Nebuchadnezzar’s pride brought God’s judgment over him. The judgment was that Nebuchadnezzar’s kingship would have to give way.

And then God says: “You will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling place will be with the animals of the field. You will be given grass to eat like cattle and be drenched with the dew of heaven; and seven periods of time will pass over you, until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes” (Daniel 4:29).

So God says: The judgment is fixed, and its goal is that Nebuchadnezzar will recognize that the Most High, God Himself, reigns and grants kingship to whomever He wants. God sets up kings, and He removes them. After seven periods of time, presumably seven years, the kingship was to be restored to him again as soon as he recognized that heaven rules. This judgment is truly unique and very extraordinary. He is driven away from people and lives like an animal. Note well, it says: “like an animal.” He remained human, but his reason had left him, and he behaved like an animal.

The spiritual message is that a person without a relationship to God is like an animal. An animal looks to the earth. But by his nature, man is designed for a relationship with God. If he rejects this relationship, denies it, or loses sight of it, he behaves like an animal and morally sinks to that level as well. Yes, even more, he is morally corrupt. The New Testament says that people without God are darkened in their understanding (see Ephesians 4:18). The Epistle of Jude speaks of people who have slipped in among believers even though they have no life from God. On the contrary, they are ungodly, yet they remain within the midst of the Christian confession. In Jude 10 we read: “But these people slander things they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.” So here too the holy writer compares them to senseless animals. And in the time in which we live, one increasingly has the impression that this is truly practice.

But the fact is that there was a turning point in Nebuchadnezzar’s life. Even if it was judgment, it was a temporal judgment. A judgment with the goal of prompting repentance. In Nebuchadnezzar’s case, we can say that after he had been outwardly impressed by God’s actions from time to time, a real turning took place.

In Daniel 4:31 it says: “But at the end of that period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever.” The praise of God continues there. What is decisive here is this: at the moment he raises his eyes, that is, the direction of his gaze, toward heaven and thereby acknowledges that God is on the throne, that heaven rules, his reason returns to him. His kingship is restored to him, and indeed even more extensively, or the greatness even more outstanding, than it had been before. It shows something of God’s patience and goodness, but also that God stands above everything, that He is the Most High. He is unchanged today, and He will remain so forever.

But only people who have a living relationship with God can truly be understanding. In the New Testament we are urged “to understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:17). The Epistle to the Ephesians shows us that believing people through conversion are “enlightened in the eyes of your heart” (Ephesians 1:18). We are able to understand the thoughts of God.

May the Lord grant that, in daily life, we truly live in fellowship, in a living union with the Lord Jesus and our God and Father.