Why was Nebuchadnezzar forced to eat grass with cows?

A:In the Book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream which Daniel interpreted as meaning that the mighty king would eat grass like an ox, and this is just what happened soon afterwards. This story was apparently based on a Jewish Propaganda scroll, a portion of which was discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls and is now known as 4Q242 or the Prayer of Nabonidus.

The text of 4Q242 is intermediate between Babylonian texts and the Book of Daniel, and shows how the story evolved from the historical original through an intermediate, semi-historical stage to the entirely fictional story in Daniel.