If you are a ruler, or have the desire to be a ruler, Scripture is clear – whether puppet king or Pharaoh – God’s truth can drive you mad.
There are biblical characters that bear striking resemblances to President Trump. Among them I include Jezebel in her murderous rage against Naboth, Jeroboam in his disgust with the prophet Amos, Herod in his nightmares about Jesus being the resurrected John the Baptist, and Samson, God’s strong man deceived by Deliah.
I trace President Trump’s descent into madness to November 7, 2020, when Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election. The unraveling of Trump continued through the House of Representatives certifying Biden’s victory on January 7, 2021. The January 6 insurrection was a clear indication of Trump and maga going mad.
Trump’s madness manifests in his nightmares about swamp monsters, hordes of raping, murdering immigrants, multiple enemies, voter fraud, immigrants poisoning the blood and eating cats and dogs, American citizens as domestic terrorists, and Democrats as deranged haters of America. And we were eyewitnesses to a president going out of his mind.
Historian David Blight: “Trumpism unleashed on 6 January, and every day before and since over a five-year period, a crusade to slowly poison the American democratic experiment with a movement to overturn decades of pluralism, increased racial and gender equality, and scientific knowledge. To what end? Establishing a hopeless white utopia for the rich and the aggrieved.”
Trump’s inability to accept the loss triggered the descent into madness. The lies nurtured Trump’s delusions of the stolen election. Conspiracy theories produced millions of believers in voter fraud. Trump intensified his madness and codifying them in laws to make the next elections easier to pilfer. Blight adds, “If you repeat the terms ‘voter fraud’ and election integrity enough times on the right networks you have a movement. And ‘replacement theory’ works well alongside a thousand repetitions of ‘critical race theor’, both disembodied of definition or meaning, but both scary.”
Evangelical commitment to Donald Trump still depends on Lance Wallnau declaring Trump “God’s anointed.” Perhaps no reading of the Bible has ever produced so much destruction. Every “crazy” act of Trump filters through Trump doing God’s will.
Nebuchadnezzar The Grass-eating Crazy King
I have a more likely biblical character in mind for President Trump: King Nebuchadnezzar II. Daniel tells us Nebuchadnezzar “was driven away from human society, he 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.”
What would it have been like to live in Babylon in the seven years the king was insane? Nebuchadnezzar towered over all Babylon. He was one of the greatest builders of all times. “Is this not magnificent Babylon, which I have built as a royal capital by my mighty power and for my glorious majesty?” Trump bragging.
The Prophet Daniel described Nebuchadnezzar ii as “the head of gold” (Daniel 2:38)—a ruler and a kingdom to which all succeeding emperors and empires would be “inferior” (verse 39). Babylon itself was built by Nebuchadnezzar.
Nebuchadnezzar was an amazing builder, an achievement he boasted about in both the biblical text and in inscriptions that have been discovered through archaeological excavations. The most prominent of these discoveries are the bricks of hundreds of ancient ruins bearing stamped inscriptions about Nebuchadnezzar’s works.
Nothing says Trump like boasting and building. And never forget the truth of the prophet Isaiah:
“You said to yourself,
“I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
on the heights of Zaphon;[c]
I will ascend to the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.”
But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the depths of the Pit (Isaiah 14:13 – 15).
Isaiah speaks truth to the same Babylonian king as Daniel and to all crazed kings dreaming of power.
Sir Henry Rawlinson, in A Commentary on the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria wrote: “With regard to Babylonia proper, it is a remarkable fact that every ruin from some distance north of Baghdad, as far south as the Birs Nimrud, is of the age of Nebuchadnezzar. … and I never found any other legend than that of Nebuchadnezzar (ii), son of Nabopalasar, king of Babylon.”
“Babylon owed its origin to Nebuchadnezzar,” Rawlinson wrote. Numerous inscriptions attest to this grand constructive work. His southern palace is the most completely excavated large building from ancient Babylon; it boasts over 50 courtyards and more than 600 rooms.
Ferdi nand Knab, 1886 Public Domain
Nothing says “Trump” like his name/brand plastered on all his properties – golf clubs, hotels, condominiums and incredulously “The Trump Kennedy Center.” Is the White House destined to become Nebuchadnezzar’s southern palace or King Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles?
Sunglasses are now needed to gaze at the gold gilding covering the Oval Office and there’s no ignoring Trump and his administration’s sense of being smarter and stronger than all other leaders of the world.
To a crazy ruler, all other rulers are inferior. According to Trump, Venezuela can’t be trusted with its natural resources, so he must control the nation. Canada is a second-rate country incapable of defending itself, so Trump needs to make it our 51st state. Greenland is defenseless, so only the USA can rule Greenland. No imagination is needed to know our “crazy” ruler believes all other nations, leaders, and politicians are “inferior” to Trump, according to Trump.
Trump placards his name like a rancher branding calves. His name adorns his buildings, golf courses, and the Kennedy Center.
“O king, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.”
Daniel 4:27 quotes Nebuchadnezzar, saying, “‘Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for a royal dwelling-place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?’” According to Daniel, this was Nebuchadnezzar’s final boast before being struck with madness.
Daniel pinpoints the exact moment Nebuchadnezzar went mad. 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?” Strutting on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, bragging of his mighty power and glorious majesty, the king receives truth from God. These are the last words of the king before losing his mind.
Daniel, God’s truth teller said to Nebuchadnezzar, “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: The kingdom is taken 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.”
The truth drove the king mad for a period Daniel calls “seven times.” In Aramaic, it is believed that “times,” when referring to a tree as Daniel 4 (verses 10-16), refers to the times that buds would appear on the tree: once a year. This means that Nebuchadnezzar’s madness lasted for 7 years.
Hebrew Bible scholar Jeffrey M. Niles, in “Mowing Lawns in Babylon: Madness of .Nebuchadnezzar and Divine Sovereignty,” wrote that after seven years, Nebuchadnezzar still would have had “several weeks or months to shave, trim his nails, apologize to his wife for his beastly behavior, and to present himself at Tyre in time for its surrender sometime during his 32 regnal year. …”
The story of Daniel stands as history’s judgment on Nebuchadnezzar – the king who went mad for seven years.
From November 7, 2020, till February 4, 2026, President Trump has become the “spitting image” of Nebuchadnezzar. Trump, a junk food connoisseur (Big Macs and buckets of KFC), is too picky to ever eat grass. His slabbing over of the Rose Garden indicates an allergy to grass.
And just when we think our nation’s president and followers can’t get any crazier, a group of crypto denizens, currying favor with Trump, paid $300,000 for a gold statue of President Trump.
Replicas of a giant Trump statue made a year ago by artist Alana Cottrill (Instagram/alan cottrill)
At 22 feet tall, the statue of President Trump, mounted on its 7,000-pound pedestal, is about the height of a two-story building — a giant effigy cast in bronze and finished with a thick layer of gold leaf. “It’s known as ‘Don Colossus.’”
I cannot tell if Trump’s statue-building idolators or Trump is crazier, but we live in absurd, crazy times.
