What is the significance of Nebuchadnezzar taking on the characteristics of an ox and an eagle, two of the four faces of the cherubim in the court of God?
Firstly, these animals are beasts. Obedience to the covenant would bring dominion over birds and beasts. The curse for disobedience included being eaten by birds and beasts.1For more discussion, see “Birds and Beasts” in Michael Bull, God’s Kitchen: Theology You Can Eat & Drink. In that case, the creatures that carried out the “sterilization” of the apostates were unclean scavengers. However, the ox is not a scavenger but a clean animal. Thus, the creatures here represent the combined rule of Daniel, the “domestic” Israelite servant-ruler who submitted to the Law of Moses (ox), and the Gentile king, the uncultivated, “wild” emperor (eagle) whose rule knew no terrestrial boundaries. Since a bird and a beast rule heaven and earth vertically but the two men represent Jew and Gentile horizontally, Nebuchadnezzar’s suffering was in some sense cruciform, a human Tabernacle.
References
| ↑1 | For more discussion, see “Birds and Beasts” in Michael Bull, God’s Kitchen: Theology You Can Eat & Drink. |
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