Nebuchadnezzar's transformation was not a complete change from man to animal. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, he appeared as an ox from his head to his navel and as a lion from his navel to his feet. His mind was altered and his speech was taken from him, but his body remained partly human. The punishment was public, unmistakable, and deeply humiliating for the most powerful king on earth.
For the first forty days he roamed among wild beasts, eating herbs like cattle. Then for forty days his heart returned to human awareness, and he wept for his sins. Another forty days he spent hiding in caves. A final forty days passed among the animals again. Daniel prayed for him throughout the ordeal, and because of Daniel's intercession, the seven years of punishment prophesied were reduced to seven months.
When God restored Nebuchadnezzar to his throne, the king changed. He appointed seven judges to share his power, one for each year that had been decreed against him. He stopped eating meat and bread and drinking wine, living instead on herbs and seeds according to Daniel's counsel. He tried to make Daniel an heir alongside his own sons, but Daniel refused. "Far be it from me to leave the inheritance of my fathers for an inheritance of the uncircumcised," he said.
After Nebuchadnezzar's death, his son Evil-Merodach freed Jehoiachin, the exiled king of Judah, from prison and raised his throne above every other king in Babylon. Evil-Merodach did this partly from justice and partly from fear. His father had put him in prison alongside Jehoiachin, and the two had shared a cell. But Evil-Merodach feared his father might somehow rise from the grave, so Jehoiachin advised him to cut the corpse into 300 pieces and feed them to 300 vultures. "Your father will not rise," Jehoiachin told him, "until those vultures return every piece of flesh."