Daniel 4:37, commentary and pictures

After seven years of madness for his proud boast over Babylon, his reason and kingdom restored with added majesty, Nebuchadnezzar closes his life with a public proclamation to the world praising and honoring the King of heaven. He acknowledges Jehovah as the living God and supreme Ruler over all kings, whose dominion is everlasting and whose power over earthly kingdoms leaves no room for self-exaltation. He confesses that all God's works are truth and His ways are judgment, that God is just and judges rightly and His promises and threatenings are true. He confesses that those who walk in pride God is able to abase, stripping away human ability and kingdom in a moment until even the mightiest king sees his weakness and uses his tongue to praise a power above himself. His words are a real change of heart and true conversion after severe discipline, from a tyrannical monarch who defied heaven into a wise ruler who witnessed for God, teaching all humanity that God gives success for His own glory and will lay human pride and glory in the dust.

Historical Setting and Background

The praise belongs to the account of the tree in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, which represented his greatness and prosperity at a time when nations lived under his sovereignty and his kingdom was firmly established among loyal subjects. That chapter stands after an earlier dream of the great image which impressed upon him that earthly kingdoms would fall until God establishes an everlasting kingdom that supersedes them all. It also stands after he had seen the deliverance of the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace and acknowledged their God as the living God, an impression he then lost because he did not continue to walk in the light.

The confession grew out of his self-glorification and refusal of God's warnings, for he placed a high estimate on his own ability and did not regard God as the source of his strength. For twelve months he pursued his own course of self-exaltation while his actions were weighed in the balances of the sanctuary in heaven, until his proud boast over Babylon brought the judgment that the kingdom was departed from him. The sentence pronounced against him was then fulfilled in the loss of his reason, and his humiliation showed that earthly power comes under God's rule and cannot rightly be used for self-exaltation.

After seven years of chastening his reason, honor and kingdom were restored to him, with added majesty to his restored dominion. In that restoration he acknowledged his wrong and gave public praise to the King of heaven, confessing that God's works are true and His ways just. That praise went forth to the world in a royal proclamation declaring God's mercy, goodness and authority, fulfilling God's purpose that the greatest kingdom in the world should show forth His praise, and it stands as the last act of his life recorded in sacred history.

Meaning of the Confession

Now Nebuchadnezzar praises and extols and honors the King of heaven, acknowledging Jehovah as the living God and supreme Ruler. He confesses God as King over all kings, the Most High whose dominion is everlasting, and as the Maker of heaven and earth to be worshiped, not a golden image. His closing praise comes after God humbled him again following the great display he had made for his own glory and his self-glorification, when his understanding and reason were restored and his kingdom reestablished with added majesty. In contrast to hardening the heart in unbelief and pride, having seen God's greatness and tasted His goodness, he desired all the people of his realm to learn what he had learned, so that the king on the Babylonian throne became a witness for God, a Babylonian monarch proclaiming the supremacy of the God worshiped by the Hebrew captives, giving warm and eloquent testimony from a grateful heart that shared in the mercy and grace and righteousness and peace of the divine nature. Earthly power comes under God's rule and cannot rightly be used for self-exaltation, for God worked with power upon the mind of the proud king, the mightiest king on earth, until he acknowledged God.

He confesses that all God's works are truth and His ways are judgment, meaning God's works are true and His ways are just. God is just and judges rightly, acknowledging the power and mercy of the God of Israel after divine judgment humbled the king for his pride. His promises and threatenings are true, and He will humble proud and selfish aspirations.

He confesses that those who walk in pride God is able to abase, as Lord over all His creatures and all His works. He abases the proud by removing their human ability, kingdom and strength, uprooting them and bringing their ambitious projects to confusion, and royal greatness did not make Nebuchadnezzar acceptable to God, for his power was taken from him in a moment. Nebuchadnezzar had placed a high estimate on his own ability and did not consider God his source of strength, and the same humbling will surely be fulfilled toward those who grasp for gain to carry out ambitious projects in connection with God's cause and, having great light, sustain one another in an unholy confederacy to do what God warned them not to do, yet if they repent and humble their hearts before God, walk in humility, make God their trust, and keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment, there is pardon, peace in the forgiveness and approval of God, acceptance, and another trial and proving, for the Lord will not be trifled with.

The verse means God can so humble kings and nobles, even the mightiest king on earth, for His glory that they acknowledge a power above themselves and use the tongue to praise Him. Brought to see his weakness and guilt and God's supremacy and sovereign power after losing his reason and being humbled through a fearfully severe experience, Nebuchadnezzar recognized his weakness and acknowledged the living God's supremacy. His humiliation taught him his guilt and God's sovereign power, and he publicly acknowledged God's mercy in restoring him. After his reason and kingdom were restored he praised and extolled and honored the King of heaven, confessing that all God's works are truth and His ways judgment and that He is able to abase those who walk in pride.

Conversion and Changed Character

The words are the mark of a real change of heart and true and final conversion after fearfully severe experience and stern discipline. The punishment was not in vain, for after the sentence against him was fulfilled he praised the King of heaven, confessed that His works are true and His ways just, and recognized that He can bring down all who walk in pride. Daniel's steady practice of honoring God before the king helped lead him to recognize God's glory and at last learn to praise and extol and honor Him.

That yielding is the giving of the human will to the will of God and the giving of the self to Him without delay. Those who so yield receive from Christ all the excellence necessary for perfection of character, gained through more self-denial and self-sacrifice. God then molds and fashions the perverse human mind into His own likeness by taking the things of Christ and showing them, so that beholding the beauty of the Saviour's character they grow more and more like Him until complete in Him.

The seven years of chastening reformed his heart and transformed his character. The tyrannical, overbearing, fierce monarch who defied and blasphemed the God of heaven became a wise and compassionate ruler who acknowledged heaven's power and sought earnestly to promote the happiness of his subjects. In this is seen that true greatness consists in goodness, and that rulers should seek to honor God and promote the happiness of those under them.

In contrast to hardening the heart in unbelief and pride, the king on the Babylonian throne became a witness for God. Humbled under rebuke, with understanding and reason restored and kingdom reestablished with added majesty, having seen God's greatness and tasted His goodness, he acknowledged Jehovah as the living God and King of heaven whose works are true and whose ways are just and who can bring low the proud. He gave warm and eloquent testimony from a grateful heart that shared in the mercy and grace and righteousness and peace of the divine nature, desiring all the people of his realm to learn what he had learned, that the God to be worshiped is not a golden image but the Maker of heaven and earth. That public acknowledgment of God's mercy, goodness, and authority fulfilled God's purpose that the greatest kingdom in the world should show forth His praise, and it was the last act of his life recorded in sacred history.

A king's position does not excuse pride nor remove the need to repent and humble himself before God. His conversion and miraculous restoration stand as the lesson his grandson Belshazzar knew yet ignored, failing to learn what he should have learned from it. Belshazzar disregarded the light given and lost the benefit he could have received by obeying it, for God gives lessons to instruct and lead to reform, and neglecting and failing to practice them brings judgment.

God Humbles the Proud

The confession stands as a lesson for all humanity that God, not man, is Ruler and His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom which men today must learn to acknowledge as supreme. The book of Daniel proves point by point in the history of the kingdoms represented there, with their statesmen, councils and powerful armies, that God works to abase the pride of men and lay human glory in the dust. Nebuchadnezzar himself had to learn this by stern discipline, that God and not man rules. Success in the work of the Lord comes because God gives it, not for man's own glory but for God's glory. Whoever seeks to steal a ray of light from God's glory, takes credit for success to himself, or boasts in personal wisdom, will be punished for presumption and surely be laid low and brought to humiliation.

Self-exaltation is answered by humbling, and what befell Nebuchadnezzar warns anyone who exalts himself. When a people boast in their own wisdom, exalt self and indulge pride, when a church becomes proud and boastful, and when those in charge of any institution take to themselves credit for success and glory in their wisdom and efficiency, the result will surely follow in being laid low and brought to humiliation. A man placed by God as a steward remains a power only while he does not become like Nebuchadnezzar in pride. As soon as he feels himself to be a man of power and exalts his own work, God leaves him to the humbled condition in which Nebuchadnezzar was left.

God is able to abase those who walk in pride and self-sufficiency, and men must submit to His rule and recognize that He orders and controls matters according to His own will. The proud, self-sufficient heart must be melted and subdued by the Holy Spirit, weeping over a self-sufficient estimate of personal capabilities and coming to God in lowliness of mind with heart renewed and cleansed. Then he blesses and glorifies God for learning from Jesus His mercy and truth gently instead of having to learn it through judgments as so many have. Through this abasement he learns that the heavens rule and how mighty the wonderworking God is, who controls matters after His own order and will for all who place themselves under His rule.

Warnings and Present Applications

Nebuchadnezzar's life in Daniel 4:28-37 stands as a warning not to trust in self and in human wisdom and strength or to make flesh one's arm. It warns against exalting one's own ways and judgment as supreme, for pride places a person under Satan's influence, where he is led blindly and gradually shaped to resemble the deceiver. Consumed by ambition and desire for glory, like those who make wealth, distinction, or their own plans their ruling aim, his example shows that pride and self-exaltation lead away from God into spiritual darkness that only humble submission to God's Word can break.

Patterning after Nebuchadnezzar in exalting self and taking glory to one's own name brings danger of self-exaltation, loss of the sweet spirit of truth and righteousness, and loss of God's restraining power against rivalry and embarrassment. Heeding the lesson is the duty of humbling the heart before God and keeping the eye single to His glory. The verse applies to people who become elated by success, blessings, ability, or worldly praise, and to persons exalted by pride and confidence in their own wisdom and plans. Their achievements come from God, so they must not exalt themselves or trust in their own wisdom but put trust in God and submit to His rule, for presumptuous ambition can lead to a humbling like his, since God's promises and threatenings are true and He will humble proud and selfish aspirations.

God's people must not bend the truth or their message to serve personal plans or win popularity. Seeking popularity, lifting or removing the landmarks of truth given to God's people, leading influence away from the strait and narrow path cast up by God in order to accommodate self, and lowering the banner in the message for the last days cause prosperity to cease because God will not guide. The features of faith must be kept prominent. Those who walk in pride in carrying on God's work will be abased, which warns against bringing human wisdom and unsanctioned principles into God's work and planning according to human minds and one person's devising instead of as God requires.

It warns against exalting and magnifying self, taking unauthorized authority and power over God's heritage, demanding that every sanitarium and worker meet one's own ideas and carry out one's own mind, investigating, criticizing and condemning fellow laborers, discouraging those making a small and imperfect beginning, and ruling with a spirit of supremacy in making laws and pledges for the future. Eternal interest depends on a change of heart, so that planning gives all others a chance to accomplish the work not after human devising but after the wisdom given them individually by God. Pride so indulged endangers holding fast the faith once delivered to the saints and threatens shipwreck of faith. It warns not to lose sight of the work to be done for this time, not to erect barriers between medical missionary education and the church and the ministry of the Word, not to create unbelief in the position occupied by God's people at the present time, and not to let go of the banner of present truth for a different banner.

The same humbling that removed Nebuchadnezzar's human ability, kingdom and strength, uprooted him and brought his ambitious projects to confusion after his proud boast over Babylon, will surely be fulfilled toward those who grasp for gain to carry out ambitious projects in connection with God's cause and, having great light, sustain one another in an unholy confederacy to do what God warned them not to do. Yet if they repent and humble their hearts before God, walk in humility, make God their trust, and keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment, there is pardon, peace in the forgiveness and approval of God, acceptance, and another trial and proving, for the Lord will not be trifled with. The verse gives faith to reach even the high ones of the world, even ruling powers in the large cities today, because God worked with power upon the mind of the proud king, the mightiest king on earth, until he acknowledged God as King over all kings whose dominion is everlasting, and God is to be honored and glorified today by bringing such ones to acknowledge Him. God gives such lessons to instruct people and lead them to reform, and neglecting and failing to practice those lessons brings judgment, as when Belshazzar disregarded the light given to Nebuchadnezzar and lost the benefit he could have received by obeying it.