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Daniel 4

Book of ChroniclesHebrew Bible TranslationJewish Publication Society Bible

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This is a biblical narrative from the Book of Daniel (chapter 4), written in the form of a royal proclamation or first-person testimony by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. The passage recounts how Nebuchadnezzar had a terrifying dream of a great tree — representing himself and his empire — that was cut down by divine decree, with only its stump preserved. The Hebrew prophet Daniel interprets the dream as a warning that the king will be stripped of his reason and driven to live like a wild animal for seven years, as divine punishment for his pride, until he acknowledges that God alone rules over human kingdoms. The prophecy is fulfilled exactly: Nebuchadnezzar boasts of his own greatness, immediately loses his sanity, and spends years eating grass in the fields before his reason and throne are restored. The passage is distinctive for its first-person voice — a pagan foreign king confessing the sovereignty of the God of Israel — and for its theological argument that earthly power is entirely contingent on divine will, with pride as the cardinal sin that invites humiliation. It ends not in condemnation but in Nebuchadnezzar's doxology, making it an unusual conversion narrative embedded within apocalyptic literature.

Daniel 4

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