Daniel 4:17

The holy angels have decided what must happen. They want to inform everyone that the Supreme God rules over all the kingdoms in this world. He is the one who chooses who will rule these kingdoms. He sometimes allows very unimportant people to become rulers.”

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.

In Context

16That tree seems to have represented a man, because the angel also said, “Cause that man to live out in the fields among the animals and plants. Cause the dew from the sky to make his body damp each morning. Do not allow him to continue to have a mind like humans; instead, cause him to have a mind like animals have, for seven years.

18Belteshazzar, that is what I, King Nebuchadnezzar, saw in my dream. Now tell me what the dream means. No one else can tell me. I asked all the very wise men in my kingdom to tell me what it means, but they were unable to do that. But you can tell me, because the spirit of the holy gods is in you.”

Read all of Daniel 4

Cross References

Exodus 9:16But I have let you live. The reason I have let you live is to show you my power, with the result that people all over the earth [HYP] will know how great I [MTY] am.

1 Kings 21:25There was no man no man like Ahab who always did things that Yahweh considered to be evil. His wife Jezebel incited/urged him to do many of those things.

2 Kings 21:6He even sacrificed his own son by burning him in a fire. He performed rituals to practice sorcery and magic rituals. He also went to people who consulted the spirits of dead people to find out what would happen in the future. He did many things that Yahweh considered to be extremely evil, things that caused Yahweh to become very angry.

Psalms 9:16Because of what you have done, people know that you decide matters fairly/justly, but you allow wicked people to be trapped by the same evil things that they themselves do. (Think about that!)

Psalms 75:6The one who judges people does not come from the east or from the west, and he does not come from the desert.

Psalms 113:7Sometimes he lifts poor people up so that they no longer sit in the dirt; he helps needy people so that they no longer sit on heaps of ashes

Matthew Henry on Daniel 4:5-19

Nebuchadnezzar's Second Dream; Nebuchadnezzar Relates His Dream. ( b. c. 570.) 4 I Nebuchadnezzar was at rest in mine house, and flourishing in my palace: 5 I saw a dream which made me afraid, and the thoughts upon my bed and the visions of my head troubled me. 6 Therefore made I a decree to bring in all the wise men of Babylon before me, that they might make known unto me the interpretation of the dream. 7 Then came in the magicians, the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers: and I told the dream before… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Daniel 4:17