Strange StoryDaniel 1 The Name Nebuchadnezzar

Nebuchadnezzar was actually a Jewish mockery of his real name, which was Nebuchadrezzar. The small alteration caused by changing the r to an n made a big difference in the meaning.

Several meanings have been offered for Nebuchadrezzar (with an r) as follows: “Nebo protect my heir (my first born son), Nebo protect the boundary, Nebo protect the crown, and Nebo protect your servant.”

In contrast Nebuchadnezzar (with an n) meant “Nebo protect my jackass” which points toward the fuller meaning of “Nebo protect me because I am a jackass.”

You will notice that the book of Daniel consistently utilizes the incorrect name for this king. It seems that the Jews often used mocking names unless they were in earshot of people who would be offended. So the biblical text is simply using the name that the other Jews were accustomed to using. At the same time, the writer of the biblical text knew it was a mockery and he used it that way on purpose. Even when the Bible mentions the military exploits of this king, or the splendor of his kingdom, it utilizes this mocking name. What’s more, when people were addressing the king directly, they usually said, “Oh King, …” but whenever they used his name, I’m confident they pronounced it correctly in his presence, but the final version of this book

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uses the mocking name even in those situations.

This was done to remind the reader that this man was not that great after all. True greatness comes from faithfully following the true God, as Daniel did.

Footnotes

1

We know Daniel wrote it because it was written in the first person. It is very unlikely that Daniel would have purposefully used a mocking rendition of the king’s name while that king was still alive. The Jews had a very high degree of respect for the original documents, so it is not very likely that others would knowingly change what someone so prominent as Daniel had written.  So I deduce that Daniel wrote it down with the correct spelling the first time, and then edited and compiled his writings at the end of his life, at which time he changed the spelling of this name, or that Daniel did not write any of this down until close to the end of his life, long after king Neb was gone. With either of these last two options, it was Daniel who penned the final version of his writings late in life.