Daniel 4:34 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Daniel 4:34

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The narrative now returns to the first person. ‘And at the end of the days, I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me.’ There is a great argument about this. What happened first? Did God restore his reason or did he come first of all to lift up his eyes to heaven? The best solution to the problem is that these things happened simultaneously. It was by the hand of God. Clearly there was a work of God to restore his reason and to enable his repentance. As he did so, God restored his faculties; they were simultaneous events most likely. His counsellors saw he was recovered.‘I blessed the most High’, with his recovered reason. ‘I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion.’ He speaks of the God who lives forever, in contrast to man whose life is soon over. This, again, is an echo of Daniel’s words in chapter 2: ‘In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever’ (Daniel 2:44). The most High whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; it will endure ‘from generation to generation.’ Nebuchadnezzar speaks humbly now; his foolish boasts are gone; his pride is perhaps permanently defeated. Was he saved? Although there are different views about this, the language he uses here gives grounds for hope. In this statement he goes much further than he has ever gone before. He goes out of his way to glorify God and to speak of his perfect knowledge, wisdom, and providence over all events, not only in heaven but on earth, which as Calvin points out, tyrants are seldom willing to do, and ‘usually enclose God in heaven’. He is he careful to recognise his limitations, to take full responsibility for his being disciplined, to give credit to God alone for his restoration, and to accept God’s dominion over all affairs of men. God is mighty and deserves to be praised and extolled and honoured, and is able to humble the proud, and has done so in the case of Nebuchadnezzar. It is an open confession of his master sin to the nation at large. He worshipped and submitted to the one true God. As in verse 3 he seems to quote from Psalm 145, probably under the tuition of Daniel. He engages in witness and tells the empire what a fall he has had and how proud he was, and how God struck him down. Now he praises the Lord and seems to want to live for him. But Scripture gives no details about the remainder of his life, and so we cannot test whether he did ‘works meet for repentance’.

Application

This whole passage here shows the sovereignty of God. God can, if he chooses, humble and quell the most powerful. He knows what it takes to humble each one, and if that one is chosen by him, then nothing that needs to be done will be omitted to bring us to himself. Conversion experiences vary enormously. Some like the Apostle Paul must be cast down and blinded and handled with violence as it were (Acts 9:3-7); others are like Lydia, whose hear the Lord opened (Acts 16:14). God does throw down all empires in time, and the last world empire – whatever form it takes: scientific humanism, Islam, whatever – he will throw down with the coming of the Son of God. He will ultimately end all, but once again, you see how he preserves his church, his people.

Are you a Christian? You have come to Christ? Don't let pride get hold of you. Don't let it puff you up: ‘Oh, I've done this; I've done that; I've accomplished this.’ The God who humbled a heathen king is far more concerned to sanctify his people. We have to deal with pride as a mortal enemy, which will destroy us if we let it. When we boast or put ourselves across, we must immediately recognise it and mortify it. It was necessary for this man to lose everything before he could see this. There are many stories of conscientious Christians who stopped fighting pride, and fell as a result. If I let pride rule me, I am going to have to be humbled somehow or other. In his kindness God will purify us, and deal with us; it doesn't matter how invincible we may feel. Everything here – the warning not heeded, the timing, the resolution of it all – it’s the hand of God marvellously at work. This is a tremendous encouragement for us in an age of atheism, when so much seems to be against us, and we are constantly fielding, even in our witness, the harshest criticisms of Almighty God and his word. Sometimes you wonder how you can stand up against it all, and how your witness can cut through. But look: when God chooses he can just stop the course of a mighty empire, bloodlessly, without force. God finds a way of humbling the invincible man, and opening hearts. Even if Nebuchadnezzar was not saved, what God did in his life is a demonstration that it is so easy for him to humble anyone, and to save any if he chooses. So it is a mighty encouragement for us to see what God can do, picking off one, then another, finally bringing that whole empire down within a matter of years.

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Daniel 4:34 Commentary and Bible Study