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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 4:28 - 4:28
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
(4:25-30)
The fulfilling of the dream.
Nebuchadnezzar narrates the fulfilment of the dream altogether objectively, so that he speaks of himself in the third person. Berth., Hitz., and others find here that the author falls out of the role of the king into the narrative tone, and thus betrays the fact that some other than the king framed the edict. But this conclusion is opposed by the fact that Nebuchadnezzar from v. 31 speaks of his recovery again in the first person. Thus it is beyond doubt that the change of person has its reason in the matter itself. Certainly it could not be in this that Nebuchadnezzar thought it unbecoming to speak in his own person of his madness; for if he had had so tender a regard for his own person, he would not have published the whole occurrence in a manifesto addressed to his subjects. But the reason of his speaking of his madness in the third person, as if some other one were narrating it, lies simply in this, that in that condition he was not Ich = Ego (Kliefoth). With the return of the Ich, I, on the recovery from his madness, Nebuchadnezzar begins again to narrate in the first person (v. 31 34).
Daniel 4:25 (Dan 4:28)
In this verse there is a brief comprehensive statement regarding the fulfilment of the dream to the king, which is then extended from v. 26 to 30. At the end of twelve months, i.e., after the expiry of twelve months from the time of the dream, the king betook himself to his palace at Babylon, i.e., to the flat roof of the palace; cf. 2Sa 11:2. The addition at Babylon does not indicate that the king was then living at a distance from Babylon, as Berth., v. Leng., Maur., and others imagine, but is altogether suitable to the matter, because Nebuchadnezzar certainly had palaces outside of Babylon, but it is made with special reference to the language of the king which follows regarding the greatness of Babylon. עָנֵה means here not simply to begin to speak, but properly to answer, and suggests to us a foregoing colloquy of the king with himself in his own mind. Whether one may conclude from that, in connection with the statement of time, after twelve months, that Nebuchadnezzar, exactly one year after he had received the important dream, was actively engaging himself regarding that dream, must remain undetermined, and can be of no use to a psychological explanation of the occurrence of the dream. The thoughts which Nebuchadnezzar expresses in v. 26 (Dan 4:29) are not favourable to such a supposition. Had the king remembered that dream and its interpretation, he would scarcely have spoken so proudly of his splendid city which he had built as he does in v. 27 (Dan 4:30).
When he surveyed the great and magnificent city from the top of his palace, “pride overcame him,” so that he dedicated the building of this great city as the house of his kingdom to the might of his power and the honour of his majesty. From the addition רַבְּתָא it does not follow that this predicate was a standing Epitheton ornans of Babylon, as with חֲמַת , Amo 6:2, and other towns of Asia; for although Pausanias and Strabo call Babylon μεγάλη and μεγίστη πόλις, yet it bears this designation as a surname in no ancient author. But in Rev 14:8 this predicate, quoted from the passage before us, is given to Babylon, and in the mouth of Nebuchadnezzar it quite corresponds to the self-praise of his great might by which he had built Babylon as the residence of a great king. בְּנָה designates, as בָּנָה more frequently, not the building or founding of a city, for the founding of Babylon took place in the earliest times after the Flood (Gen 11), and was dedicated to the god Belus, or the mythic Semiramis, i.e., in the pre-historic time; but בְּנָה means the building up, the enlargement, the adorning of the city מַלְכוּ לְבֵּית, for the house of the kingdom, i.e., for a royal residence; cf. The related expression מַמְלָכָה בֵּית, Amo 7:13. בֵּית stands in this connection neither for town nor for הֵיכָל (Dan 4:29), but has the meaning dwelling-place. The royalty of the Babylonian kingdom has its dwelling-place, its seat, in Babylon, the capital of the kingdom.
With reference to the great buildings of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, vide the statements of Berosus in Josephi Ant. x. 11, 1, and con. Ap. i. 19, and of Abydenus in Eusebii praepar. evang. ix. 41, and Chron. i. p. 59; also the delineation of these buildings in Duncker's Gesch. des Alterth. i. p. 854ff. The presumption of this language appears in the words, “by the strength of my might, and for the splendour (honour) of my majesty.” Thus Nebuchadnezzar describes himself as the creator of his kingdom and of its glory, while the building up of his capital as a residence bearing witness to his glory and his might pointed at the same time to the duration of his dynasty. This proud utterance is immediately followed by his humiliation by the omnipotent God. A voice fell from heaven. נְפַל as in Isa 9:7, of the sudden coming of a divine revelation. אמְרִין for the passive, as Dan 3:4. The perf. עֲדָּת denotes the matter as finished. At the moment when Nebuchadnezzar heard in his soul the voice from heaven, the prophecy begins to be fulfilled, the king becomes deranged, and is deprived of his royalty.
Daniel 4:29-30 (Dan 4:32-33)
Here the contents of the prophecy, v. 22 (v. 25), are repeated, and then in v. 30 (v. 33) it is stated that the word regarding Nebuchadnezzar immediately began to be fulfilled. On שַׁעֲתָא בָהּ, cf. Dan 3:6. סָפַת, from סוּף, to go to an end. The prophecy goes to an end when it is realized, is fulfilled. The fulfilling is related in the words of the prophecy. Nebuchadnezzar is driven from among men, viz., by his madness, in which he fled from intercourse with men, and lived under the open air of heaven as a beast among the beasts, eating grass like the cattle; and his person was so neglected, that his hair became like the eagles' fathers and his nails like birds' claws. כְּנִשְׁרִין and כְּצִפֲּרִין are abbreviated comparisons; vide under Dan 4:16. That this condition was a peculiar appearance of the madness is expressly mentioned in v. 31 (Dan 4:34), where the recovery is designated as the restoration of his understanding.
This malady, in which men regard themselves as beasts and imitate their manner of life, is called insania zoanthropica, or, in the case of those who think themselves wolves, lycanthropia. The condition is described in a manner true to nature. Even “as to the eating of grass,” as G. Rösch, in the Deutsch. Morgenl. Zeitschr. xv. p. 521, remarks, “there is nothing to perplex or that needs to be explained. It is a circumstance that has occurred in recent times, as e.g., in the case of a woman in the Württemberg asylum for the insane.” Historical documents regarding this form of madness have been collected by Trusen in his Sitten, Gebr. u. Krank. der alten Hebräer, p. 205f., 2nd ed., and by Friedreich in Zur Bibel, i. p. 308f.
(Note: Regarding the statement, “his hair grew as the feathers of an eagle,” etc., Friedr. remarks, p. 316, that, besides the neglect of the external appearance, there is also to be observed the circumstance that sometimes in psychical maladies the nails assume a peculiarly monstrous luxuriance with deformity. Besides, his remaining for a long time in the open air is to be considered, “for it is an actual experience that the hair, the more it is exposed to the influences of the rough weather and to the sun's rays, the more does it grow in hardness, and thus becomes like unto the feathers of an eagle.”)