Chapter 105

¹ Since, then, various beasts were shown to the blessed prophet Daniel, and these differing from one another, we must understand that he is not speaking about any actual beasts, but in type and image he sets forth the kingdoms that have risen up in this world, like beasts destroying mankind.

² For by the great sea he means the whole world, and by the four winds of heaven he signifies the creation that stretches to its four corners.

³ So in saying, “I saw four beasts coming up out of the sea,” he means the kingdoms of this world.

⁴ “The first was like a lioness, and it had wings like an eagle’s.” By saying “lioness,” then, he names the kingdom of the Babylonians, over which Nebuchadnezzar then ruled.

⁵ And by saying “it had wings like an eagle’s,” he means that the king was exalted and lifted himself up against God, puffed up in heart because he had become great and glorious.

⁶ Then he says: “Its wings were plucked out, and it was lifted up from the earth and set upon human feet, and a human heart was given to it.”

⁷ For this is truly what happened in the case of Nebuchadnezzar, as has been indicated in the book before this one; and he himself testifies that it happened to him in this way, how he was driven out from his kingdom and was stripped of the glory and the majesty which he had formerly possessed.

⁸ For just as any bird, when its wings have been plucked out, becomes helpless and easily caught, so then too the forces deserted the king—the forces by which he seemed to boast and to be high-minded—those whom he then feared and fled from into the wilderness, lest he be destroyed by them.

⁹ So the saying, “it was set upon human feet and a human heart was given to it,” shows this: that Nebuchadnezzar, becoming humble-minded and recognizing himself to be a man set under the authority of God, made his petition to the Lord and obtained his compassion, being restored once more to his own kingdom and glory.

¹⁰ As he himself testifies, saying: “And at the end of those days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and glorified the one who lives forever, because his authority is an everlasting authority and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; and all who dwell upon the earth were reckoned as nothing, and they are as nothing.”