Daniel 4:1-37

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Daniel 4:1-3

Here is, I. Something of form, which was usual in writs, proclamations, or circular letters, issued by the king, Dan. 4:1. The royal style which Nebuchadnezzar makes use of has nothing in it of pomp or fancy, but is plain, short, and unaffected?Nebuchadnezzar the king. If at other times he made use of great swelling words of vanity in his title, how he laid them all aside; for he was old, he had lately recovered from a distraction which had humbled and mortified him, and was now in the actual... read more

Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Daniel 4:4-18

Nebuchadnezzar, before he relates the judgments of God that had been wrought upon him for his pride, gives an account of the fair warning he had of them before they came, a due regard to which might have prevented them. But he was told of them, and of the issue of them, before they came to pass, that, when they did come to pass, by comparing them with the prediction of them, he might see, and say, that they were the Lord's doing, and might be brought to believe that there is a divine... read more

Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Daniel 4:19-27

We have here the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream; and when once it is applied to himself, and it is declared that he is the tree in the dream (Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur?Change but the name, the fable speaks of thee), when once it is said, Thou art the man, there needs little more to be said for the explication of the dream. Out of his own mouth he is judged; so shall his doom be, he himself has decided it. The thing was so plain that Daniel, upon hearing the dream, was... read more

Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Daniel 4:28-33

We have here Nebuchadnezzar's dream accomplished, and Daniel's application of it to him justified and confirmed. How he took it we are not told, whether he was pleased with Daniel or displeased; but here we have, I. God's patience with him: All this came upon him, but not till twelve months after (Dan. 4:29), so long there was a lengthening of his tranquility, though it does not appear that he broke off his sins, or showed any mercy to the poor captives, for this was still God's quarrel with... read more

Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Daniel 4:34-37

We have here Nebuchadnezzar's recovery from his distraction, and his return to his right mind, at the end of the days prefixed, that is, of the seven years. So long he continued a monument of God's justice and a trophy of his victory over the children of pride, and he was made more so by being struck mad than if he had been in an instant struck dead with a thunderbolt; yet it was a mercy to him that he was kept alive, for while there is life there is hope that we may yet praise God, as he did... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Daniel 4:1

Nebuchadnezzar the king ,..... This and the two following verses are annexed to the preceding chapter in the Hebrew Bible, and in the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions; as if the author of the division of the chapters thought that Nebuchadnezzar proposed by this public proclamation to celebrate the praise of the Lord, on account of the wonderful deliverance of the three Jews from the fiery furnace; whereas they are a preface to a narrative of a dream, and an event which concerned... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Daniel 4:2

I thought it good ,.... Or, "fair" F25 שפר "pulchrum", Montanus, Grotius, Gejerus, Michaelis; "decet me", Junius & Tremellius. and beautiful, highly becoming me, what was my duty, and what might be profitable and beneficial to others, and make for the glory of the great God of heaven and earth: to show the signs and wonders the high God hath wrought toward me ; to declare by writing the wonderful things God, who is above all, the most high God, had done unto him, by giving... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Daniel 4:3

How great are his signs! and how mighty are his wonders !.... They are great, very great, exceeding great; so great that it cannot be said, nor even conceived how great they are, what a display of wisdom, power, and goodness is in them; they are wonderful beyond expression and conception; and so strong and mighty as not to be resisted and made void by all the powers of nature, earth, or hell; and if this may be said of his works of providence, and his miracles of that, how much more of his... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Daniel 4:4

I Nebuchadnezzar was at rest in mine house ,.... Being returned from his wars, and having obtained victory over the Egyptians, and other nations, and made himself an universal monarch; and now was in entire rest from all his enemies; enjoying himself in his family, and among his courtiers, and nothing to disturb him from any quarter. Josephus F2 Joseph. Antiqu. l. 10. c. 10. sect. 6. says this was a little after the history of the former chapter; but it must be many years after that:... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Daniel 4:5

I saw a dream which made me afraid ,.... Things were represented to his fancy in a dream, as if he saw them with his eyes, as the tree, its leaves and fruit; the shaking and cutting it down to the stump, &c.; and though he did not understand the meaning of it, yet he thought it portended some evil, which threw him into a panic; he was afraid that something bad would befall him, though he knew not what: thus God can make the minds of the greatest men uneasy amidst all their glory, pride,... read more

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