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Nebuchadnezzar's Dream and His Madness - Daniel 4:1-37 (3:31-4:34)
This section (Daniel 4) is in the form of a proclamation by king Nebuchadnezzar to all the peoples of his kingdom, informing them of a wonderful event in which the living God of heaven made Himself known as the ruler over the kingdoms of men. After a short introduction (Daniel 3:31-4:2 [Dan 4:1-3]) the king makes known to his subjects, that amid the peaceful prosperity of his life he had dreamed a dream which filled him with disquietude, and which the wise men of Babylon could not interpret, until Daniel came, who was able to do so (Daniel 4:1-5 [Dan 4:4-8]). In his dream he saw a great tree, with vast branches and bearing much fruit, which reached up to heaven, under which beasts and birds found a lodging, shelter, and food. Then a holy watcher came down from heaven and commanded the tree to be cut down, so that its roots only remained in the earth, but bound with iron and brass, till seven times shall pass, so that men may know the power of the Most High over the kingdoms of men (vv. 6-15 [Dan 4:9-18]). Daniel interpreted to him this dream, that the tree represented the king himself, regarding whom it was resolved by Heaven that he should be driven forth from men and should live among the beasts till seven times should pass, and he should know that the Highest rules over the kingdoms of men (vv. 16-24 [Dan 4:19-27]). After twelve months this dream began to be fulfilled, and Nebuchadnezzar fell into a state of madness, and became like a beast of the field (vv. 25-30 [Dan 4:28-33]). But after the lapse of the appointed time his understanding returned to him, whereupon he was again restored to his kingdom and became exceeding great, and now praised and honoured the King of heaven (vv. 31-34 [Dan 4:34-37]).
If the preceding history teaches how the Almighty God wonderfully protects His true worshippers against the enmity of the world-power, this narrative may be regarded as an actual confirmation of the truth that this same God can so humble the rulers of the world, if in presumptuous pride they boast of their might, as to constrain them to recognise Him as the Lord over the kings of the earth. Although this narrative contains no miracle contrary to the course of nature, but only records a divine judgment, bringing Nebuchadnezzar for a time into a state of madness, - a judgment announced beforehand in a dream, and happening according to the prediction, - yet Bleek, v. Leng., Hitz., and others have rejected its historical veracity, and have explained it as only an invention by which the Maccabean pseudo-Daniel threatens the haughty Antiochus Epiphanes with the vengeance of Heaven, which shall compel him to recognise One higher than himself, namely, the God of Israel. A proof of this assertion of theirs they find in the form of the narrative. The proclamation of Nebuchadnezzar to all the nations of his kingdom, in which the matter is set forth, shows, in its introduction and its close, greater familiarity with biblical thoughts than one would have expected in Nebuchadnezzar. The doxologies, Daniel 3:33 (Dan 4:3) and Daniel 4:31 (Dan 4:34), agree almost literally with Psa 145:13; and in the praise of the omnipotence and of the infinite majesty of God, Daniel 4:32 (Dan 4:35), the echoes of Isa 40:17; Isa 43:13, Isa 43:24, Isa 43:21 cannot fail to be recognised. The circumstance that in vv. 25-30 (Dan 4:28-33) Nebuchadnezzar is spoken of in the third person, appears to warrant also the opinion that the writing was composed by some other person than by the king. But the use of the third person by Nebuchadnezzar in the verses named is fully explained from the contents of the passage (see Exposition), and neither justifies the conclusion that the author was a different person from the king, nor the supposition of Hv. that the vv. 26-30 (Dan 4:29-33) are a passage parenthetically added by Daniel to the brief declaration of the edict, v. 25 (Dan 4:28), for the purpose of explaining it and making the matter better understood by posterity. The circumstance that v. 31 (Dan 4:34) refers to the statement of time in v. 26 (Dan 4:29), and that the royal proclamation would be incomplete without vv. 26-30 (Dan 4:29-33), leads to the opposite conclusion. The existence of these biblical thoughts, however, even though not sufficiently explained by the supposition that Nebuchadnezzar had heard these thoughts and words in a conference on the matter with Daniel, and had appropriated them to himself, cannot be adduced against the genuineness of the edict, but only shows this much, that in the composition of it Nebuchadnezzar had made use of the pen of Daniel, whereby the praise of God received a fuller expression than Nebuchadnezzar would have given to it. For in the whole narrative of the event the peculiar heathen conceptions of the Chaldean king so naturally present themselves before us, that beyond question we read the very words used by Nebuchadnezzar himself.
Then it has been found in the highest degree strange that Nebuchadnezzar himself should have published to his people an account of his madness, instead of doing all to make this sad history forgotten. But, notwithstanding that the views of the ancients regarding madness were different from ours, we must say, with Klief. and others, on the contrary, that "publicity in such a case was better than concealment; the matter, besides, being certainly known, could not be made either better or worse by being made public. Nebuchadnezzar wishes to publish, not his madness, but the help which God had imparted to him; and that he did this openly does honour indeed to his magnanimous character."
But the principal argument against the historical veracity of the occurrence is derived from the consideration that no mention is anywhere else made of he seven years' madness, an event which certainly could not but introduce very important changes and complications into the Babylonian kingdom. It is true that the Hebrew history does not at all refer to the later years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, though it extends, Jer 52:31, to a period later than these times, and should, without doubt, give as much prominence to such a divine judgment against this enemy as to the fate of Sennacherib (Kg2 19:37) (Hitz.). But the brief notice, Jer 52:31, that king Jehoiachin, thirty-seven years after his deportation, was delivered from prison by Evilmerodach when he became king, afforded no opportunity to speak of Nebuchadnezzar's madness, which for a time rendered him incapable of conducting the affairs of government, but did not cause his death. And the reference to the murder of Sennacherib proves nothing regarding it, because, according to the view of Jeremiah and the biblical historians, Nebuchadnezzar occupied an altogether different relation to the theocracy from that of Sennacherib. Nebuchadnezzar appeared not as an arch-enemy, but as the servant of Jehovah he executed the will of God against the sinful kingdom of Judah; Sennacherib, on the contrary, in daring insolence derided the God of Israel, and was punished for this by the annihilation of his host, and afterwards murdered by his own son, while Nebuchadnezzar was cured of his madness.
But when the opponents of the genuineness moreover argue that even the Chaldean historian Berosus can have announced nothing at all regarding Nebuchadnezzar's madness, since Josephus, and Origen, and Jerome, who were well-versed in books, could find nothing in any author which pointed to such an event, it is to be replied, in the first place, that the representations of seven years' duration of the madness, and of the serious complications which this malady must have brought on the Babylonian kingdom, are mere frivolous suppositions of the modern critics; for the text limits the duration of the malady only to seven times, by which we may understand seven months as well as seven years. The complications in the affairs of the kingdom were, moreover, prevented by an interim government. Then Hgstb. (Beitr. i. p. 101ff.), Hv., Del., and others, have rightly shown that not a single historical work of that period is extant, in which one could expect to find fuller information regarding the disease of Nebuchadnezzar, which is certainly very significant in sacred history, but which in no respect had any influence on the Babylonian kingdom. Herodotus, the father of history, did not know Nebuchadnezzar even by name, and seems to have had no information of his great exploits - e.g., of his great and important victory over the Egyptian host as Carchemish. Josephus names altogether only six authors in whose works mention is made of Nebuchadnezzar. But four of these authorities - viz.: The Annals of the Phoenicians, Philostratus, author of a Phoenician history, Megasthenes, and Diocles - are not here to be taken into account, because the first two contain only what relates to Phoenicia, the conquest of the land, and the siege of Tyre, the capital; while the other two, Megsth. in his Indian history, and Diocles in his Persian history, speak only quite incidentally of Nebuchadnezzar. There remain then, besides, only Berosus and Abydenus who have recorded the Chaldean history. But of Berosus, a priest of Belus at Babylon in the time of Alexander the Great, who had examined many and ancient documents, and is justly acknowledged to be a trustworthy historian, we possess only certain poor fragments of his Χαλδαι"κά quoted in the writings of Josephus, Eusebius, and later authors, no one of whom had read and extracted from the work of Berosus itself. Not only Eusebius, but, as M. v. Niebuhr has conclusively proved, Josephus also derived his account from Berosus only through the remains of the original preserved by Alexander Polyhistor, a contemporary of Sulla, a "tumultuous worker," whose abstract has no great security for accuracy, and still less for integrity, although he has not purposely falsified anything; cf. M. v. Niebuhr, Gesh. Assurs, p. 12f. Abydenus lived much later. He wrote apparently after Josephus, since the latter has made no use of him, and thus he was not so near the original sources as Berosus, and was, moreover, to judge of his fragments which are preserved by Eusebius and Syncellus, not so capable of making use of them, although one cannot pass sentence against the trustworthiness of the peculiar sources used by him, since the notices formed from them, notwithstanding their independent on Berosus, agree well with his statements; cf. M. v. Niebuhr, p. 15f.
But if Josephus did not himself read the work of Berosus, but only reported what he found in the extracts by Polyhistor, we need not wonder though he found nothing regarding Nebuchadnezzar's madness. And yet Josephus has preserved to us a notice from Berosus which points to the unusual malady by which Nebuchadnezzar was afflicted before his death, in the words, "Nabuchodonosor, after he had begun to build the fore-mentioned wall, fell sick and departed this life, when he had reigned forty-three years" (contra Apion, i. 20). In these words lies more than the simple remark, that Nebuchadnezzar, as is wont to happen to the most of men, died after an illness going before, and not suddenly, as Berth., Hitz., and others wish to interpret it. Berosus uses a formula of this kind in speaking neither of Nabonedus nor of Neriglissor, who both died, not suddenly, but a natural death. He remarks only, however, of Nebuchadnezzar's father: "Now it so fell out that he (his father Nabopolassar) fell into a distemper at this time, and died in the city of Babylon," because he had before stated regarding him, that on account of the infirmity of old age he had committed to his son the carrying on of the war against Egypt; and hence the words, "at that time he fell into a distemper," or the distemper which led to his death, acquire a particular significance.
(Note: When Hitzig adduces Kg2 13:14 in support of his view, he has failed to observe that in this place is narrated how the tidings of Elisha's sickness unto death gave occasion to the king Joash to visit the prophet, from whom he at that time received a significant prophetical announcement, and that thus this passage contains something quite different from the trivial notice merely that Elisha was sick previous to his death.)
If, accordingly, the "falling sick" pointed to an unusual affliction upon Nebuchadnezzar, so also the fact that Berosus adds to the statement of the distemper the account of his death, while on the contrary, according to this chapter, Nebuchadnezzar again recovered and reigned still longer, does not oppose the reference of the "distemper" to the king's madness; for according to Berosus, as well as according to Daniel, the malady fell upon Nebuchadnezzar in the later period of his reign, after he had not only carried on wars for the founding and establishment of his world-kingdom, but had also, for the most part at least, finished his splendid buildings. After his recovery down to the time of his death, he carried forward no other great work, regarding which Berosus is able to give any communication; it therefore only remained for him to mention the fact of his death, along with the statement of the duration of his reign. No one is able, therefore, to conclude from his summary statement, that Nebuchadnezzar died very soon after his recovery from the madness.
A yet more distinct trace of the event narrated in this chapter is found in Abydenus, in the fragments preserved by Euseb. in the Praepar. evang. ix. 41, and in the Chronic. Armen. ed. Aucher, i. p. 59, wherein Abydenus announces as a Chaldee tradition (λέγεται πρὸς Χαλδαίων), that Nebuchadnezzar, after the ending of his war in the farther west, mounted his royal tower, i.e., to the flat roof, and, there seized by some god (κατασχεθείη θεῷ ὅτεω δὴ), he oracularly (θεσπίσαι) announced to the Babylonians their inevitable subjugation by the Πέρσης ἡμίονος united with the Medes, who would be helped by their own Babylonian gods. He prayed that the Persian might be destroyed in the abyss of the sea, or condemned to wander about in a desert wilderness, inhabited only by wild beasts; and for himself he wished a peaceful death before these misfortunes should fall on the Chaldean empire. Immediately after this utterance Nebuchadnezzar was snatched away from the sight of men (παραχρῆμα ἠφάνιστο). In this Chaldean tradition Eusebius has recognised
(Note: In the Chron. Arm. p. 61, Eusebius has thus remarked, after recording the saying by Abyd.: "In Danielis sane historiis de Nabudhadonosoro narratur, quomodo et quo pacto mente captus fuerit: quod si Graecorum historici aut Chaldaei morbum tegunt et a Deo eum acceptum comminiscuntur, Deumque insaniam, quae in illum intravit, vel Daemonem quendam, qui in eum venerit, nominant, mirandum non est. Etenim hoc quidem illorum mos est, cuncta similia Deo adscribere, Deosque nominare Daemones.")
a disfigured tradition of this history; and even Bertholdt will not "deny that this strange saying is in its main parts identical with our Aramaic record." On the other hand, Hitz. knows nothing else to bring forward than that "the statement sounds so fabulous, that no historical substance can be discovered in it." But the historical substance lies in the occurrence which Daniel relates. As, according to Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar was on the roof of his palace when he was suddenly struck by God with madness, so also according to Abydenus he was ὡς ἀναβὰς ἐπὶ τὰ βασιλήΐα when seized by some god, or possessed. Here not only the time and the place of the occurrence agree, but also the circumstance that the king's being seized or bound was effected by some god, i.e., not by his own, but by a strange god. Not the less striking is the harmony in the curse which he prayed might fall on the Persian - "May he wander in the wilderness where no cities are, no human footstep, where wild beasts feed and the birds wander" - with the description of the abode of the king in his madness in Dan 5:21 : "And he was driven from the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses; and they fed him with grass like oxen." Moreover, though the designation of the Persian as ἡμίονος in Abyd. may not be formed from the ערדין of Daniel, but derived from old oracles regarding Cyrus diffused throughout the East, as Hv. (N. Krit. Unters. p. 53, under reference to Herod. i. 55, 91) regards as probable, then the harmony of the Chaldean tradition in Abyd. with the narrative in Daniel leaves no doubt that the fact announced by Daniel lies at the foundation of that tradition, but so changed as to be adapted to the mythic glorification of the hero who was celebrated, of whom Megasthenes says that he excelled Hercules in boldness and courage ( ̔Ηρακλέως ἀλκιμώτερον γεγονότα, in Euseb. Praep. ev. l.c.).
To represent the king's state of morbid psychical bondage and want of freedom as his being moved by God with the spirit of prophecy was natural, from the resemblance which the mantic inspiration in the gestures of the ecstasy showed to the μανία (cf. The combination of וּמתנבּא משׁגּה אישׁ, Jer 29:26; Kg2 9:11); and in the madness which for a time withdrew the founder of the world-kingdom from the exercise of his sovereignty there might appear as not very remote to the Chaldeans, families with the study of portents and prodigies as pointing out the fate of men and of nations, an omen of the future overthrow of the world-power founded by him. As the powerful monarchy of Nebuchadnezzar was transferred to the Πέρσης ἡμίονος not a full generation (25-26 years) after the death of its founder, it might appear conformable to the national vanity of the Chaldeans to give the interpretation to the ominous experience of the great king, that the celebrated hero himself before his death - θεῷ ὅτεω δὴ κατάσχετος - had prophesied its fall, and had imprecated on the destroyer great evil, but had wished for himself a happy death before these disasters should come.
But even if there were no such traditional references to the occurrence mentioned in this chapter, yet would the supposition of its invention be excluded by its nature. Although it could be prophesied to Antiochus as an ̓Επιμανής (madman) that he would wholly lose his understanding, yet there remains, as even Hitz. is constrained to confess, the choice of just this form of the madness, the insania zoanthropica, a mystery in the solution of which even the acuteness of this critic is put to shame; so that he resorts to the foolish conjecture that the Maccabean Jew had fabricated the history out of the name נבוכדנצר, since נבוך means oberravit cum perturbatione, and כדן, to bind, fasten, while the representation of the king as a tree is derived from the passages Isa 14:12; Eze 31:3. To this is to be added the fact, that the tendency attributed to the narrative does not at all fit the circumstances of the Maccabean times. With the general remark that the author wished to hold up as in a mirror before the eyes of Antiochus Epiphanes to what results haughty presumption against the Most High will lead, and how necessary it is penitentially to recognise His power and glory if he would not at length fall a victim to the severest judgments (Bleek), the object of the invention of so peculiar a malady becomes quite inconceivable. Hitzig therefore seeks to explain the tendency more particularly. "The transgressor Nebuchadnezzar, who for his haughtiness is punished with madness, is the type of that arrogant ̓Επιμανής, who also sought unsuitable society, as king degraded himself (Polyb. xxvi. 10), and yet had lately given forth a circular-letter of an altogether different character (1 Macc. 1:41ff.)."
"If in v. 28 (Dan 4:31) the loss of the kingdom is placed before the view of Nebuchadnezzar (Antiochus Epiphanes), the passage appears to have been composed at a time when the Maccabees had already taken up arms, and gained the superiority (1 Macc. 2:42-48)." According to this, we must suppose that the author of this book, at a time when the Jews who adhered to their religion, under the leadership of Mattathias, marched throughout the land to put an end by the force of arms to the oppression of Antiochus Epiphanes, had proposed to the cruel king the full restoration of his supremacy and the willing subjection of the Jews under his government, on the condition that he should recognise the omnipotence of their God. But how does such a proposal of peace agree with the war of the Jews led by Mattathias against the πׂδψσ, against the heathen and transgressors, whose horn (power) they suffer not to prosper (1 Macc. 2:47, 48)? How with the passionate address of the dying Mattathias, "Fear ye not the words of a sinful man (ἀνδρὸς ἁμαρτωλοῦ, i.e., Antiochus), for his glory shall be dung and worms" (v. 62)? And wherein then consists the resemblance between the Nebuchadnezzar of his chapter and Antiochus Epiphanes? - the latter, a despot who cherished a deadly hatred against the Jews who withstood him; the former, a prince who showed his good-will toward the Jews in the person of Daniel, who was held in high esteem by him. Or is Nebuchadnezzar, in the fact that he gloried in the erection of the great Babylon as the seat of his kingdom, and in that he was exhorted by Daniel to show compassion toward the poor and the oppressed (v. 24 [Dan 4:27]), a type of Antiochus, "who sought improper society, and as king denied himself," i.e., according to Polybius as quoted by Hitzig, delighted in fellowship with the lower classes of society, and spent much treasure amongst the poor handicraftsmen with whom he consorted? Or is there seen in the circular-letter of Antiochus, "that in his whole kingdom all should be one people, and each must give up his own laws," any motive for the fabrication of the proclamation in which Nebuchadnezzar relates to all his people the signs and wonders which the most high God had done to him, and for which he praised the God of heaven?
And if we fix our attention, finally, on the relation of Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, shall that prophet as the counsellor of the heathen king, who in true affection uttered the wish that the dream might be to them that hated him, and the interpretation thereof to his enemies (v. 16 [Dan 4:19]), be regarded as a pattern to the Maccabees sacrificing all for the sake of their God, who wished for their deadly enemy Antiochus that his glory might sink into "dung and the worms?" Is it at all conceivable that a Maccabean Jew, zealous for the law of his fathers, could imagine that the celebrated ancient prophet Daniel would cherish so benevolent a wish toward the heathen Nebuchadnezzar, in order that by such an invention he might animate his contemporaries to stedfast perseverance in war against the ruthless tyrant Antiochus?
This total difference between the facts recorded in this chapter and the circumstances of the Maccabean times described in 1 Macc. 2:42-48, as Kranichfeld has fully shown, precludes any one, as he has correctly observed, "from speaking of a tendency delineated according to the original of the Maccabean times in the name of an exegesis favourable to historical investigation." The efforts of a hostile criticism will never succeed on scientific grounds in changing the historical matters of fact recorded in this chapter into a fiction constructed with a tendency. Daniel 4:1