government was tyrannical, and when once it brake forth, it made all desolate; therefore peace was as heaven in comparison of the hell of war, which made the heathens paint Plutus the god of riches in the bosom of peace.