God’s Word for You

Daniel 4:9-12 The big tree

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, October 4, 2025

9 “O Belteshazzar, chief of the magicians, I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you and that no mystery is too difficult for you. This is the vision, the dream that I saw. Give me its interpretation. 10 The visions I had as I lay in bed were these: I saw this! A tree was in the middle of the earth, and it was very tall—enormous. 11 The tree grew and became strong, and its height reached to heaven, and it was visible to the ends of all the earth. 12 Its leaves were beautiful and it had much fruit, and there was food enough in it for all. The beasts of the field found shade under it, and the birds of the heavens lived in its branches, and all flesh was fed from it.

Daniel had held the title “chief of magicians” or “chief prefect of all the wise men of Babylon” for thirty years (see 2:48). Since his title included the position of “chief prefect,” he was an officer of the state, and not simply one of the many astrologers and magicians and other wise men. The contact with the king is always depicted in the reverse order of what we would expect in most governments today. That is to say, the whole group was summoned to the king when he needed to ask a question or make a demand of them, whereas today we would expect only the highest ranking leader, or his representative, who would be summoned or contacted by a world leader. “Custom required that the chief of the magicians should not be summoned at the first.” But another possibility is simply that Daniel’s position had considerable freedom, and this corresponds to the evident habit of Nebuchadnezzar’s successors so often forgetting about Daniel and his elevated status.

Unlike the earlier nightmare that was had by the king in chapter 2, here he remembers his dream, and he is willing to share all of the details about it. The centerpiece of the dream is a tree. The type of tree is unimportant; the word in Aramaic is a general word for “tree” and not any specific type. Daniel will interpret the tree as being Nebuchadnezzar himself (verse 22), and this makes the many details clear to us at once.

The tree was “in the middle of the earth,” not the core as we would possibly think of things today, but in the center of the known world. It was the way almost everyone would have thought about Babylon in the center of Mesopotamia.

The tree was “very tall—enormous.” More than that, it grew (that is, it grew ever taller and wider) and became “very strong.” This is an accurate representation of how Nebuchadnezzar’s power and authority grew over the course of his long and prosperous reign. The king had not understood any of this as he was watching it; he was frightened by it, as he saw the tree growing higher and higher, until “its height reached to heaven.” And the whole world knew about it: “to the ends of all the earth” describes Babylon’s fame and reputation under its great king.

Then we come to a very telling part of the dream, the part that will confuse the casual reader, baffle the unbeliever, but fit perfectly with the true theme of the book of Daniel overall. This tree, this very Nebuchadnezzar, and his large branches and beautiful leaves, gave shade and food and protection to everyone underneath. This is the way God chooses to protect his people. This is the doctrine of God’s providence. Through means, often very simple and ordinary means, he feeds and clothes mankind. He preserves us through the workings of nature and government, but he feeds our souls through the preaching of ordinary men and through the gospel message that doesn’t make sense to the wide world. “For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25).

The world wants to take all the credit for every invention, every innovation, every movement of progress. And when someone with faith believes something that makes no sense, they are condemned and scorned, ridiculed. One woman I knew long ago would fly into a rage when I talked about going to church or believing in Christ. “You’ve been brainwashed!” she would say, and a few times she even shrieked those words in a wild fit of fury. She herself was a drug addict and a thief, a grifter and what we used to call a gold-digger, and so anyone who even came close to speaking the word of God to her was an enemy that had to be silenced.

But what does our God do? He is patient. As Luther says, “God comes along and insists on receiving only the poor, the miserable, the little children, the simple, and the ignorant. This becomes an iron wall before the eyes of those who do not understand.”

When we find ourselves to be like the beasts who find shade, the birds who live in the branches, and “all flesh” that is fed through an unbelieving or tyrannical king or government, we must look up, up above the big enormous tree, the big branches and the big, beautiful leaves, and know that our God is above all, bigger than all, greater than all, looking after us, blessing us, and protecting us. Give him your trust and your praise.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

Browse Devotion Archive