Daniel 4:10-12

The king described what he had seen in poetic language. His words therefore appear as a prophetic oracle. The ancients frequently used trees to describe rulers of nations (cf. Isaiah 2:12-13; Isaiah 10:34; Ezekiel 31:3-17). [Note: Young, pp. 101-2.] Thus Nebuchadnezzar may have anticipated that the tree in his dream represented himself. What happened to the tree in his dream then could account for his fear (Daniel 4:5). This tree was similar to Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom. [Note: See Paul Ferguson, "Nebuchadnezzar, Gilgamesh, and the ’Babylonian Job,’" Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 37:3 (September 1994):321-31.] The beasts and birds probably represent the many types of people who benefited from Nebuchadnezzar’s reign (cf. Ezekiel 31:6; Matthew 13:32).