The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws (Dan 4:33).
We usually resist any idea that is to our disadvantage. I like Lucy in Peanuts who proclaimed: "I don't want any downs! I only want ups!" Way to go Lucy! We just want ups too! We can choose Cheerios or corn flakes for breakfast and a few other things, but we don't control as many things as we would like. God allows us some room to exercise our will, but there's a limit. Nebuchadnezzar found out that he was not as powerful as he thought he was.
It takes only one day to be driven from men. We do better when we feel secure. I like to take a nap in the car when I have confidence in the driver. However, that can be an illusion. A patch of ice on a bridge can alter our lives for the rest of our days. We should never leave home in the morning angry at a spouse or child. The next time we see them may be in the morgue.
Our text says: "The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar." The word "fulfilled" suggests that he had it coming. It was prolonged for twenty five years but one day it was over and he was driven from men. He went instantly insane with a condition that today is known as lycanthropy. If he thinks of himself as a beast, then he behaves like that beast. Some writers today say he was demon possessed. However, this was a direct judgment of God and God does not install demons in the bodies of people as a means of judging them.
Nebuchadnezzar is led out of the palace into the fields and left among cattle but he is still on the palace grounds and is looked after to a degree. But his hair was not combed nor his fingernails trimmed so that he comes to look grotesque, monstrous, misshapen, and repulsive to look at. His hair grew long and was unkempt and matted together. He was never bathed and smelled as bad as the cows or worse.
In that condition we may assume that he did not have on one stitch of clothing of any kind. For seven years he was like that, night and day. In winter he must have squeezed in among the oxen to keep warm. They were covered with a warm coat but he was not.
I cared for cows and other farm animals for ten years. When it was cold and I was milking a cow in the stable, I usually snuggled up to the cow and put my face against her flank to get warm. When cattle are in the open during cold weather, they lie down to keep warm. If you are outside in the cold you just may route up a cow and lie down in her place to get warm. One night I was barreling along on a two-lane paved road and stopped just in time for the front cow to get up and lick the headlight. There must have been 30 cows lying in the road that was warmer than the pasture field nearby.
Nebuchadnezzar was the king of today's Iraq. In summer it is really hot. During the night it may not drop below 110 degrees. He must have turned dark under so much sun. He would not want to be close to a cow but he would follow them around and when they found water he drank with them. There was no shower, no bar of soap, no toilet paper, no Kleenex, no tooth brush or tooth paste.
But even in living among the cows, God was dealing with him in mercy. I like the passage that says:
Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. Unlike us, God can see the one who is near repentance. Even before we fear Him, He is following us around, eager to make things better for us if we will only turn to Him. If we go further, we see that God has drawn an accurate word picture of how things really are with us:
As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children; (Psa 103:13-17)
Poor old Nebuchadnezzar; his new home is in the pasture with the cows. Actually it is with the oxen; the males who pull plows and wagons.
Apparently he was able to eat grass in some sense of the word to survive. He may have chewed the grass and sucked the juice out of it and spit out the body of the grass. I've raised and juiced wheat and as tender as wheat is, it produces a coarse body much too tough for me to swallow. It can hang up in your throat. But God appointed him to eat grass and we are sure Nebuchadnezzar was able to be nourished by it. The cows pick the grass, swallow it, and then burp it up several times to chew it some more. I loved to sit under a shade tree with our cows and watch them burp up a little wad from the first stomach and chew their cud. Nebuchadnezzar could not do that. That's why I think he may have chewed his grass and sucked the juice out of it. I think I'll ask him when I see him. Ω
Memory Verse: This is the master Bible passage on prayer. All other prayer verses come under this.
1Jn 5:14-15 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him (1Jn 5:14-15).
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