24“This is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree the Most High has issued against my lord the king: 25You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like cattle and be drenched with the dew of heaven. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes. 26The command to leave the stump of the tree with its roots means that your kingdom will be restored to you when you acknowledge that Heaven rules. 27Therefore, O king, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue.”
The king now heard the awful details of judgment applied to him. And lest he think what he was hearing was only Daniel’s private interpretation, Daniel reemphasized that this was God’s decree. The king must realize that the message was not only unpleasant, it was absolutely authoritative.
God, who will not share his glory with anyone, would drive the proud king from human society and would force him to live like an animal. He would eat the food of animals and would behave as they do. “You will . . . be drenched with the dew of heaven.” The mightiest king on earth would sink to a condition so like that of the animals of the field that he wouldn’t even want to seek shelter at night.
The only ray of hope for the king in this dark prophecy was that God’s judgment would be temporary. The stump that was permitted to remain in the earth with its roots after the tree was cut down offered the king the hope that God might, in his own good time, permit the king to return to his throne. “Your kingdom will be restored to you when you acknowledge that Heaven rules.”
“Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men.” Some have understood the expression “seven times” to mean that the king’s strange insanity would last for seven years. We know, however, that in the Book of Daniel numbers are often used with symbolical meanings. Some have asked, “Since seven is sometimes the number for God, does this seven perhaps describe Nebuchadnezzar’s judgment as an act of God?” Or is the emphasis simply that God had determined an unspecified but precisely measured period of time for the king to live like a beast of the field?
One thing is clear: this condition that came upon the king by the judgment of God would continue until he recognized that he was, after all, a creature, until he learned to give God the credit God deserved.
“Your kingdom will be restored to you when you acknowledge that Heaven rules.” This is the only time in the entire Old Testament that the word “heaven” is used to refer to God. It is used here to convince Nebuchadnezzar that the real power behind earthly kings and kingdoms is above and beyond this earth.
As an obedient civil servant, loyal to his king, Daniel had now complied with the king’s command. He had interpreted the king’s dream. As a person interested in the king’s welfare, Daniel now did one more thing, something he had not been asked to do. He made a personal application to the king.
His message was respectful, but it was blunt and hardhitting: “Be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed.” Nebuchadnezzar must have been guilty of oppressing the poor and helpless. This now had to stop. God still wants governments, including world powers, to exercise justice impartially and to show compassion to the needy. In short, God wanted to see evidence in the life of this proud king that he was now walking humbly before the Lord of the nations. By his highhanded, haughty behavior, Nebuchadnezzar had been speeding the downfall of the Babylonian Empire. If the king would stop the behavior that was so offensive to God, God might prolong Babylon’s prosperity and postpone its awful day of reckoning.
This was bitter medicine for the king, but it was wholesome medicine. We can certainly appreciate why God had put Daniel in the king’s court in Babylon.