Daniel 4:17

Watchers. See on verse 13. The plural presupposes the existence of a heavenly council or assembly (see Job 1:6–12; 2:1-6).

That the living. This sentence reveals the divine purpose in the execution of the order. God’s dealings with Babylon and its king were to be an illustration to other nations and their kings of the results of accepting or rejecting the divine plan with respect to nations.

The most High ruleth. In the affairs of nations God is ever “silently, patiently working out the counsels of His own will” (Ed 173). At times, as with the call of Abraham, He ordains a series of events designed to demonstrate the wisdom of His ways. Again, as in the antediluvian world, He permits evil to run its course and provide an example of the folly of opposition to right principles. But eventually, as in the deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt, He intervenes lest the forces of evil overcome His agencies for the salvation of the world. Whether God ordains, permits, or intervenes, “the complicated play of human events is under divine control” and an “overruling purpose has manifestly been at work throughout the ages” (PK 536, 535; see Ed 174; Rom. 13:1).

“To every nation ... God has assigned a place in His great plan” and has given an opportunity to “fulfil the purpose of ‘the Watcher and the Holy One’” (Ed 178, 177). In the divine economy the function of government is to protect and upbuild the nation, to provide its people with the opportunity of achieving the Creator’s purpose for them, and to permit other nations to do the same (Ed 175) — in order that all men “should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him” (Acts 17:27).

A nation is strong in proportion to the fidelity with which it fulfills God’s purpose for it; its success depends upon its use of the power entrusted to it; its compliance with the divine principles is always the measure of its prosperity; and its destiny is determined by the choices its leaders and people make with respect to these principles (Ed 175, 174, 177, 178; PP 536). God imparts wisdom and power that will keep strong the nations that remain faithful to Him, but abandons those that ascribe their glory to human achievement and act independently of Him (PK 501).

Men “who refuse to submit to the government of God are wholly unfitted to govern themselves” (GC 584). When, instead of being a protector of men, a nation becomes a proud and cruel oppressor, its fall is inevitable (Ed 176). As the nations one after another have rejected God’s principles their glory has faded, their power departed, and their place been occupied by others (Ed 177). “All are by their own choice deciding their destiny,” and in rejecting God’s principles accomplishing their own ruin (Ed 178, 177). “The complicated play of human events is under divine control. Amidst the strife and tumult of nations, He that sitteth above the cherubim still guides the affairs of earth” and overrules “all for the accomplishment of His purposes” (Ed 178). See on chapter 10:13.

Basest. Aramaic shephal, “low,” “lowly,” “humble.” The verb is translated “humbled” in chapter 5:22 and “abase” in Daniel 4:37.