In all that
fearful war, Nebuchadnezzar was in the right, and the Jews in the
wrong; so at least Jeremiah the prophet declared. Nebuchadnezzar
saved and respected Jeremiah; and Daniel seems to have regarded the
great conqueror with real respect and affection. When Daniel says to
him, "O king, live for ever," and tells him that he is the head of
gold, and prays that his fearful dream may come true of his enemies
and not of him, I cannot believe that the prophet was using mere
empty phrases of court-flattery. He really felt, I doubt not, that
Nebuchadnezzar was a great and good king, as kings went then, and his
government a gain (as it easily might be) to the nations whom he had
conquered, and that it was good that he should reign as long as
possible.
And we may well believe Daniel's interest in this great king, when we
consider how teachable Nebuchadnezzar showed himself under God's
education of him, so proving that there was in him the honest and
good heart, which, when The Word is sown in it, will bring forth
fruit, thirty-fold or a hundred-fold, according to the talents which
God has bestowed on each man.
This first lesson we read in the first chapter of Daniel. He dreamt
a dream. He felt that it was a very wonderful one: but he forgot
what it was.
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