2 August 2026

The King Who Just Didn’t Get It

Daniel 4:4-18

The great king Nebuchadnezzar conquered the old empire of Assyria and took from them all that they had taken from others. He then conquered the lands of Aram and Ammon and Moab and Judah, and from every land he conquered, he took captives, dragging them in chains to Babylon. Some of those captives, those that seemed to have promise, he put into a special school, training them to be officials of his empire. Among those were four young men from Judah named Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Those four will play a part in our story today, but we will refer to the last three by their Babylonian names: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Now one night, King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, a dream that disturbed him and left him heavy-eyed in the morning. Certain that such a dream must be important, the king sent for all his chief wise men and sorcerers to appear before him to interpret the dream. They said to him, “Of course, your highness! Tell us the dream, and we will interpret it.” But the king thought to himself, “How will I know that their interpretation is correct?” So he replied, “No, you tell me what I dreamed. If you can do that, then I will know that you can interpret it.”

The wise men, realizing that the king had made a joke, laughed politely and said, “No, seriously. Tell us the dream.”

King Nebuchadnezzar exploded with rage. “I will not! I see now that you are all frauds! Guards! Off with their heads! Off with the heads of every wise man in the kingdom!”

Now among the wise men of the court were Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, but they were not yet of the top tier of wise men, and so they had not been summoned to the king. As a result, when the guards came to drag them off to execution, they were surprised. “Was it something we said?” they asked. The guard explained about the king’s dream and his demand that the wise men tell him his dream before interpreting it. Daniel, to whom had been given the gift of dream-interpretation, said, “Well, we didn’t get a try. Can’t you let us have a go? Go ask the king.” And while the guard went to ask the king, Daniel and his friends went into a private room and prayed to their God, the God of Abraham. When the guard returned, Daniel was ready, and so the guard took him to the king.

“Are you able to tell me both my dream and its interpretation?” the king asked.

“Of course not,” Daniel replied. “No one can do that, no matter how wise or learned they are. But there is a God in heaven who is able to reveal such things.” And with that, Daniel told King Nebuchadnezzar exactly what he had dreamed and then told him what the dream meant. As he finished he said, again: “This is not from me. This is from God, who has sent this dream as a message to you.”

And so, in awe, the king fell on his knees … and worshiped Daniel. And he called for his servants to come and worship Daniel, burning incense and giving offerings to Daniel, because he was so brilliant. “You’re amazing!” the king said. “I’m making you chief wise man in the kingdom!”

You see, King Nebuchadnezzar didn’t get it.

As the new Chief Executive Wise Man for the empire, Daniel saw to it that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were also promoted, and soon they, too, had risen high in the Babylonian Civil Service. This next story concerns them – I don’t know where Daniel got to during this time; maybe on a business trip. Anyway, it came into King Nebuchadnezzar’s head one day that people didn’t have sufficient opportunity to adore him, and so he set up a ninety-foot tall golden statue in a nearby plain and issued a new rule that whenever anyone heard the royal band play – literally, the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble – they were to drop everything and bow down to worship the statue. “Hmm, but what if they don’t?” he thought to himself. “I know! I’ll add that anyone who doesn’t do so will be thrown into a fiery furnace and cooked to a crisp!”

“Oh, that’s meaningful,” Shadrach said to his friends, upon hearing the decree. “Worship on pain of death means so much.” The God that they worshiped was not interested in empty gestures. “I want obedience, not sacrifice,” their God had said repeatedly through his prophets. But that presented a problem to the three Jewish exiles, because the very first commandment of t their God was that they should not worship any god but him, and the second was to worship no mere image. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego decided to obey God, not the king, and they went about their work, even when the band played.

Well, in every workplace, especially those run by erratic autocrats like Nebuchadnezzar, there is jealousy and backbiting, and our three exiles were much envied by their peers, so those rivals lost no time in telling the king that his three favorite officials were flouting him to his face. Nebuchadnezzar was furious. He called Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to him and demanded to know why they weren’t bowing to his statue. They explained that their God didn’t permit it. Well, Nebuchadnezzar had no patience with such nonsense, but he didn’t want to lose his best three administrators, who were both competent and honest, both of which are rare in a royal court, so he offered them one more chance. “Tell you what, I’m going to have the band play ‘God Save the King’ once more. You bow to the idol, and we’ll pretend none of this ever happened.” They replied, “Don’t trouble the musicians, O king. We only worship our God.”

Nebuchadnezzar lost it. “Well, can your God save you from my fiery furnace?” he bellowed.

One of them replied, “He can. We don’t know if he will, but he can. Either way, we’re not going to bow down to a lump of gold.”

Shaking with rage, Nebuchadnezzar commanded that the furnace be heated extra hot for these three, then had them bound and thrown into the flames. He gave it a little time, wanting them to be thoroughly done, but eventually he told his guards to open the door and let him see their ashes himself. But there were no ashes. Instead, he saw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego strolling around chatting with … a fourth figure. “Didn’t we just throw three men in?”

“Correct as usual, King Nebuchadnezzar,” his dutiful courtiers agreed.

“Well, who’s that, then? And why aren’t they burned up?” No one had an answer to that one, so Nebuchadnezzar called into the furnace, “Shadrach! Meshach! Abednego! You can come out now!”

And they came out – just three of them now – and the only thing that the flames seemed to have touched was the ropes that had bound them. They didn’t even look hot, and their clothes didn’t smell of smoke. Now Nebuchadnezzar was not given to deep thought – well, you’d probably already figured that out – but he began to suspect that maybe the god of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego was not to be trifled with. Filled with awe, he announced, “I hereby decree that no one should ever say anything mean about the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ever again!”

But then he thought, “Hmm, but what if someone does?” So he added, “And if anyone does, then I’ll have them torn limb from limb and their houses pulled down in a heap!”

You see, King Nebuchadnezzar still didn’t get it.

Sometime after that, Nebuchadnezzar had another dream. Well, why don’t I let Nebuchadnezzar tell you about it himself? We read now Daniel chapter 4, verses 4-18.

4 I, Nebuchadnezzar, was living at ease in my home and prospering in my palace. 5I saw a dream that frightened me; my fantasies in bed and the visions of my head terrified me. 6So I made a decree that all the wise men of Babylon should be brought before me, in order that they might tell me the interpretation of the dream. 7Then the magicians, the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the diviners came in, and I told them the dream, but they could not tell me its interpretation. 8At last Daniel came in before me—he who was named Belteshazzar after the name of my god, and who is endowed with a spirit of the holy gods—and I told him the dream: 9‘O Belteshazzar, chief of the magicians, I know that you are endowed with a spirit of the holy gods and that no mystery is too difficult for you. Hear the dream that I saw; tell me its interpretation.
10 Upon my bed this is what I saw;
   there was a tree at the center of the earth,
   and its height was great.
11 The tree grew great and strong,
   its top reached to heaven,
   and it was visible to the ends of the whole earth.
12 Its foliage was beautiful, its fruit abundant,
   and it provided food for all.
The animals of the field found shade under it,
   the birds of the air nested in its branches,
   and from it all living beings were fed.

13 ‘I continued looking, in the visions of my head as I lay in bed, and there was a holy watcher, coming down from heaven. 14He cried aloud and said:
“Cut down the tree and chop off its branches,
   strip off its foliage and scatter its fruit.
Let the animals flee from beneath it
   and the birds from its branches.
15 But leave its stump and roots in the ground,
   with a band of iron and bronze,
   in the tender grass of the field.
Let him be bathed with the dew of heaven,
   and let his lot be with the animals of the field
   in the grass of the earth.
16 Let his mind be changed from that of a human,
   and let the mind of an animal be given to him.
   And let seven times pass over him.
17 The sentence is rendered by decree of the watchers,
   the decision is given by order of the holy ones,
in order that all who live may know
   that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdom of mortals;
he gives it to whom he will
   and sets over it the lowliest of human beings.”

18 ‘This is the dream that I, King Nebuchadnezzar, saw. Now you, Belteshazzar, declare the interpretation, since all the wise men of my kingdom are unable to tell me the interpretation. You are able, however, for you are endowed with a spirit of the holy gods.

At this point, I don’t suppose any of you will be surprised that only Daniel (or, as Nebuchadnezzar called him, Belteshazzar) was able to interpret the dream. He said, “O king, I wish this dream was about your enemies … but it’s not. It’s about you. You are the great tree that has spread its branches over all the earth, and, you know, well done, and all that. But you have become proud. You have begun to think that you are more than just a man, and God does not permit that. The watcher that you saw in the dream, calling for the tree to be trimmed and cut down – that’s an angel of God calling for you to be humbled. The rest of the dream is pretty straightforward. You’re going to lose your mind and spend seven years living like an animal, eating grass and slurping dew off the ground.”

In the silence following this interpretation, Daniel added, “Could I make a suggestion? Maybe if you started right now using your power and wealth to care for the poor and the oppressed, God might withdraw this sentence.”

The book doesn’t say if the king followed this excellent advice, but if he did, it didn’t last long, because one year later, King Nebuchadnezzar was walking on the roof of his palace, surveying his domain, and he announced, “Is this not magnificent Babylon, which I have built as a royal capital by my mighty power and for my glorious majesty?” At that point, a voice came from heaven saying, “All right. That did it,” and all the things that Daniel had warned him of came to pass. Nebuchadnezzar spent the next seven years living with the beasts of the field, and at the end of that time he even looked like one of the beasts of the field. But when the seven years were up, when he had spent that time as low as he had once been high, he lifted his eyes one day and remembered who he was. His mind was restored, but with a difference. I read the last verses of Daniel 4:

36At that time my reason returned to me; and my majesty and splendor were restored to me for the glory of my kingdom. My counsellors and my lords sought me out, I was re-established over my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me. 37Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven,

for all his works are truth,
   and his ways are justice;
and he is able to bring low
   those who walk in pride. 

I think, just possibly, Nebuchadnezzar finally got it.