Dream of a Tree … The Year was 577 BC
4:1-3 Nebuchadnezzar the king, was a great king of Babylon. He was the Greatest King in all the world.
4:4-5 He has a dream that distributes him.
4:6-7 He calls for help, but they fail him.
4:8-9 Daniel (Belteshazzar) brought in.
4:10-12 The Dream – The good part
4:13-17 The Dream — The troubling part
Compare Ezekiel 31:10-14 Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height;I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness.And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him.Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches:To the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height, neither shoot up their top among the thick boughs, neither their trees stand up in their height, all that drink water: for they are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit.
Compare Job 14:7-9 For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.
4:18 Daniel (Belteshazzar) please interpret, and Daniel is astonied for one hour.
4:19-23 Daniel considers the Dream
Compare Jeremiah 27:6-8 And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him.And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the very time of his land come: and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him.And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.
4:24-28 The interpretation.
Compare Job 40:11-1212 Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him. Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.
Compare Zechariah 1:6 But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers? and they returned and said, Like as the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways, and according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us.
4:29 Twelve months pass. (1 Year)
4:30-33 The dream fulfilled. (7 Years)
… they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, …
4:34-36 Nebuchadnezzar is restored.
Compare Proverbs 22:4 By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, and honour, and life.
4:37 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.
As the Lord Jesus said But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33
Nebuchadnezzar forgot who God is. The dream was to warm him to amend his ways. When he didn’t, the dream became a reality. At the end he acknowledged who God is.
We should not forget who God is and how He blesses us.
Continue Daniel 5 Belshazzar’s Banquet
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