Daniel 4.35-Nebuchadnezzar Acknowledges That Mankind Is Nothing In Comparison To God And No One Can Overcome God's Will Or Justifiably Question His Decisions
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Thursday October 25, 2012
Daniel: Daniel 4:35-Nebuchadnezzar Acknowledges That Mankind Is Nothing In Comparison To God And No One Can Overcome His Sovereign Will Or Justifiably Question His Decisions
Lesson # 138
Please turn in your Bibles to Daniel 4:34.
This evening we will study Daniel 4:35, which records Nebuchadnezzar acknowledging that mankind is absolutely nothing in comparison to God and that no one can overcome God’s sovereign will or justifiably question His decisions.
Daniel 4:35 “All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’” (NASB95)
“All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing” presents the result of Nebuchadnezzar’s last two statements at the end of Daniel 4:34 and thus is presenting the result of the Most High being sovereign and eternal and does not mean the human race is of no value to God.
Of course, they are as demonstrated by the Father sending His Son into the world to become a human being and dying a substitutionary spiritual and physical death on the cross for all of sinful humanity.
“But He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth” explains explicitly what Nebuchadnezzar meant when he said that each and every one of earth’s inhabitants is regarded by the Most High as absolutely nothing in comparison to Him.
“He does” is the masculine singular peʿal (Hebrew: qal) active participle form of the verb ʿǎḇǎḏ (עֲבַד) (ab-ad´), which denotes that the Most High “does” according to His will among the angels in heaven and mankind.
The participle form of the verb indicates continuous or characteristic action meaning that the Most High “always” does according to His will among the angels of heaven and mankind on the earth.
“According to His will” is composed of the preposition k- (כְּ־) (kee), “according to” and its object is the peʿal (Hebrew: qal) active infinitive construct form of the verb ṣeḇā(h) (צְבָה) (tseb-aw´), “will” which is modified by the third person masculine singular pronominal suffix hû(ʾ) (הוּא) (who), “His.”
The verb ṣeḇā(h) means “to will” referring to the function of the sovereign will of the Most High and is in the infinitive construct state as the object of the preposition k-, which is a marker of a standard indicating that the Most always does “according to” His sovereign will.
“The host of heaven” is composed of the preposition bĕ (בְּ) (beh), “in” and its object is the masculine singular construct form of the noun ḥǎ∙yil (חַיִל) (khah´-yil), “army” which is followed by the masculine plural dual noun šemǎ∙yin (שְׁמַיִן) (shaw-mah´-yin), “heaven.”
The noun ḥǎ∙yil means “army, military” and refers to the angels, both elect and non-elect and is modified by the noun šemǎ∙yin, which refers to the first, second and third heaven.
The noun ḥǎ∙yil is in the construct state meaning that it is governing the noun which follows it, which is the noun šemǎ∙yin indicating a genitive relationship and specifically possession indicating that this army “belongs to” the heavens in the sense that they reside or inhabit the first, second and third heavens.
This parallels the phrase which follows it, namely, ḏā·ʾǎrê ʾǎr·ʿā(ʾ), “the earth’s inhabitants.”
The noun ḥǎ∙yil is the object of the preposition bĕ, which is marking the angels who inhabit the first, second and third heavens as the location in which the Most High always does according to His sovereign will.
“And no one can ward off His hand” is advancing upon and intensifying the previous statement that the Most High always does according to His will among the armies residing in the heavens as well as among the earth’s inhabitants.
The advancement and intensification is describing the Most High as sovereign over the angels and mankind to stating that no one can oppose His will and succeed.
He is sovereign and even if you attempt to oppose Him and stop Him from doing as He pleases, you will not succeed.
“No one” is composed of the negative particle lā(ʾ) (לָא) (law), which is negating the meaning of the particle of existence ʾî∙ṯǎy (אִיתַי) (ee-thah´ee).
The particle ʾî∙ṯǎy means “there is” since it indicates the existence of something.
The word is emphatically negated by the negative particle lā(ʾ), which means “absolutely no” since it functions as a marker of emphatic negation.
Therefore, these two words indicate that “there is absolutely no one” who can restrain the hand of the Most High.
“Can ward off” is the third person masculine singular paʿʿel (Hebrew: piel) active imperfect form of the verb meḥā(ʾ) (מְחָא) (mekh-aw´), which means “to restrain” in the sense of preventing someone from doing something, to limit, restrict and control someone suggesting holding back by force or persuasion a person from acting.
Here it denotes that absolutely no one can prevent God from executing His will.
No one can restrict, control or limit Him in any way.
Neither an angel nor a man can hold back God from accomplishing all that He desires among both men and angels.
The imperfect form of the verb is a potential imperfect meaning that there is absolutely no one in both the angelic and human races who has the ability to restrain the power of the Most High.
“His hand” is composed of the feminine singular construct form of the noun yǎḏ (יַד) (yad), “hand” which is modified by the third person masculine singular pronominal suffix hû(ʾ) (הוּא) (who), “His.”
The noun yǎḏ means “power” referring to the omnipotence of God and is the object of the preposition bĕ, which is marking the state or condition of the Most High being omnipotent.
“Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’” presents a hypothetical angel or human being questioning God’s decisions.
Of course, angels and men question God’s decisions all the time.
However, Nebuchadnezzar is talking about being able to question God’s decision making and be justified in doing so.
Daniel 4:35 “Therefore, each and every one of the earth’s inhabitants are regarded as absolutely nothing in comparison in the sense that He always does according to His will among the army residing in the heavens as well as among the earth’s inhabitants. Indeed, there is absolutely no one who has the ability to restrain His power or can justifiably say to Him, ‘What are You doing?’” (My translation)
So here in Daniel 4:35, Nebuchadnezzar is describing the relationship between the sovereign will of God and the volition of men and angels and this relationship points to God’s divine decree in eternity past.
The divine decree took place in eternity past before anything was ever created and is God’s eternal and immutable will and is the chosen and adopted plan of all God’s works and is His eternal purpose according to the counsels of His own will, whereby for His own glory He has foreordained whatever comes to pass.
God in eternity past decreed that angels and human beings would have volition and would be allowed to make decisions contrary to His sovereign will and without compromising His justice.
In giving angels and men volition, God decreed that their decisions, whatever they might be, would certainly take place-even those that are contrary to His desires.
Therefore, God decreed that each and every positive and negative decision with respect to His will would all take place in time and even those circumstances and decisions, which were contrary to His desires.
Being omniscient, God had the good sense to know ahead of time what men and angels would decide, and He not only decreed that those decisions would exist but He also decreed the exact manner, consistent with His integrity, in which He would handle their decisions.
Since God is omniscient He knew ahead of time each and every positive and negative decision that each and every human being and angel would make with respect to His will and decreed that they would exist and He also decreed the exact manner in which He would handle these decisions.
Therefore, each and every positive and negative decision that every human being or angel has made or is making or will make in the future with respect to His will was a part of God’s sovereign will that is based upon His omniscient knowledge of all the facts concerning what will take place in the future.
The Lord knows perfectly, eternally and simultaneously all that is knowable, both the actual and the possible and thus has all knowledge of every event in human and angelic history.
Therefore, the Lord looked down the corridors of time and decreed to take place each and every positive and negative decision with respect to His will.
Each positive and negative decision that every human being and angel have made or are making or will make in the future with respect to His will was figured into the divine decree and was a part of the providence of God, which is the outworking of the divine decree, the object being the final manifestation of God’s glory.
In the divine decree, the sovereignty of God and the volition of men and angels co-exist in human history.
No one can stop God’s plans from being accomplished since His divine decree or eternal plan has taken into consideration both positive and negative decisions by His moral rational creatures and decreed that His sovereign will, will co-exist with the volition of men and angels.