This is one of the few scriptures that deals with Madness. The King was stripped of his reason and lived like a wild animal for a year. This was not a lifestyle choice or a comment on the madness of society.
It was a punishment, for Hubris. He considered that he had built Babylon as his city for his glory. He neither acknowledged the people nor did he give thanks to God. Like the modern ruling class, he thought he had attained his high position by his own merit. He lacked humility and one speculates that he lacked empathy.
Love also makes you humble.
I continue to speculate, that our worship of self-esteem and denial of nature is making us mad. Our choices — particularly when we are part of movements that deny the truth and micro-regulate our environment, mean that we cannot find someone who is correct to love, for (and here the most gender fluid graduates from the Arts faculty suffer most) we reject the natural relationship, as it offends our pride.
But true love requires humility.
All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of twelve months he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, and the king said, “Is this not magnificent Babylon, which I have built as a royal capital by my mighty power and for my glorious majesty?” While the words were still in the king’s mouth, a voice came from heaven: “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: The kingdom has departed from you! You shall be driven away from human society, and your dwelling shall be with the animals of the field. You shall be made to eat grass like oxen, and seven times shall pass over you, until you have learned that the Most High has sovereignty over the kingdom of mortals and gives it to whom he will.” Immediately the sentence was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven away from human society, ate grass like oxen, and his body was bathed with the dew of heaven, until his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers and his nails became like birds’ claws. When that period was over, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me. I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored the one who lives forever. For his sovereignty is an everlasting sovereignty, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does what he wills with the host of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth. There is no one who can stay his hand or say to him, “What are you doing?” At that time my reason returned to me; and my majesty and splendor were restored to me for the glory of my kingdom. My counselors and my lords sought me out, I was re-established over my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are truth, and his ways are justice; and he is able to bring low those who walk in pride.
On the other side of madness the King does not blame God. He says that no one who can stop him, and no one who can rightly criticize him. There are only those who worship their pride and thus rebel from him. We call such freethinkers.
Not five quid, which is what the working class T shirts are.
Such people claim to be free, but live their lives in fear that they will offend some group or not perform the rituals of this secular society — from acknowledging the original Peoples of the land [1] to accounting for carbon credits — and this virtue signalling makes them unfree.
If a society rejects Christ then Christ will reject them, and the periods of madness among the ruling class become generational[2]. If a society returns to sanity they will return to Christ.
So let us pray that we again be sane.
__________-
1. Given the history of mass migration and wars, we should consider that even the indigenous may not be the first. The Maori fought continually for territory.
2.The progressive experiment of paying the poor led to more poverty. There are other examples, seen on every street corner, after the progressives made the sex trade legal, to the shame of my nation.