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Email: <lelgee@voicenet.com>Copyright © L. L. Griffith, 1971, 1996. ISBN 0-929554-06-X. This document may be reproduced in whole or in part provided that this copyright notice is reproduced on each copy made.
Chapter Two speaks of Nebuchadnezzar's troubled spirit and his dream of the days beyond him; and of its secret as revealed to Daniel.
The autobiography of the Babylonian king whom the Bible identifies as Nebuchadnezzar is carefully documented. Before his accession to the throne of Great Babylon, the young man's name was Hattusilis. He was the younger son of Mursilis (Nabopolassar the Chaldean) whose autobiographical records reside in the British Museum. The German, Gotze, published works on Nebuchadnezzar. Langdon also added to the writings about Nebuchadnezzar. Koldewey, also in German, published a text on the inscriptions of the Ishtar Gate which Hattusilis built to glorify his exploits.
While the records are copious, they are nevertheless not made easily available to the non-scholarly world or to the non-German speaking individual. Both (Chaldean) cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphic texts exist of the treaty between the "Hittite" king (Nebo) Khetasar and Ramses II, which prove the identities of both men, respectively; Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh Necho II. (The scholar's Ramses II and Necho II is the 'Neco' of 2 Chronicles 36:4; 35:20-22. Neco also is the 'Pharaoh' last listed in Young's Analytical Concordance under Pharaoh (Nech-oh or Necho). The Egyptian title of Ramses, "son of the sun," does not appear in the Holy Scriptures, but a city dedicated to the sun, Raamses, or Rameses does, and is so listed by Young. The city may have been the place of the royal residence.)
Somewhat like the situation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, shelved, the archived material concerning Nebuchadnezzar is not circulated. The material is not widely known or published for the knowledge of ordinary Bible students, since the autobiography's dates and its historical background "conflict" with the accepted Egyptian chronology of the past (to which lettered scholars must adhere for credibility in the academic world). Still, what little has been made known provides an amazing amount of historical insight about Nebuchadnezzar and the prophecy of Daniel.
Nebuchadnezzar's life was that of a troubled spirit. He suffered from visions and dreams, probably a symptom of his physical condition; the Talmud refers to him as a "nanas;" a small one; a dwarf having an attendant febrile constitution. Daniel's book relates some physical facts about Nebuchadnezzar, but does not explain the medical reason for his unruly temperament.
As stated above, Hattusilis was the younger son of Nabo-polassar. His brother, Nergil, inherited the throne on their father's death. Hattusilis' autobiography states that he was given over as a very young child, because of his ill health, to the care of the temple priests. (Probably for the reason also that the Chaldean priests were the only ones trusted to keep the child alive during those days of coups and warfare among the rivals for the kingdom.) As a consequence, as a youth the future Nebuchadnezzar lived a priestly life in the temple of Ishtar-Gula (Venus). Upon his majority, his father Nabopolassar promoted him to be the overlord of the whole Babylonian army, and to be the ruler of the Upper Lands of the realm. He was just seventeen years old at that time. At his father's death, he 'took' the throne of Babylon (the Lower Lands), about 605 B.C. In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar was little over twenty years old when he dreamed the dream of the great frightening image which stood before him. His youthfulness, impatience, and immaturity in temperament are shown in the second chapter of Daniel's prophecy.
The astute reader may realize that the time period during the reign of his father, Nabopolassar, and the time in which Nebuchadnezzar took the Babylonian throne was also a turbulent period in the history of the kings of Judah. In his eighth year Nebuchadnezzar finally captured Jerusalem. Eleven years later Nebuchadnezzar sent Nebuzaradan to Jerusalem and burned the temple, all the houses of the city and all the mansions of its leaders. See 2 Kings 23-25:8-10; 2 Chronicles 36:4-23 for a general overview from Judah's perspective.
Nebuchadnezzar was not only a visionary priest/king but he was also a wily commander of armies, and a master politician, whose mind seemed constantly to be bound up in thoughts and dreams of his future survival of his crippled body and in the kingdom. Modern psychology would call his mania an "obsessive personality."
One particular dream took hold of him, frightened him; but its meaning eluded him. This particular dream concerned a thing "gone from me." He was unable to understand it, it is said. From his young life's experience in the temple of Ishtar-Gula, he expected that some one among the Chaldean priests could tell the dream's meaning, and should be able to instruct him about it. About the dream it is said "The thing is gone from me" per the English translation of Daniel 2:5.
...Yet when Daniel inquired of Arioch as to why the king was being so hasty in ordering the death of all the wise men in Babylon, Arioch was able to explain the whole situation concerning the dream to Daniel. Remarkable?
"Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel," 2:15, is a statement that is rather puzzling when most all the commentators on Daniel's prophecy conclude that Nebuchadnezzar could not even remember what he saw in the dream. Why would a dream of forgotten content causes such great agitation and fright to the dreamer? A forgotten dream does not present such a remarkable reaction. How would Arioch be able to make "the thing" known to Daniel when "the thing" is supposedly completely "gone from" Nebuchadnezzar's memory?
Here was Nebuchadnezzar, a febrile individual, unhealthy as a youth, and physically still tortured in mind, whose autobiography shows that even later in life he was an individual who was constantly concerned about the future well-being of himself and his position with the gods. Nebuchadnezzar dreamed a frightening dream of the days beyond him, in the future and at the end of Babylon's rule. "The thing is beyond me," he had said; meaning, i.e., the matter speaks of things beyond my time.
What Chaldean "wise man" would wish to interpret a dream that spoke of the king's future dominion being smashed to bits before his eyes? Not a one. The telling of the matter would definitely not endear the teller of it to the king. Subsequently none of the "wise men" volunteered to tell the king the truth of "the matter." However, they little expected that the king would order the execution of all the magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, and Chaldeans on account of their reluctance to speak forthright about any "secret" [No. 7328; i.e., a concealed thing] concerning the frightening dream's image. Was there some treachery afoot in the realm? Nebuchadnezzar did not "buy" their proposal. He probably suspected a coup d'etat.
The decision of the priests was to bide the time, (i.e., to gain the time; "Wait and see."); until the most opportune time came to attribute to the dream's meaning.
Yet Arioch was able to apprise Daniel about the king's dream when Daniel
inquired about the decree. When "the matter" was told to Daniel, he
then went to the king and asked for "a time" in which he "would
show the king the interpretation." After "the time" was granted,
Daniel in turn "made the matter known" to Hananiah, Mishael, and
Azariah.
Together the four men prayed to God for the revelation of the "secret"
of the dream's matter. Consequently, the "secret" of the king's dream
was granted to Daniel in a night vision.
Daniel returned to the king with the dream's meaning. First he explained by whom, and how, future days are foretold: "There is a God in heaven that reveals a concealed thing, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar that which shall be in the latter days. ...Thy dream, and the fantasies of thy head upon thy bed, are these; as for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter, and He that reveals concealed things makes known to thee that which shall come to pass."
Then Daniel explains how the wisdom was gotten, and for whose sake its understanding was made known: "But as for me, this concealed thing is not revealed to me for wisdom that I have more than any alive, but for [our] sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thinking of thy mind." God gave the wisdom to the young Jewish captives so that they might explain to the king how God rules in the kingdoms of men by governing the thoughts of the heart.
In his autobiography Hattusilis shows his mind to be fully governed by the gods whom he worshipped. Daniel's presentation of the LORD's interpretation of the dream's meaning fully agreed with Nebuchadnezzar's religious ideology and ego mania, and thus accounts for the immediate promotion of Daniel and his companions to their positions of trust.
Nebuchadnezzar was assured that his kingdom would not be wrested from him as he had wrested it from his older brother Nergil, the legitimate heir.
In ancient times it was customary for the ruler of a nation to reside in his own city. As a child prince Hattusilis also lived in his own city in the Upper Land. This city, Hattushash, which passes usually in archaeological studies and writings under the name of Boghazkoi, is in Turkey; (ancient Galatia of New Testament letter). It is the site of Yazilikaya and of the royal archives of "the great chief of Kheta" who took the throne name of Nabo Kheta Sar on becoming "the great king" over the whole of the Upper and Lower Lands of the kingdom.
In the cuneiform tablets of the royal archive at Boghazkoi, a Babylonian copy of the treaty between Nebuchadnezzar and Ramses II (Necho) was found; it identified the king as Hattusilis, "the great king of Hatti." Its companion hieroglyphic is written on the walls of Ramses' tomb and on the wall in the temple of Amon in Karnak, Egypt. The hieroglyphics identify the same king as "the great chief of Kheta." Ramses II was the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho. [See Bible reference listings under "Pharaoh (Nechoh or Necho)" in Young's Analytical Concordance. Ancient Egyptian chronology (askew and misleading, like the "continuous history" philosophy) refers to a Necho I and a Necho II.] The Pharaoh of the treaty made with Nebuchadnezzar is identified, without doubt, as the second 'Ramses.'
The warfare and quarrel between the Egyptian house of Ramses and the Chaldean house of Nebuchadnezzar went on for decades. The prize over which they fought was the land of Asshur (Assyria), and Canaan - the coastlands which extended from Carchemish, the Babylonian fortress city on the Phrat to El Arish, the Egyptian fortress city on the Wadi.
Read the Bible records of the historical times in Kings and Chronicles, and in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The true Bible history of the times must be appreciated if one is later to understand what is read in the remaining prophecy of Daniel and later, in the book of the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ.
So "he that readeth, let him understand" - first - the true history as recorded in the Word of God.
The Bible records supply enough material concerning Nebuchadnezzar so as to guide the wise Bible student in discerning that "There is a God in heaven that reveals a concealed thing, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar that which shall be in the latter days." So it is God who reveals shall be in the latter days, not the common historians.
"The full extent of the matter," (Daniel 7:28) was first revealed to Nebuchadnezzar, but framed within the perspective of the king's mind. He was not concerned with the middle years of rule over his lands; he wanted to know about the end of his rulership, of how the glorious end promised by his gods was assured to come.
Nebuchadnezzar was assured that the nations and dominions of his realm would exist in the concluding days of time, 2:28, but the dominion of the Land would be replaced by "a kingdom which shall never be destroyed." He was told that "it shall break in pieces and destroy all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever." He was pleased that the dominions succeeding him would be inferior and be destroyed by the God of the heavens, and replaced by such a kingdom never to be destroyed. Nebuchadnezzar was well pleased with this understanding of the end of "his kingdom."
The understanding confirmed the king's belief in the care and of the divine guidance provided by the gods and goddesses whom he worshipped so faithfully. That the promised kingdom of Daniel's God might not be what Nebuchadnezzar thought it would be probably had not yet even entered his mind. Did he not worship all the gods of the world?
The Scripture's record of his actions show that Nebuchadnezzar was an unstable minded individual to the end of his days. His autobiography confirms that, even after he suffered under the seven years of madness, he remained a gross idolater until the time of his death.
This understanding of the meaning of the king's "matter" later set Daniel's mind to question "the full extent of the matter" concerning Israel's captivity. Would Babylonish influence permanently triumph over Israel? How would the kingdom be restored to his God?
For the next 70 years the exiled captives will be given over to the care of the king's mayordomo in Babylon. They will remain there for 70 years until Cyrus, the Persian monarch who first conquers all Assyria, all Chaldea, and all Babylonia, issues a decree for the Jews return to their homeland and city.
Cyrus, another pragmatic man, was raised up about 541 B.C. by God as the third caretaker of the Jewish nation. He sees the Jews, as a nation, a people who are not territorially aggressive beyond the lands of Canaan which the God of the heavens had given to the children of Israel (Jacob). Cyrus needs such a nation as a peaceful "buffer state" between his lands of the North and the opposing powers of the lands of the South.
Religiously tolerant, Cyrus the Persian is also, like Nebuchadnezzar was, a politically astute ruler; and was an able military commander of armies during his father's lifetime, according to ancient historical records of Persia.
After Cyrus' army conquered Babylon in 539-8 B.C., Darius, a Median prince of Elamite lineage "receives" the rulership of the Babylonian province from Cyrus to administer for him.
Cyrus, the Persian, at this date, is in the third year of his own sole
reign. God uses him in his own time to establish a peaceful buffer state between
the power of the North, - Persia; and the power of the South, - Egypt.
In
the generation before the end, the state of Israel will again be placed is a
state of "peace and security" before the last great conflict between
the nations of the North and the South begins.
During the conflict the
people of Israel will suffer intense persecutions from the surrounding nations,
but at the end of the warfare, the promised land will be restored to the rule of
its rightful king.
However, the last conflict is foolishly compounded by the intervention of the powers of the East and of the powers of the West.
Go to Chapter Three?