“Let his mind be changed from a man’s, and let a beast’s mind be given to him; and let seven periods of time pass over him.” Daniel 4:16
Before we leave Daniel 4 we need to revisit one important lesson from this chapter. As God deals with King Nebuchadnezzar He gives him the mind of an animal. As we read this passage our tendency is to view God punishing Nebuchadnezzar for his pride by making him an
animal. That view is totally understandable because living for 7 years as a beast in the field is a horrendous thought. Yet God’s purpose was not primarily punishment or even correction for his sin. Instead God’s
primary purpose was to call King Nebuchadnezzar to know and worship the one true God of the Universe. As a result God desired to teach Nebuchadnezzar during these 7 years what he was not able or willing to learn while he was the king of Babylon. But why did that require becoming an animal?
In Daniel’s interpretation of the king’s dream we read the reason for God’s action in the king’s life. “This is the interpretation, O king: It is a
decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king… till you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to
whom he will.” God’s action in Nebuchadnezzar’s life is to educate the king to a fact he refuses to accept. To break through that barrier God makes the king’s mind one of an animal. That causes most people to look at the physical consequences to the king – long hair like eagles feathers, his nails like bird’s claws and his diet of grass instead of the king’s food he tried to feed Daniel many years before. That is not God’s primary purpose for Nebuchadnezzar. “Man looks on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart.” God does this to show the king the truth about Him, the ruler of the universe.
Why would God turn Nebuchadnezzar into a beast then? Isaiah tells us something critical, something animals instinctively know that humans do not. “The ox knows its owner and the donkey the crib of its master. Israel does not know. My people do not have understanding.” Job knew this truth. He tells his friends to “ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you… Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?” What did the beasts know? That God is sovereign. Thus God sends the king to live among the
beasts to learn “ to know” what they know . Does knowing this truth save a person? The answer is no. God never forces a person to believe in Him. He does bring people to a point in their lives that they face the truth that they are not in control. They can write these incidents off as accidents, circumstances, unfairness or bad luck or they can realize there is a God in heaven who “rules in the affairs of men”. That is where men and women, boys and girls must make a decision. If they don’t, Romans 1 tells us of their downward slide of those who “knew God, they did not honor
Him as God or give thanks to Him”. (Read what Nebuchadnezzar does in the last verse of chapter 4.) God’s purpose is for Nebuchadnezzar to know Him; what happens after that is up to the king.
What can we learn? Nebuchadnezzar shows us what one preacher said, “Our sanity is directly linked to God’s sovereignty”. God wants to
transform our minds from sin’s curse. That transformation comes through the wisdom of His word and that wisdom begins with the
“fear of God”. What does the fear of God start with? Knowing He is sovereign and has all power and authority. Thus when
Nebuchadnezzar is in the field, after seven years, “Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and hedoes according to His will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to Him, “What have You done?” What did Nebuchadnezzar learn? What the animals know and you and I must acknowledge – God is His master and sovereign over all.