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Home The chapter of Daniel 2 in the Bible
Daniel Two
A Picture of the Past And Future
The prophet Daniel was a teenager when Nebuchadnezzar, king of
Babylon, besieged Jerusalem for the first time in 605 B.C. Daniel and other Jews
of royal blood were taken captive and brought to Babylon, where they were
trained to become counselors of the king. "And in all matters of wisdom and
understanding about which the king examined [Daniel and his three friends, whom
the king renamed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego], he found them ten times
better than all the magicians and astrologers who were in all his realm"
(Daniel 1:20).
Daniel chapter 2 recounts a prophetic dream and its
interpretation, and in so doing gives a concise overview of the history and
future of the world, from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar to the Second Coming of
Jesus and beyond.
The Dream
Nebuchadnezzar had a mysterious dream that left him troubled.
When his magicians, astrologers, and others were not able to tell him both what
he had dreamed and the interpretation, Nebuchadnezzar sentenced all of his
counselors to death. But when the king's guard came for Daniel and his
companions, Daniel said that he could tell the king his dream and its meaning.
Daniel and his friends prayed, and "the secret was revealed to Daniel in a
night vision" (verses 1-19).
"There is a God in heaven who reveals secrets," Daniel
told Nebuchadnezzar, "and He has made known to you what will be in the
latter days" (verse 28). Daniel then told Nebuchadnezzar what the king had
dreamed and what it meant.
"The God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed!"
"You, O king, were watching; and behold, a great image! This
great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you; and its form was
awesome. This image's head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its
belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly
of clay. You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the
image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces... And the stone
that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth"
(verses 31-35).
The Interpretation
~~
The head of gold: Babylon.
"You, O king, are a king of
kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and
glory. ... You are this head of gold" (verses 37-38). Babylon was also
known as the "golden city" of ancient times, and is referred to as
such in another Bible passage, Isaiah 14:1-4.
~~
The chest and arms of silver: Medo-Persia.
"After you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours" (verse 39a).
We know from history that Medo-Persia conquered Babylon in 538 B.C. It is
appropriate that the kingdom of Persia is depicted here by two arms because the
Medes were the first nation to be incorporated into the Persian Empire, and many
Medes held important positions in the Persian Empire.
~~
The belly of bronze: Greece.
"A third kingdom of bronze ... shall rule over all the earth" (verse 39b). Again, we know from history that in 333 B.C., over 200 years after this prophecy was given, Alexander the Great and the Greek army conquered the Persian Empire. It is interesting that Greece is symbolized here as the belly and thighs of the image, because the Greeks were known for being uninhibited about sex and nudity.
~~
The legs of iron: Rome.
"And the fourth kingdom shall be as
strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and
like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the
others" (verse 40). Rome conquered Greece and held iron rule over the
entire known (western) world for nearly 500 years. It is appropriate that it was
represented as two legs because it was often administered as two regions and in
its decline was divided into the Western Roman Empire, with its capital in Rome,
and the Eastern Roman Empire (later called the Byzantine Empire), with its
capital at Constantinople. The Romans were also great on marching and were the
first world empire to build an extensive network of highways--important for
deploying armies to quell revolts.
~~
The feet and toes of iron and clay:
strong and weak governments
of the Endtime. "Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay
and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron
shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the
toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be
partly strong and partly fragile. ... They will mingle ... but they will not
adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay" (verses 41-43).
Since the fall of the Roman Empire, no single empire has ruled the entire known
world. Instead, there has been a mix of smaller nations and empires with both
strong and weak governments. However, the soon-to-arise empire of the
Devil-possessed dictator known as the Antichrist will, for a very brief period,
unite all nations and rule the world in some kind of One World Order. The
nations represented by the 10 toes will be united under the Antichrist.
~~
The stone and the mountain:
Jesus and the kingdom of God.
The stone that was cut out of a mountain represents Jesus, and the great
mountain that filled the whole earth is the soon-coming kingdom of God on earth.
The rock striking the image on the feet, rather than on the head or elsewhere,
signifies what time the kingdoms of man will be destroyed: the time in which we
are now living, the "latter days" (verse 28), also known as the
Endtime. "And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a
kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to
other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it
shall stand forever" (verse 44).