18. What bright feature did Daniel impart to the dream?

¹⁸ However, after the “seven times” pass over the king in that debased condition, what? Nebuchadnezzar’s dream did not directly answer this question, but Daniel’s interpretation did. Showing the bright side of the dream, Daniel said to the king: “And because they said to leave the rootstock of the tree, your kingdom will be sure to you after you know that the heavens are ruling.

Daniel 4:26, 27

Likely King Nebuchadnezzar’s court officials recalled the dream and Daniel’s interpretation and feared to replace him with anybody else on the throne. But the Most High God was especially the one who was reserving the imperial throne for Nebuchadnezzar to be restored to it at the end of the appointed “seven times.”​—Daniel 5:18-21.

²² Things progressed just as the voice that fell from the heavens had said to the boastful world ruler: “At that moment the word itself was fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar, and from mankind he was being driven away, and vegetation he began to eat just like bulls, and with the dew of the heavens his own body got to be wet, until his very hair grew long just like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws.”​—Daniel 4:33; compare Acts 12:21-23.

23. Why did the king’s illness not mean Babylon’s downfall?

²³ Did this degradation of King Nebuchadnezzar mean the downfall of the Babylonian Empire? Not by any means! According to the decree of the Most High God this empire was to continue on for some decades yet as the Third World Power, which now corresponded to the banded rootstock of the immense tree seen in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.