Nebuchadnezzar's Fall (part 5)

As man is driven from the good and bountiful garden, which had freely yielded the fruit of the trees for his sustenance, he is informed about a different way that his food is going to come to him from that point forward.  The Creator God told Adam, “cursed is the ground thanks to you; in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, but you will eat the grain of the field” (Genesis 3:17b-18).  This eating of the grain of the field---of what grows from the ground---could be likened to Nebuchadnezzar’s being “fed grass like oxen,” as both are now going to be eating what grows from the ground, as they live among the wild animals, rather than having plenteous quantities of food delivered to them by their humble servants. 

Humble servants?  In Adam’s case, because he was the Creator God’s image-bearing steward over all creation, and because he had been given a responsible dominion over the works of his God’s hands, his humble servants would have been the trees of the garden.  Scripture seems to suggest that creation itself would have willingly yielded its bounty to its steward.  For Nebuchadnezzar, of course, his servants would have been those men and women over which he ruled.  This eating of grass, for both Nebuchadnezzar and Adam, as Adam (man) was now forced to till the ground to yield food (“eating grass” then serving as metaphor), would serve as a constant reminder that they had fallen from what had been intended for them.  Yes, if He truly holds the world in His hands, it is to be borne in mind that the Creator God had purposeful intentions for Nebuchadnezzar.   

As has been said, the respective falls came through pride and self-worship, as both Adam and the king of Babylon presumptuously reached for that which did not belong to them.  Each time they ate the grass of the field, they would be reminded of their having been driven from human society.  Adam would be forced to remember that he had willfully departed from what it meant to be fully human, which was living in a complete, trusting allegiance to his Creator, faithfully carrying out his divine purpose to be the bearer of the divine image.  He now lived in cursing and exile, fallen from glory, and now inhabiting a world cursed because of his faithlessness.  Nebuchadnezzar would be separated from fellowship with his fellow human beings, therefore separated from relationship with others that had been created in the image of the covenant God of Israel, and therefore even further separated from that God, in an awful state of exile and in full experience of the Creator God’s cursing upon himself.

After this pronouncement on the man that is so often thought of as an evil and idolatrous king, the story of Nebuchadnezzar takes what might be perceived as an unexpected turn.  The Creator God makes a promise to Nebuchadnezzar that this state of affairs in which he finds himself living a beastly existence, will go on for “seven periods of time” (4:32d).  So it was not going to be a permanent condition for Nebuchadnezzar.  As the story goes, he was informed that he was going to undergo this cursing and exile so that he would be made to “understand that the Most High is ruler over human kingdoms and gives them to whomever He wishes” (4:32e). 

There is grace and mercy for Nebuchadnezzar here.  Not only is his time of insanity going to have a defined limit, but through it, the Creator God is going to enter in so as to reveal Himself to this king.  He will do this in a way that will, for Nebuchadnezzar, give real meaning and substance and conviction to his previous declaration about that God, in which he had said, “How great are His signs!  How mighty are His wonders!  His kingdom will last forever, and His authority continues from one generation to the next” (4:3).  In these words, Nebuchadnezzar had told “all peoples, nations, and language groups that live in all the land” (4:1), that he was “delighted to tell  you about the signs and wonders that the most high God has done for me” (4:2).  Perhaps this was nothing more than lip service following that to which he had been witness in the situation with Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and the fourth man in the fiery furnace?  Perhaps not?