In Daniel
chapter 4 we are told that the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, had a
dream that he asked Daniel to interpret. In his dream, Nebuchadnezzar saw a
giant tree. “Its top touched the sky” and “it was visible to the ends of the
earth.” “Under it the beasts of the field found shelter, and the birds of the
air lived in its branches; from it every creature was fed.” (Daniel 4:11-12)
Then a messenger was seen coming down from heaven. He ordered that the tree be
cut down, but its stump and roots were to remain in the ground, bound with
metal bands. (Daniel 4:13-15) The messenger then referred to this chopped down
tree as a person by saying, “Let him live with the animals …. And let him be
given the mind of an animal, till seven times pass by for him.” (Daniel 4:15-16)
Daniel told King Nebuchadnezzar that the tree he saw cut down in his dream was
meant to picture him, and that Nebuchadnezzar would soon “be driven away from
people” and “live with the wild animals” until “seven times” passed by. Daniel
then told the king that “the command to leave the stump of the tree with its
roots means that your kingdom will be restored to you when you acknowledge that
Heaven rules.” (Daniel 4:24-26) Daniel then told us that “twelve months
later” “what had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven
away from people and ate grass like cattle. His body was drenched with the dew
of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like
the claws of a bird.” Daniel concluded his account by informing us that “at the
end of that time” Nebuchadnezzar’s “sanity was restored” and he then returned
to his throne. (Daniel 4:29-36)
For many
centuries millions of Bible readers, not just Jehovah's witnesses, have thought
this prophecy was simply too big to have applied only to Nebuchadnezzar.
Believing that the key to discovering its greater meaning might lie in
understanding the cryptic phrase “seven times,” some have twisted these two
words every which way. For instance, over the past 200 years, several Bible
expositors have told us that the words “seven times,” as found in Daniel
chapter 4, were meant by God to be understood as a period of seven so-called
“prophetic years” of 360 days, totaling 2,520 days. And they have told us that
those 2,520 days were intended by God to represent a period of 2,520 years. And
they have speculated that those 2,520 years began at some point in time now
passed and told us those 2,520 years would end at the time of Christ‘s
return. (Different starting points have been assigned by different
expositors. Jehovah's Witnesses have long claimed those supposed 2,520 years
began in the year 607 BC, their unique date for Babylon's destruction of
Jerusalem.)
Such
complicated explanations of Daniel chapter four’s supposed “greater
fulfillment” have long bewildered me. For if the prophecy given by God to
Nebuchadnezzar, and interpreted for him by Daniel, was indeed meant by God to
have a greater fulfillment, that fulfillment has long seemed to me quite
obvious. For I have long thought that it made sense that the tree that was cut
down in Nebuchadnezzar‘s dream, with its roots left in the ground and its stump
banded until “seven times” had passed, and Nebuchadnezzar being removed from
his throne until “seven times” had passed, to both prefigure the time when
Satan the devil will be removed from his position of power.
After all,
on three occasions Jesus Christ called Satan “the ruler of this world,” leaving
no doubt who most people now really serve. (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11 -
New Revised Standard Version). And Revelation 20:1-3 tells us that
God intends to bind Satan with a metal “chain,” as the tree in Daniel chapter
four was bound with metal bands. And that God will then cast Satan into an
“Abyss” which will be “locked and sealed … over … for a thousand years … to
keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years” have
ended. Revelation then tells us that “after that he must be set free for
a short time,” just as the tree in Daniel chapter 4 was to be banded
only until “seven times” ended, and just as Nebuchadnezzar was again allowed to
rule his kingdom after “seven times” had passed.
Nebuchadnezzar was a king who, for almost twenty years, attacked
the land of Judah before he finally totally destroyed the Jewish people’s holy
city of Jerusalem, along with its temple. Nebuchadnezzar then took everyone in
the land of Judah to Babylon as his slaves. Certainly he was well cast to
picture Satan the devil in the initial fulfillment of this prophecy
contained in Daniel chapter four, if indeed it was intended by God to have
one.
That
Nebuchadnezzar may have been intended by God in Daniel chapter four to picture
Satan the devil seems likely when we read the 14th chapter of Isaiah.
There we find in verses 4 and 12 that “the king of Babylon” is
actually called “Lucifer.” (King James Version) He was there given that name
partly because of his haughty attitude, as described in verses 13 and 14,
an attitude very similar to that which Daniel 4:29-33 tells us
Nebuchadnezzar displayed. In further confirmation of this “Nebuchadnezzar
pictured Satan” understanding, we also find in Isaiah 14:12 that God
told Isaiah people would “taunt” Babylon‘s king by telling him that he had
“fallen from heaven” and “been cast down to the earth,” which reminds us of how
Jesus Christ said that He “saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” (Luke
10:18)
So if we
understand that Nebuchadnezzar may have been intended by God to portray Satan
the devil in Daniel chapter 4, we don’t need any complicated mathematical
formula to determine what period of time was there represented by the words
“seven times.” For the Bible itself, in Revelation 20:1-3, tells us that
in this understanding of Daniel chapter 4’s greater fulfillment, those “seven
times” will be fulfilled by a period of “1,000 years.” But how can “seven
times” equal “1,000 years”?
In this
prophecy’s initial fulfillment upon King Nebuchadnezzar some believe that those
“seven times” may have simply meant “seven years.” But that does not appear to
be possible. For many of the major activities which Nebuchadnezzar engaged in
during his forty-three-year reign are very well documented and dated to various
years of his rule, both in biblical and extra-biblical sources of reference.
And these historical records show that there was never a seven-year period of
time during Nebuchadnezzar’s reign when he was not actively involved in ruling
his kingdom.
But if
this is so, and if in the greater fulfillment of this prophecy the words “seven
times” refer to a period of 1,000 years, what period of time could those “seven
times” have referred to in this prophecy’s initial small scale fulfillment
during the lifetime of Nebuchadnezzar? In other words, how long was
Nebuchadnezzar then away from his throne? The Bible does not say. But that time
may have been 1,000 days. For we know that the God of the Bible used days on a
small scale to represent an equal number of years on a large scale elsewhere in
the Scriptures. (Ezekiel 4:1-6) And though the well documented and dated
activities of Nebuchadnezzar during his forty-three-year reign do not allow for
him to have been away from his throne for seven years, they do allow him to
have left it for 1,000 days. (See “The Gentile Times Reconsidered” - fourth
edition, by Carl Olof Jonsson, page 254.) And 1,000 days of foraging for food
in the wilderness, without a bath, a haircut, a shave, or a manicure, is plenty
of time to make any man look like a beast.
But by what mathematical formula can the Bible’s cryptic term “seven
times” be shown to equal 1,000 years? And if “seven times” were intended by God
to represent 1,000 years, shouldn’t the Bible’s other cryptic term “a time, times,
and half a time,” or “three and a half times,” represent 500 years? No, not
according to this same mathematical formula, which I might discuss here later.
