HOMILETICS
SECT. XV.—THE DREAM OF THE TREE AND ITS INTERPRETATION (Chap. Daniel 4:4-26)
We come to the occasion of the royal proclamation. This was a dream and its remarkable fulfilment, the second prophetic dream vouchsafed to the king. The present one bearing more especially on the king himself. Its results, however, such as to affect his whole empire, but more particularly the Jews that were in it. The dream and its fulfilment an important step towards the release of the Jews, and at the same time towards the spread of the knowledge of the true God, and the preparation for the advent of the promised Messiah. We notice—
I. The dream itself. And here observe—
1. The time and circumstances of it (Daniel 4:4). “I was at rest in mine house.” “At rest,” after his conflicts and conquests. Probably calculating on ending his days in peace and prosperity, and enjoying the fruits of all his toils and hardships. Like the rich fool in the parable, “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease; eat, drink, and be merry” (Luke 12:16-21). A godless rest one soon to be disturbed. A poor rest that which the world can give. Job’s experience: “I said, I shall die in my nest.” Yet, how soon was that nest to be rifled! “Flourishing in my palace.” Nebuchadnezzar now in the heyday of his prosperity, “flourishing like a green bay-tree.” Everywhere successful in his campaigns, and now the established head of the first universal empire. In his “palace,” not in his tent or on the battlefield. A palace, however, unable to exclude death from our thoughts or disturbing dreams from our slumbers. A prince’s palace as liable as a peasant’s cottage to the upbraidings of conscience, and to the forebodings of death and a judgment to come.
2. The contents of the dream (Daniel 4:10-17). Here we have
(1.) An immense, wide-spreading, fruit-bearing tree, a tree in its appearance and extent probably something like the banyan of the East, and seen still growing [106]. A large and noble tree, such as are common in Oriental countries; a well-known symbol for a powerful monarch or a prosperous individual. So of Pharaoh and his power (Ezekiel 31:3; Ezekiel 17:22).
(2.) A command from a superior being to cut it down; that being called a “watcher and a holy one” [107], having all the appearance of an angel, while “the matter” is said by him to be “from the decree [108] of the watchers, and the demand [109] by the word of the holy ones” (Daniel 4:17), as if coming forth from the celestial council.
(3.) The slump to be left in the ground, and made firm by a band of iron and brass [110], forbidding attempts to uproot it.
(4.) An intimation, by the same voice, that by the tree and its stump was represented a man.
(5.) The command that a man’s heart should be taken from him, and that “a beast’s heart be given him instead,” indicating the privation of intellect, with the appetites and desires of a beast of the field.
(6.) The continuance of this degradation to be a period here mystically termed “seven times” [111].
[106] “The tree grew and was strong.” “The perfects רְבָה (rebhah) and תְּקִיף (teqiph) express not the condition of the tree, but its increasing greatness and growth. Ch. B. Michaelis properly remarks, that Nebuchadnezzar saw the tree gradually grow and become always the stronger.”—Keil.
[107] “A watcher and a holy one.” “The decree of the watchers” (Daniel 4:13; Daniel 4:17). עִיר (’ir), עוּר (’oor), to watch, be awake. According to Gesenius, a name given to angels, as watching over the world and the affairs of men. The Sept, Greek Venetian, and the Hebrew versions have “angels;” while Aquila and Symmachus have ἐγρήγορος, and the Vulgate “vigil,” a watcher. Bertholdt compares them with the seven Amshaspands of the Persians, who are called “watchers of the world.” Keil opposes the idea that the language is formed in accordance with this Persian representation. The term “watcher” is applied by the Fathers and in the apocryphal Book of Enoch to evil angels as well as good ones. Nork thinks that Daniel here spoke the astrological language of the Babylonian Magi. More correct, however, to say that Nebuchadnezzar thus spoke. According to Calvin, a certain angel was doubtless intended, angels being so called either from their sleepless nature, or from their office as ministers of God’s wakeful providence, and as being always awake to their duty. From Daniel 4:17, Corn, a Lapide thinks the tutelary angel of Babylon is meant. The term “holy one” added to indicate a good angel, the ו vaw, “and,” being redundant, or rather denoting even, or “that is.” So Grotius and others. Hengstenberg remarks that the whole is made perfectly clear from the Babylonian religious ideas, with which of necessity the divine revelation made to Nebuchadnezzar would be mixed up in his mind. He quotes from Diodorus Siculus, who says that to the star-gods (the five planets) thirty others are subordinated, whom they call “gods of counsel,” θεοὶ βουλαίοι (עירין, irin), half of whom have the superintendence of the regions under the earth, while the others overlook what is going on among men and in heaven. Keil observes: “The ‘decree of the watchers’ is a conception not Biblical, but Babylonian-heathen. According to the doctrine of Scripture, the angels do not determine the fate of men, but God alone does, around whom the angels stand as ministering spirits to fulfil His commands and to make known His counsels to men.” To instruct the king that his religious conceptions of the gods, the עירין (irin), “watchers,” or θεοὶ βουλαίοι, were erroneous, was not necessary for the purpose of the divine message, which was to lead Nebuchadnezzar to an acknowledgment of the Most High, Daniel doing this afterwards by explaining that the decree was from the Most High Himself.
[108] “This matter is by the decree of the watchers,” פִּתְגָּמָא (pithgama), definite form of פִּתְגַּם (pithgam), “matter” (Daniel 3:16, at which see note). Here, a message. “By the decree,” בִּגְּזֵרַת (bigzerath), “by or in the decree;” from גְּזַר (gezar), to “cut, mark off,” hence to “define, determine;” whence the term גָּזְרִין (gozrin), to denote “astrologers,” as defining the fortunes of individuals from the position of the stars at the time of their birth, or as dividing the sky into various signs, like the ancient augurs. “The message consists in or rests on the decree of the watchers.” גְּזֵרָה (gezerah), the unchangeable decision, the “divine inevitable decree imposed on men and human things” (Buxtorf); the Fate in which the Chaldeans believed.—Keil.
[109] “The demand,” שְׁאֵלְתָּא (sheelta), a request, inquiry, or demand, from שְׁאַל (sheal), “to ask.” Keil, however, thinks that the meaning, lying in the etymon, request or question, is not here suitable, but only the derivative meaning, matter, as the object of the request or inquiry. “The word (or utterance) of the holy ones (or watchers) is the matter.” Older interpreters regarded the word as indicating the petition either of angels or men. Calvin and Junius refer it to the angels who accused Nebuchadnezzar before God, and who urged him by their prayers to humble the proud and exalt himself alone. Lyranus, whom Gaussen follows, thinks of the prayers of the saints in Babylon. They prayed, says M. Gaussen, for the conversion of the king, and God answers their prayers by bringing him for a time into the deepest humiliation. Polanus and Willet apply it to the angels, as only desiring that God’s decree might be accepted, and that the sentence given in heaven by God might be executed by men upon earth. Henry remarks: “The saints on earth petitioned for it, as well as the angels in heaven, God’s suffering people crying to Him for vengeance.”
[110] “A band of iron and brass.” Keil thinks the idea is not congruous to the stump of a tree, and that the words refer certainly to Nebuchadnezzar, though not to be understood, with Jerome and others, of the binding of the madman with chains, but figuratively or spiritually of the withdrawal of free self-determination through the fetter of madness (comp. Psalms 107:10; Job 36:8). The interpretation, however, refers it to the making his kingdom secure to him after his affliction (Daniel 4:26).
[111] “Seven times.” The expression enigmatical and the meaning uncertain, though probably denoting seven years, the usual interpretation.—Josephus, Junius, Œcolampadius, &c. Grotius thinks seven years intended, according to the Chaldean mode of speaking, a year being the most common measure of time. Bullinger and others regard the term as indefinite. So Calvin, who, however, thinks it to indicate a long period, and probably seven years. Keil considers the duration of the divine punishment decreed against Nebuchadnezzar, for purposes connected with the history of redemption, uncertain whether to be understood as years, months, or weeks. So Hengstenberg, who remarks: “It must not be said that עִדַּן (’iddan), chap. Daniel 7:25, Daniel 12:7, occurs in the sense of years: it stands in both passages properly, as here, in the independent sense of time; the more strict definition is not in the word, but is only given afterwards. But even granting that a definite period was pointed out, we should not be warranted to assume seven years any more than seven other portions of time, however large or small they might be. Nor is a period of seven years at all required for the occurrence of what is related in the narrative.” Some, mentioned in Poole’s Synopsis, have supposed that the seven years were changed into seven mouths at the prayers of Daniel; while some Jewish writers, as Aben Ezra and Abarbanel, considered the time to be seven weeks. There is little doubt, however, that the period ordinarily understood, viz., seven years, is the correct one. Dr. Rule remarks that “times” for years is not unusual, and the phrase reminds one of the Gothic and Anglo-Saxon use of winters for years, as in Luke 2:42; John 8:57. The term “times” is well known in prophetic Scripture, especially in the expression “time, times, and half a time,” occurring both in Daniel and the Apocalypse, and is always understood of years, whether literal or figurative. Some students of prophecy have considered the “seven times” of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness as at once symbolical and prophetical, and as related both to the “seven times” of Israel’s threatened chastisement (Leviticus 26:18; Leviticus 26:24; Leviticus 26:28), and the “time, times, and half a time,” which is simply their half. Mr. Birks, in his “Elements of Prophecy,” remarks: “The king himself represents the succession of imperial sovereignty till the kingdom of Christ should come; the ‘seven times’ that passed over him must therefore represent the whole period of debasement in the Gentile kingdom, from the times of Nebuchadnezzar till their full redemption.” “These ‘seven times’ of the Gentiles,” says Mr. Bickersteth, “began with the subjection of Israel under Shalmaneser.” Following Mr. Birks and Mr. Bickersteth, Mr. Guinness (“Approaching Time of the End”) says, “The vision of the tree is not more symbolic of Nebuchadnezzar’s seven years’ insanity, than that incident itself is typical of certain moral and chronological features of the succession of Gentile monarchies, of which Nebuchadnezzar was both head and representative.” These features, he remarks, have been ignorance of God, idolatry, and cruel persecution of the saints—Nebuchadnezzar’s own previous character. The incidents in his life too, he thinks, answer to events in the scale of nations and centuries with which history makes us familiar. So the seven years’ bestial degradation of the monarch during his insanity answer to the period of Gentile rule represented by the wild beasts of a subsequent vision.
3. Its effect upon the king (Daniel 4:5). His disturbance probably from the apprehension that the dream was of a supernatural character and foreboded evil. Dreams believed at that period to be often of such a character [112]. Often productive of powerful emotions, both of pleasure and pain, though more frequently the latter. Dreams in general “from the multitude of business;” yet not always so. The mind in sleep accessible to God and to good or evil spirits. “Thou scarest me with dreams.” If a dream can so disturb, what the reality? A relief often to find that it was only a dream. Yet dreams graciously employed in the economy of divine providence (Job 33:15-18). Sometimes made to contribute both to the preserving of a life and the saving of a soul.
[112] The reader of the Iliad will remember the words, expressive of the confident belief of the period, which Homer puts into the mouth of one of his heroes—
Καὶ γὰρ τʼ ὄναρ ἐκ Διὸς ἐστίν.—Iliad, A. 63.
“For even a dream too is from Jove.”
4. The search for its interpretation (Daniel 4:6). The king anxious to have his dream explained. Henry observes: “When God gives us general warnings of His judgments, we should be desirous to understand His mind in them.” The interpretation of dreams an ancient belief. Such belief founded on a reality. The evidence of a connection between the visible and invisible worlds. The interpretation of dreams a study and profession in Babylon. One of the forms of soothsaying, and carried on for private gain. Generally an imposture, and failing when most needed. Joseph’s elevation in Egypt and Daniel’s in Babylon due to the interpretation of dreams, not as a human art but a divine illumination. Four classes of pretenders to such knowledge brought before the king [113]. All obliged to acknowledge their inability. Yet possibly, as time-servers, and actuated by personal considerations, now kept back by fear, the dream being obviously one of a sinister character, with a bearing upon the king himself. No small amount of courage required to declare to an Eastern despot the meaning of such a dream even when perceived. Daniel only sent for as a last resource. Faithful ministers most valued in a time of trouble or on a dying bed, but often not applied to till then.
[113] “Then came in the magicians,” &c, See note under chap. Daniel 2:2; Daniel 2:27.
II. The interpretation. We notice—
1. The effect of the meaning of the dream on Daniel himself (Daniel 4:19). The truth made known to Daniel at once. That truth distressing to the prophet because foreboding disaster to his royal master. His sensibility “honourable to his humanity, his loyalty, and his religion.” The dream only such as to distress all true friends of the king [114]. Faithful ministers deeply affected themselves by the denunciations they have to deliver to impenitent hearers. Paul the subject of continual sorrow of heart for his unbelieving countrymen. Tenderness and compassion among the most necessary qualifications for a minister of the gospel. The “bowels” of the Master needed.
[114] “The dream be to them that hate thee,” &c. That is, may it be fulfilled to them, or rest upon them. So Keil, who remarks: “As Daniel at once understood the interpretation of the dream, he was for a moment so astonished that he could not speak for terror at the thoughts which moved his soul. This amazement seized him because he wished well to the king, and yet he must now announce to him a weighty judgment from God.” He renders שָׁעָה (sha’ah), an “instant” or moment, instead of an “hour.”
2. The king’s appeal (Daniel 4:19). Desires Daniel to declare the interpretation, whatever evil it may forbode to himself. A good sign and a mark of sincerity when a man desires the truth to be faithfully told, however it may seem to go against him. Ahab an opposite example. “I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil” (1 Kings 22:8). Something much more hopeful in Nebuchadnezzar.
3. The interpretation itself (Daniel 4:20-26). Its details:
(1.) The tree is the king himself.
(2.) He was to be deprived of his reason, and thus to be driven from among men to dwell with the beasts of the field, eating grass like one of them [115].
(3.) This condition of things was to continue for a lengthened period, only, however, obscurely and enigmatically intimated as “seven times” that should pass over him; long enough for his entire aspect to become changed, although only until the end designed should be accomplished, and he should learn that not man, but the Most High, “ruleth in the kingdom of men” (Daniel 4:25).
(4.) His kingdom however should, in the meantime, be preserved to him, so that on the return of his reason he might again possess it Doleful tidings to the king, yet mixed with mercy. A dark cloud, but with a silver lining to it. So the gospel reveals the wrath of God against sin, but points the sinner to a refuge from that wrath. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).
[115] “They shall make thee to eat grass as oxen.” According to the Syriac or Chaldaic idiom, for “Thou shalt be made,” &c, the indefinite plural standing for the passive. The subject thus remains altogether indefinite, so that one has neither to think of men or angels as the instruments of the infliction. “As to the eating of grass,” says Rösch, quoted by Keil, “there is nothing to perplex or that needs to be explained. It is a circumstance that has occurred in recent times, as, e.g., in the case of a woman in the Wütemberg asylum for the insane.” Keil also, in a note, quotes Friedreich, who observes, that “sometimes in physical maladies the nails assume a peculiarly monstrous luxuriance with deformity;” and that “it is an actual experience that the hair, the more it is exposed to the influence of the rough weather and to the sun’s rays, the more does it grow in hardness, and thus becomes like unto the feathers of an eagle.” See further under next Section.
4. The exhortation accompanying it (Daniel 4:27). Daniel yearns for the king’s welfare. Not satisfied with merely declaring the truth, adds faithful counsel and loving exhortation. An example to ministers. Warm and faithful application of a discourse a thing never to be omitted. The nail not merely to be made sharp, but driven in,—“fastened by the Master of assemblies.” Daniel’s counsel to the king is—
(1.) To give up sin [116]. No favour with God nor peace to ourselves till rebellion against God is given up. No peace to the wicked. Sin the great attracting rod to God’s wrath. The king’s character and life here too plainly but faithfully indicated.
(2.) To practise righteousness. Well-doing in general, and justice to his subjects in particular [117]. Not enough to cease to do evil; we must learn to do well. Duty has two sides, a positive and a negative,—“thou shalt” as well as “thou shalt not.” Not sufficient to be negatively good. The king’s character and life again hinted at. Oppression and injustice the usual accompaniments of despotism.
(3.) To show mercy to the poor. Something more than mere justice. Kings as well as their subjects to be not only just, but kind and merciful In relation to men, justice and mercy the two duties which God requires of us. “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Justice and mercy the reflection of God’s own character. Mercy that in which we are especially to resemble him. “Be ye merciful, as your Heavenly Father is merciful.” To love and do good to our fellow-men only another form of justice. Love a debt due to each. That debt never fully paid. Every man his neighbour’s debtor. That due to every one which we would wish every one to do to us in similar circumstances. Nebuchadnezzar’s past life again alluded to. Selfishness rather than regard to the poor the likely character of a despot. The greatest works in Egypt and India accomplished through the forced labours of the poor under the terror of the lash.
[116] “Break off thy sins.” פְרֻק (perooq), from פְרַק (peraq), to “break off, break in pieces,” hence to “separate, disjoin, put at a distance.” Theodotion and the Vulgate improperly render the word by one which means, to “redeem.” But, “though in the Targums, פרק is used for גָּאַל (gaal), and פָּדָה (padhah), to loosen, to unbind, of redeeming or ransoming of the first-born, an inheritance, or any other valuable possession, yet this use of the word by no means accords with sins as the object, because sins are not goods which one redeems or ransoms so as to retain them for his own use.”—Keil.
[117] “By righteousness.” Theodotion and the Vulgate commit a further error by rendering this word “alms.” The passage, says Keil, is thus made to teach the doctrine of salvation by works,—“Redeem thy sins by alms.” In this rendering they are followed by many Church Fathers and Rabbis; the later Jews holding the doctrine of the merit of works, while, as Keil observes in a footnote, the Catholic Church regards this passage as a locus classicus for the doctrine of the merit of works, against which the Apologia Conf. August, first set forth the right exposition.” The same expositor remarks: “צְדָקָה (tsedhaqah, ‘righteousness’) nowhere in the Old Testament’ means good-doing or alms. This meaning the self-righteous Rabbis first gave to the word in their writings. Daniel recommends the king to practise righteousness as the chief virtue of a ruler, in contrast to the unrighteousness of the despots, as Hgstb., Häv., Hofm., and Klief. have justly observed.” It may be noticed here that the term “righteousness” (δικαιοσὑνη) appears from the New Testament to have come to be used by the Jews in the time of the Saviour, and subsequently by Jewish Christians and others, in the sense of alms. In Matthew 6:1, while our version has “do not thine alms,” some ancient Greek copies have “do not thy righteousness.” The translators of the Bible, therefore, placed “righteousness” in the margin, while the Revisers of the New Testament have inserted it in the text as the preferable reading. The first verse, however, is the only place in the context where the word is used; in all the rest, Daniel 4:2-4, the word is “alms” (ἐλεημοσύνη). Righteousness is not to be confounded with alms. Calvin, however, thinks “righteousness” here means the same as grace or pity; the word pity or “mercy” being added by way of explanation, “righteousness” embracing all the duties of charity. “Righteousness,” indeed, as meaning almsgiving, may have been adopted from Psalms 112:9, which the apostle seems to have understood and quoted in that sense, 2 Corinthians 9:9.
5. The encouragement (Daniel 4:27). “If it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity;” marg. “a healing of thine error” [118]. Hope ever held out to the penitent. “Let the wicked forsake his way,” &c. (Isaiah 55:7). The threatened doom might not only be delayed, but possibly averted. So in the case of Nineveh. “Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him?” (Joel 2:14). “God, even when grievously offended, not inexorable.” Hezekiah’s prayer added fifteen years to his life. So might Nebuchadnezzar’s repentance. Or if the doom must come, the days might be shortened. The specified time of its continuance indefinite. “Seven times” might be seven years or seven months. Or a happy future might be made to succeed. A probationary period of twelve months afforded. Mercy Jehovah’s darling attribute. “He delighteth in mercy.” “Afflicteth not willingly, neither doth grieve the children of men.” “Ready to forgive.” The father runs to receive with the kiss of forgiveness the returning prodigal.
[118] “A lengthening of thy tranquillity;” marg. “a healing of thine error.” The Greek translator improperly has “perhaps God will be long-suffering to thee;” and the Vulgate, “perhaps He will pardon thy faults.” אַרְכָּא (area), says Keil, means continuance or length of time, as Daniel 7:12; and שְׁלֵוָא (sheleva), rest, safety, as the Hebrew שַׁלְוָה (shalvah), here the peaceful prosperity of life; hence the proper rendering, “If there may be a continuance of prosperity of life,” of which the condition placed before the king is reformation of life, the giving up of injustice and cruelty to the poor, and the practice of righteousness and mercy. Calvin prefers the rendering that stands in the margin: “As if he had said, This is the proper and genuine medicine;” adding that the more received sense is, “This medicine may be suitable to the error.” Calvin and Polanus thought the calamity might be alleviated, though the punishment might be inflicted. Willet observes that Daniel sustains the double character of a prophet and a faithful counsellor; knowing that if the king humbled himself in time, it would not be unprofitable for him, he counsels him, “if so it stood with God’s good pleasure.” Daniel, says Keil, knew nothing of a heathen Fatum, but he knew that the judgments of God were directed against men according to their conduct, and that punishment threatened could only be averted by repentance.