Daniel 4:17 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The decree was God s, and the demand was of the holy angels; if God would enact and ratify it, the angels as commissioners had the dispensation of it put into their hands, and they all consent to it as a just judgment of God, to be executed by them according to the will and pleasure of God; and they desire of God it may be done, alluding to the customs of some nations, and speaking after the manner, for the holy angels are zealous for God's honour, and pray him to assert his own sovereignty against the bold encroachments of mortal men, especially rampant and savage tyrants, to make them know themselves. Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men: this Nebuchadnezzar and his flatterers conceited he was god in earth, independent and unaccountable to any; and though he had notions of a supreme God, yet he confined his government to heaven. Jupiter in heaven, Caesar in earth, rules all, said the heathen poet. But the great God will make all men know he rules all in earth too, and sets up at his pleasure whom he will, and plucks them down again. All power is of God, Romans 13:1, who doth often make use of his power in this case, thereby declaring he only is arbitrary and absolute; for instance, he gives this dignity sometimes to the basest of men, as he took it from Saul and gave it David, a poor shepherd's boy, Psalms 78:70,71, and made him a name among the great men of the earth, 1 Samuel 2:7,8 1 Chronicles 17:7,8.