Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.
Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven. He heaps word on word, as if he cannot say enough in praise of God.
All whose works are truth, and his ways judgment - i:e., are true and just. How striking that the head of the All whose works are truth, and his ways judgment - i:e., are true and just. How striking that the head of the pagan world-power should be brought to the same confession as shall be the anthem of the redeemed! (Revelation 15:3, "Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways;" Revelation 16:7.) God has not dealt unjustly or too severely with me: whatever I have suffered, I deserved it all. It is a mark of true contrition to condemn one's self and justify God (Psalms 51:4).
Those that walk in pride he is able to abase - exemplified in me. He condemns himself before the whole world, in order to glorify God.
Remarks:
(1) In this chapter we have the instructive confession of Nebuchadnezzar as to his own past self-deifying pride, the consequent warning of God, and the judgment of God on him, deferred for a season of grace, but at last executed, and the blessed effect of the chastisement on him in producing humility, prayer, praise, and devotion toward the most High.
(2) When man seeks to lift himself up to a level with God, he is justly doomed by God to sink beneath man's dignity, to the level of the beast. Nebuchadnezzar, like Adam our progenitor, had been given by God the delegated lordship over both men and also "the beasts of the field" (Daniel 2:38); but as he would be a god, he thereby at once lost his lordship and became brutish. Prosperity was his snare. "At rest" from wars wherein he had been invariably victorious, and "flourishing" in an uninterrupted flow of affluence, he forgot that he was but a frail mortal. God, therefore, who is jealous for His own majesty, and will not allow His honour to be usurped by any other, gave him an awful admonitory dream. How apt we are, when our worldly wealth abounds, to forget what weak, dying creatures we are, and with what a holy God we hays to do! God therefore in mercy sends us warnings, "that He may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man, and keep back his soul from the pit" (Job 33:17-18).
(3) Nebuchadnezzar had had experience many years before of Daniel's inspired skill in interpreting dreams which baffled the power of all the soothsayers of Babylon. And yet he did not have recourse to Daniel until he had first tried all the Chaldean sages in vain. Thus God often permits us to try all earthly physicians and remedies first, in order that the worthlessness of these to the soul may be proved, before He leads us by His Spirit to the Good Physician, who heals all our spiritual diseases effectually and at once with His atoning blood and righteousness. How sad it is that, after we have once tasted His grace, we yet should be so prone to go back to worldly idols! The Lord Jesus Christ has the fullness of "the Spirit of the holy God" (Daniel 4:9), so that He can tell us all that is in our heart, and all the will of God concerning us; nor will He, on account of our past preference of others to Him, cast us out when we come to Him, but "all things that He has heard of His Father, He will make known to us" (John 15:15).
(4) The dream represented Nebuchadnezzar under the image of a wide spreading tree in the midst of the earth, whose height reached toward heaven, whose leaves were fair, and whose fruit was abundant, under whose shadow the beasts sheltered, and in whose boughs the fowls of the heaven dwelt (Daniel 4:10-12). Instead of fulfilling God's purpose in establishing a world-empire under his headship, by seeking the glory of God, and the good of man, and even of the dumb creatures under him, Nebuchadnezzar made a god of himself. The trust was therefore to be taken from him; and in his case first, the world was to be shown that mere man is not fit to be entrusted with the government of the earth; and that therefore men must look for the coming of Messiah the God-man, the Lord of man and of the lower animals, under the shadow of whose universal kingdom on earth the men of every nation shall dwell in security and blessedness (Ezekiel 17:23; Matthew 13:32), and even the brute creation shall partake of the general peace and happiness (Isaiah 11:6-9). (5) A heavenly watcher, a holy one from above (Daniel 4:13), is represented as having come down, in accordance with the "decree" of the Most High (Daniel 4:24), whose will and word are the will and word of His assembled angels, and are the answer to their petitions, wherein they "demand" (Daniel 4:17) that every mortal should be abased (Daniel 4:37), whosoever, like Nebuchadnezzar, try to obscure, in self-exalting pride, the glory that is the prerogative of God alone. "Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches," the heavenly watcher cried aloud (Daniel 4:14). It is a solemn thought that angels are, by God's command, ever watching our conduct; watching over His children for their good; watching over the ungodly to record their sins in the book of judgment, and at last to punish them. At any moment the "decree" may go forth from God against the unhumbled sinner among us, in accordance with "the demand by the word of the holy ones," Hew down the sinner who is either barren, and therefore unprofitable, or else bears fruit only for self, and not for the glory of God and the good of his fellow-men. Then shall all the seemingly green leaves be shaken off from him, and his fair-looking fruit shall be scattered; and all who once gathered about him shall forsake him (Daniel 4:14).
(6) Yet God remembered mercy to Nebuchadnezzar amidst judgment. It is true his heart or understanding was to be changed from man's, and that of a beast was to be given him; and this was to continue so for "seven times," a perfect revolution of time being the disciplinary period appointed to bring with it a complete revolution in his mind. But then his severe chastisement was to terminate, its gracious design having been accomplished in his being brought humbly to look up unto God (Daniel 4:34).
Therefore the stump of the tree was left secured by a band of iron and brass from injury through the sun's heat. The angels had pleaded against him before God, demanding his humiliation for his pride, and so the decree had gone forth against him: but God had still grace in store for him; and therefore when, in accordance with their "demand," those "living" on each had been made, by God's judgment on him, to "know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will," abasing the proud (Daniel 4:37), and "setting up over it the basest" - that is, the lowliest-of men, as He pleaseth (Daniel 4:17), then God restored to him his understanding and reason (Daniel 4:34; Daniel 4:36).
(7) It is the tendency of the natural heart, if it confess God at all, to wish to limit His agency to heaven. Proud man, therefore, must be taught that "the heavens do rule" (Daniel 4:26) on earth, and that the Most High reigneth not only above, but here below also "in the kingdom of men," and that "He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto to Him, What doest thou?" (Daniel 4:35.) It is not one's talents or royal birth which are the first cause of any man's elevation-it is simply God's will. The king of Babylon abased to the dunghill, and then lifted up again out of the dust to the world-wide throne (1 Samuel 2:8), was experimentally to know this himself, and to be an example to men of all ages, teaching us that "promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south: but God is the judge; He putteth down one, and setteth up another."
(8) The faithfulness of Daniel in his telling an absolute king the whole of the terrible message from God, without compromise or abatement, definitely fixing the application to Nebuchadnezzar himself, is a pattern for all ministers of God. While avoiding violent denunciations of wrath, as though they took pleasure in the sinner's punishment, ministers must not shun to declare the whole counsel of God, lovingly, indeed, and tenderly, but at the same time without fear or flattery of man, and trying to bring home the sense of guilt personally to each conscience. The sinner must be made to hear the voice of God speaking to his soul, "It is thou" (Daniel 4:22), "Thou art the man" (2 Samuel 12:7).
(9) Even yet Daniel held out to Nebuchadnezzar a hope of suspension of judgment, and prolongation of his reign in tranquillity, before wrath should descend, if he would still repent, and "break off his sins by righteousness, and his iniquities by showing mercy to the poor" (Daniel 4:27). God is indeed slow to wrath. Oh how this lovely feature in the character of our God should move us to put away from us whatsoever sins in us grieve Him, and provoke His displeasure!
(10) But the long-suffering of God was set at nought by Nebuchadnezzar. A respite of a year (Daniel 4:29) was granted to him, to leave him without excuse. Probably at the first announcement of judgment to come he was alarmed, and intended to reform. But when execution was delayed, his deceitful heart whispered to him that it would never come (Ecclesiastes 8:11); so he returned to his former pride, selfishness, and unrighteousness. Standing upon the roof of his gorgeous palace (Daniel 4:29), and looking down upon his golden capital, which owed much of its splendour to the public works which he had caused to be carried on by the forced and unremunerated labour of the poor, to whom he had shown no mercy (Daniel 4:27), he exclaimed, in self-glorifying elation, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?" (Daniel 4:30.) It was while he was in the very act of so speaking that God also spoke the self-glorifier's judgment, in order that the inseparable connection might be marked between the sinner's pride and the sinner's judicial downfall.
Hypochondriacal madness, sent from God, whereby be fancied himself a beast, along with a conspiracy of his nobles, "drove" him (Daniel 4:32) to dwell with the beasts in the wide grass parks of the palace, which abounded in deer and wild animals kept there for the chase. Thus, severe chastizements were made the means of bringing him to humble repentance. And when this was done, God graciously restored him to the respect of his "counselors and lords" (Daniel 4:36). With his return to God he returned to his true dignity as a man, no longer the associate of beasts. The glory, honour, and brightness of his kingdom returned unto him (Daniel 4:36), when once he learned to adore the "honour" and "everlasting dominion" of God's kingdom. 'Stability in his kingdom and excellent majesty was added unto him' (Daniel 4:36), such as he had not enjoyed before, so long as he reigned without the humble recognition of the allegiance which he owed to the Most High, as being wholly dependent on Him.
His lifting up his eyes to heaven (Daniel 4:34), whence the voice had come for his punishment (Daniel 4:31), was the first symptom of his return to understanding. Previously his eyes, like the beast's, had been downward the earth. But now he turns to Him that smote him (Isaiah 9:13), with the faint glimmer of reason left him, and accepts as just the punishment of his iniquity. Immediately mercy from God followed. And the first use which he made of his restored reason was to "praise and honour Him that liveth forever" (Daniel 4:34) to "extol Him as the king of heaven, all whose works are truth, and His ways judgment." Let us who possess this noble faculty of man, reason, use it for the glory of Him who gave it, not for the pampering of our intellectual pride! Let us remember that only so long as man lives as the humble, trusting, and obedient dependent on the God of heaven, is he truly partaker of man's highest prerogative above the brutes, union with the highest and most glorious being in the universe!