Deeper Reflection
Daniel 4 is a long personal testimony of King Nebuchadnezzar: “It has seemed good to me to declare…” (v.2a). And the subject of his testimony is: “the signs and wonders which the Most High God has done for me” (v.2b).Nebuchadnezzar’s testimony was both good news and bad news. The good news was the pagan king was converted to Jewish monotheism, and “there is joy in the presence of angels over” this “one sinner who repents” (Lk 15:10). And the bad news was this pagan king was converted to Jewish monotheism. It was bad news to certain Jews. To some Jews this was too good to be true, but there were those who refused to believe it because they did not want it to be true.³⁵ These were the ones who had lost their loved ones when Nebuchadnezzar and his “cruel” armies invaded their land and killed with “no mercy” (Jer 6:22-23), and they themselves were dispossessed of their homeland and now living in exile in Babylon. These were the ones who, so filled with hatred for the Babylonians, prayed, “O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one…How blessed is the one who takes your babies and smashed them against the rocks!” (Psa 137:8-9).Is there a “Nebuchadnezzar” in your life? People who have hurt you so deeply, that you think you have good reason to despise and even hate them, that you wish only for God’s justice to fall on them quickly. Understandably, it is not easy to forgive such people. But we begin with “God in Christ has forgiven us” (Eph 4:32).

³⁵ Gordon Wong, Faithful to the End: The Message of Daniel for Life in the Real World (Genesis, 2006), 54