Nebuchadnezzar

Biblical Record

Nebuchadnezzar was king of the Babylonian (Neo-Babylonian) Empire. His reign is commonly dated from about 605 BC to about 562 BC, though scholars' calculations vary slightly. In the Bible he appears in 2 Kings 24–25, 2 Chronicles 36, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel 1–4, among other places.

• Conquest of Judah: During the reign of Jehoiachin, he besieged Jerusalem and carried the king, the nobles, and the craftsmen away to Babylon (2 Kings 24:10–16). When Zedekiah later rebelled, Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem and burned the Temple in Jerusalem (2 Kings 25:8–9). These events mark the beginning of the Babylonian exile.
• The Narratives of Daniel: Daniel interprets the king's dream of a great image (Daniel 2). Daniel's three friends, who refuse to bow before a golden image, are thrown into a fiery furnace yet come out alive (chapter 3). The king, in his pride, is made to live like a beast; after "seven times" have passed, he is restored and praises God (chapter 4).

Significance Within Scripture

Jeremiah calls him "my servant," an instrument God uses (Jeremiah 25:9; 27:6). This expression is understood to mean that even a pagan king stands under God's sovereignty. Daniel 4 is a classic example of a proud ruler being brought low.

His name does not appear in the New Testament. However, the phrase "carried away to Babylon" in Matthew's genealogy (Matthew 1:11–12) refers to his conquest. Many interpreters also connect the phrase "quenched the violence of fire" in Hebrews 11:34 with the fiery furnace episode.

Interpretation and Points of Debate

• Whether he was converted: Views differ on the confession in Daniel 4:34–37. Some regard it as a genuine conversion, while others hold that a king who worshiped many gods merely acknowledged the God of Israel as a high god.
• The fourth man in the furnace: A traditional interpretation identifies the figure described as "like the Son of God" (Daniel 3:25; also rendered "a son of the gods") as the preincarnate Christ. Another interpretation identifies him as an angel, on the basis of the king's own reference to "his angel" (3:28).
• The four kingdoms of the image: Interpretations of the four kingdoms in Daniel 2 also differ.
• The identification of the kingdoms as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome is the long-standing tradition.
• Another view identifies them as Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece.
• Dispensationalism sometimes connects the ten toes with a future Roman power.
• Historicity: Conservative scholars regard the Book of Daniel as a record of actual history. Critical scholars hold that Daniel was written at a later date. Some of these scholars suggest that the account of the king's madness in chapter 4 is related to traditions about Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, citing the Qumran text known as the "Prayer of Nabonidus."
• Traditions outside the text: The story that he built the Hanging Gardens for his queen comes from later Greek sources. It does not appear in the Bible, and the existence of the Hanging Gardens is itself disputed. Likewise, assigning a modern medical diagnosis to the symptoms in chapter 4, or asserting that the "seven times" were definitely seven years, reflects interpretation rather than the text itself.
• Canonical differences: In Catholic Bibles, Daniel 3 also contains the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men. These passages are not part of the Protestant canon.

In the Korean Church

• The words "But if not" in Daniel 3:18 (worded slightly differently in the older Korean Revised Version) are frequently quoted in sermons on steadfast faithfulness.
• Many sermons and writings compare the forced Shinto shrine worship of the Japanese colonial period, and the resistance to it, to the account of the golden image.
• In Sunday school and Vacation Bible School, the stories of the fiery furnace and the dream of the great image are staple lesson topics.