“When my sanity returned to me, so did my honor and glory and kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored as head of my kingdom, with even greater honor than before. “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and glorify and honor the King of heaven. All his acts are just and true, and he is able to humble the proud.” Daniel 4:36-37
The goal wasn’t to bring the King low, but to bring him to his proper place before God and among men. Truly, Nebuchadnezzar learned that those who walk in pride God is able to bring them down. The lesson is plain: “And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6). There have been many who rise from humble origins to great glory, and then fall. Perhaps it is better to have never been raised up than to rise and then fall.
We also see that God will glorify himself among the nations. When Nebuchadnezzar took some of the treasures of the Jerusalem temple and put them in the temples of his gods, he had reason to believe that his gods were stronger than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. By the end of Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar knew which God was the true God. And when Nebuchadnezzar knew it, he wasn’t shy about telling people what he had learned – he was a true witness, giving testimony to God’s great works.
We find prophetic significance in this account. Since Babylon is used in the Scriptures as a figure of the world system in general, we can say: Nebuchadnezzar’s madness foreshadows the madness of Gentile nations in their rejection of God. Nebuchadnezzar’s fall typifies Jesus’ judgment of the nations. Nebuchadnezzar’s restoration foreshadows the restoring of some of these nations in the millennial kingdom.