The Proudest King Who Ate Grass

After the furnace, King Nebuchadnezzar warned every nation not to say a word against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Then he went home and put his feet up.

One night a dream scared him so badly he sat bolt upright in bed. His wise men could not explain it. At last Daniel came in.

"I saw a tree," the king said, "so tall it touched the sky. Birds nested in it, animals rested under it, and it had fruit for everyone. Then a holy messenger from heaven shouted, 'Chop it down! But leave the stump and its roots in the ground, with a band of iron and bronze around it. Let him live in the wet grass with the animals until seven long years pass.'"

For a while Daniel could not speak.

"My lord," he said at last, "I wish this dream were about your enemies. You are the tree, O king. You will be driven away from people to eat grass like cattle, until you know that the Most High rules over every kingdom and gives it to whomever he wants. The stump means your kingdom will wait for you."

Then Daniel did a brave thing. (Daniel knew what this king did to wise men who displeased him. He had nearly been one of them.)

"Please, O king, stop doing wrong, and be kind to the poor."

The king listened. Then he forgot.

A year later, Nebuchadnezzar was strolling on his palace roof. Below him lay the thick walls, the bright blue gates, and the river shining at sunset.

"Look at it!" he said. "Is this not great Babylon, which I built by my own mighty power, for the glory of my majesty?"

The words were still in his mouth when a voice called from heaven. "King Nebuchadnezzar, your kingdom has been taken from you!"

That same hour, the greatest king in the world was chased out of his palace. His mind turned like an animal's, and he chewed grass in the fields with the cattle. He woke each morning soaked with dew. His hair grew as long as an eagle's feathers, and his fingernails curled like a bird's claws.

At the end of that long time, Nebuchadnezzar lifted his eyes to heaven, and his mind came back to him.

This time he did not say, "Look at it!" He said, "The Most High lives forever! His kingdom never ends. No one can hold back his hand or say to him, 'What have you done?'"

God gave his kingdom back. He wrote the story down for every nation: "Now I praise the King of heaven. Everything he does is right, and he is able to bring down those who walk in pride."

But Nebuchadnezzar was only a man on a roof. His tree grew back for a while. Then he died, and before long Babylon fell.

God's people had a stump too. Nebuchadnezzar had chopped down David's family of kings. But the prophet Isaiah had promised that a green shoot would grow from it.

That shoot was another King, one with every right to stand on a roof and say, "I made all this." Instead he came down. He was laid in a cattle trough. On his last night he lifted his eyes to heaven and prayed to his Father, and then he went lower than any field, down into death.

On the third day God raised him up, higher than every king, and one day every king who ever stood on a roof will kneel at the name of Jesus.