God Laughs – At Nebuchadnezzar
God Laughs – At Nebuchadnezzar.
“The One who sits enthroned in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them… The wicked plot against the righteous; they snarl at them in defiance. But the Lord laughs, for He sees their day of judgment coming… They come out at night, snarling like vicious dogs as they prowl the streets. Listen to the filth that comes from their mouths, their words cut like swords. ‘After all, who can hear us?’ they sneer. For your part, Lord, you laugh at them.” (Psalm 2:4; Psalm 37:13; Psalm 59:6-8).
It seems to me that our Lord God has an ironic sense of humor. He is reported to have deep belly laughs when He looks at mankind and sees how ridiculous we can be. He seems to laugh whenever we humans do things that are laughably absurd. God sees irony everywhere, He observes behavior that is unexpectedly foolish in light of His greatness. God seems amused when He sees the opposite of what one should expect in a God-filled universe. He chuckles at attitudes that defy logic from His perspective. On the one hand, God isn’t surprised by anything. On the other hand, He seems to be pleasantly scornful at what we humans can do.
People build an immense building and think it will reach God and enable access to Him, and God finds it ridiculous. He sees nations without a conscience conspire against God to cut Him out of their laws and society, and God can only say, ‘Are you serious?’ He sees a man who thinks he can become equal to Him in every respect, a god-player, and God can only shake His head. God observes someone who thinks He is able to flee His presence and live as if He doesn’t exist, and God can only look at him with righteous scorn. He hears many of us utter obscene and hurtful language thinking that no one is within earshot, and God can only say, ‘You’re just kidding me, right?’ He sees so many who think they can do evil and live without restraint, and God can only sigh in sad amusement, knowing there will be a true come-to-Jesus moment waiting in the future. God knows that there will be a Judgment Day coming, and He takes joy in the reality of a moral universe that He created. He knows that all who have rejected Him will someday reap what they sown if they have rejected His grace in life. All this foolishness, all this thoughtlessness… Is it that we don’t have a high enough view of God? Is it that we have too high a view of ourselves? Both? Perhaps what makes God laugh loudest is our futile hubris, our unrighteous chutzpah.
Our downfall is probably attributed to our hubris, which can be defined this way:
HUBRIS: a Greek word that means excessive pride; exaggerated self-conceit; overwhelming self-confidence; sheer arrogance; in ancient Greece, hubris was a character flaw reflecting a defiance of the gods, when someone would foolishly or maliciously act against the divine order; someone with hubris always has a lack of self-awareness and won’t stop to examine his behavior or consider other actions; people with hubris are generally too full of themselves to question their motives or actions; people who are overcome with hubris eventually bring about their own downfall. As Rabbi Jonathon Sacks once wrote, “If Scripture is our guide, what makes God laugh is a person’s delusion of grandeur.”
“Great Babylon! Was it not built by me, by the power of my might and for the majesty of my glory?” (Daniel 4:30).
King Nebuchadnezzar has had a notorious reputation down through history, largely because of the Book of Daniel. He was the supreme empire-builder, and he confidently conquered much of the known world when he ruled Babylon from 605-562 BC. He defeated Egypt, Assyria, and he destroyed Jerusalem in the southern kingdom of Judah in 597 BC. His army tore the Temple down to the ground and took the sacred vessels and materials like the menorah as plunder back to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar was undoubtedly a great military leader and one of the most powerful rulers in all of Scripture, mentioned in the Bible over 90 times. He was ruthless, cruel, proud, and was known for having quite the violent streak when the mood strikes him. After conquering Jerusalem and all of Judah, he took captive all those Jews who would serve the Babylonian empire in some way. Daniel and his three friends Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego were four of those exiled to Babylon.
King Nebuchadnezzar, as so often happens when someone gains too much power and develops delusions of grandeur, became so full of himself that he ordered a ninety-foot image of himself, made of gold, so that everyone could swear allegiance to him and worship his image. One could hardly miss this royal statue of the king, and anyone who did not worship the image would be executed. Daniel’s three friends refused to bow down to the image of the king, and with God’s help they survived just fine with their feet to the fire, so to speak. After a time, Daniel had proven himself to the king as being wiser than the king’s wise men, and more inspired than the king’s inspired counselors. So the king grew to trust the judgment of Daniel in all his personal affairs.
Nebuchadnezzar was a very religious man, a devoted polytheist, and he received more dreams and visions from Yahweh God than any other pagan king in the Hebrew Bible. Daniel was asked by the king to interpret a troubling dream the king had, about the tallest tree in the world. This tree reached the sky, its fruit could feed everyone, it provided shade for all the wild animals, and was a home to all the nesting birds. Suddenly in the dream an angel shouts instructions to cut the tree and strip it of its leaves and limbs. But let the stump remain with its roots intact. The stump would remain in the countryside with all the wild animals. The last line of the king’s dream included the angels proclaiming that the Most High rules over all the kingdoms of men.
The king trusted Daniel to tell it to him straight, so that’s what Daniel did. Daniel told the king the bad news… That tall tree in the dream represented the king and his empire, and he would be cut down to size and his kingdom would be taken away from him. The dream was a warning, says Daniel, that if the king didn’t repent of his pride and instead worship the one true God, this dream would come true. The king would lose his empire and he would also lose his mind and live in the wild countryside with all the animals. The stump, in other words the king, would remain powerless for “seven periods” of time, which could mean seven months, seven seasons, or even seven years. The roots of the stump will remain in the ground ready to grow into a tree again once the king offers his repentance.
Proud king Nebuchadnezzar unfortunately had a short memory, because it was only twelve months later that he was strolling, maybe a better word would have been strutting, on the roof of his gigantic royal place in Babylon. As he surveyed the expanse of his kingdom, he declares his own greatness: “Great Babylonia! Was it not built by me, by the power of my might and for the majesty of my glory?” (Dan. 4:30). At this point the Lord chuckles to Himself and saw that it was time for the dream to be fulfilled. The king proceeded to lose his mind, and “was driven from human society, and ate grass like the oxen do; he was drenched by the dew of heaven; his hair grew like an eagle’s feathers, and his nails became like a bird’s claws.” (Dan. 4:33).
When the seven periods of time ended, Nebuchadnezzar appeared to learn his lesson, and he prayed to God, “I bless the Most High. His kingship endures, age after age.” (Dan. 4:31-32). Because he sincerely repented and offered his prayer to the Lord God, because the king finally learned to submit to the true King, Nebuchadnezzar’s sanity was restored to him, and his kingdom grew great once again. The king closed this section of his life with this declaration of faith: “I praise, extol and glorify the King of heaven, all of whose deeds are true, all of whose ways are right, and he can humble those who walk in pride.” (Dan. 4:34).
God certainly got a good laugh at Nebuchadnezzar’s ridiculous hubris, and hopefully the king learned a painful lesson on the Lord’s greatness. I would think Nebuchadnezzar would not forget his humiliating experience in the country stripped of his throne, away from civilized society and eating grass like a cow. But we have seen earlier in Daniel how the faith of Nebuchadnezzar could be rather fickle. Would he merely consider Yahweh just another god among his other gods? Would he remain a committed polytheist? We can only hope that king Nebuchadnezzar came to his senses and remained committed to the one true God, the King who rules over all.