PERSON · KING
Nebuchadnezzar
Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon who destroyed Jerusalem and its temple, carried Judah into exile, and — after seven times of madness — bowed to acknowledge that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men.
Daniel 4:1–37
- Born
- Babylon, in the closing years of the Neo-Assyrian world
- Died
- Babylon, after a reign of some forty-three years
- Role
- King of Babylon
- Capital
- Babylon
- Reign
- about 43 years (605–562 BC)
The Story
He came to the throne of Babylon in the summer of his father's death, and the world he inherited was already tilting. Nabopolassar had broken the back of Assyria a generation earlier; the young prince had commanded the armies at Carchemish and shattered the last Egyptian resistance in the north. When the messenger reached him with word that his father was dead, he rode home across the desert to be crowned. He was not yet the man Scripture would remember — the destroyer of Jerusalem, the raiser of temples, the mad king of the field. He was simply the new king of a rising empire, and the rising empire was already, without knowing it, an instrument in the hand of the God of Israel.
Scripture first meets him on the march. In the third year of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem and besieged it, and the Lord gave Jehoiakim into his hand. He carried away part of the vessels of the house of God, and he took certain of the children of Judah — young men of the royal seed, without blemish, skilful in wisdom — to be trained in the palace at Babylon. Among them was a boy named Daniel. The king would not have thought twice about him. He had emptied dozens of little kingdoms of their promising sons; that was how empires were built. But Daniel would be the hinge on which everything in this king's life would eventually turn.
The first turn came quickly. Nebuchadnezzar dreamed a dream and could not remember it, and he demanded that his wise men tell him both the dream and its meaning on pain of death. None of them could. Daniel came before him, and the God of heaven revealed the dream to him — a great image, gold and silver and brass and iron, struck at the feet by a stone cut without hands, and the stone became a mountain that filled the whole earth. Daniel told the king plainly what it meant: Babylon was the head of gold, but other kingdoms would follow, and in the end God would set up a kingdom that would never be destroyed. The king fell on his face before his prisoner and confessed:
47The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret.
Daniel 2:47·KJV
It is a startling sentence coming from a Babylonian throne. It is not yet faith. It is awe. But awe is the door faith uses.
Life & Legacy
Death
ScriptureScripture records that his son Evil-merodach succeeded him and, in the first year of his own reign, released Jehoiachin from prison in Babylon; the Old Testament does not describe the manner or moment of Nebuchadnezzar's death.
2 Kings 25:27–30
Legacy
ScriptureHe is remembered in Scripture as the destroyer of the first temple and the architect of the seventy-year exile — and, on his own confession, as a Gentile king who was humbled and restored so that all the earth would know that the God of heaven rules in the kingdom of men.
Daniel 4:34–37; Jeremiah 25:11
Character
ScriptureThe Nebuchadnezzar of Scripture is a man of towering pride, restless dream-haunted nights, and startling capacity for reversal — furious enough to command a fiery furnace, humble enough to fall on his face before Daniel, arrogant enough to boast on his palace roof, honest enough to write it all down afterward.
Daniel 2:46; Daniel 3:19; Daniel 4:30, 34–37
Significance
ScriptureNebuchadnezzar is Scripture's great case study in the sovereignty of God over the nations: the very king who broke Judah is called by Jeremiah 'my servant,' and the very ruler who thought Babylon was his own building is made to confess that Heaven rules.
Jeremiah 27:6; Daniel 4:25–26
DeathScripture
Scripture records that his son Evil-merodach succeeded him and, in the first year of his own reign, released Jehoiachin from prison in Babylon; the Old Testament does not describe the manner or moment of Nebuchadnezzar's death.
2 Kings 25:27–30
LegacyScripture
He is remembered in Scripture as the destroyer of the first temple and the architect of the seventy-year exile — and, on his own confession, as a Gentile king who was humbled and restored so that all the earth would know that the God of heaven rules in the kingdom of men.
Daniel 4:34–37; Jeremiah 25:11
CharacterScripture
The Nebuchadnezzar of Scripture is a man of towering pride, restless dream-haunted nights, and startling capacity for reversal — furious enough to command a fiery furnace, humble enough to fall on his face before Daniel, arrogant enough to boast on his palace roof, honest enough to write it all down afterward.
Daniel 2:46; Daniel 3:19; Daniel 4:30, 34–37
SignificanceScripture
Nebuchadnezzar is Scripture's great case study in the sovereignty of God over the nations: the very king who broke Judah is called by Jeremiah 'my servant,' and the very ruler who thought Babylon was his own building is made to confess that Heaven rules.
Jeremiah 27:6; Daniel 4:25–26